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Showing posts from 2010

Remembering Dad (Thinking about Madeleine II)

Over the past few days, I've been thinking a lot about my father, Gordon Duffield, who died earlier this year, far too soon, before we had a chance to talk. You might think that in nearly fifty years, we would have had a proper conversation, but though I told him about myself (too much at times, at times too little), and though he always listened, he only rarely shared his innermost thoughts, his personal beliefs as a man apart from his parental role, as a father and breadwinner; even then, when he revealed anything of himself, it was only in writing, never in conversation. My father was the kindest man I have ever known, the most forgiving of others, the hardest on himself: in all my life, I only once saw him lose his temper, and it was not with me. (If I can get through a single day without berating one of my children, it is a rare achievement.) He was a good man, without a trace of self-consciousness, generous and tolerant to a fault, and—until his last weeks—optimistic b

What's love got to do with it?

Click here to play the first track [Youtube] When I was young/My father said Son, I have something to say And what he told me I'll never forget Until my dying day... ( Cliff Richard, Bachelor Boy, 1963) Since just after Justin's birth, I have tried to be positive and optimistic about our future, and particularly about the challenges presented by his condition. Sometimes, as will have been clear from other posts, this positivity is aided by an ostrich-like refusal to contemplate future eventualities, but mostly, it's because I feel we've been really lucky: he had no postnatal medical complications; he's loved and accepted by his brothers, he's growing well; there's even a hint of a smile on his face... There are some days, though, when optimism seems like an overwhelming challenge,  days when I almost lose the will to move forward, and when I look around for a large tub of sand (something, like litter bins, that is in desperately short supply in u

Days like this (another hospital visit)

Click here for the accompaniment Last Autumn leaves at Julian's nursery When it's not always raining there'll be days like this When there's no-one complaining there'll be days like this Everything falls into phase like the flick of a switch Well my momma told me there'll be days like this When you don't need to worry there'll be days like this When noone's in a hurry there'll be days like this When you don't get betrayed by that old Judas kiss Oh my momma told me there'll be days like this When you don't need an answer there'll be days like this When you don't meet a chancer there'll be days like this When all the parts of the puzzle start to look like they fit Then I must remember there'll be days like this Van Morrison (Days like this) On the face of it, yesterday was not one of those days, as we took Justin to the Children's hospital for his one month check-up—as I mention

Scents and Sensibility (repost)

A relevant book by my former History teacher (CCB 1975-1980) Over the last few weeks an old post, Expatriotism , has been attracting some attention. So I thought it might be of interest to re-post another, which I was nearly as happy with. (At least, it may be of interest to those who happened to grow up in East Belfast in the 1960s). You can read it here too Scents and sensibility Dreadful pun though it may be, the title captures the theme of this post (I was going to say essence, but that would compound the sin). I'm losing my sense of smell. This is not some private affliction, though its loss to me is certainly personal; it's less a symptom of aging than of the age itself. With regard to other cognitive faculties we are told to "use it or lose it", but my nose hasn't got a chance, really. It's not for want of trying, but for lack of stimulus, that the sense of smell is gradually giving up its ghost. The same homogenisation of popular culture th

"Barring Pathology": Nature vs. Nurture just got personal!

Fruit tree in December: Are these lemons? On my academic website , under Current Research projects, I've written the following: No-one with young children, and an appreciation of human history, can reasonably prefer social over biological determinism, unless they are incredibly optimistic about society, and I'm not... The line was written with regard to three closely-related 'big questions' that most of us professional linguists care about: (i) how much of Language is innate?; (ii) are there Language Universals, or can languages 'differ from each other without limit...and in unpredictable ways (Martin Joos)?'; (iii) does the language you speak materially affect the way you think? At first sight it might be thought that the first two questions are different ways of asking the same thing: if significant aspects of language are innate, then there must be Universals; conversely, if languages can vary without limit then it would seem that no aspects of Language

'Saved by hope...saved by love': Parenthood revisited

“Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.” Reinhold Niebuhr. I've just found this, by the "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..." man: perhaps it is well known, but it was not to me. It is brilliant, I think, and a neat preface to a re-post of an article I wrote a few years ago, when I was struggling with parental responsibility: the sentiments expressed there, I feel more intensely now, yet the realization that we can be 'saved by love' is no small comfort. Parenthood (originally posted on Inishmacsaint, 2007) People say that I am a good father. It may be true, but it does not reflect any strength of character or personal virtue. Quite the opposite: it is a symptom of lo

How special?

Saturday evening/Sunday morning. As more people hear about Justin, so I've heard many stories about friends whose own experience of parenting has been so much harder than ours. Some people, my mother is one such, wonder why this is a comfort: does it make you feel better knowing that others have faced more tragic situations? For me, it does: first, it's chastening to realise that ours is no tragedy, we are not specially chosen, and that other parents can cope with so much more, but also to know that many people care and sympathise—if I didn't think much of social networking at the beginning, it's because I didn't realise how much it could help. So thank you! And then there's this picture, taken earlier this evening: far from being in any difficulty, we are so lucky to have moments like this...

Catch up

Realizing that it's a week since the last post, I've resolved to spend a few minutes catching up on odds and ends. First, the weather: not only because it provides such a dramatic contrast to Sheffield: until about 1am this morning, it had been another beautiful week, with clear skies and warm temperatures (up to 16 degrees down the hill). The following pictures were taken on the road from the cable car to home, and at Kobe College in Nishinomiya (where we'll both be teaching fulltime for a year from next Spring). Sheffield offers a slightly different view, I understand: I'm grateful to Sue Vice for sending me the picture below of the Botanical Gardens. If you happen to be stuck in the snow, take comfort from the fact that this is just a seasonal aberration for you: no doubt after a week or so, it will be back to 6 degrees with blustery winds and extended showers in time for Christmas (which is, curiously enough, how it is here today: looking out on the mountain, I can

Justin's news, Friday evening

Today, I received a book that Ayumi had ordered for me from Amazon—two-day delivery from Seattle, Washington to our door!—on Early Communication Skills for Children with Down Syndrome, by Libby Kumin. It looks to be excellent, and hopefully will give us (and Justin) a head start on the months and years to come, but it's also daunting, and not a little enervating, even to peek into. Meantime, as you can see from these images, Justin continues to thrive. It's just a pity he thinks he's a bat: having slept pretty much continuously from 3-8pm today, he's now awake and set to snuffle through the early night-shift...

Life on Rokko (Part 3): Down the post-office — Hors saison

After school on Wednesday, Sean, Justin and I went off to post a letter, and have an after school cup of hot chocolate in the café next door. Nothing special in that, except that most people's experience of the local post office is less pleasant than ours—there's even a children's story book based on this post-office on Rokko Mountain—and in both cases, the post office and the café, we may have been their only customers all day...Incidently, the red-roofed house in the sunset in the fourth picture is ours, taken from the post-office window... Rokkosan Post Office - reception area The pancakes aren't bad, either! View across to our house (the rightmost, through the gap in the trees) As in this Francis Cabrel song, but without the melancholy—or the sea-air (!), we are now really out of season up here...

How Infants Learn: Dr. Renee Baillargeon

In my class yesterday, I introduced and used a fragment of this video, in which Renee Baillargeon, lecturing at Vanderbilt university, talks about her research on young infants' knowledge of events. If you only watch one youtube video this month, make it this one! <p><br><br>If</p>

And now this...?! (Something Stupid)

When I was a child back in 1967, Frank and Nancy Sinatra had a hit with a song called Something Stupid . It stuck in my mind then, and has remained with me ever since, so that every time I think of the phrase “And then you go and spoil it all…” it primes the completion “by saying something stupid like I Love You.” And then the first verse comes along in its entirety, and there it is again, 43 years on (click to play). It doesn’t matter how incongruous the context; so, even though the intended completion today was “...by sending 200 missiles into South Korea”, I can’t get the wretched tune out of my head. It's all a tad worrisome, this Korea thing: as the delightfully named Happyzebra.com helpfully informs me, it's only 538 nautical miles, or 1 hour and 29 minutes flying time, from Kobe to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital (Is such precision timing really necessary—or plausible, come to that?!).  It does put things in perspective: as I said two posts ago, we should eat o

Time for Tea?

Today Yumi, one of Ayumi's students, took Sean and Julian downtown to some pre-Christmas festival organised by Familiar, an upmarket children's clothing store. From the first few pictures a good time was had by all. Some of Yumi's other pictures are here. This gave Ayumi, Justin and me a few hours to have lunch, and look into a new café near Rokkomichi station. This is not an exceptional café by Japanese standards, but it was a bit different from Café Nero and its ilk in Sheffield: quiet jazz music played in the background, there was no mess, no dirty tables, no paper cups, or loyalty cards, the coffee didn't scald your mouth; they even brought along a timer on the tray to make sure Ayumi's Earl Grey was not poured too early. Not that Justin cared...

Turning Wintrish

Some days are better than others, I suppose. Yesterday started quite unpromising, with fog nipping at the edge of the balcony, by lunchtime, the sky had turned to this presage of winter, and by evening, it was clear again, the city glistering below us. And so it was with Justin. This picture was taken at bathtime. I suppose it must be a usual stage of coming to terms with his condition, but so often he looks to us like any typical baby; despite the evidence and the meetings with consultants, we rashly hope that there's been some wonderful error. It's not that we wouldn't love him just as much, it would just be that much easier. At the moment, it makes no odds: he's a great wee man, as my sister said. But then I wonder about the future: will he have the same fun in snaffling a doughnut on the cable car, and coveting his friend's... This only reminds me that one shouldn't project too far ahead...about anything: eat your doughnuts while you may!

Music Festival, and a return to football

These autumn days won't last much longer: soon the trees will be bare, and the first snow will fall in the mountain, so we'd better make the best of it while we can. Today, I dropped Sean off down at Julian's nursery, from where our friend Chiemi took him to football: Sean hasn't played for months now, and it was great fun by all accounts. On the way back, I took some more pictures of the autumn leaves, including some shots of the scenery around Kayo and Nathan's house. Later on, we went down to pick Sean up from the Kobe University annual music festival. We've been before (two years ago), and I'm continually impressed by the students' enthusiasm for jazz and other alternative styles of music: beyond the Music department, you never hear this on British campuses. Here is one clip (excuse the shaky camerawork):

Saturday evening pictures

Justin had a very good day today: a bath, of which there are unfortunately no pictures, and regular feeding and sleeping. Nothing remarkable, exactly as we could hope. He does seem to be an alert little guy...Here are some evening pictures.

Thanksgiving

After we brought Justin home, I walked down to the cable car to pick up Julian from the nursery. It has been another gorgeous autumn day, as you can see. (The pictures are in reverse order from around 4:35pm to 4:15pm, which is why it gets gradually lighter: I've got to learn to work around this Blogger bug!) Meantime, at school in Seán's English class, they learned about American Thanksgiving: everyone had to draw a Turkey/Hand picture, naming four things to give thanks for (one per finger): Seán chose football, fish (his new pets), friends, and baby brother...