Gifts from afar.

In our world at the moment, it seems that distance is now a function of time. Instead of America being several thousand miles away, it is more common to think in terms of hours. Some of my best friends are 6-8 hours away from me, while also being instantly accessible at a mouse click. So distance can be crossed in a microsecond, friendships that would have evolved over months of pen-pal type letters in the past are now able to develop at the same rate as those of neighbours.

Actually, I talk more to my friends online than I do my neighbours. I even talk to my neighbours online. Instantly available video, picture, sound, text enhances the communication we have between us. So why then do people still feel that internet friendships are somehow less real than physical ones. Why is it publically acceptable to call the person who lives a few streets away that you talk to on an infrequent basis a friend, but the moment you mention someone you met “online” the relationship is belittled?

I have grown to know, and indeed love people I have met online. If something were to happen to one of them, it would affect me as much as any other friend. Perhaps more, as the online friends I have probably shared more with, and had shared.

Recently I got the chance to meet a group of online friends, people I have known for a range of times, from a few months to a decade. Each of them was the person I had grown to care for, and then even more sparkly in the flesh. I guess, some of it is that I am able to detect false people online, after many years of practice, and these people hid nothing, asked nothing, shared everything with me in a reciprical manner.

But meeting them added another depth to it. Sharing the living spaces of these people, their hopes, dreams, wedding, being able to reach out and make contact if I choose. The friendships I had before were strong, and good. Now they are great, and amazing.

Today I got a gift in the post from one of them. A small token of friendship totally out of the blue. I cried. In this wonderful world, augmented by electronics and binary code, we have the ability to connect with people we otherwise would never have met. If you are one of those people limited to the “real world”, try it. You never know when someone will walk into your life from afar, and stay with you, in your heart, forever.

Cancer? Meh

So about a month ago I went for a biopsy. Been waiting for the results ever since. It’s more annoying than life threatening I think, being a growth close to my eye, I only went to the specialist when it started getting closer to my eyelid. I get these results in a few hours, but it seems that my friends and family are more worried about it than me.

The way I see it, I guess, is that whatever the result is, nothing has changed. This is something I have had for a few years now, and even if it turned out to be highly malignant, its not going to shorten the remainder of my life, as that is already set.

Really bad picture, but meh, most of it was taken in the biopsy.

So it turns out, yeah, it’s cancer. Why does that word strike fear into the souls of those I care about? It’s a malignant basal cell carcinoma. Apparently 1 in 3 people will get one somewhere, although most often it is not on the head. The position is a little tricky as they ideally need to remove a 4mm area of unaffected skin around it, and then skin graft replacement tissue and somehow avoid messing up my eyelids.

As I keep telling people, I am more pissed off that my sofa is out of stock in Ikea. 

What is it about Autumn?

OK, so it’s not like I have a new course starting up, and I’m looking to procrastinate like I did last year, and, yeah OK, the year before that too. But here I am once again wondering who is still reading this, and who all those people are from Glitch.

So, what’s been happening in the life of Araldia? (I hear you thinking it, even fleetingly, although yeah, I admit you weren’t thinking it before you read that line.)

I recently took some time to catch up with some old friends in new places, I spend most of my time Glitching, and we are waiting for the launch of the Sankara EP next weekend. Been a while coming that one, and the artwork’s mine.

So, more to come later this week I guess, may as well start blogging again!

Real life gets in the way.

It is about time I posted again.

I just got my course materials for the final part of my Masters degree

I love getting new OU material, it fills me with the desire to lock myself away and study. In just under a year I will have finished my MAODE, and will be wondering what to do with myself.

Connor starts school in about 6 weeks, so I should get more time to actually study!

Masters

Need to start using this again. Computer is wrong. Its brand new, fast, loads of memory. But its just not the same as the one that died. it’s almost there now, but otherwise if it’s not set up completely right it feels wrong to use it.
Wonder who has been waiting for this update. I’m retreating from twitter, facebook, and the like for two reasons, first this Masters degree is tough going, and secondly I have been busy with a couple of virtual worlds. I will try to post again soon.

That´ll be the degu…

So we invite our eldest over for Sunday dinner, and think we are going to have a nice relaxing day. (HA!!)
Jay wakes up with the headache from hell, so I force him to stay in bed.
Darling daughter turns up an hour early upset as she´s lost her phone, and her broadbands run out, and all I wanted to do was crawl under the covers.

Airport musings

So I am sat in an airport in Edinburgh trying to fill my time.

I dropped my son back off for school, and discovered my mate was the pilot. Had words and discovered that I would be able to fly back on the same plane if there were spaces, provided that there was an adult on the other side of security for my son. As he was being met, it seemed promising, and as we were running slightly late as it was, I thought the handover would go simply and easily.

Here I am.

@asdquefty was first to read yesterdays update, and he would like me to share my thoughts about digital safety.

Do you ever worry about your privacy?

He has noticed that I use many services, and that yesterdays photos were location mapped. I will just wait here while you run to my twitter stream. You are looking for the second baby in a box tweet.
It was the first time I have used twitroid to upload piccies, so actually didn’t realise the geotag was there.

Slacking, lacking and nagging

I had a feeling I was going to have issues updating this year. It has indeed been as crazy as I thought it would be.
You know they (the ubiquitous they that everyone mentions but nooone can name) say that things come in threes? Well in this house it’s a rolling count. Three at any one time, but if something gets solved another one jumps in to take its place.
So slacking? In terms of updates yes. In terms of real life, no. When someone asks what I do, I can reply “well nothing really. I have 5 kids, ages 1-19, 3 of which are on the spectrum, possibly 4. I am a carer, a student, a teacher, a musician, a geek, a internet fairy godmother, a homeschooler (all parents should be, especially if your kids go to school), a reader and a wife.”
Lacking? Yeah in all those ‘jobs’. Bad management, no time, no patience, no inspiration, no money, no opinion, I still have my Xmas tree up and its April!
Nagging. A few great tweeps have pushed me to update more. Glad to say I found this app that lets me post from my new Android G1, so no excuses now.
See you around soon, and the first person to @araldia on twitter after reading this gets to choose the next topic to get me back on track.

What a day

So Sunday was another planned to meltdown day.
Another 800 miles to be travelled, another saying goodbye to my son for a term.
Cardiff Airport.
A wonderfully sparse place, consisting of a Burger King, a WH Smith and a coffee shop.
Also home of the most anal staff possible.
Last week, I flew through this airport, on the same flights I had this time, and picked up my son with his hand luggage, and flew down.
Remarkably no problems.
This week on return the hand luggage had grown. 1 centimetre. ONE. This hand luggage that is official flight hand luggage for cabin crew no longer fits in the little metal frame one week on from when it did fit in the little metal frame.
The lovely male check-in assistant came out of his little protective space and tried to jam it in the little metal frame, and also decided that this 1cm was enough to charge me £12.50 to have it checked in.
Now remember I am flying on my own, and feeling very unsure about people anyway. I quickly agree to the extra money as its much easier than having to reason with an NT.