An Atypical Life

As the snow finally melts away, I start to get busier and busier. Here’s what I’ve been up to the past week:

• Work: supporting new projects as usual, writing position papers, working on newsletters, technical enablement, beta testing.
• House: cooking every night (pasta from scratch, ramen from scratch, gourmet hamburgers…will try and post some pics soon), planning garden, staring at wall that needs repairing and trying to motivate to fix it, regular cleaning, indoor gardening…
• School: Developing axiology, epistemology, methodology for design research approach. Gave guest lecture on internal Wikipedia politics.
• Other: Dealing with horrendous migraine. Developing novel database application. Attended One Of A Kind show with friends and got fabulous clothing, jewelry, housewares. Reverse engineering synth. Looking at motorcycle today. Petting cat to deal with stress from everything else i listed.

some neat tidbits from the past 24h:

• the geminid meteors are coming:

  

• this week’s This American Life had a great bit on Nauru, an island I keep forgetting about.
• by 2100, North American Great Lakes “…water levels are expected to fall by 1.5 to 8 feet…because of the higher temperatures.”
• The Depreciation Guild is a neat 2-guitar and 1-Famicom (8 bit chip music) band. You can download their entire album, encoded at a very high bit rate, gratis. (Give them money anyway!) You can also read about the NES-Shoegazer genre.
• oh, did I mention? chumby is way cool.

ok, it’s probably painfully obvious at this point that I’m a bit of a net free-speecher - or at least, anti-corporate-net-ownership. [ed: I used to have the word 'libertarian' here, but this confused people due to its political overtones. I'm discussing an issue, people, not a political ideology. I'm no more Libertarian than I am Republican or Democrat.]

I hate online profiling, detest advertisements (to the point of not owning a TV!) and generally resist having my activity monitored.

Here’s a quick video if you’re not familiar with this concept, told in allegory:

Do something about it. Visit http://freespeech.org/ourweb/ to find out more. I don’t believe this is about republican vs. democrat, or liberal vs. democrat…again, it’s about owning your own online life and content.

• I managed to get my confidence in gaming again, though I am still having hand/eye coordination issues. Katamari Damacy was what did it, and without selling my soul to the PS2. Half an hour of play is enough to last me all day. Talk about a far better game than Kingdom Hearts!  (Really, I just like crossover stories. The gameplay in KH is awful. Talk about a button masher.)
• Oh, yeah, I’m talking at CASCON 2007 this year. I’m presenting tomorrow on Education in the 21st century, and how new technology affects how we teach, think and learn. My focus continues to be on affordances of synchronous environments. IRC will be a big part of the presentation, which focuses on our GRAIL project and research @ U of T’s OISE. Research conducted under the guidance of Dr. Clare Brett.
• Few weeks ago Chris and I started work on the workshop & garage. (OK, he’s been doing most of the work. But I am helping!) I snapped some arsty shots of the foundation in progress, and am feeding them into Lightroom now. I’ll have the pics online shortly, once I’m satisfied that any of them are any good.
• I’ve realized that the only reason I haven’t been entertaining others more often at my place is a lack of reaching out to people I know (and would like to meet) in the city. Intentionally sticking to “othered” space tends to result in this sort of isolation. Perhaps it’s time to kick off Friday night “red wine and games” again?

Yesterday, someone who randomly shows up on IRC in a channel I’m in - a 17 year old from Lebanon, living alone, his father in another land - posted a story I felt deserved a wider audience. I’ve love to hear your thoughts - as would he. I’ll make sure they get passed along if you post them here.

He apologizes in advance for his bad English. (I think he’s doing just fine - far better than my Arabic!)

 The Story of Lebanon

come here son and sit down and let me tell you about the problems in the country. one time my dad told me the same thing.

Long, long time ago, god made the planets, he made this tinny country and he named it Lebanon. its environment was gust like the magic. Its men was its real men. How clean was the sea, washes its mountain’s feats. What a good ______ that came from its magic, the grapes where green and fresh, the apple was  THIS size.  The fisher throws the net, it gets out full. It wont finish from holly days, dancing, dabkays, and playing. The amount of the birds singing, leaves with a tired voices at the end of the day. People sleeps at night keeping the doors opened. There used to be friend ships, safe, with love and sharing. The humans used to be peaceful going to his work with smiles.

My grandpa died and did not continue the story. years passed on this story, and my father continued it to me.

He told me suddenly like the speed of the light it came as a touristic country. Its name became east Swiss . Its night lighten like the day. The people are coming and going, planning where to spend there night. The trourist used to come and stay for the whole summer, the beer and food. The candies and the junk food. The living was great and safe. No religions nor clan parties. We used to agree with each other. That’s our houses. No singer in this world did not sing for Beirut. “Beirut you peaceful living” ,”Beirut you good of the world”,  “Beirut you opened minded from street of sool sool till manara”. “ beirut your beautiful on your friendly on rawsheh and the olives”. From the mass of songs, its looks like they have hit it an eye.

It doesn’t know from right or left. It turned to worse and worse suddenly. Its men became hatefull, when they sit to gather smoking and talking about people, when they have the sign, they start killing each other. Each became having 2 homes. first is on somewhere, and the dungeon is his second home. People became homeless no  first nor second. People objected and said no, we could not know who’s fault. Why did this country got ripped like this??!?!?!?!?!!! The judgers’ sake puts on other’s wrong. And we are getting the results with the civil war. Suddenly came in the strangers between us and Israel attacked. That’s my cousin or that’s my friend. but anyhow the people destroyed the country on them selves . Every thing became expensive. 100$ for the gas you take little from it. To get your breads. You have to wait an hour on the line, men and women in this line on the cold and the hot, someone tries to get cross the line with a gun on his wrest.

On the days of your grandpa, our doors used to be opened. On my days its still the same, but this time its broken. I don’t forget that story, I don’t forget that moment, he turned off the cigar and told me am going to sleep. After long time, I called my son at night, so at least I can say the things he told me. I told him the cannon has stopped, we did not know where and why. When they stopped the cannon they bombed us the second day. The problems came with us. There where no enough no mercy. Over it we pay taxes. About the schools, its same as the gallon of oil.  In order for your son to get education you should first sell the house. The citizens went crazy. The dreams became like a visa.

I wish for you my son, to continue the story to your son. Don’t continue it in Canada, continue it in here, in Lebanon. God bless you, and good night.

Omar Al_ Natour

Do you ever find yourself up all night, reliving mistakes you’ve made 5, 10, even 20 years ago? Tonight’s one of those nights for me. I’m alternately thinking about social faux pas & mistakes at work, white lies that’ve gotten me into troubles and hearts I’ve broken over the years.

Unlike the grieving widow who blames herself, I think these particular memories haunt me because they were all reasonably preventable. “If I’d just…” I think. But I didn’t. And I don’t have a holiday for atonement, nor a confessional booth. I don’t feel any of that would give me peace of mind; it hasn’t in the past, anyway. But I still aim for perfection, even if I’ll never achieve it.

Maybe I’m upset because I know I haven’t corrected my ways? At least I feel remorse.

Scrawled on an SH-6.

It’s official. I am now a Ph.D. student candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT). Big thanks to my advisor, Prof. Clare Brett, Curriculum Teaching & Learning (CTL) Associate Chair Doug McDougall, Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) Director Gale Moore and everyone else in the CTL and KMDI programs. I’ll now be taking the courses I’ve completed the past couple of years and applying them towards a thesis instead of a second masters’ degree.

/me gets her research on

Tonight was my first High Table at Victoria College, part of the University of Toronto. I was an invited guest of the College’s Humanities Don, a fellow student over at OISE. Interesting facts learned:

• High Table really is about as close to Hogwarts as you can get - academic gowns, raised platform, enforced dress code, enforced behaviour, etc. Really fun, actually.
• College food tastes about as bad as it always has, though Yale’s food was a cut above UofT’s Marriott/Sodhexo crud. At least the dons sprang for cheese, wine and dessert!
• Folks invited to these things really do enjoy talking about anything, any way, any time. And they’re glad to meet new faces.
• Exactly what I needed was to meet new people in a non-confrontational setting, to explore new thoughts and ideas, and to exchange hopes for the future.
• I’m more of an academic than I realized…but not as out of touch as many (tonight’s High Table company excluded!)

I’ve been a bad blogger. I haven’t been giving back to “the community,” nor have I even found time to read what “the community” is writing. engtech says:

“…blogging is a 10 to 50 hour a week commitment when you include reading and commenting on other blogs. Blogging takes away from other aspects of your life. Are you prepared to make that kind of commitment? Is anyone?

I’ve realized I don’t blog here. I journal. I’m leaving a trace. It’s time to explain my motivation:

An Atypical Manifesto
Read the rest of this entry »

This week I have:

• passed my Gearing Up course, certifying me for an M2 motorcycle license (and a substantial insurance discount!)
• with a substantial dose of doozer’s help, finished constructing the bike shed (photos to follow)
• completed the remaining fixup required to my 1977 Honda CB750 (photos also to follow)
• finished off a bunch of interviews
• got promoted to Officer in Training with my crew in Puzzle Pirates, and received my officer training
• got out of the house more than last week
• cooked a lovely meal
• helped a lovely woman and her 1 year old move into waynemanor
• spoke with my advisor at OISE/U of T and feel hopeful about advancing into the Ph.D. program there

I feel…..fantastic!