Learning on A Geek's Life

Writing Creative Non-Fiction - Assignment #4: On Woolf on Cavendish

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 13:35:57 +0000

This week’s assignment offered a choice of character depictions. I opted to go with reviewing Virginia Woolf’s 1925 essay, The Duchess of Newcastle , from The Common Reader First Series . Its subject is Margaret Cavendish the Duchess of Newcastle. I very much enjoyed getting to learn about her. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

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It is difficult to come away from Virginia Woolf’s essay on the life of Margaret Cavendish with anything but a sense of admiration for the person the Duchess of Newcastle was: a libertarian who lived life on her own terms, a prodigious thinker, prolific writer and designer, all-round force of nature and perhaps proto-feminist. What is even more remarkable about her life is the context within which it was lived, times which seen from the lofty, enlightened heights of our 21st-century sofas seem like the dark ages. Given the latitude to explore and later express a non traditional interpretation of the roles of daughter and wife by both her mother and husband, we get the sense that virtually every thought she had was encouraged and articulated in some shape or form with no attempt to self-censure. It helped perhaps that there were no children to encumber her free spirit. Given Virginia Woolf’s own life and character – and reputation for being a free spirit of sorts too - the largely positive portrayal here does beg the question of objectivity given the tendency in all of us to eulogise those who inspire us and worship them as heroes.

Writing Creative Non-Fiction - Assignment #3: An Interview of Sorts

Sat, 14 Mar 2020 23:11:00 +0000

This week’s assignment was to interview someone, summarizing what we learned about them in 300 to 500 words. Here goes.. Image by Clint McKoy on Unsplash

\\\* R was hunched over his phone typing furiously when I pushed the door open and walked into the restaurant, one of the many that dot the roadside on this corner of the seaside boulevard. I was three minutes late but he, ever the most punctual of people, had arrived early and was in the middle of typing an acerbic note to me.

Writing Creative Non-Fiction - Assignment #2: On Detail and Deduction

Tue, 03 Mar 2020 07:03:17 +0000

Last week’s assignment was to take a look at an image and attempt to deduce and interpret what it is about from the details one can see. I went for the image above, Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of Arnolfini. Here goes.

\\\* What strikes me the first time I look at the picture is how young and frail she looks. With eyes looking downwards and away from his face, as though in deference, one gets the impression that she feels entirely in his power, her demeanour almost apologising for intruding into his space. He, on the other hand, has that stance that screams importance, eyes forward, looking towards the one who has crafted the scene, seeming to declare that he owns everything in sight. I am here and in charge. All this is mine, notice me!

Week Two

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 14:30:17 +0000

Between a super busy week at work and beginning to pack up my life for an upcoming move, I made slow going of studying this week, hence the lateness of this week’s wrap-up. A highlight was receiving largely positive feedback on my first assignment, an exercise in people-watching which took me to a city centre Burger King.

This week’s learning focus was research; tips and tricks for getting beneath the skin of a place to understand the wider context behind the story we’re trying to tell and to ground it in facts and truths. Memory being as fickle as it can be, there was rightly a focus on building systems for capturing details about the people, places and things we write about. Upon reflection, some of the great essayists who have inspired me on this journey have documented their own systems for doing just this including David Sedaris and Ryan Holiday (both of whom have inspired Austin Kleon) to name a few. Also introduced this week were a number of tools: brainstorming (a la mind maps of ideas around a central topic) and foot stepping, physically visiting the area one wishes to write about to absorb its very essence into one’s mind. That I suspect will be very useful over the next few years as I travel more.

Writing Creative Non-Fiction - Assignment #1: People Watching

Fri, 14 Feb 2020 12:57:36 +0000

Last week was about thinking about the underlying reasons for writing, this week was starting off on the journey towards sharpening our powers of observation, the idea being to hone our ability to find stories in the quotidian. A city-centre eatery late one night was my muse.

\\\* It is a little after 8.30pm when the smell of French fries wafting in through the door draws me in. The first thing that strikes me as I stride through the door is how empty it looks, the bulk of the two-storied structure being cordoned off, with only the small section to the right of the counter open for use. I find the emptiness surprising given it is next to a major bus station and right in the centre of town. As I wait for the chance to order, I find myself behind three people, all decked out in the garb of people dressed to brace the cold, with the brightly coloured logo of a food delivery service gracing the insulated bags they hold.

Lift Off

Fri, 07 Feb 2020 10:47:56 +0000

One of my objectives for 2020 is to complete a Creative Non-Fiction course, which is how I signed up for the National Centre for Writing’s Start Writing Creative Non-Fiction course. Once a week, or so, I’ll drop a few thoughts on exercises completed, thoughts and progress on here. Here goes the first one.

\\\* The focus of this first week has been pondering the question ‘why?’, exploring the motivations for taking on the course, and perhaps the underlying book project which it is assumed one is working on. For me, the course is an attempt to go beneath the surface and understand the techniques behind good writing, in keeping with the theme for this year of Delving Deeper. Progress on that elusive memoir, The Small Light in Things. will be a very welcome bonus.

31 Days of Journaling, Day 20: On the past and Nostalgia

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 17:23:28 +0000

The Young and the Eager, for the Day 20 prompt

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The most recent time of my life I feel nostalgia for has to be my formative years in Eket, Nigeria. Hired fresh following a year of national service, with a starting salary that almost eclipsed my father’s; 30 plus years of teaching in a University notwithstanding. Prior to applying, interviewing and getting hired, getting into the software industry had been my realistic focus, driven by my interest and a sense that it was perhaps the most realistic option for me. The perception at the time was that to get a good job in Nigeria, one needed to be connected.; which I was not being from a minority ethnic group in a minority state.

Of Spats, and Lessons Learned

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 16:50:33 +0000

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God has a sense of humour, that much I am convinced of. The most recent evidence of this has got to be firing up John Piper’s Daily Devotional, Solid Joys, to find out that today’s devotional had marriage firmly in its sights.

The humour was because S and I had just had our first spat of sorts the night before. At the nexus of this spat was a difference in opinion as to where we were on the relationship continuum. I was of the opinion that she needed to provide a response that defined what we were - being just really good friends or people in an active relationship that had marriage as it’s end goal. Her contention was that the fact that she gave up time and energy to meet up with me and do stuff suggested that there was firm interest on her part, but that time was required to get to a place where she could formally say ‘Yes’ to my entreaties.

Spring Cleaning..

Thu, 30 Jun 2016 21:07:51 +0000

They say the good is the enemy of the best or something to that effect. I am learning that this also applies to people. The worst kind of those has to be those who are happy to take one’s time without making any commitments in return. Over the last few days of reflection it has become apparent that I have a number of those (as well as being that sort of friend to some other people also).

Did We Do Any Learning - Savouring Memories

Sun, 14 Dec 2014 17:17:32 +0000

A few thoughts – with the benefit of a few months since losing H - on living and learning…

Life’s lessons are neither bleeding obvious nor palatable. All we possess for sure are the moments that we share with our friends and loved ones. The challenge is to enjoy and maximise the moments, not putting off the kind word, the lingering touch, or the act of kindness we know they deserve.

On the subject of lifelong learning.

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:25:33 +0000

Ben Dulap, President of Wofford College speaking at TED2007 on the subject of a Passionate Life quotes Mahatma Gandhi

Live each day as if it were your last, learn as if you were to live forever.

Lifelong learning - continuously aiming to understand the rules of engagement in every sphere of life that intersects us - is the key to succeeding; it would seem.

That is another life long lesson I am adding to my burgeoning list.