By Jonothan Hunt

Counting Down to SCA

2 books down. 2 scholarships entered. And in the top 10.

This has been a busy time for me. I’ve learned to conduct and tune a choir, ready for our post-graduation tour. I did a speech in my graduation about the need for creativity and passionate teaching in schools, which went really well.

I put everything I could into my scholarship entries and while I achieved top 10, the other entries I’ve seen are incredible- posing a serious and beautiful competition. My fingers are now so crossed that they’ve switched places.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking of doing a Kickstarter for a new laptop, as the current one takes around 10 minutes to render any changes I make while video-editing. I would release music I’ve made as goals are reached. I’ve received interest and if time permits it in this crazy schedule, I’ll do it.

I’ve made my way through How to Be Creative and Your Memory… which at first were both slightly hard work but fascinating once in. Also, I felt quite clever reading them, as usually I’m more into big pictures and visuals generally. Not to say I don’t like a good book, but I get more excited by magazines. With ads in them.

I write this in a youth hostel. If you just arrived and looked at it, you’d notice nothing special; it’s the people here that make it better than any hotel. They’re all people like me, they don’t need money to enjoy themselves and have great fun. There’s a BBQ outside, everyone’s contributed either to the food, or music or both. I’m so happy that people like this exist; this creativity and this warmth is what our world so desperately needs, which is related to what I said in the speech I wrote:

“As the great challenges in this ever changing world rise, people will rise, and it is education like this and movements like this that will be needed. Because it’s not exams and economy-lead curriculums that create revolution and change in this world, it’s education that puts that world and new generations first, and it’s teachers that see beyond tomorrow.”

The SCA is an example of such a movement. Converse to outdated views that advertising only steals from people’s minds and pocket, I believe that it’s a universal tool that can change lives, and use big money to do so- and it’s our generation that will harness this power to the full.

I hope one day to facilitate scholarships for those coming to places like this- I know how much one would mean to me. I mean y’know if we got £1 billion to give to the far right, maybe we can rustle something up for fantastic courses like this.

I am gutted not to be making it to the end-of-year party on the 13^th, but I wish all the best to attendees- both those going out into the big ad-land and to those who like me have now bitten through their nails and are now onto their wrists in the hopes of winning a scholarship.