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Swot Life; Education, Language, and Music
Jul. 30th, 2020 10:48 am"This holiday sucks!", I exclaimed earlier this week as the continuing and requisite movement restrictions are applied in lieu of travel and the social interactions that I would otherwise be taking. But one must adapt to our circumstances and make the best of The Plague conditions. Some people have become obsessive cooks, others have broadened their experience of the best cultural products (music, film, etc), or have engaged in home improvements, or have tried to retain visual social interaction through various contemporary technologies. There is also the time-honoured Internet tradition of arguing with ignorant strangers from the other side of the world. And yes, of course, people (including myself) have taken a little from all these options.
Then there is the path of the scholar, which I have largely taken. These circumstances are actually a good opportunity for scholarship, possibly even the best, although I would rather be doing this at Manapouri, staring out over the mountains of Fiordland; my heart remains deep in The South Island. So instead of a holiday in the vacational sense, I have psychologically turned the week into one of study leave. This has primarily meant formal study for my Masters in Higher Education and preparation, some weeks in advance, for an upcoming symposium on mentorship and leadership, where I will provide a detailed outline of a proposed mentorship programme. In addition to this, there have also been further studies from the MOOC on pharmacology from the University of Ohio course; by the end of the week I should be half-way through.
There has also been progress on my linguistic pursuits; as a native speaker and dear friend, Shupu W., is assisting me in an attempt (yet again) to learn standard Chinese which non-Chinese Australians are poorly represented. I have also made significant headway of several thousand words in a project Esperanto for Anarchists, which has been sitting as a background project for some time. It's a fascinating and rich topic that hasn't really has been documented in this manner, as a learning tool for both Esperanto and anarchism. And finally, because of longer-term plans, I have finally started learning Te reo Māori. These were all part of the "linguistics" section of my Five Year Plan (yes, of course, I have such a thing). Circumstances mean that some I am starting a bit earlier than planned.
One of those items on my Five Year Plan was to learn some music theory. For more than three decades I have not just been an active listener of music, and friends of many musicians, but a reviewer and critic, all of which I have done "by ear". Not so long ago a friend asked for my review of New Order published in METIOR, the Murdoch University Guild newspaper from 1987 - that's how far back it goes. Anyway, I'm in an extensive theory course with content from the Augsburg University in Minneapolis, and I've dived in thick and fast. There is an explicit orientation to applying the theory as composition, which is another of my longer-term goals. I've written some notes on this in the past and why one reviews and learns theory; "It is aesthetic criticism that rescues us from the claims that all taste is subjective" but also inspired from Victor Hugo's remark; "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent".
Then there is the path of the scholar, which I have largely taken. These circumstances are actually a good opportunity for scholarship, possibly even the best, although I would rather be doing this at Manapouri, staring out over the mountains of Fiordland; my heart remains deep in The South Island. So instead of a holiday in the vacational sense, I have psychologically turned the week into one of study leave. This has primarily meant formal study for my Masters in Higher Education and preparation, some weeks in advance, for an upcoming symposium on mentorship and leadership, where I will provide a detailed outline of a proposed mentorship programme. In addition to this, there have also been further studies from the MOOC on pharmacology from the University of Ohio course; by the end of the week I should be half-way through.
There has also been progress on my linguistic pursuits; as a native speaker and dear friend, Shupu W., is assisting me in an attempt (yet again) to learn standard Chinese which non-Chinese Australians are poorly represented. I have also made significant headway of several thousand words in a project Esperanto for Anarchists, which has been sitting as a background project for some time. It's a fascinating and rich topic that hasn't really has been documented in this manner, as a learning tool for both Esperanto and anarchism. And finally, because of longer-term plans, I have finally started learning Te reo Māori. These were all part of the "linguistics" section of my Five Year Plan (yes, of course, I have such a thing). Circumstances mean that some I am starting a bit earlier than planned.
One of those items on my Five Year Plan was to learn some music theory. For more than three decades I have not just been an active listener of music, and friends of many musicians, but a reviewer and critic, all of which I have done "by ear". Not so long ago a friend asked for my review of New Order published in METIOR, the Murdoch University Guild newspaper from 1987 - that's how far back it goes. Anyway, I'm in an extensive theory course with content from the Augsburg University in Minneapolis, and I've dived in thick and fast. There is an explicit orientation to applying the theory as composition, which is another of my longer-term goals. I've written some notes on this in the past and why one reviews and learns theory; "It is aesthetic criticism that rescues us from the claims that all taste is subjective" but also inspired from Victor Hugo's remark; "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent".