Lessons Never Learned

Some lessons seem impossible to learn. This particular result is due to round house kicking a strong forward velocity towards me. I'm not sure points matter if the physics don't work. My foot utterly hyper extended the completely wrong way. I dropped, my adrenaline started pumping, and up I went without any obvious care. Six hours after class though, my foot could bear absolutely no weight and I was in screaming pain. While I'm unsure if I broke down into tears due to the utter frustration of the logistical challenges that I knew were ahead of me, or if it was because it hurt that badly, both pain and fury drove my emotions all the way into ER.


Never has the ownership of a clutch vehicle become so very useless, but at least I get a state to state chauffeur (Eric) as we pick a new home in Asheville and then spend some valuable family time in the Shenandoah Valley through the rest of the week.


Meanwhile, my true soul destruction was the cello breakage. While my poor cello teacher had to bring me back from utter depression with anecdotes of truly horrific instrument disasters in comparison to my own complete klutziness, it was amusing to realise how different our values were. I completely dismissed my own foot sprain while he suffered nausea thinking about it; while I felt unworthy to touch a bow again, he seemed bemused with my self-torture. 


June 5 will hopefully be a day to celebrate with the crutches tossed (hopefully sooner!) and the cello back into gear.

The Ring Experience through Wagner's Eyes

Rather than repeating the why, how and context of watching The Ring by Richard Wagner via the amazing Metropolitan Opera's digital preservation in the theatre, check out my blog post written before this saga began. Meanwhile, let's move forward to the experiences of watching all four productions that make up The Ring. 


It was freaking amazing!!!!!


The stage work blew me away. I felt that this was maximised in the most beautiful and dramatic ways in Die Walkure, but I'm not about to suggest it wasn't amazing for all four productions. The singing bird in Siegfried? Unbelievable. They used GPS technology to have the bird respond to the singer's lip movement. Seriously? Technology in the hand of artists is truly an amazing result. The double walking stairs in Das Rheingold? The forestry in Die Walkure? The representation during The Ride of the Valkyries? All of it, unforgettable.


But let's look at the other, more visible, artists. My favourite voice was Fricka for clarity and downright voice beauty, but really, can we start down that line? Siegfried and Brunnhilde were absolutely stunning - one couldn't begin to guess they had not previously worked together and that Siegfried was rather last minute. However, my emotions stirred the most, falling prey to continuous tears, with Wotan and Brunnhilde's work in Act III of Die Walkure.


The producer explained it so well during the intermission interview when he discussed the value of maintaining the classic opera yet utilizing the available technology to enhance the presentation. This strongly resonated with me as an instructional designer who relies on classic education theory but presents the learning and experience in continually improved environments now available through technology. An insight that the producer also shared was his amazement into not only the incredibly progressive and "ahead of his time" nature of Wagner's music, but also his natural cinematography before cinema. How true, as we sit in amazement with his work 130 years later, and requiring five years of invested work to create this masterpiece. 


My utter gratitude is to the Met for preserving this incredible work as I stalk the Fall releases for the DVD set. My only recommendation is to not watch it on a small screen. The larger your viewing space, the more justice that can be done for it. Buy a projector and screen too; it's worth it!


Meanwhile, now that I know Fathomevents.com exists, my operatic experiences will not longer be cringing through much poorer local productions. Granted, the popcorn and Chuck Taylor's remove a certain craved ambiance, but I'll take the production quality over my outfit any day. A good production of Don Giovanni and Tales of Hoffman, here I come. 

Gaming Withdrawal

If you are not a gamer, this post will not connect with you. If you are a gamer, I could use your empathy. MMO's and books can abate the craving, but in a very weird sense, it also makes it worse. My very limited hand at MUSH taught me that it's not enough. I ran my own Stargate up to level 20 and Arcana Unearthed to 15 or so, but frankly it's just playing that I miss at this point. Hackmaster, D&D, Serenity, Eberron, Arcana, and of course, my absolutely favourite, White Wolf systems. I miss all of them and have discovered that while travel and my life goals are still more important, a good tabletop game would be most welcome.

Money Buys Service....

You can imagine my surprise upon my return from Ireland to find this note in the post. Quite heavy card, Burberry does not slack in the stationery selection, but then if sales associates are going to be writing personal notes to their customers, one might as well invest in the paper quality too.


Getting notes from stores is not uncommon, especially as the purchase price rises, but the personalisation of this card was surprising given that it was three weeks ago. Just before I left on the trip, I walked into Burberry in a mild panic, realising how much it would rain in Ireland while I was there. Unsure of what store would carry raincoats and wellies, I assumed that a store originating from the rainiest island ever would surely carry such important clothing.


Granted, the statement of "I need a raincoat and wellies because I'm going to rainy Ireland tomorrow" to the sales associate accompanied with dropping a grand on a lovely rain gear set probably made her day commission-wise, but I must say that this level of detail in the note is impressive to me. Was she taking notes in our conversation? I didn't see any. 


What annoys me to no end is that I know it's just an intentional strategy to make me feel special and want to return for more special treatment and spend more money at their store. My cynicism and business degree tells me that it has nothing to do with me personally, so why in the world do I have this emotional desire to reward them for caring by going back for me?????


I think that marketing degrees might as well be a double major with psychology.

Updated 2011 Travel Photos

Travelling. It's a wonderful thing. Why? Because you don't miss things like this. Yes, I'd love to live in this moment and in this beauty, but do I? Really? Would I still appreciate the beauty of this moment if it lasted forever? Or do I have a higher sense of appreciation because the beauty is a simply memory?


While it is fortunate for me that Eric and I have successfully reached our goal of flexible living for maximum discovery, I realised just how incredibly lucky we are when I look at the travel experiences of 2011. When I updated and caught up the insane number of photos, it was a sudden 'wow' for me to note that I've lived in four different locations in four years, moving to another in two months and visited three countries and four other beautiful domestic locations in 2011. That may sound like a nightmare to some given logistics involved, but it's a dream come true for me.


So if you like looking at different locations, check out the updated travel photos for 2011 provided in the left hand side of my blog (travel photos section).


Ask me a favourite location? I can't. They were all greatly enjoyable; I believe largely due to the mindset of discovering something new in each location, and capturing that moment.

My Irish Wanderings

This being my third trip to the Emerald Isle, I decided to be very focused on ancient sites. When I refer to ancient, I mean very ancient, such as the 4-5000 year old earthworks that are rampant for such an isolated country. Actually, that may be why so many survived. I did throw in a couple 1100-1200 AD castles and abbeys (no time wasted on newbie places that start in the 1500s :P), but was thrilled to visit ancient earthworks ranging from the east to west coast. In fact, the west coast ancient world is represented by the Aran Islands, specifically the main island of Inishmore, which begs to share the retrospectively funny story.

When an Irishman assures you that "it's just a shuttle bus to the ferry with an easy day on the island", take note. Thank the dear Lord that I had my wellies, raincoat, and an already heavy long Aran sweater....

Shuttle bus reality: a coach that takes over an hour to reach the docklands in the middle of absolutely no-where. Paying heed to Crazy Irishman's advise to simply park the car in Galway was the best decision of the day because I never would have found these elusive docks. 

Ferry reality: the Irish may call it a ferry with a quick jaunt to the islands. I call it a tin boat of treachery to cross an hour's worth of actual Atlantic Ocean to get to what quickly was becoming a set of islands of which I was losing interest. It doesn't help that I am very easily sea sick.

Island reality: I'm here! Yippee! 2.5 hours later, I survived the craziness so far of what was presented as perhaps 20 minutes out of my way. I consult the local map to these precious Celtic ruins of 4000 years (Dun Aonghasa) and the luxurious ramble about a small island was instantly translated as a 7km distance on a very windy island.

Bike reality: So you just rent a bike, right? Sure. I swore the headwind was horrible, ie, I was actually blown to either side of the road despite reasonable leg strength of a martial artist, but it would be better going back, right? (FYI it wasn't headwind - it sucked both ways and was simply that windy everywhere). Thankfully, I have no ego and when the bike rental guy took my driving licence as hold for the bike (not enough cash on me) and told me to use the low road because the high road gets windy, I took his advice. I just wonder what in the world the high road was like.

Ancient site reality: Dear God. I'm finally there. I can't breathe, my legs are rubber, I'm still a bit nauseated from the sea trip, and exhausted. My one error in clothing was the lack of a hat, and my old 25 year old ear ache started really going at it. I run into a sweater shoppe and get a hat, not particularly caring if they want my first born in order to get it. I ask how close I can get to the site with my bike ... "oh, there is bike parking a bit up the road, then about a 30 minute hike up the hill....". Great. I have no doubt that this prehistoric stone fort was a complete waste of energy because 1) nobody would want to have the damned place, and 2) it was complete overkill of a building project.

So here is proof that I made it to the very top of this insanely old fort that served, in my opinion, absolutely no purpose. The huge joy for me besides triumph over nature and a Dramamine on the voyage back was the discovery of a wild seal colony! I was so lost in my happiness that I apparently missed the hail storm that I was standing in as I looked down a long while later to find hail everywhere. Wow.

The best part? You can imagine the hunger at this point. I find a pony and trap driver and ask politely, "so where is a good place to eat?" He ponders for a second and replies that he didn't think any are open right now. The response to my query of what time did he think they'd be open since I was trapped there until 5pm was "I'm thinking sometime in May". Lovely.

As another quick funny story, I was determined to find another ancient earthworks called FourKnocks. The very fact that I located this precious site in a single line of text of a totally non-tourist book that discussed possible interpretations of Celtic rock symbols should have been an indication of possible issues. However, I blithely fill the petrol tank and zoom off to the country. Despite the fact that County Meathe is really pretty settled to me, I would like to note that there are certain rather abandoned areas with very poor signage. Since these so-called B roads appeared to me as more appropriate as Z roads, ie, are these roads anyway, the difficulties increased. However, once again, dogged determination once again triumphs, only to find a locked gate on private property with this sign....

Never did a drink sound suddenly so needed.

Regardless, it was a great trip, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the photos!