back in the UK

Life has been full recently hence not a lot of action on here. I am back in the UK again at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford for a series of team meetings. The team I work with have been working together on a range of projects since 2000 and on the BA LTR http://www.ultraversity.net/ since 2003. We spend all but a few weeks of the year working from home using skype, FirstClass, Adobe connect etc and occasionally even the telephone to carry out our daily business. We are spread across England, Scotland, Ireland, I was in Cornwall and now I am working successfully from the NW of Spain. It is always a little disorienting for me to walk through the doors of the University buildings and work in the same physical space together. I see the need to meet particularly with other members of the University and it has been really informative and exciting hearing about new developments and meeting impressive new staff members. We have also been engaged in a lot of rich dialogue about work, our individual research agendas, life, the universe and all that jazz as well as carrying out some practical tasks too. I can't be certain but it does feel more efficient to work on the practical tasks from home; being physically present in the same space causes distractions - often very valuable ones, but non the less they can distract from the task in hand. I used to think that maybe we were missing something by not being able to see those physical cues that reinforce dialogue, we rarely use video conferencing, I think that developed in the days when bandwidth was a real issue and we realised that the voice or text is where the important messages lie and some of us find the video actually a detraction from the focus on message and meaning. This week I found myself often looking away from people I was speaking or listening to; looking at them was often distracting enough for me to lose the thread of my story. Reflecting on this I think when I am talking to team members via voice or text there is no need at all for visual cues to interpret the feelings of others who I know well, maybe the years of immersion in this way of working have changed something a bit like the idea that people who have lost their sight find other senses eventually becoming more sensitive. ...Any way I set out talking about the UK - I found it quite traumatic walking through Chelmsford even at 8 am there were lots of young people about and they all seemed to be using mobile phones often shouting into them and a fair few being quite rude to whoever was on the other end. In Galicia people are loud in conversation but I don't recall anyone doing that thing where they talk loads louder into the phone than they would to a friend walking with them. I couldn't really pin down why but I did not feel safe, something about the way young folk walk, their body language..not sure what it was I might have been over reacting but even some of the people working in shops had a cocky attitude. When I walked into a shop a few mins before 9 it was a sort of what the hell is he doing look and a less than polite message about not being open yet despite the door being wide ajar, I thought about asking why the door was open then thought better of it. For me the UK is no longer home, I don't belong, so much so that I have hardly slept since I got here on Monday evening I can't settle. I don't yet belong in Galicia either, its a kind of limbo time and even harder being here without my family....I was asked about what it is that makes 'home' for me recently - Home is my family I am certain of that, however it is more than that but what that moreness is I am not sure - it is not belonging to place though. We are holidaying in Cornwall soon I wonder if I will still feel like I don't belong in the UK when my family is here with me. That was a simple but deep question Hamish; I will be chewing it over for sometime.