8.00 am: A communion. I was out of kilter from the outset. There are days when I feel as though my needle doesn’t sit well in the day’s groove. This would be one, at the beginning. 8.30 am: Into the fray and through the town, under the soupy grey sky that offered no consolation:

9.00 am: I arrived for a tutorial at the door to one of our MA studios at the Old College. It was locked, with no one inside. Having texted the whereabouts of the missing student, they responded to the effect: ‘But I’m here, inside the room’. At that moment, my reality began to unravel. It turned out that I was on the wrong floor standing in an corridor and outside a room that were identical, in structure and ambience, to those on the floor below, where the student was stationed. I put it down to the residual effects of GA. The student was, as ever, forgiving and understanding. I’d convinced myself of a truth that was entirely false. I was in the wrong place at the right time, and didn’t realise it. Duped by appearances. Now, there’s a lesson. Old College: fragment:

9.30 am: The first of several PhD Fine Art students. Today has been, for me at least, one of revelations and moments of turning. Together, the students and I gasped something – saw through to a potentiality and a possibility that had, hitherto lay in abeyance. Ideas have a habit of divulging themselves only when we’re prepared to embrace them. And such ideas are often of the nature of a pattern, structure, or container that frames the research being undertaken within it.

10.45 am: I took refuge in a local café to catch up on admin and recuperate. Physical exertion requires more energy presently. Apparently, it takes a month for GA to work itself out of the system. Strong stuff!. 12.30 pm: To the School and a postgraduate admissions consultation with Dr Webster Van Tonder. 1.00 pm: Lunchtime admin. There’s still a significant backlog of teaching and admin to clear following my week working on research at home.

2.00 pm: Back to Old College via Laura Place. I was reminded of Lego:

…. for a further PhD Fine Art tutorial. It’s a strange experience when the artwork declares its own significance and trajectory to the artist. This is when it truly ‘speaks’ to us. But we must have ‘ears to hear’. Homeward journey: fragment:

3.30 pm: Homebase. I pressed on with the backlog of admin while working, in tandem, on remixing the I. Nothing. Lack suite. I had decided to rethink the relationship of the foreground voice and background tracks. The former was enhanced to increase the preacher’s presence.

7.30 pm: I continued by testing the mixes on different media players (iMac, iPad, and iPhone) and a variety of qualities of headphone. I’d more or less tried every permutation of composition ratio, balance, spatial positioning, volume threshold, and equalisation.