Diary of a Mature Student: Tomorrow, I left Yesterday
I know, that's strangely Zen for a film student's blog.
In the event, I had kind of an odd experience today. The only way I can really explain it is that it was the psychic - or maybe psychological - equivalent of a static shock.
But even with the psychological component, there was a real, physical, mini-jolt of adrenaline, the kind of jolt I haven't experienced for a l-o-n-g time.
The cause of all this? Seeing someone I used to work with in a supermarket.
Now, it's coming up to two years since I left my previous life, two years of enthusiasm, disappointment, summertime spent claiming benefits, you know, the usual fun. But this person was like my antimatter duplicate back in the (working) day; everything I was, she was the opposite, like a skewed mirror creating the image of two polar opposites.
So, at the same age, she was married, with children, and living in a house the family owned, and did all the normal social things like going out, drinking, etc.
By contrast, I'm still nowhere near the property ladder - although I've come to view this as a good thing, tangentially - with no partner (because even a marketing genius couldn't sell this package, to be honest) and, naturally no children. Instead of doing the social thing, I've basically been studying, on and off, since Space 1999. Even after the first ride on the merry-go-round, I did some night school, and then some postgraduate work sponsored by various entities, and now I'm suddenly two years down on a three year undergraduate course, and I'm wondering; should I just have got a proper job back in 2003?
Don't get me wrong, the work I had was a 'proper' job, but it was unlikely to lead anywhere. And it did pay for some fun courses - I can now give training on how to lift heavy objects, which sounds more like a superpower than it nominally should. But in terms of real, tangible benefits? Well, I got an iPod using my severance package, and a kick-ass DVD collection, and probably various clothes, books etc, but anything other than the cultural plankton net that my life is? Bricks and mortar? Stocks and shares? ISAs and Savings accounts?
Not so much.
And the shock of seeing her after two years was so visceral, and strange, that I couldn't even contemplate wandering over and saying Hi. It would have just been too, too strange, somehow. Because it was a shock - not a pleasant 'oh hey, there goes (X) who I used to work with - rather than a recognition.
I wouldn't give up what I've done over the last two years for anything, especially the people I've met, but my past life seems too long ago and too far away, now, except for the random skill set I've been trained into using.
And now, as the lone and level sands of the summer stretch off into the distance, I'm wondering, as I sometimes do, about the nature of temporality and, equally, how pretentious typing the phrase 'the nature of temporality' sounds. But still, times, things and people change - although the latter is debatable - and I don't know if my twenty-year old self would recognise me now. I like to think he wouldn't, because then I could creep up and smack the bastard upside the head for being such a strange little island of a person.
I have mixed feelings about my past and the things I've done. On one hand, some things I loathe, because the mixture of youth and inexperience bred a misplaced total self-confidence.
On the other hand, I think I need it, because without the past to push against, I wouldn't be how I am now.
And there's a thought to leave y'all on. Learn from your mistakes, because if you don't, you'll keep making them. If you do, you can learn, grow and evolve, so that you can start making all new mistakes.
And isn't that exciting?
Diary of a Mature Student: In the summertime
There are two sentences that pretty much sum up the end of term for me at the moment.
The first I don't have a source for, although I must have read it in fiction a few hundred times;
"Although the smile didn't reach his eyes"
Or variations thereof. Here's the thing; if there's one thing being older than the average student has taught me, it's the simple application of the adage that if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made.
I'm getting sick of faking sincerity.
I have met some amazing, committed people on this course, who I feel lucky to have worked with, and hope to do so again.
Equally, I have met some people on this course who I could quite cheerfully contemplate violence against.
How difficult is it to keep the following command lines in mind:
[if] (I / My parents / My LEA) are paying (X) in Tuition Fees, and
[if] My future depends, in some way, upon how hard I work now
[then] It is in my interest to work hard.
It's not difficult, surely?
I have an email friend who refers to something that might be relevant here, in that in a discussion about aging, he stated that you begin to develop '4-D' senses, in that you begin to see the future, or at least some ideas of possible outcomes, instead of just focussing on the day-to-day.
I get that now in a way I didn't before, because I'm surrounded by people to whom the future is an abstract concept and interpersonal relationships are not in any way important, because you can burn through people now on the understanding that you might never meet them again.
And why would you?
Once the three years are done with, the educated twenty-somethings scatter like dandelion seeds on the wind, with no indication who will land on fertile ground or not.
I should know, because, hey, I've already been a dandelion seed myself. It didn't work out so well, because, shit, here I am again.
...
And yes, this is probably just the end of term burnout talking, but then it's been a longer semester than it had any right to be.
Look at it this way. The average course runs to sixteen weeks - that's fourteen weeks with a two-week break in the middle for Easter, which, as previously discussed, seems all kinds of pointless.
Break down those fourteen weeks.
Week one is induction / introduction. You learn nothing other than how the course is going to work, and it's usually not even a full lecture.
Now, normally weeks 2 - 13 are tuition weeks, followed by a tutorial week for the final essay deadline week.
Not so this semester.
On one course, there was week one, induction. This was followed by weeks two and three, tuition. Week four was a tutorial week for assignment one, i.e. no tuition. Week five was the editing week for assignment one, again, no tuition. Week six was reading week; no tuition. Assignment one gets handed in. Then, thanks to an amazing administration, there was one instance of direct tuition between weeks seven and twelve, as the course finished a fortnight early. This is not to say there wasn't guided study, or individual tutorials, but, crucially, no tuition.
And there is little doubt people will be marked down for not knowing things that hadn't been taught, which is, naturally, a fun paradox.
This was followed on, last Wednesday, with a strange little quasi-lecture following the end-of-term party - and, yes, I'm still a little angry four days on, but it leads us on to the second sentence that sums up what's going on at the moment (although, hey, it's a lyric, rather than a sentence), which runs thus;
"Well, I feel like they're talking in a language I don't speak"
Ten years shouldn't render communication impossible, right? Well, no. It doesn't. But it does affect the assumption of communication.
Case in point; at this party, there were a whole lot of burnt out second years - [raises hand] - a few first years who had been involved as runners - and quite a few third years, all celebratory and whatnot, who were just happy, it seemed, at having survived. One of these third years, now on the cusp of their graduation, decided it would be the best thing ever to give me some advice on our work.
Now, this isn't the bad thing - advice is always appreciated. Nor was their tone condescending, or patronising, or anything like that. No, it's more that their advice consisted of things that anyone in my position already knew, delivered with such an amazing assumption that we wouldn't, that it was all I could do to keep a straight face. Maybe this is just the age talking, so maybe it's that it's difficult to receive what's masquerading as authoritative criticism from a twenty-one year old, but it was just... bizarre.
And the sad thing is that all the points were valid and valuable, just delivered with the assumption that myself and my group couldn't possible have considered them during our production.
It kind of set my teeth on edge, because I remember feeling like I was an authority on various things when I was that age, and my god how annoying that might have been for the people around me.
*
Let's take something positive away from this semester. There are actually a few valuable lessons to consider, believe it or not.
Firstly, the value of humility; no matter how much work you put into something, there's always a chance it won't be enough. If you did everything you could, then that's all you could do.
Secondly, the value of focus; make sure you're always maintaining focus on the right project areas - i.e. the ones you're marked for - because while area (c) may be as pretty as anything, it may also be irrelevant.
Finally, the value of self-interest; don't do anything for anyone who you know can't or - more likely - won't do anything for you in return, whether out of laziness, or spite. This lesson comes from the fact that I spent the last fourteen weeks functionally horse-trading; that is, out of the ten actors involved in our production, only two were involved without any incentive at all. The other 80% only joined in because they got something in return.
I began this semester believing in the value of interpersonal interaction and building working relationships, and ended it as a mixture between administrator, stockbroker, and pimp.
And even now, nearly a week after the final lecture and 'celebratory party', I can't switch off for the summer.
Diary of a Mature Student: Some Kind Of Conclusion
An hour ago, as I stood outside, the sun had set but the sky was not quite dark, and there was a pleasant breeze. It felt like a perfect moment, crystallised for the briefest instant.
In the last couple of weeks, I've put in several fourteen-to-sixteen hour days.
I've spent hour upon hour working on the same film clips in the same timeline for the same objective.
On top of this, I spent many hours on a personal project that will contribute nothing other than a vague sense of professionalism to the proceedings.
Thanks to all this, my body clock appears to have reset itself to Samoan time; I've not slept more than five hours a night (down from the usual eight to nine) for three nights now, having seen the sun rise two days in a row.
This has been an off-the-books disaster of a seminar, for various reasons. The main reason for this is Practical Filmmaking Two. But let's decompress that.
Practical Filmmaking Two is a module for next year. It offers students the chance to create their own short film project, narrative or documentary, up to a length of twenty minutes. It is, in short, (relative) creative freedom to do something we're being taught, and primed, to do.
Practical Filmmaking Two has a fucking laundry list of prerequisites.
To begin with, in your first year you have to have taken Screenwriting One. This is less to have done the course - Screenwriting One is fifteen weeks of purgatory with no practical outcome - but more because you have to take Screenwriting One in order to take Screenwriting Two in your second year.
Screenwriting Two is no less an exercise in frustration and mundanity. But it's important, because without that, you can't get on Practical Filmmaking One, which is, you've guessed it, the prerequisite for PF2.
Meanwhile, you also have to take an unrelated course - Technical Filmmaking Two - (don't worry, you don't have to have passed TF1) - at the same time as PF1.
So in order to take a single module to make your own short film, you have to take SW1, SW2, PF1 and TF1.
PF1 has just finished, and the only conceivable reason - having just had the experience - that anyone would ever, ever take it is to do PF2. It feels oddly like I've just passed a gang initiation or a fraternity hazing that nobody had the good manners to declare was even going on.
Meanwhile, at the hall of justice my admittedly low contributions to extracurricular work have been systematically airbrushed out of the picture in the name of good press.
This means that I leave this semester with a fifteen minute technical exercise - the filmmaking equivalent of measuring your dick in a public place - two lackadaisical music videos, and a powerful wish to take the film theory path instead of the practical path, strewn as the latter is with bullshit, badly-run courses, and a basic inability to actually let filmmakers be creative in any way possible.
And now, just for laughs, there's a five month break before the next year during one of the worst times for employment possible, where the choices are either hibernate or sell my dignity to the Jobcenter Plus for dole money.
When I stood outside, earlier, in the crisp, perfect evening breeze, I felt a momentary peacefulness, because all the shit that I and my fellow students have had to put up with is over, now, for another twenty weeks.
Now, I'm thinking; next year, students are going to pay over 250% what I pay at the moment for tuition fees. If they have to take SW1, SW2, PF1, and TF1 just to have the opportunity to make their own films, then God help them, frankly.
I still maintain my position that this course, right now, is cheaper than equipment hire and comes with a pre-built contacts creation engine, a large, mostly free-to-use set for a campus, and access to premium software. But when, for this most recent semester, the course doesn't actually count as a tangible benefit to attending the university, where does that leave you, exactly?
