MonnaMcDiarmid.com: The UnLaunch

 {Follow me!}

First, my deep apologies if you are one of the small handful of people who has faithfully followed my adventures over the years: from Barcelona Moments to Teacher Meets World to Monna McD. I am moving blog-homes again and, hopefully, I'll be staying put for a while!

You will now find me at MonnaMcDiarmid.com

Since late 2006, when I began blogging in Barcelona, Blogger has been my platform of choice and Blogger has always been good to me. I know my way around Blogger and we've always been a good fit... so much so that the move to Wordpress feels a bit like cheating. The bottom line is if Blogger had made it this easy as for me to register my own domain name, I'd never have left.

Life (and blogs) moves on.

I'm calling this an "un-launch" because, frankly, I am a bit weary of big announcements about blog changes.  My blog is basically the same: a white background and a minimalist appearance. I have imported all of the posts from my past blogs... the whole damned collection. There is a lovely new header, designed by DP, which reflects our recent move to Japan. There are also some little glitches that I am fixing as I find them. (Yup... I am trying to let "perfect" go!)

In the days and weeks to come, I'll be posting more about Japan... which, thus far, has felt quite a lot like living on the moon.

I'd love it if you'd follow me over at MonnaMcDiarmid.com - either through a reader like Google Reader or via e-mail.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you subscribe!

Happy Sunday!

The Charms of Barcelona Guest Post

DP and I were in Barcelona for a glorious week this summer and all I wrote for you was one (just one!) post about our photo session with Kyle and Seba.

Until now, that is.

I've written a guest post on Dry as Toast and you can read it here.

Dorkys, the blogger, is in Barcelona right now so I am, of course, a bit envious.

The Sunday List (15) The Yokohama Edition

{This girl has a face like a poem.}

1. Listening
Melody Gardot.
Listen, I know I've said it before but her voice is extraordinary. She kills me.

2. Watching
We don't have cable television yet. I mean we do... but we don't... don't get me started! So DP and I have been watching movies and a bit of television purchased from i-tunes.

Last Night is a beautifully written film about love, longing and fidelity. The art direction is gorgeous and the interiors are sumptuous. (Warning: We really liked the film but it made us feel sad.) Here's the trailer.

3. Reading
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Shimamura, a wealthy Japanese man goes to a mountain resort and meets a geisha named Komako.
Nothing happens.
Everything happens.

We have lived in Japan for just a month now but I am already starting to see how the art of subtle communication works in real life. Traditionally, a Japanese person would never turn down a social invitation but would say yes in such a way that the person offering the invitation would hear a gentle no. I find this both lovely and infuriating.

4. Quoting
“The fact is that very few things have so much effect on the feeling inside a room as the sun shining into it.” ~ Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language


What's got your attention right now?

Blue sky-views from the 69th floor

From the 69th floor of the Landmark Tower in Yokohama, you can see forever.

It was an Africa-hot Tuesday afternoon and two of my colleagues and I had taken the group of new new high school students to the Minator Mirai 21 district of Yokohama for lunch and a cool scavenger hunt followed by a trip to the top of Landmark Tower which is the tallest building and third tallest structure in Japan. (A quick aside for teachers: If you want kids to bond quickly, take them to the exact place that they would choose on their own... a mall!)

My group piled into the elevator and a young female guide began to speak in Japanese. I gathered that she was talking about the speed of the elevator as twenty heads leaned back to get a better view of red numbers on a screen just above the elevator doors. The elevator reached a speed of 12.5 metres per second which meant that the elevator came to a gentle landing on the 69th floor in just forty seconds. My ears popped twice!

About halfway to the top, one of our students whispered, "Can you imagine being in here during an earthquake?" Twenty people inhaled in perfect unison and were then completely silent for the next twenty seconds.

Even on a hot, August day the views were astonishing. When the weather cools off a bit, and the Yokohama-skies are at their bluest, I'll take DP so that he can see forever too.

What have you been looking at lately? What are your new views?

Jellyfish on the walk home

I bought a new i-phone. I know that's not really big news compared with moving to Japan but it is news, nonetheless, and said i-phone is allowing me to capture all manner of Yokohama moments via Hipstamatic and Instagram. (If you don't have an i-phone, it doesn't matter what those are. If you are an i-phone person, perhaps you have experienced this particular app-addiction or are, at least, slightly sympathetic to my plight.)

The good news is that I have taken some photos of my walk from school. Pretty, no?

Walk with me... down the street, around the corner, past the Foreigners' Cemetery, through the park, down the elevator (yes... an elevator), through the metro station, out onto the shopping street and, finally, across the canal where the jellyfish live.

I swear that the jellyfish bow to us as we walk by.

We bow back. It's what you do in Japan.

Did you spot the jellyfish? (Look closely!)