Bed rest, lucky huh?

Yesterday, I decided to buy a few sacks of compost to revamp my garden. So with Monica (my wife) and Sankalpa (younger son), I went to a garden centre in Bletchley. We had done the same a few months ago but it seems that the flowers did not have enough nutrients and so some of them looked withered. A solution was to give them more manure and that's how I made the journey.

As we returned, I was passing the compost sacks from the boot of the car to Sandesh (elder son) who then took them to the garden. When it was the third one, I had to wait for a few seconds more for Sandesh. Then, I had a bout of acute pain on my right hip and I nearly collapsed but he arrived to take the sack. I limped into the house and started having all sorts of crazy thoughts in my little brain: call the ambulance, stay in hospital, miss the conference in London in which I was presenting a paper, delays in marking the student assignments, etc. I was in the bedroom, lying on the floor in pain - at times wriggling! Monica and the boys followed, not knowing what happened to me. I explained what happened. Then, the sweet home was now a gloom place for everyone - I could not believe how much I mean to my family! Almost everyone was tearful but I assured that there was nothing seriously wrong. Yet, the pain was unbearable if I wanted to stand up and walk on my own. I had to rely on Monica and Sandesh, them serving me as crutches! It was the weirdest experience I have ever had. Well, you always go through something new everyday, I suppose. Just you may not realise this newness!

I waited for about one hour but I thought it would be better to get checked by a doctor just in case, you know, anything can happen! So Monica and Sandesh took me to A & E in MK General Hospital at 1.35pm. There were many people waiting for their turns in the waiting area. Once my details were recorded, we were told that we had to wait for at least one hour! Well, there was no other choice except waiting patiently. The pain was constant and got worse when I had to sit on the bench/ chair. Anyway, there was no point in complaining. At 3.15pm I was seen by a nurse and carried out the initial assessment. Then after about 25 minutes, a doc saw me. He was a tall guy of Indian origin. He seemed quite helpful and assured me that there was nothing serious but he told me that I have had to take a bed rest for a few days and take pain relief and anti-inflamatory tablets for five days.

Since yesterday I have been taking co-codomol and sodium declofenac. I am not dong anything except checking emails occasionally and responding messages on the Facebook. I had a good sleep and a very good appetite too. I hope to be back to normal life by the end of this week. But I feel so bad that I am not able to go to the WDHE conference in London - something I so much looked forward to! Such is life!

As I wanted to inform a couple of work colleagues at the OU, I received some interesting messages too - all very positive, including the one saying make the most of your bed rest as you never know when the next one will be!

Facebook - a language learning tool?

FaceBook has become a very powerful social networking tool recently. For some people, it is the way to re-connect with their past (e.g., long lost friends) and for some it is the way to connect with the whole world. And, indeed, for some people it works as a medium of broadcasting what they think every moment, quite similar to Twitter. In some countries, it works as tool for political pressure and can have serious implications as well (e.g., a recent ban of facebook in Bangladesh). If you are a FaceBook user, you know what I am talking about anyway.

Over the last 15 months I have been thinking about how I could use FaceBook for learning a language, namely, Bangla. This idea came to my mind when I was making classroom videos for the English in Action project in Bangladesh back in February 2009 when I met several Bangladeshi English teachers in different parts of the country. I was initially struck by the fact that as soon as any Bangladeshis met me, they would start talking in Bangla assuming that I am one of them - it was natural for them to think in such a way as I do look like one of them. But what struck me was not their assumption. It was the idea that if I could learn more Bangla, I could easily become one of them and communication may become easier.

While making the films, some of the teachers asked me if I was on facebook and my immediate response was 'yes' - I don't know why I got so excited! They wanted to add me as their friends and I accepted them. Then I thought about learning some Bangla from them so that I could continue to learn the language from distance too as I was there only for a couple of weeks. So, I requested two of them and they were happy to help me. However, the excitement did not last long because after a few exchanges of the messages in Bangla and English our communication lost its momentum. But I do still feel that it is possible to learn a language through facebook. To continue this learning, I have kind of started again with some enthusiastic friends from the Institute of Education and Research, the University of Dhaka. Let's see how far I can go this time...

Just posted my feedback on LB160 assignment 1

In an effort to make use of mobile technology, I have been podcasting for LB160 students in the OU. Here is the latest one: