Tag: writing

Posted in Life, Writing

Trying for a thing of beauty

Posted on by Sharon

I string words together on the clothesline of this blog. Sometimes these strings of words mean something … other times, I’m not so sure. 

Number Six presented us with a tin of magnetic words as part of her Christmas present; magnetic words to make poems with.

I made some poems. Strings of words that don’t mean anything but that make interesting associations, or that I like the sound of when they’re together. I also like the freedom these magnetic words give me to play with language, to not have to make literal sense, or figurative sense either for that matter. I like the randomness of the words on the fridge door – the unexpected nature of what emerges from my imagination in response to the words at my disposal.

Let me back up just a moment though. When I say ‘I made some poems’ I don’t know that ‘poem’ is the right word. What is a poem? Well, people with more knowledge of the art-form of which poems are a part have argued over a definition for more years than I’ve been alive … so I’m not going to try to define it. But I do like this, written by Mark Yakich: When we come across a poem—any poem—our first assumption should not be to prejudice it as a thing of beauty, but simply as a thing. 

So, here is the first thing I made on my fridge with my new magnetic words:

Goddess chant,
Luscious whisper.
Languid through forest cool.
Achingly sweet crush,
Head over life.
We sing these dream music shadows.

The magnetic word feedback I received was:

Gorgeous language,
Enormous peach friend.

As you can see, the magnetic words on my fridge door allowed me to write a ‘thing’, but not necessarily a thing of beauty. 

Since then I’ve written more poems, some using the magnetic words on my fridge door, others using words from the fridge door of my imagination. 

I’m going to share one with you, but first, some context. 

As Tim and I emerged from the cinema last Saturday we noted, with some alarm, the blackness of the clouds speeding towards the city. Weatherzone was consulted and we discovered that a severe thunderstorm was heading our way. We decided not to dawdle. Number Six had asked about the film we’d been to see and I responded that we were rushing home before the storm hit. She texted back: Run Sharon.

Two words. Enough to make a poem with. Here it is. 

“Run Sharon!”
She shouts through her fingers.
The sky darkens, the air cools,
The clouds bunch up
In metaphoric glee.
We run, giggling like schoolgirls,
Rain nipping at our heels.
Light zigs up the sky,
Its roar stops our breath.
The air stills.
We wait.

Exhale. 

****

The one poem started a string of others. Here’s one more, titled ‘Domesticated’.

A dead saucepan litters the sink.
Mugs of mostly drunk tea,
Spoons from Tim’s coffee.
A glass, a plate, a knife
That earlier today
Spilled the blood of the rhubarb.

Rhubarb juice pools on the stove,
The smell of burning stronger here.
The purple pulpy mass glowers
From the bottom of the saucepan.
Sardonic. Resentful.
I was expecting remorseful,
Or perhaps even apologetic.
I’m not entirely sure why.

****

Words strung together on the clothesline of this blog. Some make more sense than others…

… the ending is open to allow for possibilities.

Posted in Learning, Life

On moving …

Posted on by Sharon

On August 18, 1986, as a 24 year old mother of four young children, I moved from Brisbane to Tasmania; from being surrounded by family, to a place where we had no family; from a city to a sheep farm; from the relative warmth of a Queensland winter to the depths of a Tasmanian one.

I felt sentenced, although unsure of the length of my sentence.

****

It turns out my sentence was 27 years, 10 months, and 22 days (or thereabouts).

On Wednesday 25th June, 2014, my sentence ended.

Despite the ‘sentence’, Tasmania ended up being a good place to live – a cold one and I have complained often and bitterly over the years about the cold – but looking back it’s easy to focus on the good parts of living in the state that’s been the butt of mainlanders’ jokes for many years.

During my 27 years and a bit years, I (in no particular order):
* ran a general store in a very small country town
* had a fifth child
* worked in community radio
* completed an undergraduate degree specialising in English and Drama teaching
* taught in a high school and a senior secondary college
* got my bus licence
* taught Drama and English and Tourism Studies
* completed Cert IV in Workplace Training and Assessment
* worked for ABC Local Radio as a producer and presenter
* began A Kick in the Arts – a weekly community radio arts program
* returned to university and completed a PhD
* became an academic and took on a range of leadership roles
* was the chair of a local theatre company for a time
* lived in the north-east, the north-west, and the north – and then the north-west and then the north and then the north-west
* divorced
* re-married 19 years later
* undertook the year-long Tasmanian Leaders Program
* travelled to the mainland whenever I could
* travelled to New Zealand twice, then Scotland and England one year, to Paris and Germany the next and then to France, Italy and Germany the one after that
* published a number of journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers
* edited a textbook
* presented papers in Christchurch, Glasgow, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart, and Launceston
* welcomed eight grandchildren into the world
* taught more students than I could ever remember
* supervised four PhD candidates to completion
* put on lots of weight
* lost even more
* met some truly wonderful people
…

****

I moved to Tasmania because of my (then) husband’s job.

Almost 28 years later, I’ve moved away from Tasmania because of my (now) husband’s job.

****

It’s unsettling, this moving business. Sorting out possessions stashed in dark corners of cupboards; throwing out; packing up; spending weekends in Melbourne and week days in Burnie; moving between … between living with my husband in Melbourne on weekends and living with one of my daughters and her two sons through the week. Not feeling like either place is home … one new place that isn’t really mine, and the old, familiar place that is now filled with boys’ toys and laughter and tears and hugs and bubble baths – changed, in a good way, but not really mine. Moving between having my husband cook me dinner on the weekends and cooking dinner for my daughter through the week … between gyms … between relying on public transport and having no public transport … between there and here … and here and there.

My husband and I called two different places home … it was confusing for a time. Where? Oh, that home.

A long time in transition – four months of living between. Not long, looking back … but it felt long living through it.

And now it’s done. The final move … three trips across Bass Strait in five days, each rougher than the one before. Unpacking the car, finding dark corners of cupboards to stash our things, having one home rather than two.

I don’t feel sentenced, in this new place.

I already feel more connected.

And less.

 

 

Posted in Learning, Life, Writing

Random observations and thoughts

Posted on by Sharon

A pirate sits in his car, texting with his eye patch up, while the news blares from his radio.

A silver and a pink balloon float above a fencepost at a house around the corner.

A car does a U-turn outside the house, crunches against the curb and comes to a complete stop. It seems perplexed.

***

My dress is ready. I’m on my way to the dressmaker now. I’d been walking past the Red Cross shop a few days ago and felt compelled to go in. There it was. A grey wool dress with a touch of black satin at the neckline and cuffs. Simple. Elegant. Beautiful.

Size small.

I tried it on anyway.

Max Mara, the girl with the German accent told me.

It needed a little re-stitching.

It’s ready now. I try it on.

It’s beautiful.

***

I sit in the downstairs section of the library. I’d ignored the signs saying staff and students only. I am neither a staff member nor a student of this particular institution but I figure that if I look confident no one will notice me.

I find a table in the group learning section. I don’t have a group. I sit at the table alone, surrounded by groups of students, with my laptop open, marking.

Conversations swirl around me. Ideas, concepts, understandings, clarifications, possibilities. Multiple languages. Multiple disciplines. Maths. Graphic design. Nutrition. Engineering. A glass wall covered in formula. Portfolios scattered across tables. Laughter. Swearing. Questions. Comprehension. Propositions.

Intellectual and social and professional engagement.

I wonder about the spaces we create for online students to engage in these rigorous conversations.

Tim says: I’m going to the city with my camera.

I let other thoughts go. They are puzzles for another time.

Now is the time for wandering.

 

 

Posted in Learning, Life, Writing

Writing at Rosie’s

Posted on by Sharon

I spent the weekend at Rosie’s, retreating. That is, Rosie led a retreat in which I participated. If you don’t know her, you’re missing someone special! Rosie is elegant and gracious. More than that, she is full of grace and wisdom. Rosie affirms and honours people; she is gentle and patient and fabulous to be around. I’m glad she’s my friend.

Rosie asked why she hadn’t seen me on Twitter much lately and I responded that I had nothing to say. It’s why I haven’t blogged for a while as well.

Sometimes I like silence. Actually, a lot of the time I like silence. I can sit around a dinner table with a group of women and get to the end of the night without having said a word.

And that’s okay.  I like it that way. I get to listen to ideas and perspectives that are different from my own and tuck them away to think on later. To wonder how others come to have different perspectives and ideas and attitudes and beliefs and wonder more deeply about my own and how they’ve been shaped.

I get to hear of others’ experiences and the stories they tell of their lives.  Lives full of richness and colour and emotion. Relationships, places I’ve never been, things I’ll never do.

I learn about the tapestry of others’ lives: the weaving of experiences and reactions to those experiences, and come to some understandings about how others live and think and be.

I read blogs and comments on blogs, (and am dismayed by the negativity that abounds at times), but I don’t always feel the need to speak; to write. Listening is good.

But Rosie reminded me that writing is good too. There are times when I need to get my thoughts out of my head and onto paper so that I can see my thinking. It is only then that it begins to make sense to me. My head isn’t big enough to keep all of my thoughts inside; I need them laid out, visible, so that I can determine the ones that I feel un/comfortable with, challenged by, or determined to follow through with. I can make connections between the threads of thoughts when I can see them; a task I find much more difficult when they’re tangled around each other inside my mind.

Rosie gave us a journal and asked us to write in it. I did, even when the activity called for a more visual way of thinking. I wrote a lot, made some decisions, felt better. And all because I could see my thinking on the page.

I learnt (again) that sometimes, when you feel as though you have nothing to say, writing can help you move through that.

I also learnt (again) to own my statements, so I’ll write that again: I learnt (again) that sometimes, when I feel as though I have nothing to say, writing can help me move through that.

Thanks Rosie!

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Manners and public discourse

Posted on by Sharon

While I have had a Twitter account for just over a year now, I have not, until recently, given it much attention. Nor have I given much attention to my LinkedIn account. Over the past two weeks, for a reason I have yet to understand, I have taken to checking my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts on a very regular basis. I read through the tweets and articles that arrive during the night while eating rhubarb and ricotta for breakfast, and then I check again at lunch time and regularly throughout the evening. My daughters would call “nerd alert” if they could see who I follow (ABC News 24; The Guardian; BBC World News; Oxford University Press, etc) but that’s okay. Nerds are usually quite harmless and I don’t mind being counted amongst their number.

But that’s not the reason for this post. The point isn’t to tell you that I’ve become somewhat addicted to Twitter and LinkedIn, and to the information, ideas, perspectives, thinking, opinions, moments of humour and sometimes outrage to which I am now exposed.

The point is to try to make sense, for myself as much as anyone, of some of the things I’ve read in recent times.

One of the tweets that came through on Friday was news of a message to members of the Australian Army by Lt. General David Morrison, AO who was responding to reports of unacceptable behaviour.

I also read tweets about the questions put to the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, by (former) Perth radio presenter, Howard Sattler.

The two things became linked in my mind, and also called to mind the list of things others have said about and to Prime Minister Gillard over the last two and a half years.

One of the things that Lt. General Morrison said in his message to members of the Australian Army (and let’s face it, to the rest of us given that it’s on YouTube for all to see) is that “every one of us is responsible for the culture and reputation of our Army”. What if we were to replace Army with “school” or “workplace, houses of Parliament, radio station or home”? Would what he said still apply? Are we responsible for the culture and reputation of where we work and live?

As an aside, he also said: “the standard you walk past is the standard you accept”. One thing I find interesting is that this hasn’t already been said loudly and clearly by an editor of a newspaper, a news director in a radio station, a senior executive of a TV station, a leader in the community … 

But I digress.

I stumbled across Angry is a Habit while reading articles on LinkedIn. It is a short blog post about habits. We have habits of behaviour, but Godin (the author of the post) suggests that our emotions can become habitual too.

I thought about this in relation to the words used by some in the media and wondered if the emotions behind their words are habitual ways of being. Why the need to pour hate and loathing and anger into the world? Is it just a habit? Do we, the consumers of these words, buy the emotion as well? Is it a package deal? When we read/hear/watch the angry, hate-filled words that we wouldn’t say to our boss, principal, Dean of the Faculty, chair of the Parents and Friends committee, head of the local arts organisation, do we buy the emotion too so that we get just as angry and hate-filled at whichever politician is being scorned, ridiculed, put down? Do the words cause us to feel particular things? Does hate and anger therefore spread through our communities in the same way that videos go viral on the internet?

From LinkedIn I also read Three words that will transform your career. In this article author Bruce Kasanoff claims that to improve our quality of life we just need to think “help this person” every time we encounter another person: “When you walk into Starbucks for coffee, think help this person about the barista who serves you. Instead of being frustrated that he isn’t moving fast enough, see if you can make him smile. Better yet, tell him to keep the change.” Kasanoff claims that this will “change your demeanour, your thought process, and the entire interaction.”

It is a similar sentiment to one put forward by David Foster Wallace in his now-famous speech to a group of university graduates in the US in 2005. While Bret Easton Ellis (author of American Psycho amongst other works) considers Foster Wallace “the most tedious, overrated, tortured, pretentious writer of my generation“, others have been taken with Wallace’s notion of choice … we can choose to behave in certain ways, we can choose to see the world in particular ways, we can choose to look beyond the surface and (although he didn’t use these words) we can choose empathy. We can choose to live beyond our “default setting” (of being annoyed and frustrated by, for instance, the slowness of airplane passengers when putting their bags in the overhead lockers; of being annoyed and frustrated that even when someone is eighth in the queue for the ATM they still don’t have their purse out of their handbag when they “suddenly” find themselves first in the queue, which has now grown to 23 tongue-clicking, foot-tapping withdrawers of money). We can choose to think/live/behave/feel differently.

So what have I learnt from all this reading? What sense am I making from these seemingly unrelated tweets, articles, speeches, thoughts? It has something to do with manners and respectful behaviour … but it also goes beyond that.

For me, one thing is clear: We can change our habitual ways of thinking and acting. To do this, we first need to become aware of how our thoughts impact our behaviour, speech, interactions, emotions. We need to consider our habits of thought and emotion and then to do something about them if we find ourselves thinking/feeling/acting negatively/rudely/in an ill-mannered way on a regular basis.

Through a change in thinking we can transform others’ lives and in the process transform our own as well.

We can stop walking past what we know (deep down) we don’t accept. We can speak up for respect, care, kindness, professionalism and manners. We don’t have to accept the hate and anger of radio shock-jocks and political commentators (of whatever persuasion). We don’t have to accept their hate-filled, angry, vitriolic rantings, and their disrespectful questioning, and their words which claim that we are all somehow implicated in their tawdry games (we continue to listen, to watch, to read, to buy, to comment and thus give them credibility or at the very least our time).

We can choose to think for ourselves, read critically, and ask questions of the texts produced and served to us on a regular basis. We can live by habit, or we can choose to live consciously, being explicitly aware of the world around us and how we are being shaped by the views/words/actions of others (yes, even of me in this blog post), and the ways our views/words/actions shape others.

If we are teachers, then we need to be even more aware of that influence.

None of this is new of course. Educator Wayne Sawyer, in an editorial he wrote in English in Australia in 2005, noted that “our current students face a relentless barrage of shockjocks, media barons, advertising and corporate greed masquerading as common sense” (p. 4). Sawyer called on teachers to ensure that critical literacy was an integral component of their teaching. But in order to do that, teachers too must be aware of how their views are being shaped by the same shock-jocks and media barons that shape our students’ thoughts. And more than that, we need to know how to deconstruct the messages they (and we) consume and know how to teach students to unpack them.

We can choose … that’s what I’ve learnt. We can choose.

Posted in Learning, Studying, Writing

Being …

Posted on by Sharon

This year I took on a new identity … not, I hasten to add, in a witness protection kind of way. Nothing that dramatic! … but a new identity nonetheless.

I could say that I took on a new role … but with new roles comes new identities. We can choose to define ourselves by our new roles/identities, and thus think about ourselves differently. Being an academic means particular things. Being an under-graduate student means almost the polar opposite. We may choose to act in ways that are consistent with our new role and that might lead to inconsistencies in how we portray ourselves to the world. Will I be student today, or teacher? What does it mean to be a student in an online environment where I don’t get to spend time with my teacher or my peers; when I don’t get to hear their voices or even see what they look like? It’s a disconcerting experience. On the other hand, what does it mean to be a teacher in an online environment where I don’t get to spend time with my students, when I don’t get to hear their voices or see what they look like? Experiencing that as an online student heightens my awareness of that ‘disconcerting experience’ as a teacher of online students. 

In addition to thinking about myself in a different way and considering if I will act differently to signify this new role/identity, others see me in that new role and make different kinds of connections with me, or think about me in particular ways and so have their own view of who I am (which might not bear any relation to who I am when inhabiting a different identity/role).

My university tutors do not see me as a colleague; as someone who, like them, teaches in an online environment. They see me as a student – a distant one, it has to be said: one who doesn’t appear to be very engaged, who forgets to read her unit outline, who leaves assignments till the last minute, who doesn’t follow the requirements of the task as closely as she should, who doesn’t engage in conversations online, who hasn’t made connections with other students in the online environment.

For those of you in the know, why didn’t you tell me it would be like this? 🙂 If only you’d told me to read the unit outline carefully and repeatedly, or that I’d need at least 10 hours per week per unit to do full justice to the work I needed to do, or that learning to use new software is time-consuming and requires a great deal of independent learning and commitment and energy, or that coming home from work and having to study till late is exhausting, or that trying to find information when it’s in ten different places in the online environment is one of the most frustrating parts of the whole experience (it really isn’t all that difficult to put all the information required for weekly activities in the one place), or that reading all the other students’ posts can be mind-numbing and take up all the time I’d set aside for study (and seriously, do 18 year olds really like talk in that like annoying way where they like say a lot without like saying anything at all, you know, sort of, I guess, do you get me? Despite my student status I am still a teacher and despair over the abominable use of language on public discussion boards).

Not that it’s all bad of course. In one subject (Writing Professionally – actually I don’t know if that’s the name of the subject because for some reason I haven’t looked at the unit outline properly to even know what the unit is called), the tutor gives general feedback on our ‘writing watches’ (which are assessed) and on two occasions has encouraged other students to read my work for its ‘quality and depth’ (you have no idea how embarrassed I feel writing that). We had to do three ‘writing watches’ across the course of the semester – responding in a systemically functionally linguistic way to something we’d read. I chose to respond to:

1. an article in a photography magazine

2. an essay by Richard Flanagan which appeared in The Monthly (the article was on David Walsh and MONA which I’d just been to, so it seemed fitting)

3. a blog post titled The oddest English spellings, part 20: The letter “y” from the Oxford University Press’s blog. It was interesting. Seriously!

These writing watches were practice for our exam. Yes, you heard that right – exam. I had to sit an exam.

Why didn’t someone tell me how stressful that is?! That you spend days and nights thinking about what the questions might be, what the text choices might be, what you know (or rather, don’t know) about systemic functional linguistics and how you’re going to write “pages” on it in two hours?

But I did it and wrote (typed) five pages of blather about an advertisement for Income Protection titled Confessions of a financial adviser. An interesting way to spend a day, particularly when you’re at home and the phone keeps ringing just as you think you have the modality worked out!

We also had to do weekly ‘word watches’ (which were assessed). We had to find two unfamiliar words each week and write about them: what they mean, where we’d read/heard them, their derivation, and we had to use the words in a sentence.

At first I found this difficult. I don’t want to sound like a pompous git (unlike some people I know), but in the everyday, normal, regular reading I do I don’t come across too many words which I don’t know. So I determined to try harder.

Here are my words (you, clever reader, are quite possibly aware of their meanings and already sprinkle them through your everyday conversations. I, on the other hand, did not).

  • Eupraxis (thank you David M)
  • Conation (actually, I did know what that meant because I’d written about it in a journal article published last year, but until I wrote about it I didn’t know what it meant)
  • Heuristic
  • Prevaricate (actually I wavered on this quite a bit)
  • Mendicant (it had been in the news – Tasmania is a mendicant state apparently)
  • Noetic (nothing to do with Christmas)
  • Rendering (a word from my Graphic Design unit)
  • Misandry (its opposite had been much in the news)
  • Chirographic
  • Contumacious (if my mother had known this word when I was a child I’m sure I would have heard it a lot!)
  • Whovian (my sister is a mad one of these)
  • Gonzo (I’d been to MONA and learnt this word while wandering the subterranean halls. Tim already knew it. He’d read Hunter S. Thompson apparently)
  • Metaredound (don’t ask me)
  • Analogous (I actually had heard this word, but I wanted to use it in a way I hadn’t used it before and that was in relation to colour: analogous harmony)
  • Indigent (thanks Germaine)
  • Calumniated (and again)
  • Emic
  • Etic (yes, they are related)
  • Eschatology
  • Ratiocination (I had to listen to this a number of times to get the pronunciation right. Thanks YouTube!)
  • Contingent (used in a way I didn’t understand – of all people, by my husband, in a journal article we wrote some time ago. I hadn’t told him I didn’t understand the way he used it as I didn’t want to look stupid!)
  • Hegemony (with a soft ‘j’ sound for the ‘g’)
  • Picayune
  • Ludology (nothing to do with Ludo as it turns out … although …)

So there you have it. New words to pepper through my dinner-time conversations. Feel free to use any of them, particularly in ways that are inventive and thus deeply satisfying.

I am a student and I am learning things. That’s what students do isn’t it? Isn’t that the purpose of being a student? It’s why I decided to be a student: to learn something/s. And even though I’ve said ‘the message’ countless times, it’s always different when you’re on the receiving end of it. The message is: learning can be hard. And it isn’t always fun.

But it is satisfying.

Being a student not only challenges my own identity (I have to flip between student and teacher on a regular basis and I am very conscious of not being a teacher in my student role – which is partly why I don’t engage on the discussion boards: I don’t yet have the student language down pat. I’m too caught up using teacher language and saying teacher things and I don’t want to do that as a student).

Being a student also challenges how others see me.

Some people, on first hearing that I am a university student again, thought (and said) “are you mad?” and other equally dis/en/couraging words. My new role was something they wanted to reject – it was ludicrous, or unnecessary (especially at your age), or just plain silly. I have a PhD, why would I want to be an under-grad again? That’s something young people do. I should do some serious study, not a bachelor degree in an area I potentially know a little bit about. Why, for instance, am I doing Professional Writing (that’s its official title – I thought I’d better check) when I have had a number of journal articles, book chapters and conference papers published?

I guess I feel that I can always learn more – and I did. Heaps in fact, and that’ll help my writing when next I write something for publication. 

On hearing that I am a student again, other people saw me differently. They made a different kind of connection with me. Some, because of their own identity as ‘student’ (or perhaps, student-in-the-not-too-distant past) applauded my decision – I was now one of them, a member of a community of adults who are (or were) university students. For those whom I’ve taught – who have been my own students – the connection is even closer. Their teacher/lecturer/colleague is now in the same position they recall so clearly and thus our connection is strengthened. There’s a shared understanding … and as I give advice quite freely about being a student, I also imagine there’s a little bit of mirth around my stumbling attempts at student-hood.

But I have finished the semester, completed teaching and learning surveys (and been very honest – in a professional way – as all students should be), and am eagerly awaiting my final results.

I have also determined to be a better student next semester. I have already created folders for my two new subjects (one is Production Planning; the other is Visual Storytelling), downloaded the information from the course and unit handbook, looked up information about textbooks (I don’t have to buy any), and worked out what I do when I procrastinate (I work … yes, on my study days!).

Being a student: challenging, stressful, but ultimately satisfying.

What’s your experience?

Posted in Learning, Studying, Writing

The envelope

Posted on by Sharon

My online students, in the days before we went online, used to talk about waiting for ‘the envelope’. Ours were yellow and students would camp at their letter boxes waiting for the big yellow envelope to arrive. Some would leave it sitting on the kitchen bench till they felt strong enough to open it; others would rip it open, eager to see their result.

My first envelope arrived in the post earlier this week and I have to say it was an odd feeling. Partly, I think because of the ways my students (now graduates) used to talk about the arrival of the envelope, and the importance it held for them. It was a validation of them as students, scholars, learners, and sometimes it was even more. It was a validation of themselves. Were they worth anything? Could they do it? Were they cut out for this thing called university? Did they have what it takes? Was university really for people like them?

Many of those students had not been on to the university campus at that stage, or had not been on to the campus often. Many of them didn’t live in the same state as the university; many hadn’t physically met their lecturers, tutors, peers. University was a disembodied experience. An experience that involved sitting at home, on their computer, by themselves, struggling to work out what the task required, having little access to anyone to seek clarification, advice, ideas. Not knowing if they were on the right track.

They did their best, not knowing if they measured up; their whole being invested in this. What if I’m not on the right track? What if I fail? Will that mean I’m a failure?

It’s high stakes.

A few days before my own envelope arrived, I had returned my own students’ assignments – though not in envelopes – and was aware of the emotions involved in receiving feedback and a grade. But I was aware of the emotions as an objective observer: as someone who knew that the students would have an emotional reaction, but not as someone who felt the emotion directly. Some of my students had not met the pass standard, and the emotions varied: some were angry, others were disappointed. Many of them spent the weekend crying. Other students had met the pass standard but had expected the same success as they’d had at college. Their emotions were similar – to them their pass (or credit) felt like a fail.

I had warned students that they might feel this range of emotions and that they might react in particular ways; I had wanted to prepare them and to let them know it is normal to feel a range of emotions … and to be quite honest, to let them know that they weren’t to email me at the height of their emotional response. The “post-assignment-blues” email is not a good one to look back on when the emotion has subsided!

All of this was raging through my head when my own envelope arrived. What if I failed … or just as bad … what if  I only passed?

So when my envelope arrived I felt part of a community – a community of those who knew the importance attached to the envelope – and for the first time I was an insider in this experience. I felt the weight of expectation and the weight of former students’ associations. It was exciting and daunting in equal measure. The assignment was to write a non-fiction piece of around 500-800 words on a topic of our choice. We had to state the purpose and the audience of our piece, and we had to submit two drafts of our writing plus the final copy. We also had to write a statement about the editing process. Suggestions for our writing included CD liner notes (I didn’t know they still existed), a review (of a book, an art work, an exhibition), a newspaper feature article.

I didn’t know how to write any of those things so I wrote a blog entry. And while I wrote about a real-life experience I wrote it a bit story-like (I used elements of narrative writing) and so was uncertain whether the tutor would accept it as non-fiction.

She did.

I enjoyed your blog immensely. It’s rare to receive an error-free assignment; you’ve obviously invested time and effort for this submission. Thank you.

A validation …

… of my capacity to correct errors.

That won’t surprise any of my own students!

I won’t be so scared when the next envelope arrives. Except I can’t remember when the next assignment is due. I really will need to read the unit outline soon!!

Posted in Learning, Writing

Excitement/trepidation/learning

Posted on by Sharon

It’s the end of the first week of semester for me as a lecturer, and almost the beginning of semester for me as a student.

A range of emotions course through me when I allow myself to think about being a student: excitement (yay, I’m going to be learning about writing), and trepidation (I’m going to be learning about writing, and I’ll have to write, and I don’t like writing … except that I do, just not journal articles and conference papers). I read a little from my textbook on writing and realise that I’m doing it all wrong.

I don’t give myself enough time, I expect it to be perfect as I type it, I am impatient for the right words and want them to be the first words that emerge rather than the fifth or seventeenth. I want the ideas to tumble out of me as soon as I sit down to write, and that they will tumble in a logical order. I want insightful, inventive, wow-that’s-an-interesting/humorous/creative/original-way-of-saying-that, phrases and thoughts to roll directly from my imagination to my fingers without the need for agonising over each word, each idea, each choice I know I need to make.

I want it to be easy.

I expect it to be easy.

And then I realise/remember/am reminded that writing is a skill, a process, something to practice and develop, something to take time over, something to learn. And learning is a process – I told my students that last week during Orientation – it takes time and energy and commitment and can be frustrating and challenging and emotional and downright painful. Whoever said learning is fun needs to be sat down and given a good talking to! It isn’t fun. It’s hard. And it’s work. (But obviously worth doing.)

So, I’m feeling in two minds at the moment: me the teacher/me the learner.

As the teacher, I wrote a unit outline for my students, re-worked the learning outcomes, designed the assessment tasks, wrote introductions to each section of the textbook I put together from other people’s works, articulated my teaching philosophy, made my expectations clear, designed my online unit in a particular way (a way that is clear to understand, clear to work through, clear to follow).

Or so I thought.

As a learner, reading a unit outline that someone else has written puts a different slant on the idea of clear. I know what’s in my head (most of the time) and so my unit outline is clear to me. I read it and know what I mean. But I don’t yet know what is in my lecturers’ heads and so I read the unit outlines for the two units in which I’m enrolled and things are not immediately clear to me.

Questions buzz like wasps: where is; what is meant by; when do I; who will; where do I find; how can I; when should I; who should I; how does; why …?

They’re the questions of anxiety which can quickly morph into frustration if the answers don’t come immediately.

There are other kinds of questions though. Questions of excitement and exploration: I wonder how; I wonder who; I wonder when; I wonder what …?

Maybe I should start asking those questions. That would require me to step back, take a few deep breaths, know that I don’t have to do everything (all the readings, all the assignments, all the learning) in my first week.  I can give myself permission to learn rather than to worry; I can take my time knowing that learning will happen if I relax a little, ease the tension, free up some space in my mind from the anxiety and allow the curiosity and excitement I know is there to overtake the fear and trepidation.

There are plenty of things I don’t know in relation to the units I’m studying – but that’s why I’m studying: to find out. To learn. To be in that place of not knowing and know that it’s okay to be there. To know that over time, and with commitment and application, I will know.

Over time …

Note to self: learning is a process.

Let the process begin!

Posted in Learning, Writing

Final flower/story challenge day

Posted on by Sharon

[Day 7 of seven]

Well, we made it to the end of the week and there have been some terrific stories. Thanks to all those who were brave enough to put themselves out there and write stories, and then post them! Please, if you feel the desire, and you haven’t yet added your contribution, feel free to add your story to any of the days’ challenges. 

Tim asked if I’d write stories too … and I said that I’d post them at the end of the week. Well, that’s today, so here are my contributions.

******

Day One

She emerges from the quiet of the exam room into the gloom of late evening. The silence from inside lingers, deepening her mood of contemplative forgetfulness. Her steps slow despite the urgency to be home. The smell of decay whispers to her. With a jolt she remembers, laughs, tears streaming.

Day Two

She is overwhelmed by it. Ornate, golden, speaking of riches in earlier times. Whispers of those who have gone before float through the centuries and her ears buzz with proclamations, judgements, sermons, debates, messages from afar.  This place stops her breath and, laughing at her clichéd self, she shoots again.

Day Three

She sways inside the open front door, denying his news, rocking as she used to as a young mother. The floor provides a sanctuary she never imagined she’d need. She feels more, and much, much less, than she ever imagined she could.

At the end, just one shot.

Gone.

My only one.

It was the end, and the end, and the end.

Her anguish swirls around the empty hills.

Day Four

She clutches them so tightly they tremble in her fist. Mum says, don’t hold them so tight, you’ll make the petals poo, the leaves leak,and the teacher will think you’re a freaky flower geek. A heartbeat, and they collapse under the weight of shared giggles.

Day Five

She laughed her head off, her knees dancing up a storm. It took the floor right out from under her and she fell, head over heels. He had cast a spell, knocked her socks off, turned her to jelly, blew her mind. She didn’t mind. She was hit by cupid’s arrow and willingly gave him her heart.

Day Six

She stood, holding her head at an unfamiliar angle, trying desperately to keep it on. The ceremony was much more solemn and more formal than she had anticipated and as if on cue giggles rose in her throat. She coughed to stop them bursting forth and walked slowly forward. Soon it would be her turn to climb the stairs, hand her card over, walk across the stage, doff, shake, keep walking. A moment to savour.

*******

Thanks again for your responses and interest.