April 23, 2015

8.15 am. Get to the School, find that I cannot print-out my 9.00 am lecture paper; run back home; I print it out there; run back to School; then, discover I have left my packed lunch on the kitchen table. Maybe the day will improve. 9.00 am. I delivered my Edmund Jones lecture, sans PowerPoint, for the Chapels in Wales module. The absence of a visual presentation was not only entirely appropriate but also encouraged the audience’s to engage an imaginative reconstruction of Jones’ accounts. I’m keen to return to the study of auditory apparitions.

10.00 am. My weekly walk across the promenade to the Old College; this week, in order to attend to the second year painters. (Dolphins were spotted breaking water, out on the bay today.):

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Some principles and observations:

  • There is ‘A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing’ (Eccles. 3.5). It’s entirely appropriate to abandon either a medium, a subject, a course of action, or an expectation, when the logic of so doing is inexorable.
  • Bless your limitations. They direct the path you take as surely as your conspicuous talents.
  • Weigh the judgement of others before submitting to it. Sometimes, it’s you who knows best.
  • To make advances, one must take chances.
  • Easy solutions are rarely fulfilling.
  • If another student’s work impresses you, tell them. We each of us need informed encouragement.
  • If a solution doesn’t present itself immediately … wait, patiently. You cannot force the bud to bloom.

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12.40pm. A lasagne and salad on Pier Street. A treat. 2.00 pm. The West Classroom (flying ants apart) is at its best at this time of the year. The windows are thrown open; the sound and the smell of the sea permeate the studio; and the sunshine encourages an upbeat mood and a spirit of bonhomie. An anonymous auto-abstraction:

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A view from the rear studio. On such a day as this, one would not wish to work anywhere else:

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7.30 pm. Teaching admin/upload chores — clearing the decks before my return to research tomorrow. (Sound-file processing in the background.) I set up a new forum for Fresher’s et al:

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Quote: ‘The forum has been established for intending applicants, applicants who have been offered a place on one of the School’s schemes, those who have accepted the offer, and also freshers.’

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