Been MOOC'd lately?

In making the leap from the corporate office to running a cattle property, I had to go through numerous adjustments ... as you can imagine.
My work at Virgin Blue was implementing change at the corporate level. I was bumping heads with strong-willed general managers. It was extremely intellectually challenging to navigate their ambitions yet change their ways of working to help consolidate a young, fast growing company.
In coming to Spring Creek, I missed the fiery, stimulating intellectual debate my relationships at VB had afforded me.
I've had to look for new avenues for intellectual stimulation.
It's not that living in the bush isn't intellectually challenging at times. You are more often than not drawn into significant problem solving - the dozer stuck in a dam, the fallen windmill that has to be re-erected ... and these are more frequent occurrences than most would like.

Cute Jewish Professor

But ... it's different.
Then I discovered MOOC's (Massive Open On-line Courses)! They are brilliant. They are delivered over the internet, they're free and they're university standard.

The view from my office

I've just finished my first one: Neurons, Synapses and the Brain.
I sat in my remote farm house, looking out across the paddock, listening to a cute Jewish professor instruct me on the intricacies of neuroscience - at the perfect level for my current understanding. Brilliant!

A dendritic tree - a neural network

Discovering www.coursera.org has definitely filled a hole for me.
I now understand the current thinking and research on the workings of the brain. Why do I want to know about that, you ask?
Of course it isn't just for the pure fun of it ... it's research for my next book.
But overall, I guess it's about finding my way in a remote, isolated community. I still want to grow and develop and learn. I want to think along new lines and explore new avenues such as ... do we really have free will or are our actions dictated by the neural networks in our brain? Now that's an interesting debate and has sparked a few conversations.
Can't wait for my next MOOC and to see where that will lead my thinking!