Musing

Over a cup of breakfast tea, I found myself musing over last week. My last blog report was about a visit to Jüterbog. The day after I went to a workshop giving tips about how to use Powerpoint more effectively in teaching. Very interesting. I learnt a lot about embedding material, which I have never done before.

Sunday was a lazy day of wandering around bits of Muggelsee, eating a traditional lunch and enjoying bursts of autumn sun. Monday was hot and sunny. After teaching I went to an ‘Approved Apple’ retailer to discuss problems with my iMac.

I can’t get it to recognise and open card-readers. I was told to buy one with a power cable. I also learnt why I can’t update my operating system. My iMac is too old! It was built in mid-2006 and updates to the new system are only for machines built a year later.

I bought the self-powered card reader and rushed home to try it. No luck! As you can see from the photo, lots of cables and readers, but my iMac refused to recognise anything. I took the ‘wunder’ card-reader back to the shop and got my money back 🙂

I cleared out lots of papers, books and assorted junk on Tuesday. I felt much better after placing all into the recycling bins. I also watched the German national football team struggle to beat Austria in the evening. Next day was full of teaching. The day after I met Angelika. She had got free tickets for us to watch the dress rehearsal of Monteverdi’s opera ‘Poppea’ at the Komische Oper.

It runs for 3 hours and 40 minutes plus a break, so it was a long four hours! I also found it rather tedious. It is a baroque piece from about 1640 and tries to tell an interesting story. This version needed a bit of ‘pep’ and I wondered why we had to see so much nudity on stage. I felt I had gone back to the daring days of the late 1960s! Even so I plan to see their productions of Orpheus and Odysseus over the next few weeks.

Yesterday morning I enjoyed some stretching exercises with Kerstin and the ‘Keep-Fit Oldies’. I then met my ‘Photoshop Oldies’, and talked to  Marcel. More about that in my next post.