I found keeping up with a journal difficult. By some strange coincidence this task has fallen on quite a hard few weeks for me. Both in my personal and professional life. In many ways this has been part of my struggle as I haven't wanted to revisit those difficult moments. I guess I feel as though I constantly reflect anyway. I replay conversations in my head, talk things through with others, think about what I could have done differently, how other people feel and generally give myself a hard time! I spend hours a day talking to myself!! The thing is when it comes to writing those feelings down I feel very uncomfortable. I'm still not really sure why, I feel quite unnatural to me and self indulgent. I didn't actually find it useful but rather a hassle, a step in the wrong direction. I realise this is quite a negative opinion, and I'm not against the idea of a journal in the professional sense, (taking notes during a rehearsal period for example) I just didn't enjoy it in this context. I found myself making a lot of lists as this seemed to be the easiest most unattached way of getting it done.
Later on in the process after trying different methods I discovered it isn't the writing I disliked so much but the re-reading. I cringed going over my notes and found it hard to connected with what I had said even though, I no at the time I was totally immersed. Maybe that's because it's all relatively fresh or maybe that's how we all feel when we re-read our work. I have even felt that way going over previous blogs. As time passes our feelings towards certain moments or encounters change. Maybe we have made piece with a situation or simply no longer care, there are many possible scenarios.
Getting back to the point of this blog, I feel my evaluation skills are developing and this is certainly a preferred technique for me. I found the another view idea pretty pointless, I would only be going on assumption and speculation which I'm not sure would help me achieve anything. It can however raise questions but I'm not sure that these aren't questions you would come to anyway. I have similar feelings toward the pictures graphs and charts however I enjoyed looking back over these as it was a simplified way to gauge how my day went and think could be quite useful if you wanted to monitor something over a period of time eg. Stress levels during the day or productivity of a week.
What if, was an interesting technique,I felt quite inspired by my own ambitions but then a bit disappointed at the restrictions I feel prevent me from achieving them.
Lists (as I mentioned above) were my friend, short and right to the point, although I'm not sure they developed my writing skills.
After reading over some of the other students blogs I noticed that one student was making video diaries. Again I'm not sure how this will benefit my writing but if this module is more about developing and deepening my reflective skills then I feel this medium might relieve some of the pressure for me and its certainly something I'm excited to try for a week.
Ok, now to give the reader another go, I wish I wasn't so easily distracted!!! Keep going everyone :)
