Packing as a meditation

Here is my "baggage".
Could I go with just a passport, a phone, and a wallet? One day...

 I have enough material to have a literature class, tour sites, paint in watercolors, do yoga, do photography, journal, dress appropriately, stay dry, keep warm, stay cool, hike on hills, fly on airplanes and take trains.

Getting Ready to Go and Remembering Being Gone

Ten years ago, I wrote a little poem about adventuring when I was a young lass in my 40s. That seems so young now...Anyway, here is my little poem from ten years ago:

We might hope someone else has the answer.
Some other place might be better.
It will all turn out.
Well, this is it.
Right now.
No one else has the answer.
No other place might be better.
It has already turned out.
It is the adventure itself that counts,
not the hoped for consequences.

The adventure right now is all about piles of paper. I won't have any room for clothing or my paint set what with all the itineraries, vouchers, passport copies, letters of introduction, inventories, syllabi, schedules, tickets, articles, and other such officialdom. But the interesting part of extended adventure of this kind is that once the marble block of hoped for consequences has been planned and delivered, which would be the aforementioned paper piles, then we get to sculpt our actual journey out of that marble block, and we won't know what it is until it's done. 

Choosing clothing for inconspicuous travel

For me, it always comes down to shoes: comfortable but not clunky.  It's a careful balance. I like the Ariat Paddock boots because they support the ankle, are waterproof, and look kind of like shoes. They are rather like a light pickup truck, right? They can do the work of a truck, but they ride like a car.  Anyway, I'm currently looking for tiny ballet flats that will fit in a tiny amount of space so I don't have to wear boots *all* the time.

Here is a study abroad group. We all decided that jeans and a t-shirt was the most effective international costume.

Everything else has to dry quickly for easy laundry on the go, but I choose things that are dark colors. The huge deal my colleagues and I discussed last year, as Americans traveling abroad, was the width of pant legs.  Fashion has gone skinny again, after a brief boot-cut phase, and one of my colleagues was aghast to draw stares at her unfashionably wide legged pants. She said she ran right out and bought some straight legged pants because she felt like she just stuck out in a crowd. This may have been personal hyperbole and insecurity, but I saw her point. I have straight legged pants for this trip, not those wide trousers of yesteryear.  But I have to say, that I took a dance class with a friend in Munich, and my wide legged trousers were perfect for that traditional dance class. Hah!

I think overtly patriotic dress draws stares, and alcohol oriented t-shirts might not send the "I'm blending in" message.  I read a lot of websites about leggings, and the general message was tasteful dress is leggings with a tunic that comes to the thigh.  Rick Steves says, "Wear a scarf!", and I agree.  That is a fashion element I have seen everywhere. Baseball caps seem to be more sports oriented and not daily wear in many countries, but I'm ready to be wrong about that upon further observational research.

I think what really stands out is a group that talks really loudly, hogs the sidewalk, and is generally oblivious to others.  I think this is an international issue from the Grand Canyon to the Charles Bridge. 

Goth or not?

I spent the day at Spring Grove Cemetery, on a sunny blustery day, taking photos of local Gothic revival and classical revival statuary to be ready to talk about the Gothic at our next class meeting.  I am also following a MOOC from the University of Stirling about the Gothic, which is very interesting. A principal concept of the Gothic sensibility is the contrast of terror vs. horror. Terror is sublime fear, uncertainty, the grip of the unknown. In contrast, is horror where the veil is lifted, the monster is shown, and the unknown becomes known. Stephen King adds another, baser level: the gross out.  One person in the MOOC mentioned that that terror is a figment of the mind whereas horror is where you get to see the brains.  Gothic sensibility is about sublime terror, not horror or gross-out.  Those last two are other genres.




Here is my photo that shows the most gothic sensibility of my day in Spring Grove. Here the moss is beginning the creep up the walls of the crypt. Dead leaves cluster at the door that is chained, but slightly ajar.  Was someone trying to get in or was something trying to leave? Yes. I creeped myself out.

In a more subtle sense, I really liked this one for its capture of the idea of Gothic as romantic decay. This concept is sometimes called "dark romanticism".  Here is a statue of a woman in deep contemplation with the marble, a symbol of purity, molding on the interior and being weathered away on the exterior.  That the mold is black, not green, seems to make the decay even creepier. 

Getting Ready for SBSA 2016

Who loves her Timbuk2 courier bag? I do!

I'm very excited about getting ready for SBSA 2016. I have done this a few times, so I have my bags all ready: I carry two Timbuk2 bags, one medium and one small.  That seems to be enough for what I carry.  I don't like to carry a lot of bags, and I'm okay with doing a little laundry every night.  I have my "zip dry" shirts from Travel Smith, and I have a nice "zip dry"suit from Eddie Bauer that is really comfortable. Oh, I also got a good pair of boots that are water proof, comfortable, and don't look too bad from Ariat.  Let's see...what else...passport, ID: check.  I need to call the bank and tell them I will be using my credit card abroad.  I need to see if I will be extending my stay, and I need to decide what I will do if I stay a bit.
And then there is all the class stuff I need to put together for everybody!

Nashville Breakfast

I am in Nashvile, TN, for the Quality Matters Conference. The breakfast room is full, and pop music blares from from two tall standing amplifier towers.  Two large screens advertise the software companies and products that one's institution can buy.  It is like academic NASCAR.

But wait, there's more.  There are sausage sandwiches, like at McDonalds, and there are little rolls with piles of vanilla and chocolate icing. It is popular.

Next to the "make your own cinnabon" there is a more healthy option of fruit. However, it might not be sweet enough, so there are six bottles of syrup you can pour on your fruit.

Sugar, fat, and pop music.

We are sitting at a table with people from Lubbock, TX.  One nice person was very friendly. She asked where we were from, and when she discovered we were from Blue Ash, she mentioned that she had not heard of Blue Ash. I said it was named for a kind of tree. "Oh," she said, quite cheerfully, "We know ash trees.  We call them trash trees. Nobody wants them. My husband just says we don't need those trees, so everybody just cuts them down."

Social commentary.

So, the lights just came up, but the music rocks on. It is time for our KeyNote Panel that will talk to us about Content, Design, and Delivery: the Past Present and Future of Distance Education.

Let me get another cinnamon bun with chocolate icing, tap my foot to the music, and settle my trashy self in for some lovely exhortation about how my distance learning experience can be a matter of high quality.

Heathrow in Another Light

Heathrow is globally known as one of the busiest, largest airports in the world.  Indeed, watching the airplanes land is like watching traffic in South Florida; it is a never ending, regular stream of traffic.  And such big traffic, too!  I came to Heathrow to see the students off back home, and it was a sad sundering  of the fellowship. It was bittersweet to see such emotion at parting.  Nick Smith noted, in his blog Nautodidact.wordpress.com that it is more like meiosis that just splitting apart because each one takes a bit of the other in the separation.  That is a sweet, if sticky, metaphor. These partings seem more like the eddies of a river where we swirl around together and then are swept onwards.

So after saying goodbye, I went to the Heathrow Ibis Hotel.  I love Ibis hotels because they offer nice little cubbies as rooms.  I find the small size comfortable and comforting.  From there I had the afternoon so I went to see what was in Heathrow aside from the behemothic airport, around which the entire area revolves.  I found Cranford Country Park!  Oh my heavenly starts, but who would know that there was a huge meadow, some orchards, forest paths, and hedges full of larks and thrushes.  

If you sit on a park bench in the right place, you can watch the jets flow into the airport. In between the planes, you can hear the birds singing.  There is also a medieval church, St. Dunstan's. I spent a good half hour reading the poignant gravestones ranging from 1800 to 2006. 

It was a delightful two hour walk in the woods.  In Heathrow!