More Study weekend

This week had a couple of totally unexpected problems that I've touched on at various sites so I don't particularly need repeat the details of what happened other than to say the combination of them plus damaging my neck accidentally had meant I haven't been feeling well over the last few days.

This weekend saw  me working on my English comprehension, working out from the text what is going on and how characters in a play or story feel by carefully reading the text looking not just what is said but how they use language to convey it.
I had to study extracts some were non fiction, others were plays and answer questions from it, quoting  to back the points I made which was fun cos if you know about something like photography and the extract is about it, you have to answer from that extract alone rather personal experience.
I also had a whole unit on Shakespeare and his plays-you can't escape him here in the Midlands-dealing with language, types of play, theatrical terms and questions on extracts to do.
I got 90% in my tests which super good for me.
Normally I'd also do the Math work but given how poorly I'd been with dizziness I was lucky to be given credit for this and excused while being expected to do as much as I can with the English because I was able to do some work and so am expected to now.
It's very different to how things were when I'd deke out of anything but the very strict, firm but fair approach that's being taken to me is helping  me take a more mature approach do dealing with my conditions. That has to be good for me.

Red and Blue edition too!

In 1987, it was agreed that the World-wide cd release of their output would comprise of the UK albums and the US compiled but adopted Magical Mystery Tour album, to which a set of two discs that contained hard to find singles and songs not on the UK original albums, Past Masters, was added in March 1988. 
It was said with this you had everything issued in the bands lifetime.
On September 23rd 1993 the two 'essential' double compilations 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 were added to the bands cd catalogue marking the first time on cd five songs were issued in stereo.
In 2010 EMI/Apple re-issued on cd  these two evergreen double disc collections of the Beatles singles and best of the album works with improved notes but as with the previous years re-masters of the UK albums, they too came in card Tri-fold sleeves with no inners so your discs easily got scratched between two slices of cardboard.Most clever!
 I felt they were a bit better sounding than parent remastered cds.

Roll on to the end of 2014 and it's more general re-issue in March 2015, Universal/Apple Japan re-issues this set not just in the 'wonder' Shm disc material but as a actual mini lp with a gatefold sleeve just like a record.

'RED' as most Beatle fans call it  covers the early beat years through those landmark singles like She Loves You and We Can Work It Out  and the classic Rubber Soul and Revolver albums that showed maturity not just in their playing but in the subjects they wrote and sang about.

The second and just a bit better seller of the pair not surprisingly was BLUE as it could draw from the classic Sgt Pepper, White Album and Abbey Road albums that many regard as being essential rock albums even today plus a clutch of singles and their B sides plus many of the songs on the Magical Mystery EP (we had an Lp of that with more songs in North America!)

 Again it duplicates the gatefold sleeve of the lp and adds the 2010 extended notes booklet while on the reverse you get the titles in Japanese and information on the other Shm discs by the Beatles.
To me if I was to want these albums on cd (and I do have the 2014 analogue remastered lp versions which sound wonderful) going  from the chunky thick plastic jewel cases of the 1993 issue and the awkward card ones of 2010, these are much nicer
There have been some mix difference between lp and cd versions over the years and this post  on the2014 lp edition explains more:
Red and Blue edition

Weekend studying

Another weekend goes and can you imagine what I've been doing over two days in this cold and snowy time?

 Yes, I had double studying this weekend where I actually had just sit down and work my grey socks off rather than either being distracted by other stuff online or otherwise and actual get started on time as I have from now on...
Is that an offstage Ow you hear? (lol).
So on Saturday in English I was working on backing up points by using quotations and getting to grips with making sense of Shakespeare, being able to read extracts from plays and make out what really is happening to the point of being able to show I understood  what I had read.
Shakespeare isn't like me  just coming out with it even with a bit of diplomatic license, it's often wrapped around long poetic descriptions and anything but direct.
I did manage to get every question right this week as well as drawing neat boxes to make the tables to put some of the answers in.
During the week the Ks 3 Math study and workbook arrived which could mean one thing, that like it or not I had Math to work on  and was required to get myself a Geometry set and traditional exercise book to write my work in on Friday when it had been snowing.
Can you imagine it, a increasing number of exercise books with "Joanne, [Subject] Month/Year and Form: 1EB" written neatly on the front that I am to fill out over the year?
Sunday I had to tackle Math starting on what you'd call basic number work such as how you put numbers in order to express them as Math and in English as well as size before moving on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division featuring patterns, multiplying and dividing  in decimal units which cause my fears to multiply(!) as well how to multiply and divide numbers like 20, 300, 800 which I can't recall being shown not that being truthful I'd of paid that much attention to back in the day.
I'm also working through Multiples, Factors and odd, even, squared and cubed numbers too and it's all starting sink in as although this is hard for me, I did actually manage it, even going back over one calculation three times until I spotted where I was going wrong which was very good for me as I'd of thrown the pencil at you cursing until very recently.
In a way it really underscores where the work on my attitudes and behaviour slots in because it's not that this isn't hard  for me but it is something with support I can grasp but didn't want saying in effect "Too hard, why even try" which is why a very strict line has and is taken with me.
It actually shows that with a no-nonsense approach when it's coupled with support and guidance I am able to do things, that I have abilities I can use and from now on I'm to put a real effort into trying. 

I CAN DO MORE WITH THE RIGHT HELP WHEN I ALLOW OTHERS TO HELP ME
That is what being a responsible disabled adult middle is all about

Also my BFF checked in during the days to see how I was getting on, like actually getting started and I did the same for her which does seem to work well for both of us and she did well too.

R.I.P David Bowie (1947-2016)

Like most of you I woke up, Monday (1/11/2016) around a quarter of Seven to the shock news that David Bowie had dead at the age of Sixty-Nine something the shocking for Blackstar, his last album had only been released Friday to glowing reviews. 

I'm feeling rather numb even now about this but in looking at his achievements, the first thing I would say is he seldom if ever repeated himself, sometimes to a fault, always reinventing himself and working with new ideas and exploring whole different genres.

His catalogue could never be described as being in anyway samey, indeed you find some fans have one period they major on although perhaps basic I have a more wider interest in music and music-making I'm not in that camp.

He broke new ground in the topics he sang and wrote about, brought new sounds to the mainstreams ears...and moved on to the next.

I could never just pick a half dozen of his albums although Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs Station to Station and Scary Monsters sure would feature.

The other area I'd say was outside of music, he was a proper actor who did star in three films not least The Man Who Fell To Earth and in several stage productions, did understand the importance of creating personas, costumes and staging  which in conjunction with the use of music videos which he was a pioneer of, provided the total package. 

It's quite probable that the American Hard Rockers Kiss were influence by aspects of his work, the story telling and that total package from Hunky Dory and Ziggy era.

The other area was in being open about his sexuality, exploring gender presentation together with  Lou Reed and to an extent Elton John collectively they opened up a conversation around what it means to have a sexual and gender identity, how we express it and how that differs for all of us. 

For anyone who was Lgbtqi in the 70's and 80's you don't need me to say just how being himself, David give us space and aided the greater toleration of difference. We owe him that regardless of our music tastes and I suspect for a good number of the depth of feeling we have in mourning him is influenced by that, it has a personal quality to it.

He also to his credit took on MTV in its lack of music of black origin in it's early days and even of the faces of People of Colour from its programming and got that changed.
Rest in Peace David.

January random Friday edition

Hi it's the what's Jo gonna post Friday here edition after a few concerns about an Uncle of mine who's gotten severe progressive memory loss and having quite a laugh in littles chat on Tuesday.

 First off of the bat, Dad got a build a bear jacket for a bear and gave me the hanger expressly to put on the my door handle which kinda signifies the acceptance a Middle with a Little side lives here quite openly now.

 Mommy bought me some thick fleecy boots for the English winter, whenever that thing arrives so my feet well be as warm as toast and anything over the flicker of a flame being really warm, warmer than Marmalade!

Some of the outstanding Christmas presents  arrived after the combination of the Christmas and New Year vacations, not that I've ever had an issue with people like Postmen and women having proper time off and that plus with some coming from outside of the UK.
I'll write a bit more about each later on I think and I actually found a HMV voucher that had gotten lost down the side of a chair , unopened from Christmas day!

I had a couple of diaries 

 The slim A6 one is really for me to take to places such as meets and Camp as it is easier to carry and I can add things like activity times and note any chores I'm to do in whenever I'm out

The larger A5 one is more for at home use  keeping important dates and reminders in as one thing I do struggle with is organizing, remembering when I'm to do things and then staying focused so this more little/middlish ones should help me this year with it.

 As the week itself went, I went to the hairdressers Tuesday for the first time in the New Year for a cut and dry and generally speaking I've been very good this week keeping to bedtimes and following the rules. 
I also found out the name for the problem I have around hearing and being understood - it is apparently Auditory Processing Disorder - and it does tie in with developmental dyslexia which why it may of been overlooked when I was younger.

Stereo Beatles mini lps

 As a number of seasoned blog readers know I have had a liking for the Beatles for a long time so it was an important day in early March of 2015 and I had gotten some interesting cds by them plus a few more recently which I'll spend a few worms on discussing.

In the weird corporate World of Japan few things are more revered than the super limited edition gone to it's gone and put back out in slightly different form product and somebody at Apple and Universal Japan decided it was those Moptops time for this treatment on December 14, 2014 when all the UK stereo studio album titles and the 2010 versions of the evergreen RED and BLUE compilations got issued in the latest wonder cd material SHM.
It's meant to produce less errors when 'read' by your cd player and so sound better.
Before you could read reviews at various websites they sold out  being a very limited run with posters but were re-issued in the 'Encore' series without the promotional posters which I'm not so fussed over.
By the time reviews did emerge one could cue a howl from "zeroes and ones are same regardless" from digital theory purists and "Oh yes it does sound different" from others on certain sites.
Regardless of that debate, I much prefer the Mini lp style packaging these cds come in anyway replicating far better the feel of the parent lp records than the 2009 tri-fold digipak remasters we had and they match my much my much loved cd The Beatles in Mono box with its 11 mini lp mono cds and critically my set of albums issued for the US albums box set of 2014 which also used the mini lp style I got for the stereo versions (they also have mono versions some of which are US specific).
That set cut off with the US version of Revolver whose sound I much prefer over the 2009 stereo UK series cd although Capitol of course did issue all their output with Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour  on Capitol and everything else up to Let it Be on Apple labels.

I much prefer the mono mix of Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club although like most I grew up with the stereo, for me a purple Capitol Canada lp and the Capitol 8 track.
As you can see this has the cut outs and inner bag just like the mono from 2009's mono box does and a Japanese booklet but is the stereo edition.

 

When it comes to Magical Mystery Tour there are good reasons for liking the stereo which for the first side at least was pretty good, sometimes revealing more detail than the mono, although that has many unique features like the use of phasing on vocals so it's album worth  having  stereo copy of. The mono has the three singles a and b sides in the original mono mixes.
This stereo edition has the 24 page colour booklet, a Japanese leaflet and like the mono edition, being assembled by Capitol as a album (the UK had a set of two 45 rpm 7 inch extended play singles!) has a Capitol label.

Moving on to 1969's Abbey Road, this was only mixed into stereo although in some territories a simple folded down to mono edition was pressed for mono record players or used for mono tape records.

  The covers are much nicer, a booklet with a potted history of the album in English are tuck in the rear of the acid free plastic wallet the cover is in and there's another booklet in Japanese with English lyrics to every song so we can song along to Polythene Pam.
This fits the Mono box perfectly.

The rear shows the other cds in this series such as the RED, BLUE and Past Masters compilations.

Plus the Let It Be, the troubled  album recorded before Abbey Road but originally issued in conjunction with the motion picture afterward showing the band performing later initially in special box set with a book of pictures.
I never planned on getting the 2009 stereo cd of the Beatles For Sale UK album from December 1964 simply as the album never really figured much in my life until the cd era (its contents figure on Capitol's Beatles '65 and Beatles VI that I grew up with)  and then being so upset with the sound I got the UK stereo lp whose packaging was rather cool with a gatefold sleeve with two black and white  pictures for the centrefold and a short set of notes by Tony Barrow and the track listing.

I decided recently to treat myself to this the stereo shm edition in its full replica sleeve as many who did buy the 2009 stereo regarded it was one very best of the series and it sounds really good.

This is the third UK album released July 1964 which unlike its North American counterpart has 13 songs written and song by the Beatles and nobody else in its stereo form. The bulk of the second side was issued on the Capitol lp. Something New, including Things We Said Today  which didn't have much new  to offer as only four songs from that UK albums side were used and it shared five with the A Hard Day's Night soundtrack album!
That's one reason why it was the first UK album I bought on record, it simply is more complete flowing better and why I got this edition on cd which sounds more open compared to the 2009 edition.

This, 1966's Revolver (UK edition) was the second disappointment of the original 2009 issues sounding like it had ill defined bass and muted high notes, not that the 1987 first issue was much better but to my ears is is quite a bit more open and clearer although it's one of many of their albums I prefer the mono mix of.


Having played them through my all Rotel system they do sound a bit more open and less edgy compared to my European 2009 copies and I am inclinded to ditch the original clumsy tri-fold card issues. 

Beatles cd posts links: 
The US albums US albums cd re-issues
Beatles in Mono cd set Beatles in mono cd set
The Beatles EP cd set The beatles EP's on cd 

New Year Edition

Seeing it is the very start of the New Year and that it's customary on this blog to take a bit of time to look at the previous year and what it is we feel the New  Year will be bringing.
I think the word that best fits how I experienced this last year is deeply because simply everything just feels to me that it can never really be the same for all of those experiences, the good and frankly the emotionally draining and heartbreaking.
For one thing, everything I experienced emotionally has has left a very deep impression on me from learning which people matters the most to me in my life and what my real needs are in so many ways.
2015 as I envisioned it was just going to be a run on of 2014 as by that years end I had an idea of what a 'little' I was, the sorts of things that did interest me and to a point how in terms of presentation I presented both at home and when at various meets.
The big change when it comes to presentation was I moved very much into wearing tunics (okay Brits, Gymslips) / school pinafore dresses and 'proper' gym knickers near enough all of the time apart from my summer gingham school dress and pleated green and grey skirts.
They not only are so me but also pretty well define me as the middle I am.
This year gone, we only had one LG Camp here in the UK which I think it is fair to say is a highlight for those of us who usually attend simply because it gives us that space to express that 'forever a kid' side of us in an accepting environment  and critically where we can take part in shared activities that help us all express and explore that side of who we are and from where for us as individuals it is coming from.
There did seem in view of this to be a concerted attempt by various individuals to arrange for other events or to join in existing events outside of our own group to both fill the void and to explore maybe also bring in others too this side of us be it NGP, one off days out or just meeting up with a few friends for a day .
A good number of us did make the Ikklespace Picnic, the 'it sort of happens' event Sammy gets people involved where we did meet a few more people, had a laugh and joke while playing in the open countryside which as it was the first time I'd made it really enjoyed.
I spend some enjoyable days with Andi, Jennifer and Susan here in the West Midlands having fun, socializing and exploring the local rail network getting about letting my small side out playing with dolls, teddies and colouring to my hearts content.
Then there was (translation:wuz) the GHS bonfire get together which brought a few people who I hadn't seen for a bit together and where in view of how some us were feeling regarding other events, play really was needed so we played and hung out together which made me feel very much 'little' like a group of children just having fun together.
Lillian's departure stopped most of us in our tracks, caused a number of us to consider just how much we knew about how one another really felt, the gifts we all have and what it means to care deeply about someone. I really cannot thank the people outside the group at FA enough for just being around listening and caring not just for myself but for several of us in membership there because it was what we needed so badly.
I haven't felt so truly close to some people for well decades even as I do now, being able to let them in emotionally nor to have and continue to feel supported and loved. It also reminded me of how it is in online communities although everyone may be deemed to be a friend, really they are not-they're acquaintances we spend time together but do not know so much of one another nor form the emotional bonds that lead to caring and being cared for.
In 2015 I know I am cared for and  I know I can reach out and care for others.
I encountered across the year a number of people in places and contexts that I would not of ordinarily expected, indeed if I was to draw a timeline showing significant encounters and discoveries on my 'like a kid' life we'd have the mid 2000's, finding online bulletin boards and early hosted blogs (on GeoCities et al), 2011 and GirlTalk and G.I and communities on Tumblr for 2015.
One chance encounter, several PM's and a few mutual friends lead to some interesting exchanges about what it means to be a 'Little' and where in the scheme of it you fit in and it in this that I realized what best described how I felt was more "a Middle with a little side" because while certain interests and behavioural aspects were more typically 'Middle' there were chunks not least on my emotional side that have more in common with stereo typical 'littles' chunks stemming from my many disabilities that have limited my development in everyday terms.
For me then, the 'Middle with a little side' is less of role play you drop into so much it's just a label that gets me in settings that better suit my real life needs, being effectively an adult child at many levels (I'm just not up to Adult responsibility developmentally).
The other related side to this is I have extra help and input now from people who provide the   kind of loving care, support and structured environment that also is quite strict to help me be more productive and adopt better habits as that Middle. I also have to wear my uniform.
This involves by mutual agreement my acceptance of their authority, working through issues and the acceptance of any traditional emotional age child-like discipline by me as needed  to help change those habits, attitudes and behaviours although the constant support and guidance is the most important thing.
This was one the most important things to happen in my life last year even if it isn't something everyone would go with simply because I am doing so much better for having that guidance and structure in place.
I have adapted to the imposition of that strict discipline well, making the transitions I need to become more mature in a 'as good as a middle way' I can. I honestly believe  it was something I badly needed in my life and it will continue to feature in the New Year.
An unexpected side effect from those changes is that I do feel very much middle/little in my headspace, where at one time I may of presented as a Middle and perhaps played a bit in good number of ways I'd of still of been thinking more so-called adult role (for me it's more impersonation than actually having much of an adult sense of self), I felt that much younger, not having adult authority turning off my natural instincts to play together for want of being at least in on groan up small talk. 
I feel smaller, more overtly child-like relating more to the groan ups as that child, accepting their authority where they need to take control  as I do little stuff with other littles and I like that feeling heaps.
The other side of the coin is where as coming to the end 2014 chunks of me felt more like an an adult who wasn't in control of their emotions, getting into scrapes lashing out, not thinking through,  being allowed (or enabled) to do pretty much what I liked regardless, the end of 2015 has left me more as a growing up Middle, knowing my limits but getting to grips with personal responsibility, exercising initiative, respecting elders and authority while accepting that authority to look after me where I have vulnerabilities I cannot met just by myself.
Being at the point of coming to terms with how your life has left you, its restrictions and how the differences between yours and 'the many' need to be handled is the destination I have arrived at. I've made my peace with it.