The Casualties of Learning
There are times when everything seems to happen at once, rather like the denouement for a novel (what kind of novel I’m living in I’ll leave you to decide – it feels like horror at the moment).
Tomorrow we start filming for our Making A Film assignment, which counts as one-sixth of my total marks for the year on the whole BA course, by far the biggest weight of any assignment. Worse, to a very large extent, it’s being determined by circumstances beyond my control.
And also tomorrow my second Feature Journalism assignment is due, so I’ll actually be handing that one in today, when I go to pick up the crew’s equipment – assuming Mike is happy with the level of documentation; so far I’ve had no response to the request for a filming permission, and what should have been a routine request to the University for a room on Monday has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare.
I spent the last hour before starting this blog post printing out reams of forms and e-mails (before that I’d had to nip to Tescos to replenish paper, and now I’m getting ‘low ink’ warnings!).
That’s this morning. My afternoon is worse – it looks like:
13.00 Into Bath to meet Film Group to pick up papers
13.55 Into Uni to hand in assignment
15.00 Home with equipment to store for tomorrow
16.00 Head back to Uni for Plenary
17.00 Plenary Lecture for Creative Writing
18.00 Head to Bath for
18.45 Launch of Genre Lecturer’s book (ends 20.00)
20.00 Head to Toppings for Core Workshop Lecturer’s Interview with Patrick French
21.00 Home or a late dinner in Bath….
This is quite frankly a ludicrous schedule, and assumes nothing going wrong and no last minute tacks thrown in my path by the nine (yes NINE) different bodies affecting Film.
So I’m going to take action. That Journalism article includes a piece called ‘The Joy of Study,’ in which one of my lecturers warned against the peril of over commitment. It seems to me that I can do nothing about the first visit to Uni, but if I cut out the Plenary and the Toppings event, I can at least regain some time.
Apologies to Joe and Celia, but you are the casualties of learning today.
