May 27th - Dirty Wallflower

I'm back :D

Download it right here, if you wanna listen to it later :)

#RIPMCA

Gotta love MCA and here's 20 minutes of the awesomeness of The Beastie Boys

U N I

This is post is simply for people who are worried about their University prospects. If you're happy with where you're at and what you're doing, keep studying, keep doing what you're doing, graduate and be merry. Me, on the otherhand, is a bit more cynical.

Man, cynic looks like a douche...

There is a time in every portion of learning where you have to look at the larger picture. Education, itself is already apart of one's life. It is, to some extent, apart of the building blocks of a work ethic, a drive, an authoritative system and more things I cannot think off the top of my head. Once I reached University after a good fourteen years of education (I'll get to that later), I thought, 'Yeah, this is it. This is where my learning begins. My real learning.' I had grown up on a steady diet of teen comedies during my formative years and this lead to me thinking that “College” would be nothing but drinking, sex parties and food fights. Of course, this was when I realised, I would be attending a University, not a college, I am Australian and I am not John Belushi, nor do I have a ragtag bunch of delinquents and sex pests.

Meet Exhibit B. But that's for a whole other blog post.

My first year of University was more than hectic. I felt a lot more comfortable than in my school uniform. I dressed, however, I wanted and whilst I eventually failed a few subjects, it did come down to my lack of study and my inability to write essays properly. I'm in my final year of study and neither of those two things have changed and I'm still standing.

Could be worse...

I am aware that both of those things were something I was meant to learn during high school and maybe they didn't do a great job there. I understand an essay as the following: Introduction, where you state what your essay is about; Body, where you present arguments, with a technique or rational evidence and example, followed by an explanation; finally, you conclude your arguments and sum up your points. Am I wrong there? This is without Wikipedia, from my understanding of the universe, that this is what an essay is meant to be. I have not changed this formula and could be the reason why I have failed most assessments. That and I still haven't entirely figured out the Harvard Method, nor been marked properly as such.

The Harvard Method is also what I call when someone screams out another person's name during sex.

I'm here to possibly have some questions, anecdotes and no real answers to why I have consistently appeared mediocre in my studies at the University of my choice. I do attribute a part of it, due to a slightly narcissistic nature where I feel like my voice is largely ignored or thought of as annoying in classes. I don't think I know anything, I know that for a fact, the internet is a daily reminder of that. I know what I know and I want to learn more, I want to fail, I want to learn more from that failure, I want people to rebuttal my words with logic and present new ideas. After my Belushi-like aspirations fell to the wayside, I have to say my favourite times at Uni, weren't sitting in class learning, but afterwards, when the discussions would start on particular topics. That's where it became interesting and introspective, to see what had stuck from the classes and what voices, opinions and facts were not heard in my our designated hourly timeslots.

Yeah,  time management, like finding out when can I watch Felicity?

I also want to raise the concern of failing. I understand some people simply don't try and they drop out and pursue other interesting prospects, but University is not a place where people thrive on failure. It's often a crushing or faltering position when you fail at Uni, at least personally. It's something I'm kinda working through, with a lot of support and understanding from people who have failed, learnt and come out the other side.

And this was the last place we ever saw him...

The important thing with University is to strive. It's about learning about what you eventually want to do. To do what you love, and sure, you can easily do that without University. I genuinely do not think University is for everyone. Some of the greatest people in the world, who's words, I and millions follow were not University graduates. Heck, most of them were drop outs or simply had no plans for college. Bill Gates had a traffic violation before he was 21, attended Harvard with no plans on what he was doing but just used the school's computers. Steve Jobs attended Reed College in Portland Oregon, but dropped out 6 months into his studies and then spent the following year and a half just popping into creative classes. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to pursue, and make, what would become one of the most greatest changes to communication and social stalking since Caller ID. A personal hero, Charlie Brooker, did not graduate from Polytechnic of Centrol London and studied an entire course in Media Studies, but his dissertation was on video games and then was denied graduation because they didn't think it was an acceptable topic...

If someone says I can't write about this game, I will gravity gun someone's ass.

Whilst people will tell story of these great men and their lack of an entire Uni education, they forget to mention the fact that they had drive, they had ambition, they had the intelligence in other areas. Zuckerberg was a maths whiz who spoke three different languages. Jobs had a great interest in electronics and even worked for Atari before working on the Apple II. Gates coded extravagantly in high school and played Poker frequently in college between classes. They were doing stuff they loved even before they started University. Whether or not their financial and socially renowned paths were set before them, we may never know, but the thing is they had passion, drive and a work ethic that made them what they are today, not an institution.

Also I doubt Reed College advertises that Gates went there.

Oh and for those who don't know who Charlie Brooker is or what he has done, he's a creator of some of the best shows about speculative science fiction, satire and media. Brooker is also married to this wonderful woman, Konnie Huq.

There is no words here...

But Brooker, despite not graduating, has since hosted four television shows, written and worked on over a dozen, writes a column for the Guardian, has five published books, a radio show and is one of the best voices and names in media analysis. He is also the inspiration to Ben “Yahtzee” Crowshaw, creator of animated web series and video game review show, Zero Punctuation.

Sorry, award winner, Yahtzee Croshaw

I don't think University is bad, in any respect, I just currently feel conflicted about certain prospects and hope others will voice similar concerns. Like I said, I don't think I'll have any real answers, but I do have concerns to other people who are currently or about to start University and are worried about the prospective futures. It's fine to be worried about them, just don't think the fact you're going to University means your life is set. It's not always the case. I could name a hundred other people I love and respect who did go to University, like this man.

Rapper, writer, comedian, actor and college graduate

Ultimately, I feel that me as a person in his early twenties, with multiple interests, which are simply not being adhered to from the education community, nor the environment I am in. Of course, I am just one person and there are multiple things to factor in. I could be doing the wrong courses, know the wrong people or simply have the wrong career in mind for someone with my talents. But hey, I'm young and I have a year left. Maybe it'll all pan out, maybe I'll achieve my dream for writing on a comedy show or even the greater dream writing for a video game or hell, maybe that dream will change to being a farmer and owning the best strawberry crop in all of Australia. The point is I am me and I don't nor do I want to be Zuckerberg or Gates or Jobs...but I do kinda want to be Charlie. I already got the hot girl anyway.

S Club and The Price of Nostalgia...

I only realised this was here just now, my first week post is on the discussion and I'm wondering if I need to repost it here, just to be in line with everyone else. Anyway, our professor brought up some great points about Neoliberalism this week and the idea of freedom and choice in this country.
Unlike the United States, there is nothing in our country's policies or constitution that says that we have any notion of freedom of expression, which may be why my pleas to the arts council to bring Genie from Down Under back have been ignored. A closer look, and by closer, I mean five minutes on Google, reveals that neoliberalism is often associated with the free market and the economy, in general, rather than anything to do with the majority of society and social policy.

These two could run the country with an Opal-based economy

Now I'm all about autonomy and democracy and that whilst choice is a great thing, I know a lot of people who make bad choices. This is, of course, a very subjective view on what people do and I sound like a judging prick when I do so. Of course, I learnt through my late teens and current 20's, that if it doesn't concern or affect me, out of the fact that I am friends with this person, it shouldn't really bother me, but when people buy tickets to S Club Uni Party, it does concern me. It concerns me whether the money, their own or parents, that is being used is being put towards something that that friend truly believes in.
Are they purchasing the tickets to relive a nostalgic momentum that will push them through a rough time in their life?

Life was simple when every party was an S Club Party

I think that people are often easily swayed with marketing and brands and the simple notion of a generations collective nostalgia being marketed to them is something I am not entirely for. We have been disappointed in the past. The remake of Goldeneye, the reforming of the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block, the upcoming reboot of Spiderman, the possible Buffy reboot, Syndicate Reboot, 3D re-release of Return of the Jedi, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and many more. Of course, not being the license holders or a guy who enjoys mediocre 90's pop, I have no say in the matter, all I can do is right and voice an opinion and maybe someone will listen to my hypocrisy of pointing out nostalgic things and then indulging them...non-ironically.
Now I have to write another series of angry emails to the ABC, Rhys Muldoon and the Arts Council about bringing back Lift Off as well.

Say goodbye to your afternoon...and possibly your dreams.

P.S. If you Google or YouTube any of those references, consider the low you feel afterwards your own fault, not mine.

HAPPY LEAP DAY EVERYBODY

Hope you get a greeting from Leap Day William