Bad Faery

Saturday, May 10, 2008

A very long week, but Apple certified!

Phew! Such a long, long week I have had. Firstly I had the third TMA of my U211 course due, left to the last minute as ever. Why, oh why, do I do this to myself!?
But on top of that my job had me off on a 5 day intensive (super intensive!) digital video editing workshop this week so between that and all my OU stuff my poor little brain is fit to explode with the huge volume of information it has being forced to digest this week.

The editing course was great, I learned loads and had a fantastic instructor who was everything you would want from a teacher - knowledgeable and passionate about his subject and a good communicator. I have wanted to do something like this for ages and luckily for me my job was able to pay for it as I could never have afforded to pay for it myself. It was a proper Apple certified course hence fairly expensive. The course finished with quite a stiff exam in which you had to achieve a passing score of 80% or higher. Which I did (just about! 81.4%!) so I am now an Apple Certified Final Cut Pro 6-Level 1 end user.

U211 TMA03

This week also saw the deadline for the third TMA of my OU course. Ever since my illness a month back I’ve been finding it hard to get back into any kind of study routine. What with trying to write TMA02 while I was ill and then with the fatigue I felt the following week when I got back to work I basically ended up doing no studying at all for two weeks. The result was I found it really hard to get motivated for TMA03. And it really, REALLY didn’t help that the weather was absolutely spectacular. Glorious blue skies, wall to wall sunshine, even the breeze was warm! Freakishly lovely for this time of year which made having to sit indoors and study a complete torture.

This TMA was mostly to do with conversation analysis and involved having to record a 1 minute segment from a TV or radio show, make a transcript of the conversation and then analyse it. Which of course meant lots of rewinding and rewatching and rewinding and rewatching (I transcribed a TV show). You can imagine how tedious that became after a few listens. It’s amazing just how much talk can fit into 60 seconds!

But in the end up I managed, with great reluctance, to hole myself up away from all the lovely, inviting sunshine to get my TMA written in time for the deadline on Wednesday night. We’re not that far from midsummer now so it stays light till well after 9pm - as we would say in Ireland, there is a good long stretch to the evenings.  And fair play to my speedy Gonzalez of a tutor as what was waiting for me when I got home today but my TMA result for which I got a very respectable 80%. A considerable improvement on last time and a fair bit higher than I was expecting.

So the end of a difficult but productive week with a good score for my TMA and a good outcome to my Final Cut Pro course. I also had some good news on the illustration front as I possibly have a commission to do some illustrations for a new theatre show. Nothing is decided yet as I need to come up with a few ideas and then sit down with the writer and producers and see if they are happy with where I coming from. Fingers crossed it will all work out! Even so it is nice to be asked:)

I am looking forward to getting my watercolours out again and carrying on with my colour exercises. This week has been dominated by my video editing course so I haven’t been able to do any drawing. Not that I mind especially as I loved the course and when it comes to the end of the year and I’m reflecting on my endeavours to be an Every Day Creative I am sure that the course will figure highly!

Comments:

Whew, tired just hearing about all you have accomplished of late. congrats/well done on passing the Apple Test and becoming certified.
And great job on all the school work too.
Bravo, bravo. Good luck on continuing up to speed. Stay well. Your energy will return full speed. I bet you are chomping at the bit to get on with some art work too. I look forward to seeing what you create.

Posted by Lynn on 05/11 at 09:02 PM

Wow.. Thats alot of work you put in there. and to have to do it when there is lovely weather outside too. Torture. LOL but like Lynn said, Bravo. and congrats on the chance to do the illustrations. You are so good I dont see them not liking anything you do.
Oh and I loved your story about the pony who broke out of everything. Thanks for sharing that on my blog. :)The pony kind of reminded me of the little engine that could.:)

Posted by Cris in Oregon on 05/12 at 04:30 AM

well done you! I’ve heard it’s a really tough course. so when are you going to start making films???

Posted by Eavan on 05/13 at 09:38 PM

holy doodles you have been busy ~ congrats on
all those milestones and great marks ~
and possible work naturally which i think
they would be lucky to have you ~
and i must go add you to my illustrations links
now…

:)

Posted by maddie on 05/13 at 10:00 PM

Hi Maddie
Thank you for the link. That’s very kind of you
:)

Posted by Bad Faery on 05/18 at 11:47 AM

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