I have to memorise a poem for my pedagogy course next week, and when I was thinking of which one to choose (cannot be a children’s poem, and had to be more than 10 lines), I couldn’t think of any better than this sonnet by Simon Armitage, not a children’s poem, obviously more than 10 lines, and most importantly easy to memorise! And I couldn’t help sharing it here:
“Poem”
And if it snowed and snow covered the drive
he took a spade and tossed it to one side.
And always tucked his daughter up at night.
And slippered her the one time that she lied.
And every week he tipped up half his wage.
And what he didn’t spend each week he saved.
And praised his wife for every meal she made.
And once, for laughing, punched her in the face.
And for his mum he hired a private nurse.
And every Sunday taxied her to church.
And he blubbed when she went from bad to worse.
And twice he lifted ten quid from her purse.
Here’s how they rated him when they looked back:
sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that.
From Simon Armitage’s poetry collection Kid (1992)
Screenshot of extended menubar in Mac OS X Lion using SecondBar (click for larger image)
Its been a while I have written anything on technology, or should I say haven’t written anything at all. Anyway, I have been looking for a way to extend menubar on my Mac as soon as I got a second monitor almost two years ago. I had been using utility-apps like DejaMenu or MenuPop to get access to menu items on the second monitor, however, not having an actual menubar on the second monitor was quite inconvenient. Just a couple of weeks ago, while searching for ways to extend menubar to the second monitor, I came across SecondBar , although it is still a beta-app, it works great. My second monitor finally looks like it’s a part of an extended display, a part of my mac desktop! Occasionally, SecondBar has problem showing all the menu items from an application but it is rectified by relaunching the app. Its certainly a great app for its purpose, and I still wonder why there aren’t any app to extend menubar with full functionality on Mac as so many of us actually extend our display with a second or even a third monitor these days. Definitely worth a try!
A short story I ‘cooked’ while waiting for the airport shuttle very early one very cold morning! Titled ‘unseen’.
At a time when even the volvos have started to look beautiful, her car bore an ungainly look – a maroon coloured hatchback that looked disproportionately large at the back with the front almost burying on the ground. Nevertheless, a volvo it was too, that famously strong and safe car regardless of how it looked. She parked the car with a perfect manoeuvre, without need for any adjustments, and positioning the car perfectly in front of the power box for the engine heater. The morning was not very cold and the day’s forecast was for a mild weather too. She got out of the car and slammed the door behind without looking back. With a handbag on one hand and a plastic bag probably containing her breakfast on the other she hurried towards the new office block just a hundred or so metres away. It was almost 5:30 in the morning, still very dark but time for her to start her shift. She had less than two hours to finish her duties – duties to make a whole floor on the office block ready for another day. There were twenty rooms, and unconsciously she allocated at most five minutes for each. Of course things were flexible, some rooms required double that time or even more, and some, a glance did the trick. For the latter types, it was as if her glance was sufficient to blow what little dust off the shelves and desks, and return things into their places even if they had been displaced only by a millimetre. For the former ones however, sometimes the inhabitants left the mess behind in just a few hours of work. She often wondered how could someone with a desk job make such a mess. Papers everywhere, dust everywhere, coffee stains on the floor and on the desk with a coaster lying just beside the stain! She had to get the stain remover and a mop for the floor.
By 7:30 she was already out of her floor after finishing all the rooms, and sipping coffee and biting on her home-made ham and cheese sandwich at her “office” with other workers like her. In the meantime those inhabiting the freshly made offices started to appear and made themselves comfortable on their comfy chairs and plan for the day’s work as if nothing had changed from the day before. They didn’t even notice the freshness of their office or the dust and stain-free environment, opposite of what they had left the day before. In the “ten minute” suite, a bulky middle-aged gentleman sipped coffee noisily, spilling some from the rims while placing the cup on the desk behind his computer mouse. The still brand new coaster sat beside the newly forming stain.
[Image source: wpclipart.com]
Even in this era of social networks and real-time interaction options with friends faraway, I still find myself struggling to keep in touch with those I would really like to. It’s either email OR the (often hopeless) hope that they follow you on twitter and respond. The first option I’m not very well known for making good use of, while the second many of my friends don’t seem to be making use of! There is something called Facebook but that seems to be for those with lots of time for such things. Anyway, in a long-winded way, what I am trying to say is I am not particularly good at keeping in touch or at using the most populous social network. Nonetheless, once in a while I do think of friends, particularly those who live faraway and with whom the only way of communicating is via these online technologies.
As the title of this post suggests, the Witts are in my thought tonight, and the first part of the title gives you the clue as to what triggered it! In fact I even googled the recipe for my own red kidney beans with garlic and ginger (which I remember the Witts had on their website) to make it exactly the way i used to when I was living in Vancouver. Sadly, I couldn’t find it, or should I say the mighty google couldn’t locate it, not even on its cache! Anyway, although it might have varied slightly from my Vancouver version, I am preparing red kidney beans with garlic and ginger tonight, and hoping it goes nicely with whole wheat chapatis (or tortilla if you will). And of course I’ll be thinking of the Witts and the potlucks we used to have at theirs in my Vancouver era living! This one to you Mr Witt & family, I hope all is well across the pond and beyond the mountains!
Quick update from a phone: I’ve now started on a new position in Sweden as postdoctoral fellow. I’m in a small city way up north from Stockholm, and it’s a beautiful place. I decided to come here coz I wanted to read and write (scientific research as well as other stuffs) for the next two years at least, so very much looking forward to fulfilling at least some of my wishes 
. Plus it’s a great place for wilderness/landscape photography so hoping to do some of that too. More updates soon, cheers!
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