Monday 10 October 2011

Apropos the Tutor Forum

I'm getting better with the notebook - though I'm still not as organised as I would like to be or as mindful as to why it's with me. I took it with me to IKEA on Saturday and was going to do some little character pen portraits whilst lunching on my Swedish meatballs - but only really used it to jot down the stock and aisle numbers of the two items I went there for. But I at least took my notebook mentality around with me, and noticed a lot of little things to add to my character creations (all human life is to be found in IKEA, better than almost anywhere else I think.) The blog however is where I pull myself back into the reckoning as an active student. The privacy settings on the OU blog system allows me to write complete tosh which I can save for later then return to and edit, change, tidy and improve at my leisure.

The OU Blog is without doubt my 'free writing space’ and has thrown up plenty of surprises along the way. Anything that looks sufficiently polished then gets transferred onto my Blogspot blog which has accumulated an impressive 14 followers! All members of this course, no normal people ;) One or two have actually left comments on this (public) blog, so I find myself trying harder to make the writing look, at least, decent.

I guess it's all good training for later. But I will pursue with the notebook as well - even if it's the little daily diary app on my iPhone which doesn't require a pen (they keep snapping in my pocket) and at least has the advantage of making note taking look like you're sending text messages to your friends and family. Where in fact, you're actually jotting down the fact that the lady who's just served you lunch has forearms like mottled hams, or the chap in front of you in the queue seemed to be dressed in his 1960's Army demob suit.

(Copied from TF)

3 comments:

  1. Hey there!

    I don't carry a notebook about with me as I have grown so unused to using a pen and paper, I can barely understand what I try to write! What I DO use though, is an app on my phone called 'notetoself' which is on android, but am positive something similar exists on iphone. I save whatever I think of throughout the day, then transfer it all verbatim to my laptop which I then save as an electronic journal.

    Another idea that I have is to make another gmail account specifically for sending myself emails of work. gmail has google documents also which is awesome.. 7gig or so of space for free, can't argue with that!

    I love the idea of wandering about IKEA doing pen portraits of everyone you meet!

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  2. Yes Janys, it's really important to save everything I think, no matter how 'rubbish' it might seem at the time.. I wrote something the other day that I thought was pure dung.. yet looked at it just now and can see something rather promising..

    I think it's best to include every little thought in your notebook and back it up on the computer. Then you can look through it all for ideas and inspiration whenever you need it.

    My biggest problem is organising the mass of nonsense into something readable.. Will have to tackle that at some point before it gets too much :-)

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  3. Cheers for the feedback guys. There's so much talk of notebooks Neil, I'm giving it my best shot. But it may be a busted flush, I don't know. I shall pursue, but I'm writing plenty on electronic media, so I guess you Janys and me are all doing something right, not like Dickens or the Brontes but like 21st Century boys and girls!!

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