Five Minutes

Last university related post for a while, I promise. I just spotted the above on my course information page on the university enrolment system. The fact that my projected course status is Complete (albeit not for another eleven months or so) is very, very odd after so long in the twilight zone between “degree started” and “degree complete”. It’s also rather motivating, I have to say. Sure, that motivation will drain away after about two lectures next semester, but for now, I’m gung-ho!

In reference to an earlier post, I got the 20% I needed on the exam, which means Project Management is done with. Thank $DEITY for that.

The hardest thing to deal with when it comes to exam results is waiting for them to be released. It’s worse when your university is the last one to do so. Plus, I’m still unconvinced that I passed one of the units, which isn’t a nice feeling when you went into the exam needing just 20%.

To take my mind off it (particularly since the results won’t be out until next week), I’ve been revising my enrolment for next year slightly. It’s a little scary to suddenly realise that you’re enrolled in all the units that you need to graduate — particularly when you’ve been working on the degree for eight years.

Now I just need to take my mind off that little fact. Well, I can always whinge about my timetable for next semester. Admittedly, it’s my own fault to some extent that it’s a bit crap; if I’d enrolled in video production to start with instead of adapted screenplays (what the hell was I thinking, enrolling in two scriptwriting units in the same semester?), I’d have gotten the tutorial time for video production that would have fitted in better with the rest of my timetable. Still, I’ve managed to keep the timetable to three days a week, so it’s not really that bad — bar the six hour gap between classes on Mondays.

Time to figure out some way of keeping myself amused at uni for a period that’s two hours beyond my laptop battery’s maximum endurance, I guess. Maybe the marvellous invention known as the tavern might help somehow…

Last night, I went to The Big Shave, the graduate screening night for film students at super TAFE. (OK, that’s a little harsh. The film programme seems to be quite good, actually.) The best fifteen short films produced this year by graduating¹ students were shown, with a vote at the end for the best film.

Sadly, with work today, I decided to skip the after-party and announcement of who won, but it was certainly an enjoyable night. As you’d expect from a set of student films, things ran the gamut. There were a couple of pretty straight-up drama pieces, some experimental stuff, some obscure mood pieces — pretty much the array you’d be used to if you watch Shorts on Screen.

In the end, I voted for — and I’m risking bodily harm saying this — The Heretic, directed by Shane Bransby, which was a hilarious and inventive stop motion film using, of all things, Lego. I won’t give away the plot, since it features a wicked twist, but should the film ever find its way to some sort of release, even if it’s just Youtube, I’d highly recommend it.

There were a couple of other films that made me wonder what the hell is in the water supply at ECU, though. It’s not a student film night without those! (Also, there was a disturbing amount of location shooting in toilets, and I still don’t want to know where the sound effects in Flush’d came from.)

It was genuinely good fun, and it was nice to do something university-related that doesn’t increase my exam results anxiety. Two weeks to go…

¹Graduating is probably a misnomer, since there were definitely productions by people who weren’t actually leaving the university or graduating with anything, so far as we could figure out. Then again, the graduating classes lists were apparently wonky as well, so perhaps SCCA’s just using a different definition to everyone else for eligibility. Not really a big deal, particularly since I’m unlikely to do enough production work to qualify for it in any case, but curious.

I have my first exam of the semester in about an hour and a half. Thankfully, I only have two in total, and the other one’s tomorrow. At least it’ll be over with.

I’ve done a fairly paltry amount of study, but I think it’ll be enough. Besides, what I have on my side is the power of sugar and fat. Since time immemorial (some time between the start of year 11 and my TEE, that is), I’ve had a couple of cinnamon doughnuts before each exam. I maintain that it’s no coincidence that I’ve never failed an exam when I’ve had a doughnut beforehand. Clearly it fires up my brain.

That, or I’m just a sucker for a tradition that involves eating deliciously unhealthy food. Either way, I’m going to tuck into a couple of doughnuts momentarily, and then I’m going to pass this exam, lack of study be damned!

Do you ever record yourself?

Vocally, I mean. Get your minds out of the gutter. Just talking, or narrating, or singing, or whatever? Occasionally, I do — it’s probably one of those things that’s a hangover from spending years yelling at taxi drivers and inebriated punters, but it’s interesting to hear yourself recorded. Often, it reflects more of who you are than you think. If you’re nervous, that always comes through a treat. Yet, reading something in a way that seems to be full of nuance and feeling often comes over flat, or clipped.
One of the things we did in scriptwriting class this semester was something that I’m sure happens in every writing class: we read the scripts of our fellow classmates out, much like a read-through. Apart from hearing your script read out, which I’m sure is an interesting experience (due to my usual do-it-at-the-last-second ways, I didn’t actually have a script at any point that was in a fit state to be read silently, let alone aloud), it’s a chance for everyone else to have a crack at voice acting, in a way. People (and by people, I mean me) really get into it at times, doing accents, trying to emote using nothing but their voice, trying to make the narration of scene descriptions and the like sound interesting.

Yet when you do it by yourself, it seems dry, and flat, and passionless. I don’t quite know how that works. Maybe it’s the setting. Maybe the nuances and subtlety that you think are there all the time really aren’t. Who’s to say?

All I know is that I prefer the inferred emotion of speaking without dwelling on it to the boring monotone of trying to sound interesting. I think it may be better just to leave the speaking to the classroom and the microphone to the odd Skype call.

Thankfully, as of about an hour ago, I’m done with assignments and classes for another year. Two exams and I’m home free for a few months.

I wonder if I can spend them all sleeping…

I’ve always liked the last week of classes. You end up with entertaining classes, good exam tips, and usually a series of lectures that are short and to the point.

Take today’s Computer Science Methods lecture, for example. We got our assignments back (only five and a half weeks after they were handed in!), went through the exam in enough detail that anyone who attended would have no excuse for failing, covered the last topic in the unit outline — and were done in half an hour flat, thereby allowing an hour and a half to have lunch and avoid doing one of the four assignments I have due in the next four days.

In spite of the assignment-related stress, though, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s going to be a good week. Really, any time you get pulled over by a traffic cop and let off with a warning has to be a good omen. Plus, my timetable for next semester is, to my great shock, actually pretty decent. Well, apart from the fact that I have one class on Mondays, totalling one hour, which I unfortunately have to attend. That’s a bit of a drag.

Enough university-related rambling, anyway. Time to produce yet another scriptwriting draft. Er…

Better.

Another entry from university. Ho hum. Nuclear war still hasn’t broken out with North Korea, which is probably a good thing for our temporarily-Pyongyang-resident hero, Dirk, but there’s plenty of other things to be depressed about.

Alcohol, for example. No, not the price of it, although that is something to be depressed about, but rather the film Drinking for England, which was just screened in my documentary theory class. It’s rarely a good sign when the screening of a film about the perils of alcohol is concluded with a comment from the audience, So, who’s for the tavern?.

Drinking for England is a funny sort of film. It’s a musical documentary about drinking culture, and while it’s obviously intended to be a cautionary tale, it really comes off as some poetic, participatory documentaries do: simply fake. It’s hard to take a film seriously as a non-fiction work when one person in the middle of rehab breaks into song (complete with cheesy fades to half-full glasses and the like) about the evils of sherry. Or the old guy who produces a series of outlandish statements about why he doesn’t have a problem and can handle alcohol far better than the average Badger.

I guess the problem I have with it is the poetry and music. While the interviews ring true, the wrapping is just so cheesy and fake that the film can’t be taken seriously, even when it wants to be.

Well, that’s five minutes, and I’m now nicely primed for the tutorial in six minutes. Excellent. Go nuclear war!