Wednesdays happen to be very unfortunate.
Out of all the classes I have at uni “the almost” 3 best sit back to back. I have solid classes from 10-5pm. This excludes the occasion of getting out fractionally early and the 10 minute lee way you have to sprint (ok thats a major exaggeration) between buildings that are pretty much next to eachother, or simply up one flight of stairs. The problem is, by the time I hit about 3 o’clock – which is the start of a three hour workshop for still images (thats the analog photography thing) I am fairly stuffed, just from sitting on my butt for four hours. Or in this mornings case, wandering around with sound recording equipment “playing” followed by the building shift to watch a good 115 minutes of other people showing the class their artistic and technical capabilities. I show my assignment, you show your assignment. We all learn. Somehow.
I like still imaging I really do. I think having assignments where you are basically given a ‘shot list’ and freedom to go snap (or wind and push a button down after you have checked the ISO and the apeture and shutterspeed and compensation) whatever you so desire within a few minimal constraints plus no written explaination constitues less of an assignment and more of a good excuse to have a heck of a lot of fun. Yes the lecturer/tutor person guy thing looks like the spirit fingers guy off Bring It On (thanks Rebecca (other one) for that insight) but he’s fairly amusing. So I like the class, I just don’t like being half dead and half starved for it.
I might have mentioned one time before that I used to be a bit hypoglycemic when I was younger – ie: search for symptoms on Google (Don’t know where that is? Find that link on google). Basically it means if I didn’t eat or eat at odd hours I get a bit shaky. Something to do with low blood sugar. No idea why I originally got it, I think Mum used to get it when she was younger. It now doesn’t happen that often, but due to very late lunch or patchy lunches here and there when I can grab a spare few minutes I can tell it still lurks. This is annoying.
So this afternoon after about 5hrs of straight classes I got to present my slides, along with about 7 other people and I’m pleased to report (if it doesn’t sound like I have a big head) that he found nothing wrong with them, despite the fact that my one portrait (shape, not person) image was put sideways into the slide projector which is entirely his fault as I put it in correctly and he pulled out some wrong ones by mistake, found it and put it back in without looking.
2 hours earlier I presented my photoshop excercise. 4 images. Kitchen object on table. Normal photograph, Contrast/Colour altered photograph, Isolated object from background and Synthetic background that you your fine self with your fine talents whoever you happened to be even if you treated Photoshop like Paint, had created. Another easy assignment. Oh yeah did I mention the difficulty of the 300 words I had to write on, “Which was most like the original object?”
Artistic explanation is the worlds greatest means of hoodwinking the common person (or tutor). Creativity in your words, describes exactly why that splattering of brown is where it is and why it is perfectly acceptable and ‘actually quite good’.
Oh yes, and after 7hrs of classes (are you following this chopping across my day?) I show my camera to Kim – the lecturer/tutor still photography guy. He asks where I got it. “Cash Convertors”. Then offers me $50 for it – roughly what I paid. I said No… in my head. I think I actualy just smiled at him. Then says he think it is his old camera and it’s a good camera. How that for going and buying something I didn’t have a clue about!
Got a third of the way home and Jess realises that her phone must still be in the uni library. We go back. I find it next to a computer. Poor girl, it’s her birthday. Some painfully slow traffic. Make it to Sofias where she picks up her birthday dinner (why?!), I get some gelati as Im extremely thirsty and have run out of water and could justify spending the $2 I was going to but didn’t spend earlier. Make it to her place. I drive home. I have tea. I drive back to Jess’s with Laura and we watch some of series 2 of Arrested Development and some of Farenheit 9/11.
And now I am back home, lamenting the fact I can’t get on to Centrelink tomorrow – guess who forgot to report again! as I have to work from 8:45am-5:00pm. I am impressed. They’ll be impressed. I think they have a file on me. How many times I have to call them up because I’ve forgotten.
Please read all the above with a good idea of what exactly is sarcastic tone.
I’m actually in quite a good mood. I just need a sleep in that reaches beyond 8:30(am or pm, your choice). I need to go to bed before 9pm before I hit 20 – which is soon, or I think I will retreat to the back corner of Dymocks and find a spot amongst the dictonaries and dream of long words and definitions.