Today my classroom received an interesting visitor. A huntsman spider wandered into the classroom from the garden outside. Huntsman spiders visit quite regularly. Some of them happily live in the eaves while others inhabit the spaces behind the loose bark on the eucalyptus trees.

I think this huntsman is a Delena cancerides of the family Sparassidae. I have also seen the family referred to as Heteropodidae. There seems to be a conflict among the taxonomists.

Links:

Huntsman spiders at the Australian Museum
Wikipedia entry: Huntsman spiders
Huntsman
Huntsman spiders at home: Outside | Inside |

Few days back Clay Burell began a meme, Bullying then, Successful Now. I responded with a comment on Clay’s blog. I recounted an experience that still impacts upon me to this day. Once again, as I consider the events of that year the ninth floor of a particular building and an almost empty room spring to mind. I decided to just call this post Bullying Then… as opposed to Bullying Then, Successful Now. I have not quite completed the journey through to the other side.

I made reference to an album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds called The Boatman Calls in my comment. One track from the album, Into My Arms, is particularly special for me. In fact music has always been important for me. It has helped me get through some, let’s say, interesting experiences.

Clay responded within the comments and asked if I could reproduce the lyrics that did it for me. I do so here. These are extracts from the lyrics.

People Ain’t No Good

People just ain’t no good
I think that’s welll understood
You can see it everywhere you look
People just ain’t no good

It ain’t that in their hearts they’re bad
They can comfort you, some even try
They nurse you when you’re ill of health
They bury you when you go and die
It ain’t that in their hearts they’re bad
They’d stick by you if they could
But that’s just bullsh*t
People just ain’t no good

People they ain’t no good
People they ain’t no good
People they ain’t no good
People they ain’t no good at all

Into My Arms

I don’t believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
To leave you as you are
And if He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms

Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms

And I don’t believe in the existence of angels
But looking at you I wonder if that’s true
But if I did I would summon them together
And ask them to watch over you
To each burn a candle for you
To make bright and clear your path
And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love
And guide you into my arms

Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms

And I believe in Love
And I know that you do too
And I believe in some kind of path
That we can walk down, me and you
So keep your candlew burning
And make her journey bright and pure
That she will keep returning
Always and evermore

Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms

Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?

I’ve felt you coming girl, as you drew near
I knew you’d find me, cause I longed you here
Are you my desitiny? Is this how you’ll appear?
Wrapped in a coat with tears in your eyes?
Well take that coat babe, and throw it on the floor
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

As you’ve been moving surely toward me
My soul has comforted and assured me
That in time my heart it will reward me
And that all will be revealed
So I’ve sat and I’ve watched an ice-age thaw
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built
Out of longing great wonders have been willed
They’re only little tears, darling, let them spill
And lay your head upon my shoulder
Outside my window the world has gone to war
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

O we will know, won’t we?
The stars will explode in the sky
O but they don’t, do they?
Stars have their moment and then they die

There’s a man who spoke wonders though I’ve never met him
He said, “He who seeks finds and who knocks will be let in”
I think of you in motion and just how close you are getting
And how every little thing anticipates you
All down my veins my heart-strings call
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

Black Hair

Last night my kisses were banked in black hair
And in my bed, my lover, her hair was midnight black
And all her mystery dwelled within her black hair
And her black hair framed a happy heart-shaped face

And heavy-hooded eyes inside her black hair
Shined at me frome the depths of her hair of deepest black
While my fingers pushed into her straight black hair
Pulling her black hair back from her happy heart-shaped face

To kiss her milk-white throat, a dark curtain of black hair
Smothered me, my lover with her beautiful black hair
The smell of it is heavy. It is charged with life
On my fingers the smell of her deep black hair

Full of all my whispered words, her black hair
And wet with tears and good-byes, her hair of deepest black
All my tears cried against her milk-white throat
Hidden behind the curtain of her beautiful black hair

As deep as ink and black, black as the deepest sea
The smell of her black hair upon my pillow
Where her head and all its black hair did rest
Today she took a train to the West
Today she took a train to the West
Today she took a train to the West

Lime Tree Arbour

The boatman calls from the lake
A lone loon dives upon the water
I put my hand over her
Down in the lime tree arbour

The wind in the trees is whispering
Whispering low that I love her
She puts her hand over mine
Down in the lime tree arbour

Through every breath that I breathe
And every place I go
There is hand that protects me
And I do love her so

There will always be suffering
It flows through life like water
I put my hand over hers
Down in the lime tree arbour

The boatman he has gone
And the loons have flown for cover
She puts her hand over mine
Down in the lime tree arbour

Through every word that I speak
And every thing I know
There is hand that protects me
And I do love her so

All words and music by Nick Cave.

Links

Nick Cave / Bad Seed.org
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nick Cave Online

I have began a page of bullying links. I would like to add more. Can you suggest any?

Have been doing a little work on the site about my dad, Francis Xavier Larkin Snr. Added some additional links and corrected a few others this week. Presently in the process of gathering together some students to work on a similar project.

Do you have relatives who also experienced the trials and tribulations of war? Would love to hear about them.

Can my friends in the United States please confirm the following for me ~ Are backyard clotheslines really banned in some states or cities? Is it simply a local council edict or recommendation? I was amused to read about this in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning.

I wonder if there are similar regulations in some of the newer gated communities and elitist suburbs of Australia? Anyone know? When I lived in an apartment here in Australia residents were not allowed to hang out washing on their balcony as it would make the building look ugly. I was on the top floor so I could get away with it. Only visitors could see that I was breaking the strata rules of the estate [The body corporate of this estate annoyed me. One year I collected as many proxy votes as I possibly could from absent landlords. At the annual general meeting I voted myself in as President and Treasurer of the estate's body corporate organisation and simply voted against a number of the more contentious and costly proposals. The busy-body clique that used to 'run the show' were not amused.]

In the article, Getting pegged for letting it all hang out,  Ian Munro, reporting from Connecticut, writes how it is illegal to have a clothesline in one’s backyard in some parts of the United States. Attempts to have clotheslines legalised have failed as some residents are fearful that property values will drop.

Mr Munro writes that “Electric clothes dryers represent about 6 per cent of domestic power consumption, according to official estimates, and while the world searches for responses to global warming, Mrs Vocke points to her backyard, wind and solar power.” This brought home to me the usefulness and intrinsic value of the old backyard clothesline.

A quick bit of research revealed that clotheslines are clearly not illegal across all of the USA. This colourful site, Mrs Clothesline ~ A Celebration of Clothesline Culture, features a gallery of clotheslines with titles such as Shadow Line, Pretty in Pink and Midnight Love.

Clotheslines are a feature of the backyard here in Australia. Some of you may be familiar with the Hills rotary clothes hoist, invented right here in Australia. We used to hang from these as kids while a friend or sibling spun you around at high speed. It was a great way to demonstrate centrifugal force and also gravity for the smaller children. Are you reading this Dan? [Centrifugal force is not a real force apparently. I learnt something new today.]

Our rotary clothesline, sans clothes, with a kookaburra on the lookout.

Well, the anti-clotheslines brigade in other parts of the world would need to get used to the backyards of Australia if they ever moved here and I wonder how they would cope with the clotheslines of Singapore and Hong Kong? The clothing poles that project from beneath the kitchen windows or laundry areas of the high rise residential buildings cannot be missed.

Laundry drying, Singapore.
Photograph by OtoPhoto. Some rights reserved.

HDB flats with clotheslines, Singapore.
Photograph by ton2fig. Some rights reserved.

HDB block, Singapore. Some rights reserved.

The clotheslines in Singapore helped to break up the lines or form of the buildings and always added colour to the environment. Quite often they were the first indication of a change in the weather as the first hints of a breeze caused the sheets to flutter to and fro. It was always fascinating to watch nearly all of them disappear from view as the rain clouds approached.

I am not too sure what is the point of this blog post. Shao Ping and I hang out and collect the washing together. We also rush out to save it when a storm blows in. Do you have any interesting or colourful clothesline images from around the world?

Been meaning to write this post for a week or so now. The return to school and a bout of the ‘flu got in the way.

During my last trip to Singapore I made the time towards the end of the trip to catch up with some friends, old and new. Usually I fly, conduct the workshops and fly out. This time I added in a weekend. It was well worth it. It was a nostalgia trip in some respects.

One evening I caught up with Sarah Teo. She is a senior staff member at U21Global, a cross between a senior project manager and senior instructional designer. We both worked at ICUS [recently purchased by Academee] together and collaborated on some eLearning projects for Singapore Airlines. Sarah was my project manager and I was the lead instructional designer during those days. I had a not too infrequent habit of leaving the office at about 5.30PM. I am sure Sarah would have been happier if I left later each day and put in a few more hours at work. I often worked late at home anyway, and the weekends, and public holidays.

Sarah and I at the Japanese restauarant

We had dinner at one of the old stomping grounds of the ICUS staff during lunch hours. We had a Japanese dinner. Sarah has been incorporating blogs, wikis and video conferencing tools, such as Seesmic, within the courses that she designs for U21Global. Sarah’s deployment of the tools has been quite progressive actually. I was quite impressed and wonder whether or not I may make a more permanent return to Singapore to be a part of these developments at some time in the future. If not Singapore, then maybe Taiwan.

After leaving ICUS in April 2003 I had a break and returned to Australia for a couple of weeks to rest, and then returned to Singapore. I had about 6 weeks or so off altogether at the time. I was still teaching casually at the National Institute of Education. A few organisations contacted me regarding positions as an instructional designer. I was offered a job at U21Global to be the chief instructional designer back in June 2003. I spent some time there during the lengthy interviewing process and even developed a flow chart outlining my view of the course development process [doc][pdf] at U21Global. It’s a little imperfect and overly complex looking at it now. U21Global liked the general idea.

Proposed Course Development Process at U21Global

I turned down the offer, a difficult decision actually, and took a chance that I would be offered a position by Nanyang Technological University. The chance paid off and I soon began work at the Centre for Educational Development at NTU. It was great catching up with Sarah. Brought back a lot of memories and news of former colleagues.

Caught up with Siva during the trip. Seeing Siva is a must. Siva is easily one of my closest friends in Singapore. I met Siva while working on a cd-rom project for Knowledge Village. The focus of the cd-rom was mangrove environments and I was seeking subject matter experts. A search on the net turned up Siva. He was a researcher at the National University of Singapore and worked at the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research. I was quite an intense person at the time, probably due to the pressure being applied by Knowledge Village at the time. Too many projects, too few staff and too few resources. That is another story.

Siva and I share some Macintosh notes

Siva was a breath of fresh air. Siva and I hit it off immediately and then when we discovered we were Mac users we began swapping notes and ideas in earnest. Excellent! I became involved in some volunteer programmes around Singapore, as a result of meeting Siva, including the International Coastal CleanUp and simply fun things like the Pedal Ubin bike rides. Some of my galleries of those events are here: Pulau Ubin | ICCS 2001 | ICCS 2003 |

Siva has made excellent use of blogs in teaching his Biology courses at the National University of Singapore. In addition to his own excellent blog he has set up many others with his students and volunteers at the museum. Siva was blogging by phone using Bluetooth and other tools, out in the field, in the mangroves, to his original blog back in 2003, if not earlier.

Biodiversity Crew at NUS ~ check out the students’ field journal blogs!!!
Biology Refugia
ToddyCats
Pasir Panjang Heritage

On this trip Siva and I caught up during a MacMeetup. That was a great night. We talked about macs, blogs, blogging, publishing, censorship, politics, people, gear and so on. We all had to be kicked out of McDonalds at the end of the night.

I also caught up with Susan Sedro during the trip. Susan is a technology co-ordinator at the Singapore American School and she also has a rather elegant blog. We shared a nice breakfast at Causeway Point in Woodlands, not far from the school, early on the Saturday morning. We shared Singapore stories and previous career moves. Susan has also taught in Kuala Lumpur. I am always happy to meet other educators who make the move to destinations overseas.

Susan and I pose for a camera on a ten second timer

I was amazed by Susan’s stories of the International Schools Job Fairs. I never knew that these existed. [Note: Jeff Utecht at the SAS in Shanghai has blogged about similar job fairs]. I conducted a Blackboard LMS workshop or two at the Singapore American School back in late 2003 ~ early 2004. The school, as was other institutions in Singapore, was developing contingencies in the event of another SARS or similar outbreak. The SAS was also involved in the International Coastal Cleanups, mentioned earlier. Speaking with Susan, as well as Siva and Sarah earlier in the week, has reignited my interest in the region ~ in the sense of a more involved professional connection, as opposed to the quarterly trips.

Later on Saturday I caught up with Westley Field. Westley is Director of eLearning at Methodist Ladies College in Sydney. Westley and I were both graduates of the Masters’ Programme of the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong. We were both collaborating with the team at the Interactive Multimedia Learning Laboratory at the UOW and being guided and taught by Dr Barry Harper and Dr John Hedberg. They were the days of HyperCard and Macromedia Director.

Westley and I following a rather rich Malay lunch

Westley was staying at the Hwa Chong Institution, where he was conducting a presentation on Skoolabarate, a Second Life collaborative project, the following day. We had dinner and a couple of drinks and the following day we met up with Alan Soong at Kampong Glam for an incredible lunch and also a very interesting round of desserts.

Alan grins as Westley hams it up in Kampong Glam

Alan was one of my students in the Masters’ programme at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. I was teaching casually at the NIE while one of my former lecturer’s from the Masters’ Programme at UOW, Dr Cheung Wing Sum was on leave. It was Alan that introduced me to the staff at the Centre for Educational Development at NTU where he was an instructional designer. It was not long before I had the good fortune to work at the CED. Alan, Westley and I had a great Sunday together.

Later that day I caught the plane home to Australia.