Been ages, been busy... and now I'm in Kenya.
Check out the blog if you're interested:
http://vrgeamun2009.wordpress.com/
warm,
rich.
Friday, 20 February 2009
Sunday, 4 January 2009
Happy Reading
Here's a piece that does express some of my hopes for 2009. Hope everyone is well.
rich.
Thanks for the article Tori!
Happy New Year: Why money is not enough
Alain de Botton
(taken from Monacle, issue 19, volume 02. pg... 049)
I believe 2009 will be the year when the question of how society should be arranged will cease to be an idle, abstract topic, dwelt upon by ivory-tower intellectuals after a few glasses of wine, and will instead enter the workaday mainstream with a vengeance. Everyone will become a political philosopher; and all of a sudden, some of the great issues facing our world will be up for grabs. It will be a frightening, exhilarating time. Expect to see record numbers of people reading political blogs, attending classes in political theory and turning once again to Karl Marx, Adam Smith and John Ruskin.
All this because of a consensus about the virtues of individualism, liberalism and consumer capitalism is splintering beneath us. At the heart of the debate lie questions about fulfillment. We'll be asking whether the modern economy has been attending to our needs.We'll be asking, to paraphrase that thundering 19th-century prophet Thomas Carlyle, "This successful industry of ours, with its plethoric wealth, which of us has it enriched? We have sumptuous garnitures for our life, but we have forgotten to live in the middle of them. Are people better, stronger, braver? Are they even what they call 'happier'? Do they look with satisfaction on more things and human faces in this God's Earth? No, for we have profoundly forgotten everywhere that cash-payment is not the sole relation of human beings."
Environmental arguments against consumer capitalism will fuse with a horror at the vulnerability of capital markets. There will be a new climate of scepticism about the market system - one which will defy old labels of left and right. Expect to see ex-bankers finding unexpected points of agreement with environmental activists, poets and fashion designers. Ultimately, the question will be: are our economies delivering on their promises? It'll again be pointed out that our outer success is masking deep-seated inner disturbances. Western society has always been an uneasy amalgamation of the values of the old Roman Empire - success, wealth and individual glory - and the values of the Judeo-Christian world, with its emphasis on charity, serenity and love. After 20 years of success, the values of the Roman lion will go into abeyance and the more compassionate lamb will take centre stage again.
Theis will have consequences. Greed and superficiality will be out. Television executives will have to raise their game and stop giving us bread and circuses when we need facts and consolation. During a deep recession in the construction sector, we'll ask whether buildings should ever have been in the business of making money. Wise minds will stress that the quality of our houses, streets and cities is ultimately part of the mental health industry - and should not be seen as commodities without public responsibility.
The sensitive and educated readers of Monocle will know not to give up al interest in the aesthetic side of life, but nevertheless be smart enough to raise questions about enterprises that use beauty as a superficial lure, rather than as a way to herald inner transformation.
Over all, we'll become a lot richer, but not in a way we had planned. Here's where John Ruskin comes in. He was interested in wealth - obsessed by it even. However, it was wealth of an unusual kind that this great art critic had in mind, for he emphasised repeatedly that he wished to grow wealthy in kindness, curiosity, sensitivity, humility and intelligence - set of virtues he referred to as "life".
In his great text, Unto This Last, he entreated us to set aside our monetary conceptions of wealth in order to take up "life"-based view, in which the wealthiest people would not be the bankers and the ladnowners, but those who most keenly felt wonder beneath the stars at night or were best able to interpret and alleviate the sufferings of others. After the greatest stock market crash in living memory, there will be no end to questions about what being wealthy really means.
rich.
Thanks for the article Tori!
Happy New Year: Why money is not enough
Alain de Botton
(taken from Monacle, issue 19, volume 02. pg... 049)
I believe 2009 will be the year when the question of how society should be arranged will cease to be an idle, abstract topic, dwelt upon by ivory-tower intellectuals after a few glasses of wine, and will instead enter the workaday mainstream with a vengeance. Everyone will become a political philosopher; and all of a sudden, some of the great issues facing our world will be up for grabs. It will be a frightening, exhilarating time. Expect to see record numbers of people reading political blogs, attending classes in political theory and turning once again to Karl Marx, Adam Smith and John Ruskin.
All this because of a consensus about the virtues of individualism, liberalism and consumer capitalism is splintering beneath us. At the heart of the debate lie questions about fulfillment. We'll be asking whether the modern economy has been attending to our needs.We'll be asking, to paraphrase that thundering 19th-century prophet Thomas Carlyle, "This successful industry of ours, with its plethoric wealth, which of us has it enriched? We have sumptuous garnitures for our life, but we have forgotten to live in the middle of them. Are people better, stronger, braver? Are they even what they call 'happier'? Do they look with satisfaction on more things and human faces in this God's Earth? No, for we have profoundly forgotten everywhere that cash-payment is not the sole relation of human beings."
Environmental arguments against consumer capitalism will fuse with a horror at the vulnerability of capital markets. There will be a new climate of scepticism about the market system - one which will defy old labels of left and right. Expect to see ex-bankers finding unexpected points of agreement with environmental activists, poets and fashion designers. Ultimately, the question will be: are our economies delivering on their promises? It'll again be pointed out that our outer success is masking deep-seated inner disturbances. Western society has always been an uneasy amalgamation of the values of the old Roman Empire - success, wealth and individual glory - and the values of the Judeo-Christian world, with its emphasis on charity, serenity and love. After 20 years of success, the values of the Roman lion will go into abeyance and the more compassionate lamb will take centre stage again.
Theis will have consequences. Greed and superficiality will be out. Television executives will have to raise their game and stop giving us bread and circuses when we need facts and consolation. During a deep recession in the construction sector, we'll ask whether buildings should ever have been in the business of making money. Wise minds will stress that the quality of our houses, streets and cities is ultimately part of the mental health industry - and should not be seen as commodities without public responsibility.
The sensitive and educated readers of Monocle will know not to give up al interest in the aesthetic side of life, but nevertheless be smart enough to raise questions about enterprises that use beauty as a superficial lure, rather than as a way to herald inner transformation.
Over all, we'll become a lot richer, but not in a way we had planned. Here's where John Ruskin comes in. He was interested in wealth - obsessed by it even. However, it was wealth of an unusual kind that this great art critic had in mind, for he emphasised repeatedly that he wished to grow wealthy in kindness, curiosity, sensitivity, humility and intelligence - set of virtues he referred to as "life".
In his great text, Unto This Last, he entreated us to set aside our monetary conceptions of wealth in order to take up "life"-based view, in which the wealthiest people would not be the bankers and the ladnowners, but those who most keenly felt wonder beneath the stars at night or were best able to interpret and alleviate the sufferings of others. After the greatest stock market crash in living memory, there will be no end to questions about what being wealthy really means.
Saturday, 13 September 2008
Sunday, 31 August 2008
A holiday recap
I wrote earlier about the great week in Montpellier with Dino and BJ, after that I spent most of July in Sweden with the main focus being swimming. The group I help out with was in the final stages of preparing for Swedish Nationals and the Olympics (for 4 of the guys). All in all everyone swam well in most of their events so it was a good end to a long season. The boys who went to the Olympics also swam well, although I think we were all taken by surprise by how fast everyone else swam. PBs and Swedish records, even times under the WR before the Olympics were often not good enough for medals. The swim club has been in the Swedish news this week for all the wrong reasons - due to economic troubles they've made redundant 2 coaches. The worst of it was that Johan who has been coaching Therese Alshammar for the past 4 years under an agreement with the club was told a month before the Olympics - not the best psychological help a month before the Games. And the other coach has been at the club for something like 20 years and was told around the time of Nationals, just before his holidays... so it is all a bit messy there. But I just help out on my own terms so if it all goes to chaos then I'll step away and find something else.
After Nationals, at the end of July, I headed off to London to catch up with friends and go to Larry and Martyn's 30th anniversary party which was a great night, followed by a very early morning trek out to Heathrow to catch a flight to DC to visit Dad and spend a week on the beach in Mexico... see the pic from last post!
I'm back in the swing of things at school, as well as the swimming coaching (slowly building up for next season), and I'm also doing some online study - a subject as part of a Masters from Melbourne uni as well as a subject from a uni in Sweden. Both are to do with the use of IT in education, so this means Sundays on the laptop doing work... which is what I'm supposed to be doing now. Instead I'm sitting in Paolo's cafe writing this!
I will now try to do a little bit of work...
thinking slowly,
rich.
After Nationals, at the end of July, I headed off to London to catch up with friends and go to Larry and Martyn's 30th anniversary party which was a great night, followed by a very early morning trek out to Heathrow to catch a flight to DC to visit Dad and spend a week on the beach in Mexico... see the pic from last post!
I'm back in the swing of things at school, as well as the swimming coaching (slowly building up for next season), and I'm also doing some online study - a subject as part of a Masters from Melbourne uni as well as a subject from a uni in Sweden. Both are to do with the use of IT in education, so this means Sundays on the laptop doing work... which is what I'm supposed to be doing now. Instead I'm sitting in Paolo's cafe writing this!
I will now try to do a little bit of work...
thinking slowly,
rich.
Thursday, 21 August 2008
the brats are back...
Yep, the darlings of West Beverly High are back in school. Well only the newbies today... ahhh, so fresh faced and nervous. Slowly getting myself into gear for the new year, think I have the first lesson planned?!
'spose a trip summary might be due... but not tonight - have spend the last hour or so reading online posts, blogs and wiki entries for an online course I'm doing... teachers being nerdy - love it!
And all the while I try to keep this image in mind...
'spose a trip summary might be due... but not tonight - have spend the last hour or so reading online posts, blogs and wiki entries for an online course I'm doing... teachers being nerdy - love it!
And all the while I try to keep this image in mind...
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
holidays...
ahhh...
Margaritas... beach... Isla Mujeres... (check a map!) life is really tough... so tough the internet connection is being driven by an iguana on a treadmill, that's one letter per minute - so appreciate this sentence!
chilled,
rich.
(A pensioned iguana, after 50MB of good service)
Saturday, 5 July 2008
Time for an update
Yes, as was kindly pointed out, it is about time for an update:
I'm on summer holidays, and if you're the sort of person who is particularly jealous of the extensive holidays that teachers have you should probably stop reading. That said, I am having a great time. A few days after school finished it was time for "midsummer" here in Sweden which usually involves hanging out with family and/or friends, lunch in the sun with accompanying shots of Swedish snaps, followed by a lazy weekend... that's exactly what I did this year (after missing last year's edition due to a week in Lisbon). At the end of that weekend I took myself out to the airport, managed to talk my way to the front of first the bag-drop queue and then the security queue so that I was able to make my flight to Paris. Once there I had a nervous wait for Dino who was delayed flying in from London (what a surprise for Heathrow!), she ran from baggage collection to the TGV station and we thankfully made our train to Montpellier by about 9 minutes. This was to be the most stressful part of my 6 days in France/Montpellier... the other stressful moments were limited to deciding whether to buy a baguette or fruit loaf for breakfast - usually solved by buying one of each. The weather was great and Montpellier beautiful, the old town is predominantly pedestrian with lots of small laneways winding around and leading to tiny squares with cool cafés and bars. A mate of Dino's from Canberra, BJ, was also there for the week so the 3 of us took it very easy... bakery, cafe, beach, bar... you get the picture. BJ is on his way through Stockholm next week so hopefully the sun will still be shining - this week has been fantastic by Stockholm standards: 20-25°C, generally blue skies and light breezes... it's hard not to love it when it's like this.
Since the last post I've also been to the very north of Sweden - trooped off with 40 odd students and 3 other teachers for a 4 day trip to the northern most ski resort in Sweden (literally on the border with Norway - one of the runs takes you across the border and back again!). Skiing at the end of May, with almost 24 hour daylight was a very cool experience. And thankfully the cherubs were neither too spoilt nor too bratty so the experience was altogether different from last year's debacle. After that there were about 3 weeks of school left and it passed by very quickly in a rush of marking and setting final grades, at the end of which I was happy to say "enjoy your summer" to the kids and (surprisingly?!) even happier to say "see you in August" to colleagues... after 10 months it is nice to have a break from school and everything that goes with it.
The rest of summer is looking as good as the start... the next 2 weeks or so I'll be in Sweden coaching the group I've been working with at the swimming club - we've got nationals in a week and a half, and 4 of the 8 are off to Beijing for the Olympics straight after that. So that's giving me a bit of structure to most days! After that I'm heading to London to catch up with friends, including Larry & Martyn's 30th anniversary party which I'm really looking forward to. Then (yes, there's more!) I fly to Washington D.C. to visit Dad, and I think there is going to be a side trip to a beach for a week with them. After all my globe-trotting I arrive back in Stockholm at about 6pm the day before I go back to work... just the way I like it.
Think that's enough for now.
Chilled, rich.
I'm on summer holidays, and if you're the sort of person who is particularly jealous of the extensive holidays that teachers have you should probably stop reading. That said, I am having a great time. A few days after school finished it was time for "midsummer" here in Sweden which usually involves hanging out with family and/or friends, lunch in the sun with accompanying shots of Swedish snaps, followed by a lazy weekend... that's exactly what I did this year (after missing last year's edition due to a week in Lisbon). At the end of that weekend I took myself out to the airport, managed to talk my way to the front of first the bag-drop queue and then the security queue so that I was able to make my flight to Paris. Once there I had a nervous wait for Dino who was delayed flying in from London (what a surprise for Heathrow!), she ran from baggage collection to the TGV station and we thankfully made our train to Montpellier by about 9 minutes. This was to be the most stressful part of my 6 days in France/Montpellier... the other stressful moments were limited to deciding whether to buy a baguette or fruit loaf for breakfast - usually solved by buying one of each. The weather was great and Montpellier beautiful, the old town is predominantly pedestrian with lots of small laneways winding around and leading to tiny squares with cool cafés and bars. A mate of Dino's from Canberra, BJ, was also there for the week so the 3 of us took it very easy... bakery, cafe, beach, bar... you get the picture. BJ is on his way through Stockholm next week so hopefully the sun will still be shining - this week has been fantastic by Stockholm standards: 20-25°C, generally blue skies and light breezes... it's hard not to love it when it's like this.
Since the last post I've also been to the very north of Sweden - trooped off with 40 odd students and 3 other teachers for a 4 day trip to the northern most ski resort in Sweden (literally on the border with Norway - one of the runs takes you across the border and back again!). Skiing at the end of May, with almost 24 hour daylight was a very cool experience. And thankfully the cherubs were neither too spoilt nor too bratty so the experience was altogether different from last year's debacle. After that there were about 3 weeks of school left and it passed by very quickly in a rush of marking and setting final grades, at the end of which I was happy to say "enjoy your summer" to the kids and (surprisingly?!) even happier to say "see you in August" to colleagues... after 10 months it is nice to have a break from school and everything that goes with it.
The rest of summer is looking as good as the start... the next 2 weeks or so I'll be in Sweden coaching the group I've been working with at the swimming club - we've got nationals in a week and a half, and 4 of the 8 are off to Beijing for the Olympics straight after that. So that's giving me a bit of structure to most days! After that I'm heading to London to catch up with friends, including Larry & Martyn's 30th anniversary party which I'm really looking forward to. Then (yes, there's more!) I fly to Washington D.C. to visit Dad, and I think there is going to be a side trip to a beach for a week with them. After all my globe-trotting I arrive back in Stockholm at about 6pm the day before I go back to work... just the way I like it.
Think that's enough for now.
Chilled, rich.
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