Nik's Saga

Today Klakavirki gained two more members.

After this morning's lecture I was talking to one of my students who is, it turns out, a fairly regular fantasy roleplayer. The conversation drifted by way of LARP the SCA and then later this afternoon she and a friend came to see me to find out more. There may be hope of regaining active status yet.

When I was clearing up the debris of last night's session it occurred to me that I do actually have several gowns here with me, although only one of them is really finished... and that could do with a decent underdress. The idea of actually making a full gown, underdress and decoration included, is quite a novel one. Everything prior to this seems to have got to a basically wearable (but not totally complete) state and then I've had to rush off and do something else. I'm hoping that having a garbmaking group that meets regularly will force me to actually finish something properly.

Out of curiosity today I decided to try Cheerios instead of my normal cornflakes or rice crispies. This is the really popular cereal around here and comes in at least four flavours - plain, frosted, chocolate and honey nut. Maybe more. I suspect that the honey nut ones are going to taste like sugar puffs, as that's what this reminded me of. Of course, that's probably because it's wheat rather than corn or rice. Still, I know it's another edible option in future.

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We had an A&S meeting!

Not only did we have a meeting, but it was extremely successful. I printed out the ID flyer as background information, gave a brief history of the society and pulled out all sorts of fun stuff for people to pore over and finger. OK. so there were only three of us, as one is suffering from a sleepless one-month-old baby, and another was babysitting but it's a start.

Given that we're holding this event at the end of May the first thing to do is to start making garb, both personal and loaner, in plenty of time. After a certain amount of discussion it turns out that Tudor is the way to go - for everyone, although we will have different hats. I'm hoping to finally get around to making a gable hood while others are going for something a little plainer. We expect person 4 to join in the Tudor madness as well, so the four of us should make quite an impact at the event. Big frocks that you'd never get to wear under any other normal circumstances are a big draw, it seems.

Meetings are bi-weekly, and our next one will focus on corsets and chemises as a start. There was also a lot of general event planning and - hurrah! - I've managed to pan the job of web minister off on someone else. :) Now all I have to do is persuade people to take out memberships and the Shire can become officially active again. Although it might make more sense to be a college as I'm attached to the university and we might get members there - although we're still stuck with the fact that the membership basically gets you Dragon's Tale and nothing else out here.

I'm quite enthusiastic about this, far more so than I have been about the SCA for a long time. I suspect that it has a lot to do with the enthusiasm of the other people involved, as they've not become bitter and cynical dealing with ID/DW politics. Long may it remain so.

Labels: SCA

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I've spent much of my day writing stuff about intended learning outcomes.

My teaching friends may be either shuddering or nodding happily at this point. It's all part of the Bologna accords on higher education that the Icelandic government is signing up to that we now have to have learning outcomes for all degree courses. By next year we're due to have them for each individual module as well, but for now most people just have to think at degree level. We in computing are fortunate in that we were introduced to it all about eighteen months ago when we started looking at improving our assessment methods so we've already got them all in place.

ILOs are basically statements of what we want students to be able to do once they've completed a course. Not, please note, what we want them to learn, and especially not what we plan to teach them. It's a matter of transforming your thinking from 'what do I need to teach them' to 'what do they need to be able to do' - the change is subtle but important, and it has far-reaching consequences in terms of how you plan, teach and assess a course. You have to go through the following basic process:

1. What skills/knowledges are necessary for a professional in this particular field?


2. How can I help the student to learn these skills/knowledges?


3. How can I make it possible for the student to demonstrate to me that s/he can perform these skills/use this knowledge effectively?

You'll see that this is a big change from

1. What do I need to tell them about?


2. How do I divide this up into x lectures and/or labs?


3. What do I need to put in the exam?

It does try to get around the problem defined by the old adage that a lecture is a method of getting information from the lecturer's notes to the student's notes without going through either brain in the process. You begin to realise that you can't make the student learn anything, nor can you read the student's brain to see if any of the material has 'stuck'.

Anyway, my day has predominantly involved taking all of these ideas, as presented to us in a very useful workshop at the end of the last semester, together with the assessment ideas from 2005, and turning them into a set of reference webpages for other members of the faculty. It being exam time not everyone got to the workshop and although it's the senior members of staff who have to write the programme-level ILOs everyone else is eventually going to have to write those for the individual modules. It's about half-complete so I'm hoping to finish it tomorrow.

In the meantime I have lectures to write here at home tonight.

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In that it's covered in ice.

Inches of the stuff. The snow has been melting and re-freezing overnight, so that when I went out gaming this afternoon we ended up with a car pool arrangement with a four-wheel drive to make sure that we all got there. Certain roads were impassable from ice without four wheel drive, it seems. I suspect that it's going to be fun getting over the hump onto the main road tomorrow. :)

I wasn't actually expecting to be gaming today - we'd originally planned for yesterday but, thanks to the university email not working weekends (as usual) I didn't receive the planning message and thought that various folks had had to cancel. Not a problem - I had quite a good day yesterday reading, watching Bird of Prey (80's BBC computer thriller) and doing some embroidery. I was planning to work today, but Roborally got in the way. Never mind - I have evenings during the week when I can write lectures.

Right now I'm trying to persuade myself that what I should do when I get in from work is immediately turn on the exercise DVD, rather than grab something to eat and drink. I'll see how I feel after work tomorrow, but I can't promise anything, even to myself.
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I think I'm developing a beading obsession.

Below are two more bracelets I've made recently. These were a chance to try a new technique and, originally, planned as Midwinter gfts for various people. But RL intervened and I didn't get them finished in time. I am developing quite a large bag of assorted beaded jewellery, often as a consequence of buying a magazine and finding a new stich/design that I want to try. It's quite compulsive, really. I've got these containers of good beads (as well as the bags of cheap and nasty beads) and at present I seem to have this need to make pretty sparkly things out of them.

The problem is that I'm then left with sparkly things that I'd never wear because I'm not an outrageous bead jewellery person. And I'm never convinced that they're good enough to give away, let alone try to sell. I keep wondering if I can transform this current obsession into making proper renaissance bead jewellery that people might actually find useful, but my access to renaissance portraiture over here is rather limited. And there's a part of me that shudders at the idea of doing them in anything less than silver and semi-precious stones because I have a problem with the 'six feet rule' - if it looks good from six feet away then it's fine. I'm too much of a perfectionist in that way, as I've often seen something that looks good from six feet away and gone to have a closer look only to find that it is far less impressive close up. If I'm going to try to recreate something I'm going to try to do it as accurately as possible.

Aaaargh, brain hurts. I'm going to go away now and do something practical. There's a nice pendant design in one of those magazines that I think would look really good as a brooch...


Bead bracelets in picot-embellished Russian snake stitch.Both use 8mm spherical beads as the core, surrounded by 9/0 seed beads in the top one and 9/0 hexagonal beads in the lower one.
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Is blueberry, in this case.

Today I managed to give a lecture/supervise a lab, write the instruction/demo part of another lab, deal with a 25-institution mailshot (by snail-mail) - thus allowing me to delete an item from my 'to do' whiteboard - and finish the week with a clearer desk than I had at the start of the week. It was a long day, but I'm determined to view it as a success. Afterwards I went shopping, which is where the purpleness comes in.

In Glératorg, our local shopping mall, as well as the regularly-visited Netto supermarket and the always-worth-a-look Tiger we have a cafe and an ice-cream stall. Normally I manage to refrain from indulging in an ice-cream when I go shopping, but every now and then I succumb and try something different. Today was a small waffle cone with purple ice-cream. It wasn't a vivid purple, the likes of which I look for when buying clothing, but more the softer purple worn by elderly aunts. I'd never had purple ice-cream before and they don't always have it so I thought what the heck? It was blueberry. Quite a delicate flavour actually, and certainly not what I was expecting. I expect purple to have a rich, full-blooded taste, like a good burgandy, but as I sat in the car eating it I decided that it was something I would certainly have again.

Unlike hákarl, that other Icelandic delicacy of rotten shark. It's now into the old Icelandic month of Þorri, the worst month of the year, when starving Icelanders used to eat things that no self-respecting individual would look twice at at any other time of the year. Now that Icelanders spend the rest of the year snacking on hotdogs, these foods of last resort have become 'traditional'. Just outside Glératorg, and directly opposite my parking space is a Hákarlasalan, a stall that sells only hákarl (it couldn't sell anything else - the smell tends to attach itself to anything nearby). I was amazed to see, during the time it took to eat this small ice cream cone, five people come up to this stall to buy their own chunks of rotted shark. The chap inside seemed very friendly, and everyone got a piece to taste before they bought it. It comes in a long block that's about 10cm by 15cm in cross-section and he would just cut off whatever length the customer wanted and then weigh it before sealing it in a plastic bag. Two of the people drove up, stopped their cars and got out just to do this then jumped back in and went on their merry way, plastic bag in hand.

Having tried hákarl once I must say that I am not intending to shop there myself any time soon. It tastes as bad as it sounds, and it was interesting to note that almost all of the customers were older people (i.e. older than me). As I watched I was imagining the conversation as being full of little bits such as oh yes, I caught this shark off Húsavík last year or here, try this one, it's from the underbelly not the flanks. I suspect that there are such gourmet niceties about eatting the stuff, but I'm afraid they just pass me by. Instead it's pepperoni pizza for me tonight.
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Tree-planting is a big thing in Iceland.

The Icelanders recognise the problems caused by deforestation, as Iceland has suffered badly from it over the past thousand years. Up here in the frozen north things grow very slowly in the nutrient-poor volcanic soils and much of the woodland destroyed by the original settlers' sheep is still barren. There is therefore a major national reforestation plan whereby if something exciting happens, or something new opens, they plant trees. When I first visited Iceland I was impressed by a charity box that said something along the lines of leave your mark on Iceland - plant a tree.

I was doing a little SCA event planning with Ásgeir today and mentioned that it might be a nice idea to plant some trees if we make a profit out of Revel in the Midnight Sun II. It turns out that not only are trees cheap, but the chap upon whose land we're holding the event has an area on-site set aside for the planting of new trees. The plan, then, is for everyone at the event to plant a tree, thus allowing the SCA to 'leave its mark' on the country even if the shire/stronghold of Klakavirki remains dormant.

Of course we're not going to manage anything like running a carbon-neutral event, but that's not really the point here. As well as photos of the planting ceremony we're considering regular photographic updates on how Klakavirki forest if doing (any group of trees is called 'forest' over here). It's a crazy idea, I know, but it amused us.
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That's how my visit to Hagkaup just felt.

Of course, it's all down to the fact that Iceland beat France and are now, even as I type, playing Tunis in the main tournament. The students have converted the common room into a makeshift cinema theatre and are projecting the live feed from RÚV 1 ("Bugsplat") onto the blank wall. This is, I imagine, one of the advantages to being a computer science student. You not only have access to the equipment to do things like this, but you also have the know-how in terms of how to set it up. The supermarket car park was practically empty, the supermarket itself equally so. I don't think I've seen so much fresh bread and produce in there for a couple of months - I suspect there may be a six o'clock rush when the game finishes.

We're beginning to see the days lengthening at last. It's now almost five-thirty and there is still light outside. It's less noticeable in the morning, but that might be because I was in for an 8am lecture this morning. The temperature is quite pleasant, although the recent winds and rains have scoured and melted the snow away leaving the customary thick layer of black ice. It made driving to Hagkaup quite an interesting experience, slipping and sliding all over the road. I'm so glad that I have my spiky moonboots.

Someone next door is getting very excited by the game. I keep hearing delighted squeals of a female variety. Perhaps they're having a party too.

Although I'm not planning any parties, I have discovered that a couple of my friends have signed me up for an adult education class next month, and I'm quite delighted about it. It's in blacksmithing, and we're due to be working with iron as well as jewellery metals. Three consecutive nights, and I'm rather looking forward to this. I've always fancied trying something similar, so I'll have to do a bit of reading on how metal reacts under heat. It seems that there was only one place left when they signed up for it so they signed me up and checked with me afterwards - definitely a sensible case of forward thinking. Somehow I don't think I'll be able to forge my own sword in three evenings, but I'd be quite delighted to come out of it with a Nik-forged knife for SCA events.
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France 23 Iceland 31. Or something like that.

After having spent a day in the office doing paperwork, I came home to do some real work writing lectures and accidentally caught the end of the big sporting event of the day. I'd wondered why it was so quiet in the university this afternoon, but as soon as I spotted this I realised what it was: everyone had gone home to watch the handball.

As it was such an important match I did pause to watch the final 9 minutes of the game (complete with excited and therefore incomprehensible Icelandic commentary), so when my students ask me tomorrow if I saw the game I will be able to tell them that I did... thus gaining brownie points in the 'supporting the local community' category. It was a little confusing at first, as Iceland were playing in red and their badges looked more French than Icelandic, but once I'd realised that the red team had long names ending in -son, and that the commentators got very excited about red goals then I was fairly comfortable with the proceedings.

Handball looks a little strange. From watching this short section I think I've worked out that you're not allowed to try a shot at goal unless your feet are off the ground. Which means that you can go into the semicircle you're not normally allowed into if you're landing in it after a shot at goal. Very odd. And for those of you who I'm sure would be happy to explain the rules to me, I'm quite happy with this high-level model of the game. It's on a par with my high-level model of the aims of ice-hockey: Aim 1: Score as many goals as possible. Aim 2: Injure as many of the opposing team as possible. Inelegant, but it allows me to watch the game with a modicum of understanding.

I'm still undecided as to whether my more detailed knowledge of football (yes, I do vaguely understand the offside rule) and American football (the terms "punt return" and "third down and eight" actually have meaning) interferes with my enjoyment of the games. Or do they just allow me to follow more of the conversation of my more sporty friends?
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It appears that I missed a major event yesterday.

I learned from my students this morning that it's a big time in sporting circles here in the frozen north, as Iceland's men's handball squad goes head to head with teams from France, Ukraine and Australia in the 2007 World Championships. It appears that Iceland have so far beaten Australia, lost to Ukraine and are about to face France in a make-or-break tie. Feelings are running high here, as handball has a fair claim to be called the Icelandic national sport.

So everyone is terribly excited and I pop off to the International Handball Federation's homepage to see what all of the fuss is about. Ahhhh... so it's the preliminary round, not the main event at all then? OK, I can handle that. I remember how important it was for England to get through qualifying into the World Cup finals. I tried looking for news on the BBC, but handball doesn't feature even in their 'other sports...' category. OK then. No doubt I'll hear tomorrow what the result is. Of course, I might hear later this evening if the town goes mad because they win. Never mind, I'm sure that I can hold on until tomorrow. Nevertheless, Go Iceland!

Meanwhile, snaffled from a friend elsewhere, this had me laughing aloud again. It all makes so much sense when you read it. Forget Luke or Leia being the 'New Hope', it's really all about R2-D2 and Chewbacca...
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My head feels as if it's full of syrup. Or maybe glycerine.

I remember glycerine - we used it in a second-year physics lab, wherein we had a very large measuring cylinder full of the stuff into which we dropped ball bearings and timed how long they took to reach the ground. I fairly sure that the aim was to measure the viscosity of the glycerine, but I just remember watching the balls fall slowly to the bottom of the cylinder. And someone tasting the glycerine, but that wasn't me.

The cold has reached the point where I generally feel much better but my head is rather congested. The sort of congestion which, not matter how much you sniff or sneeze, your air passages feel as if there's a liquid layer closing over them at the end of every breath. As if you could almost swallow the gloop but it never quite makes it far enough down your throat. But enough grossness.

Other than working on lectures today, I've listened to a variety of Radio 4 documentaries, watched a Midsomer Murder and done a bit more beading. Nothing spectacular, just another bracelet, but it's vaguely creative all the same. I've also finally got back to doing some embroidery again over the last couple of days after doing nothing for about three months. It's quite bright and cheerful and should look good as a hanging rather than as a framed picture.

So it's been a weekend of short burst of different things. Not too bad, given that I'm still not 100%. I will be back in work tomorrow.
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Although possibly a little bit cruel.

I've just completed two and a half hours of work writing a lecture. (Yes, thankfully I'm feeling rather better today than I have for the last few.) I like to time myself by half-hour science documentaries while doing this, and today I've been catching up on Radio 4's Frontiers series. What gave me my second fit of laughter of the day was the presenter talking to a man who suffers from amusia.

Amusia is nothing to do with lacking a sense of humour, but rather what most people know by it's older name of tone deafness. The chap being interviewed was a retired Anglican clergyman from Cornwall, for whom amusia had proved quite a problem in his professional life. As a boy he'd been told not to sing along on school and rugby team buses. When he went to college he had to spend two terms, rather than the normal one learning how to lead a congregation in the intoned version of the communion service. While in the army he would find someone else to lead the singing of the favoured hymn, Onward, Christian soldiers. By this point in the interview I was grinning uncontrollably, so when he then demonstrated his 'ability' by singing pairs of notes played on the piano by the presenter I gave up and just laughed aloud.

I know this sounds a little bit cruel, but the way he told the story was very amusing. The programme is available online here, as is a link to a test run as part of a University of Newcastle upon Tyne research study on amusia. If you think that you may be tone-deaf then they would like to hear form you. The test (I did it out of curiosity) takes about a quarter of an hour.

The first fit of laughter was upon reading an article on monocycles linked linked to by a friend. A monocycle is basically a big wheel within which the cyclist sits as he or she pedals his or her merry way along the road. These things are generally about 1.8 to 2m in diameter and have a recognised problem with brakes: if you brake too hard you may begin to gerbill. Gerbilling gets its name from the fact that if you put a gerbil in a hamster wheel, the gerbill will end up going round and round rather than staying in one place, simply because the gerbill runs faster than a hamster would. The very idea of monocyclists sharply applying the breaks and subsequently ending up upside down inside their cycles had me in hysterics. For your amusement, I present the link in question.
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Bored now.

I hate being ill. In spite of the lemsips I have a continuous headache, sore throat, stiff neck and general malaise. I have work to do, dammit! I can't just stay here being ill. Actually I did climb out of my pit today to go shopping - I was running out of milk and other basics so I decided that I'd have to haul myself out to the car. As it's been snowing quite a lot recently I was expecting to have to remove a foot of snow from the top but someone (I suspect my wonderful neighbour Jóhann, who also popped by last night to see if I was okay because the car hadn't moved for a couple of weekdays) had cleared the snow off the roof. It was then just a few shovelsfull of snow to dig the car itself out. I suspect that I might have been able to just drive out without the need to shift the snow but as I'm still a bit paranoid about driving through the white stuff I though I'd better shift it just in case.

Shopping was necessary but not enjoyable. I came back and went to sleep. I've been doing a lot of the sleep thing. I think I'm going to go to bed once I've finished writing this... or maybe once the current episode of Robin of Sherwood has ended. :) I picked up the first two seasons at Christmas and although it's over twenty years old it's much better than the recent one. Even if Robin will insist on running around with a permanently strung bow.
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As I'm still feeling sufficiently bleurgh that I've done nothing more exciting than sleep and watch The Simpsons DVDs today, here's one I made earlier. :)

Actually I made most of these last week but only got around to photographing them today. I'm sure that I've seen similar designs on Italian Renaissance paintings but I can't remember where - if anyone recognises them I'd be interested to hear. The red necklace will eventually have a bracelet to go with it, but the blue and green bracelets are gifts for various non-LJ friends.

I'm going to have to go hunting for images of pre-1600 beaded jewellery. It would be nice to make these things so that they would be SCA-compatible, because then I could give them to my SCA friends as well as my other friends. In the meantime I've subscribed to Bead, the new British beading magazine on the grounds that having a British magazine with British ads is a good thing. OK, so it's not up to the standard of Bead and Button but it is brand new. Thinking of which, I ordered some stuff from Fire Mountain Gems at the end of last week, which arrived today by FedEx. Now that the stuff has arrived I can start on next year's Christmas presents. I am determined to get organised this year rather than leaving it until December as usual.

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I love a good disaster movie.

I think it's watching everything that can go wrong, go wrong. The best ones, of course, are natural disasters, where humanity discovers that the world can be a very nasty place. One of these is one of my all-time favourite films, The Andromeda Strain. Today was a day for wallowing in my pit and watching DVDs (when not asleep, of course) and this was one of those I'd brought back with me after Christmas, and over the last couple of days I've polished off Ultraviolet, a couple of Midsomer Murders, some Dangermouse and now this. It occurs to me that The Andromeda Strain is a film that could be remade today - I'd rather like to see it with modern science, modern equipment, modern effects and modern paranoia.

The icebug is proceeding towards the drippy stage. I'm incapable of holding a conversation without breaking into an unpleasant cough so not being at work is definitely a good idea. I doubt I'll get back this week, although I'll see how I feel tomorrow evening. I'm planning to get well as soon as possible. :)

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I have the lurgy.

My students tell me that many people over here had a rather unpleasant lurgy over the holiday - one of them was even hospitalised for it. Now I'm not planning to go that far, but I've definitely caught something since I've returned here. I went into work this morning and only managed a couple of hours before giving up and coming home again. My day has been spent mainly in bed feeling grotty.

I've cancelled my lecture tomorrow in the hope that I'll be okay again for Friday, but I'll see how I feel then and may have to cancel that one too - I can always make them up later on, and given that we have a visiting lecturer doing some of the lectures later in the semester we'll have to tweak the timetable a bit anyway. I think that if I tried to give a lecture at present it would be an interesting wager as to which failed first, my voice or the rest of me. So instead I'm curled up with a duvet and a hot drink.
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None of these words describes my new duvet cover.

It's mainly bright blue, except for those sections which depict a rather large (though not quite life-sized) Asterix and Obelix. In my defence I must say that it was not my first choice of design. Rúmfatalagerinn only had Arsenal and Chelsea football ones and the Batman one was a bit insipid. This one is bright, bold, and probably aimed at ten-year-olds. Do I care? Of course not.

I'm looking forward to crawling under the duvet tonight, as the traditional start-of-term bug has caught up with me. My throat is raw, my voice is somewhere down in my moonboots and my head would rather be someone else's right not. I've broken out the Strepsils I picked up in the UK at the beginning of the winter and am enjoying regular soothing sweets. Tonight I may also be forced to open up the Sudafed to go with it.

While I'm under my duvet I suspect that I'll be wondering how much snow I'll have to sweep off the car tomorrow. It was about six inches this morning, all of which fell last night. One advantage of this, though, is that although there's a lot to brush off the windows and roof (a legal requirement, I'm told, to prevent it blinding or hitting cars behind you) it does keep the inside of the car warm enough that you don't end up with a layer of ice on the inside of the windscreen. That inner layer is particularly frustrating as the curve of the windscreen is such that neither my small hand scraper nor my larger scraper-cum-brush nor even my large extendable brush-cum-scraper are of an appropriate curve to remove more than two parallel lines of ice at any one time.

It also occurred to me as I was scronching through the snow in the car park that the proportion of Brits who've ever experienced snow like this must be quite low and, as my colleague Phill suggested, falling. That's a shame, as it is quite beautiful. Everyone should walk through snow like this at least once in a lifetime.
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My 'couple of hours' became five.

But we did get a lot done - it's not actually a big problem, and the three of us who were there today could probably write the whole thing in a month if we wanted to. Or if we all had the time to take a month out, and if we were paid decent short-term contract rates. :) I've said I'll pop in late tomorrow afternoon but I've got meetings and so forth to deal with during the day. And I really must talk about them actually paying me consultancy for this thing now that there's funding available.

Apart from that I'm weary. I suspect it's the intense week and the lack of a weekend that's done it. I plan to get an early night tonight in the hope of regenerating some energy in time for the work merry-go-round tomorrow.
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Both at once.

It's proving to be a non-weekend here. While I was in the office yesterday Halldor from Teikn dropped by with one of our Arctic Portal consultants, Phill, to see if I was free to drop in for talks and beer later on Friday afternoon. As a result I didn't get back home last night until after 21:00 - which was a long day given that I started lecturing at 08:00 and didn't seem to stop - and I went in to Teikn at 14:00 today 'for a couple of hours'. That 'couple of hours' turned into a five-hour session.

Eventually, though, we gave up and went out to the Lagoon at Mývatn to unwind. It's only an hour and a bit away, and open until 22:00 so it's something you can do in an evening. As I wasn't driving it meant that I could drink, and the beer began flowing in the car on the way there. We arrived just after 20:00 and found the pool empty, although come 21:00 it started to fill up with families including small children, which was a bit strange. It was also very very cold out of the water. :) This was one of these situations where you walk barefoot across the snow and ice from the changing room to the pool and you're very glad to get into the heat of the pool. We were warned to be careful as it was a bit slippery - this is normal, as there's water all over the place, but slippery tonight meant beware of the two inches of solid ice.

This being Iceland, the beer continued to flow during our soak. I seldom drink beer, and I've certainly never drunk it while lounging in a hot pool before. The rules of the pool are that you're not allowed to bring your own alcohol but must instead buy it at the pool bar. Plastic glasses only, of course, and floating metal trays. The air (and the wind) was cold enough to keep the beer cool in spite of the heat rising off the water. The heat, of course, produced a certain amount of fog which obscured the sky somewhat, but it was still the clearest night I have ever seen. On the way back we stopped off at Ljósvatn, surrounded by complete darkness and a ring of mountains, and the skies were so full of stars that it seemed quite unreal. We didn't remain stopped for too long as it was so cold outside.

I baled out from the late-night pizza as I'd had a rather long and tiring day, but I'm going back in tomorrow to get the database design out of the way so that Phill can implement it on Monday. But this time I really am only going to do a couple of hours.
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... With the whiteboard heat of technology.

This morning I had an encounter with a strange new machine - the permanently-white electronic whiteboard. Now I must say, I've always been pretty confident that I'm up-to-date on presentation technology. I can do fully animated powerpoints with clickable areas, external links and all that, and that I can use them without subjecting my students to death by powerpoint. OK, so I haven't quite got the timing right for Computer Architecture yet, but it's the first time I've taught that course and it's always a bit off first time around.

The lecture today was in the main building rather than in our lab or the lecture room on our floor. In this building they have all sorts of presentation gadgetry, including the video lecture kit and things for taking snap shots of the whiteboard (although our lecture room may have one too I've never seen it used or used it myself, and we certainly don't have one in the lab). I went into the lecture room this morning, started up the computer, turned on the projector and began to lecture as usual. My peripheral vision had confirmed that there were pen-things on the shelf below the whiteboard, so when I came to write on the board I was a little surprised to find nothing happening.

It turns out that the room had a very strange new electronic whiteboard. In order to use it you not only have to have the computer and the projector turned on but you also have to run some software to start it up. When you pick up the pen the shelf recognised which pen has been picked up and tells the computer which colour to use. The pen is actually just a stylus, and although you use it to write on the board once you've picked it up you can equally well write with your finger, a ruler or any other pointed object. Nothing appears on the surface of the board but instead appears projected over your powerpoint. You can then capture your scribblings including any powerpoint background. Or, I presume, if you're recording the presentation then your scribblings are also recorded.

This was such an interesting new toy that I spent the mid-lecture coffee break investigating how the thing works. It turns out that if you pick up two pens and try to write with them both at once (which I did by writing my name on the board with both pens simultaneously, slightly freaking out my students) then the pen which was picked up last is the active one. It's all based upon which part of the shelf is active, not which pen you use, which is a little disconcerting as it means that if you pick up a pen in one hand and the eraser (a separate object) in the other, you can't write with one hand and erase with the other. If you picked up the pen last then when you try to rub something out with the eraser you end up drawing a line instead. It's a little disconcerting and takes a bit of getting used to.

I don't know how often we'll be using that room, as we filled it today with me and twelve students. I'm also going to have to set my mobile alarm to make sure that I don't overrun in future, as they have to cross from one building to the other for a lecture next period in our lab and they were a bit late today. Oops.
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One advantage of supervising student projects is the strange things you learn.

Take today, for instance. I marked all of my students' interim reports for their final year projects. I had seen a lot of the content before, as I always offer to read through an early draft and give some suggestions on how to improve it, but there's normally something new and interesting that appears in the final drafts. Amongst the day's project-related gems of wisdom were the following interesting facts:

• Not all of Iceland has geothermal hot water. In some areas mainly in the north west and south east - known as 'cold' areas - residents have to use electrically-powered water heaters instead. The government subsidises these people so as to ensure that everyone all over the country pays similar heating bills.


• There are several companies who make peripherals for Lego Mindstorms such as magnetic compasses.


• It is very difficult to tell a male salmon from a female salmon until the fish is about a year old.


• The current major shipping cargo manifest software comes in two versions which are mutually incompatible to the extent that you need to perform some tasks in one and others in the other. The second is an upgrade of the first.

I'm glad to say that the reports ranged from the good to the excellent, which is always something of a relief to a supervisor. It looks like we're going to have some really good projects at the end of this year.

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For I too have a big ball.

Although mine is green rather than orange and it's a little bit smaller than hers. What am I babbling on about? Well, I had a discussion with Kate (Kate of wedding fame) while I was in England. She is a personal trainer by profession (it's more fulfilling than being either an accountant or an accountancy lecturer, it seems) and so I thought I'd pick her brains for some technical information. Like what would be a good exercise DVD for someone with semi-functional knees? Her recommendation was to try one of the ones with the big balls as they take part of your weight and are good for low-impact exercise. She didn't suggest a specific one but pointed me at the website of one of the makers of these superballs, www.gaiam.com, so I had a look with a view to ordering one and the accompanying DVD when I got back over here.

Then I went into Borders in Liverpool and there was a DVD from Gaiam in the sale, specifically about exercise for weight loss. Well, actually my eating patterns are relatively good nowadays so I thought that maybe if I was a bit less of a couch potato I'd get a bit healthier and maybe help the knee problem (I've given up on the shoulder and am trying not to think about the hands). One of my sporty students pointed me in the direction of a sports shop and, lo and behold, I now have an exercise ball. So far I've exercised my arms quite a lot with the manual pump inflating the thing (through three Dangermouse stories) although I did eventually capitulate and break out the electrical pump - the ball is 65cm in diameter so it's quite large. I've also satisfied myself that I can sit on it without it exploding - although I did buy the 'anti-burst' one just in case. Silly photos may yet make an appearance.

The sports shop is just around the corner from the health shop whence I bought my BodyClock, so I thought I'd pop in and tell them how wonderful it was proving. The woman therein was absolutely delighted - I imagine it's always good to hear of a effective natural treatment, and she'll now be able to tell other customers of its success. I know that a couple of folks up here with whom I've discussed it are seriously thinking of buying their own BodyClocks as a result. Personal recommendations can be so useful.
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In spite of the vaguaries of Manchester airport's security system and my normal cynicism about the timekeeping abilities of Icelandic airlines, I actually got into Keflavík on time and was in my hotel room by 1:00. I'd managed to find a good deal at Hotel Cabin, outside of the city centre, and I'll certainly be staying there again. The price goes up to the summer level in mid-April, but even then it's not too bad. I really must just learn to stop automatically converting things to sterling - the exchange rate makes high prices look truly horrendous.

The hotel is basic but comfortable and has both BBC2 and Sky News... although it's clearly the Irish version, as all of the adverts are in Euros, have Irish-accented voice-overs and refer to shops in Dublin. Very strange, but acceptable in a hotel room. I slept very well and actually had breakfast where there was, sitting amongst the cereals, a large bowl of what I assumed was skyr together with several fruit compotes to go with it. When I've had skyr before it has always been the fruity type that comes in individual portions rather than the traditional type that you serve from a bowl. The traditional skyr is much more fluid and does taste of cheese. I was originally astounded to discover that skyr was a cheese rather than a yoghurt as in the commercial fruity ones you certainly can't taste anything at all cheese-like. The natural version has quite a sharp taste that goes very well with stewed apples. I know that you can get skyrcake that's similar to cheesecake so I must see if I can find a recipe and try it.

I'm now sitting in the domestic airport awaiting my flight up north. It was supposed to be over an hour ago but the plane developed a technical fault and we've been bumped onto the next scheduled flight at 13:15. Even the glorified bus-station that is Reykjavík domestic airport has internet access, although it's not free as it is at Keflavik. I think that I may be able to access it as part of my phone service but I'll have to check up on that one.

In the meantime I'm waiting here and seeing the probability of my making it to an Arctic Portal meeting with the Foreign Minister this afternoon dwindling into insignificance. Never mind - Björk will let me know if anything earthshaking has happened. So long as I get into the office in time to print off the lecture notes to hand out at my 08:10 lecture tomorrow I'll be happy. And happier still to sit down this evening embroidery in hand on my own sofa, watching one of my latest DVD acquisitions.
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Who's a real knight, not a pretend one. :)

It was all over yesterday's news coverage that it was the 650th edition of The Sky At Night and that Sir Patrick Moore was annoyed that the BBC had chosen to put its one remaining intelligent science programme on at almost two in the morning. I dutifully set my alarm clock for 01:55 and watched it on principle. It hadn't struck me until this point quite how large the ISS is, so I clearly learned something from the experience, which is a Good Thing.

I'm currently writing this at Manchester airport which, unlike Keflavík, doesn't have free internet access. Or internet access at all. And, although there was no problem taking my slightly-overweight two suitcases through check-in (clearly they're used to people returning to Iceland with a lot of luggage and as I'm travelling in my blue and white Icelandic cardigan I'm clearly returning), there was a moment of frustration just before security. I had carefully packed everything so that all of my computer stuff was in my laptop bag, and all of my travelling stuff was in my shoulder bag (which conforms to the tighter hand luggage regulations during last year's security alert). Not good enough. I could only take one bag through security and had to hold my laptop, unbagged, seperately. They did tell me that if I could get my empty laptop bag into my other bag then I could take it though.

It was something of a squeeze, but I managed to get everything into my shoulder bag and slip the folded laptop bag under its flap. Both were x-rayed seperately without any problem. When I asked one of the security chaps if I had to carry my laptop like this for the rest of the flight he told me that no, I could just put it back in my bag. After all, I could buy bags of stuff in duty free. The one-bag policy was just to speed things up going through security, and he thought it was a crazy idea making people do this anyway. I don't think that they could have speeded up security - it was empty when I went through.

So I'm sitting here in the departure lounge where it's not even 20:00 and almost all of the duty free shops and the coffee shops are closed. My inner Scouser is telling me (in my mother's voice) that this is just the sort of thing you'd expect from Manchester. At least the flight still appears to be on time and I bought the new Frederick Forsyth and Phillipa Gregory novels in WHSmith, so not all is bad.
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Today was so slow it hardly seems worth writing anything.

All I've done is write lectures. I now know more about primary memory than I ever thought possible. I suppose that's a side effect of being able to pick up a course quickly. At least I now understand the memory I added to my laptop last week, and I know the difference between PC2700 and PC800, and why it's not necessarily as great as it sounds.

Other than that... I had a chocolate eclair with lunch, which has been the highlight of the day so far.

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All those in favour of a revolution tomorrow say "Fulham".

Over lunch I've just been reading the Review section of the paternal Daily Telegraph. Within it I found a rather interesting article on a forthcoming Channel 4 production, The Trial of Tony Blair - set in 2010 it follows Our Glorious Leader once he's left office and is being brought to trial in the Internatinal Criminal Court for the waging of an illegal war in Iraq. I'm going to have to try to get hold of a copy of it as I'm sure it will make amusing viewing.

What particularly struck me is that Tony is being played by Robert Lindsey, an actor who came to prominence on British television playing Wolfie Smith in the series Citizen Smith. Wolfie was a Trotskyite working tirelessly towards the overthrow of the capitalist system with hilarious schemes but rather limited success. Lindsay then went on to play city labour city council leader Michael Murray in C4's GBH, an Alan Bleasdale tale of the impact of a loony left council on the schools under its control (inspired by the events in Liverpool under Militant which seriously affected the school attended by Bleasdale's daughter). Now Lindsay is playing the figurehead of New Labour.

I find it interesting that you could view these characters as thirty years of the Labour party - it has gone from idealistic out of power, militant once in power locally, and finally corrupt when in power nationally. Of course, New Labour would have no room for Smith - socialism isn't exactly a New Labour ideal - but I could imagine an older and more bitter Wolfie signing up with George Galloway. Murray, on the other hand, could have slipped chameleon-like into the new regime.

Me, cynical? Naaah....
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I'm not in Ireland, but I have finished the latest lecture.

This is almost certainly better for my continued state of mental well-being, as I know that if I was in Dublin I'd be worrying that I really ought to be writing lectures instead. Of course nothing is ever quite that easy, and I've realised that I'll have to rewrite the labs I was planning a bit to use the Windows debug tool but that's not too bad. I just feel a bit guilty about getting a phone call from someone wondering where I was as I wasn't at the airport. In my defence I'd emailed my timing details a couple of weeks ago and hadn't got a reply so I assumed that I'd be picked up as part of a group. Not only that but I have been trying to get through to Gonz all day to ask him to pass on my apologies.

As well as this burst of real work I've also taken down the Christmas tree, rationalised all of the Christmas decorations into one box (when I bought the new box Dad was convinced it was about four times the size we needed... but then he found the four other boxes of stuff that he hadn't realised had been used), sorted out what's to go to charity shops and what interesting Malaysian stuff can go to eBay in time for Chinese New Year if Kayte has the time.

Which is not guaranteed. She's just back from Las Vegas where she had a great time and even managed to make a profit on the slot machines. She didn't get married out there, although I was ready for that just in case. For years now she's threatened that if she ever got the urge to marry then she'd do it in a drive-through chapel in Las Vegas just to avoid any fuss over here. So when she said that she and her partner Chris (who I've still never met) were going to Las Vegas for a few days I did begin to wonder. Instead she had a short break now because she's not likely to get anything else for some time as she's changing job next month. She's off to manage the Jongleurs Comedy Club in Nottingham, I believe. Which should be interesting - going from a pub that has it's own pole (for dancing) to its own stage for stand-up comedy. I must remember to visit her once the ban on smoking in public places comes into force in England.
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Someone, somewhere, has given me their cold.

I've been sneezing a bit over New Year, but nothing major. Today, however, I'm suffering from an assortment of coughs, sneezes AND a really unpleasant sinus headache. One of those where your eyes ache as well as everything else. There is no way I'm going to be happy flying tomorrow, so this pretty much wraps it up for Coronation. A part of me is glad to be given an excuse rather than having to have made a positive decision, but I'm feeling guilty about not seeing people, particularly Fran and Gonz.

I've spent quite a while today writing a lecture, but as it takes roughly four hours to write a single lecture I'm still quite a way behind. My aim now is to get four hours worth of lectures written before I go back to Iceland - that's two weeks worth which, together with the labs that I can cannibalise from a previous course, will take me to the half-way point of the module. If I can stay four to six weeks ahead I'll be satisfied, although I'd have been much happier if I'd finished everything before the start of the semester. I've still got the homeworks and tutorials to write, but they're reasonably straightforward.

Back to work.
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That's the distance from St. Andrews to Liverpool, give or take a mile or two.

And that's all I've done today, really. I had coffee with the Harrises, took Jamie and two friends to Leuchars, and then drove south. The weather in Scotland wasn't too bad, but as soon as I hit the northern Lake District things started getting nasty. Eventually I gave up and stopped at Tebay for an hour while the wind and rain abated. It was quite interesting watching the plate glass windows in the cafeteria wobbling as the wind took them, and listening to the assorted howls and creaks that went with it.

Of course a long drive is a dangerous thing, as it gives me too much time to think. I've been thinking about the amount of work I've managed to get done during this vacation and it's nowhere near what I wanted to do. OK, so I've also set up Dad's network, sorted out several machine problems and even met up with friends, but I should probably have taken the textbook up north too so that I could work during the mornings at Wayside. This has left me with something of a problem - I could go spend the next day and a half writing a lecture (which is about how long it'll take to write one) and head to Coronation in Dublin, or I can skip Coronation and get another couple of lectures done.

I suspect I'm going to miss Coronation. The detailed course material is new to me, and having seen how much time I've actually had over the last semester to write lectures I really need to get as much done ahead of the semester as possible. At least the flights were only £30, and that was mainly taxes, so I'm not taking a bit hit on it. Maybe one day, when I leave Iceland, I'll have time to play SCA again, but right now I'm just too busy work-wise.
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This was one of the two books I finished today.

That's Not My Train is not a book that I'd normally read, but when an enthusiastic two-year-old comes over, sits down beside you and expects you to read to her it would be terribly impolite not to. :) And Beth's both sweeter and better behaved than the average small child I've seen (much kudos to Toby and Kate in that respect), so that was okay. The book itself was a little confusing at first - it took me a couple of pages to work out who was the narrator, as the small white mouse in question is quite small compared to the various trains, but I got there in the end.

The second book was A Wind From The South by Diane Duane. I noticed on her blog that it had just been made a free download so I grabbed it as something light to read over the holiday. I'm a sucker for her stuff ever since My Enemy, My Ally was in the first batch of four Star Trek novels I bought at the SF bookshop in Edinburgh in my first year at university. It's been one of my favourites ever since, and also makes a darned good RPG scenario (I got to play Ael as the GM and I were the only people who'd read it). When I went into the Paperbook Backshop in Lancaster in search of one of her fantasy novels the chap therein was amazed that there was anyone who read Star Trek novels who also read other things. :)

I then spent this evening doing more book-related things - being a tame boffin for Bob, coming up with science-based ideas for his next young adult book, a science fantasy set on Mars. That and watching the Giants v. the Redskins on video, which was a good way to wind down at the end of the day
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May 2007 be better than 2006.

I was not sad to see the end of 2006, given all that happened last year. I sincerely hope that this year is a lot better. As usual we did the great gift-giving before lunch, which always takes an hour or so as there are twelve of us. After that we settled in to chat and play games - the normal festivities of the season. Then finally off to Andrew's New Year party. I always look forward to this as nowadays it's the only chance I have to see some people, and as well as the ususal suspects this year I also got to meet in the flesh people with whom I normally only interact with online.

So a happy new year to you all.

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