Task 2b: the follow up

The styles that I mentioned in my previous post really helped me to reflect as much as possible on my day. They worked great for me to summarise, pick out highs and lows, and evaluate the day as concisely as possible. I found a few reoccurring themes that I hadn't noticed before about myself and I think that's really an important thing to take away from the task.
I found that more often than not my lists and thoughts always stemmed back to not feeling fulfilled and always wanting something more. I knew that obviously I don't want to be working as a waitress for ever, but I hadn'nt ever really noticed that actually that is alllllllllllllll I think about. Or rather everything that I do think about and do on a daily basis is with the aim or hope of doing something more, getting something better, being something better. And really how depressing that when you look at that from another perspective.... there must be a serious dent in my self esteem to have such loathing for my current lifestyle and its attributes. And for that matter, it highlights to me now as I type that perhaps that is why I've mentioned on several occasions that I like to pick up on the pros and highlights of the day, even if it is a split second that makes me smile.
If I take anything from this experience, that last paragraph was the turning point. That is the point in which keeping a journal for the task has become a true point of reflection on my life at this moment. A moment of self realisation. Good and bad.

Task 2b: Journal writing experience

So can I firstly start by saying how much I love that I started the 9 days on the beginning of the month. It's irrelevant to the task but it's soooo much easier to keep track of!! And we know that I love to be organised and tidy with these things.
Anyway, back to the important stuff!.
After completing the 9 days of different journal writing I chose a couple and decided to explore them a bit further and develop them to suit me. J. Moon said that 'Journals come in any shape, size and form', (Moon 2006) So for the past two days my journals have culminated of the following in order to create my own style of journal:

• description
• initial
• reflection
• list
• what if 

I started off with a basic list of what I did that day, a few jotted notes ( If we were to put it on the graffiti wall from the campus session , all of these notes would slip under the 'see' collumn). I then started to 'think' about what I had actually done that day and these sprouted off like a spider diagram and gave a bit more depth.  Using 'Initial' and 'reflection' I started to write and really consider how I felt about the things that I'd done, what had happened, and things that had been said. As I came to my conclusion of this I began the 'what if' development and it enabled me to suggest what I could perhaps do differently next time and what I would like the next day to hold. So a little bit of preparation and planning ahead.
It worked out to be a really interesting exercise and I've now found myself with a good sort of basis to build my everyday journals on.
For anyone else writing their journal I'd really encourage trying out a few and finding the style that suits you, your lifestyle and the way brain works best.



References:

Moon, J. 2006, A Handbook for reflective practice and professional development, Taylor and Francis

Task 2b: the 9 day challenge!

For the few weeks I've been keeping my journal, but for task 2b lets pay particular interest to the 9 day challenge as I've named it. lol. So, I chose November 1st - 9th. 9 easy to keep track of days conveniently coinciding with the dates of the month. I went through the 9 ways of enhancing the journals and had a go at each one. And some I felt rather silly doing, (seeing my day through the eyes of a pencil case I'm afraid is just not for me) and some that I felt captured my journal writing style and could help me to develop it further to get better reflection on the days. I'm going to pick out a few that I liked and used and developed and briefly mention the few that I felt didn't work quite so well.

So start at the top shall we!

• Description: description suited me completely,infact it is pretty much what i'd been doing all along. Keeping a basic list of what happened, where and when with the odd bit of extra. I'm glad that it was on the list because it put my mind at ease that I hadn't been doing it wrong, but at the same time I don't think that it really pushed me to develop the idea and think outside the box.

• Initial: this was a good one, I like to think of it really as the next step on from description. It just goes into slightly more depth and gets a bit more opinion based writing in there. I think writing using the 'initial' form can often be a lot more revealing about the day than the description itself by mentioning what it made me think, and how it made me feel so I found this helpful and an easy step on from the first.

• Reflection: again this seemed to be the next logical jump, by just revealing slightly more again about the day itself. Reflection is great because it encourages you to look at the pros and cons of what you did that day and combines it with your mood. Combining these three views I think gives a good basic start to journal writing and by noting down anything unexpected that it reminds us that not everything goes to plan, or has to be as mundane as it may first seem.

• List: I liked using listing because it's so simple and relative to what your thinking about. It worked for me a little like a brain storm where the list had strands coming off of it on things that i'd like to look into further or reasons why I enjoyed activities. My brain is constantly jumping onto the next thing, with my form of dyslexia my mind thinks faster than I can write or sometimes speak so with the list having the option in front of me to branch off into another area was great and really helpful as I could come back to what I was thinking afterwards.

• Evaluation: I liked evaluating, it's very basic but again it allows you to pick out the pros and cons of your day. I found I was noticing a lot more in general, things that I may have overlooked previously. By evaluating I could summarise and forget the bits I know I didn't need to stress myself over and therefore things to avoid worrying about in the future.

• Graphs/diagrams/charts: before i'd even started this one I had a feeling it might not be for me, just comes accross a bit toooooo mathematical, but I tried to be open minded and gave it a go. Unfortunately I was right, there is just something about dividing my day up into sections and graphs that makes it far to clinical for me. I'm human, and my day is my life, not a test result or colour coded chart to be inspected. I use charts for the aspects of my life that they can be of help for, such as training at the gym for my half marathon. Using a chart or graph here is good to show how much or how little progresss is being made, but for the everyday it's not for me. However, I colour coordinated the diagrams apprpriately, and it showed I spent far to much time at work than working on my career. The reason I've found that a bit irrelevant at the moment is because I have to work to pay the bills, so seeing it in bright red just didn't help.

• What if?- now then, 'what if' was an interesting one, I do quite like the 'what if.' At first I didn't think that I'd like this one, but actually as I was I writing I found I could explore it more and more. It makes sense to consider what could have happened, and if it didn't go to plan, then why not? What could I have done differently, or could I do differently next time to change the outcome. I combined this with Kolb's learning cycle and found that by using the conditional i'd slot into the cycle at  'Reflective observation'. Working out what I need to do differently first, and then going from there. Considering what I would love to happen and what I would hate to happen gave me a bit of motivation to work harder to find an agent and work oustide the restaurant, it helped to remind me what was important and to let go of the things that didn't matter that day.

• Another view: well.... this was interesting. I struggled I have to say, to think outside the box on this one. I think I'm a funny one, because I am very creative but my mind is logical and for some reason I couldn't get my head around the logic of thinking of my day from the perspective of an object. However, I started to push my thinking, and thought of times when it could be relevant such as, If I was choreographing or directing a piece around an object, seeing the day from the point of view of that object actually could be quite interesting. Seeing my day from the point of view of another person however was great, a real insight into what others might be thinking. We get some very difficult people in my work place and sometimes it's hard to stop your face reacting naturally to something absolutely ridiculous that they may have said, before of course you realise and behave as an employee should. But seeing those ridiculous conversations which unfortunately can shape my day from their side was very entertaining. I think for audition purposes this could be interesting, to see the audition from the view of the panel rather than myself, so I think I'll try to employ it, just out of curiosity after my next audition.

I really enjoyed this task as I've been able to reflect upon my days and then reflect upon my own reflection to pick out the most rewarding and affective ways to do it. It's been really interesting and now I think i'll employ a number of the techniques combined and developed into one to continue my journal from here.

Task 2a: 03/10/12

Bonfire night! Remember remember the 5th ( ok well, 3rd for us who find the weekends are just more convenient to the masses) of november.
I just wanted to write this blog in appreciation of the task. I love events like christmas and bonfire night, etc. Yes of course I agree they've all become massively commercialised but I still love the atmosphere that comes with them, and if that's what it takes to get people, who dont normally make time for themselves or to get back in touch with friends and family (though that's a shame) then how can it be bad. I was really looking forward to adding bonfire night to my journal, I got the night of work by accident, went home to Bucks, and spent the evening at the gliding centre with friends and family watching the bonfire, fireworks and just having a laugh in general and mundane as an entry that may seem to some, relecting upon it in my journal was great and a nice change from the everyday. I learnt a lot that day gliding, getting information from 3 different instructors all about different points, and found that meeting new people, I am constantly learning how to adapt to them and trying to make a good impression to them which will come in handy whilst networking in the performing industry.
It was just nice to look back on the day and pick out some real positives to put a bit of faith back and I don't think I would have reflected upon it as much had I not been writing the journal for the task. It's just good, that's all :)

Task 2a: 01/11/12

Ahhh today I had a really interesting journal entry, because I finally went on my flight simulator. As I've told you all before, in my spare time I fly glider planes.  (and yes, that means not very often at the minute as spare time doesn't seem to exist anymore) So for my birthday this summer, I was brought a flight simulation in a Boeing 737 from UFLY737. It was great fun but I have to say I crashed a couple of times. The idea is to give people an opportunity to fly a massive plane in and out of different airports. I flew into Hong Kong, Oxford and Austria. Though I fly gliders, it is completely different to flying a such a massive powered plane, and though I had to keep referring to my gliding training to keep the wings level etc, I had to pay so much attention to all the new information being given to me. It was here I realised that I was learning at the same time as reflecting and combining the information together. It's funny that keeping a journal can make you realise the things that you're already doing unconsciously. I also later linked it with Howard Garner, and found that I was learning through a number of different ways such as, spatial, verbal and logical.

Task 2a: 31/09/12

So today I went to an audition for a girl band and I thought, 'perfect!!' a good experience and also something relevant to write about in my journal!

I just had to write a blog about this though because it wasnt until jotting down my experience for that day that I realised that I entered Kolb's learning cycle on a much larger scale.  In summary of my journal and reflecting upon it I can see that I entered the learning cycle at 'Reflective observation'. I've gathered this from thinking on a much grander scheme... there is a sort of 'protocall' for musical theatre auditions that we're all aware of but for girl band auditions??? who knows. Well , I do, but thats on;y from reflective observation of previous auditions at my college and from reality programmes such as pop idol, popstars, fame academy and x-factor. These programmes have been going longer than we realise and actually, when us musical theatre folk get thrown into a pop audition, where do we turn for help, whether consciously or not! We know what NOT to do from all the horrendous youtube videos of auditions gone wrong, and we pick up on the good bits from the reality success stories. And yes I hate to admit this revelation. :/
I followed the cycle to abstract conseptualisation by playing through a couple of scenarios in my head first such as 'what if they want to hear a different song', 'what would this band dress like', these sort of ideas that I have to work out before attending. Active experimentation of going to the audition and just giving it a go! (based of course on my previous planning) and finally concrete experience. I have been to a pop audition before and now I have more concrete experience to start the next cycle when it comes about.
It just shows that this cycle isn't only small and compact in terms of thought process, it can go back to things you didn't even realise that you were referencing... like X-factor..

Back in the loop!

Unfortunately this week i've not been very well and work has been eating up all my time. However, i've been keeping my journal, and keeping track of everyone else and I hope you'll forgive me for somewhat backdating my blogs. I've been writing them by hand waiting for a computer opportunity. :/ not ideal, but at least I'l be back where I need to be.