The trouble with studying things is that you end up with the idea that you actually know things. It's frustrating, because everybody outside the university will give you that look whenever you start talking about something you studied, and you never know why.  Then you go and do something "in the real world" and you suddenly discover all your knowledge is about as encompassing, in-depth and useful as a paper doily in a hurricane, with about the same effect. And then you listen to up-coming graduates talking about the latest management strategies and you nod, and smile, and find your face has just composed itself into that look.

Reminding yourself that you don't know things is an important habit to have. It stops you being in insufferable know-it-all, for one thing (guilty). It stops you being complacent, and transitioning from complacent to downright lazy. But most of all, it keeps your mind open to glean things you can learn.

That's a crucial skill for a writer; being open to new information and being able to recognise its value, even if you don't have a particular use for it right now. I travelled to Norway a few months ago as part of a two-month holiday and went dogsledding in -35 degrees celcius. I gave myself frostbite and learnt new definitions for cold, pain and idiocy. I learnt that Australians really don't know the meaning of the word 'cold'; that at a low enough temperature your nerves stop processing 'cold' and switch straight to 'pain';  that even sensible people make really stupid decisions when they have hypothermia; and that if you let your hands get cold enough, no amount of swinging them around or sticking them in gloves is going to restart your circulation without external heat.

Oh, and that frostbite hurts like an angry, swearing orangutang with nuclear weaponry.

I don't have a use for that information right now, but even as I was dancing in agony with my hands clamped into a bowl of hot water, a small maniacal part of my brain was going "look, isn't this fascinating! Let's look at this closely, exactly what does this feel like?" The rest of my brain was shouting "shut the hell up you insane monkey this feels like pain" but the little maniac sat there and took notes anyway. 

You can bet somewhere along the way there'll be someone in a story of mine getting some very authentic frostbite in -35 degrees, and probably being a hell of a lot braver than I was.

The lesson inherent in this is to keep doing things you've never done, things you don't know how to do, and things you're really really bad at. Open your mind, and learn as much as you can while you're doing it, because you never know what little detail is going to give your work that ring of veracity or what little nugget will inspire a whole story. So go do stuff, and let the maniacal little writermonkey take notes.