QUT : Year 2 Semester 2

To be honest, I had not much heart for this final semester. Probably got off on the wrong foot, and it did not help much when you have somehow lost faith in yourself in writing as well. I guess I should have made the most of this one last semester in University. Paid more attention in class. Tried harder to get better grades. Made the last attempt to blend into the crowd and stand out. Instead, I skipped a lot of classes. So many that by the time the last few weeks came, I was surprised to realise how fast time had passed me by. So many that by the time everything ended, I did not feel this burden lifted off of me, as it had been lifted off practically at the beginning of the semester. There might not even had been a weight at all.

Unlike last semester, three of my four studying days in the week started at 10AM. You know how I am with morning classes, and especially since after I had created a sort of writing pattern of my own first thing in the morning. I was not very pleased I had to sacrifice that for classes. So. Being in bed every morning seemed like a better choice than getting ready for classes.

 

Class #1: Photomedia and Artistic Practice
This is a photography class. I was quite excited about it when I heard of its existence, quickly signed myself up when I could. But the novelty sort of wore off as quickly as I stepped into my first classes. Mind you, the lecturer was quite an enthusiastic old lady - whom one of my friends dubbed a lady Tim Burton with her wrinkled skin and long crooked fingers - and she had been quite helpful in the few times I had asked for help.

I was just not really comfortable when things got so technical. That we have to watch out for so many technicalities that have nothing to do with the nature of taking photographs. I do not mean to sound snobbish; in fact, when this class was over I do feel a little left behind when everyone who took notes on those things got better grades than I. Throughout my years in QUT, I realised that studying writing did no good for my writing. Yes, I have learned that few things, but along the way, I went a little uptight and destroyed everything I touched. So yes, my fault. Did not say it was not. Thus, I just stay away from the tiniest knick knacks of photo taking, fearing that would somehow hinder the interest I have for photographing. And of course, being in a computer lab at 10AM is not cool. For me. I skipped the most classes for this subject. Did not do as well as my friends in the first three assignments as well. But well. I am not aiming for anything higher anyway.

We have four problem-solving assignments and a folio plus an artist's statement. Four problem-solving: pictorialism, still life, abstraction and redeeming the homely. Most of my pictures were the ones I have taken before in trips and back in Malaysia. So I guess I am quite grateful that I rapidly took pictures all these while. The folio is self-directed and we can do whatever we want, as long as it is in the premise of what we had studied. Mine was what I have shown in the previous post. Heh. I have gotten quite good feedbacks from friends and the lecturer, but the verdict still remains, so we shall see how I fair out.

All in all, I would say this is quite an easy class to score a High Distinction. After all, it is only just going around taking pictures. No writing involved except for that artist's statement, which is really nothing compared to a 6000 word novel draft. It is only me who decided not to try my hardest and very best, is all. It is just a principle thing.

 

Class #2: Creative Writing Project 1
Gawd. This class was gruesome. A 6000 word novel submission. The most dreadful assignment throughout my years in QUT. Only one class per week, but a good three hours at that. The lecturer skipped a lot of classes at one point, but then after that, I just stopped going.

In my opinion, this class would only work for and be useful for you if you already had a novel in the making and are really serious in having it go places. Because all we ever do is re-write, edit and critique, re-write, edit and critique. Rinse and repeat. So we have the lecturer give us the latest news in the writing and publishing world - Do you know: In Australia, Dymocks kind of bought over Borders; In the UK, Borders was sold to not a company, but a single man - and we have to like read out loud one "beautiful" sentence "from the wild" and another from our works, other than that, it is just boring writers' stuff.

What I do not like about this class, is that we got arranged into different crit groups so damn often I just do not know what to do anymore. We even have like different types of editing to do. There is this structural editing, which I do not know what the heck I am supposed to do, I even felt stupid asking for help. In the end, I did not get as much help for my story as I expected. In The Novel and The Short Story from my previous semesters, I got back a stack of feedbacks from practically the entire class. This one. I only got like, a handful. Mind you, not that I wanted much feedback on the story I worked on, seeing that it sucked in the first place anyway, but it is just a little frustrating when I got lost. Does not help either when your classmates wrote the most confusing pieces ever you do not know where to start critiquing them. Sheesh. Just makes me feel stupider than ever.

 

Class #3: Youth and Children's Writing
Quite an interesting class. We mostly just dealt with children and young adult fiction writing, and a lot of my course mates did show a great liking for it as well. But being the jaded person that I am this semester, it was just another class.

Like The Novel, we had to read a list of books, which were all shorter, but I did not read half of the list anyway.

... The Virgin Suicides : Jeffrey Eugenides *
... Deadly, Unna? : Philip Gwynne
... The Curious Incident of the Dog at the Night-time : Mark Haddon *
... Sleeping Dogs : Sonya Hartnett *
... Twelve : Nick McDonell
... Northern Lights : Philip Pullman
... How I Live Now : Meg Rosoff
... The Arrival : Shaun Tan *
... Seven Little Australians : Ethel Turner
... Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo : Tim Winton

I only enjoyed a few books in this subject (noted *), especially Shaun Tan's, which happens to be a marvellous graphic novel instead. We have to pick a book to present during tutorial and I picked his book. The lecturer had quite detailed lectures on every book and they seemed quite interesting most of the time. Plus, an exam.

But. See. The real gist of this subject, was not the books but the creative piece we hand in during mid-semester instead. We have to write a 2,500 word piece - be it academic writing or a creative piece - and by the end of the semester, a handful of us was picked to have a reading in front of the class, and from these selected few, three winners would be picked to win gift vouchers. That got everyone hyped up. Everyone was included, including those writing academic essays as well, but we all know that is not going to happen. What would you rather hear, a story of a boy's adventure to destroy a bully's handbook, or a bunch of ramble on the Harry Potter phenomenon?

 

Class #4: Writing and Publishing Industry
This class seemed to make me the most depressed when I thought of my situation in being a writer. Cannot even find a good idea to write well and already I am figuring out how to get it published. Seems a little far fetched, no? Anyway, we had interesting guest speakers over to talk and sometimes, it got quite motivating. Other times, rather downhearted.

Quite a boring class compared to the others, but mostly we were just to write essays. Got one to write a report on a Brisbane Writers' Festival's panel we attended, and another on an Australian writer. We were supposed to argue something in the latter essay, but was not sure what was there to argue about for a writer's career. I picked Venero Armanno, author of The Dirty Beat, an interesting book I bought off the Festival. Turns out he is a lecturer in University of Queensland and he had wrote about ten novels that went unpublished before his first publication. Now, that is something motivating and humble. I think.

Another assignment is to come up with a publishing plan for a book we are "working on". I chose to plan out the story I wrote for the creative piece for Youth and Children's Writing. It was quite a fun thing to do, since I am one to kind of like planning stuff. I get to come up with interesting marketing ideas that I do not need to consider its practicality. Heh. Fun, really, to some extent.

 

So, there you go. At the end of my University days, I did the exact opposite instead. Forgive me that I sounded so ranting and cynical. One cannot help it when one has bigger problems to worry about. Just like that, done with Uni.

What now, Miss Writer?

A collection of portraits

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.

QUT : Year 1 Semester 2

Our mid-semester break was not until the tenth week. By the time we returned to Uni for classes, I just wanted to die already. I felt so lethargic and I just kept on skipping classes for no valid reasons at all. Also, curse those evening lectures. Bah. Despite that, time flew. Once again, I was left confused as to how I have managed to waste my time away. Had I been daydreaming in classes again. Had I been sleepwalking. Alas.

Class #1: Narratives in Creative Industries
The core subject for this semester and the last that I will see ever in this course since I have been exempted from the other two. I am not really a big fan of this subject. When am I ever for core subjects. I was confused in the first few lectures when they were telling us about simple and complex narratives. I did not even know what narratives is all about. Maybe I still do not.

The main lecturer was an old Irish Australian. Everybody loves him; I do not know why. He had applauses after every lecture, which was not a lot. Half of the time, it was another woman delivering lectures and another quarter is scattering guest lectures. So he was a funny guy, he jumps around when conducting his lectures and he speaks about controversial stuff that everyone loves. But I do not think he deserves applauses after every lecture. He was probably as funny as my other lecturer. I do not see that guy getting applauses. Sheesh. Besides, he has a tendency of either being late or not showing up at all. Some of our lectures were cancelled because he was off in another part of the world. That kind of ticked me off.

This lecturer has an assistant that is the unit coordinator for the subject. I still do not understand him following the lecturer around and apologising to us when the old man cannot turn up on time. The news was that he had to step up to the plate at the last minute because the previous unit coordinator bailed out at the last minute. So each week’s topic was a little out of control and we always get last minute emails about tomorrow’s postponed/cancelled class. The assignments did not really align with the ones mentioned in the outline as well. But I do not blame this guy. He is positioned at the last minute. I mean, I would definitely fuck things up too if a huge project is shoved into my arms just like that. Besides that, he is a flamboyant fellow I like to check out, carrying his big Country Road duffel bag with his pair of aviator shades on. He arranges his hair a little too often and walks around with a slight jig in his steps. He had me at hello, announcing himself the whipped boy and the bitch.

But God bless my tutor. She is such a lovely lady. I have her tutorial before the lecture on Mondays and truthfully, I have gotten more out of the subject from her than from the lectures. We watched shows and movies every week that has something to do with the week’s topic. We watched The Simpsons, The Family Guy, The General, Singing in the Rain, Fahrenheit 9/11, Doom and so on. I looked forward to the tutorials because I get to see shows and movies.

The assignments were a little unclear because we were free to do practically anything. Just because it is narratives. Of course I would freak a little since I do not know what narratives is. I tread the assignments cautiously. Fortunately, I have gotten decent grades so far. So I hope the final assignment, which was the largest portion of the percentage, did me well. The first assignment was to write an essay about our “first”. The second part for it was to dissect another tutorial mate’s essay according to stuff we learned in the lectures. People wrote about first heartbreaks, first encounter with death, first day of school. You know. I wrote about my first time smoking. Yeah. I rule. The second assignment was to dissect two narratives pieces. I have no idea what I did in this assignment but I scored well so alright. The third assignment, we were to create a narrative piece on an autobiographical or a biographical memory. We can choose whichever ways to present say memory: dance, art, story, music. Whatever. So I chose to do a collage instead of writing. Look, when in a course all you ever do is write, when there is a chance to do your assignment in another form, heck yeah. I unintentionally stayed up the entire night working on this assignment. Which was the first since I got here. The artwork was generally a good idea when I first came up with it. But halfway through putting it together, I found it rather ridiculous and diagnosed myself an official creep. Because I am. Oh gawd of course I am not telling you what I have done. But if ever I score a say, 6 for this subject, maybe I will consider putting up a picture of the artwork. Sure, it has something to do with my Eskimo friend.

 

Class #2: Creative Writing: The Short Story
Word had it that we would only be working on a short story for the entire semester. How fucking cool was that? But we had to submit twice so we might as well work on two stories.

The first assignment was the earliest assignment so far; submission in Week 5. Of course I freaked out. It would take me about two months to get used to a new semester. I have not got my head wrapped around the subject and already I have to get a story up? Yikes. So needless to say, I handed in crap.

I wrote – no, rewrote – a story I had a very long while back. It was about a bunch of manmade robots I named Artificials. Because it was supposed to be a novel, there were plenty of scenes to work on when the decision was made to cram everything into a 1500-word piece. At first I settled for a scene that would go deeper into a father and son relationship. I was about to expand the horizon when I realised just last semester I did such a plot for my Film and TV Scriptwriting class. Just like that, the idea was eliminated and I went for one with a lame futuristic fight.

It failed quite miserably. Everyone thought it was a bad idea, including me. My Eskimo friend warned me not to ever write a sci-fi story again to at least save the present people’s fantasy on a futuristic world. The rewriting process was tedious and every single day working on it, I could see myself stabbing it to death as if it were a baby. I could not wait for the day I submitted the story in to put the poor thing out of its misery.

The lecture for this subject was one of the two in the evening. 6pm. But I liked showing up. The lecturers were fun. The main lecturer hardly conducted lecturers but they were fun times when he did. However, I had a perpetual fear towards him. It may have something to do with his honorary title “Prof”. Like he was sort of out of reach or mean or something. But he turned out to be a funny guy so I guess it was all alright. But still he stayed out of reach with his QUT sweatshirt and jogs down the stairs to the front to conduct his lectures. He published two books – one a children’s book while another, a grown up’s – based on the same concept of a creepy wombat.

My tutor was hilarious. He reminded me a lot of Sean Astin. So there you have how he generally looks like. His jokes were almost the same and he had the tendency to run off with his words with spontaneous mumbles on the sudden desire to talk with a German accent. I doubt he was even remotely German. We had two-hour tutorials every week and I felt like I was attending some group therapy session in a room with light blue brick walls. We would sit in a circle and critique each other’s work/assignment to pieces. He would time us and go ‘ding’. At first he brought along a glass and a spoon to do that but he realised that did not really make him any less ridiculous than saying ‘ding’ so he forwent the idea in the next class. He was a very busy man so half of the time when I emailed him about something I kind of expected him not to reply.

But the tutorials helped a lot because you got everyone’s take on your story. Like, everyone. So by the end of the semester, you would probably have a good grasp on what everyone likes in a story. I just like the attention. Heh. No, the classes helped improved my story too. And helped me work on my second assignment more seriously.

I really took the second assignment seriously. It was yet another old plot bunny because God knows these days I can barely copulate any working ones. I wrote about Death Angels and I was so vague I practically scared everyone in my classroom. See, a creep. But I was proud of the idea. I tried not to rewrite it too often but took my group mates’ advices all the same. In the end, I handed in a happy and living assignment. Yes. I pray for a satisfying grade.

Anyway, here be links to both stories. Bad sci-fi story entitled Versus. And. Good morbid angel story entitled A Movie Script Ending. If you ever wonder what my writing style is, the latter would be it. Yes. It is nothing like what I write in here. This blog is just a cover up of something much much more darker than you can ever handle.

 

Class #3: Corporate Writing and Editing
Gawd, I hated this class so much. Mainly because it had everything to do with serious business writing. You know I am not for all these professional crap. Ugh. But alas, I have to learn something useful for my future. The world is cruel for creative writers.

The lecturer was the same I had for my Writing for Creative Industries subject last semester. He is still as funny and I would have attended all of his lectures if they were not at 6pm on Tuesdays. The tutor, however, I loathed her. (Just because ‘hate’ is a strong word). She reminded me a lot of a primary school or high school teacher. She was wrinkled yet her lessons showed us that she had been to places. I think. I just did not like the way she talks; it is threatening and I definitely know she hates those that do not show up in class. Seeing that I showed up for only half of her classes, of course I was not really pleased when she said, “of course you guys present are going to get the better end of the bargain than those who do not show up at all.” And there is something goodie-goodie about the students in my tutorial. Especially the group of girls sitting in the middle. They seemed smartass-esque and they looked at me funny when I actually utter more than two words in class. Because I did not even try bonding with anyone from this class. I tried to a Singaporean in the second tutorial but she did not show up most of the time so no more bonding. So yes, not my favourite tutorial class.

For the first good weeks for this subject, we delved so deep into grammar I almost suffocated myself not being able to find the surface again. I became sensitive of everything I read and saw. It was really, really annoying when I was going through my assignment for The Short Story. It hindered with my personal style because I was looking out for potential grammar mistakes. So maybe I do blame this subject for the spawning of a crappy story. (But fine, it was a bad plot to begin with anyway). But it was irritating those few weeks. Very irritating.

We had a mid-term test, which I totally fucked up. I wasted too much time and ended up not finishing half of the paper. First time for me because regardless of knowing the subject at hand or not, I would still spill crap on blank papers. Never not going through half of the questions. So I ended up at the bottom end of the grading curve when the goodies from my tutorial emerged at the top end. Everyone was a happy camper. I was sort of ashamed and my tutor always kept an eye on me. Which was freaky.

Two assignments dubbed Portfolio A and Portfolio B. I kind of poured my heart and soul into these assignments after the messed up test. And I came out quite well for Portfolio A. So maybe, there is still hope for me. Portfolio B, though. Hmm. Blame it on the end of the semester because I always get indifferent when things are about to end and the new page is dangling in front of me waiting to be flipped over. I just hope my half-heartedness is enough to walk me through.

Also, an examination. My only exam in this semester. How annoying.

Yes, it is a boring subject for me. But, I will not deny that it has informed me a lot about serious corporate writing. I know one day it will work wonders for me in the working world and I may look back on this semester and thank myself for choosing it over Feature Writing. Probably email my lecturer and thank him for his welfare in this subject. Maybe email my tutor as well. Or not. Till then, I am just glad I am (almost) through with this subject.

 

Class #4: Creative Non-Fiction: Life Writing
It did not really occurred to me that this is a Year 2 subject until much later and I found out fuck, this is going to be tough.

For this subject, we were truly working on one assignment. A big ass one. 70%. Holy shit. And for a 70% assignment, I can honestly tell you and I did not put in enough effort for such a huge allocation. This was a research-based assignment. I hate research. I had a brilliant idea to write a profile on a busker in the Queen Street Mall. I fantasised on how interesting he was going to be and how much adventures I would be getting myself into while digging up stuff about him for my assignment. Alas. There was not really much to talk about and I lost half of the enthusiasm before the final draft was due. I hogged four library books for almost two months, letting them gather dust in my messy room while I get my head together to limp through this. I procrastinated a lot for this assignment. I submitted a crappy draft for auditing and felt very ashamed when my group mates wrote better articles already. But I prevailed in my next draft. I guess. 70% is a heavy burden so I will not put too much hope into this.

The lecturer is the same for last semester’s Introduction to Creative Non-Fiction. And this is when I know I will never ever do well writing a non-fiction piece, regardless of it being creative or not. So yes. Lectures were still guest lectured and were still quite boring.

My tutor was helpful. Very helpful. I would never forget the first tutorial when she walked in with blood red lipstick and a Styrofoam cup of coffee. She seemed to know what she was doing and she provided so much information for us. I never had such an informative tutor before. She taught us things we would not get to learn from the lectures. Probably would not from other tutors as well. And I loved her for that. She was serious about her shit and she was not afraid to use it. She was a busy woman as well, running around publishing books and conducting classes in QUT and Griffith University. Or study in the latter, I would not know for sure. But yet, she still found time to look through my assignment and track-changed from head to toe. Wow. I liked her a lot. God bless her too.

QUT : Year 1 Semester 1

I will be looking over my shoulder for this one, hoping it will not be too expository till the extent that I will be receiving an email from the administration requesting me to delete this post or else. I will disclose the course subjects but where is the fun in that? However, I shall keep the names initial-wised but then again, it is not as if they switch lecturers and tutors every semester so I guess I am just well fucked.

Class #1: Writing for Creative Industries
As the semester draws to a close, I just learned to dislike the subject more and more. Core subjects have a way of making themselves compulsory and misleading you with the mere word 'creative'. Well, this one is not as bad as another one called Creative Industries - nothing to do with creativity at.all. The professor is most fun one for this semester. He is also my unit coordinator so I have my individual sessions with him regarding academic issues to find out he is just a clown without makeup in a proper suit. Occasionally, his favourite pet rottie will make a cameo appearance on his lecture slides during class. And if you must know, I have a soft spot for dogs period. Lectures can go boring for this as it is the third and last class on Mondays and I just wanted to go home as soon as possible. Even an hour's duration is considered too long for me already. However, there are some laughs ringing true when the professor cracks jokes.

My tutor is something to talk about. I did not know tutors can be that young until I attended his first tutorial class. As he stood at the front of the class, I think I must have dropped my jaw onto the floor. I enjoy calling him my 'Emo Tutor' to my friends due to his emo hair and funky T-shirts underneath his blazer. His muddy chucks pwned my ass on the first day I could not take my eyes off of them. I had to frown when he comes to class with other pairs of shoes but it was all good on the last day when he came in with worn out Chucks in green. Whatever happened to the black muddy ones will forever remain a mystery. Once, he came into class with a striking pink tie. I think I swallowed my tongue when I first saw that. He reminds me of The All-American Rejects' lead singer. Something to do with his bright eyes, I guess. He has a tendency to swallow his words when he talks. I doubt he has lunches before our class. Someone must be holding a remote and as he talks, the person gradually lowers the volume and tunes it back up to the max when he starts a new sentence. He is the first ever person I have met who has a problem with Wikipedia and thesaurus, two of the things I consider the best invention since slice bread for inarticulate writers like me. Imagine my disappointment when he announced, "Look, I know Wikipedia is a marvelous source but no, I cannot accept it in your research essays." I had to go through rows of books in the library just to find definitions for my essay.

Assignments for this subject kind of sucked ass. Readings were interesting but the exercises are just pushing it. We have to write a research essay on whatever our hearts desire. Fresh out from the Malaysian education system, that is already considered too much liberation for me to chew. With my bad times at the beginning of the semester, I came up with a lame topic and had to change it halfway through. Even with that one, I still did not think it is a good idea. The essay seemed to be peeking over my shoulder every fucking time I just wanted it done and over with but yet could not because I just like putting what I hate to do the last item on my list.

Class #2 : Introduction to Creative Writing
My subconscious loves this class. She drags me out from bed in the wee mornings to go to classes, listening to a gay professor speaks words of wisdom that sometimes cracks me up. She also keeps my perseverance strong braving the 5pm cold winds to get to the tutorial classes and rush home just in time to watch Lost. I have never liked timetable gaps this big. I had one back in college and it was a web-designing class. I hated the class so much. The teacher was always late and I was learning things I have learned two years ago. I would be absent forever if I could but the teacher wanted to see website progresses and I had to entertain her with some.

My professor is awesome. I did not quite know what just happened after she so matter-of-factly announced that she is gay. I was quite bleary and when it was said, I had to double back to check with myself if she just said what she did. She referred to sexual intercourses frequent in a lighthearted way and hated Dan Brown's writing as much as I do. "You have one whole page of the Landon guy talking and another whole page of Gandalf replying, then another whole page of the Landon guy talking and at the very end, someone serves tea." Elle em a oh indeed. She challenged the mainstream and is a truest writer I can ever find so far. When I grow up, I want to be just like her. Except maybe, the gay part.

For our tutorial classes, it is just endless of critiques to our own works. I will admit I do not like the fixed deadlines on 4pm every Sunday to submit our weekly writing tasks. The deadlines just conceive crappy works I can muster. I wrote three poems and a short story based on the theme and settings of Margo Lanagan's Singing My Sister Down. Just think of writing fanfictions and you will know which page I am at. My first poem sucks big time ass because I am never a poet, but gotten better with the second and third. I would direct you to links here but I doubt you would be interested. For my short story, I think I killed it on my rewrite. The critiques were constructive. I just put wrong bricks and built an extra horn. It is doomed.

What I love about this class is the critiques. Call me weird but I just love people criticising my works. I would like to hear what they have to say about them and how they would prefer to sound. And vice versa. Going to this class is real life-threatening as well for I reveal so much in my works, especially my poems. I would like to sit my crit group members down over cups of coffee and tell them how I breathed words into them but I felt that it was just giving out too much. I am never one to open up spontaneously. However, it just gets to me when it hits home. I am a fragile girl in these classes. The professor managed to speak things related to my current life so accurately and my poems seem to let out more than I can ever imagined. To be frank, I am a little sad when the class is over. My Thursday mornings will never be the same again.

Class #3 : Film and Television Scriptwriting
I took up this class because it is something new for me. I had been doing Journalism and Public Relation based subjects back in college and Broadcasting subjects are just like another family I never knew. So I took this up. Maybe I am a little disappointed during the first lecture because the lecturer was just way too bored. The lectures were the earliest class for this semester and honestly, I was just there to watch the clips they show as examples. Or else, I would not have bothered at all. Tutorials were alright although sometimes annoying when the tutor requested in-class writing tasks to be done challenging my still blurry creativity. I can never slap up something at the snap of the fingers.

I learn the basics of writing television scripts and just got oh so exciting with the new knowledge in mind. With that, I had to write my very first short film script. Which I totally blew it with a crappy plot. I was quite inarticulate at the beginning of the semester and well into the third or fourth week, we have to already submit a synopsis for the plot we are to scriptwrite. I flipped through my musebook - a notebook I use to jot down any plot bunnies that come to mind just in case I want to write them in the future, and in this case, for the assignment - and found a near suitable plot dealing with a destroyed father and son relationship. Again, not the best idea I can have at hand. I go to workshops every time feeling embarrassed with my amateur script. As I near the due date and have been sitting on it changing it again and again to make it sound less melodramatic, I just could not shake the image of it appearing to be an episode of Home And Away. Worst nightmare ever. Maybe it has to do with me ever so nonchalantly watching the show while having dinner at 7ish. The timeslot just works it is not funny at all. I might be adapting a whacked Aussie accent. Shit.

I enjoy the last workshop I had. We were in groups and we get to bring forth a scene or two that we want opinions on. Members in the group will roleplay the characters and the scriptwriters will hear it out. I was laughing so hard when they did mine. Maybe it was because they were so good that I just laugh like I do while watching soap operas. Which kind of turned out to be bad for me seeing that I am the one who wrote a soap opera. But still, it was fun nonetheless.

Class #4 : Creative Non-Fiction: Travel, Humour and The Arts
The lectures bored me out, save for a few conducted by funny guest lecturers. Most of the lectures were done by guest lecturers dealing with different fields. This subject is kind of like feature writing. Music, fashion, travel, science, humour and so on. The readings were awesome. I read about Anthony Bourdain's true inspiration to be a chef - to bang random girls at the back of the kitchen, for your information - and episodic summaries of The OC. I read about Eminem and detailed fabric textures of T-shirts. I read about an extreme ski trip in Siberia and suicidal notes by popular kill-yourselfs. Best tutorial readings go to this class.

The assignments disrupts my personal writing style a lot. I got beat down on when I saw my first assignment returned with underlined sentence fragments and grammar mistakes. Granted it was submitted without a second eye proofread but you would know how I feel as a writer to see your writing assignment coming back with too many red inks (In this case, green inks). Besides, it was merely a review for Ewan McGregor's documentary Long Way Round. I love this part when I tell my friends I am watching a TV series for my assignment. Hah. "I'm watching a show, ma." "Aren't you supposed to be doing your assignment? Get to it already!" "But, I am. I'm watching a show to do my assignment." Oh my friends are so jealous. I am never wrong when I decided Business subjects are never too nice to take up.

My second assignment is about hometown lala's. I had fun in that one although I spent my rewrite period purging out sources to support my ramblings. It was a chance for me to get even at the younger generations. I dislike them to the core. With the power of words at the tip of my pen (or my beloved laptop), I can write up a storm in a better English they fail to speak of. I might consider putting up the article here in the future. Depends on my egoism towards the piece, really.