Change and Evolve

I was watching Mary Queen of Shops tonight, and what became evident to me at about seven minutes into the programme was, that to survive we need to evolve. This rule especially applies to business - the woman that Mary was trying to help was especially resistant to change and because she wasn't allowing her business to change and evolve with the times her business was going down the pan. But this rule can be applied to most things. Even in poetry and art one needs to change and evolve otherwise the work becomes boring and stagnant.

The day from hell

Term started this morning and I found myself feeling exhausted by mid afternoon. What exhausted me even more though was the thought of the horrendously busy day that I have in store tomorrow.

The plan for tomorrow:

7 a.m. wake up tired and wish I'd gone to bed earlier.

followed by bath/breakfast/hair/make-up/packing books etc.

9 a.m. (ish ) take a bus to uni.

9.30 a.m. pick up a form from office on second floor of arts building, fill it in and take it to another office in the basement.

10 a.m. Meeting about UEA Creative Writing Anthology.

11 a.m. Publishing class (2hrs).

1.30 a.m. Poetry tutorial.

2 p.m. grab coffee and maybe some lunch.

2.30 p.m. take books back to library and get some more books out, if there is time work on editing poetry on laptop.

4 p.m. head home.

5 p.m. Make sure Natty is fed so he can get to his band rehearsal.

6 p.m. think about going out to a poetry gig, wash up dishes.

7 p.m. collapse in exhausted heap with a glass of wine and feel guilty about not going to poetry gig.

7.30 p.m. Switch laptop on to do work. Look at emails and play around on Facebook.

9.30 p.m. wait anxiously for Natty to get back from band practice safely.

10 p.m. watch some rubbish telly.

12.30 a.m. go to bed too late again!

Go Do

If you haven't already done so I would highly recommend listening to the new album Go by Icelandic singer Jonsi. Jonsi, you might remember, is best known for being the singer of the popular band Sigur Ros. His solo album is similar in style to Sigur Ros but is much more upbeat and uplifting, he also sings some of the tracks in English - aiming, I would hazard a guess, at attaining a larger worldwide audience. You can listen to the album in its entirety at Jonsi's website here. You might think that enabling fans to listen to the whole album for free was a silly move, but i think it's incredibly smart. You don't know how long it will be on there for for a start and after I had listened to it on Facebook it made me want to buy it. I am more likely to buy an album after hearing it properly than from somewhere like i-tunes where you hear such a tiny snippet of each track that you are left with no clue as to whether it is actually good or not.

Jonsi is playing at the Latitude Festival in Suffolk later this year.

Must hear track - GO DO.

Money Versus Creativity

I am having a bit of a dilemma at the moment about what I should do next year when I finish my MA. I have applied to do a teaching course, which would enable me to teach at the local college. The course is full on and full time and would not leave me any time for creative work. However, I have been doing some voluntary work on the creative writing access course which I have really enjoyed. The second option is that I could apply for a job at the art school library. The job is eighteen hours per week and would leave me plenty of time for writing and would also enable me to apply for the Cafe Writers Norfolk Commission which I was runner up for last year. This is the only year that I have the chance to apply for it again and if I was lucky enough to win I would get a published book so it is a great opportunity...you see the dilemma - I guess comes down to money versus creativity. There is, of course, no guarantee that I would get offered a job at City College once I had trained and ideally I would like to teach Creative Writing if I teach at all and they are steering me more towards art, and there is no guarantee that I would get the job at the Art School either - maybe i should just apply for it and see what happens!

Catching Water in a Cardboard Box

This morning I found myself thinking of the time a couple of years ago when the student house next door had a leak (or rather a gush!). We noticed from the outside and knocked on the door, first we had to explain about stop cocks and then find it and turn it off. When we went into the front room, which in our house is a living room and in theirs is a bedroom, water was gushing down through the light fitting and the boy (well he was 19 at least) had put a cardboard box underneath to catch the water! We had to first tell him under no circumstances to switch on the light and then tell him to find a container that would actually hold water...

I have always thought this a scary but funny story but this morning I find myself wondering if we are actually giving our children enough opportunity to actually learn things for themselves. When I worked in a pre-school children were given an abundance of opportunities for messy play but all done in a very controlled and contained way. I am now wondering why, for instance, did we not ask the children what containers the children thought would hold water and then let them try them out to see if they worked. What better way to learn that in fact a cardboard box cannot hold water and why and because they had tried it out for themselves rather than being told by an adult that it wouldn't work then the information would be more likely to stay with them for life.

Obviously you could not let them experiment with electricity...but there are many other scenarios that you could let them try out. For instance when making cakes why not let them try a batch with salt or without baking powder to see what happens - let them learn by mistakes but still in a safe environment. In the rush to look after and protect our children we sometimes forget that telling someone something (nagging or advising) is no substitute for actually leaning something for yourself!

The sound of silence

Mystic Spirals
Originally uploaded by pupski

I'm not sure that I believe in god but I do believe in the power of silence and stillness.

Eating Books

In an interview that I listened to on the Internet yesterday C. D Wright said that as a child she "ate" books. This was something that I really related to - as a child I ate books too. From the moment I could read I had an insatiable appetite for books - an empty gnawing hole that was never quite filled. I started with Dr Seuss and then I read my way steadily through the children's section in our local small-town library and when I had finished with that I started right on in on the adult section. I would eagerly await our rare trips to nearby Norwich on the Saturday coach and once there would be itchy and fidgety until we got to what for me was the goal of the trip - The Scientific Anglian secondhand book shop. Once there I could spend happy hours grazing the shelves in search of an Enid Blyton or two to add to my collection - the prices lovingly inked in little hand drawn squares on the paper covers. My only problem was how to choose - there were so many! At birthdays and Christmas any coveted money would immediately wing its way to the local book shop (until I discovered music!). I would spend pocket money wisely eking it out between the jumble sale book table and the second hand book stall on the Saturday market. Then there was the grammar school library - on the whole conservative, but I did manage to unearth a gem or two in my lunchtime rummagings. There were also the parental bookshelves of course: novels mostly belonging to mum - an odd assortment of sci-fi, poetry, horror and Australian outback detective stories. And later on to Shrubb Farm on its communal shelves an extensive library of literary gems culled from the 1960s and 70s: "The Family", "Drop City", "The Grateful Dead" plus other tasty nuggets for enquiring minds such as Carlos Castaneda and Aldous Huxley. It was a young readers dream. To this day my eyes just can't stop reading. I am constantly getting rid of books; selling them, taking them to the charity shop, giving them away, yet my shelves are overflowing and there are piles on the floor. The main problem is having time to read them all. There's so many ideas in the world - philosophies, novels, poems, travelogues, writing guides, autobiographies...I pick them up all the time in charity shops, second hand book stores, in sales, as presents - my appetite is insatiable - I am always wanting more.