Recent Event Highlights: Academic Leader, Programme Leader for Multimedia, David Bowie: Sound and Vision Tour, Enrolled on a BA Hons Fine Art at UWN, Foundation Art & Design, Attended John Howard Upper School, and 20 more...
Created by spooky on 28/01/2010
Last updated: 18/02/10 at 10:38
A Life Less Ordinary . . . or not . . . has no followers yet. Be the first one to follow.
I picked up 59% in my first assessment on the MA and can't quite figure out if I'm disappointed or relieved. The truth is that I had honestly thought that I had failed and was desperately trying to figure out where I would get the time to rework it and resubmit it. Its arguably the worst thing I've ever written. Having said that my practice was poor. I had no real idea of how to structure this even tho I knew what I wanted to say. As a result I just wrote 40k and then spent the rest of my time chopping bits out which meant no real critical analysis or evaluation. It also dented my own ego. for me in education the top grade only is worth it. So a degree is a First. everything else is a failure. An a level A grade is a pass - everything else is a failure. For me now on this MA the road to a first feels much harder and that it turn I know will hit my motivation - after all if I can't get a first why bother to kill myself over it? I may as well just do enough to get by. This is a mode of thought I must guard against.
Throughout my entire life I have felt 'wrong' without ever being able to articulate the framework of my perceived 'wrongness'. It is an irony that this perceived 'wrongness' underpinned a lifelong 24 hour process of self reflection where every last nuance of every experience is endlessly replayed and analysed for meaning - often resulting in mis-readings that are then subsequently difficult to 'correct'. It is also an example of how the way others see you and their ability to make connections between what they are informed about and what they experience can affect you directly. My wife had watched a television programme which had a feature in it about a wife's struggle living with her husband's 'strangeness'. The woman took this further and discovered that her husband was actually AS. As my own wife watched the symptoms and characteristics being unwrapped she identified both with the wife and the husband and exclaimed that what she was seeing mirrored me! This led to a period of medical investigation, culminating in a diagnosis with a specialist. I'd never considered myself in this way before - in fact despite the sense of 'wrongness' it had always been framed as a 'wrongness' with the world around me. I have had to be careful not to allow myself to accept the label and fall foul of the Forer effect but it is clear to me that a great deal of what I perceive may not exactly be accurate or 'real'. Equally, in common with a great many AS sufferers it places me in a position somewhat outside the normal perception workings of society and thus I have found some issues that cause tension - not least of all the Goffman-esque performance that is readily accepted.
I was asked to go into the office of the Dean for a talk with the Dean and the Head of Design. Once inside they told me that I had not got the job of Lecturer in Multimedia (a job I had created and had been doing - and also that the students had petitioned for me to be formally installed in). They claimed that a) my CV was an 'industry' cv and not an 'academic' one and b) that I had not had anything published. Firstly I could not understand how I could possibly have gotten through the shortlist and 3 stages of interview if my CV represented such a block and secondly I found out subsequently that the successful candidate hadn't had anything of note published either! I was then told that my services were obviously no longer needed. They even had the balls to offer to help me redo my CV!!!!!! Part of me broke that day.
I had to undergo a psychometric test for this (my second) interview for this job. It was clear that the woman administering the test (a senior HR person) was uncomfortable with it and really did not understand what it was for and what to look for.
I had had an awful experience on my BA and where my path had once been set out (BA, MA, PHD, Success) I was now filled with doubt and a complete lack of self belief and confidence. I really had no understanding of what I would do and also of what constituted a practitioner in a multimedia sense. I seemed to be one of just a few people involved and the sense of isolation led me in a Kolb sense to generalise about my experience and summise that I had wasted my time and that education was now a waste of time. The fact that I had regressed internally and completely internalised all thought and creativity meant that without any regular interaction or debate with others my activities in Multimedia were completely divorced from any real world context and this prevented me from being able to see opportunities for exploiting their potential. Or rather it prevented me from seeing a way towards exploiting that potential. The only link I had to any kind of action plan was the old 'script' and what came next was an MA. I applied to do a Multimedia MA at the RCA and fully expected to be offered an unconditional place since I had known personally of a student from the previous year who I felt was not in my league get in with no trouble. I was contacted by the RCA who claimed that they had not received my digital work (a set of hypercard stacks on floppies) and so I sent them another set. I was then absolutely shocked to hear that I was not being offered a place - it was the first experience that I had ever had of being formally rejected and felt that it was a reflection of my abilities and potential. Maybe I had been wrong (along with everyone else). Maybe I had already reached as high as I could go? Having reflected long and hard about this event I formed a belief system that re-enforced my generalisations concerning my BA and as such decided that an MA was no longer of any value to me. Unfortunately, it now meant that I was 'off script'.
Honorary Award
Originally at the time the institution was Gwent College of HIgher EDucation and the degree was awarded by CNAA. A friend of mine at the time who lived a few doors down in Halls used to receive letters from his mother that always mispelled the college name. Gint Collage is my favourite
Maths, Physics, Art
Forester Foods, the Post office, Pizza factory and other equally mind numbing jobs . . .
I was born in Bedford general hospital on this date to first generation Asian parents
Update Sources