Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

It is Finished

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Well, here I am, on the other side of my Masters Degree barely able to remember the pain of the last 6 weeks.  They say that’s what giving birth is like… once it’s over… you have the achievement and the hard work seems to be less hard than it was.

Well, mostly.

I’m shattered, of course, and relieved.  And today, after a domestic blitz unparalleled in 2009 my house is feeling the effects of finally having my full attention.  The cat is shipped off to friends to spend a couple of weeks entertaining them and tomorrow morning I’ll be boarding a plane for Aotearoa and the world’s most adorable (seriously) bunch of nieces and nephews on the planet.  (in the known universe, actually… ) oh, and yours are too…

Of course.

By some strange quirk of determination I managed to convince my internal deadline monitor switch off long enough to achieve the last two essays, both of them, a week ahead of their ACTUAL deadlines and as such had the final week of college to finish this https://deeleea.com/wp-content/uploads/flashdemo/index.html  You’ll recognize the header if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, I submitted that in the first half of the year, but the calendar panels are new and rather fun and just in time for this advent season!!  Oh… and SURPRISE! you can’t open them till their appointed day – so bookmark the page ‘k?!

I presented the unlocked version of the calendar to my lecturers for assessment and duly handed in all my assignments and as of Tuesday can happily say that I’m done.  Of course, now I’m thinking about Honours, you know, coz I’ll need something to keep up the pace next year *facepalms*

I celebrated the end of the degree dining at Chez Maurice et Linda with some of my favourite women. The restaurant is a Northern Beaches landmark with the most delicious French menu – utterly wonderful and well priced ($51.50 for a 3 course meal!) Linda the hostess is amazing to watch as she served the whole room, Maurice is a bit abrupt and told us off for having one of our party not eating… space is at a  premium and the whole layout would have been different if there were only 5 instead of 6- they’d clearly have charged us if it hadn’t been our first visit…HOWEVER, the food was AMAZING, we had a brilliant time and I’m glad I remembered to book 6 weeks ago as it’s very difficult to find a table there at short notice!!!  I had French Onion Soup to start, Beef Wellington and finished with Crepes Suzette – yes, the were on fire… brilliant!!

Anyway, it’s late and I should be doing those last fiddly tidy ups before I clamber into bed, and so I at least get SOME sleep before the shuttle arrives in the morning… I doubt I’ll be bloggin in NZ – internet access will be sketchy… but until I get back, play nice ok??

Looks Like I Fixed It

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I upgraded my version of Movable Type recently and broke the site, between that meltdown and my end of year, I’m never going to finish this degree, I am dying, I have too much to do, and not enough time with my friends personal meltdown there hasn’t been much that was blogworthy going on around here.

I’m in the last 3 weeks of uni and the degree is nearly done.

Thanks for you patience while I pick up all the pieces and get some life back in the very near future!!!

Agitator Cycle

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So, here I am once again launched into the first week of the semester. 

The break was wonderful and a glimpse of what life could look like when this is all over…  I’ve held up well under the pressure of assignments and essays and my marks, while not as high as I might have hoped were nonetheless respectable in that I scored 3 credits (69, 73 and 74) and a distinction (83).
 
Satisfactory indeed.

I had a very clear idea before I started this semester of the classes I was taking and the timetable looked as though it would work well, Tuesdays from 3-7 and then Wednesdays from 5-9. Wednesday has turned into a huge day as I was offered 4 hours teaching (and not concurrent; with a 3 hour break in between) and I leapt at that before I’d actually finalised the uni timetable.  But an hour to get from one side of town after teaching to the other for the learning was workable and while a huge day in the middle of the week may not be ideal the class is for 8 weeks and I’m already 2 weeks down on that…

Clearly, my inherent inclination toward biting off more than I can chew is still intact…

In any case, the subject dealing with Flash animation which I took last term (remember the bunnies?) didn’t look like it was going to work into my schedule and so I’d dropped it in favour of a Linguistics Paper, Electronic Discourse.  I was sad to lose Flash, but based on the course outline for ED thought it a good option, and as the teaching I’m doing is Flash related I decided I could continue teaching myself…

So, the week begins,  Monday with the night school singing class I’ve been teaching, on Tuesday I rock up to the appropriate classes and after 2 hours of ‘Computers as Culture’ I was excited again to be back in class.  However, after about an hour of Electronic Discourse immediately following that I think my brain short circuited… 

Discourse analysis… having had little idea of what it meant or was about prior to this fateful hour I am now  in possession of more knowledge than I ever though I’d have need.

Consequently today was a day of administration and rearrangment of timetable and classes in order to re-enroll in the multi-media class.

So, here I am, sitting once again in the library at Sydney College of Art waiting for time to pass enough to go up to class… I figure it’s better used time to be here early than to be sitting in 5pm traffic to get here… and you win… you got a blog post out of it…

But the pay off is that I’m now in class 3 days a week instead of two… and once again it’s the singing class that has to give.  Just as well I’m singing in church on Sunday so I can get a fix that way…

14 weeks… I love this studying lark, don’t get me wrong, but today it’s 14 weeks and counting till I can have my life back.

Mid Year Break

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Well, here I am, halfway through 2009 and, as it happens, also half way through my course. 

I can scarcely believe how quickly it has gone, I guess when one is as busy as I have been it can be expected that the time would pass in a blur.  I can certainly see the results of all that concentrated effort in the pile of completed assignments, the screeds of paper read and notated, the results posted on Moodle and all in all, it has been very satisfactory.

I have one final assessment that I am going into college tomorrow to present it to my lecturers but I thought that you might to have a look at it first!!!  It’s a flash animation, and contrary to previous gif animations I’ve done for you, this one is a little bit higher end.  It’s the first part of what will be a two part project, the 2nd half will be presented at the end of the year, and when it is finished it will be a 2009 Advent Calendar you can play along with at home!!!

So without further ado, click the image…


Mouse over the image to see which bits are active and then click or hover to play with it.  If you get over an audio clip it’s prudent to wait until it’s finished before you go onto the next otherwise you get a bit of sensory overload…

The source design was a cross-stitch I did in 1998, I’ve had it sitting in my finished/unframed drawer for all that time and I’ve wanted to animate it for ages!  At lest this way it’s being used even if that’s not in the traditional manner.

Would love to hear what you think in the comments