Simon is still in the rehab hospital and is deeply unhappy there. It is not quite the boot camp that we were promised, just three hours of therapy per week day and very little at weekends. It is terribly boring for him the rest of the time. The highlight of his week was when I sneaked in a cornish pastie. I will take him to Glenelg on Sunday afternoon for a spot of CD shopping, he has compiled a long list of must-haves. We have another public holiday (ANZAC day) on 26th April, and he has resolved to discharge himself from the hospital that weekend. We have stuck it out because the Professor has insisted and we need her support, but enough is enough. Meanwhile, back at the ranch I am besieged by mice. What is Professor Skippy Orlando doing about this? Sleeping. What a slouch. Ironically, the mouse living in the pantry has a real liking for cat biscuits.
Simon's veggie patch is in full bloom - here you can see the 'dwarf' beans after just 14 days. It will be about four weeks before we are eating the produce. I did calculate that this project was costing about $20 per kilo of veg produced, but there's nothing like the taste of home-grown produce. I once had an allotment in Brighton which, despite having only four inches of top soil over chalk, produced an enormous glut each year. I can still remember my colleagues running down the corridor at the sight of me trying to give away surplus marrows.
Have had a conference paper accepted and quite pleased about that. It is local, so no need for travel. Am still thinking about Beijing. I could probably arrange for a carer to be with Simon for a few days but I don't like the idea of being so far apart. Sometimes I wish we were in England, especially now that spring is there and winter will soon be here.
Had a close shave on the road last week. Driving back from the hospital in the dark a roo jumped out in front of me. I swerved and missed him but the girl in the car behind me hit him. He was a big chap. I stopped to assist her, she had a little boy in the back seat and was very upset. The police came, threw a rope around the roo and dragged it off to the side of the road. They just left it there and told us to get on our way. I've resolved not to drive in the dark anymore.
We heard about the UK elections. Simon and I are sending in a request for overseas postal votes. Not sure if we will be in time, but with luck we will send two votes. Wouldn't it be something if we tipped the balance? I voted for the first time in Australia recently. These were state parliament and some commonwealth seats. They use proportional representation and the ballot paper was about two foot long. I can remember as a student having to debate the pros and cons of PR, but I don't remember any academic mentioning the practical problems with very long ballot papers. When asked to rank 47 candidates, eventually you lose count, make mistakes, and your pencil runs out of lead. You can alternatively just tick a box for a 'ticket' - which means that you vote for all of the labor (correct spelling in Australia) or liberal candidates etc. Personally, I don't favour this. It can result in the Harvey Proctor scenario (Basildon under Thatcher). So, if any of you are teaching government and politics these days, you might like to add that observation to your lecture notes.
On an academic note, I want to know if anyone out there has experience of using blogs, wikis, on-line social network sites etc. as sources of research data, and how do you persuade research ethics committees that this is an acceptable form of data collection. Pucker academic references would be much appreciated.
Love Marian x
Hi Marian, its a real shame that the hospital is providing so little therapy for Si, in relation to how much time he has to be there. When I spoke with him last week, I thought he might be exagerating. It really does seem unreasonable to get him out of the home for so little.
ReplyDeleteI am staying with Ross and Jenny in the cave in Spain, and am trying to catch up on work (the paper for ICICTE is very overdue, but the amount of student work I have still to mark has to come first.)
I have been doing some reading on social networking for academic purposes, and research where blogs are the primary source. I don't have all my references here but two to start with are: Gornerup & Boman 2009 ("A Baseline for Content-Based Blog Classification") and Brooks & Montanez 2006 ("Improved Annotation of the Blogosphere via Autotagging and Hierarchical Clustering").
Loads of love to you both
asher
Hi Marian and Simon,
ReplyDeleteThe Haines family still here, Malcolm hasn't been on his best, he is contemplating of voluntarily admitting himself to Woodley Hospital.
I know it is hard for both of you and Simon but hang on in there.
Malcolm used Facebook quite heavily and it does help him in terms of keeping his mind occupied and keep him busy.
I used Facebook too, wikicompany, blogs (http://www.jelinahaines.com), Classroom 2.0, Twitter, LinkedIn, Myartspace, Artslant, and Slideshare. I used a bit more social networks than due to my background as a visual artist. I used these social networks to network with other artist worldwide.
Kind regards,
Jelina, Malcolm & Marlon
Marian,
ReplyDeleteI'm still an avid follower of this blog.
Your query re. 'experience of using blogs, wikis, on-line social network sites etc. as sources of research data' etc. - have a look at: . And particularly, note section 14 on pg29.
Tom