-
Crowned
Last week I had my permanent crown installed. It turns out the tooth I thought was getting a crown only had a filling replaced and the crown was the same side but upper jaw instead. At first I thought the lower tooth was better with regard to the food getting stuck. Today I think it’s as bad as ever and I don’t know why this is such a problem area if it wasn’t the tooth that was broken. There’s a part of me worried that it was supposed to be the lower tooth that was crowned and a mistake has been made. I would like to think that surely wouldn’t have happened and he’d have noticed the problem. The crown itself is fine. It feels rather odd at the moment but I guess I will get used it.
Last week I was also plagued with issues related to menopause. There were about 2.5 months between one period and the next so it was another of those ones that seemed to make up for the missed one and then some. Fortunately this one didn’t go on so long as the bad one last year. Still I should be taking those iron tablets and I have been slack since things settled down. This was the direct follow on from the sore throat/cold/cough that had hit the family the week before. I still have a bit of the cough but it’s not a constant thing.
I became a great-aunt last week when my nephew and his wife had a baby boy. He’s a cute little fellow and seems to be getting heaps of attention. It was an interesting case of lots of us keeping up with the progress of things via Facebook because the wife had been updating until she was induced and then my nephew kept a log during the labor. Now it seems to be back to the wife to keep track of everything.
After a bit of a break or a lapse in commitment, I have been working on a few MOOCs again. This time all three are on edX and all three are sort of biology/human body related. The one that got me going again is one about the anatomy of the upper limb. I did this course on Coursera a couple years ago and liked it. They have moved to the different platform for some reason and I have started it again. I’m enjoying it just as much as I did last time. I am pleased to remember quite a few bits but then there is plenty I have forgotten. Most of my time is spent watching videos on this one so that’s okay. There are two others that are self-paced, which works a bit better for me. One is an into biology course which I started once before but didn’t continue due to other factors at the time. It’s a fairly long course but the instructor is quite enjoyable and I think I will learn more this time around. The other is a human cell biology unit fhat’s done at an Australian university. This covers some of the stuff not included in the biology unit. My goal is to understand enough to try out the immunology courses there, which are also enjoyable. I just need to understand some of the basic processed better. It’s all quite a fascinating study for me, which wouldn’t have been the case back when I really was a student.
-
Online study
I’d guess it’s almost certain that Greek mythology gets some attention at least a couple of times during our school years and I was no exception. I don’t really recall at what stages we covered it but it was visited on several occasions while growing up. I remember in college we read  the Odyssey during our Western Civ class, although I’m not certain if it was the full thing or just a part of it. I do remember it was hard to read and I didn’t get a lot out of it. The prose stories seemed okay to me but reading the verse was a different story.
I’m currently doing a course on Greek and Roman mythology on Coursera and reading the Odyssey again, in verse. It’s a far different experience to come to it out of my own choice. The translation by Fagles is the one used in the class so I am using that too. It seems to work for me as I’ve been able to read it quite well so far. I still haven’t go into the major part of the story but I am remembering more of what I read this time around. There are some other texts being used that I probably haven’t read before from the source, like Metamorphosis by Ovid. That’s still a few weeks away but I hope I can be as comfortable with the translation there as I am with this one.
Lego Lover is also doing the course with me, although he is more auditing it than anything and mostly watching the videos and doing some of the readings. The pace is a bit fast for him so we may have to do it outside the time frame of the online class. I think the class archive stays up for quite some time so that should be quite doable for him.
I’m now mostly limiting myself to just one online course at a time as it gets a bit too difficult to do more than one and get much out of it. Earlier this year I was signed up for several and only completed one of them so fewer commitments is obviously better.
Later this year I’m doing a philosophy of science course through the University of Edinburgh. I did the beginning philosophy course last year and enjoyed it and hope this delves further into the topics of a couple of the presenters for that class.
-
Online learning
I started a few new online courses on Coursera last week. The first one was the Ancient Greece class and it’s been rather slow-going. I signed up for this mostly for the benefit of Lego Lover but I rather doubt we’ll be there for the long-haul. The lecture videos aren’t particularly engaging and it feels like forever to finish just one. I also think some of the reading is going to be a bit much for Lego Lover so it might be an early casualty. The second course is History of Rock and Roll Part 1. I enrolled in this a while ago, then unenrolled and decided to try again after all since the Scientist is doing this course this time. That one is quite engaging and relatively light work so far. I’ll know a bit more once the quiz is released. There’s also Dino 101, which is completely for the sake of Lego Lover. So far, this has been the best course suited to Lego Lover. It’s not particularly complex, easy enough to be handled even by upper primary students. It’s quite engaging so Lego Lover and I are both enjoying it considerably. He really loves the subject matter too, which is funny because he didn’t when he was much younger like many of his same-aged peers.
The big challenge right now is the class on Modern and Contemporary American Poetry. I have never gotten into poetry in any way but I’ve always felt that I must be missing something since so many people love poetry. I don’t know that this particular set of poetry is the best starting point but I thought it would be good to challenge my notions of poetry and see if I can gather up some better appreciation and perhaps enjoyment of it. This first week has been about Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. I am familiar with both but doubt I’ve read either of these poets in the past so knew nothing about either. I’ve only watched the videos about Dickinson so far but it’s been interesting how they can spend half an hour discussing such a short poem. I won’t say this is without merit but I guess that blows me away to some extent. One thing I did after watching the discussions of her poems was to go and read about her, which might be been more practical beforehand as it puts her work in better perspective.
I ended up dropping out of the Modern and Postmodern class that was so philosophy-based as I got behind on the reading and then the video lectures so there didn’t seem much point carrying on. Perhaps I will make attempts at reading on my own and try the class on its next offering. Assuming something else doesn’t catch my attention. At the very least it go my mind working in ways it hasn’t for years. Not even when I was back in school to do my masters in library and information science….
-
MOOC obsessed
A local homeschooling connection posted a link to Coursera, which hosts a number of massive open online  courses, on Facebook a while back. I had a look at it at the time and forgot about it for a long while. A few days ago she posted again about how she and her daughter were doing this course on the science of gastronomy and describing what it was like so far. I went back to look and was so hooked that I signed up for the course right away even though it was hours until the first assignments were due to be finished. Even the Scientist got hooked and joined me watching the video lectures and doing the assignments that night. There are four more weeks worth of classes ahead and I look forward to doing those weeks.
I perused over course offerings there and discovered a class called Maps and the Geospatial Revolution. I thought perhaps this would be of interest to Lego Lover and he did find the concept of interest. I signed up for that one and I am doing the course myself but will use the course materials to work with Lego Lover. This is the kind of ideal stuff to use with him for our homeschooling program. If I am taking the course, I can use the information and adapt to his needs without any requirement that he be directly involved. So far Lego Lover hasn’t been involved in any way but I must admit the course is turning out to be quite interesting to me by itself. I’m looking forward to his involvement with what I am doing and if he opts out at any point, I can carry on without him.
There are a bunch of other courses that I found interesting, many which I could use with Lego Lover, and many for my own enjoyment. Further research shows a number of these MOOCs are out there with varying levels of involvement required. It makes me want to lots of courses so it’s a matter of restraint on overdoing things. I’ve added a course on modern and contemporary American poetry for later this year. I’ve not been that interested in poetry but though this might be a gateway if it works out well. If not, at least I tried it out.