Silversea Water Cooler: Part 3, Welcome!

Great pics from one and all....soup and fresh bread ....delish!

Wonderful delight this morning when the Silver Box arrived......and my India visa documents have been sent orf so fingers crossed!

Am following the 'storm' ...right now quite out of the blue we are experiencing very strong winds here with various flying objects....according to our local forecast it will be early evening when we may feel the full force.....it's been a rather spooky morning....

Furry baby and myself are in good spirits....😉

Been a funny old day down here in sunny Cornwall. The day started at about 7:30 with strange orange sunlight for about an hour. This went and it's been lovely and sunny all day but quite windy. The wind has got a little worse since lunchtime but nothing as bad as Ireland. Back to calm winds and rain tomorrow!!

Thought for the day:

"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig".

Hope to see our silver box soon; 47 days to Silver Wind.

Peter

Hard to keep up with the activity in this place! About three pages ago mysty posted a link to a video about the differences between parenting today and back in the day. My take on the whole thing is: why do you suppose our parents had so many kids? It was in case one of us went flying off the tailgate of the station wagon. They had plenty of spares! Hard not to cocoon your offspring when the only bit of your DNA being passed on is all in one vessel.

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Good point MLeh! I am one of 4 kids. One of my kids has 2 children and the other has one. :) And my brother did fall out of the car when we were younger. He grabbed the door handle instead of the window one. He survived with bruises and scrapped skin from the gravel road.

Peter...teaching a pig to sing? Actually I think it is more difficult to get kids to make their beds. :)

If our generation are bewildered by the changes in parenting, then you might find it an intriguing thought exercise to speculate about our how the very rapid changes in society will change parenting. We have probsbly seen more technology changes in say the last 80 years than perhaps the previous 2000.

For example the impact of the net and web and social networking has had on educating and influencing children from an extremely early age seems to me to be replacing what our parents and teachers family could only do "face to face" with the odd book thrown in.

Also it is interesting to consider how important role models had in the shaping of our gemeration and who our generation as kids saw as role models and to speculate who are the current role models for our current young generation are, and whether future ones might not even need to be real or even human.

We have programmes on UK TV which show how schools are run today and the change in the role of teachers, and it is (too put it mildly) illuminating.

:)

If our generation are bewildered by the changes in parenting, then you might find it an intriguing thought exercise to speculate about our how the very rapid changes in society will change parenting. We have probsbly seen more technology changes in say the last 80 years than perhaps the previous 2000. For example the impact of the net and web and social networking has had on educating and influencing children from an extremely early age seems to me to be replacing what our parents and teachers family could only do "face to face" with the odd book thrown in.

Excellent and important points by Jeff above. Just catching up now. Been busy with work projects during the past two weeks and being with grandsons in Virginia over this past weekend. Our oldest grandson just turned seven early this month and is in the first grade. He was reading from a book to us!! We were very impress!! The other grandson just turned five in late July and just started Kindergarten. He impressed me this weekend when he counted from one to 100 in perfect order. Young kids pick up and remember so much, so quickly from a variety of sources. Some good. Some not as ideal. It's fascinating!! As a grandparent, we are experiencing and seeing these change much more clearly than we were involved as a parent with our one son back many years ago.

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

Enjoyed a 14-day, Jan. 20-Feb. 3, 2014, Sydney to Auckland adventure, getting a big sampling for the wonders of "down under” before and after this cruise. Go to:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1974139

for more info and many pictures of these amazing sights in this great part of the world. Now at 188,613 views for this posting.

Interesting musings J! When you mention the idea of role models are you talking about the people we looked up to growing up? Or are you talking about the range of life choices available when we were younger?

Good Morning M,

I meant the people we looked up to, but more importantly the values in them that kids were cultivated by their more closeley parent-led development to admire, which I do not see today.

Many of the heroes came from reading either books or even comics or watching TV. The values seemed to be selflessness, caring for others including animals, respect for others, modesty, humility and empathy, inventiveness, genuine heroism and fighting for the under-dog, the supremacy of justice and doing what is right even if one suffered personally for that and not automatic acceptance of the idea that "the end always justifies the means".

Today we see admiration for traits seem to be opposite to those and that were despised when we were kids. For example stuff like "The Apprentice" where dog eat dog and extreme narcissistic sociopaths are rewarded and admired and aped.

Sorry J I thought you had gone to bed so I wasn't checking for your response. I should have known better. :) Yes, that is what I thought you meant. Myster was thinking the other. And I do agree with your assessment! What seems to be valued by younger generations now was anathema to us. It is a little scary to think of the ramifications of this change in "people to emulate". I am not as worried about the role of technology as I am about our disappearing sense of a shared humanity.

M,

I think there is good reason to be concerned by both really.

People often talk about one being rules by robots, but what seems to have happened is that much of life already is. Anyone that deals with any call center is probably talking to a human who is being micro-managed by a computer telling the person verbatim what to say and how to deal with an issue. I returned an item to Amazon today and my item was approved for refund by a computer, probably the same one I ordered from.

Why does all this matter? If you take performing arts something we're both interested in, then in the 50's and 60's the only performaers you heard on record, radio or TV were people that were there because they were the cream that had risen to the top. The media struggled to represent the raw talent. Crackly mono records, black and white TV etc. The technology moved on and you could eventually hear and see accurate representation of the talent until it moved to a point where production enhanced and helped talent. Talent is no longer required, what is sought is image and marketability because the studio manufacturers what use to be done by talent. In the 50's and 60's you needed talent and the only way to progress that talent was to rehearse and practise and be coached. Now digital replaces all that talent and the real talent is with the engineers.

What we are observing is the emasculation of later generations with respect for both essentail values that have lasted for generations and the despensing of the need for self-development. Even the ancient Greeks (Aristotle et al) felt it important to teach rhetoric so that accepted wisdom is always tested. :)

Very astute analysis J! I find absolutely nothing to disagree with in your assessment. And where this will lead does not bode well for the arts, for intellectual pursuit or for humanity. I fear that we have lived in the best of times and what will follow will be a pale imitation of anything real.

ps ...... today we had a giant 230 amp battery delivered because I'm tired of the constant power failures during winter. It was delivered off a lorry by a fork-lift on a palette and the nice man helped us lift it on to it's new home - a trolley. Now we will keep,warm in the lounge and have TV for however long we want ........

We have christened it Brutus!

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Brutus is the perfect name! Long may he keep you warm and provide you with entertainment! A wonderful new addition to the household!

M,

Traditional response to any questioning of progress is to be called a Luddite. I think it intelligent to question whether all progress is necessarily beneficial.

J...I am a Luddite in many ways (I do not own a cell phone). And who decides if new "ways" are actually progress? Progress used to be defined as growth or development; continuous improvement. Many of the new attitudes, approaches or methods are not improvement. They are just "new".

Off to bed...a demain.

Good morning.......Thursday afternoon I am participating in a fashion show that is benefiting breast cancer research.

I am not "model material" but it is for a good cause (after all, I am thankful my cancer is being treated and so I thought

I would do this).......for those of you gals who know the store, CHICO's.......they are the the ones who are doing it.

I am going after work today to see what outfits I get to pick from..........wish me luck:)

Greetings Coolers!

Have fun Lois! Strut your stuff Lady! :)

Have a great day all!

Good morning Coolers!

Mysty and Jeff, I follow your conversation with much interest; not only did I observe the change from my generation to my children’s but I am also seeing it affecting my grandchildren. Generations are different worlds into themselves, but they inevitably carry the good and bad baggage of those influencing them. We propose to be a “good” influence by instilling critical thinking and kind and compassionate attitudes.... at least we hope we won’t fail in this goal...

Fascinating posts, Jeff, Mysty and Cam!

From another Luddite who wishes the best for her children and grandchildren!

Penny

Absolutely so Cam and Penny! Although I have had to chew the inside of my cheek from time to time to prevent a virtual knuckle rap from offspring with respect to grand-offspring. :)

Oh, me too, Mysty, but first, I hear "Mother!"

Wishing our friends in UK well in the aftermath of Ophelia! Showing my ignorance, I never thought of hurricanes hitting there.

Penny..it is very comforting to know that I am not alone with my chewed up cheek! :) And I did not know that hurricanes moved north from around the west coast of Africa. I must have slept through that Geography/Climatology class!

Penny,

We don't really get true hurricanes here, but two days ago was the 30th anniversary of one. It was so bad that at around 10pm I decided to evacuate the family to the car and moved the car away from the house. Our house was built into a sort of hollow and around we have a very steep bank to the side of our house with a wooded area, in which was a few rows of very ancient trees. They are extremely exposed on the side opposite to the house and the base of the trees was at roof height but only around 5 meters away from the house, so when they come down, as they did on the house it is with considerable wheight and force having taken the very full force of that hurricane from the west.

So on that night thirty years ago we sat en-famille and watched from our car whilst one tree after another was blown over and landed on our house flattening our kitchen "wing". A couple of trees landed on an adjacent property but the hurricane was so loud they hadn't heard it and I had to go and tell them. They only lost a couple of bedrooms.

The following day I saw a crane driving past and I stopped the driver and bribed him with some cash and he came and lifted the trees off our house. Took a month or so but eventually we recovered. We lost around twenty ancient trees ie all several hundred years old, and funnily enough I haven't visited that bit of our property almost since then even though there was a lovely sort of wooded walk.

Anyway .... today was sex in a transit ... or Coq au vin as us uncultured Brits might call it ... with some veggies and some Cotes du Rhone.

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J...that meal looks delicious! Sorry to hear that the storm thirty years ago did so much damage to your home and property!

Further musings on the issue of technology as it relates to education and society. I was the one who introduced a personal computer to the family. I worked with them during my employment and thought our kids should be introduced to the then latest technology. This was probably about 1986. The first computer game we loaded was a strategy game with no visuals …only words. The game was a series of riddles and instructions and the object was to perform the tasks in the correct order before you could progress to the next objective. Our son was 4 at the time. He did not yet know how to read. This game prompted him to learn to read so that he could play the game on his own. Of course, more games followed and the games became more and more sophisticated. He learned to strategize, to think ahead and eventually to program his own games. He graduated in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo in 2005. In his case, technology was a gift.

Now our grandsons have their own ipads. They are loaded with educational games as well as some not so educational games. They both could count well before Junior Kindergarten and knew their colours well before that. Downside is that they don’t play outside, they don’t have inventive play and social skills are a little underdeveloped. While experience with technology is now a vital part of life today, other vital skills are being left behind.

In terms of technology as it relates to the education system, I fear that the mentoring and personal guidance for the kids is sadly lacking. Technology may be taking over the teaching aspect. That might be a good thing. However, guidance counsellors are not taking the time to help kids figure out what they would actually enjoy as a career. Kids are being funnelled into university with the goal of finding a well-paying job. Happiness is not considered important. Skill sets are not being analyzed to determine the individual student’s strengths or interests. The result? We have masses of so-so university graduates all competing for limited jobs and the trades suffering from a paucity of skilled workers. Would it not be better to be a successful, happy plumber than an underpaid McDonald’s employee?