Sunday 29 December 2013

Traipsing the Tawd

The weather hasn't been that great in the UK since I've been back for the holidays. Whilst the brunt of it has hit further south causing flooding, travel disruption and power outages, up in the northwest the wind has been the main problem. Thankfully causing no damage round my way, the 40km/h winds are more of a noisy nuisance than anything, howling between the plastic cladding outside of my exposed room walls on the corner of the street. Earbuds have been a frequent accessory to my nights sleep these last few days.

So when today yielded calm clear conditions with a bright blue sky, I seized the opportunity to go and play with my camera again, something I am always eager to do. It also gave me a chance to convince myself that Skelmersdale still has something to offer when it comes to spending time outside. Inspired from a conversation with a dear friend over tapas (and some cheeky sangria) where we reminded ourselves of the fact that we hail from a relatively rural part of the world, with access to beautiful countryside not even outside of the town borders, I donned my wellies, gave the dog a biscuit to ease his impending loneliness, and wandered down towards the river.

Skelmersdale is dissected by the River Tawd, a tributary of the larger Lancastrian waterway of the River Douglas, and a much neglected part of town. Shopping trolleys are a prominent part of the river load both near to and far from the shopping centre. Litter is liberally sprawled along the banks, especially so now thanks to redistribution from the wind. Despite its deserved bad rep, I still enjoy walking along the trail system that runs alongside it, set up in a long forgotten past age. I have fond memories of walking down to the river on a class trip in primary school to explore the environment, and to play Poohsticks at one of the bridges. So while the light was dwindling in the late afternoon I thought the tall trees would offer long shadows and reflections on the river would make for some interesting photos. And I was pleasantly surprised with my results.

Long shadows. Tick.
Rushing waters.
Walk 2 minutes in that direction to end up in a housing estate.
The Poohsticks bridge.
Fabulous reflections. Tick.
Maybe my favourite photo of the outing.
Long shadows of the trees on the overpass foundations.
An artistically discarded Mini Cheddars packet.
Chasing down the light I emerged from the riverside woods into the grassy fields adjacent for some more open landscape shots. Seeing planes in the skies above West Lancashire isn't an uncommon sight with Liverpool and Manchester airports nearby. Whilst watching Cash Cab back in Canada (a fabulous quiz show where you catch a taxi and answer questions for money with the fear of striking out and being kicked out before your destination) I learnt that the stream of white smoke from behind a plane was called a contrail (condensation trail, duh!), and fittingly I saw some wonderful contrails, changing from straight to more chaotic but well preserved lines with distance from the planes due to atmospheric eddies. 

Love the curved projection of the sky in this panoramic.
Contrail may be my new favourite word.
Crossing paths.
Dispersion.
Making tracks.
Tumultuous geometries.
The above photos were taken from the grounds of my old high school, Lathom High. I have excellent memories of high school and walking across the school fields the outline of the rounders pitches brought a reminiscent smile to my face. The subway that essentially marks the boundary of the school premises have seen a dramatic face-lift since I last saw them, with vibrant commissioned graffiti, not ancient local graffiti marking the walls. Super vivid mode was not required.

Framing the sunset with the goalposts.
Trapped leaves.
Inspiration.
My alma mater.
Blues showing my allegiance to Lathom, as opposed
to our green neighbours at Our Lady Queen of Peace.
An hours walk had provided me with some lovely photos of my old stomping grounds, and had succeeded in restoring some hometown pride. So much so that I decided to share the photos as a blog instead of just posting them on Facebook. The photos I took today had a story, one which may only be important to me, but one that I felt worthy of telling. While Skem has more than its fair share of faults, it does have some redeeming features.

Monday 9 December 2013

The tweeting procrastinator

Jorge Cham of PhD comics fame (in case you aren't friends with grad students who will inevitably post at least one of the comics per week: http://www.phdcomics.com) did a talk at MUN in April this year titled "The Power of Procrastination". Whilst explaining the favourite word of grad students worldwide, he made one point that really stood out for me. It was along the lines of;

"If you are procrastinating then you are spending your time doing something you want to do (i.e. topic of procrastination) instead of something you don't want to do (i.e. studying). So why are you doing something you don't want to do? Surely you should be doing what you do want to do. I (Cham) used to procrastinate by drawing cartoons. Look at me now."

Now, he didn't seem to be suggesting that people should leave grad school and spend their lives looking at videos of cats and sloths. That only seems financially productive if you work as a writer for BuzzFeed or something. But it was still an interesting thought.

Slow Loris videos are also important parts of people's lives.
The main theme of my procrastination is sports. While I try to do work at school, and I largely manage to do so, I will always have the BBC Sportsday live ticker on in the background. I might check it for 30 seconds every couple of hours, on a productive day that is. When not at work this use of my time changes from procrastination to a hobby. Thanks to our TV subscription and the fortunate time difference between Newfoundland and the UK, over the course of a weekend it is perfectly possible for me to watch 5 games of football, finishing at approximately 3pm allowing myself the chance to achieve something in the rest of the day. Until the hockey comes on at 8pm...

I have started to feel guilty about the amount of time that I invest in watching sports. Surely I should be doing something more beneficial or productive like...well, what exactly? Am I enjoying myself whilst watching sports. Yes. Even if my teams lose? Hmm that's more difficult but the rollercoaster of emotions is part of the thrill. Am I learning anything "worthwhile" from this experience? WHO CARES.

For most of my life I've thought my perfect job would be to be a sports journalist/statistician/photographer (all three in one job would be even better). I never sought to pursue any of these options seriously. Pipe dreams really. I fell in love with geology and ran with that instead, allowing my athletic fanaticism to remain a leisure activity. However, recently the possibility has popped up in my head. Thanks to Twitter.

The only thing I use Twitter (@ShtacyPhillips) for is to tweet about sports. Specifically to try and get my thoughts and opinions on the BBC sports live text commentaries. Stemming from the need for my opinions to be validated by someone, even the BBC online editors, and the fear of annoying my friends who watch sports with me with silly opinions that they don't care about (even though I do this regardless), I use social media to give myself a voice (as if mine needs to be louder anyways).

And not that getting published on the website for the rest of the BBC readers to see means that I have deep insights that no other fans have, or that I should pursue a media career, but I get strangely proud when I do get published. Someone has decided that my 140 characters are worth the world's web space. Granted, they do publish the views of absolute imbeciles too. I always fear that I am part of that crowd.

Whatever the editor's motivation, I screenshot my publications. I often post them on Facebook or Instagram (yes I've got an Android now and given into the craze) so that even more people can hear my opinions. This instant gratification validates the time I spend sitting on my couch in front of the TV. And a blog is another way that I can (and will now) broadcast things that people likely don't care about, for my own pleasure.

I tweet about Football...
(This one came true)
Rugby League (this was just an outpouring of emotion
after the Grand Final 2013 come back)
Tennis...

Women's Football..

Rugby Union...
General sporting chit chat..
And Cricket, where I indirectly helped two people outside of the
UK listen to the TMS BBC cricket radio broadcast.
Maybe I'm becoming a favourite of the BBC Sport website (I did get one of my Rugby League World Cup tweets read out on TV by Chappers). Maybe I am a decent armchair pundit. Maybe I'm just saying what everyone else is thinking. Or maybe nobody else gives a damn. Either way, I give a damn about sports. Always have and I always will. Its my procrastination tool. It's my hobby. Maybe one day it will be my career. But for now its how I simultaneously release myself from the real world and display my emotions to it. And it makes me happy. That's all that matters right?