QUT : Year 2 Semester 1

This year started with a bang and seemed to drag on too long. It felt like this semester has more to do than the semesters last year. Things just kept on coming I found myself snowed in quite often. I slipped a few times, might even fell. But I guess I picked myself up just in time for the final throttle. Or at least I hope I did. I have a good feeling this time around. I hope it is the right feeling too.

Class #1: Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll
I know, right? Heh. My Uni rocks like that. What-what. This is the first elective I did. I thought hey, I like music so why not do an elective in music. I have quite a firm grasp on the rock scene so that would already put me on the map already. Well. Not really.

They started talking about old skool rock bands I have only heard the names of. Some I have not even heard before. I guess I would just have to play along. Not really either. Because my tutor started making us listen to weird noises/sounds/music and asked us what we thought about it. Honestly, it took be a while to figure out what was going on. Because "sex", "drugs" and "rock & roll", they are not just sex, drugs, and rock & roll. I have to keep reminding myself that it is not solely on the rock genre. Do not let the "rock & roll" fool you. Apparently, there are also "sonic narrative", "technology", "syncretism" and "authenticity". I would know that if I had listened to the podcast lectures and gone to the handful ones. Or maybe even paid attention in tutorials. Heh.

The lecturer is nice. I only saw him twice in this entire course, but we communicated more via emails. He is quite a good fellow. I like him. Peculiar with his red leather boots, but nice. Heh. My tutor is cool. He let us watch R Kelly's Trapped in the Closet every week before we begin anything for the day's class. "What could be more important that this?" He said. Heh. I knew on the first day of class he would ask us what we were listening to recently, and I made sure I was listening to Bell X1's Flocked so as not to embarrassed myself. But I do not think anyone knows who I was talking about. He owns a recording studio, but I do not really have an idea what he is doing there. I checked it out and the CDs are like, hundreds a pop. And like, right now, he is touring around Japan. And I have no idea what he is doing in the tour. Heh. But he is laidback.

So. This unit we have two major assignments. One is the whole E-zine thing and the other a take home exam. I know, right? The E-zine thing. Nothing like an E-zine. I mean, yeah, we have volumes and issues on our unit website. But what it really is, is just a bunch of articles grouping together based on their common theme - "sex", "drugs", "rock & roll", and "sonic narrative". I teamed up with a local and a Korean for this assignment working on "rock & roll". There was another local but apparently she dropped out. I never liked her anyway. I did not think she likes me either. So. The three of us were like so confused when we grouped together. We spent an entire class mulling in our own confusion. Heh. But fortunately, we came up with a plan just in time. It just was not really bulletproof for me. But I had to follow through. This is what I came up with. Totally out of my radar but I guess I pulled it off.

The take home exam. Well. Quite self-explanatory. We get to do this "exam" at home in the span of one week. It was OK. The questions were given out beforehand anyway. Hit some bumps on the way, but nothing to complain about. It is basically just like what I would crap in this blog, but with Harvard references and a word limit (which I totally exceeded) and a grade. Heh.

 

Class #2: Media Writing
I do not think I would enjoy the class as much as I did if I did not have ideas for my assignments to begin with. But lucky me then, the ideas came to me during my summer break back home. I jot it down and was oh so ready to put them into the scripts.

The lecturer/tutor was nice. Bluest eyes I have ever seen in a lecturer/tutor. He kind of talks funny. He jokes sometimes, but it is not like really really funny. But it is evident that he is passionate in film and TV. He knows everything at the back of his hands, he has awesome short films made and even a TV show airing in Australia now I think. Unlikely Travellers or something. Something like a reality TV show, something like Amazing Race only nobody gets eliminated, and the travelers are all mentally challenged. He "premiered" the first episode in one of the lectures. It was so awesome, people applauded.

Three assignments for this class. Two scripts. One with a 5 minutes duration and no dialogue. Another with a 8-10 minutes duration. I will not go into details for the former (actually, I will not for both). But a friend is helping me make it into a film. So. Hopefully it works. Fingers crossed. Another assignment is to write a documentary proposal. This is the only assignment I do not have an idea about. I came out with it in quite a rush. These assignments are due like maybe just two to three weeks apart, not to mention assignments from my other subjects too. But fortunately, I came up with something. Whether it works or not, I cannot say as of yet. But I should be lucky if I even pass this assignment.

Quite an enjoyable class, this one. Makes me hopeful that someday I can write scripts, produce them and get rich. Of course unless I die trying.

 

Class #3: Creative Writing: Digital Media
I almost dropped this subject and broke it. Probably it was because the workshop started at 9AM every Thursday and lasted for three hours. It was too early to be comprehensive. I did not spoke at all in probably 8 of the 13 classes. Heh. But then again, I do not speak much anyway. And you know how I do not like going to computer classes in Uni.

At one point, I decided I hate this class the most this semester because I fucked up so much. Heh. And the assignments were kind of very time consuming. But then. Just as we were easing into the second assignment, I kind of started to like it again. But that does not mean the assignments were not kind of very time consuming anymore.

I got the same lecturer for my The Short Story tutor. He is cool. Lighthearted and humourous. So the class is not all that bad. Sometimes, he talks about how awesome Heroes is too. Heh. I can live with that.

Why I said I almost dropped this subject and broke it is because I was kind of on the wrong wavelength. I did not really get the important due dates right for a few times, which could probably damage things. And I thought we had only one big assignment when actually we had two.

First one is a digital story, which I like to tell my friends it is a PowerPoint slide-like lo-fi video. Because it is. I guess why I loathed this subject at a point was because I did not really know how to work out the programs we were using for this assignment. I used Audacity for the first time and because Mr Brightside was on the dark side with the PCs, I lost some voice clips I recorded. Bah. And because I was doing the assignment on my high school marching band, a lot of my resources were back home and like, non-existent anymore. It was probably two weeks to the due date when I realised what a silly idea it was to do something back home. But. Lady luck was kind to me. I was able to find a friend who had a song we performed I needed and she was on a break back home as well and she could go over to our high school and snap some pictures for me. And I figured out Audacity.

Honestly, I almost gave up this 30% assignment. I was just at a low point of the semester and I just crashed. The due date was near and I still have not gotten anything done and the other assignments were really really bugging me. Fortunately, there were a few good friends that night to see me through. As well as a kindhearted lecturer who would gladly grant me an extension just in case I could not make it in time. I managed to put together something decent and handed in on the initial due date too. So thank you to the good people out there.

I am still contemplating showing you guys what I came up with because there is a dorky high school picture and my squeaky voice so. Yeah. No.

The other assignment, which I thought was a part of the first assignment, is to create a hypertext. Kind of like an online story but with a non-linear narrative. This was one of the assignments which I, after coming up with an idea, did not follow through with it and rushed to work on a second more bulletproof one. Turns out alright. Initially, it was just the whole six-degrees thing like Babel or Crash. It did not feel right. But. Eskimo friend to the rescue. And I decided to finally work on a time traveling premise which he could not stop talking about. Eskimo friend approved it. My group mates approved it. I approved it. Would you approve it? It gave me a chance to put my rusty web designing talent to use again after such a long hiatus. And I am quite happy with what I came up with. I hope this assignment can bring me far.

 

Class #4: Creative Writing: The Novel
Now this class is exhausting. Because we have to read a novel practically every week just in time for a response of the week's novel on the Uni website. I would not give a damn if my grades did not depend on it so much. These are the books I read:

... Pinocchio in Venice : Robert Coover
... French Lieutenant's Woman : John Fowles
... Jane Eyre : Charlotte Bronte *
... The Secret Garden : F H Burnett *
... The Wizard of Earthsea : Ursula K Le Guin
... 100 Years of Solitude : Gabriel Garcia Marquez *
... The Big Sleep : Raymond Chandler
... Fahrenheit 451 : Ray Bradbury *
... Where The Wild Things Are : Maurice Sendak
... Plot Against America : Philip Roth *

I bought five of them when I was still in Malaysia and loved them all (marked *). Most of the books were awesome. So yeah.

We had to write a novel proposal and everything revolves around it. This was another assignment I switched idea. It was just in time for the essay due in the middle of the semester. I hated that essay. I took it over to Melbourne to work on it, but only wrote half of it. I came back, skipped a day's classes to write another half of it, and submitted it the very next day. It came back a mere pass. But well. It was crap anyway.

We had to also critique two to three people's novel introduction for the final assignment in class every week too. I mean. It is tiring enough speed reading a novel a week, but to read the introductions, most of the time my heart was not really there. But oh well. Time flied. Most of them had pretty awesome story ideas and I could really see their works progressing into full fledge novels one day. Mine was pretty awesome too, if I do say so myself. Haha. Initially, the story idea was a grade C love story plot (to quote the Eskimo friend) so I switched to work on a similar premise as A Move Script Ending from last semester. In my first critiquing, it did not go through a lot of people. It did not go through me too because I did not really spend a lot of time with it. But then, something happened and it worked fine well during my re-write and yeah, everyone liked it the second time. I shall work out putting it online soon.