20 $

With only $20 in my pocket, I would be a poor soul!

BTW! Are we talking Hong Kong dollar or the other ones dollar. US I think it is?

With only 20 Hong Kong dollar in my pocket?

I think I would go to the rat alley and get a nice steaming portion of the fried chilli noodles with a couple Sui Mei and beef balls. After that I must have a couple of dollars left. I would save them and hope for a better day, week, month, anything to be better in fact. Maybe wake up and find it being a bad dream.

Man, suddenly I remember back to the days as I was a poor student in Århus, Denmark.

Sometimes I only had maybe 50 kroner or something for a whole week. 

I remember one time I was addicted to cigarettes, but I didn't have any. Didn't have any money either, Danish money that is, coz I did have 10 D-Mark - yes, that is so long back that the D-Mark still was the official currency or the Bundesrepublik Deutschland/ Germany - and those 10 D-Mark was equal to about 38 Danish Kroner and if I went to the bank to exchange that note, I could buy myself a package with 10 fags. 

Off corse I went to the bank and asked to get the money changed and the man just looked at me with a sad face. He told me, that I would loose so much of the money in exchange fee and that I would get less than half of what it was really worth. I was just so much longing fora drag of a fag that I told him to give me the money.

He did. I went out and over the street  to a nearby Kiosk and got those bloody fags -still some coins in my pocket- came out, ripped the package open and lit up one and immediately felt better. For a while. Just until the next time the pocket was empty and yet still to early in the month to go to the bank to ask for an advanced payment of the monthly student support. Also that was just so embarrassing yet frequent.

Suddenly I remember a slogan or motto I pretty much lived by in student times and it was something like this: " a good smoke can better help you through times without money than money can help you through times with no smoke".

Good old student life. How that could be miserable. Yet it is still the time I sometimes think back at with some kind of envy. But not that part with the money or the lack of them. The freedom, the youth and the possibilities. Even with only 20 kroner in your pocket. 

What do you think? Yes, you. You have just read this. Have you ever been a poor student, who sometimes had to live from hand to mouth?

If you have, you must have some memories of the hardship to make ends meet, and yet, still remember life, back then, as a student as some of the most glorious and exciting days of your life.

Disclaimer.

If someone should be waiting for me to explain what would do if I only had 20 US dollar in my pocket?

Sorry to disappoint you. I really do not know what I would do as I don't really have a clue what I could get for 20 US dollar. Well, at least not in the US. Probably I couldn't even buy myself a gun for that kind of money.

This Easter I travelled in Iran. There I could fly from a town called Shiraz and all the way north to Tehran, about 800 kilometre away, for what's equal to 34 US dollars. In that case I suspect that I could fly from Isfahan to either Shiraz or to Tehran for about 20 US dollar. But then what after doing that?

 

Imagine what birds are thinking?

I imagine these are the things birds think about: 

My first thought, or the first that came to my mind when I read this prompt was in fact a scene from Wes Anderson's great film " Moonrise Kingdom", and is the scene where the young scout boy Sam, forces his way through the school theatre to enter the girls dressing room and approach the leading ladybird, Suzy, while she is working on her make up at the mirror:

"what kind of bird are you?"

So like him, I would like to know what kind of bird?

What kind of bird I should imagine the things birds think about, as they must think about different things depending what kind of birds they are?

I can't imagine an ostrich or a Kivi for example, suffering from vertigo and having thoughts about how it is to be afraid of heights.

Or this one, a duck in a public park in some Scandinavian country, having thoughts about the possibility of getting food poison from eating from some old carcass on the Tanzanian savanna.

And a black kite from Hong Kong would probably never thinking of methods to avoid getting cold feet in winter when the lakes in the north freezes?

Many many different birds, many more different possibilities of imaginary thoughts. However, there could be some common thoughts that all kinds of birds are thinking:

Sex with other birds of the opposite sex, but within the same species.

Gathering enough food for themselves and their family.

Looking out for, and protection against predators and other dangers.

Raising their chicks and make sure they fly safe from the nest.

They could very well be thinking about the weather too.

Building a solid and comfortable nests that fits to the environment. 

Maybe I should start with a rationale and maybe uncover my thoughts, why I think

birds think about what i think they think about.

The first one is pretty obvious, isn't it. Birds are earthly creatures like every other earthly creature here on the planet, so I assume that they, like every other earthly creature, will be thinking of having sex with other members of their bird species. 

Should there, to my surprise, be any exception from this assumption, I would think I'd be wrong with the rest of my line of thinking as well.

Food must be the next thing they -birds- think about. I do not think they are counting calories or in any other way have any obsessions or disorders towards food. Only that they are able to find plenty to feed them selves and the screaming number of chicks hidden away somewhere in some kind of home.

Like us humans have our safe house and our door and a lock to keep unwanted intruders out and away from our loved ones and belongings, so,do I think birds in some way have same instinct to protect their family.

However, here again it must be different from species to species how I imagine they think about that.There are birds, which sole purpose it is to rob the nest and eggs from others birds. They could think about protecting their own nest in one way, but rob the nest of others in another. 

There's just too many cars around, isn't there?

Driving is a lot like freedom.

 Freedom Highway. Pyongyang to DMZ, North Korea, April 2014.

However, it depends where and why you are driving. Normally I enjoy driving, I just don't do it that often. Maybe that is why I enjoy it, when I finally do drive.

Mongolia, June 2014. A nice afternoon trip through the country side in this very robust Russian truck.

Where I live I do not need a car. In fact I really dislike cars here, as there are just too many and the people are so selfish with their cars. The town close by where we live is an actual nightmare at weekends because of visitors coming in from the big city to enjoy the space, the air at the see and the country parks. Normally it is a nice little quite quiet town. Mostly. Then come the week- ends and cars pile up on roads and streets, often to find themselves stuck with the trillions of other selfish car overs that had the same idea. Then they all start hooping at each other when they get really stuck. If this was just a problem for those selfish lazy car people, I could possible overlook it, but it is not. It affects everyone, and make the atmosphere tense and unwelcoming. 

Shiraz, Iran. April 2016.

In that case, driving can be like prison. Other people's driving are a prison to those who don't drive. Even to take the public transport doesn't help as people just find themselves stuck in a bus in a traffic jam that just doesn't move anywhere anymore. This mainly because selfish lazy car people think they will save time by driving in their own car, the two of them, in one car, and the tons of solo drivers just wanting to get as close to the shop as possible and then park in second or third position and completely clog the street and make it impossible for taxi's, busses or even pedestrians to get around. Could be that also lazy selfish car people see driving as freedom?

Memphis Tennessee, USA, July 2012


Normally, I do enjoy driving, it is just that I mainly do it when on holidays (which is probably why I enjoy it) and probably because I normally don't drive in too big cities at rush hour. 

Driving on holiday often means road trips. I love road trips. The freedom of going the direction you want. The ability to change and adapt. To choice to stop at this or that little diner or coffee shop or comido or osteria or Hostineč. All depending which country you are scrolling through. Music on the radio, good music. Beautiful landscapes passing. Destinations out there in the horizon. Unknown, yet, getting closer. What's it going to be like, and where to next. That when driving is a lot like freedom.

Soon I'll be driving again and the driving will be a lot like freedom.

Getaway's.

The ideal gateway for me could be a couple of places.
What comes first to my mind is Kampot and Rabbit Island in Cambodia.
But let us see how it has changed when we go visiting once more in October, and this time with Mum and Ricky. RIIICKEYY? He might not like it too much as they have no supermarket. Well, not any in UK standard that is. They have a market, a really cramped one.
Anyway, that could be a real getaway. But could I live there?

Not too far away from Kampot -20 something kilometers- there is the only Cambodian island called Rabbit island. That is a real getaway. Even a getaway from the other getaway. The getaway of getaways.
A true exotic island with amazing beaches, palm trees and no cars, no roads, no big hotels. Only some small huts and some restaurants/ bars and a lot of mosquitos. But I couldn't live there, I would get too bored. It's ok for some days.

Last time there we stayed one night. It was so relaxing and I felt a bit sad when we had to go back to the "city", Kampot, the next afternoon. It was a very relaxing place. Even lying down on one of the sun beds at the beach and thinking of reading in my book, seemed to stressful.
Thinking of it now, I can't even remember what we did there for 30 something hours.
Sit, yes. Swim, yes. Eat, yes. The rest is kinda blurred. Oh yeah, there was this older gentleman, like Santa Claus on a diet, with g string pants and there were these phosphorous algae in the water as it got dark, and to see how they just arose from around your limps when bathing in the water.

Cádiz in the south west of Spain. A romantic and beautiful old city on a peninsula of the Spanish coast.
I could live there in one of the narrow streets and go for coffee and tapas everyday. And I might take of drinking a couple of bottles of wine again.

And now, after my Easter adventure also Shiraz in Iran could be one of the getaways, if it wasn't for the horrible traffic, however, that is more or less every where now, except Rabbit island.  

Three things?

 

Three things I want to try are:

One of them I've already started and that is to say what I'm doing now. Write something every day and publish it to a blog.

However, the blog I'm using now is fairly hidden and not so well -if ever- visited, so what I might try out at one point has to be to publish one of these post on another platform. A kind of established platform. In the best-case scenario on Medium. That musts wait to be when I'm good though. When ever that will be. Maybe when and if one of these posts ever get a view or a like, I'll consider publishing it to our own work portal?

Second thing: I have the desire to try has got to be to drive from east to west or the other way on Cuba. Ideally in one of those retro American 50ties automobiles they still have got, or in an older Russian truck with a cabin attached where we could live for the time crossing the island.

And the third: What wouldn't I give to present at the ISTE tech conference in the United States sometime and also at either learning 2.0 or one of Project Zero's conferences. That I would really like to try.

Just need to find the exact right topic and subject, and then have the guts to pull it of in front of the global TechEd/ EdTech in-crowd!

Challenge the challenge

 

Bloody challenge. Or rather challenges. Not only have I done this one writing challenge upon myself. No, I also have a exercise challenge hanging over my little head. Self inflicted, I know, and self punishment and self blaming when I do not do it.

Honest, I am not the youngest anymore and the metabolism isn't what is was in the 80ties, that is for sure, so to stay more or les fit, I do a reign of exercises every morning.

I hate it.

Well, not after when I'm done and can eat breakfast. Not then. But I hate it nearly from the evening before when I go to bed. I start hating getting up again because of that challenge, that self inflicted pain I've challenged myself to do. I get up and start arguing with my self if I can find an excuse, just today.

Then I read about this guy on Medium, who stated that he'd got more creative by writing and publishing a daily blogpost. I want to get more creative again.

I used to be creative. Back then. Back before I started a professional life and had to be creative professionally, which isn't that bad and I do not mind being creative professionally, it's just that it is professional and then - I fell - it doesn't count really, as it is what I'm paid to do.

No, I wanted to get my free time creativity back, so to my exercise challenge I have added this writing challenge, in the hope of finding back some of previous days creativity.

Funny how challenges can make you find excuses for maybe not doing it anyway. And funny how your mind then call down upon you how weak and back-boneless it thinks that you are by trying to find excuses, and so not to disappoint yourself you do it anyway.

As a child I read a lot of comics. One of the favourites was Tin Tin and Snowy, and I remember how I liked when Snowy had a dialog with his own conscience, the white and black Snowy, sitting on his shoulders arguing if he was to do this or that. It was silly I thought then. Now I know how it is like. Doing the challenge or not?

To cheat with the writing challenge I have even started to look through my hard drive and google drive to see if I discover some already finished pieces of writing, and just post them, just to get out of the process of thinking, finding the idea and start writing. But, as I haven't done that much -which I kind of knew- writing before, it wasn't to much help.

I had something on my previous iPad, but unfortunately that got lost sometime 9 months ago, so there is no way out of it if I have to maintain peace between the White and Black representation of my own conscience, that -like Snowy's- are resting on each of my shoulders, negotiating wether or not I should skip one of the challenges just this once. Bloody challenges. Has it helped so far on my creativity?

My brain is highly creative when trying to find excuses not to do the challenges.  

MayTie & TieZember

 

Why does men wear ties?

Or why does all men who find them self important, wear ties.?

Or why does people find that men that wear ties are more important?

Normally I do not wear a tie as I consider myself the more casual, lending towards the hippie, kind of type.

That said you might think that I give a damn how I look or what I wear. Not really. In fact the quite opposite. I really like fashion and I do like the look of a tie in combination with a shirt, a suit and whatever and I do like the challenge to put together different professional outfits with a tie.

I just regard it too hard to do every each day of my working life. And I believe that the routine of " you have to wear a tie" spoils the creativity and just makes it kind of everyday invisible as with time it just becomes routine.

Therefore I only wear ties in my professional life for two months of the year. In December and in May. I call these TieZember and MayTie.

Why: I state that it is to raise awareness about male creativity and thinking outside the box.

These two months I have the challenge of trying to put together my wardrobe in different and matching ways. I am not allowed to wear the same tie twice in the same month and I am trying to make new combinations with my wardrobe. It makes my brain work in new and creative ways and is a good start to the day to do that.

So I wear a tie to challenge myself to think creatively and aesthetically/ fashionably. And the response I get those two months is very positive and people are curious as to why, so I get the opportunity to share my issue. Something that wouldn't happen, if I was to wear a tie - or suit- every day, as a uniform.

Maybe this attention makes me feel more important?

And maybe people find me more important as they now know why I do it, because they've asked?  

Like a Traktor Tattoo...

 

I do have one tattoo but no, I do not have any Traktor Tattoo, yet...

If I'm getting one made, I guess I better have to design it myself. Or what about I call for some submissions?

A Traktor tattoo will be somewhat permanent, something that will be agonizing and hard to get removed if ever.

It will also be extremely painful to get it made, a big challenge in fact. And it will take time.

I do have two blogs, however I do not really maintain them and certainly do not do a daily blogpost either, yet.

One post a day on a blog would be something permanent as a tattoo. It would also be extremely hard and challenging for me to maintain this endeavour, and I will be a jibbering wreck every time I post my flab doodle, anxious about responses and critics and I will be vulnerable as English isn' my mother tongue and I am not a real writer. I just like the thought of maybe becoming one.

Therefore, the challenge to myself to do one dally post -or at least five a week- will be somewhat the same as getting that tattoo, painful. Why not make it a Traktor Tattoo blog as well, as people will ask me anyway why I do, or did it.

Post Challenge 2016

My inquiry teacher icon is a tractor!

We had this PD day workshop about inquiry based learning and to get some inquiry going between us, we were asked to create an icon that for us could signify the real " inquiry teacher".

All of us got a pipe cleaner as remedy to create the icon. After that we should try to go around and and make inquiry among the others to see if we could find similarities and connections.

As I mentioned, I made a tractor as icon for the inquiry based learning teacher. 

Why?

Well, simply because a tractor is the tool, the machine or thing that unselfishly, each and every year will prepare the fields for the new season and will sow all the seeds on the fields and are responsible for them, clean them for pests, water them to growth and ultimately, when the crops are suitable, harvest and prepare them for what ever use they are intended for. And then, after that, will start the entire circle all over and over again.

 

Cherry blossoms in Naha, Okinawa

The springtime messenger is back. Cherry blossoms in Japan. First sign that springtime is approaching.

This is fromOkinawa, one of the most southern of the Japanese islands, so maybe they need two more months until they will start blooming in Tokyo and Kyoto?

The centered vision of Wes Anderson.

A nice little film that illustrate the power of Wes Anderson's symmetric image composition.