Subtle Signs of Spring

I know I may seem obsessed with searching for spring, but for those who don't live in an area with long winters (even with this year's most unusual winter) - the lack of colour for so many months can be depressing. The grass is slowly greening up and I spotted these buds - a hint of green.



While the sight of the trees beginning to flower may not be greeted with joy by those with pollen allergies, to me it heralds the beginning of growth and green.



I'm still seeing mainly crocuses but there is promise of daffodils coming soon. The weather is heating up. Spring will go into fast forward.

Stream of Consciousness

This graffiti seemed a fitting way to illustrate stream of consciousness - ideas popping into the artist's head. I've just come from a study group at MCLL on "From Modernism to Absurdism: Joyce and Beckett." It takes me out of my comfort zone. I am usually a low-risk person - forgoing skydiving, bungie-jumping for much tamer pursuits. But when it comes to education - I take more risks. When I was teaching I got involved in online projects long before the current trend (my first online exchange was pre WWW in 1986 when I organized and helped facilitate an exchange between a class in Montreal and one in Puvirnituq. I got students involved in robotics back in the 1990s. These kinds of risks I can handle

I love to read and I love to go to see plays. I've enjoyed some Joyce in the past (though not his tomes),  but Beckett!  - I just didn't understand him. So this study group is definitely a risk for me - a place where I feel confused, that I have a lack of expertise, that I don't know how to read despite my love of reading. I've jumped in - in a very supportive setting, where laughter and wit accompany discussion and dissection of the texts. Who knows, I may come to love Beckett. I'm waiting to see.

First Signs of Spring -again

Our on again off again spring has appeared again. First signs - take 2. After the polar vortex and another brief reappearance of winter yesterday morning, spring is once again trying to take hold.



I always like the appearance of scilla. They are tentatively showing their colour, not yet blanketing lawns.

Winter Morning in April

Photos: April 11, 2016

It's that time of year when we seem to have several seasons in one day. The morning was winter with everything covered with snow. By the time I took this photograph around 9:15 rain was falling. By mid-day the snow had virtually disappeared.



These bird apartments encourage purple martins to set up house. They help keep the bug population down. This area is next to the St. Lawrence River and is a favourite spot for shad flies.

Spring is coming - it is just taking its time to really settle in.

Fact into Fiction

I am currently reading Vanessa and her Sister by Priya Parmar. The other books are on my "to be read" pile. I like books that make me look things up, to learn more about the subject - whether it is finding out more about historical situations, learning more about a country in which the book takes place or finding out about people who were included in the story. Vanessa and her Sister is a fictionalized account of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf - the Stephen sisters. The many characters in the book were real people - part of the Bloomsbury group. I have searched on the internet for paintings done by Bell that have been mentioned in the book, checked on the lives of some of the people in the novel and I feel this enriches my experience of the book. So far I am enjoying it, but a piece of me wants to know how much is based on truth and how much veers from reality.

I read Us Conductors, by Sean Michaels, which is a novel about Leon Theremin. I enjoyed finding out more about who he was (the inventor of the theremin among other things) but was put off by some events in the book that were far from the truth of Theremin's life. While Michaels makes it clear that this is a novel, it bothers me that people reading it may believe these events; I had to research to separate the truths from the fiction.

At what point should an author just be writing fiction and not use the names and lives of real people - a question I ask myself as I read.

Architecture

When I walk, I gawk - at flowers, at public art, at architecture. Today it was the latter. This neighbourhood has houses of every vintage. The original homes had large lots and, in this case, a second house was built onto the first (its entrance is at the side). It just doesn't work for me - the architecture is obviously of different eras; the bricks don't really match. In some cases, parts of lots were sold off and homes of a totally different vintage and style were squeezed into the smaller space between the original homes.



But it is not just homes from different eras that feel mismatched. This, too is not one but two homes. The one on the right also has its entrance on the side, not totally unusual for this street. From the front it looks so insignificant compared to the home on the left with the massive front porch and overhang. It feels off balanced to me.

I think of the architecture of the Renaissance where emphasis was on symmetry and balance. While I don't necessarily want to go back to other aspects of the Renaissance style - I would like to see a little more balance. Am I being too critical?

At the End of a Day

A long day of being mired in paperwork - preparing all my papers for tax time. It's enough to put knots in anyone's belly. I made good progress, but dinner followed by a decaf cappuccino was a fitting end to the day. Time to forget about numbers and details and just relax.