No early morning alarms, no dashing to the station
No overcrowded trains, no soulless hotel rooms
No buffet lunch tables, groaning with murdered animals, smelling of dead fish
No late nights home: hungry, headachy, tired
The joy of staying home, when conferences are online
This Christmas I’ve had a holiday. For (most of) the last three weeks I’ve not worried about work, or agonised about what I should be reading and writing. And as I relaxed, I realised that this is the first Xmas that I can remember for at least 20 years that I’ve not had a mountain of academic work hanging over me: no piles of essays to mark; no outstanding PhD thesis to guilt trip me.
This meant that I’ve been able to really relax and take a break. I’ve written lists of things I wanted to do, rather than things I thought I ought to do, and I’ve crossed each one off with a sense of joy, rather than the usual relief. I have:
And overall I have just relaxed. Tomorrow I go back to work. Well, all good things come to an end.
So here’s 10 reasons why you should join us in the Daily Create
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk
It’s been a year, let’s hope the next one is calmer. Here’s wishing you all happiness, peace and whatever you need for 2022. Thank you to all my friends, thank you for CLMOOC and DS106. Some of us have put together a calendar for 2022 which you can download from the CLMOOC blog. Doodle Bird says Happy Hogmanay to you all.
Last month Wendy and I gave a presentation about the collaborative poem that happened as a result of a DS106 Daily Create. It was 9am Sydney time, making it early am for Wendy and late evening (10pm) for me, but we managed to present synchronously. Here’s the slides
We also wrote a short report which was our submission to the conference, and that’s also available online for anyone to read and/or remix.
Today is St Andrew’s Day, Scottish feast day of Andrew the Apostle. no day off for me, as although it’s a Bank Holiday, institutions are not obliged to honour it (boo!).
The Daily Create today asks us to use an online video generator to show What Might Obama Say About The Daily Create? I am not sure that my attempt is particularly successful, but here he is reciting the last stanza of Burns’ Such A Parcel Of Rogues In A Nation.
And here’s the poem in full:
Fareweel to a’ our Scottish fame,
Fareweel our ancient glory;
Fareweel ev’n to the Scottish name,
Sae fam’d in martial story.
Now Sark rins over Solway sands,
An’ Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark where England’s province stands-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
What force or guile could not subdue,
Thro’ many warlike ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few,
For hireling traitor’s wages.
The English stell we could disdain,
Secure in valour’s station;
But English gold has been our bane-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
O would, or I had seen the day
That Treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lien in clay,
Wi’ Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour,
I’ll mak this declaration;
We’re bought and sold for English gold-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
Grab the 5 nearest books around you. (Novels or textbooks, whatever story you’re wanting to make.)
Create a story from the following:
The first sentence on p. 1 of the first book.
The seventh sentence on p. 5 of the second book.
The first sentence of the third paragraph on p. 20 of the third book.
The fifteenth sentence on p. 47 of the fourth book.
The last sentence on the last page of the fifth book.
Give it a catchy title! #TDC1102
We’re tired of trees. We should stop believing in trees, roots, and radicles. They’ve made us suffer too much. D&G A Thousand Plateaus. p 15
Of course I’m not really tired of trees – but here’s some from Mugdock that are looking pretty tired.
Last week Wendy and I gave a presentation about the collaborative poem written for a DS106 Daily Create and some of the remixes that came from it. Here’s the recording and a link to the slides.
