Psychology Seminar VS Collingwood Football Player

This week I attended a free 45-minute psychology seminar designed to provide athletes with information on performance anxiety. In theory the idea was great, to provide athletes, parents and coaches with easy access to this kind of useful information. In reality, however, the session was confusing and repetitive and will not be the reason that I will remember this particular night for years to come.

After the session had concluded, with a group of friends who had also been in attendance, we headed down Claredon Street to grab some dinner. Although the name of the restaurant I can’t recall and the food that I ate was nothing particularly special, I will make an effort to return to this little Italian place in the future.  The reason behind this being that in this particular spot, on a Monday night, there was a special Collingwood fan evening taking place, one featuring Dane Swan!

Now, I am not even a Collingwood supporter but I cannot say the same for a few of my friends, so naturally the night quickly took a turn towards ‘do whatever possible to get a photo with Dane Swan!’ At first this was through the sneaky selfies with small, blurred and unrecognisable figure of a man in a cap present in the background. As we finished our meals, however, one of my friends built up the courage to ask a waitress if she could inquire over the chances of us getting a quick snap with him on our way out. She replied, “I’m sure that would be okay” at which instantly our excitement escalated. This was short lived though, as she promptly returned to explain, “I’m sorry, it’s not okay. People have payed $75 to be here tonight so we can’t allow it.” Heads hung, we headed defeated out the door and took off down the street thinking of what could have been. We had only managed a few meters though when we heard the call of “Girls! Girls!” ushering us back inside.

The store manager had mistaken us as regulars and as we re-entered the building he promised us that he would see what he could arrange for his loyal customers. 45 minutes later, we emerged from the restaurant victorious! He had not just managed any photo for us, he had organised a professional photo, printed in A4 size and signed by Dane Swan himself for absolutely not cost, other than our patients. There is absolutely no doubt that we now all feel obliged to return back to this spot again!

 

Unfortunately we only received one copy of the photo, but here is a ‘photo of the photo’ taken on my phone.

Practice makes Perfect

So this week the assigned reading by Adrian Miles, Blogs in Media, really helped me to understand a little about what is involved in blogging, which is much needed coming from a very much blog illiterate background! It gave me a real basic understanding of things as simple as what a blog is and how it can be used. In being written specifically for educators looking to incorporate blog work into their courses, it further helped me to gain more of an understanding over the purposes of blogs and their use in the Networked Media course. I also found it comforting in that Miles highlighted that blogs take practice and are not something that you can pick up right away, so with the motto of practice makes perfect in mind let’s hope that my new blog will only get better with time.

 

 

Got to Start Somewhere…

In last week’s tutorial we were introduced to the world of blogs and blogging. Personally outside of Facebook I don’t have much of an online presence and even through the existence of my Facebook account I am not one to frequently post. This in mind, the idea of now having my own blog where I am required to post regularly has come across as quite daunting.

I can’t say that working through the checklist (or Blog Audit Form) of various things that we would learn to do on our blog pages in this first class made me feel much more comfortable. At the same time, however, I realised that this was a chance for me to step outside my comfort zone and try something unfamiliar even though it may not be a success at first or even ever. It is early days and right now I am looking at my new blog as a challenge and remembering that you always have to start somewhere!

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