September 27, 2016

9.00 am: A meeting with Mr Garrett and Dr Forster to discuss the reconfiguration of the painting studio:

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There’s a subtle psychology to the arrangement of work spaces. Students need a sense of community as well as an opportunity for relative seclusion. 9.30 am: Afterwards, Dr Forster and I met to thrash out a refreshed attitude and content in relation to the second-year painting modules. We aim to give students what they need, rather than what they want, necessarily. (In this respect, our approach as teachers is no different to that as parents.)

10.30 am: Back at homebase, I returned to my list of ‘things to do’ in regard to admin, teaching prep, and research. A PhD Fine Art thesis is still tugging at my elbow. I must complete my external marking of this, pronto. Therefore …

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… until lunchtime … and beyond.

Mid afternoon. I wrote up and submitted my External Examiner’s report. Such a document requires the exercise of tact, candour, balance, precision, and constructive advice.

6.30 pm: Practise Session 1. 7.30 pm: The first ‘proofs’ of The Bible in Translation album arrived from the record company today. I’m also, now, in receipt of the Welsh translation of the blurb and a catalogue number. The artwork and text materials can now be sent to the company to be put together. An end is in sight. On with preparations for postgraduate induction, tomorrow. But not without, first, a sneaky peak at my new vacuum tube enabled preamp unit:

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Every year, I’m tempted to notate my spiel and create a PowerPoint presentation for the postgraduate induction meeting. Every year, I wing it. And I think the delivery is the better for it. Teaching is like acting and the seminar room, a theatre. Even in the delivery of perfunctory administrative protocols and the necessary explanation of curriculum, an electricity connecting speaker and audience can occur, one that lifts the occasion above the level of the mundane. In such moments, illumination graces information.

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