Too long between posts.  May to today.
But lots has happened between then and now and it will be impossible to go through it all again.
Highlights include a trip up north to the midlands on a research project with Y6 children and handheld computers (Palm Zire 72s).  Interesting, not least for the Stourbridge and Greater Dudley area – formerly an industriual powerhouse and now a retail park and a canalside development.  The people were great – school was wonderful and the children, in spite of being Baggies fans, did not tease me about Palace going down.

What else?  We got some money from  various charities for our technology driven carbival project.

I went to Bristol (again) and spent the day thinking about smartphones in good company.  Finished with a beer by the Harbourside development and almost missed my train.

Home – loads of decorating.  Both A and Jks bedrooms – which meant everything of theirs was in our room including them.  And we were downstairs.  Coming back to normal now.

We paid for someone to decorate this time round – also to do the front and back of the house.  Worth every penny even though it was a but hard for us.  Worth it for Graham’s company round the house. Someone happy in their work when we are often not.  Especially J who ishaving a bad time.

Music – 3 bands in a week then nothing.  Just like buses.
South San Gabriel with Mr G.  Very slow and stately Americana – like all the slow Sparklehorse songs but even slower and played with huge concentration.  Resulted in heavy drinking and was not the ideal intro to the week ahead.  On Wednesday of that week with Richard to Teenage Fanclub.  Joyous.  They generate such a huge amount of happiness.  There”s even a new song about getting older and even that sounds joyous.  On Friday of that week J and I to Hammersmith where we first lived together.  To the Lyric for Vetiver and M.Ward.  Before that a Thai meal and a long drive over with Debi who was meeting someone to see it.
Reverential atmosphere and indigestion ensured that Devendra Banhart and co in Vetiver did not go down well with me.  Why do they look so pleased with themselves?  The songs are just OK. one or two good ones.  M.Ward on the other hand was magical.  Here was someone doing something different with the raw materials, the same things, the same chords, but the playing was gorgeous.
I will travel a long way to see him another time.

Now working on surviving a work move.  Moved stuff from old office to new office today.
The view is worth all the lugging boxes in the heat.  I can see all the way over to the west End – and the Post Office Tower (as I still call it).

Thinking now about doing some writing fro the thesis and some guitar playing and getting in some food.  Too hot to cook.  Just sit and look out at the garden and not do much tonight.

There are some pictures of missing events and I must learn how to get them from my phone into the blog.

Another catch up with stuff.
But here I have to start editing more carefully, cut to the chase, remove the extraneous detail.
OK – Jk’s birthday was great. A bit more?  Well, pressies in the morning, pick up his sister from her sleepover at a friend’s, opening a mass of presents, evryone cooking stuff, D and S round to play PS2 games and then to his "Football Party".  We think this may be the last of these big 15 + guests, organised parties.  When he”s 11, maybe see a film with friends and then a civilised tea and some stuff for adults.  For now, Jack + peers and great food and the White Stripes playing on the CD player – well, he was in heaven. 

Subequently wrok, work, work, Lots ofvideo editing, amazing dedication from the student teachers, overcoming the glitches that arise from editing video on a PC.  I’ve tried to get Apple Education to get interested in the projects and research and think abot some donations or matched funding.  Until they do and we use iMovie, Garageband and the rest we will continue to do slightly less than we could.  And we simply don’t have the budget (even for a roomful of Mac Minis.  No money means no money no matter how cheap the equipment is).

Another day dominated by preparation for inspection and a complete mind numbing tiredness.  I’ will have had four early starts and an evening session this week.  Great discussion about the video projects – what a nice group of MA students!

Cycle home.  Which I’ve been doing much more of.  Easier on the way down the hill.  Sail past everyone, round the back of the shopping centre and straight into a swarm of gnats by the river.  Never mind, it’s still great.

Thoughts turning to the routes to and from, the colour of the sky, the movement.  Had to drive today.  Only bad thoughts in slow traffic.  I know which I prefer.

Now what do you do?
When it is going to create an even bigger retrospective post?
When you have left it so long and yet so much that you wanted / needed to remember has happened?
OK – I guess – just some impressions, with imprecise dates and times???
Saturday just gone – Take Jk over to Charlton for a new football trial.  He wants to be in this team because his schoolfriends are.  There are not many spaces left for boys to be signed up for next season.  Coach seems good.  I leave him there and come back.  As I approach I can see him running the game, playing and passing like he hasn’t for ages.  The coach wants him.

In the pm my dad and aunt arrive for dinner.  I cook and simultaneously listen to the football on the radio, the worst way to experience the tension of the match.  0 – 0 Palace, Newcastle.  We may still stay up.  Still too close to call.  Great debates on message board about this.  J comes in with her dad and we sit in the garden for a bit.  First time this year for any length of time.  Great light and my dad snapping us all on his Cybershot.  Still v happy with this and going to use it on his upcoming singing tour in North Italy!

Friday just gone – Video project closing session.  Interview the children who took part in the school house.  They havea kind of green room with a tele, where they sit on a sofa watching John Wayne.  Call them up in groups – Sue R interviews in one room and me in the other.  They’re proud of their achievements.  But many think they could do more / better another time.  If I do another project here, they want to be in it.

Sunday just gone- spend the day to-ing and fro-ing between home and Greenwich, mainly on the bike.  Give up on the way home up Point Hill.  It’s nearly vertical.  Feeling better for all the cycling though and seeing things from a different perpsctive.  It makes you never want to be in a car again.  At some point, run into JH on the side of the road and we talk about his musical projects.  Swap things we’vre  heard recently that are just great.  I’m still raving about Vic Chesnutt’s latest.

In the evening to the party from Daisy’s Baptism.  See lots of old friends – R and C very proud parents. Sit in their house and drink champagne and eat good food. At this point it becomes J’s trn to drive us all home.  Last time I was the designated driver. But really, given the distance, we should have cycled.

Mainly obsessing musically about two or three tracks from the new Go Betweens album (Boundary Rider, Lavender) and the whole feel of Ghetto Bells by Vic Chesnutt, esepcially Rambunctious Cloud.

Yesterday – Monday – was a holiday.  But most of us worked a bit.  J on school planning, Jk on homework and A on revising for her KS3 Science which she is doing a year early.  Strange that no one of us was rushing off to anywhere else.  We finished the day together, playing tennis and then swimming and then staying out for some dinner. 

Reading the Philip Pullman Dark Materials trilogy with Jk.  Great stuff.

OK- so another few days go by and I have to catch up a little bit on what happened.
Again – is this OK?  It won’t be about today particularly!
Friday saw me at two schools – one for student observation and the next for the video project.
Showed the children the DVD of their videos at the latter.  Great excitement – even from the group that lost their sound (and I couldn’t find it anywhere).  Their productions are a mixture of news satire and play. Some original music and some clips from favourite CDS.  They made covers in Publisher and I tangled with an unfamiliar computer room.  Windows XP.  Not too bad – found my camera in the system tray and they included pictures in their covers.  Next week – a premiere for their parents.  And some research interviews about their time in the project.
Saturday – football.  Jk in the morning up to the heath. Losing three cup games in a row in steady drizzle. but not unhappy. played well. There’s a good atmosphere in the schools’ league on a Saturday.  The Sunday league can be quite competitive and a bit shouty.
Later, to the Palalce where they beat Liverpool 1 – 0. All of us went and J has become a Palace fan, looked round when AJ scored and she was as pleased as anyone else!  A nervous time in the second half but we held on.  Even if we go down it’s been great – just for days like this.
Sunday – loads of jobs.  The list goes: car, recycling, grass, tidying, cooking, a bit of shopping etc.  A good day though – Jk’s Sunday football was off and so we got a lot done.
J’s brother called in from Melbourne for the first time in ages.  Long chat about music and football and then J filled him in on how (their father) B is at the moment.
A went with a friend to Bromley shopping for jeans etc.
Mental notes – Jk’s birthday fast approaching and we need to sort this out.
Spent a good 40 minutes with Jk at the end of the weekend, kicking a ball backwards and forwards on the Heath.   We went one-on-one at the end and he ended up trying to take my legs away!
B over for dinner.  I dropped him back at his flat and he was quite breathless.  Waited downstairs for a short while with the card players while I went and got his inhaler.  Then he went upstairs. 
I drove home up Point Hill.
I like returning that way.

Still can’t find it in me to post about the upcoming election.  The only way to vote seems to be the lesser of two (or more?) evils.

Other technical things to do soon – upload more pictures.
Find out how to upload from my phone.
And really sort the appearance of the thing.
And a bit more of a focus?
Don’t know yet.

Again the what to write about?
But it’s right here.  Really.  Just spent the end of the working day with my 12 yr old A in a cafe.  She has to get back to school where she is stage crew for a play.  Too late after school at basketball and needed back in the evening too soon to go home.  It’s great because we get to spend a few minutes actually talking to each other.  Tea only slightly marred when she puts sugar on her chips instead of salt.  Cant wait to tell her friends.  But doesn’t enjoy the chips.  Her friend phones her and our time together is up.  I walk her back but leave her at the corner of the road so she doesn’t have to be seen with me (current 12 yr old etiquette and I respect that).

Earlier……meeting dominated by OFSTED or OFTSED as I often type it.  Nothing to say here that will make it go away or be anything more than what it is.  A fact of life in my job.  Also discussed courses next year and our understaffing but also how good we feel about our new degree etc etc

And before that met a colleague from Denmark who is also researching media production by young people.  She is looking at animation in particular.  She had seen me  present over Easter at a conference and was following up.  Good links to other people and ideas.  This snatched lunch hour with a colleague is a high point.

1st session before that teaching and wading through emails.  Things not working.

Kids on the train standing nearby – older brother chiding girl supportively (sister?) – "Come on you’re just not motivated…bit more motivation you need."  That’s me too as I walk in the pale sun up to college.

Now, off to that play and A shifting scenery etc.  Due to meet J and Jk there in a little while.

So…I haven’t had time to post since the last time.  This gives me cause for concern.
But why?  Do the rules state that I have to write only about today today?  What rules anyway?
So let’s go back a bit…
Saturday saw the usual rush – children to music, football and then Jk (my 9 yr old son) and I to foootball match.  Palace against Norwich.  Relegation battle.   Swings of emotion that are hard to secribe to the people out there who don’t care for this sort of thing.  First we’re winning, then we’re down and out and then we come back.  And the only predictable thing about it is that this is what it’s like to be a Palace fan.  Happens all the time.  J is new to this and I can see that it will take a while for him to know what it’s like to be a fan of this team. Think of happiest day of last year and it was probably all of us together at the Millennium Stadium watchin gus go into the Premiership!  As I say, this is hard to understand if you don’t care (my sister, F, doesn’t get it).

Sunday?  Well, Sunday was taking A (my 12 yr old daughter) to play in a band for the runners in the London Marathon.  See Marathon pictures (I will post an album).  First take her up to be in the coach with the other performers.  Then home and collect partner (J) and Jk and all of us out to hear the music and watch the runners.  It’s a fantastic morning, sun shining.  Look back along Evelyn Street, listen to the samba, watch the runners take the bend around the top end of Deptford High Street.  Curiously moving.  Runners stretching out a hand to touch the childen’s hands outstretched from the side.  Wave after wave of them, all races and sizes and costumes and ages and causes.  And the same from the crowd watching them.  Reflected back – what it means to be a Londoner I guess.  Strange and unfamiliar feeling of pride – because you get used to thinking about the bad things about being here and then something like the London Marathon happens.

From there out to Kent with J for his team’s game in Dartford.  Heat, A2, frantic drive, J with A to Z navigating very well (see signs of early map obsession so all is well).  Good games.  Win both.  Friendlies.  See the parents and friends and hang out in the sunshine.

Realise I haven’t eaten enough or drank anything.  Jk OK but I’m definitely feeling the heat.  Sit by Blackheath Station eating chips.  Not sure if this helps!  Too much rushing around!

A painting scenery at school, J working on school plans, Jk doing homework and me feeling odd and sunburnt!  The rest is the usual – getting ready for what follows – the working week and its attendant stresses and strains.

What is the blog about?  To tell the truth, I don’t really know yet.  It’s probably something to do with writing, remembering and recording.  This is not very original but then what is?  I have the feeling of life passing by, of being busy and wanting to stop and record something of it.  Diaries are no use to me.  But maybe an online journal will be.  Hence the trial period and hence the time to decide whether or not it’s for me or not.

How much to give away?  A little but about work even though this doesn’t actually define me (not totally anyway).  Well, I’m a teacher educator and I have the misfortune to work with computers (but not in any money-making capacity).  Instead of making the sort of sums that most computer types make, I just write and talk about their use in education. I work in the HE sector in a UK university.  I also work in schools sometimes.  Why is this a misfortune? Because people will stereotype you as being interested in bandwidth, RAM, cables, screens, PC v Apple (I use both – so erm?), etc. etc. And I am up to a point but not to go on about it (although I am in fact now going on about it). I’m interested in what they make happen, how this happens and why it seems to be changing so much about what we think of as literacy and learning.

So I don’t think this is going to be about work except in the sense that I will learn more about what it feels like to blog than to just read a blog or talk about it.

I’m in awe of some of the blogging community. That ability to turn experience into prose so quickly!  I do it sometimes in an email.  But in that case I know where it’s going.  I don’t know who this goes to (if anyone).  So in some senses it’s an experiment.  Blogging to no-one in particular.

Why boxofstars?  Perhaps I’d better save it for another time.

Why now?  Because I feel the pressure of time marching on and on and I’m not saying or thinking about what is going on around me. 

What kinds of things might I write about then?  Some work, some home, the local supermarket, music that I make and that other people make, family (maybe – don’tknow what they will make of it).  I think this is just taking experience outside and wandering around with it and seeing what happens.  Oh yes, and the photos too – there are thousands of these all over the various computers I use so these might feature and actually get seen and sprak some writing.  And some will be over at flickr too.

Perthaps it’s a kind of mind gym.  Focus on something for a short while and write about it. Do something instead of endlessly consuming media.  Make something.  So here it is.