One Giant Leap

Worked as a Student Ambassador again and was amazed by the group that I came across. The leader of the meeting was a lady with a very similar story to mine - not only has she got a doctorate, she just happens to be the local director of education! Talk about raising the bar high.
The people in the group were all at the stage I was about four years ago, where they were making incremental steps to return to education.

I was asked to take some of the group to the art block, which I absolutely loved - am I on the wrong course, I thought. We had to draw a still life picture of a manniquin, using paper on the floor and making the marks with charcoal taped to a bamboo cane. I was suitably impressed with my effort - after all, it was going to look suitably crap, because I was 3ft from the paper, with precios little control of my implement.

It was confirmed that - yes, I am on the right course. I am marginally better at English than art (my model drawing looked like it had some chronic vitamin deficiency), but I really enjoyed myself. I managed to hook up with a lady, who runs a textile class in our local town - so I have a feeling I will be dropping in to see her soon.

One thing shone out today - a guy my age group, who has just found out that he has dyslexia. He showed me his portfolio of artwork, I was truly stunned - enough to be emotionally moved by it. He is such a fantastic fine art artist, it just blew me away. He had started on small courses and was working his way up. We had a long chat and now he has made the brave step of applying for the Access course for Art, with the full intention of going to the top.

I think that there are some jobs that are so rewarding - watching people achieve great things against the odds is one of them.

Made Yew Look Vlog

Help - Fairy Tale Titles/Prompts Needed!!!

Part of my vocational module is to write an adult fairy tale for a magazine competition. Not sure EXACTLY what that would entail, but I will paste the following outline for people can have a look and tell me what they think.

Short story adult fairy tale/story of 1,500-1,700 words for an adult audience.  The writer is asked to show an acerbic, even cynical sense of humour.

Now usually, I would find the inner muse and knock stuff out without a problem.  Right now I am scratching my head.  See, the reworked fairy tale genre has been overused recently and I don't want to write the same tired old crap - like Goldilocks done for breaking/entering; Red Ridinghood as a murderer or Snow White as a brothel keeper. Angela Carter was the past mistress of the adult genre and somehow I would like to write new ones for the modern age, a bit like I did with Enameline two years ago (I have already been told that I cannot reuse this). Enameline was about a toy maker who was losing his battle with iPads/Computer games and his wife to an ongoing interest in plastic surgery.

Anyone like to give me any ideas?