Today I am going to post an essay written by my son Isira. Because he is not legally entitled to have a blog on his own, I am giving him my space to publish what he felt during a trip......

A TRIP TO HORTON PLAINS

We went to Horton plains last week. We started at about seven in the morning last Saturday. It was a fun trip. We went from home to Gampola and stopped there for breakfast. Then we went to Nuwara-eliya. The landscape we passed was beautiful. I took a lot of pictures from my father’s camera. Nuwara Eliya is also called little England because there are lot of old buildings built by the British according to their architecture. It was a great place, but we did not stay for a long time in Nuwara-eliya as our destination was Horton plains. The route was narrow hugging the mountains through vegetable fields and tea plantations. We missed a turn and lost our way and went to a place called Boragas. We turned back and went to the Ambewela Junction and turned the right way. We saw few large farms with lots of cows gazing in the beautiful prairies. The famous HIGHLAND milk factory was also on the way. We stopped at the entrance and bought the tickets. We had to get down from the vehicles as no vehicles were allowed inside the parks. Then we stopped briefly to get the directions to see the worlds end and the Baker’s falls. They were the most terrific wonders in Horton plains. We walked about 1 mile to get to mini worlds end. It was a great slope and was nearly 350 meters tall. I have read in one of my textbooks about a boy finding a bird feather at Horton plains. I was jubilant to find one on my way too. We saw a troop of great bear monkeys. Although I felt tired at times, the terrain was so picturesque to rest. Then we made it to the worlds end. My parents told me why it is called ‘world’s end’. The fall was more than thousand meters! I felt very scared peeping from the top. I could barely see the rivers and the landscape below. I got shaky at the knees thinking what would have happened if I fell down! We went a further three miles to get to the Baker’s falls. The path was extremely rough with plenty of challenging rocks. It was a mountainous road. We suddenly saw a sambur deer running. Great big fellow it was. Much later we saw a big herd of sambur deer. They were grazing in the far away grasslands. I felt as if they were standing in attention watching us! I think my parents had the additional burden of carrying the back pack and my little brother in turns. My father taught how important Horton Plains is to the entire country. We saw a lot of streams and later I came to know that these were tributaries of major rivers in Sri Lanka. My father showed me the soil layers full of nutritive humus. After trailing more than six hours with only water to quench our thirst, we finally arrived at the car. Needless to say that we were all very hungry, By luckily there were plenty of food in the cafeteria and we wasted no time to gobble up a little feast! On our way back the landscape was covered with a thick layer of mist. We could only see a few meters ahead even with the help of the car lights. My father drove very slowly. I was not able to last long as I felt a sleep on the way. Anyway it was a memorable journey. However, there is one sad thing, we have noticed that lot of people have disposed loads of polythene and plastics all along the plains. It is our duty to protect these natural heartlands for future generations.

I am attending to a blog developing workshop right now and I hope I can expand my knowledge on blogs. So far it has been only social updates. But I am intending to use my blog more for educational purposes. Soon you will be able to see my lectures, tutorials and course materials.

Is it possible to pricemark the attention span ?

I gave a serious thought to the above. Call me a money minded capitalist, and I am proud to be so. Perhaps it is the greatest denial of our time. Most would say that they have a feeling for the patients who are under there care and I suspect they are nothing but hypocrites. True that we as health care providers do need to have an understanding of how a patient shall feel. But most senior people use the same ideology to get the dodgy workload cleared by their traninees and junior colleagues.

Getting back to the topic proper, I had a pile of answer scripts to be marked on my desk right now. Having had a cursory look at few sheets, I have the feeling that these need to be marked thoroughly. Then I started marking them, one by one, giving meticulous attention to each of the statements. After about one hour, I was done with two scripts, and there were fifty more to be assessed. Then I realized that it was going to consume an enormous amount of time. The golden question was, how much I was going to get paid for marking each script.

It is sad that the Uni authorities want us to believe a mere 0.25 USD per script is the reasonable price. You might agree with me that 'peanuts' is a lighter term to describe such a payment. Therefore I decided to curtail my attention span to match the price of an answer. I was feeling bad about it at the beginning but what else can I do.

I began to scan for the 'words' that are expected to be present in the script. If the words were present, I would allocate marks for each one of them. And I was done with the bundle of papers within forty minutes and another ten minutes later the marksheet was posted to the course co-ordinator.

Pricetagging the attention span what do you think?

That was disgusting

I am not sure I am angry or sad after what I heard from a very good friend of mine. He is extremely intelligent and a hardworking person decided to give up the perks of clinical practice in order to pursue a PhD in a leading University. He was doing well, until he realized that his research idea and protocol was hijacked en mass by a senior person.

Although I did not have a chance to speak to him literally, I could very well feel his anguish through the chat on MSN. In a place that promote attempted murders to higher ranks, can you ask for more!!

Anyway in research and academic life, the lesson is, NEVER trust anyone!!!!!

Fight for a room
I was trying hard to get a room in the faculty. Seven months completed after returning, still do not have a proper room. The problem is people are trying to get THE room whereas all what I want is A room. The room I was told to occupy is not vacant and I am supposed to share it with two interns. I have no idea how am I going to share that.

Things are going to be very difficult when I have to mark papers etc...where I have to maintain the confidentiality of the work I am doing.

Where I am staying now is a very small place indeed (it is even smaller than the room I lived in HK. Those of who know about the place may now know how small that place is.

The irony however is that the place has many vacant rooms. Some people seem to have occupied two rooms. The problem is uniquely Sri Lankan, it is not that we lack resources but we are very poor in prioritizing the requirements and unequal and unjust distribution of resources.

As far as I can perceive the Dean has taken a genuine trouble to find me a room, probably after seeing the plight of the 'room' I spend the most productive hours of the day.

Anyway what can I do? rather than waiting and biting time and WAIT for THEM to give ME a room.

E learning tools practical

View more documents from juwfds.