FOR FOX SAKE- Lessons learnt from my scholarship application. By @JoeySare

By Joe Sare

FOR FOX SAKE- Lessons learnt from my scholarship application.

You’re sitting in a dark room. There is one, solitary blue lightcasting spiked shadows across the post it-noted walls. The smell of oldcoffee sits thick, and a mixture of cigarette ash and toast crumbsscatter across the desk like atomic fallout. It's Friday night. You canhear the party downstairs, the singing, the coughs, the giggles. Butyou’re alone. Its 2am. You’re squinting eyes are darting throughpremier pro tutorials and you wonder; ‘how the fuck did I end upworking all hours of the day to edit footage of kids kicking a foxfur.’That was my life for weeks. On reflection, I learnt a lot aboutmyself. So here are a few lessons learnt.When I people ask me if I’m competitive, I’m resistant to say yes.Idon’t want to win everything, but when I pick a battle, I take it upto 11. This scholarship was one of those battles. I slept little, Imissed some great events, and I ignored a lot of people who actuallymatter to me. Of course I don’t regret my decisions (I mean, I won.Hell yeah), but I do need to requite myself. That’s not to say Ididn’t love working on a project so intensely, but there are moreproductive ways to work than just pushing for the 19 hour rule. It’sall well and good wanting to accomplish something, but I need tomanage my time better. So, lesson number 1 for myself; sort out yourlack of time management before you turn into a social reject vampire.Not only do I need to organise my time, but I need to spend less of itdirectly on the project. I’m reminded of a scene in the Inbetweenerswhere Will has been studying so long he begins to question if whathe’s reading are really words: ‘is this a word?... it doesn’t looklike a word’. There were points where I was buried so heavily into myproject that I had no idea if what I was doing was completelynonsensical or not. And only once you’ve been dragged out to look atthe bigger picture, does the little problem you’ve spent 6 hours onbecome blatantly obvious. Lesson 2; take a step back, and explain yourideas to others.I also realised I need a change of scenery before the start of term. Idid most of my scholarship application in my flat in Hackney Wick, andas fun as that was, sitting in this flat is not going to bloom anymore ideas. The days where I went out to work and met people wereoften the most productive. As Nicholas said in his first SCAB,creative stimulation is not bred out of a strict schedule orrepetition. To be honest, I have no idea where it comes from, but Ican be sure to say it doesn’t come from this same cold, grey London.So, if taking a holiday to reset my mental batteries is the answer,sign me up. Lesson three; change your schedule regularly or you’lllose interest.After re-reading this, it appears most of my lessons revolve aroundtime. It’s not something we have a lot of at SCA, so I guess my taskfor the remainder of the summer is to do a bit of mental calendarorganisation and management skills to work out how best to spend it.I hope I’m not too late to start.(As a side note, If any other newbies wanna link up, drop us an emailon joeysare@gmail.com, would be cool to meet a few of you and seewhere we’re all at before we start. I’ll be back in Londonmid-August.)