Friday December 1, 2006 7:00 am Lethbridge Sunrise 8:06 Sunset 16:34 Hours of daylight: 8:28

A. Morning Musings

7:00 am It is -8 C at the moment with a high of -8 C forecast.

From rear window	South patio
Both images taken at 12:50 PM

The first day of a new month. This is always a good opportunity to reflect back on the last month as well as the yearly totals.

My monthly total number of hours spent on Learning activities is fairly steady at about a hundred hours a month which works out to about 3 hours a day. That seems reasonable - there is more to life than sitting in front of a screen or a book.

The one noticable change in November was the insertion of activities related to the game of GO. I hope to maintain this activity in the coming months.

As I have commented on before, a glance at the overall table suggests that I am spread too thin to accomplish much across all of the categories that I have identified. I have identified a total of 15 different Learning categories that I am interested in. Three categories (Psychology, Research & Drawing) have yet to receive even one hour of attention during the first 11 months. Another three (Education, Science & Art History) have received less than 10 hours over the entire 11 months. And another three (Philosophy, GO & Food) have relatively small numbers. On the other hand 6 categories have a relatively large number of hours attached to them: Technology, Mathematics, History, Literature, Model Trains and Birds. Of these, Literature is the highest and Model Trains second. In the case of the Model trains, this was all done in the last 6 months after we had returned from Australia.

I cannot think of any new categories that I would like to add, but I am having difficulty deciding whether I should delete a few of the lighter categories. At the moment I think I may drop the Food category, not because I am not attending to it, but because I do not feel like making notes about it. Simply enjoying the experience of making a new meal and then eating it with a pleasant glass or two of wine is enough. Taking pictures and describing the event seems pedantic and irrelevant. All of the other categories are topics that I remain interested in, and even if the numbers are low, the existence of the category is a subtle reminder of that interest.

Now to think a bit about focus. Literature is my top category and I would like to see that continue. Good. Model Trains, Technology and Mathematics follow in that order. I can see that Mathematics is likely to overtake Technology for third spot. I like all of this. The Model Trains will likely go up more if I make a commitment to go for the NMRA Achievement Awards.

B. Plan

Immediate
Health	Walk & exercise	1 hr
Mathematics	Read "Fearless Symmetry" chap 9: Elliptic Curves	1 hr
	Make notes on the beginnings of number theory	1 hr
History	Continue reading & making notes for "Citizens"	2 hr
GO	Continue reading "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go"	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "Virginia Woolfe: The Inner Life" by Julia Briggs	1 hr
	Begin reading "Selected Works of Virginia Woolf" - Jacob's Room	1 hr
Later
Chores	Investigate water softeners for home
Technology	Read manual for cell phone
	Make notes for chap. 4 of "Switching to the Mac"
	Begin reading "iPhoto"
	digital photography - learn about using the various manual settings
Philosophy	Read "The Art of Living" by Epictetus
Mathematics	Larson "Calculus"
	Read "Symmetry" by Hermann Weyl
	Read "The Computational Beauty of Nature" Chap 3
	Gardner "The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles"
History	Watson "Ideas"
Model Trains	Build oil refinery diorama: add ground cover
	Assemble second oil platform kit
	Assembly of CN 5930, an SD40-2 with a NAFTA logo
Puzzles	The Orange Puzzle Cube: puzzle #9

C. Actual/Notes

D. Reflection