Mapping and First Mentoring Session

So for the mentoring session we had to produce a map. I was feeling kind of nervous and tense about the whole thing. Like I know I needed the guidance and way of focusing but I felt like my project had barely progressed since the territories, and it hadn't. I think the joint project threw everyone though, so the mapping was a way of focusing again, which helped but going back I realised how much I had intended to do compared to what I had actually done. I'd produced nothing during the joint project because I was disheartened by that whole experience, which was made worse by the fact it was such a good brief, and being a total comic book geek, when I first read the brief I thought it would be a fun week. But anyways... back to the project.

The mapping brought some things to light that I'd been grappling with, like how to bring some theory into the whole project, using the things Mathilda had suggested but they just didn't really link so I ended up with a big gulf in between. I ended up grasping on this word "discourse" but it was not really working with everything else I was doing, so again, that contributed to the gap. It was total clucthing at straws on my side.

The map was for my first mentoring session, as I said before, with Matt, Fleur, Jake, Liam, Mo and Rio. It really helped a lot, because I'd been floundering, not really sure where to go next. I got pretty inspired by everything but scared as well. One of the things I have to do is start up a debating society, and Matt was suggesting creating like an alter ego or something. It's exactly the kind of thing I hate. I can barely present to the mentor group without freaking, so this going to be incredibly hard. It's good though, because I'll have to push myself right out of my comfort zone and to be honest, I'm not sure yet what I'll get out of it, but that's the point in it because oppurtunities for design and intervention will keep cropping up. Already there is the design of everything surronding the society [as long as I can get it off the ground] to work with.

I have an actual to do list now;

- Dash MacDonald - I need to look at his stuff, see if maybe I can get in contact with him.
- Look into people who train public speakers
- Find and visit established debating socities
- Explore rhetoric
- Rules and strcutures for debate
- Design a soap box
- Design my society
- Look at conviction and belief, designing it
- Read some "how to be a better public speaker" books or something similar
- Look at Barack Obama
- Visit Speaker's Corner [I guess a really good thing would to be actually to speak there.]