Stand and deliver

Of course I have paid for it. I want to do the research, now I have just got to do it.

Progress.

Good news. The two friends who backed out, are half way back in. They have answered my questions in their own way in writing, and even though it is not ideal in that that makes a comparison with others more difficult, what they have said, is of great use. I am just praying that they will change their mind and agree to a recorded interview so I cna learn more.

Re the camera, I have spent a weekend in the company of my brother and that seems to have established that the mic is not working. Meanwhile I have downloaded half the 77 pages of the manual!!!, but that has not really told us more than we had worked out through trial and error.

Re the MA blog I still do not seem to have access to it. And I do not know if I have passed the first unit. I have also lost the details of the unit somewhere!!!

So should I pay and stay in the Masters or not I have to decide and pay tonight.

What do our patterns of behaviour tell us?

According to a recent book we need about 10,000 hours to become good at something, yet every year I try more and more ambitiously to get familiar with videoing techniques and yet as my previous entry shows I am not much closer to success. Does this mean, a ) I am never going to get there so give up now, b) I going in the right direction, but it is so slow and incremental that it does not feel like it or c) I have not put enough time in or had enough support to judge the situation accurately?

If I follow a I should give up the Masters now and all attempts to be a more technicially artistic person. This will be a money rich and time rich solution as it will give me more time and I will be able to spend my money elsewhere. But I will also feel a certain dissatisfaction as myself.

The other scenarios suggest that I do have a certain ability, but that I have not yet managed to progress that ability for various reasons.

When I trained years ago as a radio journalist I was about half as good as the best person technically and twice as good as the worst person. So some ability, I especially enjoyed editing and went on to do some engineering work for BFBS. But never got work in the field.

When I did my Masters I was involved a bit with the editing of a video, but morning sickness stopped me doing too much.

As an amateur I have put together a couple of films of Nathan and edited a small piece on the school in Senegal. This was very labourious then the computer lost everything.

I have also tried at times to capitalise on the fact that for many years I was a media lecturer,but despite my annual pilgrimage to the update my skills exercise by engaging with existing material or trying to get the technician to help me set things up so I could spend real time with the material, somehow the little time available would disappear in a stream of minor technical problems that I do not have the skills to solve. And I suppose that is the nub of the problem with all the technology I have access too, I have a lot of theory about what can and cannot be done, I have doneHTML courses etc, but rarely have I been able to get said technology to work when I have tried doing independent work to consolidate my fragile learning.

Hence signing onto the Masters to try and really finally have a go at something. But and here we go again. If the technician does not provide technical assistance and if I do not know how to make the machinary work, how do I progress. And is it worth struggling on to see if I can?

To try and help me with these thoughts. I swallowed my pride, decided I would deal with the weird kind of attitude I get from the technician and ask for his help. Talking virtually through out to his computer screen, rather than me, he talked me through what may have been the issue. Simple stupid things really. And one good pointer, but nothing that made one feel more secure. Basically if you are one of these people who can read digest and use a manual, that should be accessible on the net, then you are okay on this course if not then woe betide you. I mentioned that last year some students had asked for some input to which he said I bet they did not show up, I suggested that as working students they may be juggling, but his eeyorish response was we are all juggling.

So juggling and struggling I am have tried downloading the information three times to try and work out in more detail what went wrong with the camera, but the computer keeps crashing. One good bit of news though. If I give up the course and just buy the camera it will be cheaper in the long run and I would get a copy of the manual. I am sounding as jaundiced as the technician.

Education is supposed to be fun.

The other nice thing was that I bumped into Jessica, the daughter of a friend. I have known her all my life and now she is studying for her degree at the University. Seeing her cheered me up no end and made me enjoy being a student for a little while. I saw her whilst I was in the students union putting noticing up about the research. Afterwards I realised I should have put the details of this blog on my research participants wanted notice!!! So much to learn about this process, makes me appreciate how much work is put into all of this. Unfortunately my one other lead with regard to participants has come to an end as all emails to them are bouncing back. So I need to get back online and see if I can find some participants and quick otherwise there is no point in even trying to get to grips with the camera.

On the kindness of friends.

I have been to my friends and tried out the camera and my questions. Two outcomes an hour of lovely conversation between mother and daughter, visually too much head room, but otherwise quite nice. Sound wise a disaster. The camera tested and all running perfectly on Friday night did not record the sound. Perhaps I left the mic out or there was another electrical cable somewhere near by, but soundwise it is unuseable.

A sad traveller.

As I come out of the Elephant and Castle tube station, I soar. I see all the other people most young hanging around, gathering for their buses, discussing and I know that they are students, and I feel a rush of pride that I am considered worthy to be a student. But with the responsibility of hope comes its reverse for I set out like a tourist visiting a new town happy to be looking around part of the crowd but also vulnerable, wanting to be a real part of the scene and not just a visitor.

The staff on the desks are nice, I have lost my pass, typical. The media technician remembers my name impressive, but the discovery that I have to pay for the tape to go into the camera I have rushed down to pick up throws me. Anything that adds to my insecurity adds to my insecurity and the sudden thought that I will have to find somewhere to buy one throws me. I do not do buying things especially if I do not know where to go. His assitant throws out the name of a place, when I press for more accurate information, I feel he is dismissive. The chip on my shoulder is gigantic. I taken my swollen pride off to the place, find a very helpful shop person who sells me the right product and rush home too tired to stay, but my mind a ferment as to whether this is all the right thing to do.

Of course if I were not spending a fifth of my salary on this, and if I were well enough to work for full time and study, rather than struggling to do either, or if I knew I had more work coming in after the end of July, I suspect these knock backs to my waivering confidence would not impact, at least not as much, but coming in the wake of my friends defection I leave the Elephant dispondent. But at least I have a camera.

Tonight I put it up, no instructions nothing. Its good this paying over a thousand pounds to do a course so that I would get real detailed knowledge only to bring home a camera I could have bought for half the price and get an instruction book thrown in for good measure. I cannot help feeling that my already amateur efforst to make a video will be even more amateur. I have not really got the money to go on, but emotionally I am definitely thinking is it worth it.

Let's hope the recording goes well,cos I know the subject is okay.

Starting point: general conversation interviews to get the lay of the land.

What do you do, when the people you were going to start your research with suddenly pull the rug from under your feet?

I don't know yet. I finally got my proposal together and handed it in on time. In it I said I am going to start my Masters with a recorded focus group with some friends to give me an idea of how to further my research and an interview with a friend's son. Again to help me iron out any issues and give me direction. And then if any of them wanted to participate further that would be great.

But now they do not want to particpate like this. So I am not sure what to do. If I have not got them and I have not got any other participants that sort of leaves me in the shit.

So being a student can be quite painful.

Tomorrow I tackle the mountain that is the final draft of my first piece of work for the Masters. And it is a much greater mountain than I anticipated. My first draft has been trashed. My tutor was very polite about it, but it was trashed never the less. Not good for the soul but sometimes necessary, but I could not understand the notes she sent me about my work nor could I establish a way to get hold of her to talk through things with her instead. I emailed to say I was available to talk this morning so sat by the phone in urgent hope, as the suggested time came and went I checked a few other things out. When I went back on line there was an email message basically asking where I was as she had been ringing me. While I was downstairs by the phone waiting, she was ringing my mobile upstairs!! And would be going out in 15 minutes. When I rang her the tension between us both was not concealed, she seemed as stressed by the situation as me. I have talked to her and now feel a bit more able to proceed. I still do not have any participants for the project, my son, who is to be my starting point, is impossible to get hold of, I have got to re-write the whole draft in two days and a lot of the time I feel incredibly guilty about spending money on such an indulgent pursuit and that the whole thing is a waste of time and money, but I guess I will continue to try for the time being and get it sorted.

Progress or otherwise

In a week or two's time, the first bit of work for my Masters is due. The refined proposal.

The good news is that I have done some work towards this. The bad news is that the process has been more difficult than even I at my most negative had imagined; partly because of an astonishing ability to procrasinate and all forms of displacement and because actually trying to put into words what I am trying to do has turned out to be quite a challenge.

However, there are two main concerns, assuming I get past this first stage. One I am still very very very anxious about how to fit all this work together and combine it with my life and health. There are also so many ideas that I have that I want to do related to the study, but that remain wonderful voyages in my bonce, but so far no where else. And two I still do not have a group of people to do my work with. So if you are black, or mixed identity, race, heritage etc however, you define yourself, and about 22 years old with with white mum and brought up in a lone parent home and want to take part in some research please get in touch.

However, I am enjoying most of my reading and finding it amazing that there is so much work already out there in this field. I went for instance the other day to a book launch in conjunction with the Runnymede Trust and South Bank University on the topic of White Lone Parents with mixed kids and made some useful contacts and meet others doing research. So that was very positive. On the other hand my little computer seems to have swallowed much of the little work I have done, so I will have to repeat a lot of the work of summarising my readings, which is a pain if you are like me and difficult to motivate.