News from Nelson – May 2 2011

Hi everyone,

Hopefully you are all fit & well? We trust so :-)

We have been keeping busy, though we had a fairly relaxing weekend just gone. Our architect asked us around for lunch on Sunday which lasted for three hours and was heavenly; sitting in the sun outside with good food, good wine and good conversation.

We went to Montrose Drive to see the house, and it is being so well looked after. Our tenant is actively looking for little projects to do. The spa room looks great now that they have re-roofed it.

Since I last wrote, I have caught up with Kel again with Ellie; we are trying to get our act together to meet each fortnight & have a chinwag at KaPie (the NMIT student’s ‘local’ café just down the street). So far so good!

Jan is now practicing for the next NSO concert, and for a Greenhill concert. From him being out each night at orchestra practice in the week leading up to the Beethoven concert (which went well, by the way), he is now out on Mondays at Greenhill, Tuesday at Underwater Hockey, Wednesday for NSO, and now wants to plan Thursdays for Volleyball at the Moutere Rec Centre. Hmm. I suspect he will run out of steam on Wednesdays.Jan played the Studer viola in the Beethoven concert and really enjoyed the sound.

John pulled the pin on the South Island tour because of the rain, so sadly Jan missed out on sharing the motorcycle tour. Then it fined up! 

Good sunrises out our way recently:

I have just been marking again; my research teams have submitted their final reports, and have gone a bit overboard. Nine research teams should have submitted about 85,000 words between them; I had 146,000 to mark. Reading and critiquing that lot took quite a long time, but the standard was also good and everyone passed.

Last time you may remember that I had been asked to teach an online Leadership course next semester with 140 students. I have decided to do it, as I will be working with another lecturer who is familiar with this particular programme. I have worked with Nic before, and it has gone very well. I will need restructure the assessments to reduce the assessment load though.

We think we have matched the paint for our porch, so we can paint it. Once that is done, then it is only tying off all the unfitted lights before we can apply for our Code of Compliance certification from the local council. However, aside from the paint match, we have no other progress! Photo: house from the top of Christian's hill next door

Next weekend we are volunteering at Founders for the Book Fair, going to a party at Shelley & Kevin’s and spending a day at home studying!

We have booked a Christchurch trip for the end of June (25-27). We are flying down and staying out near the Airport at the Sudima. Jan has a course there on the Monday (27), so we thought we would stay there & hopefully bludge on you Christchurch people to come & see us or pick us up. We have two days & nights to spend with you guys; if you want to organise a get-together somewhere, we would love to come :-)

Happy birthdays in the next few weeks to my mother, William de Beer, my Aunty Jill & Colin Coke.

Catch you all again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

Richard Little on robot legs

Today on National Radio's Nine to Noon, Richard Little speaks about his work as an inventor, helping transform the lives of some paraplegics using a robotic exoskeleton. This is a fascinating talk on applied scientific research that is happening right here in New Zealand. Check out the podcast at http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20110525-1012-feature_guest_-_richard_little-048.mp3

Using LinkedIn for Career Placements

Hi All,
Hope you are all keeping well, and the weather is as mild for you as it has been for us :-)

Apparently there is a growing trend for graduates in the UK to use LinkedIn to kickstart their careers. Liz Holland from the Career Development Association (CDANZ) posted a link to an OnRec article about two surveys of  UK graduates. Read "Graduate job seekers more likely to utilise social media than rest of UK job seekers" at http://www.onrec.com/news/graduate_job_seekers_more_likely_to_util.

News from Nelson – May 2011

Hi everyone,

We are keeping well; I avoided Jan’s cold & he is now completely well again.

Our builder finished off a whole load of jobs; the hob backing and extractor fan cowling, fixing studs for pictures, floor-mounted door stops and framing for the top of the bookshelf.

We went out to Robbie & Janet’s place a few weekends ago, and stripped their walnut catchment. We lay them on mats in the lounge until they were completely dry, then packed them up in the cellar for winter. We also picked up Robbie’s motorised 500 litre sprayer unit, which we have used a couple of times already.

I have caught up with Kel a couple of times, once with Ellie, who used to be Kel’s manager at NMIT in the International Dept. Kel has a new project to work on and is looking forward to getting her teeth into a truly international project. It should be great. We have also pledged to try and catch up far more often... and as Kel is working remotely most of the time, we should be able to do that.

Jan is still practicing for the next NSO concert, which is rushing to meet him on May 21^st, but has borrowed a viola to try from Adrian Studer, a Swiss instrument maker who lives in Nelson (and who has a very impressive CV, supplying instruments to many of NZ and Australia’s top string players). Adrian is away for several months, so Jan will get a good chance to trial it. I think he should get a new set of strings for both violas and play them side by side often to decide whether he likes the new one enough to warrant the purchase. Jan got me to listen blind and tell him which sound I preferred on a few pieces. I picked the Studer viola each time. It sounds lovely – a very mellow, warm, liquid tone.

Our Montrose Drive tenants have replaced the spa room roof, and we need to get in there to pick up the old roofing material for disposal; but it has rained on & off for about a week now.

Jan had the opportunity to join John Fitzwater on one of his trial tour runs along some metal roads which was planned for Thursday, Friday & Saturday last week. John has an American PR person who was coming out to look at the trial back-road tours to write them up for US publications, and Jan decided to join them. They were going to do back roads between Nelson, Maruia and Hokitika with some stays in B&Bs along the way. However, because of the heavy rain, there are some river crossings that would be too dangerous. John has taken Michele down south instead, where the weather is much kinder at the moment. Jan is hoping to join them when the rain breaks, but sadly it looks pretty settled at the moment.

Frits is looking much better; he is back swimming, walking and talking about resuming running. Their Easter Saturday party was great – Dutch friends of theirs, Ardri & Hans, and two cousins of Frits’ from Holland, and Amy. Amy is looking really well and I felt a huge DeBoer flashback listening to conversations on either side of me in Dutch.

Speaking of a DeBoer flashback, it was Magda’s 50^th Saturday week ago and Jan & I had dinner with her and Tjibbe & Gea at Bouterey’s. The food was divine <sigh>. I have heard from Erik and he & Jackie listed their place with a real estate agent to test the market, they sold it in the same week with no plan of what they would do should it sell. Now they have all sorts of changes on their horizon as they have sold their country house & are moving into a brand new one near Rangiora.

Julie, Magda, Christél, Ray, Sandra, Jan & I caught up at Julie’s for morning tea on Easter Friday, and got to spend some time with Siobhan and Sterl. I had forgotten that Christél used to flat with Riccardo, and Julie had arranged for him, Dutch partner and their little boy to be there, which was unexpected! They are still living at Founders, and loving it. I think Christél and Ray had a great time, and it was interesting to meet Christél’s friend Sandra from South Africa. She seemed to enjoy her Kiwi holiday :-)

My study break was full of marking – four lots of assignments completed & passed back to students. I got one assignment knocked out for the Diploma course, and was asked to sit in on the Diploma in Career Guidance advisory meeting (which I did last week). I have some concerns about how the course is run, and fed that back to the meeting so they can better meet students’ needs.

I have also been asked to teach an online Leadership course next semester, which I am considering. The trouble is that (a) I don’t enjoy online teaching as much as I enjoy face to face work, and secondly, I will have 140 students. I am leaning towards “No, ta”. I need to talk to the Head of School about it.

Last time I told you that I have ambitions about painting the porch, ordering the string lights and making a planter unit for my herbs. They are still on my list. Maybe next time. We still need to put up the outside lights for the entrance way, but can’t do that until the wall behind it is painted. At least I have bought a test pot of paint to trial the colour, so we are getting there.

The push is on to get our Code of Compliance certification from the local council. Once we have all our wiring complete, we are ready to get the council in to inspect the house (for fitness for habitation!). Jan has completed all the wiring in the garage, and put up the last two spotlights in the stairwell and entrance way. We still have some bare wires hanging out of the ceiling in the living area, awaiting the string lights that Jan has put off ordering (to spread the cost). We have one set, but need three sets… however, Jan may just put some batten holders in place to keep the council happy, then replace those when we order the new lights later on.

We are also trialling a solar garden light, but unfortunately it goes out after about four hours. I would like something that lasts a bit longer, so we will keep looking... it would be good to get a solar sensor light of some description, but I don’t even know if such an animal exists!

Coming up it will be all attention on the NSO concert for Jan, and marking research projects and prepping next semester's materials for me. I am well over halfway through the Dip Course, but I had hoped to be finished by this time, so I want the mid-year break for study. Ah well, we can only do so much!

Happy birthdays in the next few weeks to Lars, Tessa, Adam D, Aunty Diana, my father, John D, Adrian C, Megan, and my mother.

Catch you all again soon.

Alles liebe!

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young

Crop Dusting

Hope you are all keeping well - we have a lovely autumn cruising along here.

Our neighbours, Ian & Cath, had their pasture limed on Saturday morning via crop dusting plane. We had a ring side seat on the action :-)