A few moments ago, I woke up clutching my stomach. Initially, I wasn’t quite sure why, but then I remembered! My friend’s hamster! It was in a little plastic tub with a loose lid, and it was my responsibility to make sure it didn’t get out, thus I had my hand on it.

I’ve drawn a picture of my friend’s hamster to help you visualise the scene. I forgot to include my hand though so you’ll have to use your imagination for that.

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It’s been a real funny week this week.

I’m in Wales, on the Welsh Garden Project site, gardening, tele-working for CILASS, and rapidly switching between multiple emotional and mental ‘spaces’. I’ve been confused.

However, after this morning’s hamster episode, I do feel a little clearer.

I actually have some News News for a change: this week I got word that I’ve been offered a teaching job for when I arrive in Japan. It suits me well as it’s an open offer – meaning I can take it up anytime between now and October. With uncertainty over how long it will take to get my visa processed, this is ideal. It also gives me flexibility in terms of the number of hours I work and when I work them.

I’ve also been thinking about what I want to do long term. There’s a distinct lack of clarity here. I have an idea it will involve utilising the media – perhaps online media, perhaps television. I envisage some kind of network, with various producers focusing upon the things that matter to them. I see a network empowering people to express themselves to a wider audiences. Need to build a good team. I see myself as facilitator as opposed to ‘owner’.

The important thing is that it makes a difference, that it adds value to the lives of others. It could a be a few people, it could be the entire global population.

I’m so happy to be alive in this age where creating such a network is within reach of anyone who has access to a computer, a recording device and an Internet connection. 10 years back one would have had to invest hundreds of thousands of pounds to buy cameras, editing equipment and organic chocolate, but now it can be done on the smallest of budgets. What are the chances of that, that I be born as me with these desires in this tiny little window in the history of the world?! Good job I wasn’t born in the 17th Century, when YouTube was painfully slow and broadband cost the equivalent of 5 years wages.

I need to spend time crystallising my thoughts. A business plan might be a good idea. I’m aware though that I find it difficult to do this sort of thing by myself, I need to work collaboratively in order to find my best ideas, and so that I can be told “Joseph, that’s a really silly idea” when I have a really silly idea that appears brilliant through my eyes of endless possibility.

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Ho hum.

You know, this week I was fooled into joining a knitting club. I was invited down to the pub for a ‘relaxed gathering’, only, when I got there I was confronted with a basket full of wool and a pair of knitting needles.

It’s been twenty years since I last knitted, but clearly, what I learnt at the Hereford Waldorf School has never left me.

“In through the front door,
running round the back,
peeping through the window
and off jumps Jack!

It worked! By following the instructions in that little rhyme I was able to instantly pick up where I left of with my tea-cosey in 1988.

Anyway, I’d best start packing for my return to Sheffield. I’ll be there for a couple of weeks for the conference, and then of course to see Bjork!

Pygmy Shrew found in the kitchen this morning (it’s alive in case you were wondering). What a cutey little nose it has!

TTFN