Learning

One of the things those Roman soldiers of old did in their hibernaculum was to train.  My equivalent is to learn.

I'm a member of the Women's Institute and the National Federation of Women's Institutes has a great learning hub.  Anyone can do their courses but if you are a WI member, most courses are free.  Most weeks I do at least one session and in the winter I do far more.  yesterday I excelled myself and did two in one day.  

The first was on odes by Keats.  I've got to admit that my knowledge of Keats doesn't go much beyond "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness".  I can't say I will be buying myself a new book of poems as a result of listening to this talk but I certainly feel more interested and may check out a few more writings by Keats. 

Yesterday evening I joined in the monthly drawing session.  We are not talking detailed masterpieces here: it's more about getting a sheet of paper and your felt tip pens and doing a bit of mindfulness.  I quite like the class as each of us is in our own homes.  There's no comparison with anyone else, we each do our own thing with the instructor's help.  Yesterday she had prepared a picture of part of a crab apple hedge for us to copy.  

Learning

 

Once a month I go back to Primary School!  No, not liberally, but a primary school teacher does a monthly drawing session on the WI Learning Hub.  And I think my results are the sort of thing her usual pupils would produce.  I'm quite happy with that.  Children's drawings often make me smile!  There are lots of other sessions on the hub for people with varying degrees of artistic ability but this is just fun.  

This week I am also doing a Shakespeare Summer School on Hamlet on the learning hub and next week we move on to Measure for Measure.  Just an hour a day.  Next week there is also a hand embroidery summer school which I will be joining.  All these sessions will be recorded so if I'm busy at the time the live session is streamed, I can watch later.  I've done sessions on using my iPhone, budgetting, decluttering, travel, and much, much more.  

Other than the summer schools, most courses are free for WI members.  

Adjusting 1

Flylady would be proud of me!  That mighty guru of all things domestic advocates dressing to the shoes every morning and even though I'm not leaving the house I am still lacing up those shoes daily.  Coronovirus may have a pretty name but it's an ugly bug and it's not going to reduce my standards!

Other things have changed.  You know about food supply and things like that so there's no point in writing about things like that.  I want to share some other things.

First I have re-organised my sitting room. The chair where I sit faces the window but although I can see out no-one can see me so I've set up an arm chair and a makeshift desk where I can both see and be seen.  Not many people are passing but I want to be able to wave to anyone who does.  The couple across the road have been sorting their garden.  I'm on a favourite route for joggers and although their numbers are greatly reduced a few still pass.  At this time of day this isn't the greatest place to sit as it faces due east but as the sun moves around I will be able to see my computer screen more easily.

The second is that I've started on some MOOCs.  "What's a MOOC?" I don't hear you say but I'm going to tell you anyway.  Its a Massive Open Online Course.  Universities from all over the world set them up.  I wrote about them here.

The first is a three-week course on Covid 19 run by The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine which is part of London University.  I want to be able to distinguish between information and misinformation and I feel that this may help.  I accessed it through Futurelearn.com.

The second is rather longer but still only twenty hours and is run by Silliman College which is part of Yale University.  It is The Science of Well being and it's about being happy!  That seems very relevant to these times and also to long term health.  I accessed it via coursera.org./

(JUst a quick reminder, if you want to be part of the letter exchange you have until Friday to let me know.

Mooc-ing around

I love Moocs!   Moocs are Massive Open Online Courses and you can find them at Futurelearn and Coursera.  They are free courses offered by top universities all over the world.  There's no written work just discussion forums to allow participants to engage with each other on line.  

I've done several including

You and your money - offered by the Open University

Strategies for successful aging offered by Trinity College Dublin

Exploring anatomy offered by the University of Leeds

Researching your family tree, offered by the University of Strathclyde

Maths puzzles offered by the Weizman Institute

and quite a lot more.

Not all are on offer at the same time so you need to check regularly.

Today I have started a course about the weather.  It's being offered by the University of Exeter and I'm not sure if it's offered internationally although most Futurelearn courses are  but the examples in this one seem to be all British. It promises to teach about the weather with regard to walkers, photographers and gardeners so it should prove interesting and IT'S FREE!!!

Moocs

Sometimes I surprise myself.  Not often, but sometimes.

I've never seen myself as being interested in science but since I retired I've started to look anew at things which I never had time for (or interest in) in my younger life.

Today I started a new MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) this time from the University of Leeds.  It's called Know Your Abdomen.  

I don't know about you but my abdomen is one of those areas I've always preferred to forget about.  Every so often I have to think about it, generally when something goes wrong.  I have hazy memories of O level Biology lessons at school but hazy is actually quite a generous description of my memory.  Anyway, I decided that it might be interesting to get to know a little more so today I started my latest MOOC.  This particular course was written for school students but "slightly more mature people" like me are also welcome.

And I was delighted that the course began with an illustration from someone even older than me  - Leonardo da Vinci.

But really my delight for today is realising that I can surprise myself and that I still take pleasure in learning