WYTHNOS TRI - week 3

John was back this week so we had our usual class again. Today we spoke about 'Developing the context of your research & practice' and honestly, I still feel a bit lost with this module. I'm really hoping that it all falls into place at some point, soon. My idea for my project has developed a little bit again and I am leaning more towards skipping the Palestine element and focusing purely on Welsh history, language and culture. I think it just feels more focused and that I can do it justice.

We had previous students visit us this week so we met Josh Marriot and Ella Henry. I remember Josh from when I was studying my BA, he is now studying his PHD and got a scholarship from the Uni to be able to do so, this means he has to work 300 hours lecturing and it got me thinking.. is this a pathway into teaching that I want to look into? I know that one of the reasons to do my MA now was so that if and when I want to go into education I would have it already, but I also know that if you want to lecture at a university level then you need a PHD! This really was food for thought and although I don't know what I would do a PHD level, I guess that could come this year! Ella's story was also very interesting, she had come back to Uni after living away for some time and wanted to focus on identity and sustainability. It resonated with me a lot and I loved how she presented her work, that is why you're reading this journal on a website and not in a notebook. That and because we have to upload all of our work onto canvas for marking so it seems a bit silly to 'double work' as they'd say in H&M.

Anyway I digress, I got a lot from meeting both of them and when we spoke about our ideas for our MA project they offered some really great advice. Josh immediately googled Welsh Craft and it came up with some knitwear and weaving and he said that he could see the Welsh language being printed on to knitwear - a great idea which reminded me of my graduate collection where I used a lot of text and screen printed - this could be something!! Ella spoke more about the colonisation part and how she found that most interesting, she advised I watch the Kneecap documentary which is about Irish rappers. I had heard about them before from a Welsh Rapper Sage Todz so I will definitely look that up! I found it really inspiring talking to both Josh and Ella and it made me feel positive about my future after studying my MA.

We had our introduction to woodwork today too, the guy who runs the workshop is a character for sure! It was a long 3 hours and I'm not sure I'm going to use the workshop for my own practice but hey, it's always good to know how to drill something haha.