Continuing my education...#2

It feels like a long time since my November post where I quietly lamented the end of my full-time education. Well, I suppose it actually feels like about seven months. Approximately. Despite June currently disguising itself as March.

Paulo Friere - Brazilian educator and theorist 

I can, however, sleep a little easy in the knowledge (knowledge, yay KNOWLEDGE!) that I have done some educationing; for work I've obviously done some educating - when I have been the educator - but I have also been the educatee, engaging in learning of my own. Now, I'm with Paulo Friere on not being a passive vessel and all that (which makes a link to his wikipedia page have a beautiful sort of irony, dontcha think?), but sometimes passive is about all I can muster. Particularly after a hard day of throwing juggling balls at drug addicts. So, please forgive me if I admit I've been doing some knowledge-receiving on my back. No, that is not any form of sexual allusion. The beast with two backs can stay well out of it. No, no, no.

F.M. Alexander

Basically, I have been learning the Alexander Technique a bit recently, and have thus been doing some lying down homework, where I let my spine chillax. Anyway, apparently the spine takes 17 minutes to properly elongate and spread out and stuff (you can tell I'm quite the scientist, can't you?), SO I've seen this as a splendid opportunity to use the time to expand my spine AND my horizons. I have thus been trying to listen to one TED talk a day, during this time. Now, if you're not familiar with the fucking brilliance that are TED talks, TED (technology, entertainment, design) is a nonprofit devoted to 'Ideas Worth Spreading', and basically consists of all manner of people giving short lectures on all manner of things (a bit like the School of Life, who do wicked sermons - and which is also brilliant and should be checked out if your world has not yet been improved by it). TED do two conferences a year, which are uber expensive to attend; however the best of the lectures are then broadcast online for the world to see. They describe themselves thus:

TED is best thought of as a global community. It's a community welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world.

Yesterday, whilst I was doing the washing up (a ridiculous task in itself, as our kitchen sink has been broken for about two months - but you don't want to hear all about that; you are best kept out of my silent, inexorable rage against our landlady), I listened to Julian Baggini: Is there a real you?  It's not my favourite TED talk so far, but it does fit in very, very nicely with the theme of the article I recently wrote on story and well-being/identity (see 'Once upon a Friday'). So here's a bit of Baggini for you. And I urge you to check out some more of the TED talks. You'll well impress people at dinner parties....