On the surface, the back end of 2025 appears a curiously quiet coda to an explosive summer, with nary any evidence nor scandal to show for it. Yet the last few months have become some of the most fulfilling of my life.
Returning to the Academy for the second year of my Foundation degree, I realise how much I have changed since I first started my studies. Doubtful uncertainty has been supplanted by self-assured belonging, and I have become a familiar, welcome presence on campus. Often dropping by on the off days to see how the new cohort is settling in.
This year’s Freshers have been eager to learn and especially keen to socialise, already embracing opportunities brought by the many international crews passing through our studios. Through my twin roles as Mentor and Wellbeing Executive, I offer what support and guidance I may to help keep their heads above the craziness – sharing advice, wisdom and empathy in every act. Although Daryl’s Daily Affirmations are delivered with tongue wedged firmly in cheek, they are no less sincere in their intent to embolden the best.
For my studies, I can honestly state I have never felt as supported, encouraged, and especially challenged before. All with a will to push my academic potential further, towards deeper understanding and ability to express my intent. A credible credit to the wonderful lecturers I have engaged with so far.
Things will knuckle down to more practical endeavours as January continues, when I return to the studios to hone my skills in Live Audio mixing and Visual Production design. Subjects I’m already exploring in the time between terms, a routine I find ever-easier to sustain as I indulge my ongoing will to learn.
My course comes to an end in June, but mechanisms are in motion towards Postgraduate progression. Having already submitted a draft Masters proposal, I seek to embrace the potency of Creative Technology to explore the narrative of who we have become. How society has evolved through mass interconnection, and how best we can tell immersive stories reflective of the age.
This is an opportunity to combine my many disparate interests into an area of formal research. Looking back to my tech career, combining it with what I currently study in the live space, and sprinkling more than a little mojo from my esoteric escapades. All of which demands advance reading across multiple disciplines, if not planning how to finance it all!
This focus has taken necessary toll on my travels and external interests. Save a handful of shows, I have barely socialised off-campus this year, increasingly distant from the music and culture that sustains me. Time and money are both at a premium and I must ration my excesses carefully, with the money stashed by prior to this already funding my future. Saying that, I’ll still ring in the New Year with a sneaky trip to Hamburg and The Ruins of Beverast before term resumes.
Despite this paucity of pleasure, I have been no less prone to injury. From fracturing my toe in September to undergoing unrelated surgery in November, my body has sustained its fair share of scrapes and slashes amid the stress of study. Recovery continues, and although further attention may be needed in the weeks ahead, I’m at least back on my feet again – attending to an inadvertently burgeoned waistline with every step forward.
Looking ahead to 2026, I know it will be a profoundly cumulative year of great achievement and higher ambition, as lifelong plans finally fall into place. Yet I cannot help but frame the months to come within the greater concerns of the moment.
Despite a necessary detachment from most online distractions, the shrill, escalating calls to war and treachery resound, echoing in the uncertainty of my peers and the futures they strive to forge for themselves.
Lies, betrayal, and abject mockery cast down from elected officials through controlled media present little more than provocation – the final recourse of those without principle. Further amplified by pundits, embodied and programmed, in the cultivation of despair. In this Age of Illusion, perception is truth and gaslighting blatant, with no solution offered beyond futile, simmering strife.
There is no counter but to sustain authentic, human connections, as I continue my work on campus and beyond. Helping others grow into themselves through compassion and integrity, building bridges between the like-minded, and nurturing alternative means of communication beyond such divisive, manufactured polemic.
And that is my challenge for the year(s) to come.