Yesterday, Dominick Dunne died aged 83. He overcame a drinking and drug problem to start writing at the age of 50... and went on to become a best-selling author.He didn't consider himself 'too old' to start something new.Stories of octogenarians going back to university abound. There are even stories in Africa of these old folks going back to school. Why not?Have a look at the wikipedia entry for unfinished symphony. Many, many composers started pieces they did not live to finish.But they started them.Some years ago, my mother in law needed a new pair of shoes. I took her shopping. She took a shine to a certain pair of good quality shoes. Of course, the quality came at a price. Her view was that at her age, she didn't need to invest in a pair of shoes that would last and last, because she wouldn't be around very much longer herself. She chose something cheaper and altogether more ill-fitting. That was eight years ago. She is still hale and hearty and walking without the aid of a stick, with better eyesight than mine. Eight years of wearing a cheap pair of shoes (if they even lasted that long) when she could have treated her tired old feet to the sort of comfort and good craftsmanship they have earned after a lifetime of faithful service.Have you noticed that people no longer talk about 'dying of cancer'? Nowadays, we talk about 'living with terminal cancer'. Because dammit, until you actually die, you're alive!So why not start that thing? Enrol for that study programme. Sign up for those lifedrawing classes. Start knitting that Kaffe Fassett pattern with the 23 different yarns.So what if you don't get to finish it?There's a choice: you either give up on life and sit back waiting for death, or you take the chance that you might not achieve your goal in your lifetime... so you bow out still reaching, still stretching, still striving.I know which I'd rather do! When I talk about my lifelong learning journey, I fully intend for it to last as long as I do.

I haven't lost sight of the fact that this is a learning blog. I will get back to that once the pressure of my major project for my Masters' is a thing of the past. I promise.But in the meantime, please watch these clips from which you might learn something startling about what is going on in the city I called home for 12 years. The city in which my heart still resides even after an absence of 10 years.Warning: this ripped my gut. It might rip yours, too.If you feel moved to do something about this, please visit the website of the Adonis Musati Project.

In the furore following the news that Caster Semenya possesses the external genitalia of a woman but internal testes instead of a uterus or ovaries, I would just like to make my views known. Whether or not they make any difference remains to be seen. But one of the points of social media is that they serve as an aggregation of many views. Mine are as valid as anyone else's.The South African government is making protests about the whole incident being both racist and sexist. This is a view supported by many South Africans in the various discussion forums on this topic.I do not see this issue as being racist. Track events at international level are currently dominated by black people (I am told that this can be attributed to a genetic predisposition towards heightened fast twitch something or other). Semenya has not been singled out because of her race. The woman who came second is also black. She is also African. It is true, she is from a different African country (Kenya), but I don't think that would make a difference to anyone who was being racist about this. So if Semenya is stripped of her title, it will not further anyone's racist cause.With regard to the sexism aspect...If we want to play the sexist card, then we need to decide where the line is going to be drawn and that takes us into very grey territory. Is it sexist to say that men can't run in women's races? If so, then there needs to be just one 800m race in which men and women compete against each other. That day may come, but for now, there would be no women in that event. If then, we agree that it is right ot separate the two, we need to have a definition of what constitutes each gender. A line needs to be drawn somewhere. I think many people have been taken by surprise to learn that gender is far more of a continuum than they had previously imagined.It is tragic for Semenya and any others like her that a quirk of nature puts them outside of the definition of woman (if indeed it does - this still has to be decided). As far as I know, no-one is vilifying the poor girl, or accusing her of any wrongdoing.Let us look for a moment at a parallel situation: in the paralympics, athletes compete based on the extent of their (dis)ability. So an athlete who is missing just one foot would not be allowed to compete on level terms against an athlete who is missing both legs. Through no fault of his own, the former has attributes that provide an unfair advantage over the latter.I am deeply sorry for Semenya. I think she has conducted herself with dignity throughout what must have been an embarrassing ordeal. To learn about this anomaly in the full glare of the world's press must be harrowing indeed. Not only that, but she now probably faces a future in which there is no event in which she can compete in the sport she loves. She is too much of a woman to be able to achieve anything remarkable against men, but she is too much of a man to be allowed to run against women.And there's nothing she can do about it. If that doesn't tug at your heart strings, I don't know what would.

You could scarcely have spent any time here without knowing that I am busy with a Masters' degree programme. The journey is taking far longer than I had hoped, largely due to a pothole in the road that could have swallowed a Landrover!I have mentioned that I am busy working on my dissertation. I have even mentioned that it is to be delivered in an online format.What I haven't mentioned... yet... is that the university withdrew its approval of the online format for dissertations. It's got to be the blue bound A4 thingummy or nothing. However, they offered me the alternative of submitting my online work as a 'major project' instead. The down side is that I now have to write an additional 3000 word paper in support of my project. This is all due to be handed in on 1 October.What I also have never before done, was share the url for this (ahem) masterpiece. When I suddenly found it being bandied about on Twitter yesterday, I quite literally nearly fainted. I hadn't exactly been keeping it a secret. I just wasn't ready for it to be formally unveiled. I mean, it isn't even finished yet! But someone found it, the way we web 2.0 types do, and tweeted a link to it. Next thing I knew, it was being RT-ed (retweeted) hither and yon.So, for what it's worth (and it genuinely isn't finished yet), here is the link to Karyn Romeis's Major Project. The discussion pages will be opened once the university has done its thing and graded me one way or t'other. Then you can have your say and tear the thing to shreds if you so desire. I probably won't look at it again for several months after submission while I remember what my family looks like and rediscover the meaning of the term 'leisure time'.I'm feeling incredibly adventurous here, I hope you know, and my heart is in my mouth!

The discussion threads on my major project wiki are now open for contributions. I would love your reflection on the content.Many of you already feature in it. Do a search on your name and see if you're one of them! I would be particularly interested if I have shared your story and it has since changed or moved on.I wish I could have created a wiki that could be edited by the whole community, but that was unfortunately not practicable (long story). So the discussion pane at the foot of each page will have to suffice. The wiki itself is still a work in progress, although it is nearing completion.And I'm sure I don't have to mention it, but please observe the usual rules of discussion forum etiquette ;o)

I recently heard a radio documentary about what 'the media' are doing these days. It seems odd to me now to hear that term being applied to magazines and newspapers. I have been up to my neck in my major project which focuses on social media lately, so the term 'media' to me does not conjure up traditional press, or even their web presence!However one story really stood out for me. This was the story of NME. This used to be a music industry print magazine. Like so many others, they went web some time back, with a website and a radio station.So far, so normal. But it's what they've done since then that I found interesting.NME has a radio channel, and they have recently launched an iPhone app. According to Nick Spence of Macworld, it has been breaking records. Using this app, iPhone users can listen to the station on their phones. Not only that, but if they hear a song they like, they can instantly purchase the download. Users can also interact synchronously with the radio station by text via the app.The app itself isn't actually free, but at 59p, it isn't going to break the bank. And I'm pretty impressed with the way NME has used current technology to stay ahead of the curve.Pretty cool.

Thanks to Cheryl Cooper for the pointer (via Facebook) to this video. We do so love to attach values to things, don't we? Did someone say thymotic urge? ;o)

Mo Costandi is a neuroscience postgraduate who writes in such a way that even lay people like me can follow most of what he has to say. Being fascinated by the mind and its relation to the brain, I am regular reader of his neurophilosophy blog.One recent post sparks my interest as a learning geek. Have you ever wondered under what conditions a person would cease to learn? I have. I had a friend who used to teach children labelled 'ineducable'. She regularly shared stories about how her young charges would show signs that they could in fact learn.Mo's post on 21 September shares findings that patients diagnosed as being minimally conscious or vegetative (not the same thing, read the post) can in fact learn, that there might be an awareness of surroundings even in those who exhibit no signs of such awareness.This is exciting stuff!

I am not an 'academic type' I realise this afresh every time I take on the challenge of writing an academic paper. However, I have synergy with a great many of the things that drive people who *are* academic types... and if any of those drivers can be addressed by an iPhone app, so much the better.Adrienne Carlson is a relatively new contact of mine, and she has listed 100 iPhone apps for academics. Some of them I already use, while others are totally new to me. Many of these I suspect would be of equal interest to people outside of academia, too. What she hasn't done (unfortunately) is indicate which of them are free, but I guess a quick visit to the app store should determine that.

Recently, the Swedish government was considering making it illegal for parents to homeschool their children for faith reasons. At the time, I expressed the view that the state appeared to have forgotten that its role is to serve the people, not dictate to them. That parents (should) have the right to educate their children as they see fit, employing state provided education if they wish to do so.It seems things have gone from bad to worse. A young family which had at one point made enquiries about home schooling their son decided to move to India (which is the country of the wife's birth) to work as missionaries among the poor there. This had long been something they had felt called to do, and the enquiries about homeschooling had been with this in mind. They sold up their possessions and boarded a plane. Swedish armed police stormed the plane and forcibly removed them. They then took their son from them and placed him in foster care. More of the story can be picked up here.The traumatised wife has been hospitalised.I can hardly articulate my reactions to this. So I will forebear, and leave you to form your own views.

I long since abandoned the pic of the day on the grounds that my life is too dull to generate interest photo opps on an ongoing basis. Yesterday turned out to be an exception. Meet Mr Aubergine, who constituted a part of my dinner. Isn't he cute, with his little green hat and retrousse nose? All he needs is pair of goggly eyes!

Gartner has expressed the view that companies should develop dress codes for their employees' avatars. Computer Weekly and ITPro have both had their say on the subject.A few years back, when I attended a Second Life workshop, the woman who was facilitating it boasted an avatar with the face of a fox (literally, not metaphorically) and an, er, interesting outfit. My own looked and dressed like me. I felt a little staid. As if I had missed the opportunity for creativity. I was tempted to go for something a bit more outlandish, but decided that a situation might arise in which I wanted a more accurate representation of myself.I have mixed feelings about the idea of avatar dress codes. I can understand that a company with a virtual world presence will want to project the same sort of professional image online as they do face to face. But I also wonder how far they can push this. Will it just be about dress, or will people be restricted as to body shapes and accuracy of representation? Could a large, bald man be prevented from having an avatar that is a slim man (or even woman) with a full head of hair?As with blogging policies, there's a lot of grey area here. There's the situation in which you represent your organisation. There's the situation in which you in no way represent an organisation and are free to pursue other interests. But then there's the situation in which you represent yourself, but in a space related to your profession, and therefore populated by clients, potential clients, colleagues, competitors and so on.I ask the same question here as I did when blogging policies were the hot topic. Where do terms of employment butt up against individual liberties? This is risky turf.What do you reckon?

The first black Vice Chancellor of the University of the Free State, a province considered by many to be the bastion of racism in South Africa, delivered his inaugural address on Friday night. It is a speech full of hope for the future of the country. I long to see his optimism prove well-founded.Jansen - author of Knowledge in the Blood, an account of race and apartheid in South Africa - is not known for (as he puts it) snuggling up to power. He is perhaps a surprise appointment, and I hope with every fibre of my being that it this is not window dressing. But he certainly seems to be the man for the hour. Soon after his appointment, a friend sent him a quote from the Old Testament book of Esther 4:14 "Is it possible that you have come into the kingdom for such a time as this?" See the closing anecdote of his speech for evidence of his inspirational qualities among even white Afrikaans students at the university.I am hoping for the best here!And as a codicil, while I knew that JRR Tolkien spent time lecturing at Fort Hare University in South Africa and is believed by many to have been inspired to write about Hobbits during many weekends in the nearby Hogsback Mountains, I had not previously realised that he was born in South Africa. Bloemfontein, in fact.

Now that my major project is complete, I am treating myself to a bit of fiction. I started off with absolute pulp and have still not taken on anything particularly challenging. Or so I thought.The book I am currently reading - My Sister's Keeper - has been made into a movie, so my sons recognised the title. They asked me what it was about, and this was when the fun began.Because it's about a girl suing her parents for medical emancipation. A girl who was conceived to provide her leukemic elder sister with a matching donor. When the book opens, the elder sister has begun to experience kidney failure and wheels have been set in motion to give her one of her younger sister's kidneys.But no-one ever asked her.From the start of her life, she has been seen as the source of everything her sister needs, and she has never had a say in it. If she refuses to give her sister a kidney, the sister will die.So now we have conversations about ethics and human rights and duties and responsibilities and all that stuff in our house.It isn't easy, but I highly recommend it. The conversation is stimulating. My kids are being forced to think long and hard, and to frame their arguments cogently. For them, it's black and white. So I have been playing devil's advocate - "What if...", "What about..."It makes a change from results-oriented thinking where only one answer is correct, and I believe it's done them the world of good. Perhaps they should debate this kind of thing in their 'learning to learn' sessions at school!

Just no. The line was overstepped a long time ago. How on earth did it come to this? An English borough council has banned parents from overseeing their own children in play areas because they have not been vetted by the criminal records bureau. The parents now have to remain outside of a fenced off area, while their children are supervised by council appointees.C'mon people! These are our children! When did the State get this much clout?

Here's a free tool you can use to put together some quick animated movies. It looks pretty straightforward and rather fun. I can think of umpteen uses for it, both in schools and in business.

This report from the BBC is not new, but it has only just come to my attention.Once the African National Congress came to power in 1994, the South African government embarked on a programme of land redistribution. The stated goal was that 30% of agricultural land was to be placed in the hands of black people by 2014. To this end, farms were taken away from their white owners and restored to the black communities from whom the land had been taken generations before. Special loan provisions were made available to black farmers who wanted to buy land.The problem is that much of this land has not been farmed since these provisions were set in place. You can imagine how this impinges upon the food supply and the economy of the region. You can imagine, too, how indignant are the erstwhile owners of the land and how divisive the situation is.In a surprising move, the South African Agricultural minister has issued a 'use it or lose it' ultimatum. Having set the precedent for taking land from the hands of one group of people it deems unsuitable, it looks as if the government is quite ready to repeat the action.Interestingly, this story appears to have received less coverage on South African websites than in the UK.It may have been possible to justify the land redistribution the first time around, on the grounds of history and violated rights and such - although many would dispute that - but I find it interesting that the South African government would consider it within its rights to dictate how an individual may use (or not) the land that he owns, and to take it from him if he fails to comply. Does this fall within the tenets of democracy?Of course I am saddened by the impact of the reduction in the food production. Of course I am concerned that the current owners of so many farms have allowed them to fall into disuse when the previous owners - forcibly removed - were farming them productively. Of course I dread the logical outcome of this situation.Nevertheless, I wonder about the ethics of this move...

Being a family of Swedes and South Africans living in the UK, we are often afforded an interesting vista of contrasts in terms of life experience in the three countries which impact our lives so greatly. This week is no different.Here in the UK, there is a big push for improved broadband connection speeds. The goal is 2Mbps for every home by 2012.Sweden has opted to aim higher. Their Minister for Communications has promised "100Mbps broadband to 90 per cent of its population by 2020, with 40 per cent having it by 2015". It will be interesting to see if they manage it.Meantime, my South African relatives are still largely on dial up!

Last night I discovered that there was a parents' evening for my elder son's year group. He had forgotten to mention this to us and then gave the teachers some cock and bull story when they asked if we were coming. Obviously, they felt the need to see us!The teachers subsequently sent us an email, asking to set up another appointment, because they are concerned about our son's work ethic. This was my response:I wonder what benefit there would be to our meeting. We all know what the problem is and we all know what the solution is. Only one person has the power to bring that solution about, and he chooses not to do so. If, after reading the following, you still feel that a meeting would have value, we will gladly meet with you, but I have my doubts.Over the years, we as parents have done more than most to go to bat for our son. He has been granted more opportunities than most. He has been more encouraged than most. We have always adopted an open door policy with teaching staff. He has been supported in every way we know how. On countless occasions, we have spoken the words, "I believe in you." This young man has stepped into each day off a firm platform of assured parental love and support. And this continues. Even now we are spending a fortune on additional tuition so that he can get a decent grade on the stats re-sit.The sheer fact of the matter is that (name removed) has not been a good steward of the talents and resources God has so graciously given him. In his early years, it was quite clear that (name removed) was a child of exceptional abilities, some of which were recorded in academic papers. Over the years, he has chosen to squander that, and is now quite happy to settle for mediocrity. We ask him on a daily basis how he is coping with his school work. We ask him on a daily basis whether he is up to date with his assigned work. And on a daily basis, he assures us that all is well. This has now been his practice for some years. (Name removed) has been quite happy to let life happen to him and to be a spectator (and sometime victim) of the event.I, for one, no longer have the physical or emotional strength to keep dragging that horse to water. As a learning professional myself, I value a good education more highly than most, but if (name removed) does not, that is his choice. He is 18 and an adult, now. He knows that choosing MSN over school work is likely to result in his ending up in an unfulfilling job, but in the final analysis, it is his choice to make. And, while he regularly promises to turn over a new leaf, his action speak for themselves.We cannot force him to work. We cannot force him to tell us the truth about his workload or what he is not achieving. We cannot force him into the driver's seat of his own life. We cannot force him to care about his future. Believe me, we have tried! We have invested time, money and emotional resources. We have lectured, we have reasoned, we have guided, we have cajoled, we have threatened and we have disciplined. None of it has the made the slightest difference. The only recourse left to us is to take our hands off the situation and let him rise to the challenge or bump his head while he is still in a safe enough environment to recover from it without irreparable damage.The ball is now in his court.I wonder how the teachers will respond. How would you respond?

Some time back, I set up the Friendfeed app within Facebook so that my Twitter comments and blog posts all appear within my Facebook news feed. I now find that the conversation is shiftingPeople who would not previously have commented on my posts, who may indeed not even have been aware of them, have begun to participate in the conversation. However, they respond to the Friendfeed notification on my Facebook page rather than here.Ironically, this tool which allowed me to unify my various communication streams has also fragmented it. People who comment in one space, don't get to see the comments of those who do so in the other.I'm not really going anywhere with this observation. Just sharing. I'll be interested to see if it resolves in any way, or if I'll continue to be piggy in the middle of two conversations on the same blog post or tweet.Hmm.

On Saturday, we took our sons to see Les Miserables in London. For my husband and me, it was the third time of seeing the show. For the boys, it was the first. And it had been at their request that we went. They knew the music because I play it on my iPod in the docking station in the kitchen... and because I sing it endlessly. They have often asked questions about the story line and so on, and I was delighted when they asked to be taken to see something so cultured!They both thoroughly enjoyed the experience and have been talking about it ever since. They raise points that take me by surprise and impress me no end. They noticed things about the staging and the lighting that your average theatre goer does not notice. My elder son spoke at great length about how each character who died was immediately picked out in a bright, tight beam white spot... except Javert, who fell into darkness. I hadn't noticed that. Good one kiddo.Then tonight he pitched me a curved ball."Mom, in Les Mis, whose story do you think was the saddest?"Wow! They were all pretty sad.Jean Valjean who is imprisoned for 5 years for stealing bread to feed his sister's family, and then a further 14 for trying to escape... and who then spends most of his life on the run, having broken parole, in the process of trying to take care of Fantine's Cosette.Fantine who falls in love, loses her virtue and is literally left holding the baby. In her desperation to provide for her daughter, she turns to prostitution and dies of the pox.Javert, who sees life in black and white, only to have it all blow up in his face, when he is denied a heroic death, shown mercy by someone he believes to be sin personified.The revolutionaries who believe that the people of France will join them, if only they set things in motion, only to find that they are alone... and to die at the barricade for absolutely no gain.Eponine who starts out as her parents' little princess and winds up a street urchin in love with a student who is in love with someone else.Gavroche, streetwise and defiant, who wields more power than one would expect from one so young, only to die at the barricade trying to collect bullets from the fallen soldiers to take back to the revolutionaries.It goes on and on.Do you know the story? Who do you think has the saddest story and why?

I listened to a fascinating radio programme (link only available for a limited time) about lying today. Apparently, the research shows that we all lie much of the time.The programme talked about the role of lies in the fabric of our society. One panel member even suggested that a sudden switch to complete honesty would destroy our society within 24 hours. They talked about the different kinds of lies and the intentions behind them.I thought about it. I thought about some of the deliberate lies I have told in my life and why. I have always thought of myself as a pretty honest, transparent person... and I have the bruises to prove it ;o)... but I realised there are times when I am less so.For example, a while ago, I bumped into someone I hadn't seen for some time and learned that she had had cancer treatment in the interim. She spoke about how no-one even noticed that she was wearing a wig, because it was such a close match to her own hair. I told her I just thought she had had new highlights. This was not true. While it was a very good wig, the parting was clearly showing a glimpse of the weave rather than scalp, and I had noticed from the get-go. I had put two and two together and assumed that chemo was involved. But I didn't say so. I decided she had had enough to deal with.I lied.I have told friends they look beautiful when they don't (in my estimation, anyway). I have said that I am not offended by things that have cut me to the quick. I have pretended to be confident when I have been quivering in my boots.So yes, I am a liar. And so, according to the research, are you.But, an interesting topic was just touched on. The impact of social media.You see, when you tell person A you can't possibly come to her house for dinner, because you have a migraine, and then a comment appears on your Facebook page from person B the next day saying thanks for the lovely time last night.... what then?When you claim to have worked for X company in one place and deny it in another, what are prospective employers/customers to think?With the transparency of our lives these days and the audit trail of our contributions to the various spaces we occupy, we might have to become more honest than has been our wont.

Last night, I was deeply touched by an incident, the very fact of which makes a total hypocrite of me.A friend told me that I am good at what I do - and she meant, professionally. She spoke with certainty, although she has never seen any of my work. In fact, she isn't 100% certain what it is exactly that I do. Although this friend is in many other ways vastly more gifted than I am, please don't think me arrogant for saying that I am 'cleverer' (for want of a better word) than she is. I don't think she'd dispute it.She often asks me what it is that I do, and I explain it as best I can, while she stares attentively at me. You can all but hear the wheels turning as she wills herself to grasp this alien concept. But she is forced to admit defeat every time. Last night she related how she recently told her husband, "You know, I still don't know what it is that Karyn does, but I know she does it very well." I asked what she had to go on. She lifted her chin and said, "I just know."Now, if Mark Berthelemy tells me I'm good at what I do, I take that as an enormous compliment. Mark knows exactly what I do... and he's seen my work. In fact we've worked together.But there's just something deeply touching about the totally unfounded, deeply seated loyalty of a friend.How wonderfully illogical we humans are!

I went to the gym today. Okay, there's nothing interesting about that.I was wearing my heart rate monitor. Nothing particularly interesting about that, either.But, as I was working up a very unladylike sweat, I was keeping half an eye on my heart rate and it occurred to me...The heart rate monitor was bought online at a random purveyor of such goods. It is not the first one I've owned, and it is a completely different make from the one I had before. But the moment I step onto any of the machines in the gym, it communicates with that machine. Just as its predecessor did before it disappeared into what I assume must be the same black hole as a host of odd socks from the Romeis household.All around me there might be people working out on the machines, each of them wearing their own HRM, with a variety of different types represented. And in each case, the machine is faithfully relaying the information it gets from the HRM of the individual concerned.C'mon! How cool is that?No one has to jump through any hoops to get their HRM to talk to the machines. It just happens.A little bit different from when I go to stay in a hotel, and have to go through a whole series of steps before my computer can talk to the Internet. And when I go to visit a colleague or a client, if it is even possible to connect to the Internet from the site at all (which is rare), I have another series of back flips to do. Otherwise I have to use a dongle.I know. I know. Security and all that stuff.But wouldn't it be cool?Wouldn't it be cool if my computer and the Internet service in every locale just greeted each other like old friends who pick up where they left off? If there wasn't even a pause as I left one building and entered another?Just daydreaming...