Percussion rocks!

The show is not over... well not for another 2 weeks, but last night's (Wednesday 27th May) display of technical mastery should be blogged about while I remember.

My Mom and I were graciously gifted season tickets to the 2009 Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra Second Symphony Season. I've always had an affinity for classical music and went through a stage of listening to nothing else. Then I went through a "it isn't cool for someone your age" phase and now I'm back to loving it and I remain unaffected by what people may think or say to that fact. Part of loving the experience of the weekly concerts is the visualisation of a style of communicating that is traditionally auditory. There is so much to see, hear, feel - real food for the senses.

Last night's theme was works from Russian composers.
BORODIN: Prince Igor: Overture
PROKOFIEV: Piano Concerto, no.3, op.26, C major with the soloist being Ayano Shimada who was trained in Japan and France with many laurels of competition wins and solo appearances around the world.
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade, op.35
Conductor: Emil Tabakov

While the music was not really my taste, the performance was one of technical mastery from both soloist and the orchestra as a whole. The soloist appeared in a passion purple gown contrasting violently against the black and white formality of the orchestra members. And then with little adieu clicked and whirred in harmony with the brass and strings and percussion and woodwinds to create a cohesive flowing story. Her dexterous and impassioned skill was awe inspiring with hands blurring confidently over the keys. In her encore, of course we wanted an encore, her movements were lithe and flowing and purposeful and sensual, gently stroking the ivories into life in a distinct contrast of theme and style to the concerto.

The orchestra carried this momentum forward after interval into the Scheherazade - an emotive fantasy in 4 parts with literary inspiration from Tales of the Arabian Nights. In the first movement, the sea-sawing of the cellos to imitate "The Sea and Sinbad's ship" was even more evident with unfocussed (soft) eyes where the musicians deftly bowing the strings in contradictory to-&-fro motions, matching the pushing and pulling of the waves on the high seas. The theme of the Sultana sensual and exotic and fragrant and colourful [1] expertly portrayed by the first violinist and orchestra leader. The first cello, oboe, bassoon, clarinet and flute making regular expressive contributions to the symphonic work, with the harp contributing a sense of mystery and fantasy. And then in the forth movement the Festival of Baghdad, the sea and the shipwreck where all the emotions of the story unfurl in regimented tympanic glory!

I left there feeling the music. Not just seeing or hearing it this week - a wonderful sensory experience. I think I'll do it again sometime.

For the record Mom admits to being in a "Russian phase" and said that this week's concert was her best. And she wants to come back in her next life as a tympanist.

[1] Rimsky-Korsakov is reported to have been a synesthate where tonal keys had colour. Here is a comparative table between his perception of colour and key and that of another Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (Harrison, 2001:123). And here is an article about synesthesia.

NSFT Awards follow-up quickie

This is an update on the NSTF awards mentioned in a post a few weeks ago.

One of the School's finalists won, and she just happens to be my research supervisor too. Congratulations Mary! She won in the category: Eskom Award for Research Capacity Development over the last 5-10 years. The award was in recognition for her contribution to the training of students and her own innovative work on grasslands and forests.

No word yet on whether Neville won in his category. He sent out the email about Mary's award. We hope to hear positive feedback soon.

I'll be watching the NSTF Awards page for the official list of 2009 winners.

It was a flippant throw away Friday tweet. And then it wasn't. I started thinking about how I am really blessed to think that everything is can be right with the world with just a cup of chai and a ginger biscuit. The feeling only lasted til the end of the ginger biscuit.

There are so many 'things' not right in the world: poverty, right in my home town; war and unrest, seemingly far from home but it's here and even more scary for me if it's underground; and the changing face of our planet ... well all these things make my heart sore. Making a difference where I can change that to soar.

In my perception of the world, as I saw it on Friday last week for a brief moment, it was all right in that world. Until I realised my world is part of the collective whole.

Kinda serious for a Terri-fic Tuesday. Reminds me to count my blessings everyday.

No more conversions!

Who knew first principles of conversion could desert you! I used to rag the 2nd year engineering students I helped tutor at UJ about forgetting about converting between units and orders of magnitude. Now it's my turn to blush. I had to convert a concentration of base cations (mg/l) into a mass-based concentration (cmol/kg). This was not a trivial exercise. About 100 Google searches on concentrations and conversions and numerous Aardvark queries later, I finally got the solution put together. The results look realistic compared with another years set of results and they are an interesting contrast to the base cation concentrations of soils determined by another method. This is a good thing!

On with presenting this data in a meaningful way. Oh first the stats...

I *gasp* can't *gasp* stop

I've been working through another book by Cecile Badenhorst in order to get to my publications for my PhD write up (describing the process of writing an article for publication). One of the golden rules in her book is: Writing begets writing. I had a very real experience of this yesterday. I'm retyping here what I wrote in my writing journal[1].

19 May, 09:30
" All the thoughts running through my head now want their own 15 mins of fame and be idolised on paper. They need to get out! Release is what they crave! How do I sort? Filter? Settle my mind to focus on ideas that right now mean progress towards a goal? Can we get to channelling creative thoughts soon please, Cecile?

I love this state! I need to use fine sandpaper or something to refine it into avenues that are a little more distinct.

There's an underlying caution that I'll write down stuff buried so far beneath the layers of sedimentary knowledge and emotions and feelings and thoughts. We could have a volcanic-like eruption of words that could have serious repercussions. Is this an early warning system to save the inhabitants? Does it matter? Bury the emotions or live with them and work with them. Colonise the lava fields. Rich volcanic rock makes for fertile ground for further life, words, emotions and thoughts.

Carry on writing."

On the next page in the book: "How and what you write is a choice" (Badenhorst, 2007:9). I chose to write this one in more than just my note book. More insight to follow. Really loving writing and looking forward to directing it in more purposeful ways.

[1] Yes she advocates writing, not typing, for many reasons and advises that all writing should be on coloured paper, in felt-tip coloured pen and only ever in the landscape position - no lines allowed!

Boys, bikini's & global warming

(from BC Comic of the Day today)

You like me! You really really like me!

I don't suck! I'd like to thank the Academy for the award and thank you to all my adoring fans. You are the most awesome 3 people I know.

For the late bloomers this is kind of a blog-tag game. I was nominated for an awesome award. I find 7 reasons why I think I'm awesome and then I tag 7 more awesome people. So let's get down to the serious business.

The Chambers online dictionary defines awesome as: adj 1 causing awe; dreaded. 2 colloq completely and utterly wonderful. Let's continue with the second definition for now. In my humble opinion, "awesome" is an adjective that lives outside of me: scenery, works of art etc. I heard something lately about an increasingly "me" centred culture. So I'm doing this as a self-esteem building exercise as opposed to a 'centre of the universe' program. This seems a good place to start this list:

1. I believe I'm humble. This may stem from my dislike from being in the spot-light and how these types of commentaries make me feel like I'm writing my own obituary. The great news is that someone else will write my eulogy and they will get to say why they thought I was special. Today this task is mine. No Max (name changed to protect identity) this is not about self-esteem - it is part of my value system to be humble.

2. I know a heck of a lot of stuff, usually inane factoids. What I'm chuffed about is that I'm starting to make the links, sometimes obscure but links nonetheless, between some of these things I've learnt. I think this comes from my recent news junkie leaning (especially science news) and from tv doccies and from other life experiences. I love acquiring new knowledge. Sometimes I like applying it too.

(paused to ponder)

3. I like helping other people learn and get passionate about learning. Glancing over to the light switch there's a magnet that says: "To teach is to touch a life forever".

4. I expect good, no great, things from everyone. This includes students I teach, friends I make and all my family members. Sometimes because not everyone can achieve my exalted expectations, I'm left a little disappointed. My stuff not theirs. I still expect them to do their best and make their lives better.

5. I'm generally calm and collected. And I'm always on the look out for the positive. Positive intent or motivation, positive outcome, positive terminal (a little shock therapy never hurt anyone!).

6. I have a quick, if odd (see point 5), wit. Well, I make my sister laugh. She reckons I should have a comic strip.

7. I want to save the world. No small task. And entirely selfish. I'm not ready for a world predicted to have no Cape Town, no fynbos, wars over fresh water, searing heat and Armageddon-like storms. I believe each one of us can make a difference - even if we start the paradigm shift.

I'm proud of being dredging these seven traits that make me awesome for me. Even though I'm still feeling a bit camera shy about sharing them with the blogosphere. I've tagged 7 folks via email and will post links to their awesome acceptance speeches when I receive evidence.

What relief!

The whole idea of this blog was to provide experience for writing up my PhD results. I had a crisis of intellectual property faith early on and realised that this may not be a useful or ethical purpose. My intention for this exercise then became one of keeping the 3 readers out there up to date with my progress and as a way of practising my writing skills hoping that this would spill over into writing up my PhD.

Officially, today is the first day of my write up. It's very early days yet. This week's focus means that I'll spending time thinking about my major findings so far, how they can be moulded into publishable papers and how to represent the data so that they tell the story appropriately. And then I get on to actually writing the stories.

I can 'see' two papers so far. There's still some work to be done and data to be untangled and models to buid and test. In spite of this, I feel good that I'm getting somewhere now. Really proud of myself today. Yay! I'm sure this feeling will pass soon enough but it's worth remembering now and for when frustration and confusion bear down their weight.

This is like my Comrades marathon. Right now I've been on the road about 7 hours and only 4 to go.

Reader or writer, intent and response

Extended families can be rich in the dramatic. Especially if the lines of communicating are not equal in all directions, which is probably never likely. A recent family drama turned out to be a storm in a tea-cup. These are my words describing my perception. Some other family members are probably still licking their wounds. All about a status message on a popular social networking site.

This again got me pondering the accuracy of social networking statuses. In the past this pondering has been confined to my head - is it brave to post this here considering the repercussions? Can they, SN statuses, in all honesty, be an accurate reflection of a writer's mental state? I presuppose that the meaning of my communication is in the response I elicit, from those I communicate with. Getting an overwhelmingly concerned response from friends and family in response to a status update warrants questioning of the writer's intent. If attention is what you seek, then you'll get that, possibly different to what you intended.

So when dramatic and concerning statuses find their way into social networking reality and the response is equally dramatic (Newton's law: for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction) - does the reader's response match the writer's intent? And how seriously should we take any future social networking statuses?

With concern and apologies to the family for hanging our laundry out in the open.

Ditching the lab-coat for the common good

This week I ditched the lab coat and dexter glasses to attend the NSTF plennary meeting. Our school had 2 finalists in the 2009 awards list. We were led to believe that in order to be considered in the process further the finalists or a representative (me) needed to be at the meeting to collect their certificates. Turns out this was not the case.

Someone wise I know once mentioned that even at seemingly unimportant meetings its a useful strategy to find a take home message. I learnt 3 things at the meeting:
- Afrikaans is still alive! I am mostly exposed to English and to hear Afrikaans in this setting seemed unusual. Of course it's still alive, first language Afrikaans speakers are passionate about their language.
- Academics are friends of technology. I felt out of place being one of the few audience members who wasn't concurrently working on my laptop and attending the meeting.
- The seating arrangements reminded me of students filling a lecture hall, where they fill seats from the back and on towards the front. Do we match our students behaviour or are they matching ours? A similar pattern is also evident in church on Sunday mornings.