Swanless

Still no sign of the swans anywhere. We had a wander along a few of the streams last Sunday and didn't see a single one. We're hoping that they swam back into the more remote sections of the nature preserve and that they haven't fallen into the wrong hands.

Click here for good swan info from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Noisy

British ladies like to wear noisy shoes.

Tock-tock-tock, clack-clack-clack down the street.

Winchester

Found a site with a nice little slideshow of Winchester and Hampshire. We'll miss this place, but we're excited about moving to Westbourne (suburb of Bournemouth). More about that later. We're still waiting for official confirmation that our rental application has been accepted.

Weekends - They just aren't long enough

So... this weekend was eventful...

We got up fairly early on Saturday morning because we had planned to drive down to Bournemouth for an apartment viewing at 10am and to look around a bit at possible areas to live in. Just as we were walking out the door, a neighbor (Shirley) was standing in the communal entry-way. Her car was blocked in by someone and she wondered if it was us (it wasn't). She needed to get to the Samaritan Centre for a volunteer shift. It was raining and she had a bit of a limp, so walking wasn't really an option. She was about to call a taxi, but we offered to give her a lift. Despite this slight detour, we made it down to Bournemouth on time for our appointment. The apartment was fantastic! I'll leave it for K to talk about it because that's more her department. In a nutshell, we loved it and said we'll take it. Looks like we'll be moving to a new place in July. A fruitful morning out of the way, we took a meandering path through the New Forest to get back to Winchester, saw some of the wild horses and ponies that wander around out there.

When we got home we had a late lunch while we finished watching the Oscars, which Mamma had taped for us when it aired back in March. I was about to finish re-stringing my banjo when my mobile phone suddenly rang. It was Q, someone I know from my film production days in LA, and his friend L. He called to tell me they had gotten to London and that they had gotten bus tickets to Winchester. Holy crap! Uh, OK. I had suspected this because I had exchanged a few emails with him when he told me they were coming to England. They were flying standby so he wasn't sure which flight he'd get on. They asked if they could crash at our place. I told him that'd be fine, but that we're nowhere close to London (a common misconception amongst our American friends and family is that England = London and if you live in England, you must live in London). We didn't think they'd actually take us up on the offer. Anyway, we had to do some quick tidying up and then figure out what we would do with them.

About an hour later, we were sitting at a pub with them hearing stories of film/tv production in LA (Martha Stewart using the f-word and treating people like trash, Robert Deniro wanting to jump out of a van to throttle someone who had cut off them off, etc.). It was great to see Q again (he's quite a character... a sort of Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski) and his friend L seemed like an alright guy e had some dinner and then I suggested we go back to our place. They were up for an early night because of their jet-lag and were aware that K was going to run in a 10K the next day. However, on the way back, Q wanted to go into another pub (the one across the street from us). K went home and I went in with them. At around 10pm, L was hungry again and wanted to go to a fast-food place. I directed them up the street to the kebab and fish'n'chips shops, then I went home to wait for them. They didn't come back until about 2:30am. I napped on the couch so I could hear them knock. K was supposed to be in our bedroom sleeping, but I later find out that she's had a tough time of it due to the noise the neighbors were making upstairs until about midnight.

Next morning, K leaves for the 10K. I had planned to be at the finish line to greet her, but now that we had our two unrulhouse gueststs, I had to stay behind to try to orchestrate their departure. They were due for a flight to Dublin from Stansted on Monday morning. There were a few options: a) cheap Megabus trip to London at 4:30am and then to Stansted from there; b) a more expensive National Express bus to London leaving every hour or so; c) a National Express bus to Stansted leaving at 4:30am Sunday night/Monday morning. Despite hinting several times that the 10:40am bus would be the best for them, they were clinging to option 'c' so I had no choice but to just tell them that they had could not statillil then. I offered to drive them to Heathrow so they wouldn't have to take the bus, then they could get to Stansted from there. They took my offer and booked a B&B near Stansted. Then they offered to take me to breakfast at the pub up the road. Q went up to the bar to order, but forgot to order for me which he didn't realize until he was halfway done with his own plate. Then I showed them around Winchester a bit, pretty much just the Cathedral. Then I ushered them back to our place and into our car to drive them to Heathrow. K came with me. They offered to pay for the gas, offering £20. I told them £10 would be fine, but by the time we were finally home again, we had burned that £10 worth of fuel and more. See, after we dropped them off at Departures and had gotten back on the M25, my phone rang. It was L. He had left his digital camera in the back seat, could we please turn around. He was very apologetic. It took us about 20 minutes to get back to the airport again because traffic had picked up. It was after 4pm when we finally got home, so we did our best to enjoy the precious last hours of our weekend.

But, hey, we found a great apartment to move to in July!

Needless to say, we're severely looking forward to this coming long weekend. I want to play my damn banjo!

Where the hell are the swans?!

So, after about 40 days and 40 nights, the swan eggs finally hatched, as I mentioned before. Everything was going great, but when K checked the nest on Tuesday morning, the swans were nowhere in sight. Just an empty nest with some broken shells and one lone egg that never hatched. I checked this morning and they're still not there. So, what happened to them, I ask you!?

Get along little doggie

The banjo arrived today. Totally stoked! I'm mostly clueless about how to play it, though. Need an instructional video or book or something.

Swan Mommy part 2

Checked on her again this afternoon. There are 8 or 9 babies there now. Kindly, she stood up to let the crowd of people see them and take some pictures. In the foreground, you can see one of the more recently hatched chicks, still a bit gooey.

She's having a hard time sitting on the last three or four eggs now. The chicks keep getting in the way and she has to keep changing position.

It's the talk of the town!

Swan Mommy

As of yesterday evening, Winchester has some new swanlings. Only two or three have hatched so far, so the Swan Mommy still has a long day ahead of her. The first-born took a break from the brood to catch a little fresh air...

Dueling Banjos

I've been salivating for one for a while now. To celebrate my getting of a new job, I bought a banjo today on eBay. Ain't it just swell! Now I just have to wait for it to arrive.

British Pronounciation

Derby pronounced "darby" and Clerk pronounced "clark"... explain that one!

About the new job

My reeling-in of another job may have come as a surprise. To be honest, it was a bit of a surprise to me, too. It happened so suddenly. I had applied for the job in early February because I was starting to get fed up with the newsfilm project I am working on. They were so supposed to interview for the position on February 23rd, but I got a letter stating that they would not be able to do the interviews at that point in time and would contact me in the future if I made it for the "shortlisting". March came and went. I assumed the position had been filled, then in early April, I got an invitation to interview on the 28th. Though I had already resigned myself to the fact that I would just stick it out with the newsfilm project, I decided to go for the interview just to see what would happen. It went pretty well. There were three other candidates interviewing that day for the same position. Each of us was quite different, bringing very different attributes to the table. They told us that they would notify of the outcome within 10 days. Monday was a holiday here, so I didn't expect to hear anything. Tuesday and Wednesday went by without incident. I assumed that I would probably receive a letter of rejection, since they would likely have called the successful candidate by then.

Lo and behold, a call came through on Thursday afternoon from one of the HR people. She told me she was calling to offer me the job and that I was their first choice. The head of the film department wanted me to start ASAP, but they were aware that I needed to give one month's notice in my current job, so she asked me to think it over and then call her the next day to let her know when I could start. I was in a state of shock for the rest of the day. Shocked, but definitely ecstatic. Well, as ecstatic as a stoic person like me can be. We talked it over that night and I decided that I would give my notice on Friday and start the new job on June 5th. Now, the job...

It's at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth in the Film Production BA degree program. My title will be "Technician Demonstrator". According to the job description "the main purpose of this role is to ensure the learning environment is adequately equipped and that learners are competent in the use of machines and equipment." I'll be working with a team of three other TDs who all report to a Senior Technician. It's partly a teaching/demonstrating role and partly equipment maintenance and acquisition from what I understand. In any case, it doesn't involve staring at a computer all day long or working in a basement with no daylight. It's definitely going to be challenging, not least of which because I tend to be a bit shy around strangers (in this case, students). Something I'll have to get over quickly if I'm going to be able to effectively teach anything! So, I'm going to learn a lot of new skills. They also want me to undergo a teacher certification program within the first two years. That'll be a good qualification to have.

The starting salary is about £600 more per year than what I'm making right now and once we move to Bournemouth (likely by this August), I'll be saving the £270 that it costs to per month to get to London. There's also prospects for advancement either into more teaching or more technician-ly roles. Plus, it's a permanent staff position, so as long as I make it through the "probationary period" I'll have a long-term job to see us through K's PhD. Speaking of which, AIB is directly across from Bournemouth University, essentially the same campus.

Though I'll miss most of my current coworkers and the good elements of the newsfilm project (working in the ITN archive with some great material) and though I feel a bit guilty about not sticking out the project to its end date in January 2007, the AIB job is too good to let go. And it would be very stupid to do so. Furthermore, I'm really looking forward to it!

---

TECHNICIAN DEMONSTRATOR

Job Purpose
The main purpose of this role is to ensure the learning environment is adequately equipped and that learners are competent in the use of machines and equipment. As appropriate to support individual/course projects.

Main Responsibilities
Provide demonstrations and tuition in techniques, processes and safe practise to groups of students to enable them to develop competence in their application.

Provide workshops, demonstrations and instruction on new and existing equipment, processes and techniques.

Deliver Health and Safety and Technical Operations induction programmes to students with particular reference to studio and workshop usage in order to ensure safe working practices in accordance with the Institute’s Health & Safety Policy.

Assist in the preparation of technical handouts required in support of projects, curriculum development and documentation, contributing to annual course monitoring reports, reviews and Quality inspection visits.

Construct and adapt resource area equipment, teaching aids, models or samples in order that teaching and exhibition areas are equipped appropriately and to a professional standard.

Provide appropriate technical and student support for live project work according to the requirements of the School Director and Course Leader.

Ensure effective maintenance and cleaning of specialised machinery and equipment and assist in the coordination of inventories as required.

Maintain stocks and keep appropriate records.

Maintain individual student records of attendance and attainment.

Assist the Course Leader and Senior Technician in the effective and efficient operation of the School in whatever manner deemed appropriate and undertake such other reasonable duties as may be required by the Institute.

Observe equality and inclusivity practices and procedures and promote equal opportunities at all times.

And the winner is...

...Hiscock! 800+ votes against the Conservative candidate's 600+ votes. Don't remember exactly what the margin was, something like 160 votes.

He better be worth it, not that it'll matter much to us.

Eventful Week

So... yesterday I voted for HISCOCK. It was very anti-climactic, just a little X on a ballot. They didn't even check my ID. The polling mailer was enough, apparently.

Let's see. What else happened yesterday?

Oh! I got a call at work from the Art Institute of Bournemouth offering me a job. I accepted it.

Today, I notified my current employer that I will be leaving in a month. Also found out that my immediate boss is planning to do the same thing, though I think I beat her to it (fortunately).

Life is good! Crazy, but good!

Please, please vote for me!

Tomorrow (May 4th) is election day in the UK, but just for local government (city councillor). I received a polling card in the mail a couple of weeks ago, inviting me to cast my vote. So, to be a part of the community, I thought "What the hell, why not?" This will not only be the first time I will vote in the UK, but also the first time I will vote in ANY election anywhere. Living in the US, I was not allowed to vote because I was not a citizen. As a "Permanent Resident" you are afforded pretty much all the rights of an American citizen except for the right to vote. This didn't really bother me all that much. Anyway, since we are currently living in the UK, which is part of the European Union to which I am a citizen, I am allowed to vote.

I've been struggling about who to vote for because I'm not sure what political party I'd fit into (Labour? Conservative? Liberal Democrat? Respect? Greens?), so I've just been looking at the issues. We're most concerned about the farmland around us getting re-zoned for low-rent housing. We are vehemently against this, so I'll vote for the party that shares that view.

The city councellor for the past 7 years has been a Liberal Democrat. Things seem pretty good here, so I suppose he's doing a good job. Therefore, he'll likely get my vote. My only reservation is his name. Sit down. Are you ready for this?

Hiscock. Hiscock!

Brits, Americans... what's the difference?

A good article by Andrew Sullivan in yesterday's paper. I think it's pretty true. I feel sort of vindicated because these are some ideas that had been bouncing around in my head during the past two years of living in England. You can read the full article HERE, but here are some of the more salient points:

"From Starbucks to WiFi, much of Londonland — and I include the vast expanse of England that is essentially a satellite of the capital — is indistinguishable from an American blue (Democrat-voting) state city.

Thatcher’s reforms, and Blair’s co-optation of them, have created, from a distance, a pseudo-American society. The energy in Londonland, its vibrant labour markets, its consumerism, its media, its multiculturalism, its unabashed capitalism, have a distinctively American feel. Even the new wave of eastern European immigrants is strikingly like New York in another era."

[...]

"Class has clearly diminished in the Londonland mind. People tip bartenders more than they used to. They own shares, make their own retirement arrangements, live near people with different religions and colours, and have turned urban American hip-hop into a strange English hybrid. What else are chavs but some kind of English fusion of “white trash” and “ghetto”, complete with bling? Brits today can even look at someone like David Cameron and be less interested in his class background than in what, if anything, he has to say. How, er, American."

[...]

"Culture still matters, and on that score Britain is still closer to America than almost any other country. I don’t mean simply the number of San Franciscans downloading Ricky Gervais podcasts, or the ubiquity in American pop culture of reality television created in Britain, or even the cross-cultural franchises of Harry Potter, Tolkien or The Simpsons. I mean rather a residual, tenacious sense that the individual is responsible for his own destiny. Some 82% of Americans ascribe lack of success in life to the individual rather than to society and 75% of Brits share this view."

[...]

"But to me the most telling aspect of Americanisation is anti-Americanism itself. Anti-Americanism, after all, is as American as its opposite. You will find few foreign countries as hostile to Bush as California. The most successful anti-Americans, like Michael Moore, are home-grown. Asked recently whether Americans were “greedy”, 64% of Brits agreed. But 70% of Americans chimed in agreement. Some 26% of Brits believe that Americans are “immoral”; 39% of Americans agreed!"