Don't try this at home - lessons from some one who knows

Apparently there are eight  principles of learning as set down by Educational Psychologists and Pedagogues, these are (in no set order) :

readiness, exercise, effect, primacy, recency, intensity, freedom and requirement.

As a side note here something I didn't know - Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction. 


But I digress.

I sit quietly as the tears stream down my cheeks and I reflect on my inability to learn. How did it happen again ?I fit all of the eight principles so what went wrong ? How did I get here yet again ? I replay the steps in my mind  and realise that these are amateur mistakes that just shouldn't be made.

The first time was back when I was trying to impress my wife to be whilst we were at our favourite restaurant for a nice noodle soup and conversation not only did I manage to get chili in my eyes but I followed it up with a good dose of lemon juice. My eyes puffed up, went red and I looked like Twilight saga fan who has just been told Taylor Lautner is now married.
So the entire time was spent trying to clean out my eye and suffice to say not much conversation other than "Are you sure you're OK ?" went on.

At least this time it was just onion. And I had taken precautions - I had washed the onions under running water which supposedly stops the vapours that cause you to cry be released. But once again like before I had taken my finger - all coated and primed and jabbed it in my eye to relive a perceived itch.

Image courtesy of slashfood.com

As I wait and gently wash my eye with cool water I cast my mind back to all the other "Don't do this" moments in my life.

- Get on a rowing machine after a hot dog and a beer at "O" week at University, turns out your vomit reflex is really close to the diaphragm, so after exertion the body just empties itself. I didn't make the rowing team either......

- Pull apart secateurs while holding them in front of your face. Seems they have a few safety precautions built and as I rotated them and kept up my attempts to pull them apart one half neatly sprung off and pierced my lip and embedded itself into my gum. So off to hospital we went. My wife still claims to this day I'll do anything to get out of gardening.

- Pull mussels off the pier with bare hands. It seems that even if you grab them gently they are designed to defend them selves by being razor sharp all the way around. The tiny yet prolific cuts they leave behind really only become apparent the next day. When you can't clench a fist any more or hold your cutlery......

Image courtesy of blog.smalladventures.net

- Attempt to saw rubber water pipes with a hacksaw when they apparently have steel wire re-enforcing inside them. This will cause the hacksaw to catch and then bounce out and come down on your finger you were using to guide the blade and sever a good chunk of you finger nail and slice into the finger. The sheer shock of this one (surprise and then searing pain) was enough to convince me to use an angle grinder on everything for about a month afterwards.

- If you take hot trays out of the oven with a wet cloth it turns out the heat from the tray turns the water in to steam vapour which will leave some marks behind. It just goes to show that rushing in a kitchen isn't a good strategy.
For all of you who know that I cook regularly - contain your howls of dismay, this one is not  recent experience. I use it to illustrate a point.

My eye feels a little better and my nose seems to have stopped resembling Victoria Falls, so I guess I'm good to go. Until I have another learning experience of course.

I wonder which of the eight principles I'm at right now ?

The Ride home ( a tale of perception )

I think he picked up my slipstream as I came through Birrarung Mar , I heard the clank of his gear and his shadow was almost completely on top of mine but just enough of a line for me to notice. I'm on my mountain bike so I'm just not going to be fast enough for him to stay there for long.

I get quite frustrated with the riders who sit right in line with your rear wheel and draft off the slipstream your body creates. This because there's no need to ride so close (not to mention it's lazy riding, they're using the slipstream to get the same speed but for less effort)

Image courtesy of inhabitat.com

Under the bridge and up on tho the pathways opposite Olympic Park, I keep the pace steady,  as to shake him off I'll have to work twice as hard. Past AAMI stadium and the shadow is gone but the click and every now and then the echo's off the various things we pass - trees, fences, signs, is still there.

Down the hill we go toward Burnley wharf. Sitting steadily on 29kph

As I come off the floating pathways and up the ramps toward the halfway mark it's the Big Hill time. The pathway dips down hard and then climbs sharply, corners hard and then begins a long descent to almost the level of the river  (it floods after a heavy rain) and instantly climbs up to the freeway level again. All the way down I here the click of his ratchet as he stops pedaling and allows the hill to do the work. Momentum carrying us up to 41kph and then slowing us almost instantly to 20 then 19kph.

At this point I decide to try and shake him by leaving the path and going on to the road than runs next to this portion of the pathway. It's shielded by the 15 foot sound barriers that stop the freeway hum from offending the people who live across the Yarra on the waters edge.

I still can't see him properly but the sounds are clear - the click of the ratchets and the occasional squeak of the pedals. Up into 6th and the speedo reads 30kph

Along the road we sweep, the sweat is now tickling my eyebrows and I'm breathing hard.

Second last rise in the road and I watch carefully for the cross traffic, the cars don't look - they expect you to. I slow slightly as the incline steepens and I change down to 5th, I can't hear him but I can feel him tucked in behind riding the slipstream and doing 20% less work than me.

I've hit the last  straight now and I click up a gear again to 6th and the speedo reads 32kph. I can feel each part of the muscle in my legs and the sweat now resembles tears running down my face.

Last rise past the girls school, I often see them in the morning loading boats into the river and wishing they were somewhere else. But not now, the heat rises from the road and they are nowhere to be seen.

I can hear the click of the ratchet in the rear wheel again as we pass the walls of the school and the squeak of his bike chain. Its unwavering and now slightly to my right.

200 meters to go.

I reach the turn on to Bridge rd and stop to one side as I've won. He didn't pass me and I turn around jubilantly to claim my victory.

As I look back along the roads straight line , it shimmers under the suns glare and it looks like it's coated in a film of water but I know it's not.

Image courtesy epod.usra.edu

There's nothing behind me.

There's no-one behind me.

I check again wiping the sweat from my eyes. My heart pounding.

Nothing.

I've been chasing myself. The click of the ratchet, mine amplified as I ride past sold objects. The squeaky chain the one part of my chain with some slight rusting.

I turn slowly onto Bridge rd and chuckle to myself. You have to be careful what you think are competing for.