For the last year, I’ve been trying to learn French. Last year, much of it spent housebound in lockdown and unable to go outside into the world, I had more time to focus on picking up a new language skill and devoting lots of hours towards it. This year with the Christmas break in-between, the […]
How Your Brain Works
Recently Megan Strant (@meganstrant) and I were walking the Elwood Canals (you can see what they’re like in the video below – thank you Megan for making me aware of this walk which I didn’t know about!). She mentioned to me about the importance of morning routines that help us set our day and give […]
Learning with Lupin
So I’ve been watching this show on Netflix and it is thoroughly entertaining. I’ve not heard of the character before but that’s because I’m not French. You could consider him to be a French Sherlock Holmes I had no idea they were books which you can download and find on Gutenberg (thank you to Paulina […]
Barefoot Bowls, Beers and Burgers and a Sense of Place
Last year during lockdown, we were unable to get out of a 5 kilometre radius from our home due to restrictions and curfews to prevent the spread of the virus. Having this restriction for some months made me realise a lot of things about the friendships and relationships I have with my local community, neighbours […]
Pétanque et Pastis
Last year I spent much of it in lockdown which meant hours spent at home to do a lot of thinking. I’m at a time in my life where I’m beginning to think about the next phase of my life. One focused less about work and career and instead, more about being there for my […]
Transformation
In this post I write about 2021 being the year of transformation.
Reading Challenge for 2020
My year in 2020 consisted of a LOT of reading much of it due to being in lockdown for much of it. Every year, I set myself up a Reading Challenge using the GoodReads app. Over the years, the pace of reading books has increased however, it means it’s at the expense of doing some […]
What Would You Do If You Didn’t Have to Work
Recently I asked this question on Twitter because I was inspired by some of the arguments presented in Daniel Susskind’s new book, A World Without Work. I’ll have a video review of this available soon as I am still collecting notes and also asking questions to others about this. In the book, he argues that […]
What is Life Long Learning?
Although this is not a definition I looked up anywhere but basing it on my own understanding and my own experience of it, I would say lifelong learning is the practice of continuing learning through your entire life. It’s not entangled with the trivialities of the questions of ‘what’, ‘how’ and even ‘who’ is responsible. […]
Experiment With Your Art
Yesterday I spent some time with my father in his work studio. Over the years, I have spent countless hours watching him work and usually, while he paints, he talks about what he’s doing and why. Before I know it, observation becomes a lesson. I have no idea why I haven’t picked up on this […]
It’s All Greek To Me
I find when people say, “It’s All Greek To Me” amusing. As someone who comes from a Greek background and speaking the language (albeit a butchered version of it) growing up in Melbourne, there were times in my life when I was embarrassed by my Greekness. With a name of Helen, a long surname with […]
The Wonder of Working with Creative Teams
I’m working on a fake news channel on Snapchat and here I put some reflections down on the value I’m receiving from being part of this creative team. The Wonder of Creating with Teams This blog post by Helen Blunden was written in Melbourne, Australia and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Never […]
What Do I Suck At?
I am going through all my DRAFT posts that are sitting on my WordPress site that have long gone unpublished and I came across this one that was written in 2013. At the time, it made such an impact but I was too fearful to publish it but now that I read it again, I’ve […]
Ticking Off The Dreams List
I’m someone who likes to curate various blog posts and insert links, posts, graphics etc into them in WordPress but I may not hit the Publish button. So there’s a steady collection (and building) of DRAFT blog posts. This morning while doing my monthly clean up of the back end of WordPress, updating plugins, checking […]
What on Earth is Block Chain?
I have an admission to make. I have no idea what is blockchain and bitcoin but there seems to be a lot of people on the internet who do. Or maybe many people who think they do. I’ll be the first to put up my hand and yell from the top of the data centres […]
Learning is Like Fitness
This year as I started my fitness routine, I was reminded by a quote by Addison who said that “Reading to the mind is what exercise is to the body“. Now I’m not one who loves exercise. In fact, I hate it. I do it because I have to. Every time, I come up with […]
A Case for Chasing the Shiny and New
When was the last time you heard that you shouldn’t be chasing the shiny and the new or risk your time, money and sanity with new fads? Recently I read Steve Wheeler’s post on Binge Learning where he recounted the story of his obsession with academic studies. The “compelling nature of the content I was […]
If I Were 22
This post is part of a LinkedIn series in which we share lessons for this month’s theme If I Were 22. Here is what I shared on a recent LinkedIn post… If you had a time machine and you travelled back to the age of 22, what would you do differently in your life? What […]
Why You Need DIY Learning
Years ago I used to visit my aunt and uncle on the other side of town. Every time I got out of the car outside their home, my arms laden with baked goodies to have for our afternoon tea together, I would sneak a look next door and check the progress of their neighbour’s DIY […]
How To Make More Time In Your Day
Sorry you can’t. I led you here to this blog post under false pretense. We all have 24 hours per day. That’s it. No more, no less. You can stop reading here if you like. Sorry to disappoint… Tomorrow I’ll be flying up to Sydney to attend the Australian Institute of Training and Development National […]