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The importance of a goal

Rather surprisingly for a Newcastle fan, this post isn't about football. Much.

I'm not the fittest person in the world (I partake of too much golden, oxygenated 95% water for that...) but I do like to exercise to make myself feel a little fitter, and to offset some guilt so I can partake of the odd night with bad (but oh so good) food.

This exercise used to consist of playing football on a weekly basis. This was very enjoyable... after the experience. You see, I'm very mindful of my part in a team sport. All I ever wanted was the team to do well. I played up front in a 7-a-side team, and was average at best. Some games I played well and knocked a couple in the old onion bag, some games I resembled Ali Dia.

It was very windy some weeks

The problem was I'd get unbelievably nervous. Completely out of proportion for the game that was about to be played. I simply didn't enjoy it. So, using my studies as an excuse, I retired and am sadly missed... erm...

So then I took up running. Most weekends you'd see a sweaty mess huffing and puffing within a couple of miles of my flat. I didn't enjoy it, but knew it was doing me good.

Anyway, late last year, me and some friends were partaking of a few ales and we made the momentous decision to run a marathon this year. It seems a sensible time. I become of a certain age this year, which apparently is a big thing for some people. After some deliberation we decided on The Copenhagen Marathon. If you look here you'll see I'm number 650.

So from huffing and puffing for a couple of miles, I'm now committed to 26.2 miles. And I can't wait.

You see, since I now have a goal to aim for I'm really enjoying the training I'm doing. I'm really feeling the benefits of the exercise and for the first time in my life I'm actually really enjoying the fact that I'm running for a couple of hours at a time. It's a great time to clear your head, listen to some really loud music or to release some anger.

Sure there are times I can't really fit it in, and I'm at the early stages of training at the moment, but for the time being I'm feeling good about it. I've been fitted properly for good running shoes, I've got some proper running tops, some vaseline and and iPod shuffle. And of course a good book is invaluable.

So, along with posts about teaching, learning and planning - you're all going to be subjected to the occasional post about my running. These will include moans, injuries and hopefully weight loss and money to a good cause. Hopefully. Here's to May 18th!

Happiness

As the famous ad nearly said "happiness is a tutorial with Mark, the mild tutorial."

Yesterday I held a tutorial at St. Martins with a group of students and chatted to them about their project about alchemy. It was one of those tutorials that fill you full of hope and enthusiasm for the future, much more than I had on Friday.

The students were really enthusiastic, wanting to learn and really pushing themselves. At one point they looked at the obvious route for the project but then they realised that by pursuing this route they actually wouldn't learn too much and they quickly shifted their focus back to the idea that isn't fully formulated, that will push them, that's risky, that will give them sleepless nights but ultimately that they will learn something from.

This is the whole point of the course. Let's get intelligent people pushing themselves and working on things that put them at risk of failure. Let's get them in the mindset where failure is a good thing, because only by risking things, trying things and releasing ones self from your internal gatekeepers can you add something unique and special. (Yes I can get deep when I need to.)

Something I'm looking at for my PGCERT is how people can keep these beliefs in their professional life. This, however, is not as easy as it sounds seeing as though the majority of employers employ people to carry out tasks, and not for the inherent qualities they can bring to the team. Personally, I've been lucky in that respect but I know a lot of people haven't.

We need a sea-change in the creative industries. We need to have the balls to tell clients what they need - even if it isn't what they think they need. We need to employ people who have a genuine intelligence and who can disrupt the status quo. If we continue to employ people who do as we say, who fit into pigeon holes, who play the corporate game then we will progress at a much lower rate than if we take risks, if we fail, if we're happy to fail and ultimitaly if we have confidence that what we're doing is right and good. Right and good for us, for society and for the client... though not necessarily in that order.

The best museum you've never heard of

I visited this place recently. It's brilliant.

It's in Battle - about an hour from London - and for those with a phobia about leaving the smoke - it's well worth the effort.

I love seeing old stuff. Theres' something about the colours, the typefaces, the old paper or metal that I just love. Plus there's that wonderment that none of it was designed on computers.

There are various places that you walk around: a chemist, a sweet shop, a newsagent etc and each are filled with things that I was pointing at like a child.

I'd definitely recommend it. There are more pics here.

Technology for learning

This morning I was studying again for my PGCERT, and the subject of the lesson was 'Technology for Learning.'

It's difficult sometimes when you're sat in a situation like that and you sort of know everything that's being said. If you say too much you look like an arrogant know-it-all and if you say nothing people keep on talking at you about stuff you know.

I'd say I know a fair amount when it comes to technologies - and I'm ok at web technologies too. I don't know as much as some of you, but I'm ok. Also, as Central St Martins is supposedly one of the best design colleges in the world, I'd like to think the staff exemplify this. If the PGCERT has made any impression on me it's to question this thought.

Certainly I've seen more than one example from staff believing that they are the king of the castle and their students should work in their way. I'm of the opposite view. We are servents to the students and we need to inspire them to learn (within reason) in the manner that they understand and excel at. If they're using technologies such as blogs and wikis to communicate then staff need to know about them - or at the very least they need to understand them.

What was apparent to me this morning (to be fair, the teachers weren't all from St. Martins) was that there is a deep, deep lack of knowledge of even what I would class as the most basic web technologies. People were mixing up wikis with MySpace and asking the difference between podcasts and blogs. They're not IT teachers, granted, but as I said this morning - surely creativity is driven by the fact that we're inquisitive and we want to learn new things and understand things? There was very much the "I've got no time to do blogs" feeling this morning.

I don't think it's an intelligence thing. There were some very very clever people in that room, and what I could see was people not wanting to keep up with new methods of teaching and learning. There was a certain element who grasped every opportunity to rubbish new technologies and the basis that they are built upon. The old Wikipedia v Encyclopedia Britannica debate came up and while I'm more than happy to listen (and contribute) to both sides of the argument I'd expect a more balanced comment than "Britannica is experts, Wikipedia isn't." I asked someone to define 'expert' and the room went quiet (when I sort of expected someone to say "us!"...).

Most short sighted comment of the day was: "... and when I set them some work I want to see them reading books. Some of them come in with stuff they've found on Google... and some of it is awful!"... which displays a deep misunderstanding of the fact that Google is a search tool and in fact it's the decisions the student makes based around the information it brings up that should be acted on and marked. Like not taking every fact from one book...

Lessons like this morning get me down a bit. Whether we like it or not, students now have to stump up a lot of cash to study. If I had to stump up tens of thousands of pounds for a course at a good university I'd at least expect my teacher to understand the modern world and how it functions.

I've tried to write this in the least pious language possible. I'm not a know-it-all but I just feel for students whose teachers don't recognise good honest, in depth, intelligent research because it's been sourced via the web. Am I being too critical?

It's literally been going on too long

One of the things I do far too often is think about things too much. Well, that and I always try and find a humourous situation in stuff.

Being a Ray Mears fan and being the owner of a Sky+ box puts me in the great position of being able to watch the great man approximately 23.5 hours a day... obviously the 30 minutes left is for bathroom breaks and to stock up on fake fishy things and chocolate flavoured Collons.

Without going into too much detail, Ray Mears once said something in one episode that has stuck with me ever since and that I refer to every day. Honestly.

During an episode when he was constructing a kayak without modern tools he made the comment: "The thing with these old tools is that thay're not very ergonomic. I woke up in the middle of the night with terrible pain in my hands and this morning my hands are literally on fire."

Yep - poor old Ray's hands were literally on fire. Except they obviously weren't. So now every time someone misuses the word literally I take notice, as do my friends. And on top of that I now regularly make ludicrous statements that include the word literally.

Some examples I've overheard:
Commentary for football: "That goal has literally knocked the stuffing out of them."
In a news report: "Korea is literally the tip of the iceberg."

Some examples of ludicrous things I've said:
"I've literally been there 53 trillion times."
On the post here about being wired.
"My typos literally have a life of their own."
"I literally didn't stop, yesterday."
"I've literally just bought a ton of food to cheer me up."

The problem now is I'm finding it difficult to stop using the word 'literally' and when I hear others use it in a serious sense I can't stop chuckling and thinking of poor Ray's scorched hands. But I don't know whether I want to. I like having a smile on my face when someone says something. Even if it is a serious documentary about politics or something - the word 'literally' with still induce a smile.

Give it a go - go 'literally' spotting with me.

Hairy men are great

Last night I attended a great little talk thing at the ICA all about facial hair.

It was cool - me and Charlie bumped into Dan. My feeble attempt of a few days growth was overshadowed by both of them and some others in the room. I felt like a child with a bad haircut... although there's nothing new there to be honest.

As well as a live demonstration where a professional barber shaved a member of the audience, we had a panel talking about facial hair: how it has progressed and regressed over the years, how it's still a big taboo for women and Billy Childish telling us about some run-ins with the locals in Chatham due to his facial hair.

Of course all of this encouraged us to swap tales of first razors and ever decreasing sideburns (to the point of having the sides of our heads virtually bald - or maybe that was just me)...

Afterwards I had personally arrived at the conclusion that any successful facial hair needs massive sideburns a la Amos from Emmerdale Farm or Neil Young.

A good night.