Currently, Mr C and I are working through some redecorating, organising boxes of things that have been stored away, and generally trying to make our lives a bit simpler. Simplicity is always the goal. I stumbled across some old school books of mine. I didn’t keep many of them, but I did keep my English books, presumably because deep down I always knew I wanted to be a writer and that it would be important, even if I kept telling myself that numbers were my thing.

It has been a couple of years since I sat some exams, and I have been very happy spending my time in more creative pursuits. I have got out of the house a bit more, examined the world of podcast and community creation to a greater extent, and spent a lot of time with my family and friends. Now, though, I am getting the craving to learn again. I am always learning, obviously, given what a clean slate I have to begin with, and what a poor memory I have for retaining information.

When I was younger, I wanted to be a firefighter. Then I wanted to be a singer. Then I wanted to be a teacher. Now, I am not any of those things. I may not be sure about the career I have landed myself with, but I do not wish to be a firefighter or a singer or a teacher. A recent news item I read suggests that children as young as seven could start being given careers advice in the hopes that it might raise their dreams of the future.

Last week, I was reading about this Youth Centre in the US that has bought up some podcasting equipment to offer kids the chance to try their hand at recording themselves. It seems to be a summer holiday and half term kind of thing, a place to send your children - for a fee - to mingle, socialise, and learn things. According to the story from The Detroit News, the revamp cost a cool $3 million, but has the features to show for it:

I’ve just finished the second of two exams this week. I’m pretty sure I failed both of them, but that’s okay. In fact, I’m really happy about it because I now know at least one path I don’t want my career to take. The reason for this post, however, is because of the severe cramp I have in my right hand. My exams have always tended to be a lot about numbers, and today I sat a paper that was more about theory.

Exam papers had answers on back What.The.Hell? Animal Utility Clips Oh, I want some of these. Especially the cow. I’m always getting told off for having wires all over my desk. These would solve that problem. Vandals in attack at Stonehenge “English Heritage said souvenir hunting was once a legitimate practice and chisels would be handed out to people visiting the stones.” Crazy. Podcasts prove break from routine “Comedy is dominating the UK’s podcasting charts.

There are certain jobs I would love to do. For instance, I sent my script to the BBC to have a read through. There’s a process that unsolicited scripts go through, which involves being read by certain people and either discarded or moved along the chain. How do you get the job to be the person that reads the scripts? How do you get the job to be the person that updates the website on certain television shows?

Having been staring at my very special Blogathon header picture for 12 hours, it is now seared into my brain. I wish that I could make things like that. When it comes to art, I can see exactly what I want to happen in my head, but I can never get it to come out on the paper, or whatever medium I happen to be working with. I remember one particular art class at school where we were drawing pictures of some fruit in a bowl, and my apples actually looked like an apple, and I got a B or something like that.

I don’t know much. I am constantly learning things. Geography, politics, history, general things in life. I am constantly learning new things. I love to learn new things though. I like it when suddenly something begins to make sense. Like why the government act like they do, or what happened in the past that makes the present what it is. I actually think I am pretty good at learning things. Usually, you will only have to tell me something once, and I will understand and remember.

I was on a communications course at work, and learned plenty of interesting things, even about the art of conversation. I was told that the best way to start and maintain conversations with people is to ask questions. Ask about themselves, and when they answer, let it initiate more questions. Apparently, people like talking about themselves and love when someone takes an interest in them. Here’s the thing I don’t understand.