Blog: First Day At Big School

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Having been well and truly INDUCTED last week, I set off last night for my first Actual Class on the MA. I left myself loads of time to walk from my work, and so arrived at City with PLENTY of time to go and put a clean t-shirt on (I didn't want to start off as Sweaty Guy) before going off to find my classmates.

As before, I'd wondered whether the three hours of the session would drag, but it FLEW by. Thinking about it later I realised that, although I've spent the past 20 years going to Workshops, Lectures, and General Academic Things, this was the first time that I was doing it about something i was actually ACTIVELY interested in. This must be how people who LOVE their job feel when they go to conferences, it was FASCINATING!

We'd been given homework last week, to write a MONOLOGUE, and we spent the first half of the evening going through these, reading 4 or 5 of them (not mine, which was a) disappointing b) a RELIEF, both at the same time) and then discussing them in A Structure Way. It was AMAAAZING - criticising positively is HARD, but every now and then a NUGGET OF INSIGHT would appear, and everyone would go "Aaah!" and write it down - a different way to do things, an idea of how to EXPAND what you're writing etc etc. It may say a bit Not Much, but it was INVIGORATING!

In the second half we split into pairs and told each other a Memorably Moment in our lives, and then then the other person had to mentally re-write it as if it had happened to them, then tell it to the group. As we went round comments were offered on how to restructure it into more of a story, looking at what sort of things worked, endings, character and so on, so as it moved around those of us who hadn't had a go yet could be seen CLEARLY thinking "Hmm... i'll change this bit, make this more like that..." until those of us at the end were delivering BLOCKBUSTERS.

It was all terribly terribly exciting, and we got sent off with NEXT week's assignment, to use the character from the monologue in another part of the story, writing a DIALOGUE. Last week I did Wenlock and Mandeville, so I guess this week I need to write about Pride The Lion. That isn't QUITE what I was expecting to be doing, but by HECK it's a lot of fun!

posted 2/10/2012 by MJ Hibbett

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