My lovely young man - I thought a post long overdue - a month whizzes by - a month thin on communication - hope you get the texts at least. I got the camera out today - thought I'd take some pics of the boeties for your newsletter, and thinking as I do it, that you change as much as they do, and so the pic in my mind's eye of you is dated - and I'm wondering therefore if the text is audience dated - I know that I've stepped in that trap more than once in the past. So much less big to small then, less adult - child, more person to person. To keep me on track, I think the things that I communicate with my limited number of friends about, and share those with you. Life in binary; or is that bipolar? Working-life and life. I'm going with the Chinese view that work-life balance is a silly concept - it's just life, and you want that balanced. On the work side of my life then, I've learned a lot - not all of it comfortable - and by that I mean that it's tough on your sense of self changing jobs - which I've done a lot of since coming here nearly eight years ago - changing continents is start at the bottomish and build your career up again (unless, come to think of it, you are super-qualified, which I am not, or have worked for recognisable multinationals (like Goldman Sachs or perhaps in South Africa's case Anglo) - each time you step to the next thing, you have to relive the inevitable which is all those people around you not knowing you, and understandably not knowing what you are (or are not) capable of - and it takes time for you to be able to add value, and for those around you to value what you add. I think that I've toughened to this though, this is my fifth job in these eight years - 
and this one's a bigger step because it's also sector changing - but there's a level at which all jobs are about shaping pictures of what collectively and individually needs to be done, refining the questions, seeking answers which are immediate in effect, but also srategic - meaning that they get important things achieved now, but position you successfully for later too - carrying water to drink and test the new pump, so to speak. I set up my first trip for last week - easy one to Singapore - nice place - meetings were pretty good, learned a lot about how I'd tweak it in future. I'll go to Aus in April, possibly to Jakarta before or after then, and of course to planet Japan - wooohooo. I had lunch in Singa with a very cool person called Celine Tan. My coming to sit down with her was an unusual route in itself, but I've discovered there are a lot of people out there who will do something surprising, and they are inevitably enriching, which she really was. At some point we talked about young people and parenting, and I have many misgivings of my capacity in this regard so it's a topic that interests me; she has three kids who are out of school, and in the course of the conversation she said that she always thought that "To kill a Mockingbird" was the top view of parenting - have you read it - I ask because back in my life of teaching English at highschools it seemed a perennial set-work book - and for good reason - really red hot literature - 30M copies sold cannot be otherwise - so I bought one in a bookshop (Singa has the best bookshops in Asia I think) and it was a hugely fantastic thing to read (again); so very different through these eyes now. So if you haven't read it, read it now, entertaining, beautiful, deep, smart, and not irrelevant in theme to our collective history - though I think too that one can overlook a lot that it offers about people and judgement and the problem and stupidity of collective convention and mores, if you get stuck in the black and white of it - thereby missing it's incredibly rich greys. Author is Harper Lee - have a look in your school library - I think it's pretty much guaranteed to be in there, if you've not read it and are interested in doing so.
and this one's a bigger step because it's also sector changing - but there's a level at which all jobs are about shaping pictures of what collectively and individually needs to be done, refining the questions, seeking answers which are immediate in effect, but also srategic - meaning that they get important things achieved now, but position you successfully for later too - carrying water to drink and test the new pump, so to speak. I set up my first trip for last week - easy one to Singapore - nice place - meetings were pretty good, learned a lot about how I'd tweak it in future. I'll go to Aus in April, possibly to Jakarta before or after then, and of course to planet Japan - wooohooo. I had lunch in Singa with a very cool person called Celine Tan. My coming to sit down with her was an unusual route in itself, but I've discovered there are a lot of people out there who will do something surprising, and they are inevitably enriching, which she really was. At some point we talked about young people and parenting, and I have many misgivings of my capacity in this regard so it's a topic that interests me; she has three kids who are out of school, and in the course of the conversation she said that she always thought that "To kill a Mockingbird" was the top view of parenting - have you read it - I ask because back in my life of teaching English at highschools it seemed a perennial set-work book - and for good reason - really red hot literature - 30M copies sold cannot be otherwise - so I bought one in a bookshop (Singa has the best bookshops in Asia I think) and it was a hugely fantastic thing to read (again); so very different through these eyes now. So if you haven't read it, read it now, entertaining, beautiful, deep, smart, and not irrelevant in theme to our collective history - though I think too that one can overlook a lot that it offers about people and judgement and the problem and stupidity of collective convention and mores, if you get stuck in the black and white of it - thereby missing it's incredibly rich greys. Author is Harper Lee - have a look in your school library - I think it's pretty much guaranteed to be in there, if you've not read it and are interested in doing so. So here are some updates on the little guys. The weather's been pretty gray and rainy this weekend, so we got up and fooled around at home - it did brighten later and we got to the beach for an hour - but these are from early morning before. The two above I thought were lovely pics, so they're separate; below are graining and moving, Jens borrowed my flash and lens for a photo-job last night (he's bought a new camera - superfantastic camera) so I had to use a 50mm with a really short f-stop for these: Aiden being a bad dog, pillow-fighting with one of the couch cushions (to be frowned on, but difficult), drying his hair (!) with a dishcloth after getting nice and sweaty disco dancing, and in the clutches of a good belly laugh after I gave him a fright when he was advancing - he thought stealthily - armed with a more reasonable pillow. Ev's got into showmanship, so it's difficult to take an authentic pic of him - I liked the hand one - the one next to it is his happy thug look, advancing for a bit of a scrap - there's also the serious thug look, which is the same, but with real intent (he's going to be a problem in this regard), and with one of his cars. Hope you like them, and I'm sorry I've been so absent from the shutter button lately.
