More synchronicity

I went to Wigtown this morning (it’s known as Scotland’s book town; it’s a small village with about 10 bookshops). I got off the bus, walked into Scotland’s largest second-hand bookshop and the first book I see the title of is the Charlotte Brontë‘s Villette which is—the book I’ve been reading for the past week. I would say it’s bizarre, but I’m just getting used to it.

Synchronicity

I’m reading Synchronicity by Deike Begg. It’s not a book that I sought out; I saw it on the shelf of a friend over the weekend and asked to borrow it (I think, considering the subject matter, one must just come across such books, not look for them).
The term synchronicity was coined by C.G. Jung; he defined it as an “acausal connecting principle.” or, as more coherently defined on Wikipedia:

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which are causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. In order to be synchronous, the events should be unlikely to occur together by random chance.
The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by their meaning. Since meaning is a complex mental construction, subject to conscious and subconscious influence, not every correlation in the grouping of events by meaning needs to have an explanation in terms of cause and effect.
In order to be synchronous, the events should not be causally connected—one should not be the cause of the other, and they should not have an apparent underlying cause.

This is a subject that has fascinated me for some years now because I tend to regularly experience synchronous events. For example, whilst reading and listening to National Public Radio or the BBC, I often read a word and hear it at the same time on the radio (not common words like conjunctions—more often something like “Hindenburgh” or “anachronism”). I have, back in the States, a log of these words (several pages); on a few occasions, it’s happened with entire phrases.

On Saturday, I went to a second-hand bookshop on Great Western Road in Glasgow looking for material on The Golden Ratio (the proportions underlying aesthetics, art, and design across many cultures and ages). A few hours later I was at a dinner where someone brought up the theories of Fibonacci—which are the mathematical implications of the Golden Ratio.

Sunday, on the train to Edinburgh, I read this book whilst listening to music on my iPod. The text mentioned a poem by the 14th Century mystic, St. John of the Cross. Just as I read those words, I listened to the last few notes of Loreena McKennitt’s musical adaptation of the poem. So I was reading a book about synchronous events and had a particularly obscure one doing so; the universe is a fascinating place to be about.

Rule Britannia (Bureaucracy)

Whereas it is probably too simple to obtain a driver’s licence in the States; it seems nearly impossible here. I will not even get to into all the mishaps I’ve had so far (and I have not even been able to apply for the test yet!).
Several weeks ago I called the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) to find out what I needed to do to obtain a licence; fill out these forms and take them to your local Post Office—you’ll also need to show your passport for verification. Okay, simple enough. I fill out the forms and go to a specific kind of post office that can verify my documents. However, the woman there says she can’t verify a foreign passport. The guidelines say “If you have a digital UK passport you can register online…if you do not have a digital UK passport your local post office can verify your documents.” This means if you do not have a digital UK passport but have a older paper UK passport, not that you have a passport from another country. So, okay, what do I need to do? I find out that I’ll need to go to a DVLA office and they can verify the passport there.

On Monday morning, I went to the Edinburgh DVLA. The Edinburgh DVLA is on the periphery of the city in a business park…far away from everything. I went in, filled out the form again since my address has changed since the last attempt, and went to speak with the clerk.

“Yes, yes, here are all the documents.”
“Oh, but we can’t verify your documents here, we have to send them to England.”
“But, but, I was told…”
“No, we just don’t do it here.”
“Uurgh! Okay, alright, how long will you hold my passport?”
“Well, it’s supposed to be fifteen days—but sometimes it can take two months.”
“Huh?”
“Oh and you’ll need to give us a pre-stamped registered mail envelope or we’ll just send your passport regular first class.”
“Where can I get that?”
“There is no post office out here; you’ll have to go back into town.”
“Okay, forget it; I have to go to a meeting and don’t have time for this today!”

I would have been upset; but the whole situation is becoming so ludicrous, that I find it silly. I can’t wait to see what happens after I actually apply and try to take the tests!

The easiest thing so far was obtaining my National Insurance Number; I have a job and they want me to pay taxes.

With time and without

I went up to Glasgow and Edinburgh for the weekend and a seminar yesterday on advertising law in the UK (which sounds dry but there were some great examples of ad campaigns gone terribly awry).
It was good to meet with friends and catch up on the latest; it was also good to go shopping for vegetables (I have a bog standard Somerfield here and am not especially enamoured of their selection). I must admit—I miss the city. I grew up in the country and feel at home here; however, with this new-found aversion to car ownership, country life is going to be rather cumbersome. Scotland has excellent public transportation links—in the Central Belt and to and from the Central Belt. I am down in the Borders. It took me seven hours to get the 105 miles from Edinburgh to Newton Stewart (3.5 hours of that were just sitting around waiting for the next form of transportation). The last bit, a bus from Dumfries to Newton Stewart, is timed to depart from the Dumfries train station four minutes before the train I was on arrives. So I had to wait two hours for the next one. I had to take two days of travel to go to an afternoon seminar in the City; not especially effective use of time.

But where is time? My watch battery died so I popped into a watchmaker’s shop on an Edinburgh back street to have it replaced. There was a man with a loupe in his eye sitting at a worn wooden table; as he worked on my watch and spoke of the various eras of watchmaking and the downfall of American ingenuity (regarding watches from the early and mid 20th Century), I looked about the shop. I realised, after fourteen and a half minutes, the time of the shop was stopped. I did not see anything in the place that looked like it had been made or altered after the early 1970’s. Also, since many of the machines and bits in the shop were unfamiliar to me, they could have been from any time. It was surreal. I was suddenly standing in a place all about the measurement of time—surrounded by clocks and watches—and could not make a reference to the present.

The watchmaker wore two beautiful old Omega watches; for some reason, the Greek Omega symbol on the watches also unnerved me. The whole experience was seriously bizarre. The watchmaker was pleasant enough and engaged in interesting conversation—but I was creeped out!

Flows

I walked out to the river this afternoon just as the tide was turning. The water flowed swiftly then began to slow till it seemed to stop altogether. Then, quickly, it began to flow in the opposite direction and cover the rocks and embankment. This symbolises something today; I’m not sure what, but it seems to mirror my thoughts and emotions.

Life from boxes

I have now been in Dumfries and Galloway for several weeks and am just today moving into my new digs (after a bit of looking and debating). My office is out in the middle of a forest…and I don’t have a car. So I need to be somewhere along the lines of a car-pool route (most people at work ride share); however, I also need to live somewhere near or in a town for all the necessary services of life and etc. I think I’ve found a good balance of all that right outside Newton Stewart; I’m staying what was once a stable but are now holiday lets and a restaurant. So I am in this cozy little two bedroom flat with wonderful views of surrounding hills and the river. Oh, and I now have ready access to the internet (this was the reason for my absence over the past few weeks). I’ve been staying in a farmhouse about 25 minutes from here with a co-worker, Isobel and her husband Robert; I’ll miss them and their sheepdog Tess who has to be the most gentle-eyed dog I’ve ever encountered.
I was thinking today, whilst loading the truck with my belongings, how many times I’ve moved since going away to university. Including the to and fro each year from school, it’s something like 25 times!

The job at Natural Power is brilliant; the people and place are most welcoming and I have a very positive outlook on what this job will become. I’m still getting my bearings as far as my role and contribution; but I think, after a couple months of clicking along, this is going to be a fine place to work.

My digital camera is deceased; however, I’ll try to get some pictures of my surroundings together somehow.

What happens

I’m back in Glasgow for a few days to pack up my things and prepare for the move to Dumfries and Galloway where I will start work at The Green House, the main offices of Natural Power (See more on The Green House itself at this link.) My title there will be marketing assistant though my role will focus a good deal on internal communications (the company is rapidly expanding and we need to keep track of what everyone is doing in the several offices worldwide). I’ll also produce design and layout work (something I’ve been wanting to do more of) as well as put those cinema and video production skills back into play.
We mostly consult on the design and construction of on and offshore windfarms (the company is well respected and has a 100% success rate for planning acceptance; this is from a combination of careful sighting and a good ethos for working with communities where farms are proposed). They do everything from small sites of a couple turbines to very large offshore installations (such as a 1100 MW site in Ireland that will provide 10% of the country’s electricity).

This will be a big change for me after ten years sporadic freelance work; however, If I’m to take a “proper job”, I’m glad it’s at a place such as this. I think energy is the topic of the moment (how it’s produced, used and abused). I’m looking forward into getting into the thick of it with a group of people who are at the forefront of renewable energy (that’s not an attempt at marketing spin, they really do good stuff). The friend who originally told me about Natural Power said this is one of the best working environments she has encountered (she was working as a headhunter for the renewables sector). These are the “bright green” people who are changing the face of “corporate society”.

Much much more to follow.

New Job

Sorry for the long absence here; between finishing up my dissertation, having visitors afterward and starting a new job, I’ve not had much time to compose weblog entries.
I’ve started a job at Natural Power (see: www.naturalpower.com) in Dumfries and Galloway in southern Scotland. Right now I’m in Malvern in England at our office here for about two weeks of training and rope learning (this morning I had a technical orientation to ZephIR, our laser wind measurement device; it’s really keen but involves the measurement of particles and something about the Doppler Effect).

I’ll write much more on all this later!