Been a while...

I've not posted for a while because..
a) I've been busy
b) I didn't feel like posting
c) I'm lazy

I've spent a few days finishing my final TMA for OU. It's good to know I don't need to spend any time reading, understanding, then re-wording what I've read and feeling frustrated that I can't just present my opinion, backed up by sound evidence of course !
It's also a bit sad that I've finished bar the exam, because it was nice to be forced to think and be creative. That's where this comes in I suppose. But I'm not obliged to write this, so it could easily become a once a month diary. I need to start revision soon btu not seriously until after next weekend. Which is what is playing on my mind a lot at the mo. I don't want to go which makes me feel weak and cowardly, which in turn makes me feel useless which makes me REALLY not want to go. I wish I could just share with daughter but that ain't gonna happen for a wile at least. I want to tell her how I feel and ask her how she feels but it could all get very messy and might spoil the day. Maybe in the car on the way back from the zoo thing.
I'm looking forward to grabbing some of the stuff to bring back but again it's gonna be a bit messy and I don't feel terribly strong. What I'd like is to just have it all delivered rather than go and sort it out and take it away like some house clearance dealer. But once it's over, I can coem back home and get on with our lives and maybe things will seem easier.
Looking forward to seeing mum and dad too. Got the usual guilt about dad having to pick up all the pieces. Have to play that by ear. Maybe a pint or two will help to ease that one. All in all, life will be far better once next weekend has been and gone. After that, we can maybe start to live for us and not have to fit our life round OU dates and trips to Lincolnshire.
So, I feel a bit better for writing this all down, which I suppose is as good a reason as any for doing it.
The best bit is that GF has had her tat done today, which we've planned for so long and it looks better than I ever thought it would. It means that she believes we'll be together for the long haul, or at least until she can no longer stand me ! (joke). She has done so much to be proud of. Things that everyone else takes for granted but for her have special meaning and difficulties. But she does them anyway because they are part of the long road to becoming free of baggage. Again, I am doing nothing to challenge myself. Maybe next weekend will help me to push my boundaries a bit. I hope so. All for now.

Bright as a Button....

Buttons is alive !!!

She came waddling out of the garage this morning without a care in the world. GF thinks she may be sitting some eggs in there and was in hiding last night whilst we searched half the countryside for her (well, the garden).

Big relief. Recorded Richard Dawkins programme about faith schools last night but yet to watch it. I've read a review of it and it sounds a bit more serious than I thought. Lots of misconceptions about them and largely unregulated in what they can teach that counters national curriculum stuff. Lots of kids of middle class parents who want their littlies to go to a school with good results. Next thing you know, they think the Earth is 6,000 years old and we're all related to Adam and Eve. The worst thing is that they won't have any interest in questioning any of it because of the way it's taught. They'll just have 'faith'.

Some interesting bits on twitter this morning but still no Lists. What are they playing at ?

Want to do some more OU today. Only a week to go to submission. I'm about half way there but would like to make it a bit tidier and look like I've spent as much time as I have. Should have read more sooner. Oops.

Missing in action...

We think one of the ducks is gone. I put them all in the garage tonight and one of the cayugas, Buttons, failed to appear. She's a big duck but very slow and it's possible that she's got separated from a few others and not found her way home. I hope she'll turn up in the morning or start quacking when the others come out. They're all individuals and it would be a shame if she's gone.

We've been discussing Christmas and how we can make it ok. GF has various issues stemming from her childhood, one of which is receiving presents. We've tried to find a name for it, but there's nothing really on the web about it. She didn't really get much in the way of presents and what she did get were never well thought out or were what her mother wanted, etc. Her brother fared better, but then he's a boy, so different rules apply. It's something we're going to reassess as we get nearer and see how things go. I want to make it the Christmas she never had but it might be too much in one go, so we'll tackle one thing at a time.

skeptic wars...

I've been dipping in and out of the skeptics bits and pieces that I follow and feeling a little disheartened. It seems that Sciencepunk gave a talk at one of the skeptics in the pub about how the other skeptics are a bit elitist and might scare off women and non-white blokes. The response to this has been quite a hard lined picking apart of his accusations, which is what skeptics do, to be fair. The problem is, that there seems to be, from the outside, a feeling of the old boy network and they all watch each others' back and laugh at each others' jokes. I felt uncomfortable about a tweet by Crispian Jago the other day about a woman in a bhurka, basically wanting to ridicule her. Not the fact that she might feel opressed or showing any empathy, but wanting to make her a figure of fun. That ain't a good way to get non-skeptics on-side, but it'll certainly attract plenty of BNP voters. The other problem is that all the bloggers appear to be well educated, very confident people who love to have a good argument. Sorry, debate. The targets they generally pick on are deserving of exposure as frauds or deluded morons, but I for one, wouldn't feel comfortable joining in. I suspect I would be ignored because I'm not 'known' and would not want to expose myself to the potential deconstruction of my comments. I'm not trained, nor practised, in the art of public debate and consequently stick to the dark sidelines. This, I suspect, is what Sciencepunk was getting at. Most ordinary folk don't want to join in a public debate involving several high profile bloggers who can talk the hind legs off a donkey and seem to prefer each others' company to that of mere mortals.
It could be said that this is probably how most religions started out. Someone charismatic makes a few speeches that attract a following. They outperform the competition and gain more followers. With followers comes prestige, esteem and, best of all, power. Power to influence and change peoples' minds to that of your own views. Which, for most people, will be views of self-interest. These are all humans, no matter how much they stick to scientific principles and question everything. They are prone to inflated egos and must enjoy being followed and admired by so many. I just wonder how long before we see the Church of Skepticism lead by the chosen few.
Or it may just be that I feel Im not worthy of joining in the debates and it's all my problem. Either way, I don't think I'll be getting too close to the action. Far better to stay in this dark corner !

Birds of a feather...

We have a lot of birds. I say we. My GF has been collecting various ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys for a few years. When I moved in, in January, I became joint custodian. Prior to this, I had claim to some of the ducks. The summer before last, in my former life, I had, with some help, raised 7 orphan mallard ducklings to maturity. Four of these were the standard mallard colouring and were returned to the lake from whence they came. Three of them, however, were white. Not albino, just white. One also had an underbite. She was smaller than the others but was far more cocky and would take no crap from anyone. It was decided to retire these three to what is now my home for fear of Titch, as she was called, not being able to feed properly in the wild. And so it happened that I was reunited with Titch, Jack and Jill when I came to live here.
They are not the only ones to find refuge here. We have a Canada goose, named Biscuit, who was brought as an abandoned gosling. And recently we acquired a herring gull who we found in a cow field with half his wing hanging off, but otherwise strong and fit. He was carried home by GF who tidied him up and so he now has only one and a half wings, but a voracious appetite and lives in a large enclosure with his own huge pond. His favourite meal is mussels and crab sticks, although he developed a taste for layers pellets while he shared with 3 of the ducks who were being built up a few weeks ago.
Tom is our Chinese goose who we bought at a few days old back in May with the intention of pairing him up with Biscuit. He is a real character who has taken to the newest duck, hatched a few weeks ago under one of the call ducks. He doesn't really know what he is yet. He will have to work this out, when he's put in with the seven other geese. All embden crosses. We have two ganders. Monty and Bob. Monty is top dog. During the breeding season, I refused to go near him and had to carry a stick, which they are wary of. When let out in the morning, he started testing his status by trying to bite my boots, which in itself is not a problem until he started to follow it up with a wing flap. That's when damage can be done. His reign of terror was ended a couple of months ago when he picked on the smallest female once too often and GF cased him round the garden before pinning him down and shouting at him. He has been very docile since. Strange that. Paxo is the turkey stag. He also doesn't know what he is, although he has his harem of three females. One reason some of them are a bit confused is that they were hand reared and so sometimes prefer human company to that of their own species. This isn't a problem, except that he sees GF as his parent / mate and that puts me in the position of rival. He doesn't like rivals and also took to attacking me. They are now well out of the way in the wood where they seem happy enough, but he does miss his cuddles with GF.
Apart from the birds, there's the 5 dogs, the 6 cats, one of whom is about 17 or 18 and a ring-necked parakeet.
It can all be a bit mad at times, but at least it makes me seem relatively sane, so I'm not complaining.

Speaking of blood sugar...

I suppose I should talk about my diabetes. I've been diabetic since I was 13. A long time. When I was diagnosed, I'd never heard of it. A couple of days after diagnosis, in hospital, I'd still not really heard much about it. The big surprise came when the nurse came to do my regular insulin jab and informed me, in a matter of fact way, that I would have to do this for the rest of my life. I said yes, of course, but inside I was screaming nooooooooooooooooooo. It all seemed a bit surreal. Back then, it was metal and glass syringes kept in a plastic tube full of surgical spirit and the stainless steel needles were used several times before disposal. The diet was much the same, except they encouraged the use of 'starchy' foods such as potatoes, rice, etc. Nowadays, of course, they discourage the use of these, but one can only thank them for their hard work in keeping us up to date with developments. I found out about the change in attitude recently. I think it may have been known about for a couple of decades, but maybe I should have read a few more articles on the interweb.
Anyway, as a diabetic, I go for a retinopathy check every 6 months or so, which involves the pupils being dilated and both retinas being photographed to look for small capillary arteries growing into the retinal area. This happens if we allow our blood glucose to get too high for too long. I've had a couple of calls to the eye specialist before who said there's not too much wrong if I take care of my blood sugar levels. I naturally said yes, of course, and carried on the guessing game that is blood sugar roulette. This time, however, I've had to have minor laser treatment to correct a problem in my left eye. The specialist left me in no doubt about the future if I don't improve. So, with the amazing dedication of my fabulous girlfriend, I am trying my damnedest to get control of my diabetes.
Things are better than they were a few weeks ago, but there's still lots to do. We're waiting to see a dietician in 7 weeks time. We're hoping to see the specialist nurse at the hospital in a couple of weeks. Meantime, we're on our own but we have found a lovely forum at http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk/ where they are all very friendly and helpful and have encouraged us to keep trying.
Meantime, I test my blood several times a day and my GF documents it all until one day, we may see a pattern forming.
I am now going to help in putting the birds to bed. More on that another time.

Friday the 13th

Well, it's mostly over now but it started with foreboding. My girlfriend is superstitious about certain things. I try to be strong and stand against this nonsense but I'm not very good at being strong so she still goes along with a lot of it. She has, however, stopped saluting magpies. Anyway, for the past few days she's been dreading today and was convinced that something bad would happen. Me being me just laughed. So far, nothing has happened, but I must admit, I've been half expecting something nasty to appear. Which bothers me. I'm rational. I have no belief in predestination, nor fate. So why do I feel uneasy ?
It could be because we had a heads up yesterday that something bad could be about to happen. Something from the past had reared its ugly head and could bring some trouble our way. So I've been waiting for that to materialise. Since there's been no more word, I'm hoping it was a storm in a teacup. The day's events have actually been quite pleasant. We've had a leisurely morning, followed by a walk round the mountain, and I've been cooked a fantastic steak meal. I might go and chop some gorse shortly to bring down the blood sugars that are no doubt rising alarmingly. Or we could stroll up the road and pick a few blackberries. Either way, I think I have some ammunition in my war against superstition. Touch wood.

The first thing...

I've been thinking about stuff for most of my life. I know it's not an unusual habit, but I've often thought I might do it a bit too often and possibly about the wrong sort of things. I like to wonder why quite a bit. Mostly about people, but also about the universe and animals and things. I used to try and fathom things out like why people do certain things and when I'd come up with a few ideas, I'd go off in search of other people's thoughts and see if we agreed on any of it. I still follow this same sort of process, except with the advent of this internet thing, it can all be done much quicker and the number of alternative ideas available has grown exponentially.
My current favourite thing to think about is skepticism. I used to know it as scepticism, but apparently it's now got a k and seems to be some sort of club with its own rules and membership criteria. I've never really been much of a believer in anything. I used to believe in ghosts and strange phenomena. Or rather, I used to be interested by them. But I always wanted to know how they could exist and why they appeared to certain people and not others. These sorts of questions were never tackled in the books I read as a teenager. So I started to wonder about it all and it sort of lead me to wonder about other things such as the whole spirituality thing. I went to church very occasionally as a child. Mainly because I enjoyed going with my mum but also because I didn't see any reason not to. As a teenager, it offered me nothing so I stopped going. I was never pressured into going and was never made to feel that I should accept the whole God and Jesus package. My mum believes in something and my dad says he does, when pressed for an answer. I just don't see any point in holding belief in anything that has no evidence. I suspect there probably was a man called Jesus who did all sorts of great things, but there are only anecdotes about him from about 2000 years ago.
Consequently, I am now what's known as an atheist. This leads me onto my new label. Skeptic. For a long time now, I've tried to question what I think, what I read and what I'm told. And to a certain extent, what I experience. I've had a long standing interest in psychology and philosophy as well as numerous other topics. I completed an OU psychology course last year. I'm currently approaching the end of an Environment course. The whole basis of the assignments is that you can say largely what you want to, within a certain frame of relevance, as long as you present credible evidence. I try to apply this idea to other areas of life. If the world's leading scientists or experts declare that something is probably correct because they've seen the evidence and it seems to be the best fit, then I tend to accept their view. As an example, I see no reason to doubt that global warming is partly man-made. The evidence is strongly in favour of it and the vast majority of scientists accept this view. I'm not paranoid. I don't believe conspiracy theories. So I go with the most likely explanation. In the last few months, I have been using twitter more and have searched for, and found, a few like minded individuals who I am now following. The word skeptic kept being used and so I looked further. It excited me at first that so many people thought similar thoughts but having read a few of the blogs, I felt that it was a slightly exclusive club. There are lawyers, journalists, scientists, doctors, etc blogging and tweeting. This isn't a problem, but they all seem to blog at, and about, each other and occasionally try to compete. I'm not sure if I want to be a part of this club or not. For now I'm content to sit outside and watch through the window to see if I would feel comfortable in their company.
Enough ramblings for now. I have a nice bed and lovely company waiting. But first, there's a meteor shower promised and I could do with wishing on a star or two. Oops. Where can I find evidence of a positive outcome resulting from voicing a hope whilst viewing an astronomical object ?