Hearing tests and blood spatter patterns

Part of today was spent in the nearby town of Bury St Edmunds (when she was little, my cousin thought it was called 'Berries and Lemons' - cute, but totally irrelevant to this post). The Husband was having a hearing test at the hospital and I was there for support (that's the official version. Actually, I was starting to suffer from Cabin Fever and wanted to avoid all the housework that's been left since my assignment was due). He had two appointments: the first for the test, and the second with the hearing aid department, in case he needed one. There was an hour between the appointments; we mooched around the hospital shop so The Husband could get a newspaper. I was not getting on with Douglas Adams, who I had brought with me in my bag, so I rummaged through the paperbacks on offer. For a tiny little hospital shop, they had a good selection of books, so I bought Val McDermid's non-fiction Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime. £8.99! I always buy books from Amazon, or that are on offer, so £8.99 was a bit yikes, but it had to be done; I couldn't sit there for 45 minutes being sociable. Luckily, the guy at the till only asked for £4.50, so I paid up and made a quick exit. 

I am fascinated by forensic science and if I had several thousand pounds (and was a bit more maths-savvy) I would love to do a degree in the subject. As it is, I have a ridiculous amount of books on it, plus an unhealthy knowledge of the time it takes for flesh to rot under different circumstances. Did you know the life-cycle of the blowfly is incredibly interesting? Bet you didn't. Perhaps that can be my project for when I finish with the OU. Not strewing dead bodies around the garden, but learning more about forensics. I think the main difference between being interested in a subject and learning about it, is the writing you have to do. So I'll have to set myself assignments. 'In no more than 2500 words, discuss the way in which Eduard Piotrowski's work on bloodstain pattern analysis was important to the field of forensic science.' To be worked on whenever you want to ignore the ironing. Actually, could I write about the way in which he bludgeoned live rabbits to death so he could study the way their blood shot up the walls? Harlow's work with monkeys for his attachment theory was enough to give me nightmares. 

I know I'm really going to miss the OU. This time next year, I'll be working on my last couple of assignments, and then what? When I started in 2010, it was because there was rubbish on television and I was bored. 'I'll only do one course,' I said. 'No, you won't,' said those who were already with the OU, 'learning's addictive.' And they were right. The more I learn, the less I seem to know about all the stuff that's out there. But it's all so expensive. The cost of OU courses has really gone up and I am so envious of the people that started in the 1980s and are on their 6th degree. Anyway, I have another year and a bit to go, so I'll save my moaning until then. 

As for our hospital visit, The Husband is on the border-line for needing / not needing a hearing aid, so he's going to get one for times when he really needs to listen. And then he'll leave it out when his mother phones. 

VD and the death of the complex sentence

As I waded through rubbish on Facebook this morning, putting off another assignment, I was puzzled by the amount of people wishing others 'Happy VD'. What a strange thing to be happy about, I thought. Perhaps it was to do with the release of the 50 Shades of Grey film? (And, no, I won't be watching it. Come on, you should know me better than that by now...). Of course, as my coffee started to work, I realised such posts were by people too lazy or too bad at spelling to write 'Valentine's Day.' 'And Merry STD to you, too,' I was tempted to type, but was too much of a coward.

I have started to write my new assignment, as it's due in by midday on Thursday. That's to say, I have opened a Word document. There it is, minimised at the bottom of my screen, occasionally calling out, 'Excuse me!' and being ignored in favour of... everything else. I have a pile of books and journal articles in front of me, which shows everyone my obvious eagerness to get writing. One is a book that arrived this morning (look, it's the half-term holiday this week; I have plenty of time to do this. She says.). The book's called Kissed by a Fox and is honestly about animism, although the title may have taken your imagination briefly along another path. When I looked up the title on Google Images, so I could include a photo on here, my computer started sweating unpleasantly; I have decided to use something grammar-related and far less interesting. 

That leads very clumsily to the grammar course which 3 of us went to this week. I've not mentioned Mrs GSOH for a while, but she now works at the school every morning and lunch-time, adding her little touches of insanity to the place. Anyway, she came with one of the reception-class TAs and me to be updated on grammar-lesson changes to the National Curriculum. Now, I love writing, and can hopefully write coherently most of the time, but I don't always know what the different bits of writing are called. When we got to the course, we started looking through the handouts that had been left on the table. One was a glossary. Cohesive devices...? Was that to do with grammar? We started wondering if we were on the right course. Maybe this was car maintenance, because that sounded like a kind of spanner. Fronted adverbials...? Perhaps this was biology. Passive, possessive, being stressed and subordinate?? What had we got ourselves into?

The tutor arrived before we could escape. 'Every school has a grammar snob,' she began, and the three of us looked at each other and nodded, while knowing it definitely wasn't one of us, because we had never heard of modal verbs. Anyway, we muddled our way through, and nodded sagely at all of the slides on her power-point. The coffee break was spent eating biscuits and worriedly sharing our lack of knowledge. 'I know semi-colons,' I said, relieved that I understood something, 'because we did them last week with the year 6s.' 'That's good,' replied Mrs GSOH, who then pointed out that I had chocolate on my face. Bloody hell - why can't I go somewhere and at least look intelligent?

So, what did we get out of the course? There is now no such thing as a 'complex' sentence, apparently. And this is because 'simple' sentences can be very complex (like grammar courses). We now have to talk about how many clauses the sentence has. And 'connectives' are now known as 'conjunctions'. We learnt that little children are very good at using passive sentences to get themselves out of trouble. I learnt that I know very little about grammar, and must take more care when eating. 

Comic Sans, you're so patronising

Watching the breakfast news over the top of Harlan Coben this morning, there was an article on a man who has been searching the River Thames for tiny bits of metal - the Doves Type font. Robert Green, the man on a mission, was explaining how he thought that each font had a personality, and I thought here's someone I could have an interesting conversation with. Obviously, I should have thought: here's someone with whom I could have an interesting conversation, but it was early and I'd only had two cups of coffee, so I didn't. 'Mr Green,' I would say, 'don't you agree that Bauhaus 93 is so 1980s nightclub? And that Harlow Solid Italic should only ever be used by hairdressers?' 

But it did get me thinking about the fonts I use. Blogger gives you a very limited choice, (unless you know how to change html codes, which I don't) so I use Verdana, only because I don't like the others. The OU likes you to use Times New Roman, but my assignments are bad enough without that, so I rebel and use Calibri. On the school interactive whiteboards, I opt for Century Gothic (in bold for the added 'and quietly, thank you.') Comic Sans should not be allowed out of the reception class. Anyone who uses it when writing for adults should be taken to one side and given a talking-to. 

(And only one exclamation mark, thank you)

Whilst hunting on-line for links to the Doves Font story, I realised it wasn't big news. More space was given to the fact that supermarkets have been asked to move daffodils away from the fruit and veg sections, in case people eat them. See here if you really need reminding that the stupid gene seems to be taking over. 

What I did find, however, was a great time-waster - ideal for whiling away those hours when you should be writing assignments (in the font of your choice): http://www.typetasting.com/psychology.html is on the 'Psychology of Type'. There are several font-based quizzes, which form part of a research project and have stolen my Saturday morning. (Apparently, I should date a Futura font, as it's stylish, open and gives a well-considered opinion.)

Finally, if you are into fonts and the like, I recommend the brilliantly bonkers book Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan. 

And... having just read through this, it's becoming more apparent that the essay on animism was the right choice... 

On world wars and joining your handwriting

Every morning in class, we spend 10 minutes doing handwriting. The children, that is. I am trying to cultivate scruffier handwriting as I always get the 'You know you've got nice handwriting...?' appeals when someone needs 150 certificates writing out. Anyway, a couple of mornings ago, I noticed one child frowning at his work (I couldn't read it either), so I asked him if he was okay. 'I'm a bit worried,' he said. I was about to launch into my 'you just need to keep practising' spiel, when he added '...about World War Three.' Hmm. I had missed the news that morning. Should we actually be at school today? 'Only,' he said, 'we live right next door to Lakenheath, so obviously we're going to die.' A nearby child piped up with 'at least you'd get out of maths,' which was pretty similar to what I was going to say. I do hate it when children steal your best lines. 'I was just wondering what to do when a bomb falls on the school,' continued Morbid Child. I thought back to those useful and informative leaflets that had been handed out during the 80s, but didn't think he'd be convinced when I suggested he close all windows and sit under a table. 'If a bomb fell on the school, you'd definitely die,' said someone, helpfully, 'because all the roof would fall on you.' 'Oh,' said Morbid Child, 'do you think someone would feed my cats?' 'My Mum'll do it. I'll ask her,' Helpful Girl offered. And so the conversation turned to pets, and that's why we got very little handwriting done that morning. 

I did sympathise with Morbid Child's worries. I can remember being about 12 years old and sitting with my back to the television as the newscasters told us how close to a nuclear war we were. I know I silently cried into the book I was pretending to read because, if there was going to be a war, my guinea-pigs would die. I knew we humans would be fine, because we had a strong dining-room table, but what about the pets? I remember my friends and I getting all righteous about the appalling attitudes our parents had to our animals. 'When I asked about my rabbits,' one friend told me, 'my dad said we'd probably have to eat them.' Another friend said she was going to write to Margaret Thatcher and order her to make gas masks for horses. 

And while I'm writing this, Son Number One has just come in to ask how long it should take to run three miles. Well, if it was me, I'd have to do it in stages, so maybe a couple of days? And only if there were pubs at regular intervals. And the promise of steak and chips at the end. He tells me he's thinking of joining the RAF reserves. The Husband was in the Territorial Army for 12 years, so he can't really object, and I passed the selection tests for the RAF, but they didn't have jobs available for cartographers, which was what I wanted to do. (I chose the RAF because I felt it was classier, and their uniform was nicer than the Army's. Yes, I did used to be a total idiot.) 

So if World War Three could not happen just yet, I'd be most grateful.