REMINDER: A NEW MONTH STARTS TOMORROW

HELLOW friends.

I am just reminding you all that a new month starts tomorrow.

That would make it the fourth month of this year – and we have eight (8) more months in the year.

Are you getting close to accomplishing some of the goals you set at the start of the year?

Are you still giving the attention that some of them need?

Let us all make 2014 a memorable year – get some of those goals ticked off your notebook.

Today, as I was coming to work, I bumped into one of our senior lecturers in literature (here in PNG) – at the gas station.

As I was about to leave him, he said: “Good writing. Keep it up.”

Thanks to you, Dr Steven Winduo …

I remember, back in the 1990s, when I was a junior student at the university, he was a postgraduate student and ran a poetry/writing club where, during lunchtime, students recited or told poetry/stories they wrote.

I sat in a number of those sessions.

TEACHERS EDUCATORS INTERESTED IN EXCHANGE PROGRAMME

(From an advertisement in “The National”, page 45, March 27, 2014.)

THE University of Goroka and Oxford University, UK, are inviting interested teachers or education officers from provinces who wish to undertake an exchange programme.

The programme is aimed at improving the teaching of Science, Maths and Language (English).

It will run from May 25 – June 6, 2014.

The programme runs for two weeks intensive with an additional week for travel.

The cost of the programme:

1. 1 person for two weeks – K12,645.91, and

2. 5 persons for two weeks – K63,227.55.

Those interested can contact:

a. Executive Officer to Vice Chancellor and Council on 531 1799 or 7187 6609.

b. Executive Dean – School of Education on 531 1806/808.

FROM RECORDER TO TRUMPET TO AOTEAROA ...

THIS follows the other piece I posted earlier today.

In 2010, if you were in our small village, you would hear at least two people playing the descant recorder.

I was one, at the bottom of the village. I usually blew the Chinese-made wooden one I bought at Wirui Trade Store in Wewak in the late 1990s.

(I am self-taught in that woodwind instrument. That is the same one that I have in my portrait pic in Facebook, and shown in the pic below. I bought another Suzuki plastic one for K12 a few months ago.)

Up the gentle ridge that rose up on the other side of the village was my younger cousin GW, who would also play his.

 Photo: My Chinese-made wooden descant recorder.

In those days, GW accompanied a group of church boys in a brass band from Nuigo settlement, when they went out to play when invitations came. (It is my opinion that many of those boys were self-taught.)

GW told me a lot about his time with the Nuigo boys playing in the province and up into the Highlands of PNG where invitations came.

A few months later in 2010, the brass band boys were enlisted in the PNGDF at Moem Barracks (in Wewak, East Sepik) and sent down to Goldie Barracks (outside Port Moresby) for military training. (They were recruited because of their skills in music.)

After the completion of the training, they were sent back to Moem Barracks where they were based.

Now, GW is in Aotearoa (NZ) for training.

It seems he is also in a Tok Pisin class.

What a way to go … from the recorder to the trumpet and now receiving professional training.

(I told him that when he comes back he will teach us too.)

POINT: The basics in learning anything are usually within reach – learning to play the recorder or guitar, or learning to write using the pen and paper, learning another language, etc – but sadly many of us do not work on the basics in learning where we are and with the available resources.

TIP: Try to focus on skill in the remaining months of the year and be committed and passionate in learning it.

(You can teach yourself some of those skills.)

In a few years you never know where such acquired skills will take you.

Cheers.

NEW ZEALANDISH DAY FOR ME ... STRANGE BUT INTERESTING THINGS

I WAS on the bus, after checking on my passport stuff and on my way to work when this 1980s Moari song came on.

I got to work and checked on the internet and confirmed the name of the composer (something I must have known but have forgotten).

The composer (a famous Maori singer in those days), in the song, sings a love song for his beloved wife.

About two hours later, one of my younger cousins (who was also a student of mine from years back) sent me a message from Aotearoa (Maori name for NZ) and informed me about his studies there.

He is with the PNGDF and is studying music.

As I am typing this I realized that this day was a “New Zealandish” day for me.

From music, to info to news from Aotearoa. 

Watch for a little bit on this (regarding music and language) in the next post.  

TRAVEL WRITING EXAMPLES

I HAVE been writing some of my private stuff lately (after getting other assignments out of the way) and thought about this topic … travel writing.

Many people travel and these days post their photos on social network. Few people write about things and places they see.

Fewer still write detailed descriptions of places they visited, things they saw, events they observed and people they met.

If you like travelling and writing, you can mix the two.

On top of that, learn to use the camera and take good pictures of the place you visit, things you see and people you meet and share that with others – as in publishing it in a magazine or newspaper, on a social network or on a website.

I have touched on this theme before but a few things I saw in the last few weeks have caused me to put these thoughts again for you – if you like travelling and writing.

I know a lot of people who travelled but who could not really describe the place and people they met, as well as experiences they had.

It is as if they have not really observed and appreciated the places and the people.

Now, back to the things that caused me to write this.

Firstly, if you read The National newspaper (here in PNG), you would have noticed a series of travel-and-writing articles that have appeared in the Tuesday’s edition, particularly the Transport PNG pages, you would have seen the articles by Bernie Leighton on his visit to PNG.

Leighton works for AirlineReporter and writes about flying in the different airlines in the world, their services and the places that they take him to.  

In other words, he flies from place to place, observes things in the planes and places, writes about all those – and gets paid for doing all that. (What a career!)

Read his articles and see how he describes the services by the planes he travelled on and learn from that – if you one day consider writing about similar things.

His articles have been published in the March 11, 18 and 25 issues.

Secondly, I watched a video clip of an author who spoke about creativity and writing.

She, Elizabeth M. Gilbert (born July 18, 1969), is an American author, essayist, short story writer, biographer, novelist and memoirist.

As Wikipedia tells us, Gilbert’s most famous work to date is her 2006 memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, which as of December 2010 has spent 199 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, and was also made into a film by the same name in 2010.

 Photo: Elizabeth M. Gilbert. Pic from her website.

Eat, Pray, Love is a memoir, a record of how Gilbert spent her days travelling around the world.

The advantage she had was her trip was financed by an advance of US$200,000 (K487,000) given her by her publisher.

You can read more about Gilbert on Wikipedia and her website (www.elizabethgilbert.com).

You can also get her video clip at ted.com (http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius).

NOTE: I may not agree with everything Gilbert says but we all can learn something from her – or any other writer for that matter.  

QUOTE FROM AN ARTIST ... BE CONSISTENT TO MASTER A SKILL

I WAS looking at my desk calendar and noticed a nice quote by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh.

Gogh drew as a child but only started painting when he was in his late twenties.

The quote is: “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things done together.”

When it comes to learning skills in writing, producing music, painting or even mathematics, nobody becomes successful “on impulse”.

Those who master skills in those subjects (or areas) took the time to be consistent and committed to do the “small things” every day or every other day until they became so good that others thought their achievement was “on impulse”.

May you all learn.

I urge you to keep the little time you commit to mastering a skill a priority - be committed to it, from day to day, week to week and month to month.

At the end of the year, the hours and days you have spent on the “series of small things” could be “a great thing” and win you an award or prize.