Fundamentals

It's a strange thing, when I was in 2nd year undergrad, a course text book was "Advanced Calculus" by Dr Ian Murphy, a superb lecturer whose most iconic moment was in a lecture full of lethargic and drowsy students. He stopped mid way, turned, and did a handstand, his feet against the chalk boards! So the rumour goes anyway... The point I was going to make was that now, as a post grad, the textbook titles are Fundamentals of Light Microscopy... Which is isn't the best for morale but I guess only because of the synonym with beginner.

Dr Murphy

For the first time in some years, I've bought a wall pass. One month of climbing paid for in advance, and I hope to make the most of it. I even went as far as looking up some sport science although my flatmate Murdoch laughed at me and my sources.

If I was to write a book about climbing fundamentals, chapter one would be on free body diagrams, climbing statics and climbing dynamics. Chapter two on muscles, which I don't understand and would get Murdoch to write. That'd be it I think. I wouldn't have a chapter telling people what to do psychologically, other than you need to be able to do handstands. That could be in prologue.

December

Look, the point of this blog is to tell the story no one else is going to tell if I don't. So here are the things I got up in December, of which very little was climbing, but that's O.K. because climbing is boring to read most of the time.

I've been learning new stuff. In order of difficulty, Physics is the hardest. My Ph.D. has taken up more time than anything over the past 3 months and I'm pretty useless at it compared to other people in the group, so very difficult. So what is my Ph.D. on? Imagine it's a hot sunny day, bare with me, and you go to the park. There are people sunbathing. Are they standing up whilst doing it? No, of course, they're lying down. Why are they lying down? If I told you it's because photons from the sun are hitting them strongly enough to make them weak at the knees, you wouldn't believe me (hopefully). Obviously people don't get really pushed around by light, but it's true that light does have a small pressure, which is more obvious on small objects (one fiftyth a human hair, visible under microscope.) So my Ph.D. is on pushing tiny things around with a laser in a basement with no windows.

The second hardest thing has been learning the violin. It's verryy hard. I've needed to be much more rigorous with my learning of this than with anything I can remember. One mistake and you've had it, start again. I've found I can't just wing it as I would playing chords on the guitar, my guesses are always wrong. A moments hesitation is costly, as I learnt whilst trying to play Auld Lang Syne at the bells to my embarrassment. My knowledge of musical theory is minimum but I am learning, and trying to read music leaves me feeling a feeling of hopelessness which will take a lot of will power to overcome. I think I'll get lessons soon.

The third hardest thing I was learning in December was unicycling. Sounds a bit weird, but there's a unicclcing fraternity in the optics group with I feel I must join in order to be fully engaged with the world around me. And because it's really cool. I reckon it took me two weeks of concentrated effort (30mins at the end of each day) to get a good grasp of the Unicycle, I can go the length of corridor about one time in two with no falls and turn the corner one in four. I've still a long way to go, but getting up to a reasonable standard is not too far away.

The fourth thing, and the easiest thing I learnt was how to ski. Skiing was very easy in comparison to unicycling where I only had 2 days in Glen Shee. I think also Skiing was the most fun I had, being completely new to me, and fast and dangerous. However, I did find the poma tows particularly boring and I wonder, if in a different life were I spent most of my time skiing, I'd get bored quite quickly. Different scenery can only do so much, and competition has never been a long term motivation for me. Keeping skiing as something which is fun for a change seems the way to go.

The fifth thing, which is just about impossible was bouldering in the snow at about minus 10 in Torridon. None the less my hands are tingling as I write this thinking about the prospect of sessions there in May when the weather is jaw dropping and I have NO EXAMS!

Happy new year to you all.