Forced typesetting

I spent most of today (well, the parts not spent having brunch and walking back from brunch) locked in the spare bedroom, writing an assignment.

"But Lucas!" I hear you posit. "You aren't taking an courses or classes! What gives with the assignmenting?"

That's true. I'm actually finishing assignments for a course put on by work that I began in early 2008. It's a course whose last assignment was due in May of 2009.

Now, when it came to assignments in school, or university, or the various tertiary courses I've taken (be it work-based, or my advertising stuff at TAFE), I alays try to be my best. One memorable work-based-course-presentation was supposed to be 10 minutes. I overprepared and went for 25, although if they hadn't had a stopwatch, I don't know if they would have noticed (no bragging, that was my feedback). I like being able to pit my brain against something and put a project together.

But I don't know. Something happened with this course. I liked the presenters, the subject matter was relevant to my work, but somewhere along the line it stopped being important to me to do the assignments. I got the knowledge, I participate in class, I took notes, but once I was home, I had no motivation or drive to complete things, let alone complete them well. The last assignment I turned in late, incomplete and didn't think about it again.

That is, until the presenter showed up at work in June with a paper full of notes and corrections with a big legend across the top saying "Not Competent". I took it, saying I'd try again (I couldn't even lie and say I had tried. We both knew I had half-assed it).

I put the assignment on my desk at home and there it sat for 8 long months. I didn't think of it again. I'd occasionally look at it, but the only emotion I could raise was a sort of impotent anger towards "fake assignments about fake meetings" that even I know what bogus and childish.

Eventually, as they were wrapping up the course (they're revamping it next month), the presenter got around to marking some of my old assignments and emailing me the results, full of glowing praise about my written composition, the structure of my arguments, and my in-class participation. I do not pretend that ego did not play a part in what followed. Guilt was also there. It had snuck without paying while the show was starting and snuck in a bag out outside peanuts to throw at the screen.

I responded to the email, thanking the presenter for his marking my paper, and complimenting him on his new beard that I had seen him sporting.

Should have seen it coming.

He responded with thanks, then... "Oh, by the way, I'm still waiting on Module 8, as well as parts of Modules 4 & 6. It's been months If you don't turn them in by the end of this week (it was Monday), we'll be forced to mark you not competent and you'll need to start the course over again."

Well, shit. Part of my new slacker personality wanted me to just go "Fuck it, let 'em fail you." but there was enough of the old overachiever in me to respond in the affirmative, asking for a list of what I was missing from each assignment, so I could sort them out by the end of the week. Yes, by Friday.

The presenter responded by explaining that I'd missed out on small-to-medium bits of 4 & 6, but all of 8 needed to be redone, preferably using his notes.

"No problem", says I. "I still have the copy you gave me in June." He took the opportunity to tell me that he was rather disappointed in me, since I was clearly good enough to do this, and I was the first to hand the assignment in, and now the last to finish. Thanks, Dad.

So Tuesday night, I sit down and I clear off assignment 4. Then I prep assignment 6 to do later at work (since that assignment is about meetings and one-on-ones and I had based my prepartion and reflection on imaginary meetings, the part I was missing was, you know, the meetings).

I also noticed that I couldn't find the copy that the presented had returned to me with his notes. I also couldn't find the book of data from that lesson that was necessary to do the report. Non-plussed, I emailed the presenter, saying that if he could, could he bring me a copy with his notes and another booklet, or I could go pick it up before work.

Felt good about myself.

So good, that when I came home from work Wednesday night, I sat down with Tanja after dinner and watched a bunch of Madmen. I remarked on the way to bed that I hadn't done any assignment work, but it's okay, I'd do the hard yards Thursday night, and hand it in to the presented on Friday, right on time. I put the stuff I'd finished into my bag to bring to the presenter at the other office in my lunch break sometime this week. He hadn't emailed me about the booklet/notes, so I sent him (and another presenter, for good measure) another email saying that if he wanted the assignment done by Friday, I was willing, but I needed him to help me out.

Oh yeah, and did I mention? On Wednesday I got a flu shot.

Thursday I was sick. Really sick. Like wake up at 4 am to throw up kind of sick. II didn't go to work, I didn't think about the assignment, I just laid in bed and literally (with no hyperbole, superlatives, or exaggeration) cried, and willed myself to stop hurting and not die.

Friday arrives. I've shaken the flu. My immune system for the freaking win. I go to work and find an email from the presenter saying "Hi Lucas, yes, you can come get the booklet and my notes whenever you like." Also, the second presenter that I'd emailed, whom I've known for longer, stopped by the office to needle me about the assignment, um, I mean, to say hi. Actually, I'm making it sound callous, he was actually really nice and cool as he always is, and just gave a gentle reminder that these assignments should be a snap for me (again, ego). I called the first presenter and said I'd be over in my lunch break to get the booklet & notes. I head over there (about a 20-minute walk, in the rain. He calls when I'm just outside his office to say "Don't worry, I'll be over at your office, I'll bring it."). So I get the details from him, and give him assignment 4, completed. I make an offhand comment about how it's really quite tough filling in the blanks on an assignment I did in June of '08, and frankly, didn't give my best effort to then. I found it hard matching the more-complete answers with some of the sketchier stuff I'd put in earlier."

Should have known that was laying it on a bit thick.

"Well, you know, Lucas, I'd prefer if you you didn't write stuff out of context. I mean, if you need a few more days to rewrite it all and make it good, then that's fine."

*deep breath*

A FEW MORE DAYS??!

It's okay, I'm calm. He put the guilt boot in a few more times, and I left.

I wrote up his comments in Lucas-speak on Saturday, so I'd know where to start. I would have done more work, but Tanja had decided she felt like cleaning and was doing this thing where she talks to what she's cleaning. "Oh, well, that's no good, is it. It's so dusty!" It makes it hard to concentrate.

Also, I was distracted by internet.

Anyway, wrapping up, I sat down today and did it. The whole thing. And it was fine. Actually, now that I knew I was writing for content, I expounded a bit more than I usually would on a business-report-style format. The questions that had frustrated me previously were much easier, thanks to the practice I have now with handling metrics and strike rates at work. Frankly, as I said to the presenter, I'm a different team leader now than I was then. Admittedly, the math I used was different to what they wanted, but I got there in the end.

So now I'm in a frenetic writing mood. I left two loooong and one longish comment on blogs, and now I've written one of my own. It's not too long, though.

...


...


What?!?

Busy week continued again...

... And I've discovered eBay, and all the joys and sorrows that come with it.

I started out bidding on Drum kits. And I've managed to get myself outbid on all of them, the three most promising within the last 30 minutes of the auction. I was extremely unimpressed with that. I ranted. I raved. I called them Biblical curse-words. Then I calmed down and bought myself a DVD and a snazzy belt-buckle.
Still want that 7-piece drum set I had nearly gotten for $200. Bastards.

I've been making a bunch of shirts I've been procrastinating on for one of my TAFE guys (although he doesn't have grounds to complain, I'm doing the blasted things for free, and one of them was the hardest bit of cutting I've had to do yet) and one for myself too.

I'm dreading going back to TAFE next week. The real run-up to big assignments starts. Very stressful.

Posting from the TAFE library

...Because Vicki finished early this morning. She's also told us that she feels she's taught us all she needs to for our EXTERNAL EXAM (I emphasize to emphasize the enormity of that) in 7 weeks instead of 16, and if any of us need anything, we're to make an appointment.

One one hand, I can sleep in Mondays now, as Ethics doesn't start until 1.

On other hand, GAH! Exam! She's taught us squat! This is the woman who, wehn asked a question she doesn't expect (or, I've hypothesized, doesn'tknowthe answer to) barks, "Find out!"

As in: "Vicki? Do you feel that since this is listed as part of the promotion mix, it should be classified as such, despite it being big enough to be it's own heading? And don't most companies include it?"
"Find out!" Oy.

Well anyway, as of Thursday I'm on school holidays for two weeks. Thank fuck, as my wonderful, sophisticated, erudite Tanja might say. During said holidays, despite working my usual hours, Tanja and I will be heading to her folks' place for Easter, David and myself will be going to see Buddy Guy and Robert Cray at the Enmore (!!!!!!!!), and (hopefully, if our schedules will let us pull this off) Tanja and I will be going to see Worth's band in Katoomba. Brad willing.

I've been getting Neil Gaiman's Sandman books (graphic novels, not comics) out of the library and really enjoying them. I'd be telling Tanja this, but she's confessed that she doesn't think Gaiman's "all that" and that he has an "ordinary guy fetish". She did this five seconds before I could properly gush. Oh well. I don't like her Sharon Penrose novels. So nyah.

And I've just filled up my little USB keychain with MP3s off the Fat Possum Records site. Hooray for post-punk-blues/blues/garage/rock.


And a guy here at TAFE is making me a CD of his "Baleric filter-tipped French gay biker haus not-proper-electro Prog". I'm afraid to actually listen to it.

Oh, and thanks to Tanja's diet thingy, I'm at 79 kilos. Actually 78.5, but Tanja says it's 79, and it's her scale. So I'm not going to argue.

So...

... in deference to the fact that Tanja's on a diet, my food consumption today was:

1 pink iced doughnut.
1 bag KitKat Choccettes
1 bag starburst jelly babies
1 plate chicken nachos.

Aaaaaad that's it for today.

Hooray for sugar! And salt! And by-products! LET'S HEAR IT FOR BY-PRODUCTS!

Oh, and the card-reader that I accidently left in an internet cafe yesterday was rescued today, unharmed.

And the project I was working on for my copywriting class got an A-plus and a "you should be in the biz" pep-talk from my prof. He says I need to get good with Illustrator. And Photoshop. And Quark. Anyone have these? In non-CD format so my computer can read them?

and I got Tanja's Christmas present. Heh. Oh, and apparantly Mulan is coming out on DVD here soon. Hurzah!

An Eventful Day

I had "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" by The Kinks stuck in my head during the completion of my Marketing Law and Direct Marketing exams. I hope it didn't affect my performance.
Oh, and I got to meet Terry Pratchett.
Yes. Yes, that I did.
It was at a publisher's soiree at the Arthouse, a posh bar in the CBD, and Tanja and a few other Borders people got invites (including me, but since David couldn't remember my last name, my name tag read "Lucas: Borders City". Terry is a LOT shorter and skinnier than I expected (from his pictures, I expected a John Rhys-Davies-sized fellow in a cowboy hat. Instead, I saw a 5-foot-six man in a derby so big on him that it looked like a cowboy hat. And he had a silver scythe tie pin. Cool.)
I had brought along my Men At Arms book for him to sign, only to be told by a bitchy publicist/glorified assistant gopher that "Terry's only signing copies of Going Postal tonight. didn't you know that?" Grrr. I've read Going Postal but haven't bought it.
Then Terry starts wandering around to the different groups, speaking a bit to each. When he gets to our group, I'm so tongue-tied (a serious feat, for me) that Ikeda or whomever she is monopolizes Terry, and I miss out on a Discworld-themed l-space joke. Ikeda and Terry are talking about how big Borders is and she says they lose customers all the time, and I had the urge to say "yeah, we found the remains of some Christmas shoppers, and we ate their boots." But I didn't. Damnit.
But then he turned to me and saw my name tag and said "So, Lucas. What do you do at Borders?" and I said "Nothing, actually. I married into it." He said "Jolly good, fine old family. Old book money." Heh.
He wanders off and Dvid and I cornered and pounced trays of nibblies (meatballs and sausages and fish cakes oh my) and Tanja and I cornered and pounced glasses of free champagne (champers and champers and champers oh my) and then Terry gets up to speak. He's quiet and dry and extremely funny and I laugh far too hard at his explaining his hallucination of a sandwich vendor while on the operating table. Then he gets down to sign books.
Through side-handed trading, Tanja had enveigled me a copy of Going Postal to get signed, which I do, whilst gushing about the odd circumstances with which I came to have gotten it, and I realize he's not listening. And I wilt a bit, and go to shake his hand. He looks at my hand for a second, then switches his pen to his other hand, and sticks out his hand. I clasp it, but he doesn't clasp back (an odd sensation. Don't try it). I grab my book and skedaddle. I realize that by that point, the hardcore fans had already been past him, hence his kind of tuning my stuttering gushing out, but I was still to embarrassed to go into line a second time and get Men At Arms signed. David finally did it for me, slipping it into the pile of stuff they were getting signed for the Borders store.
Anyway. Yeah. That was my Pratchett moment. I felt good, even despite the wierdness. And I got Going Postal in hardback. Heh.

Man. School projects can suck the larger half of my ass.

Ok, all holiday (the last two weeks) I've been agonizing over the three projects I had due the first week back from holidays...
Project One (for Direct & Promotions Marketing) involved building an IMC campaign for the Mini Cooper involving direct mail, t-shirts, outdoors ads and print. This one involved four other people, two of which I hate working with and the other two whose English isn't great, bless their little hearts. None of these people were get-ahold-able, nor did they try once to get ahold of me. Argh.
Project Two (for Creativity/Copywriting) is a portfolio of ideas for a fictional brand of jeans called "Slam!jeans" from beginning through brainstorming and copywriting to finished campaign involving print, outdoor, TV, radio, and web advertising. This was on my own and was intellectually a lay-up, but manually quite a lot of work, fiddling on the computer to build the ads.
Project Three (for Campaign Testing): is a campaign for Liberty Mutual workcover insurance. It involves an old ad from the 50s which Kozue (one of the non-english speakers from Project One, though a lovely and artistic girl) and I needed to contemporize and sell to people our age. The creatives were a snap and took only a few hour, but the write-up is huge, involving research (two focus groups {already done}, two in-depth interviews {to be conducted} and a questionnaire {in progress}), budgeting (a hateful thing of demons, equations and projections) rationales, and a big written report.
Out of the three, I've worked most on #2 as I needed no more imput than my own opinion. I put a lot of thought into #1, and decided to wait on Monday to start bashing away at #3 (which is due Thursday, and thus came last in priorities).
Well.
Today I got to class, and no one in my Project #1 group had even thought over the project, but luckily, the prof had reviewed the assignment and is giving us a few more weeks to do it. Whew. Then I learned that #2 project is not due tomorrow, but is merely being looked over tomorrow by the prof, and so I don't need the final prints. Slight whew. And worst, #3 is a presentation, and though the creatives don't need to be done until at least Nov. 11th, the written is due Thursday. Bugger. Kozue hadn't done a thing on #3, and it's still due Thursday.
Time to get to work. Well, after supper.
On the plus side, Tanja got me 50 sheets of photo-inkjet paper for 5 bucks less than I expected. Hooray for cheapskates!