Unit Evaluation Time!

ACM 318 - Independent Production Practice

This unit is in serious need of review.
My initial concern is with the fundamental dishonesty in calling it "Independent Production Practice". A more accurate name would be "Experimental Film Theory and Practice". The handbook entry and Unit Guide mention nothing about experimental or avant-garde film, but the unit focuses entirely on these genres. There was one ten-minute discussion about non-experimental independent film in class, and then it was only referenced comparatively.
I was angry to discover that the unit contained nothing about, for instance, financing, distributing or otherwise finding support for independent films. It was also asserted that independent films do not strive for mainstream success, which is patently untrue.

The structure of the unit was woeful. The allotment of time was hopelessly wrongheaded. John Cumming took the first three classes, for the purpose of outlining our assignments. The useful content of these three classes could have been condensed into one. Steve McIntyre (who took over teaching of the class after Mr Cumming went on leave) was given no space to do any teaching of his own, because the next five weeks (in practice, six, because we ran overtime) were taken up entirely by student oral presentations.
He also told us that he marked all our first assignments generously because he felt we had not been clear about the intentions of the assignment. This tells me that despite devoting an excessive amount of class time to detailing the assignment, Mr Cumming did not get his message across.

My major suggestions are these:

• Change the name of the unit. It is not about independent film; it is about experimental film. As a person who is interested in one but not the other, I feel personally ripped off. I enrolled under a false impression.
• The assignments would better reflect the learning if they were essays, not films. As it stands, this unit is actually a film history class. Two out of three of the assignments were practical, make-a-film exercises, but they shouldn't have been. They did not reflect the nature of the learning we did, which was exclusively theoretical.
• Make serious structural revisions. Assignment 2 (the oral presentation) dragged out far longer than it should have done. If we are to undertake practical work at all (making films), we should spend some class time on them - if only to discuss them after screening them. We were not given an opportunity to do this at any point.
  
• The assignment outlines should not be given in bulk at the start of semester, and they should not take nine hours to explain.

Please make some real changes to this unit.

My padded "safe" suit

It turns out that emergencies are rather boring.
At 11pm when Christine and I arrived in the emergency department, first we presented ourselves at the desk where there is a big arrow saying GO HERE FIRST. And a woman came, and asked us personal questions, then referred us to another desk. At the other desk, we stood waiting for about two minutes while the two nurses murmured gossip to one another (because if you murmur, it sounds like you're discussing, not gabbing) behind the glass. Eventually one of them turned around and asked us what she could do for us. At least she didn't ask us how we were. Christine, who was dizzy and overwhelmed, went to sit down and left me to answer this woman's questions - one of which was "So, your friend, she's a single girl, is she?"
"Um?"
"She's single?"
I weighed up the possibilities. Either she meant was Christine dating anyone - a weird question for a emergency nurse to ask, but then, this woman had consciously ignored us for two minutes in favour of gossiping with her friend - or she meant single in the way my Dad means single:

"I'm not married. That means I'm single."
"But you've got a girlfriend!"
"Yes, but we don't live together and we're not married... well, she is. But I'm not. I'm single in the eyes of the law."

I guessed that she meant it in the "eyes of the law" sense and went with "no".
And then I sat down with the Girl. The emergency room was filled with sleepy looking folk. I scanned the perimeter, but I couldn't see any open wounds. Boring! So I sat. And waited. By and by, one of the patients became impatient and started fiddling with the TV. He managed to find The Godfather, which was just starting on Channel 10. I was glad to have something to focus my eyes on, but also slightly irritated, because I'd never seen the end of this movie before, and I was sure to miss it now, because Christine would probably be being seen by then, or we'd be driving home, or we'd be home already and Christine would want to go straight to bed and not let me watch TV.
Three hours later, in a hospital waiting room, The Godfather's credits rolled and the third ambulance of the night pulled in at the sliding doors. Paramedics wheeled another stretcher into reception and all I could think was, "Great, another one pushes in front."
Some more patients became impatient and stormed out of the waiting room, presumably to bleed in the comfort of their own beds.
At 3am, Christine told me (for the fourth time) to go and sleep in the car. So I did. I figured it'd be warmer in there. I quickly learned that the heater doesn't work unless the engine is running, so I drove round the block a couple times to get warmed up. It soon dawned on me that if we had to wait much longer, I would have to leave the engine on for several hours, and I had scant petrol and scanter cash. So I called the Girl and said I was heading home to clean up the debris, and that I'd head back when she was being taken to a hospital room, and be there in time to drive her home.
At about 3:30 she got called in, and back I went.
Arrived at 3:40.

Wandered down the corridor into her room. She was alone. No one had seen her yet.
Give it half an hour, and a matronly nurse strode in and asked her the same questions she been asked twice already. How'd it happen, etc., etc., etc. Only this one asked, "How'd it really happen?"
"We were wrestling," I said.
"Ahh. But, friendship wrestling, or fighting wrestling?"
We looked at each other.
"Friendship wrestling."
The nurse nodded. Wrote something down. Off she went.

Give it another half hour and another nurse, a young Asian woman, wandered in. Her English was heavily accented and she was giggly and cheerful. She assumed I was the patient, because I was napping on the bed. Sorry, I'll get up.
Then she assumed, because of the basic dressing administered by the triage nurse, that the injury had been seen by a doctor. Sorry, not yet it hasn't.
She took Christine's blood pressure, asked the question, and wrote more notes. When she left, I looked at the sheet she'd deposited in the paperwork basket at the foot of the bed. In three different places and three different sets of handwriting it said, "Lac R forearm - shattered picture frame".
Yes. That is correct. Can we get a doctor in now perhaps?

At 5:30 I cracked it. "I'm going home." I left her money for a taxi, kissed her goodnight and pissed right off to bed. She sent me a message shortly, saying that there were six patients ahead of her in line and they weren't expecting to see her til 9am. Goodnight honey.

Emergencies are boring. The thing that strikes me most is how so many people, facing such a torturously boring wait, decide that their boredom is more detrimental than the injury that brought them to emergency in the first place. Yes, I speak from the perspective of the unharmed, but I think it's safe to say that Christine contemplated going home many times during that wait, asking me, "Do you think I even need to be here?"
Nah, honey. 'Tis but a scratch.

Moral of the story: I've decided not to get injured at night, ever. I think I can wangle it. Alls I gotta do is build myself a padded "safe" suit. Stiff, so my bones can't bend in two directions at once; thick, so sharp things cannot penetrate; and shock absorbent, so if there is a big bomb, I will not fall down.

Progress will be documented!

Hell is an empty shell

In response to Christine's post on faith and the existence of God, because she won't let me leave comments without a LiveJournal account:

I completely disagree.

Atheists don't demand that God be defined as a physical object. It is clear from most accounts (at least by monotheistic religions - not so much with the human-fucker Zeus and his ilk) that God is not a physical being. He is supposed to be a thing that exists beyond our understanding. And in this way, it is atheists, not believers, who are disadvantaged in the argument. How do you disprove the existence of something that isn't there... on purpose?

You must also understand that most "atheists" (disbelievers in God) are not at perfect opposition with "true believers" (whose faith prevails despite all evidence). Those we call atheists are mainly scientific thinkers who know how improbable God is, and therefore choose to live our lives as if there were no God. They do not proceed without evidence; indeed, by nature, they cannot.
We keep finding more and more explanations for things previously attributed to God. Some people believe in evolution and God as well. Oh, God just started off the process of evolution, then sat back and let it happen, did he? Why attribute it to him at all? We already have other explanations for how the evolutionary process started. Through science, we are continuously making God more and more redundant.

And I refute the claim that I have a hatred of belief. There are believers I know and like. Some I even love. Let them believe. Their choice. What I hate (and this is so terribly obvious I hardly need say it) are people who use belief to justify their evils. The morality of most religions is a flawed morality, developed by human men in times that are completely different to ours. Those who adhere to the morals of the Torah, the Bible or the Koran without thinking for themselves have allowed religion to retard their sensibilities. That's what I call crazy.

I agree that it is only fair to respect the beliefs of others, if their belief keeps them happy. However, if their belief teaches them not to respect you, then your respect is naturally going to hit its limit. And sometimes it doesn't keep them happy. Some believers live in a constant state of repression and guilt because they feel unworthy in the eyes of their God. And many remain deliberately uneducated because they feel that their Lord has all the answers - knowledge is a sin, as Eve discovered one hungry day. It is not for us to know the ways of the world. It is not for us to change God's will. We are to follow him and obey his decrees without question. God has all the reasons - so we don't need to employ any reason of our own.

I can't even pretend to respect that.

Housiversary

So this morning I woke up to the sigh of rain, the smell of probably-should've-showered-last-night sweat, and the spirited collective yelp of a crowd of teachers' union protesters. My girlfriend sat up in bed, smiled at me a bit, and said, "Honey, it's your one-week housiversary!"
Boh?
Well, yes. I've been living here a week now. Out Of Home. With The Girlfriend. I had hoped to have a million things to report but so far, it's been confoundingly undifferent. The hardest thing to adjust to is living with a cat. The Cat In Question belongs to the third housemate in our little shop top flat. It is gazey. It is black. I have never experienced cats before. They're not quite real. They make no noise, and they move so smoothly that you don't really notice them unless their giant molten eyes are fixed on you. They're like ghosts... ghosts that ooze into your room when you're not looking, and hide under your bed til you leave, closing the door and locking them in, and then they throw up on your carpet.
We do have a ghost in this house, however. His name is Brian. I've never seen him, but I've heard first-hand accounts of sightings and encounters. Sometimes people try to summon him, but he's notoriously difficult to get a hold of. He's a little like the Phantom of the Opera, in that he demands a salary for our use of "his" opera house... I mean, flat. I don't mind him being here, except that he's very particular about the state of the place.
The house itself is comfortable enough. Every possible surface has been painted with the same waterproof eggshell paint - including the skirting, windowsills, bathroom tiles and shower floor (where it peels horribly, yet Brian objects to our peeling it off completely). But my room is spacious, and I'm allowed to have ferrets.
I feel incredibly domestic. I'm enthusiastic about grocery shopping, and I actually enjoy cooking dinner for my girlfriend. I yearn to venture down to the variety store where they sell baking trays and plastic storage and vases and pots and $5 porcelain dolls.
Except. I have no money left.

Sorry Dad

I see you there, checking.
Checking each day.
Checking and hoping.
I will write something eventually.
I'm just busy... living.