Okay, this is the last Blog I'm writing in the "a noun most adjective" format. I promise. And it's a day early, but I figure that if I feel the need to write about my upcoming shift at work, I can do so in another Blog. I'm sure you're all frothing at the mouth to find out about my week (more to the point, I'm sure that you're frothing at the mouth because you want to know about my week, not because you're rabid and about to gnaw my arm), so let's get right down to it, in a blow-by-blow, day at a time analysis.

 

Monday was the aforementioned tutorial sign up day. I got home, and went back to sleep, thus ruining my circadian cycle for the next two days. We also start on the long-vexing problem of our internet connection. The resolution we come to is that the modem needs to go in the lounge room, with the phone socket, and then we run a Category-5 cable through the roof to my bedroom, wherein lies the router. We attend Bunnings, and acquire one hundred metres of Category-5 cabling at a surprisingly discount rate. Yes, dear readers, one hundred metres of cable. So if anyone reading this wants a new internet setup, we're the ones to call. We're professionals at it now, and we've got the materials to spare. Speaking of calling, we also have a home phone now. In a twist of ironic fate, our first caller (less than a day into the phone's connection) was a telemarketer. Great.

 

Tuesday: First classes! Educational Psychology; this is going to be a good class. Not least of all because I like psychology, and I'm good at it, and the lecturer is a good one, and the subject seems to be set out in an interesting way. We have a lecture with him, then the tute straight after, so it's all fresh in our minds as we debate the efficacy of Behavioural Theory, a subject upon which no less than five major theorists over time have completely failed to say anything new. Or even anything relevant, really. But nevertheless.

 

Then we move on to Managing the Learning Environment lecture. Okay, so admittedly this is a subject we cover implicitly in almost every other subject we do, but the lecturer is similarly very passionate, interesting, motivational and motivated, and she is the only lecturer I've ever even heard of who not only bemoans the pointlessness of lectures, but actually does something about it. Thus, Tuesdays are looking up.

 

We then come home, and start on the convoluted problem of the cabling. Oh boy, did we get messy. We started with clean-cut, professional looking connections (which completely failed to work), and by the end of it we'd got something that looked rather like the cables were actually trying to escape the computer. Somehow. That's what I think it looked like, anyway. A testimony to that attempt is now blu-tacked to my monitor, where it looks like a piece of abstract art. If and when I get a digital camera, it's going to be called "Gateway to Chaos", for reason that will become obvious when you see it. If you can't wait, ask me for a Webcam chat.

 

But, for the time being, the internet works. Despite our DIY attempts getting more and more shoddy, the end result is a fast, reliable internet connection. The problem of course is that we don't want to keep the shoddy-looking cabling, so we instead try a new method, which is a culmination of all our previous ideas. It doesn't work. *sigh* Back to square one, children..

 

Wednesday: Prac lecture, by one of the most uninspiring lecturers to walk the face of the earth. But it's only one hour, so we all just let it pass overhead. Then, oh boy, then, we move on to the SCoPE lecture.

 

It's an occasional lecture, which basically means "not run every week because we're lazy or there's not enough content to cover" lecture. But all lectures run in first week... Right? Right? Perhaps.

 

So we're sitting there, in the mid-size lecture hall, books open, pen poised, ready to take notes on the social contexts of primary education (SCoPE, you see). But we're missing something. Something pretty valuable in lecture situations. Namely: A Lecturer. Nobody's going to be the first to stand up and leave, as the clock ticks over from 3:00, 3:05, 3:10... Finally it's me who makes the first move, and then suddenly, as if the social pressure of "being first" is suddenly lifted, the class rises almost simultaneously. Very funny, no doubt, for anyone watching. As it turns out, when we happen to bump into the subject coordinator later on, when they say "occasional", they really mean "we'll have two or three lectures all semester, and we'll inform you of those in your tute times". Grr...

 

Thursday: Managing the Learning Environment tutorial. Great news! A good subject gets even better! We have interesting content, deep discussions, a great lecturer, and would you believe, I tie up the whole class in a debate lasting about 40 minutes, just for posting the radical notion that students should be involved in the process of designing class guidelines and expectations. Some of my colleagues were shocked. Others were dismissive. Some grew hostile as I expounded that I intended furthermore to have the class, more or less autonomously, design a list of guidelines and expectations for me, the teacher. But... But... Students don't have minds! They can't make informed and mature decisions! You can't trust them like that! When would you start such a program? Year 6, surely? Sorry people, but yes they do, yes they can, yes I can, and I'll start it in Kindergarten, day one. Of course that's only the six-line summary of the 40 minute debate, and it went on far from there, but still. Certainly the only time students can't be trusted to make decisions like that is if the teacher doesn't trust them to. The End.

 

Then we move onto the Prac tute, and we fly straight over it again. It was mostly a house-keeping tute anyway.

 

And, finally, today. Friday. SCoPE tutorial.

 

Oh man, I'm going to cry. The subject is designed to deal with the intricate workings and interactions of the socio-political influences on education, the economic, cultural, racial and ethical contexts ascribed to us as teachers and the environment in which we teach. Deep stuff (and somehow very similar to every other subject we've done as well). Despite which, we have a lecture-style tutorial of forty or so students in a large tute room, two young Ph.D students with precisely diddly-squat experience in the social contexts of primary education, by which I mean that they've got barely more classroom experience than me, a second year Bachelor student. That's not good. There is no interaction in the class (which is to say, no actual social context per se), the lecturers can't actually lecture (they read from a printout they obviously wrote the night before, and sound so horribly false we all want to cry), the subject treats us like little children (as though we haven't done this subject eight times before already), and of course, a two hour workshop, the only class we have for the subject all week, lasted for 45 minutes. This is not good. On one level, because the class is to tragically worthless, I'm glad it didn't consume another minute of my life, but at the same time it could've been so good. Everyone left the class saying "This is crap. That was a complete waste of time".

 

And so here I sit, hoping somebody interesting is going to come online. So what's the final verdict, I hear you ask? Well, if we can skim over SCoPE, this semester is looking pretty darned good. Fingers crossed I make the grades I want though.

 

Oh, and the final verdict on the internet? Well, of course, we can fix it. We've realised our mistake, and I won't bore you all even further by explaining the technicalities of resistance and splicing. Mmm, Splice. I'm going to go get a Splice, I think. They're yummy.

Allow me to share with you, my favourite Blog-readers, part of the reason so few people make their MSN address available for public access on their Space. I do, and so far it's netted me approximately two worthwhile contacts (if you've read this far into my Blog and added me, then it's probably you), and any number of randoms. Now, I think it'd be too pretentious of me to write a List along the lines of "if you can't do this, don't add me", at the very top of which would be "Have Something To Say", but a small part of me can't help but wonder if I should.

 

And it doesn't help that I'm not in the best mood. The reasons for that will go in my rapidly-becoming-massive First Week of University Blog, which will be written on Saturday afternoon. I might have underestimated or misunderstood the other person in this the following conversation, but I don't think so. His name has been removed, and the other names I mentioned have been erased as well.

 

<Random Conversant> says:

hi              (Very deep and meaningful. Given I've no idea who this guy is, there surely are better  

                     ways to start a conversation... Right?)

Azukar says:

Hi there.                      (Okay, so maybe it's the pot calling the kettle black. But he added me, and I've

                                            no idea who he is, and I've got a headache.)

<Random Conversant> says:

how old r u                   (Isn't it rude to start with questions? Besides, what an odd way to start..)

Azukar says:

 So many questions, so quickly... I'm 19, do I know you or...?

<Random Conversant> says:

no u dont

i jus added from ur space          (And opened the relationship by asking me my age. Brilliant. But

                                                                let's play along; maybe he read my Reflection Blog and

                                                                       wants to talk about it...)

 

 <Random Conversant> is inviting you to start sending webcam. Do you want to Accept (Alt+C) or Decline (Alt+D) the invitation?               (This MSN phrase is just as high-and-mighty as the university jargon of

                                                            "inviting" you to show why you shouldn't be "excluded" from the course.

                                                                     And my random conversant friend

                                                                              has a Webcam too. Is he afraid to show his face, perhaps?)

 

Azukar says:

First, who am I talking to? Also, if you've got a Webcam too, why aren't you sending it?

<Random Conversant> says:

well 1. i am younger than you and 2. you r tlkin to <Random Conversant> of melbourne, australia         (This guy (I'm guessing age 13) is a walking poster boy for why young

                                                    kids shouldn't be allowed to use MSN to talk to strangers. I could be a

                                                       knife-wielding maniac, a paedophile or a Satanist (or all three), but  

                                                            of course that only happens to people on the news...)

Azukar says:

Okay, fair enough. Do you know <MSN friend>, or <MSN friend friends with other MSN friend>, or any of that crowd?

<Random Converssant> says:

no i just added u right now, i dont kno u, i got ur addi from ur msn space

i ahve no idea hu u r              (Hmm, well I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Speaking of

                                                        benefits, dessert sounds good right about now...)

Azukar says:

Well said. I'll be back in just a minute, then let's talk.

 

 You have accepted the invitation to start sending webcam.     (And I also set my Status to "Be Right Back")

 

<Random Conversant> says:

ok

where r u

hey soz mate i have to go      (I was gone long enough to put Rice Cream in a bowl, and Fridge

                                                                     the rest. About one minute by my reckoning.)

talk to you some other time

 

 You have stopped viewing webcam with <Random Conversant>

 

The end. Overall, not the most enriching and spiritually fulfilling conversation I've had so far. I learned his name, that his age is less that mine, and his vague place of residence. Which is nice, I suppose, in a way... Oh well, I await the next action-packed meeting we have, in which I might find the answer to the Penultimate Question: "Why did you add me, exactly?"s

...and noses reapplied to it.

So let's define a form of student Hell. Let me paint you a picture, a story that very accurately describes the most interesting part of my past twenty-four hours. And it all starts, with an inefficent university...

Sure, every uni has its own brand of faults. At Charles Sturt, one of them is the method by which we sign up for tutorial groups. Most other universities have an online registration, and that's all well and good. But CSU hasn't heard the Good Word as yet, so it is still labouring under a system as outdated as the ham that is slowly moving toward sentience in our fridge. Oh yes, dear readers, we sign up manually, and in person. And we do so in the most unlikely room of the whole university, save perhaps a janitor's closet. It's a room called the Roger Craswell Seminar Room of Allen House. Impressive title for a room so plain and small and out of the way you'd walk past it and never notice it's there. I came to the conclusion that Roger Craswell must have been a former lecturer at CSU, who stuck around so long that everyone got sick of him, so that the only tactful way to get him to actually retire was to name some random building after him and give him his bloody gold watch. It's certainly not very flattering, especially given that it's essentially an annexe of Allen House, a two-storey building based on the Cretian Labyrinth. Compared to that behemoth of a building, the Roger Craswell Seminar Room of Allen House is pretty insignificant. And yes, just like the Cretian Labyrinth, a number of Minotaurs roam Allen House looking for sacrificial victims to devour.

And so it was outside the Roger Craswell Seminar Room of Allen House that probably two hundred of my fellow educationists-to-be and I were awaiting our fate this very morning. Would we get our tute times? Will we be allowed to have Mondays free, and get the cushy 10am tute on Friday instead of the sucky 4pm one? Certainly therse questions were in our minds, but dominating them all was this other deep and philosophical utterance which would probably require several philosophers and a number of Freudian psychologists to answer: Why, in the name of all that is good and holy on Earth, do the Allen House Minotaurs open the sign-on sheets at 8am? Possibly they hope that someone will die in the queue, thus providing them with some sustainance a little more sustaining than mere assignments.

Here goes the practice. The doors open at 8am sharp. So it makes sense to get there at, say, 7:30. But hang on... There are a lot of people signing on, and a limited number of good tute times, so maybe we should get there at, say, 7, just to be sure. Oh wait. Other people will surely have that idea too, so we need to be just a little earlier than them. How's 6am sound for everyone?

And so on, and so on. When did we get there, you ask? Three-thirty AM. Oh yes. Rugged up to the core, in just enough drizzle to make it really uncomfortable, we set up our camp at the front door of the RCSR of AH. Unsurprisingly, we were the first ones there. Half past three, I tell you! Was anyone reading this even awake at that time today? I very highly doubt it, unless you were there with me. Luckily they gave Roger an awning over the front foor of his room, so us lucky five were more or less dry. We erected a line of umbrellas to guard against the drips, brought a laptop and some movies (though the laptop lasted all of about 45 minutes), lollies, a boombox, and a lot of picnic rugs. And my trusty m:robe.

So now let's return to that picture of student Hell. I'm lying with my head on the doorstep of the RCSR of AH, with my feet being shielded from the dripping awning by a handy umbrella. I'm still getting wet though; rain always finds a way. On my left, we have the young couple practically fornicating together, wrapped up snug in their own (thankfully) private blanket. The giggles aren't so bad, but it gets tiresome after a while. The lamps nearby are incredibly bright for some reason, so I've got my hood pulled down so far over my head that only my lips are visible. That's pretty pleasant, because it means that along with the m:robe plugged directly into my ears, I've got my own little bubble of Me-ness. But it's about to be shattered, because the girls in the beach tent on my right have brought along their boom box. And so Jamie Cullum (at the lowest volume setting available) has to compete with the Pussycat Dolls, Rhianna, Christina Aguilera et al played at top volume. So there's no point me persisting.

What else? Oh yeah, we're all unshowered and in the clothes from yesterday, so we're feeling a little seedy. Nobody is going to try and get to sleep, because it's not worth it and wouldn't work anyway. The security guards, no doubt finding what looks like a bunch of people huddling behind a barricade of umbrellas (check the photo album for that report) check us out, and for a horrifying moment we think they're going to try and throw us out. Luckily someone goes and explains the situation to them. "You see sir, we're all so keen to get to our first class today we decided to camp out for the night! That's just how much we care about CSU". Hmm Nevertheless, he leaves us be.

Overall, that's not so bad. In fact, it has a nice sort of novelty to it. But now, to seal in the Hellish monotony of it, extend that image for four and a half hours. Oh yes, at that point you're feeling like doing almost anything to make it stop. I brought a deck of cards, but (sigh) no two people seem to know all the games I know, and in any case we're a bit short of flat, dry surfaces on which to play. I managed to squeeze a game of Solitaire in the space between my neighbour's legs and my share of the blanket. I think I won, but the cards did get a little damp in the process.

And the final verdict? Well,  I was the fourth student through the door, so if I hadn't got my most desired tute times I would've been spewing. Verbally. Hmm, yes. Though, it seemed a lot of people had got the better of our knockover Course Coordinator and got him to just sign their names up for the tutes they wanted. Which makes me more than slightly annoyed. Admittedly, most of the students who got Preference were the mothers with young kids who don't live in Bathurst, and would've had to travel out to sign up. Having said that, the aforementioned neighbour of mine for the Long Wait has a 4 year old daughter and a fiancée, and travels from a place 90 minutes away. Most of the mothers live about 40 minutes away. So maybe the Dean is a bit of a lady's man, so to speak.

Anyway, that's my lengthy story of woe, loss and betrayal. Actually none of those, but that's entirely beside the point. I got my tutes, stand by for take off tomorrow morning.

-Az

Wow. One Blog, nine comments. Admittedly all but two were either saying "hey, didn't read the Blog but...", or were similarly irrelevent to the content, but it's probably a record for me. Azukar is moving up in the world Or, at least, the number of random readers is increasing.Still, it can't be a bad thing. So to my random (and not so random) readers, welcome to the house of Azukar, your friendly neighbourhood assassin.

 

This Blog was going to be a brief overview of language, like my brief overview of religion. The two or three people who have had conversations with me well into the early hours of the morning on this topic (and they know who they are) can testify that even 1900 or so words really is only scratching the surface. But as it turned out, I started writing a few things that have hapened in the past few days, and then some more came up, so if I then turned around and marched out another few thousand words on language and communications media, you'd be here all night, just trying to get through it all.

 

So what was next? Oh yes: my change of name certificate arrived yesterday morning. I'd reiterate why I've wanted to change my surname for years now, but the Blog entry is right

there. So maybe there was a small gap between April 15 and July 20, but hey: money don't grow on trees. Nor does time. And if it did it would be valueless, so in point of actual fact it wouldn't be money at all growing on said trees, but inexplicable bits of plastic and metal.

 

And I got new shoes the other day, which highlights what may be the bane of my chiropodic life. I have big feet. And you know whatthey say about guys with really big feet, right? Yep, you guessed it: they spend hours trawling Penrith to find really big shoes. Okay, so I made the time-honoured lame joke. So shoot me. How many shoe stockists can you think of that stock shoes above size 14? And stock shoes designed to fit a foot that might be slightly wider than your average person mover? The answer, of course, is: very very few.

 

Despite which, I have new shoes. Two pairs in fact, because when there's a sale on and you find not one but two pairs of shoes that almost fit, and will (hopefully) relax over time, well, you've got to be grateful for small mercies. Else walk around barefoot, but somehow the streets of Bathurst don't appeal much to my soles.

 

Speaking of Bathurst, I go back to uni on Monday. In fact, so do most of my uni friends and everyone else I know who goes to uni. There is one notable exception: Dave, who has a jaw-dropping seven week holiday: he came off at the same time as me, but has another week while us poor sods are slaving away in lecture theatres, playing the old shell game called "Let's Pretend We Care About This". Grr.

 

So what does being back at uni mean for your friendly neighbourhood assassin? Well, first off, it means he's getting up very early on Monday morning to sign up for his tutorial groups. For the non-initiated in the university modus operandi, we get to pick our tutorial times. Not lectures, lectures are fixed, but tutorials are variable. I can get myself a Monday free of classes for example, or give myself no more than three hours on any day of the week, or perhaps I'd like to lump as many classes on Thursday as I can and have the rest of the week, mostly, free. For any first-year uni stuidents contemplating such a strategy: Don't. Keep the classes spread; you can't imagine the sorts of logistic and academic nightmares you will face if you try to put all your eggs in one basket. Trust me: I did it last semester, and it sucks.

 

Also, it means my shifts at work have been severed. No longer can I work on a Wednesday from about 11am, because I have a lecture at 2pm. Nor can I have my Thursday shift, because I can't find a way to leave Thursday free. That, at least, was a small advantage of putting every class I could find on a Tuesday. But nil desperandum my racketing readers, Azukar is not jobless yet. Thanks to the ultra-relaxed attitudes at my place of work, all I needed to do was go into work this morning and buy milk. While buying said milk I also mysteriously acquired chocolate as well (damn!) and I asked the kind co-worker on the counter how attached she was to her Saturday shift. The answer: very little. So I have to drop my Wednesday, sadly, but luckily I have now swapped my Thursday for her Saturday; she gets the weekend off and I get money. No paperwork, no managers involved (though technically I'm a manager, I can't muck about with people's shifts other than my own)., and no hassle. Easy peasy. And in case any working readers out there are thinking "Azukar doesn't know just how lucky he is", oh yes I do. Believe me.

 

It also means digging out my long-since archived university material. But that's okay; I cleaned out my room today, in a flurry of dust, dead spiders, mountains of paper and mysterious CDs, so it's all there waiting for me to use it. It feels like I haven't been at university in months and months...

 

Oh, and I've got a Prac upcoming. Hopefully this one is between Bathurst and Lithgow, because the oddity of this prac is that we undertake it in pairs. My partner lives near Lithgow, so really it makes sense to go to a school somewhere between her and I. Just not Oberon (oh please not Oberon), and if I get a third Blue Mountains prac school I'll scream. Actually, no. I won't. But I will do anything necessary to avoid going to, say, Springwood Public school. Mmm.

 

Blissfully unrelated to university is the fact that I'm slowly teaching myself to play the piano, courtesy of my housemate's aging synthesizer. There's this peice of music called Melodies of Life, and I've figured out how to play the entirety of it (right hand only thus far). I finally figured out the last little bits of it yesterday. It harks back to the old days of the GameBoy, when I managed to trascribe the Asteroids musical theme onto a handy little music-transcribing program. Devlishly tricky to use, but I got there in the end. Not bad, I'd think, for someone who's never taken a formal piano lesson in his life. Now I need a new song to figure out... Any suggestions? Something without too many chords; they're hard to pin down. Something that has lyrics and can be sung; I don't think it's actually possible to sing a chord by yourself.

 

And I saw Mirrormask. I'll give it the accolades and review it deserves later on; currently I'm watching it again. For now though, just take some refuge in the fact that it's being added to my Movie Masterpieces list.

 

So for those rare few who might care, that's my situation as of 1:53pm this day. Shoes, work, university, names, pianos, masks, and Blogs not present. How mundane. I'm imagining this won't attract many comments; it's not the type of Blog that would. My next one, though... Stay tuned, sirs and madams.

(Preface: This Blog contains negligible levels of wit or humour. It's seriously serious this time. And it's just under 1900 words long now. If you're looking for a quick laugh, visit someone else's Blog for the moment. I'm putting this out here because I want to know what people think. I want people to think.)

 

Okay, so my thoughts have turned back to the ol' religion debate. A close family friend has felt the call of the convent, and is beginning what is known as a Process of Inquiry which, should she pass muster, will result in her becoming a Sister of a certain Christian order, in a nicely appointed nunnery somewhere in NSW. Possibly the Benedictine sisterhood, but I can't remember for certain. In fact, I don't even know if I'm using the right words to describe what it is she's doing.

 

In any case, it started us along a very interesting and very long conversation about the nature of religion, faith, belief, and all these other wordy words that seem to be used almost interchangeably. I... can't say it was entirely eye-opening for me, because I feel I understand why people feel the pull of religion, and faith in general. I'm not a Christian by any normal sense of the word; certainly there are very few Christians of any variance of beliefs that would call my philosophy anything but atheistic. Which is a shame, because I'm not an atheist, either, and I resent being boxed up by nominalisation.

 

If I did choose to follow faith in my daily life, however, I wouldn't feel the need to go to church, for example. And by that, I mean faith in contrast to religion. I'm sure there are many Christians out there that have no faith at all, except in religion, which is even more of a shame. Religion by definition is a product of humanity, men, as a means of divining and finding an intermediary between themselves and the divine, whatever form that may take. And thus religion is flawed because people are flawed. Moreover, religion is a way of expressing faith through language, and everyone knows to some degree or another that language is constrictive and limiting. I can't remember who said, "The limits of my language are the limits of my world", but it's true on so many levels it deserves to be engraved on a giant pillar at the front of every school on earth. I think it was sir Richard Burton who said "The more I study religions, the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself". That's a little too cynical for my taste, but... I still can't believe that religion as is stands does anything more than confuse and dilute faith. If one takes religion at its word. If not... what are you doing there in the first place?

 

Just to save myself from a barrage of criticism from any potential enraged Christian readers, I'll add in honesty that I also know there are a lot of Christians out there with incredible faith, despite any attempts of religion to homogenise or constrain it. I just have yet to meet one who shares my view that religion has little or nothing to do with faith, and that they are in some respects even mutually contradictory. I don't know a lot of the Bible, but one of the teachings (possibly of Jesus Himself) that really sticks in my mind is when He tells people that the man that is going to get into Heaven isn't the one who gives mountains of gold to every peasant he meets, and then advertises his brilliance, then sweeps down on into the nearest church to have a nice loud prayer session, but rather the one who makes his donations in secret, goes home quietly, and prays to God behind the closed doors of his bedroom. Like so much of the Bible, of course, it's metaphorical, but where does church fit into that? Where is religion? It sounds to me like Jesus was saying what I believe: faith is cultivated solely in your heart. The worst possible reason to have faith, or to believe in God (however you want to put it) is because someone else tells you that you should; that's coercion and subjugation, no matter how nicely it's wrapped up. And, in any case, God gave us the faculties of reason and choice.

 

Speaking of which, I have a small linguistic twist to put forward, which might go some way to helping define the difference between my brand of faith, and that of the next man. I don't believe in God. Believing in God is like believing in the sunrise, or your piano, or the postman. You don't believe in things that exist; belief by definition is something one has in an event or phenomenon that is not certain. A belief is something that is widely accepted as the truth, which doesn't make it sure and absolute. Belief harbours by its very nature the seeds for disbelief. But God exists. That much is beyond any shadow of a doubt. The only question worth asking is one that asks us how literally we take the Biblical interpretation of the nature of God. Is He, like the Bible describes, an all-powerful and all-knowing entity sitting in judgement, is He the voice of reason and conscience in your head, or does He exist in the heart and centre of every atom, as the highly contentious theoretical God Particle, the smallest unit of matter in the universe? If it's the latter, then God is most certainly omnipresent and omnipotent, not simply because he is everywhere, but because he is everywhere. He is everything. Which would mean that God is you. You are God. And so am I, so are your neighbours, so is your neighbour's house. Your toothbrush is as much a part of God as the copy of the Bible in your top drawer. And with every breath you take, you are experiencing God. Every sensation you feel, from the height of pleasure to the torment of pain and the chill of despair, you are getting close to God. And doesn't that just give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside, to think that you are already as close to God as anything can ever be? And if the former is true, without erasure or alteration, then many of us have some serious thinking yet to do...

 

Finally, I'd just like to say that the church, for hundreds of years, was ruled by men who either had faith and felt it was their duty to impose it on the unwashed masses, or else by other men who had no faith at all but had a strong desire for power. They created a number of their own, often anti-theistic, rules and enforced them with an iron will. And they can be forgiven just slightly for doing so: if people had realised that they could stay in bed on a Sunday morning and still end up in Heaven, what did they need the priesthood for? And if the priesthood aren't necessary, maybe we should find something better for them, like banishment. Similar turns of events have happened. And so we are left with the scattered and sometimes contradictory remnants of centuries of barely-masked despotism, which presents high-ranking Christians today with a puzzle. The more fundamentalist, more right-wing, more traditional Christians will say that Christianity is not a buffet table; you can't pick and mix your own religion. This may be true, but to my mind it misses the point entirely. Then the more liberal, more left-wing, less conservative Christians say that Christianity must move with the times (the more logical of them say it because they realise that if it doesn't, ordered religion goes down the plughole; the even more liberal say it because they feel that faith is relative to the faithful, and if we can't move with the times then we get left behind). Who is to say which one is the better view? Is one of them truly right and correct, or is there something to be said for all points of view? One way or the other, Christianity as a whole can't reject either viewpoint entirely, which means that it's being pulled in both directions at the same time, with increasing force. And we all know what happens to objects that are pulled in opposite directions with great force... In any case, the church is no stranger to schism.

 

And so there are a choice few of my thoughts, pinned down on cyber-paper like so many butterflies on corkboard. If I'd gone on any longer, delved deeper into my own convictions, then this Blog would be insufferably long. I'm sure some of my readers didn't even make it this far, but nevertheless. I'm not Christian, and I never can be. I don't have faith by any normal definition of the word, and even if I did the last place I'd need to go to express it would be a church, synagogue, mosque, temple or anywhere else. On the other hand, nor would I ever fault anyone else who does want or need an amount of structure in their spiritual life. We all struggle to find meaning in a seemingly uncaring universe, and if it's too big to deal with alone, or if you want a social setting for your faith, or if you don't feel that you know the way forward, if you need that guidance from someone else, then that's your path. Which is the result of that long conversation with said family friend. She wants to devote her life to God. To do so, she is hoping to enter the convent, and live out the next decade or so of her life in chastity, in poverty, and in seclusion from the world at large. To me, entering a cloistered existence seems like the last possible way any god would want us to devote ourselves to him, but then again, I've never met God.

 

Now, please don't misunderstand my intentions in writing this Blog. I hope I've made it clear that the two theses of my philosophy are these: firstly, that faith is not religion and religion is not faith, and we (you, me, the local minister, and humanity on the whole) make some of our greatest spiritual blunders when we confuse the two. Secondly, and because of the first point, it stands to reason therefore that religion should not be considered a necessity for having faith. I present myself as a case in point, because I still have yet to find anyone who agrees with me, though thankfully I am coming into contact with Christians (and a few non-Christians) who can hold their end of the argument and reciprocate. It is not my purpose (or my right) to defame the church, or religion, and certainly not faith, however one chooses to find it. What I do ask is that, irrespective of whether you consider yourself Christian or not, religious or not, faithful or not, or any blend of those, that you think, and truly understand why, why, why. Comment if you like; better still come talk to me online or in person. I leave the question open to your introspection.

Yes, dear readers, Azukar is unhappy. Very unhappy. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I'm enraged. And while you quake in your collective boots, pulling at the hair and tearing at the clothes and all those other pointless gestures of despair and terror, I collect my wits and gird my arguments around me for my first and with any luck final Appeal in my entire education career.

 

But first, the (more-or-less) good news. Azukar got his grades last night. Amid MSN being its usual frustrating self, the internet playing hide-and-seek with the computer, and the looming vision of another early start at work, your friendly neighbourhood assassin discovered (again) the mixed blessing that is the CSU grading system. I'm not going to disclose my exact marks here, but rest assured that my GPA remains level, and the Honours degree is still firmly within my sights. For randoms and anyone else who's blissfully ignorant of university jargon, the GPA is the cumulative average of all my subject grades (lit. Grade Point Average). In my case, I'm just above borderline being able to get into the Honours degree. I'd still like to get at least three Distinction grades this semester coming, just to be on the safe side, but the future looks good, if you can call a 10 000 word initial submission followed by a 40 000 word dissertation "good".

 

And now the bad news, although in no way unexpected. Azukar's overall Art mark was a Credit. Which ain't all that bad, in a general sort of way (they don't call it "Credit" for nothing), but it could've been a Distinction; by my calculations I was two or three marks off it. Where did I lose said marks? My Art Resource Folio, worth a hefty 35% of the assessment grading. Mmm; that, I merely Passed. Two or three marks off a Credit (mere coincidence? I think not!), but a Pass nevertheless. Now, I'm not going to try and defend my artistic ability, because I have none. All my creativity resides in my head, and does not lend itself well to the brush or crayon. That's why I write. However, from a professional standpoint I disagree with the marking system; namely, that there wasn't one.

 

Here's the lowdown. The Folio had no marking rubric. That means that there was no formal scale and checklist from which a mark can be given, nor any definite way for us poor students to ensure we're doing the right thing. It's actually illegal to set an assessment without a Rubric, but that's not my point. Exhibit b: Complete lack of marking consistency. Many students with consistent good marks in the subject received low marks; conversely, students who put in minimal effort on the Folio, and in one noteworthy case even had bits missing from it, got higher marks! What does that tell you about the marking system, eh? Oh wait, there isn't a marking system. A History teacher of mine in my early high school years once told my class that she marked assignments by throwing them down her staircase, and awarding high marks to those nearest her. Even that shows a careful and thoughtful approach to the distribution of grades, compared to the system my Art tutor seems to be taking.

 

Speaking of which, allow me a paragraph to rant about the tutor herself. Our beloved distributor of Artsy knowledge is harder to reach than David Hicks, and is about as accessible as Fort Knox at the best of times. She apparently has no email address at all, which is an instant debilitating quality in this university of online communication. And she doesn't read the forum. Ever. There are countless messages addressed to her from the past semester, mostly asking her what the hell she wants us to do! Given that she only comes into the university one day a week, many of us are wondering if perhaps she lives in a cave for the rest of the time... We know she never visits her office; she bragged one day to us about how she didn't even get the key to it until about the seventh week of term. Which, incidentally, is the only story all year that she managed to pass on to each tute without alteration or erasure... That includes information relative to our assessment tasks, hence more unread messages addressed to her than are normally delivered to Santa Claus.

 

And thus I prepare to appeal. And I hate having to do it; it runs against my philosophy and beliefs so badly it hurts. But I believe I have a strong case, and in any case all I'm asking is the awarding of those two or three marks that will help ensure my smooth transition into the Honours stream at the end of this year. The university has everything to gain; the government (or somebody) gives them money for having such Honourable students, not to mention the acclaim it brings to the university itself. Hopefully I can count on the support of the Head of Subject, the outright best lecturer-tutor alive today. Seriously, we all love him. I'd keep on gushing, because this guy is really gush-worthy, but this Blog is already getting lengthy.

 

Wish me luck, ravenous readers. Stormclouds are gathering.

 

-Az

 

Listening to: Get Your Way - Jamie Cullum. Very funny, very well-done, very true.

 

Mood: I think I've made this pretty clear by now.

 

Socks or no socks: Socks. A little smelly, so maybe I'll take them off. Did I mention the number of artsy Spaces I'm finding lately is making me feel a little inadequate, Space-wise? Well it is. This has positively diddly-squat to do with my sock-wearing status, but nevertheless.

Damn. Sadly the name Azukar doesn't lend itself very well to humourous integration with movie titles and so forth... Nevertheless, reactive readers, here I have for you my review of Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man's Chest.

 

I can't do it. It's just too good; I honestly can neither critique nor fault it. I can't even describe it...

 

If I were the type of person to judge his own work based on those of others (yes, I'm looking at you mate), I'd never be able to write again. I might as well delete my manuscripts and burn the hard copies. Pirates II has broken the immutable Law of Sequels. My only regret is that the spineless directors and producers and so on had to bring the movie to an end.

...Okay, so the title didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. It was supposed to hint at "Superman Returns" in a sort of play on words, but... Anyway, I'm rambling.

 

   So your friendly neighbourhood assassin saw Superman return last night, and figured that, seeing as how he's getting into all these movie reviews, he should do one for the good ol' man of steel.

 

   Here's the gist: Superman has been gone from the world for about five years now, inconsiderately giving neither warning nor reason, and the world has moved on. But now he's back. What did he do? Where did he go? Why is he back? These a re the questions on everyone's lips, particularly those of Lois Lane, Superman's former aficionado, who has since gained an fiancée and has given birth to an eight year old. Okay, so we know that's impossible, but the actor playing Lois' asthmatic progeny could not possibly be under the age of five. Oh, and incidentally, she's won a Pulitzer Prize for an article entitled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman". Ouch, sorry Clarky, but it seems you've been ousted by James Marsden, who plays Lois' new beau.

 

   And Lex Luther is out of jail, and up to his old tricks again, played by Kevin Spacey. He's got a small retinue of thugs and witless women around him now, and is out to make money and take over the world and kill Superman and all that oh-so-cliché supervillain stuff. Did I mention he really, really doesn't like Superman? Well it's true. And within the first ten minutes of the movie, he's managed to discover Krypton-boy's winter getaway villa in the Arctic; a giant cathedral-like cave made of sharp pointy crystals. Serves Superman right for leaving the door unlocked.

 

   I'd only read the SMH review of the movie the day before, so I unfortunately went into the theatre with some idea of not only who was going to be wooden or outstanding, but the damned editor also revealed some pretty important parts of the film, so I had a good idea of what was going to happen. Even still, the movie was at least decent, if not outstanding. Spacey made an excellent slightly-aged Luther, even if he might have been slightly over the top at times... And, given that I've never seen a Superman movie before now, I thought that whatshisface made a very decent attempt at making Superman seem just a little inhuman. After all, he's not human. And as far as I'm concerned, good on Lois for not moping about after Superman walked out, and getting herself a new man.

 

   Oh, because a friend was talking about him, I paid a bit more attention to Marsden's character (Richard), and found that the number of topless shots = 0, number of decent face shots = very few, and number of steamy scenes involving him = absolute nil. Sorry, but it seems the eye-candy female viewers will get from this movie is few and far between. Come to think of it, so is the eye candy factor for male viewers. It just isn't that kind of movie.

 

   As for the movie itself, well, as I said it wasn't outstanding. It had  some great visual scenes, such as where this crook unloads an entire chain gun magazine at our hero and fails to even pierce the suit (inexplicably, Superman's suit seems to be almost as durable as he is, except for that scene where a woman just rips it off him). And the set of Superman's house-castle-thing is pretty amazing.

 

   The only thing that bugged me about the movie, and of Superman in general, is that nobody, nowhere, ever, seems to think "hey, maybe Superman and Clark Kent are the same person". I mean, they're the same height, the same build, they've got the same face and hair colour, and there's something like three times just in Superman Returns where Kent mysteriously vanishes just before Superman starts saving the world. In particular, Lois should have noticed something by now... I mean, it's part of the whole Superman mythology that Superman and Lois are in love. Oh look! Clark has a secret crush on Lois! Lois is one of the few people in the world that has seen Superman up close for long periods of time, and works with Clark every day of the week! Not to mention that Kent is the antithesis of Superman; if I was going to be a moderately-intelligent superhero, that's the kind of alter-ego I'd choose, certainly... And, of course, there's only a limited number of storylines you can run about a man of almost unlimited power with only one weakness before he gets a bit repetitive...

 

Oh well. Superman remains hidden to all but his aging mother and himself.

"Three things sell newspapers: sex, scandals and Superman!"