Category: Personal Endeavours

H is for HOLIDAYS

This first semester on university has been a blast.  I’ve learnt so much not only about media but also about myself.  With Introduction to Cinema and Sound Design accompanying the media one course this semester, I’ve learnt much about how media is absolutely everywhere.  I’ve become a lot more aware of how media impacts my life and it’s importance as well as technical aspects of manipulating sound and, of course, I’ve learnt that I’ll never again be able to just sit down and relax watching a film without analysing every single little tiny detail about it (thanks cinema).  I’ve most recently learnt that collaborative work doesn’t have to be painful and horrible like I thought it was in high school.
I’ve found over this semester that my most effective way of learning is by doing.  I found more information stuck with me throughout experiential learning or through discussion rather than through listening to lectures.

I suppose I could combine what I found most challenging about the course with what I’ve discovered about my own creative practice and say that the part I found most challenging was the fact that it’s all creative and I find myself going in and out of creative mindsets.  I once read somewhere that creativity is like a fruit tree, it blooms only on certain seasons.  It’s very hard to force the fruit production all year round.  And I guess I could relate because my creative moods come and go where this course asks for creativity in virtually every assessment piece.  So that’s what I found the most difficult.

A definite struggle I have had this semester (which is purely and admittedly my own fault) is procrastination.  I leave things to the absolute last minute, and not just homework and assessments, I’m talking about everything I do and it’s a character trait that I’m working on eliminating for the future.  Procrastination and laziness is the whole reason this blog doesn’t have quite as many posts as it probably should so I’m going to work on that.

Here’s 5 posts that I think were this blogs highlights:

1.  Food for thought on hyper and deep attention

2.  E is for Emily loves sound

3.  Week 5’s collaboration readings

4.  Collaborative Brainstorming

5.  Dreaded Research

 

As a final cap off for the semester, here’s my ‘learning graph’.  It’s backwards but you get the gist of it.

Photo on 5-06-2015 at 6.48 pm #2

Key:

Red:   How much have I learnt about making media objects/stories?

Purple:  What is my ability to work independently in unfamiliar ways or with new systems and tools?

Orange:  How much do I understand and think critically and creatively about what I make?

Brown:  What is my understanding of the role/value of the blog?

 

Adios and happy holidays 🙂

 

D is for Dreaded Research

Week 6’s lectorial was mostly based around the idea of using media for research.  It included a talk from the librarian on how to utilise the RMIT online library  as well as how to find primary, reliable sources which can prove to be difficult at times.  I think I’ve mentioned in a previous post my intense dislike for research tasks and writing up bibliographies; particularly annotated bibliographies (ew), so it was a good clump of useful information on how to minimise research time and find what’s needed as painlessly as possible.
Though, in regards to using media as a research tool, I think I can safely say that we are learning new things everyday through different forms of media.  Even if it is unconsciously, our minds are constantly doing little bits of research on what we perceive throughout the day.  We watch the news and learn something new about politics or another country.  We go to a restaurant and learn what foods are in a dish.  We read a book and maybe pick up new words.  Media never ceases to amaze me with it’s glaringly subtle influence on our lives.

C is for Catchup Time

This past few weeks have had my head rolling around work, uni and personal life.  It’s a busy new life that I am STILL getting accustomed to and I can now see why it’s a kind of unspoken fact that most people who decide to take a gap year between high school and university never actually end up going to uni.  I totally lost my study groove for a bit there.
It’s come to my attention (or maybe it was always to my attention and I was just stubbornly ignoring it) that I am unbelievably far behind on keeping this blog updated with my course work.  So consider this post the beginning of the mother of all catchups; starting with week 4’s lectorial of media integrating theory and practice.

Media brings the world together in all ways – this linking to week 2’s lectorial on how media is everywhere.  It has become the pinnicle source of research, entertainment, communication, EVERYTHING.   I am noticing how large a part of our lives it is becoming, particularly in the last couple of weeks after Zac and I moved into our own place.  It’s a beautiful place, however at the moment we have no internet and no cables to allow our TVs to receive digital free to air.  As a result I feel completely out of the loop.  My phone is out of data already, I can’t see what people are up to on facebook, can’t send or view friends pointless snapchats of what I’m doing, couldn’t even watch the State of Origin last night (an absolute tragedy for a Queenslander).  On top of this, uni work is proving to be difficult to complete and it’s all got me thinking how grateful I am to be growing up in such an age of technology and how bloody annoying it is to not have that technology.  This was more of a rant post about how much I miss the internet at home but still, it all links with the general consensus of this course; media brings the world together.

MADDISON

I focused the Project Brief 3 assessment on my older sister, Maddison.  A person who I have looked up to all my life and who never ceases to interest me.
Two minutes is not nearly long enough to do her beautiful mind justice, but I have done my best so enjoy.  🙂

IMG_0066

I moved to Melbourne from Brisbane a couple of weeks ago so, of course, I had to do the tourist-y thing first and see the Twelve Apostles.  They’re pretty rad.