General goings on

Life is fairly humdrum at the moment, except that some more New Zealand folk are passing through Windsor at the moment. Neil and Faye from Christchurch are here. Neil is the former head of educational development at Lincoln University and he is trying very hard to work out how to retire but has failed so far. He is here en route from India and the UK, and France and Germany but mainly from doing workshops across India on his learning preferences tool VARK. His experiences there have prompted some interesting discussion about the nature of giving workshops in a foreign country and should we conform top their requirements or work in our normal way and help them understand that. It is a hard compromise sometimes, but given that VARK is sensitising people to how they and others have a preference for giving and receiving information, there must be some validity in sticking to the regular way of presenting the workshop.

It is bizarre walking through the sculpture park in Windsor with someone who fits into my life in Christchurch - but it does highlight the smallness of the world of academic development as I have been getting reports of other colleagues whom we all know. Looking forward to meeting some of them at ICED in Salt Lake City soon. The little planes were practising as we walked so a picture of the event before the event, followed by two action shots!

Maybe life isn't so humdrum after all. I spent this glorious sunny afternoon on the roof of a 28 storey building watching little planes fly between and round large inflated towers. It was very impressive - the Red Bull Air Races, but no-one knew what was going on, who was winning, or who won, but as this event only happens 10 times per annum, I felt very privileged to have such a bird's eye view of the proceedings. I will put up a photo as proof, but doubt you will get a sense of the excitement. About 50000 people on the Detroit side of the river and 40000 on the Windsor side had bought tickets - not to mention the flotilla of boats on the river and people in similar locations to me and others who were just on the riverbank outside the paying area. Quite a spectacle which I enjoyed just for the moment. For those who would like more details try this website http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/June2008/01/c6976.html

Also another point of cultural difference - today is the Queen's Birthday holiday in New Zealand so colleagues there are not at work. It has been Whit Bank holiday in UK recently I do believe! How bizarre!