Tag Archives: university

Seconds Out

In the red corner,

pensive.

Staring across a ring

a thousand

miles

wide.

Her adversary

only grins.

 

In the black corner,

weighing in

at the totality of life,

the grim reaper

flexes his bones.

A dry, ancient crackle

shivers her spine.

 

She wears

sorrow,

a dark veil,

a tartan skirt.

 

The reaper wears sequined shorts,

brazenly.

Emblazoned with his name.

Hanging

like

rags

from bony hips,

he shadow boxes;

queensbury rules.

 

The seconds are out.

She stands,

Bumps leather gloves

Together.

Wonders idly,

why the reaper

gets to use a scythe?

Where does the time go?

Wow.  What a journey that first year at university was!  I’m so sorry you didn’t really get to experience it with me, I think I misjudged the volume of work when I said I’d keep this blog updated.  Still, I’m here now with plenty of time on my hands over the summer, so I’m going to try to keep it updated a little better.

Edge-Hill-University-Campus-Images-John-Johnson-34

Our amazing library.  This place saved my life more than once!

First things first, let me tell you how I felt my first year went; it went great.  It surpassed all of my expectations and managed to blow a few of my fears out of the water.  I’ve done well in the majority of the assessments that have already been marked, including an absolutely mind blowing 80% in one of them.  I still can’t believe that 80% mark is actually right!  The classes were all interesting and while sometimes it felt like we were feeling around in the dark without much guidance, I guess that’s just how universities operate.  A lot of the stuff you have to work out or decide on for yourself; it’s not like the less advanced kinds of further education, where you’re spoon fed the information you need.  The tutors seem to give you just enough to get you thinking and then the rest is really up to you.  It takes some getting used to, but I think I worked it out fine in the end.

The other thing I want to mention in this blog post is that I will be putting my assessment submissions up here on the website in the future, but in order to avoid the university’s plagiarism filter, I have to leave them off until they’ve been marked.  Look for them at the beginning of June, if you’re interested in how they turned out.

Other than that, thanks for sticking with me, those of you who still read these things!  I PROMISE I will try to keep this thing updated and will hopefully be adding new work and stuff as I keep my skills up over summer.  Unless I become world famous in the meantime, of course!

Be Excellent To Each Other!

Steven

 

Just keep swimming!!

So, the second week of university is over and our third week is about to begin!  Last week brought with it new challenges as well as some surprising revelations!

I guess you could say that last week was the first time ‘shit got real’ at university, as our tutors gleefully threw tons of information at us and chuckled as our heads

Someone catch my brain!!

Someone catch my brain!!

revolved (I might be embellishing that a little).  We did suddenly find ourselves with lots to think about and lots to study; it’s hard to know where to start, but start I must!

Even though there’s work to do, the reading part of it doesn’t really feel like work and as I read books written by authors I’d never heard of, in styles I’d never consider reading, I find myself enjoying it.  It really is amazing how much you can learn by getting out of your comfort zone and reading things you wouldn’t usually.  I found myself initially confused and disliking Dan Rhodes’ writing style in Anthropology, but by the time I’d finished it, I’d come to love those little surrealist vignettes of his and I will be seeking out more of his work.

Another surprising thing I discovered was how much I’m actually scared of

Scriptwriting in a nutshell...

Scriptwriting in a nutshell…

scriptwriting!  Before I started the course, I thought it was easy, but after our first four hour (yes, four hours of scriptwriting each week!) class, I was petrified by the

technical complexity of scripts.  Hopefully as the weeks go on, I’ll be able to get it straight in my head and I think that ultimately, I will enjoy scriptwriting.  Still, it was scary, eye opening stuff!

For me, the lesson of the week has to go to Building The World.  We were spoiled by having it as our very first class and it was so much fun!  Everything else was struggling to match up to it.  We started easily enough by discussing what secondary worlds were and why we create them.  We then had to imagine what our world would be like without a single invention.  It was fascinating to imagine the possibilities that could exist when just one essential invention was removed from the world.  Although I have to say to some of my classmates, who imagined a world

It's early days in World Building...

It’s early days in World Building…

without the internet, that I remember that world very clearly already!  Jokes about my age aside, the whole lesson was fun and thought provoking.

So we start week three with a good idea of how our lessons are going to go and a very real idea of the amount of work we have to do.  Even with all of the work, I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else right now and I’m so happy I have a great bunch of people to go on this journey with!

#EHUFreshers

So, here we are, my time at Edge Hill University has finally started!  That means that from now on, this blog will be getting regularly updated as I keep a journal/blog/personal rant of the things that I’m learning here at university.  I would have posted on Monday, but the only thing that happened was a tour of the campus and while that was fascinating for me, I doubt those of you who read this would have been enthralled to learn the opening times of the library!

The face of someone who listened to my library tour tale...

“Oh my god, he’s talking about the library again!!”

As enlightening for me as Monday was, Tuesday was the real deal.  I finally got to meet my department tutors and the other Creative Writing students.  We had our Creative Writing Programme Induction in the morning.  This was, as our Programme Leader said, just to get the nuts and bolts of both our course and university life out of the way before the real learning starts next week.  It was really interesting overall, from both a student point of view and from a personal one, I felt that the personalities of our tutors shone through and they seem to be a likeable, relaxed group as they talked us through some crucial (but, admittedly, a little boring) pointers about how our time here will run.

We were told the times of our seminars/workshops as well as a little from each tutor about what these would include.  Those of you who know me well will know that my particular interests lie in Speculative Fiction and Writing for Games.  It bodes well, I think, that the tutor for those particular workshops came across as very friendly and approachable (ultimately though, they were all very nice!).  Best of all, the whole course kicks off with ‘Building The World’ next Wednesday.

Tuesday afternoon saw us in a lecture hall, getting a talk from the English Department head and from Student Services.  It wasn’t interesting enough to warrant a breakdown on this blog and so I’ll spare you the details.  Suffice to say that it served to make me feel glad that we won’t be spending too much time in big lecture halls.  Those places make me so sleepy it’s untrue!

"Must...take...notes...zzzzz"

“Must…take…notes…zzzzz”

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting to know some of the other mature students who are studying in the English Department, as well as a chance to have a chat with the tutors.  I also had a couple of really interesting chats; one with Peter, who will be running our Building The World class, about RPG’s and tabletop games and other with one of the history lecturers, whose name I’ve unfortunately forgotten, about how a good knowledge of historical research can be useful when creative worlds for your fiction to exist in.

Finally, the rest of the English/History/Creative Writing students joined us for a few drinks, some snacks and a fun little quiz which saw us put into groups of six, fighting it out for a grand prize of Book Tokens!! (Remember: writers are readers who write!)  Unfortunately, we missed out on third place by one point, but were satisfied with being the highest of the also rans!  It’s the taking part that counts, right?

So that’s more or less my first week at university.  Apologies to those of you who thought it was going to be a rambunctious tale of wild drinking and partying,

Not pictured; me tucked up in bed...

Not pictured; me tucked up in bed…

which you probably remember from your own Freshers Week, but you have to remember, I’m 38 and the last thing those 18 year old kids want is some creepy guy twenty years older than they are hanging out with them.  I’m happy just to be doing this course in the first place!

I look forward to next week and getting my teeth stuck into the course properly.  Watch this space for further exciting tales from academia!

And so it begins…again.

For those of you who know me and may have followed my other blogs, you’ll know that this is not my first time writing a blog.  You’ll also know that those other blogs haven’t been updated in some time.  There is a reason for that, and it’s not laziness!  Well, it’s not all laziness!

Not long after I got back from America in 2012, the email account I was using to access all of my blogs was hacked and the passwords changed.  This meant that I couldn’t get access to any of my blogs.  That’s been fixed for the most part but unfortunately I still have read only access to my main blog, The Random Ravings of an Undercover Geek.  This saddens me because the blogs about my trip across America are on there and I was hoping to maybe finish them one day before I completely forget everything that went on.  To that end, I think I am going to rebuild the Random Ravings blog at some point in the future and move those blogs over to that and maybe, just maybe, I’ll even finish them!

So what’s this one all about then?

Good question, I’m glad you asked!  I’ve decided to create this new blog as a way of sharing my thoughts as I move ahead with the next three years of my life.  In September of this year (2015), I am starting at university for the very first time in my life.  This is something that I should have done long ago but life has a nasty habit of sidetracking you with things that you think are important to you, at least at the time.  However long it’s taken me to get here, I am here now and I damn well mean to make sure it counts.
So, to that end, I have enrolled on a Creative Writing degree at Edge Hill University, which begins in September.  This isn’t a decision that I’ve made lightly, it means I have to give up my full time job for a part time one (possibly even a zero hour contract one) and it means that I will be poor and debt riddled for years to come, but in terms of self satisfaction and finding a job that I love doing and can be passionate about, this is definitely the way to go.

Yeah, that’s cool and all, but why another blog?

The reason this blog exists is because firstly I wanted somewhere that I can post about the things I’m learning regarding writing and all that entails, as well as having somewhere that I can share my thoughts and worries about the questions the course will inevitably pose (not just academically, but in regards to my personal life and personal growth too).  Secondly, I need a few ways in which I can keep my writing skills sharp and, like any skills, they are kept sharp by using them and doing things with them.  This is one of the exercises I’m going to use to make sure that happens.  Plus, I thought that maybe some of you might just be interested in my thoughts and feelings about the world and uni life and everything.
So, that’s it.  I’ve started this blog a little early I guess but I wanted to give myself time to get used to blogging again and mostly to try and remember to do it!  Either way, watch this space folks, the next three years promise to be an interesting ride.  Care to come along?