This morning I went to water aerobics at Bryan Aquatic Centre...most of the people I was bobbing about with on our previous visit were there so it was great to see them again. But, the teacher had a slightly different approach. A short stretch and warm up session in the shallow end and then off to a separate deep diving pool where we spent 40 minutes in the water doing exercises with noodles (polystyrene tubes) without our feet touching the ground. Arm movements without moving your legs, leg movements without using your arms and treading water with your arms in the air. That sort of caper! So that's 40 minutes non-stop exercise. Followed by a wind down session in the shallow pool and press ups on the pool edge. Gasp! This is going to do me good - or kill me!
I drove home and had an early lunch then set off to a talk at the university. I was cheeky and took the student bus - a network of free transport for faculty and students that criss-crosses the city. It's how Peter gets to work every day. You're supposed to produce your student ID but no one seems to bother.
I went to the Memorial Student Centre (a very upmarket version of the students' union) to the Forsyth Art Gallery Learning Centre for a lunch time talk. I've been to one before and it was excellent. Well...there were 7 of us in total and 6 of them appeared to be university staff from the Art department.
The talk was entitled
PARADOX AND PLUNDER IN THE GILDED AGE:
Mass-Media and Material Culture of the Klondike Gold Rush 1897-1898:
Paper presented at the Forsyth Galleries
Gregory D. Phillipy
Gregory was a mumbler with a beard. He didn't open his mouth more that a few millimetres and I had great difficulty in hearing or understanding him. I kept looking round at others and they didn't seem bothered so I wondered if it was an accent thing. I'm glad I looked the talk up when I got back because I had no idea this is what he was trying to put across. It was rambling and disconnected. He had very little idea how to put his slides in context. If he'd read out when he wrote for the website http://uart.tamu.edu/lecture_Phillipy I would have realised what he was getting at. Perhaps he was intimidated by some of the audience who seemed to have been to the Klondike and knew all about it. At any rate, it was a disappointment.
Caught the bus home and missed the stop so had to walk back up the road for about 10 minutes in the blistering heat!
Collapse of stout party!
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