All good things...

Another break in transmission - and we're back.  A very long break, let's be honest. 

In brief - life got crazy, and not the thesis side of things which is ticking over very nicely thank-you.  No, I had one of my immediate family get diagnosed with cancer and close friends lost their nine day old baby to a heart problem.

Crap city. 

Family member doing nicely now - operation to remove the tumour went swimmingly.  Our friend's knew this was coming - the whole chapter was sad beyond words. 

Wise words from Job - The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

So yes, my mind has not been on blogging.

I did write a poem for our friend's to mark the all-too-brief of their beautiful girl Phoebe.

Monday came too soon
Brought forth
When better off inside.
A fight you could not win.
Fully loved,
But only half a heart.

Better some touch
Some seeing you
Than not
But never enough.
Oh Bright sad day,
Monday came too soon.

In a couple of days we leave our life in Durham and move home to Australia.  Two years ahead of plan.  I'm still working on the doctorate but will be full-time in Australia with remote supervision.  I've submitted my literature review and thesis proposal - once they've been marked and externally examined I'll put them up here for your reading pleasure (or incase you're having trouble sleeping).

G.

Who are you and what have you done with the real Guerin?

No I haven't been replaced by a pod person - well may you ask what I'm talking about, and where have I been?  Ok - if you haven't been following my FB updates, we were meant to spend three weeks in Italy but caught up in all the snow related 'fun' at Heathrow.  Holiday got canned.  Luggage lost for three weeks - various unrepeatable comments about Bristish Airways.  I've been trying to push through various books for my thesis, and have neglected posting here.

That still doesn't explain the above title. 

Let's talk TV.  Or rather, the lack of a TV.

I don't think its any great secret that I'm a TV addict - my preaching and writing is usually liberally scattered with various pop culture references from TV.  But since moving into our current abode in England - no TV.  This has been deliberate - you have to pay £145 pounds for a TV licence EVERY YEAR!!!  That's on top of the cost of the TV itself. 

But more than that, we made the decision not to get a TV because of our daughter Aly.  Because we don't have a TV in the house, it's really interesting if I take her to the Keenan House Common room - if other kids have the TV on there she just sits and gets this vacant look on her face - kids don't evaluate what they watch, it just soaks in.



Apart from killing imaginative play, the real danger here is in branding.  Go and watch a movie or commercial TV show - and play the game 'Spot the product placement'.  No joke - count how often Coke, Starbucks, or whatever makes an appearance.  Companies wouldn't do this if it didn't work.  Aly sits and reads, or plays with her toys.  She makes her own games (including a disturbing sequence in which she cooked the holy family from our nativity scene and fed them to her Teddy Bear...).  The adults talk.  You get used to having silence in the house and not needing background noise.  We get to make good head way with our hobbies - Em's turned into a knitting MACHINE, and I've been painting a large number of models for Warhammer 40K (at present I've done up a unit of 30 Choppa Boys, 20 Shoota Boys, 20 Choppa Boys, 1 Deff Dread, and 3 Killa Kans). 

Which leads me to a thought hither to unimagined...  No TV when we get back home to Australia. 



No.

Really.

I'm not joking.

I may even trim back my DVD collection.

Any way - back to the thesis.

Cheers - Guerin