My blog at Uni

Have to say, I'm not usually a fan of, well, fan-art, but this image pretty much sums it up for me at the moment.

I've just finished the third game in the Phoenix Wright series (Trials and Tribulations) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Now, I knew that the next one in the series is due to be called Apollo Justice, clearly stating that Phoenix is very much out of the picture. This is pretty sad in itself (due to the general awesomeness of his character), but also, along with Phoenix, some of the best characters of the game are also being dumped on the rubbish pile. However, what really gets my goat is that they're still attempting to include him in the new game.. as a washed up lawyer.
*cries buckets*
Capcom are clearly just bored of Phoenix and prefer shiny young boys instead...

Now for some awesomeness...


Ace Attorney goes... regional. Tee hee.

Three of us sat in a library cluster after Alice told us she'd be sending us our TiE Practical marks within a few minutes - I don't think any of us were actually breathing. FINALLY, after an excruciating 5 minutes, we got this through:

Conceptual Development: A
Composition: A
Impact: A
Skills and Techniques: A
Critical Reflection: A

Comments:
This was an outstanding piece of TIE practice and showed innovation and accomplishment throughout. The opening in the classroom by ‘the Doctor’ was very clear and provided the pupils with a very well-defined set of rules and frames for the ensuing drama. The character was easy for the children to relate to and pitched appropriately in terms of language, tone and narrative. There was a clear sense of magic from the outset and the children entered the space in a controlled manner but with clear excitement.
The company demonstrated great attention to detail in terms of costume, props, set and so on. This was a real treat to see and evidence of the great commitment to a total, immersive theatrical environment. Costumes provided for the children really helped build the sense of community expressed in the group’s aims.
This piece was highly effective in terms of both educational imperative and aesthetic framing. Sustaining this for over an hour with total engagement from the children is evidence of the group’s careful planning and professional execution of the session.
All sections were delivered with clear instructions. Each task flowed from the previous one and made methodological and pedagogical sense. The children moved from completing each task with compliance to taking more responsibility for their actions and improvising with the characters according to the given circumstances. Evidence of scaffolded learning was in abundance and the complexity of the narrative situation provided the children with an experience which was both meaningful and rewarding. At all times the session was child-centred, well-structured and had a calm atmosphere which maximised learning for all participants. This was an extremely professional piece of which you should be proud. Very well done.

Suggestions for Future Improvement:
These are minor points but still worth considering.
Some nerves were evident at the start of the piece. This is understandable and you did keep them under control but at times it did affect the audibility of certain scripted sections. There was also a tendency to overuse “OK” when working in small groups. This didn’t fit with the narrative context and jarred with me (although I don’t think the children noticed!).
Groups were not evenly distributed. This didn’t seem to hinder any activity but did mean that some clan leaders had many more children to deal with.
Getting children to sit where you wanted them was your biggest problem. Moving very small children around a space can be extremely difficult, particularly getting them into a circle. How might you manage this in future?
There was a slight drop in energy and pace towards the end when the children were working on their own solutions to the problem. This went on slightly too long but, again, is a minor point.

Overall Mark: 83/90 (1:1)

Here's a run down of the criteria we fulfilled:

A - Outstanding (70-90)
Conceptual Development: Lucid and illuminating application of relevant theories and ideas to practice. Own practice is used to creatively explore and extend understanding of the wider frame of contemporary practice leading to work which offers new conceptual insights.
Composition: Exceptional levels of creativity and imagination evidencing excellent levels of independent compositional judgement. Fully convincing synthesis of formal aspects of the practice demonstrating sensitivity and control. Prepared to take compositional risks and succeeds.
Impact: Outstanding achievement where the response to the task set reflects a strong sense of originality and imagination. The work communicates a lasting and persuasive impact.
Skills and Techniques: Thoroughly accomplished demonstration of practical skills and techniques. Levels of achievement reflect professional practice.
Critical Reflection: All work informed by exceptional levels of critical understanding and insight. Thorough use of supportive materials, clearly evidencing extended sustained and imaginative research as a means of developing own practice. (Where appropriate: Seeks and actively engages with constructive criticism.)

A little note about the mark...
You may have noticed that I've written this one out of 90 instead of a percentage... this is because I've actually got my marks wrong for the last year. I always thought that we were marked out of 100, and that our mark was a percentage, but after a disagreement between us as to whether the mark was out of 90 or 100, I checked the criteria (something I've never actually done)... and it says the most you can achieve is a 90 on any PCI assessment. Which means I've been making my marks look worse than they actually are!

But anyway.. very, very happy and proud. Can't say much more than that :D

I stupidly left my purse round Jenny and Jessica's house on Saturday night after our preview viewing of Sweeney Todd and pizza at theirs, so I arranged with Jenny to go and collect it today so I could go shopping for stuff. Unfortunately, I've only been to their house once and in the dark following them, so when I tried to head out this morning in the grey and pouring rain, I found myself getting more and more lost.


I kid you not, that is the actual route I took. And the most frustrating thing? If I'd just continued down Argie Avenue a little further the first time, I would have made it there quite quickly and with relatively dry feet. But no, after several fruitless walks round (literally) in circles, I gave up, stood on a street corner and tried to phone someone who could help me.
First off, I tried Elena. She nearly always has a map to hand, and was therefore a relatively safe and considered option. Didn't answer her phone.
Then I thought I'd try Jenny, since she should know where her house is. No answer.
Finally, and with a flash of brilliance, I remembered that some people have things called COMPUTERS on which they have the INTERNET and with which they can find MAPS. Everything crossed, I phoned Isa, who promptly told me I just needed to walk a few more feet forward and the street I needed would be on the right. I felt so, so intelligent.

Anyway, after being reunited with my purse, I headed off into the city to do my scouting for cheap telephones (since the ones we currently have are Isa's and are therefore going back to Spain with her). Unfortunately, I didn't find any that didn't cost a small fortune, but I did find this:

THIS is the dress I've had my eye on at work since I started back in December, and I watched it be reduced from £160 to £95. Now, being the skint student I am, I knew there was no chance I'd ever afford it, so I forgot about it. Cut to moving back up here, and I spot it, reduced to 50% in the Leeds Monsoon. Still too much, I leave it in the shop after trying it on and falling in love with it, hoping it'll be reduced again. Today, I went back, daring to hope it might still be there, and to my complete surprise, on the end of a 75% rail hung a size 18... and a size 12. I could have wept. Needless to say, it's hanging in my wardrobe - a steal at £40 :D

Probably a little TOO pleased with myself, I headed home... to find the new Module Handbook online. To my horror, I found this description of my POP4 choice:

"Taught workshops for the Performance Actions and Interventions option in this semester led by Fiona Mathers will explore performance / actions as a means of re-interpreting place, using sound in particular. Students will be required to research the background and use of a chosen place before embarking on their own devised responses to a creative brief that will specify a selection of appropriate methods and techniques for further independent, practical exploration in collaborating groups.
Assignment brief: Devise, develop and present a performance piece exploring the re-interpretation of place using the creative use in particular of vocal sound, and, to some extent, recording. (The presentation will not be in the original source space)."

Interpreting space using sound??? Eugh.
Then I looked at the description of the sessions with the other Actions and Interventions class...

"Taught workshops for the Performance Actions and Interventions option in this semester led by Jon Brazil will explore performance / actions as a means of intervening in particular situations. Students will be required to research at least two key practitioners before embarking on their own devised responses to a creative brief that will specify a selection of appropriate methods and techniques for further independent, practical exploration in collaborating groups.
Assignment brief: Devise, develop and present a performance piece exploring autobiography, and more specifically student experience, and including a ceremonial/ ritual dimension. The piece should involve an engagement with notions of identity and include the use of organised sound."

Now THAT sounds like what I signed up for!
So, I sent off an email to George asking to switch groups.
Now I wait, everything crossed.

OK, this time, I do actually have a genuine and honourable excuse to explain away why I've neglected my poor little blog for so long. This is actually my first full weekend off for 6 weeks, so, since I haven't been able to update everyone on a regular basis on my goings-on for the last month and a half, here's a bit of a recap:

December 10^th 2007 – January 3^rd 2008

This jolly period of time saw me working pretty much all the hours at Monsoon, with only 3 days off (Christmas, New Years and a random Friday) and one day’s sick leave. Unlike my time there over the summer, my ‘Temporary Sales Assistant’ status had been elevated to “one of the only two temps who can operate a till and can be trusted in the stockroom for hours on end” (thank goodness that wasn’t my general job description). So, instead of walking about on the shop floor for hours tidying already tidy racks of clothes for the 4 weeks, that only happened for about a week in total. The rest of the time, I was stationed in the fitting room, on the till, or keeping an eye on the new temps that needed coaching (from someone who had only been working there for a grand total of 6 weeks). And then, just as the sale prep period started to kick off, I found myself locked away in the stockroom for hours at a time (4 hours, a lunch hour, and another 4 hours, to be precise), entrusted with the weighty job of coding every single piece of stock in the room. What fun. Stripped of my staff discount (skint company policy, apparently) and prevented from experiencing daylight for a week, it would have been easy to become despondent but no! I had these fellas to keep me company:

Oh yes, 4 weeks later, I had created 88 bracelets and (not pictured, unfortunately) an entire costume – by hand. This makes me muchly proud since sewing machines terrify me and have kept me scared enough to not use one for 6 years. And yes, OK, the dress did look slightly like a sack, but that was kind of the intention.

Honest.

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage the 3000-word essay I’d been aiming to do (more on that monstrosity later) but at least I came away from the holidays with a good pile of cash to put towards those scary driving lessons I’m aiming for this summer.

January 7^th – January 11^th

I moved back up to uni on the Friday with my Mum, fish bundled up in the wastepaper bin, several jumpers and their bags. Both fish are getting on fine, seemingly happy with their change of location again. I’m still not sure whether I should get them another friend or not; Pearl spends a lot of time on her own, foraging for food (mostly algae actually :s) and Pips has started playing with his reflection again, so it’s something I’m seriously considering again.

My Mum left on Sunday morning (after very kindly refilling my fridge and freezer, helping me find a few bits in the city and taking us out to the cinema to see The Golden Compass – most enjoyable) and then the work started…

Although by the end of Sunday I’d finished all the little bracelets I was supposed to make, when we met up on Monday to rehearse for Theatre In Education, it was apparent that I was not only the only one who had completed their designated work, but the only Native American character with a costume. So we decided to take the day out to do some ‘arts and crafts’ and bought all the pieces to make everyone else’s costumes and props that they hadn’t managed to do over Christmas.

And, with much hilarity, I became the authority on how to make sack-dresses.

Or rather, it would have been hilarious if this authority hadn’t required me to stay at Elena’s every night before the performance to help with her and Katy’s costumes and to help get props together or made. I would have minded so much helping Elena out, but having to help people with props and stuff that they simply didn’t do over Christmas wasn’t really fair. This generally resulted in my days stretching from an 8:30am start to a nasty 12:00am finish. Yays.

Over the week, we rehearsed in the mysteriously named ‘The Raven’. The only thing I found mysterious about it was how it managed to exist on University property and not have any kind of proper heating installed. By Thursday, we’d cottoned on and installed our own heaters:

But, all that said, it was a really useful space and we were rarely disturbed.

Wednesday, Elena and I dyed our hair. Although I found the prospect of having black hair for a week quite scary, it was much more daunting for Elena, who couldn’t get hold of a dye that wouldn’t leave her with black hair for 28 washes. I found it rather becoming:

If you’re wondering, my hair was almost brown again after 3 washes (6-8 washes my arse), and I’m back to normal now.

By Thursday when we had most of the costumes finished (including the boys’, although we did get them to sew bits of theirs, with vay funny consequences) and most of the props were getting there, it did seem to have all paid off. On Friday, we transformed from this (actually taken the following week, but meh):

To this:

span >

And everyone involved seemed to be quite impressed. The teachers all had very nice comments about the effort we’d put in and how they’d be able to use our session to refer back to in the future, but the nicest comments came from our tutor. She said we should be proud of what we’d managed to achieve, that the attention to detail was great, and how we’d be able to tour the session we’d put together and would be able to get schools to pay good money for it (!!!!).

Key Quotes:

Child 1: “We’re going to… … … find some grass”.
Child 2: “No we’re not, we’re going to help the Medicine Woman make medicine!”

Elena: “And now we will show you the dangers of the swamp, where there are many… sucky things… that can suck you”.
Explanation: “Well I couldn’t tell them they were leeches, could I? I had to use their words!”

January 12^th – January 14^th

A weekend to rest? Goodness no.

Since I didn’t get my essay done over the holidays, I had to use my weekend to get it done, since I knew after Tuesday I’d be preparing for the Staging Histories presentations on Friday. So I trawled my way through 3000 words of pure torture to get it done. The aim was to be finished by the time Phil arrived on Monday night, but by that point I was so shattered I could have banged my head against the keyboard and come out with something more meaningful than what I was typing. So, it carried on over until Tuesday, when the beast was finally slain. Woo.

January 15^th

Tuesday was the day of our final performance in the school, and although the pressure of the assessment didn’t hang over us like the first performance on the Friday, the afternoon performance had taught us that the younger the children got, the harder our job got, so, as Tuesday was Year 1, we were positively terrified. However, Year 1 actually proved to be the most responsive of all, and were absolutely brilliant with all the tasks we set them. Before posing for some final memento pictures:

We left the school with a few reminders of our visit:

The cave wall, signed by the Native Americans and, very inconspicuously, Doctor Who…

…the wonderfully made tepee…

… and the awesome totem pole (courtesy of Danny, aka The Doctor).


January 16^th – January 18^th

By Wednesday, the rehearsals for the presentation were underway. Our first meeting bade well for the rest of the process:

“So guys, how about we go round the table and show everyone what we’ve got?”
[Collective mumbles]
“OK, so no-one’s done anything yet…”

However, after a frustrating research session, and an anguishing ‘Let’s Write a Script for the Presentation and Learn It in an Evening” session, by Friday, we seemed to pull it off. We ran to exactly 30 minutes (the set time) and made one of the tutors smile. Bonus.

And the rest…

Isa’s Departure: For those who I haven’t already told, Isa has decided to drop out of her Performance Management course here and try and get onto an architecture course in Spain. Unfortunately, she decided to tell us this when Sri wasn’t in the country, and 4 days before we were due to resign our housing contract. Immediate panic over, I organised with our landlord for Sri and I to sign individually let contracts for our room, and we’re now looking for another housemate before the Fletchers find us one. Isa’s off on Wednesday, but with her Mum arriving this evening, time to organise something nice for her before she leaves is running out, so we’ll have to see what we can do!

Marks for things: I’ve put those in a separate post, so if you want to find out about how any of my written work went, scroll down a little!

Ok, well I think that’s about it for now, I’ll attempt to keep you all as updated as possible!

Strategies for Research: Literature Review

Coverage: B/A
Analysis: B/A
Structure: C/B
Presentation: B

Comments:
Clearly focused in terms of both the question and the source material identified. Key concepts are clearly understood, and the assessment of the roles the texts play in the study is well presented. Demonstrates clear thinking in indicating the shape of the investigation. Engaging in style. A wide range of material is included in the bibliography, especially for the psychological content. Perhaps needs strengthening with regard to films which unbalances the structure a little. The final paragraph is unnecessarily negative.

For future improvement:
Some more extended evaluation of the use of films as sources would make the application of the psychological material to the topic more focused. Bear in mind that you may not necessarily find sources that reflect your topic exactly, indeed it would be unhelpful if you did, so be more positive about needing to create your own context.

Overall mark: 68% (2:1)


Staging Histories Essay

Coverage: B/A
Analysis: B/A
Structure: B
Presentation: B

Comments:
From the start, this is a closely argued and carefully researched essay that manages to get to the heart of the issues raised by the title in a fluent and controlled writing style. The range of theories and other discussion of history-writing that you have chosen for detailed analysis is broad, and well-suited to your central argument concerning "uncertain histories" and their relevance to contemporary theatre practice. The effort you made to explore the implications of these theories, and the questions they might lead us to in the present, is especially impressive. This material might have been a little turgid, given its complexity and the ground that needed to be covered, but the analysis is sustained enough to keep the reader focused on the central line of the argument.

Despite this, your analysis would have certainly benefited from a more detailed exploration of Making History and its context of performance as your central example, and a tighter structure within which to hold your many and various points. The balance of theoretical discussion and analysis of evidence could have been a little more carefully balanced in this sense. Overall though, this is very good work, demonstrating intelligence and insight in many places.

Overall mark: 67: (2:1)


POP3 - Applied Theatre (Theatre in Education): Critical Evaluation

Coverage: B/A
Analysis: A
Structure: A
Presentation: A

Comments:
This is an excellent piece of work, Lizzy. You write in a very articulate and informed manner, demonstrating a strong grasp not only of your own material but also of the theoretical underpinning that surrounds it. You have provided a most effective evaluation of the methods you have employed in your group piece and have given a clear rationale for each decision taken. You have an eye on both the educational imperative and the theatrical one and I feel confident that with such clear articulation of ideas, your session in school will be a great success.

For future improvement:
You write very accurately and with great care so there is little technical improvement to be done. Perhaps a target for the future might be to start to articulate your own theories, beliefs, opinions about this type of work. You’ve drawn on the practice of Boal, Neelands etc but what are your own thoughts? This is a big leap to take but perhaps one which you are now ready to address.

Overall mark: 76% (1:1)