The End

So the last week of school is finally over! It feels a little bit odd for me because while I always appreciate a good holiday/time off school, it officially marks the beginning of my research project. Well, okay, so I’ve already sort of started, but now I actually have to get down and dirty! It’s exciting. And scary. But mostly exciting.

I’m not the most academically-inclined person; I fare a lot better doing hands-on practical projects, rather than the theory (hah, so why are you doing Honours, you dummy). So CommRev definitely scared me a little. I found the readings extremely difficult to process and understand, and would get extremely frustrated when it took me longer than thirty minutes to complete a single reading – pretty much the amount of time it took me to do reading logs back while in my undergraduate year. Yeah, I’m a ‘skimmer’ aka The Lazy Reader. I skim articles and somehow manage to pull out important points (usually found in the first and last paragraphs of the text), and can usually churn out a pretty decent reading log quickly. I found that this method wouldn’t work in Honours. So I toiled and laboured, but as soon as I got into the swing of things, it started getting better. The first assessment task was a little bit of a struggle for me – I just couldn’t understand some of the key concepts, and it was making me very worried. I did better than expected (I expected to fail, ha), and Peter’s thorough feedback really helped me understand what went wrong and why. I worked on it, and the second assessment task was a lot better for me. At the end of everything, I’m quite proud to say that I have certainly grown in the semester. While I’m not ready to take on a 70,000 word PHD thesis anytime soon, I’d like to stay that I’ve taken one step forward.

Transient Spaces was another interesting course. I like that we explored Community as a theme. Jenny had always urged us to look for the ‘conflict’ in the community, which I liked as well because it helped me find an edge to my documentary, so that I could make it worth watching/looking into. I was excited for this course because it let me be open with the execution of my documentary. I definitely wanted to take advantage of this to work hand-in-hand with my research project that was going to be based on social media and new media technologies. I have to admit that I kind of went into this the wrong way round. I decided on the execution before actually deciding on the content. Naughty of me, I know, but it was interesting going through the thought process from the opposite direction. After a shaky first few weeks, I finally decided on a community to base my documentary on. I’ve always been really interested in their activities and have even participated in some, so this was a fantastic excuse for me to get up-close-and-personal, for lack of a better term. Production was heaps of fun, and even editing! I had minor technical difficulties in between but sorted them out pretty quickly. I decided to do the whole Facebook-theme right at the end; a result of The Epiphany Toilet (true story). I got some positive feedback during the presentation, so I’m very thankful for that. Overall, Transient Spaces = success.

I have to admit, I spent most of my time this semester focusing on my research project. I came into Honours knowing exactly what I wanted to do, and I built my research project on that. I hate to admit it, but it felt that CommRev and Transient Spaces were taking away the precious time I could and should be spending doing my research project. I know, I know, I’m a terrible person. After the first few weeks, I learnt to embrace it / suppress the hate (can’t tell the difference at this point). I’m proud to say that I’ve made leaps and bounds with my research project. In a few months, I’ve set up an “official blog”, of which I have been faithfully updating every few days (minus the last two weeks – uni crunch time, yikes!), created accounts on multiple social networking platforms like Twitter, FourSquare, Tumblr, Delicious and Blip.fm. I have made it a habit to be active on all these platforms, and in a short span of time, am proud to say that I already have a (very) small following. I also continuously keep myself updated with industry news, so research doesn’t really feel like research. As a result, I had absolutely no complaints about doing my Lit Reviews. I’m currently in the process of finishing up my 5,000 word essay as I type this, but I’m not very much fussed, even if it is due in a few days. My only worry is that I have way too much information to cram into 5,000 words! It should all be fine though, I’m excited to get good and properly started on my project and do a smashing job for next semester!

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Overall, it’s been a pretty good couple of months. I’m proud of what I’ve done so far, which is great. Here’s to the next half of 2010!

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