Education | Martyn K Jones

I’ve been good. I’ve been working and writing, but what with Google and Facebook deciding they wouldn’t recognise my connection while I was in the UK, bereavement and major illness in the family, suddenly having to find a new home (Don’t ask) and not one but two courses; one with Simon Fraser University, the other with Coursera to regain my Technical Writer status, it’s all gone a bit sideways.

This isn’t to say that life hasn’t had its up moments, Angie has passed her final course with an A, but at present I feel like the guy in a Mack Sennett silent comedy who’s just been hit by contra-rotating ladders. Ergo, there’s a large element of slapstick in my life right now. All my self imposed deadlines have whooshed over me like a Scramjet on full burn. Everything is doing pratfalls with me as the fall guy.

Google and Facebook are now back up until the next time I walk down the street. There’s ten messages I haven’t had a chance to look at, and since I made my Skype details searchable two days ago I’ve had some rather rum coves asking to be added to my contacts. Which I haven’t. I just don’t have time to verify their details, so I hope no-one takes it amiss if I don’t want to talk right this minute.

As I say, my life has gone a little sideways of late and normal service will be resumed in due course. Just as soon as I whip everything back into jumping the hoops in some form of order. This may take a little time.

What with everything going a little sideways in the last seventy two hours, I’ve compounded my various felonies by signing up for Simon Fraser University’s Certificate in Technical Communication course. Three modules, the first of which is now bought and paid for. Most of the ground I’ve covered as paid work before, but as the saying goes in BC “If you haven’t got the right piece of paper”. My XML and HTML are a bit rusty, I need to get totally au courant with the Canadian style guide, and I’m fine with editing PDF’s, but now with WordPerfect I have the best tool for any writing job. Might even be worth my while buying Corel’s PDF editor, although I’ve already got an old Adobe 5.0 licence and software buried somewhere in my collection.

Now Angie’s on the home stretch of her biology teaching course, which the Education Ministry have insisted upon, the educational burden will shift onto my shoulders and she can relax and enjoy the Summer. However, my April and May will be spent head firmly wedged in English textbooks and burnishing my CV until it gleams. I have DreamWeaver if need be as a web site builder, and a spare domain name to experiment with, so away I’ll go. I also need to put in some serious work on my professional online presence, which is a bit sketchy at present.

Of course this will mean delays on the creative writing front, but as that doesn’t pay many bills, it will be done during ‘leisure’ time only. ‘Darkness’ has just undergone a major narrative restructure, and between now and Tuesday when we head off to the UK for a week, ‘A Falling of Angels’ will be getting similar treatment. If I’m really lucky, I may even get some writing time in while we’re on the move or hanging around in England. If not c’est la vie.