Like the flower and the scent of summer

DoMS: It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

For all the complaining, and the venting, and the moaning and quite frankly whinging of the past five months of 'enforced summer sabbatical', when it actually comes down to it, it's almost time to go back.

For some reason, however, this feels less like a final year and more like the final eight months to go before this bizarre and mostly enjoyable interlude ends. In some ways, it feels like speed ramping for real life - where the real world has continued on at 100% speed while my life works at something like 50%, and suddenly the rubber band is about to snap, and real life's real speed is about to resume, whether I'm even remotely ready or not.

Time enough to get ready to be ready then, I guess.

Eight months. Not a bad preparation time, but given that I'm now officially multi-disciplinary, and I'm only going to get more so in eight months time, the question is, get ready for what?

In fact, it'd be nice to feel ready for the here and now. Because even with all the preparation work undertaken over the summer, I've put myself in for what seems like physically the hardest workload possible over the next two semesters - and yes, outsideworlders, mock the concept of a hard student workload if you will, go on, get it all out of your system - where, in fact, I probably didn't need to.

But, for all the hard work and worry that I have at the moment, my study program feels curiously right. That's an odd feeling - to feel like a plan for the future is actually not a bad one - for me, because frankly everyone who knows me has probably figured out that I've been playing life by ear ever since leaving the real world of employment all those two years ago.

There's also the curious feeling of what might be called, if one were of a bawdy sense of humour, 'climax anxiety', which, strangely, I never felt during the previous run on the merry-go-round. The first time was simply

-> I feel like I should be studying a degree
-> I am studying a degree
-> I want to finish this f*$%*ing degree
-> I have finished this degree
-> I'm taking the first job that comes along.

This time around, to take the first job that comes along feels awkward and gawky, somehow. And the process has been different, i.e.

-> I passionately want to study this discipline
-> Having abrogated my dignity, the implicit respect of my friends and family, and any notion of financial independence, I am studying the discipline I am passionate about
-> I want to finish this degree in style
-> I will be finishing this degree in eight months
-> I would like to find a job that ties in with my multi-disciplinary approach to academia.

So more intense and more wordy, if not necessarily sensible.

This year is going to be difficult, filled, I suspect, with tantrums but not tiaras, and by the end of it I would like to have the following things:

- A dissertation that I'm proud of
- A short film that I'm proud of
- An answer to what to do next.

I hope these things aren't too much to ask. Especially of myself.

And the stars look very different today

DoaMS: For the love of study

So here's a thing that, although it's difficult to admit, is actually fairly obvious from previous blog postings; for various reasons, most of which have been complained about or repeatedly mentioned, up until very recently I wasn't actually particularly looking forward to my last year as a mature student before returning, further educated, to the Real World (tm).

Some of these reasons - leaving last year utterly burnt out, having my work plagiarised, fun stuff like that - were valid. Some of the others - general malaise, resenting the mechanics of the course, feeling lost in the interpersonal department politics - were less valid, mostly because they wouldn't even be relevant if I weren't in the position I'm now in, which is, shockingly, a good one.

Here's the thing; because I put in a lot of enthusiasm and hard work into the first two years - which, in part, lead to the aforementioned burnout, but let's leave that by the wayside - as I walk in the valley of the shadow of the final year, it actually looks pretty good. I have a GPA - to go all American and whatnot for a moment - that makes a solid foundation for my final year's work, to the point where I will hopefully actually be able to discard some of my crappier grades when it comes down to the final scoreline.

The one thing that was bugging me more than it really should have was the Advanced Filmmaking course, necessitating as it does having an actual film to make, from idea all the way to DVD, and now I have something which makes me realise that a key part of my working practice is to be Stubborn And Argumentative.

Let's elucidate; I have a film I want to make which I get the feeling nobody else will like, or which might get labelled as pretentious, or 'arty', or... whatever. If it were to have a label, it would be labelled 'Cheap Science Fiction', i.e. big concepts, no budget. But out of all of the scripts I've been working on over the summer, it's the only one that feels right somehow.

I have no idea how I'm going to sell it to the course tutor.

And there are so many problems that need sorting with the script and how to actually realise it as a film.

And that's how, it turns out, I like it.

So I've gone from not looking forward to actively interested in terms of next year's work. Hell, I've even renewed my NUS card early - although, to be honest, with a picture of Peter Gunn rather than myself, for no other reason than I can - whereas last year that was left to the last minute. Then again, last year I used a photo of myself from last century's student living, which was... weird. So maybe this is a step forward.

In every Practical Film book - and every self-made director's biography - there's a telling phrase or sentence which always (always) involves one iteration or another of the belief that you don't need to go to film school to be a filmmaker. And that's very true - Sam Raimi, Robert Rodriguez et al were out making films on whatever camera presented itself when they were very, very young.

And good for them.

But film school - weird as it has been in places - has been a pretty positive experience for me. Sure, there's been summers filled with big nothing - which I'm sure have earned me the enmity of my sponsors, for good or ill, but when you get knocked back for minimum wage jobs consistently, it gets harder and harder to actually want to apply for the local supermarket or outlet store or pub. Because, frankly, this summer followed exactly the same model as last year - apply for minimum-or-low wage job for the summer, get turned down, repeat ad nauseam. It's a little bizarre. But not doing this is perceived as doing nothing, and doing nothing is just not done.

So instead, this summer has been devoted to various grounding exercises - to use the language of the magic books I read oh-so-long-ago - to try to find the right mental space to approach next year. And they seem to be working, because, hey, I'm not complaining, and that's a step up from the last ten or so posts.

So let's end this on a positive note - it's around, I think, six weeks until term starts again. And right now that's starting to feel like a good thing.

I can't slow down oh you know, I wish I could

D-o-a-M-S: Writing to reach you (continued); Eleven years ago

On a bridge, over a busy motorway, towards the end of a summer;

Younger: You again, huh?

Older: It's something to do. Remember last time we spoke?

Younger: More or less.

Older: Been a long, strange year since then, huh?

Younger: You know what? Screw you. All this "I can tell you but you won't remember" crap - this year's been awkward and unsettling and stressful. Like you couldn't give me any hints?

Older: Causality, remem--

Younger: Oh, I forgot the convenient excuse. You can't give me any information because it might w-r-e-c-k the u-n-i-v-e-r-s-e. Oh no. Meanwhile, I'm confused, and angry, and you can't even help?

Older: I can tell you it gets worse.

Younger: No, I think you misheard me. I said 'help'.

Older: It gets a lot worse, then it gets better. [Sigh] Look, you know how you've had a pretty good year, but you've done some incredibly stupid shit?

Younger: You could say that.

Older: I am saying that, because it happened. There are some things I liked about this year, but there's a hell of a lot I didn't. And it really does get worse - you/I/we end up graduating from stupid to just plain weird. But there's something that, if you could remember, I would need you to remember.

Younger: What's that?

Older: That none of the dumb-ass things you get up to in the next two years are permanent. Oh, sure, you lose friends and alienate people and even in my now there's probably one or two people who remember how much of an ass you were. But even though you offend some people mortally, you make it up to them - at least to the ones that really matter.

Younger: What about the rest?

Older: Oh, they drift away - some of them make your life hell for a little while in various ways and through various means, and there's a really dark time coming up, but... It's all just time you have to encounter. A series of dark moments, and then, suddenly, wham, things start to trend upward again.

Younger: It's not been such a bad year. I mean, there was XXXXXX... and XXXXX, and XXXX.

Older: Okay, well, sorry to disillusion you, but you don't see XXXXXX for another two and a half years, and when you do, it's kind of awkward. You were an asshat to XXXXX - I mean, seriously, you're lucky you didn't get stabbed in the chest for that one - and you only ever see her once again and even then she doesn't acknowledge you. Which is probably for the best.

Younger: But what about XXXX?

Older: I'm not telling you anything even if you're not going to remember. It's all great with her now, and that goes on for a little while, and that's all I'm going to say.

Younger: So why do you keep coming back if you can't change anything and I can't remember anything?

Older: Perhaps I just like talking to myself. Look, I'm serious when I say things get better, but then they plateau - first in three years for about three years, then  seven years from now things start out amazingly then just become everyday. It's just the way things go. So I figured I'd come back and visit you now, before all the boredom. Besides, it's so much easier to remember the bad stuff from this year. There was a hell of a lot of good stuff too.

Younger: Yeah? Maybe only from your perspective. Look, you remember how I ended up in hospital in March? And then moved out of the family home? And then lost my summer job?

Older: It's a nadir, all right. It's a shitty end to a mixed-up year. The summer you have ahead of you is okay - you'll travel around a bit, catch up with people, that sort of thing. And next year at Uni starts out okay. It just gets a bit dark midway through. Look, I meant it when I said that none of the badness is permanent - nothing scars you so much that--

Younger: Wait, I remember something now. You're studying another degree and mooching off your parents, right?

Older: Yes.

Younger: So how can you say that none of this is 'permanent'? Sounds to me like you gave up trying to be ambitious and successful and just went for whatever sounded best.

Older: It's nice that you can be an asshat and not be wrong all at the same time. Besides, your definition of 'ambitious and successful' right now would be to be able to write like Hunter S. Thompson and maybe, just maybe, own a car and be able to drive it. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Younger: So what's your definition of 'successful' now?

Older: ... That's kind of difficult to explain.

Younger: Try.

Older: Well, there's the academic success. You get your degree from here - eventually - but by the time you get it your grade average is irrevocably damaged, so you have to settle for mid-table respectability. That chips away at you for a bit. So I took more courses, and always had the motivation to do better than I did back then, or now. But I can't do this without romanticising things a bit - you want to be a writer, a journalist, something like that?

Younger: That would be kind of cool. I like writing for the student newspaper...

Older: Well, you don't stop doing that. It peaks in a couple of years, then it starts to wind down. But you get kind of obsessed with both just passing this degree and working somewhere you'll find out about soon. And here's the thing. You don't let failures beat you down - you're too stubborn. And that's a good thing, but it means that your victories come at a price. By the time you're me, you're the kind of the personal Pyrrhic victory.

Younger: What does that mean?

Older: Well, you'll have trouble with your studies soon enough - in fact, it's already started. But - eventually - you fight back, and you pass enough units. But if you'd taken a sidestep and looked at what else you could do, you might have been better off. Maybe, maybe not. It's one of the problems of being bullheaded - you achieve the objective, no matter what the cost. But it tires you out, until by the time you finish here you have to take whatever job presents itself just to pay off the student overdraft, and then it's easier to just stay in that job than move on anywhere else, and you end up like me - chunky and wondering why you're doing what you do.

Younger: But you can't change any of this, right?

Older: Right.

Younger: So what's the point? Isn't this just fatalism?

Older: Maybe. Here's the thing. There's so much I would change about you, here, now. Preferably even five or six months ago, I'd like to ask you to consider doing things differently. But the life I have now - even if it is a quiet, singular sort of a life, without the wife, the house, the children - even in it's own tranquil way, it's kind of amazing. And that's the trade-off - you go through all this, this shit for the next two years, you start to wonder what the point of everything is, and then... You realise.

Younger: Realise what?

Older: That life isn't about knowing what you should be doing. One thing you'll always be jealous of is the people with the uncurved arrows - they grew up knowing what they wanted to do, with a straight, sure path. People with conviction, people who seem to know exactly why they're here. But here's something to consider; they're kind of boring.

Younger: How does that work?

Older: Well, you'll skip around a lot of courses in the next thirty-six months, but you'll experience a lot of different things, and you'll actually find a 'passion' that endures. It means that instead of spending your life concentrating on one thing and one thing only, you'll find things that interest you, work on them until they don't, then discard them, whether you should have or not. Meanwhile, the uncurved arrows will be doing the same thing, day in, day out, until they stop, for whatever reason.

Younger: But at least they find work doing what they love, right?

Older: For the most part, yes. But--

Younger: So if I only had a proper vocation now, things would be a lot easier?

Older: I didn't say that. And even if I did, it wouldn't matter, because--

Younger: Right, right. Causality.

Older: Okay, look. This is just the way things are. I'm talking to you because I'm trying to understand how I got to be the way I am now. There's not much else to it. But... Not to sound stupid, but batten down the hatches, kid. There's a storm coming for you.

Younger: Thanks for that...

*

And most of the taxis and the whores are only taking calls for cash

Diary of a mature student: The Quiet Time

About twelve years ago, when all the classes were done and all that was left was to wait to do the exams, my English teachers invited their class to have a quasi-celebration at one of their homes. Memory is playing tricks on me, because I remember it as one of those idealised summer days in a garden where everyone seems happy - which doesn't seem likely considering it was a party filled with late-teenagers - but, if I let it, I could look on it as one of those quasi-defining moments that you remember for a while. And yes, that's two uses of 'quasi' in a single paragraph. Three, now. Perhaps this validates the whole "English" student thing.

There is a point to this, though. Once the party was done, basically all that was going to happen was that people would drift away like dandelion seeds - oh, sure, there were three or four exams to go, yet, and there'd be the odd social occasion - but, basically, that was it as far as 'high school' went.

As covered before, I like the idea of parallel universes and alternate realities. If, therefore, it's a given that all realities exist somewhere, there's a world where there's a means of communicating with your younger self without completely fucking causality. Perhaps it involves artificial forgetfulness, i.e. you can talk to yourself but not remember it, although that sounds like a tearjerker plot - the older can tell the younger everything, and have it not change anything. Maybe, maybe not.

But I like to think that in Reality #216,449 - i.e. where cross-temporal communication takes place - my life wouldn't be that different, except that after the 'party' finished, and I headed home, I might have bumped into someone who looked a little like me, just older and far away larger. And I like to think that it wouldnt' have been much of a surprise.

Older: Hey.

Younger: Hello. Who are you?

Older: Well, I'm you. Sorry if it's not what you expected.

Younger: What was I supposed to expect?

Older: I seem to remember wanting a future with hand-made suits and such.

Younger: Oh, well, maybe. It was just a thought. What's up?

Older: Well, they've just invented this whole cross-temporal communication thing, so I thought'd I'd drop in and, well, catch up. I'm calling you from something like twelve years in the future. Thought that might intrigue you.

Younger: Kind of, except that all the science fiction I've read tells me this is a bad idea.

Older: Look on the bright side - you won't remember this. Causality is still important.

Younger: So you've gone to all this effort just to have a conversation that I won't remember?

Older: Yes.

Younger: So it's just the me now that won't remember it?

Older: What do you mean?

Younger: Well, if you're having this conversation now for you, and I won't remember it now, surely you'll remember it in your now? If you don't remember it, why would you do it?

Older: I'm with you. I'm not sure how it works exactly, but it's a selective memory block - when we're done, I'll remember here and now but not there and then. Does that make sense?

Younger: As much as any of this does. So what can I do for you?

Older: Well, to be honest, I just fancied a chat.

Younger: You risked violating causality for a chat?

Older: Kind of. It's just... You won't understand this until you're my age, but right now you have a lot of possibilities--

Younger: Oh no, please. Not the "world is at your feet" speech.

Older: Not at all. Besides, even if I did, you wouldn't remember it. But you have an interesting and occasionally difficult time ahead of you. So for you this is just an unremembered interlude. For me, I guess, it's kind of therapy.

Younger: What do you mean?

Older: Well, things won't turn out exactly as you might have liked. You'll do okay in your exam results - not great, not as well as you could, but you'll squeak by and get a place at a decent university - just.

Younger: Why only 'just'?

Older: You remember that place you applied to twice?

Younger: Yeah.

Older: Well, your main results won't be quite good enough to get in, but the thing you did on the side will swing it in the second case. You'll end up being one of only six people on a kind of hybrid course.

Younger: That sounds good.

Older: Yes and no. You'll 'get' half of the course, and not the other half. Then in the second year you'll transfer to another hybrid course, but again you'll only 'get' half of the course. Meanwhile, all sorts of shit will be going on in your personal life. You'll be juggling money problems, academic problems, personal problems, relationship problems, and you'll still be addicted to video games.

Younger: ... Huh.

Older: There are good moments, too, but they end up overshadowed by the issues that you won't know how to solve. That's how you learn how to solve them - the whole 'learning through your mistakes' part is pretty important. And that's just the first two or so years.

Younger: Do things get better after that?

Older: Yes and no. Your money issues don't go away until you get a decent job. You sort out the academic problems yourself - I'm proud of you for that. You get a handle on the personal problems, but as for the relationship problems... They go away, but kind of leave you soured on the whole thing. But that's something you can work on when you get to be me. I hope.

Younger: And the video games?

Older: Well, Diablo II sucks up a lot of your time. That and Crazy Taxi, Final Fantasy X, and even Burnout II. You'll get into them in a big way, then slowly stop worrying about them. Enjoy it while it lasts. Oh, and you won't get to play Portal until something like three years after it's released, but look forward to that one. But anyway... It takes you having a 'voluntary sabbatical year' to get your academic and money issues on track. In that year, some appalling, disturbing worldwide events take place. I'd like to say things calm down, but they kind of.. haven't, yet.

Younger: What sort of events?

Older: You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you. You go back after your year out, and finish your degree. The result isn't what you'd hoped for, but it's the best you could get with the issues you experienced. Then you move back home, pay off your student overdrafts in good time - and then...

Younger: Then?

Older: It's kind of boring. You get a job to pay off the overdrafts, and then you stay on because it keeps you in DVDs and such. Your ambition kind of drifts away, but your love of film - which you'll pick up a little before you leave uni - starts to grow. You make a couple of attempts at filmmaking, but nothing comes of them. Then you get made redundant, and...

Younger: And?

Older: Look, it's complicated. On one hand, you're still living at home, and mooching off your parents. On the other hand, you go back to university with a proper, actual passion for what you're doing, instead of going because you thought you should go. So you get to do something you love, and all it costs is... A little dignity, I guess. Your parents believe that you're passionate about what you do, and you are, for the first two years or so. And that's where I am now.

Younger: What happened after the first two years?

Older: I don't know. It feels like a kind of burnout. You'll still love film - and, finally, you'll get around to watching The Sopranos and Alias - but the work will leave you with good results and no motivation. So I wanted to come back and have a chat with you now, before life unfolds, just to see what I was like back then.

Younger: But surely you remember?

Older: Memory isn't that reliable. As part of the package of issues you go through in a couple of years, you end up taking anti-depressants, which have a listed side-effect of 'memory loss', and you'll want to blame them. But the truth is that your short-term memory is amazingly shit. I can remember things now from when I was you, but the last couple of years are still assimilating themselves. It's just the way things go - you'll learn about neuroplasticity, believe it or not.

Younger: So let me get this straight. I have three years of difficulty ahead of me, then one year of amazing, followed by six years of boring and two years of amazing again before I... 'burn out'?

Older: Something like that. I wish I could give you specifics - but it wouldn't help. There are amazing things - you remember the sushi you had in America over this summer? Seriously, that's everywhere by now. And you'll travel more - America again a few times, a bad time in Eastern Europe, and some amazing times In Bruges and in Greece. Seriously? Filled vine leaves. 'Dolmades'. Amazing. You have some fun ahead of you, and some difficulties.

Younger: So what's going on with you, other than risking the nature of causality to have a casual chat with your younger self in the hope of feeling less crappy?

Older: Well, film school is amazing, even as a mature student. Oh, sure, sometimes I want to tell people your age how life should work, but I try to hold myself back, because I kind of remember what it was like being you, then... now... then... whatever. I've made a few little projects, and I love my classes, although unfortunately I don't have--

Younger: A crazy teacher who wears dark glasses?

Older: I'm so glad dad kept playing that song. Look, here's the thing. Everybody can give you advice, but nobody can tell you how to live. So - preachy moment here - it's up to you to work it out for yourself. And you kind of don't, because I'm proof of that. But you kind of do, too - you find something you love, and you stick at it, even when it feels difficult. And the boring job isn't that bad. If only I could tell you now to pay off your student loan, though. But you wouldn't, because I didn't.

Younger: So what's your advice, then? I mean, I know I won't remember it, but...

Older: Don't worry so much. You have people who love you and who you can ask for help, even though you won't because you think it's a sign of weakness. Nothing's so bad it can't be fixed, and it does get fixed. Don't bother with minidisc players or early mp3 players. Exercise more, or at all. And --

Younger: You're about to say something about friends, aren't you?

Older: Annoyingly, I do remember being this precocious. But... You'll have a few relationships with women, and some of them will be difficult, and some of them you'll miss. Such is life. As for friends - I can count on one hand the genuine, lovely people I would sacrifice anything for. The others come and go. You have to learn how to feel the ebb and flow, because you'll end up cutting a couple of them out of your life when you could probably have just waited for them to fizzle out. Again, such is life.

Younger: Okay...

Older: Got any advice for me?

Younger: You're kidding, right?

Older: Not really. I'm serious about the burnout. I'm a little lost at the moment.

Younger: Well... First, find something to distract yourself for a while. Then go back to doing something you love. But you're me, you're supposed to know how to look after yourself and sort yourself out by now. You're supposed to be a responsible adult!

Older: Doesn't quite work like that, kid.

Younger: Oh.

Older: Anyway, thanks for the chat. Just... take care of yourself, okay? And enjoy all the trade paperbacks while you can afford them...

Younger: Wait! So I won't remember any of this?

Older: Well... Maybe if I get bored and decide to continue this exercise in self-conversation. Maybe you'll only remember the previous conversations if and when the next one starts, otherwise having to bring you up to date would get really annoying.

Younger: Um... Great?
*

It's all just bits of paper flying away from you

Diary of a mature student: Look out!

There are many positive things to the summer period. Oh sure, the only jobs that want you for sixteen weeks tend to be fairly soul-destroying, and signing on for unemployment benefit means selling what little dignity you have left, but...

...

Give me a minute here, I'm sure I had something.

Time is a pleasure (because it's oh so rare), I guess. Last summer I spent most of my time scanning every photo I could find and digitising my CD collection to iTunes then getting rid of the pesky physicality. Same with books - I adopted a 'keep only the ones you need' mantra and the rest went to charity shops or sold on Amazon.

Around ten years ago, you see, there was The Move. Oh, sure, while I was on the merry-go-round the first time I moved eight times in three years, between different sets of accommodation, but while doing so I rarely accumulated more than a rooms' worth of belongings, and then suddenly, in the final year, everything sort of... ballooned into box after box of stuff that I obviously thought I needed at 22.

But, as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself. The Move meant that everything from my previous twenty or so years was packed up - and I was a packrat as a child and even more so as a teenager, so, damn - and boxed up and stuck in a huge pile in The Garage, which is basically where I've spent the last two summers.

It's strange, because the closest way I can put it is kind of a personal archaeology - like digging through the strata of my own history. But there's an element of psychology to it, too, because a lot of the material stuff had become a kind of psychic weight, in that knowing I had a garage full of crap was weighing on me.

Not so much, anymore. Oh, there are about twenty boxes of books etc., but you can actually get into the garage now rather than fighting over the detritrus of a life spent absorbing pop-culture in a pre-digital age.

It's an interesting equation - at least, to me - to consider the changes. For me, it was fairly simple;

music = audio cassettes and cds
film = videos, and later dvds
literature = books.

For the generation I currently interact with, everything listed above is now available - more or less - as data. And it's mostly entirely up to your personal ethics whether you pay for it or not, because with a modicum of knowledge and an internet connection, everything is potentially available.

For me, converting to digital was a relatively simple process - albeit time-consuming. My CD conversion project has yielded an iTunes library spanning 70gb of music, etc., meaning that if I listened to everything there I wouldn't surface until June 27th. And that's more than enough for me, because God only knows I'll never listen to all of them - it was just part of the process to digitise everything.

Videos were a little less simple, because although the basic expedient of not having a video player anymore made them less valuable, certain ones still had to be kept because they might not be available otherwise. And the equation for books was simple; need / don't need.

So that's a lot of weight, just, gone.

In case you can't tell, yes, I've been pretty bored.

I do have something to do in about a little over a week's time, but... We'll see about that. I'm naturally skeptical, but I'll say no more than that.

The world - or at least my world - feels like a quiet and solitary place, for the next three months. And then, well...

Oh, well, the devil makes us sin:

Diary of a Mature Student: Week +6

I.e. six weeks after the end of the last crushing, needlessly stressful, poorly run semester. The incoherent blog entries of the last few weeks of that semester - quite why I felt the need to prosleytise the Open University to such an extent remains a mystery, as does the reason behind complaining about course choices so much - is lost in the pink, fuzzy mists of work-induced anxiety and the aforementioned stress.

It was not a challenging semester - in that I was only doing things I had done before, a few times, just to a greater extent - nor was it particularly bad, in the binary sense that some courses were good and some were bad. Because that distinction never really functions outside of simple arguments - the course that has nearly put me off filmmaking in toto had a few redeeming moments, washed away in the tide of annyannce and...

You know what? Complaining accomplishes nothing. Literally - I had a conversation with a friend who now works for the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education last week, who confirmed that even official complaints about badly-run courses are more or less pointless.

But in an odd way, I can find no method by which to replace the actual, factual joy I found in filmmaking prior to the most recent filmmaking course.

And maybe that's the point - because when this is done, in theory there's a transition to an actual filmmaking job, which is not going to be sparkles and roses, sunshine and, indeed, lollipops, because it's a job.

I wish I could set my hand down and put my finger on the actual reason I'm currently having to try to find a new method to replenish my joy reserve when it comes to film. Even if the course wasn't great, it was only eight weeks - with four weeks of 'self guided tuition', which if that isn't an oxymoron, should be - then it was eight weeks, it's done now, the marks are back, let's all go drink champagne, hey?

If I was 20, that would be a decent rationale. But over a decade and a half later, time wasted feels an awful lot more like a crime.

Here's the fun thing; I like to place faith - sometimes unwarranted faith, but we'll come to that later - in people. I like to believe that people are basically good - at least, the people I'm going to come into contact with where and when I am at the moment - until proven otherwise. This theory is proving difficult to work with, at the moment, because nobody's perfect - least of all, myself. I complain - a lot, but you already know that, and now you know that I have unrealistic standards for people, which leads, paradoxically, to a disappointment not in the world at large but in myself for the continued unfounded belief that the world is essentially on track.

So when the people I place faith in are unreliable, or constantly questioning or undermining what I do, or incapable of doing what they're paid to do in some cases, I add a few more layers to my shell, the shell that it took a long time to get rid of fifteen years ago and that I can now feel calcifying back into place. I can now count the people I very truly trust in my current situation on the fingers of one hand, and the people I would turn to in an emergency on maybe two hands, but other than that, my faith in the essentially beneficent nature of humanity as a whole on one hand and the group of people I've ended up cliquing with over the last six months on the other hand has just... gone.

Right now I would have trouble actually setting foot on campus.

I don't know exactly why this is, but my going theory is because my addiction - and it is an addiction, just one that doesn't have any particularly harmful or noticeable side effects - has, however temporarily, soured.

See, I got like this last summer. The prospect of five months without anything film-related to do was just... difficult. But this summer I'm trapped between the necessity of taking a break from something that became increasingly difficult to stomach last semester and the fact that I don't have anything to go to. I feel like a TV policeman who is their job, and nothing outside of it, except that the job is still there - just not accessible.

So you're probably sat there, thinking, well, get a life, man - get a hobby, get a significant other, get something, just do something that's not film.

And you'd probably be right.

Now I'm everywhere that your iPod goes

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?