Will Scott

"The blog of many (varied) things"

Perspective

Posted on February 4th, 2012

There are odd moments that allow you to get an entirely new perspective on life and the world. One of those moments, I’ve found out these past few days, is seeing someone you love in the Intensive Care Unit – sedated and hooked up to a ventilator – fighting for their life.

All this happened with no notice. I don’t think anything could have prepared me for it.

The emotional journey involved is quite unlike anything else I’ve experienced before. A friend of mine, who has been through something similar, likened it to a ride that you’d really rather get off now.

I was under the impression that it was a stroke but I honestly don’t know if the reality is better or worse.

I will never forget the train journey down from Cambridge to Redhill. At that point I was under the impression that it was a stroke but I honestly don’t know if the reality is better or worse. It turns out that mum has a combination of a brain injury (bruising in the left hemisphere), bacterial meningitis (the most immediately life threatening) and pneumonia.

Being presented with mortality statistics by one of the anaesthetic consultants on Saturday was tough. We knew that odds were on mum’s side but that was the first time where it sank in that we could lose her.

The staff are lovely but for all their care they still can’t successfully bring mum round. Every time they lower the sedation she gets much worse again. Yesterday I thought we were making progress – today I’m not so sure.

Update: Wednesday 25th Jan

It is now, more than ever, the little signs that we cling onto. Today, for the first time, mum opened her eyes in response to noise. There was no sign of recognition &ndash I don’t think she recognised either our voices or our faces &ndash and neither was she able to obey any other verbal commands. However, it’s the best she’s been and it does signify an increase in GCS. By this scale, she was 12/15 on admission, down to 8/15 when she was sedated — this brings her up to 9/15.

Update: Sunday 29th Jan

My mum is, thankfully, firmly on the road to recovery. The past eight days have been a test of strength, stability and willpower. I don’t think mum realises yet quite how long she’s been in hospital. She’s still in intensive care but her sedation was successfully switched off yesterday for the first time since she was admitted.

Only time will tell whether she’ll be able to recover to normal. There was a point when we were being prepared for there being some (?permanent) brain damage. Thankfully that’s looking less and less likely to be the case.

Throughout all this, I’ve been overwhelmed by the texts, emails, facebook messages and phone calls that I’ve received…

Throughout all this, I’ve been overwhelmed by the texts, emails, facebook messages and phone calls that I’ve received – both from mum’s friends but also my own. It’s times like this when you realise just how strong a group of friends you have and how much you truly are able to depend on them when things go wrong.

Update: Tuesday 31st Jan

The rate of improvement now is incredible. I’ve just seen mum walk to the end of the corridor to say goodbye to us. She requires a lot of assistance (currently from a zimmer frame).

The timing of recovery does seem to fit with the meningitis diagnosis. Once the antibiotics took hold of the infection, everything else slotted back into place.

Final update: Saturday 4th Feb

I’ve decided that things are now good enough that I can publish this post. Mum is now at home, continuing her recovery. I’m deeply grateful to the dedicated staff in the Intensive Care Unit at East Surrey Hospital. Their support of us, and of mum, was faultless throughout.∗

Reflections on 2011

Posted on December 31st, 2011

This’ll be a brief post as I’m sitting in a cottage on the Isle of Wight, preparing to see in theNew Year with 11 friends from University. If its anything like last year, it’ll be quite a civilised affair — champagne and mulled wine in abundance.

Honestly, 2011 hasn’t been a great year. We’ve had family illness — both physical and mental to contend with as well as ongoing job insecurity and parents working in an increasingly tense environment.

We also said a very sad goodbye to our Chocolate Labrador Coco last month — another member of the family who battled with cancer this year.

I have hope for 2012, I have an ongoing “Games Maker” application for the Olympics and whatever happens, we have tickets for the football at Wembley. I have an interview on the 9th that I really hope will go well. We’re also hoping to get a puppy in the spring — filling the void at home at the moment.

Have a very Happy New Year!∗

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From Nowhere

Posted on December 24th, 2011

I’m currently sitting in front of a roaring fire in close to the middle of nowhere — otherwise known as the Lancashire / Yorkshire border, 5 miles from the nearest hamlet and a total population within the parish of less than 400. Earlier this evening, we drove up to the Church of St James the Less for a carol service — all a very different experience from Surrey.

Home isn’t exactly an urban metropolis — I live in a village with a population of 4,000…

Home isn’t exactly an urban metropolis — I live in a village with a population of 4,000 on the border between Surrey, Kent & both East and West Sussex – but there’s something about the isolation that you get up here that makes it special.

For someone who is, for want of a better phrase, highly reliant on Technology, having an internet connection less than 1/10th of what I’m used to at home (and less than 1% of what I get at university…) is a challenge. The lack of reliable mobile signal is another small concern — particularly when I’m spending Christmas away from my boyfriend.

The weather is, as always, a challenge. Last year the test was the snow but this year, it’s the rain & wind — much more typically British!

There are two things that make here special — family and the night sky.

There are two things that make here special — family and the night sky. Being at University, I don’t get to spend anywhere near as much time as I’d like with my immediate family & so this weekend is a wonderful opportunity to correct that. It has been a tough year — involving unemployment, cancer diagnosis & treatment and the death of our wonderful Labrador, Coco.

When we got out of the car last night after our seven-hour journey, I was left stunned by the beauty that was above us. There’s very little in the way of light pollution here (not quite to the same extend as the Ecuadorian Amazon where I was in 2008) but nevertheless, with a cloudless night yesterday the sky was alight with myriad stars. I just wish I’d brought up my camera and tripod. Next year then! ∗

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A New Name & A Purpose

Posted on December 23rd, 2011

This year, I’m not going to make any New Year’s resolutions. I know that I’ll never keep to them. Instead, I’ve used December as a month to ‘trial’ a few new things before the New Year. Hence this post appearing well in advance of 2012!

Less paper, more work

Hopefully more than just a set of folders…

The first is an organisational system, revolving around my recent purchase of an iPad — call it an early Christmas present if you will. I’m set up with a few pieces of software (all of which synchronise with either my laptop directly or with “the cloud”) that focus on my academic journal articles, keeping track of my supervision work / research project and my JCR to-do list.

Enough of the comfort eating

Time to hit the treadmill, fatty

The second is actually doing some exercise. I’ve let things slip over the past two and a half years since leaving school. I’m back into the habit of swimming two or three times a week while at home and I’m going to try to go for a run at least every weekend when back at Uni.

Welcome to willscott.org

A new year, a new (and better) address

The third is this blog. I’m going to splash out and buy the willscott.org domain (for some reason I thought it wasn’t available when I first started blogging like this). I’ve installed a new (and frankly much more pleasant) theme and once I’ve dragged in some content from elsewhere it’ll hopefully look loved once more. The logic being that if it looks loved, hopefully it’ll be loved.

Me at the Huffington Post

See huffingtonpost.co.uk/will-scott for more!

Last but not least, I want to post more for the Huffington Post. Since being approved to post, I’ve only submitted one article – since then, I’ve had neither the time nor the inspiration. After a bit of thought, I think I’ve got some of the latter… Hopefully I can use my time on the Isle of Wight next week to solve the former.

As with Lent, I’m refusing to do anything negative (i.e. stop doing something or give something up) — these are all positive changes to my life that should (in theory at least) make everything that little bit easier and more enjoyable. ∗

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The Need for More Male Teachers

Posted on September 4th, 2011

The recent statistics released by the General Teaching Council for England on the number of male teachers in schools, particularly primary schools, are concerning. While there has been a small (0.6%) increase in the number of primary schools that have at least one male teacher, over a quarter (27.2%) still do not. Overall, only 12% of primary school teachers are male.

We desperately need more male teachers. Take my brother and myself as an example as to why. My younger brother wants to go into primary-level teaching. He credits this desire to his Year 3 maths teacher, a young New-Zealander who was able to make maths enjoyable for the first time, a teacher who was able to connect with the children and share his own interests. My brother found the same thing at Secondary School – his choice of subjects for A-level was based upon academic enjoyment rather than simply as a means of getting onto a specific University course. The subjects that he retained were the ones where the teachers (again, predominantly young and male) were passionate about their own subject and were able to share this passion with the class.

The reality is that there are families across the country where, for one reason or another, there is no strong male role model for young boys, meaning that they must look elsewhere for influence. This influence can come from many different places, perhaps sometimes via sport or media but having a male teacher as a positive influence is infinitely more powerful.

The reality is that there are families across the country where, for one reason or another, there is no strong male role model for young boys, meaning that they must look elsewhere for influence.

At Secondary School, I was fortunate to have some fantastic teachers, both male and female. I honestly believe that I wouldn’t be where I am today without their inspiration. The two that stand out above all others were teachers for Chemistry and Russian. Both of these teachers were young men – in their twenties – and both of them had a passion for their subject. They weren’t people who went into teaching because they had failed at everything else, they were people who taught because they wanted to share their enthusiasm and that enthusiasm was highly infectious.

I’m aware that this is a controversial topic, there are papers like this which vehemently disagree with my own experience of male role models, although the authors do still conclude that there should be more men in early-years teaching. Increasing the number of male teachers is not designed in any way to disadvantage girls or detract from the fantastic work that female teachers do – it is simply one of many things that ought to be done to try to improve both academic and social eduction here in the UK. A simple fact is the boys perform worse than their female counterparts in GCSE exams. The causes of this are likely numerous and complicated but that provides no excuse for doing nothing at all.

I’m not so naïve as to think that the imbalance can be solved instantly – as with a gender imbalance in any profession, change will be long and hard work…

I’m not so naïve as to think that the imbalance can be solved instantly – as with a gender imbalance in any profession, change will be long and hard work but there are, I think, many more things that the Government can do to make primary level teaching more attractive to young men. I’m reminded of the second series of The West Wing where college tuition bursaries are proposed as a means of getting more teachers. Whatever your views on the increases in tuition fees and whatever the realities of the payment burden, raised fees have a psychological barrier associated with them (however much this may be due to misinformation). Removing this barrier for a select number of aspirational young men on the condition that they agree to teach in state primary schools for a minimum term is one straightforward way of starting to redress the imbalance.

Who knows, maybe each one of these new teachers will inspire someone like my brother to go into teaching themselves. What if they were to each inspire two or three?∗

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HP, webOS and the Touchpad

Posted on August 24th, 2011

The first thing to get off my chest is the appalling way that HP have treated their staff in all this. I know of very good people who have either lost their jobs or been undermined by being left completely in the dark, just when people were reliant on them the most for information. I’ve waited a few days before writing this post to allow things to become a little clearer and for my anger to subside slightly.

The future of webOS isn’t (at the present time) too great. There need to be firm answers on future hardware partners within the next two weeks if HP want any hope of retaining developers in the long term.

The future of webOS isn’t (at the present time) too great. There need to be firm answers on future hardware partners within the next two weeks if HP want any hope of retaining developers in the long term. I still believe in webOS. I still honestly think that it is the best thought out and designed mobile operating system in existence. I’ll come to my experience with the touchpad in a second, but using webOS 3 is, frankly, a pleasure.

In the longterm, if HP are able to find a suitable hardware partner, this may prove to have been a very shrewd move. Being able to separate software from hardware should be a very good thing for future development. With a hardware manufacturer who has the resources to be able to deliver devices in the timeframes that consumers expect (rather than the disappointments of Palm/HP), HP will be free to push forward and continue to innovate with webOS.

The last few days have been crazy. The firesale of the Touchpad was an incredible move and the response to it was simply stunning!

The last few days have been crazy. The firesale of the Touchpad was an incredible move and the response to it was simply stunning! To have so many retailers websites taken down by the demand for a single product is insane. I’m really fortunate to have been able to get one. I almost got 3 in fact, were it not for a silly mistake on my part and Carphone Warehouse’s security being totalitarian.

I love the touchpad already. The build quality is great, unboxing was a pleasure and the quality of the available apps is really pleasing. Synergy on webOS is just fantastic. Having reimported my accounts from my Pre, I’ve remembered just how much I miss the tight cloud integration when using Android. There are still some bugs in the OS, but HP intend to issue updates still so I’m not too concerned about that. I just hope – HP’s short term challenge – other developers stick with the platform. Hopefully with this massive influx of users, they will!

This entire post was typed on my touchpad using the virtual keyboard. Not entirely pain-free but certainly usable.∗

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Berlin

Posted on June 29th, 2011

memorial High-res version

Berlin, without doubt, is one of my favourite European Capitals — certainly ahead of Paris, Brussels and Rome. Over the past 4 days, I’ve had a short glimpse at a city which harbours so much history within its walls.

Then there’s the people — unlike Paris where things tend to be very hit & miss, everyone we met in Berlin was friendly and helpful. When you’re travelling as a pair where only one person speaks any real German (hint: it wasn’t me), having people willing to decode Matt’s rusty GCSE German was reassuring and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the waiter who took it upon himself to give Matt a grammar lesson!∗

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AV et al.

Posted on April 25th, 2011

Ok, let’s face it, AV is a “miserable little compromise”. It really isn’t a perfect system, neither is it as proportionate (and therefore “democratic”) as I think our voting system should be. However, when choosing whether to vote Yes or No, the question should not be “is AV the answer to all our problems?” but rather “is AV a better system than FPTP?” – to which the answer is fairly clear.

“No” supporters argue that on this basis, we shouldn’t make the move at all. That argument is misguided. Electoral reform is a process that needs to be carried out in stages. In the same way that gay legal equality wasn’t achieved in one year and in one step, changing the nature of the elections Houses of Commons and Lords cannot be achieved through one referendum, in one year or indeed by one party.

I’m a former member of the Liberal Democrats. I was a member well before the election (indeed, I first joined a good 3 years ago).

I’m a former member of the Liberal Democrats. I was a member well before the election (indeed, I first joined a good 3 years ago). I supported, and indeed still do support, going into coalition with the Conservative party as the most democratic (and therefore the most Lib Dem) thing to do. What I don’t support (which has ultimately led to me letting my membership expire) is the Lib Dem leadership sacrificing their principles without a shred of regret.

This is all relevant as the AV referendum is one of the reasons why I haven’t (yet) joined the Labour party…

This is all relevant as the AV referendum is one of the reasons why I haven’t (yet) joined the Labour party (the other one is to do with the two Eds but that’s another post entirely!). Labour MPs are split on this issue despite a) their leader backing it and b) it having been party policy at the last election. This smells of a party that doesn’t know where it’s going or where it has come from. What’s even more damning is that the “No” supporters from Labour have been as misleading and narrow-minded in their comments as those from the Tory party – here they most certainly are not the “alternative”.

I hope we win this referendum, not because it’ll be the end of the issue (while AV is an improvement, it isn’t the best system out there and over the next generation we can make further changes) but because it will show that we accept that the current system isn’t working as well as it should. Once that has been realised and acknowledged, then it will be easier to take a look at other areas of the parliamentary system that need rethinking. That has, after all, got to be our ultimate goal.∗

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