21 Jun 2004
Final Copy – an Undisclosed Number of Words (target: 1000)
Assessment Task 1: Imaginative Composition
“Blurred Reality”
The fall into darkness was inevitable. For a cause lost in the depths of time past, a dark being came to hate the world and all within it. Seeking iconly death, he embarked on his mission of desolation. It was perhaps better for those on whom he was dependent for his un-life, that they were stripped of all consciousness and will as they fell under the curse of his ineluctable hunger.
Those subject to this desolate ruler came to enact like-minded (if such minds could exist) retribution upon others — and so the cycle continued, hundreds drawn under this curse. Fear of this decimation of any sense of self identity or existence, substituted with a perpetual, mindless repetition of the motions instigated by the first to fall was rational, although, it must be said, an immortality of nothing is worse than frail existence within which life may exist. This fear is not a conventional fear of suffering — but of nothing. Not of the unknown, simply emptiness.
The haunting sound of inevitability surpasses fruitless fears. For most, the world was slowly falling to the grasp of this lifeless dictator, however there was one, it was said, possessing the qualities to overpower this being, releasing the world from an age of bondage under an empty master.
—-
Karl Riley drifted in alternating states of consciousness. An alarm sounded loudly next to him, and he jerked upright, slamming a fist onto his mobile. Begrudgingly, he rolled, bringing himself upright. It was two A.M., and apparently he was needed immediately at work. Muttering something about overtime, he dressed and started driving to the support-centre, stopping only for a coffee from an all-night convenience store.
Returning to his car, the lights of the convenience store flickered before dying. Hearing the sales assistant swearing, Karl returned to his car in darkness. A cloaked figure moved along the street, towards him, making no attempt at concealment. He reached Karl’s car first, and stood, waiting at the door.
“Hello?” said Karl, somewhat hesitantly.
The figure stood motionless, his face in shadow.
“That’s my car. I need to go. It’s two-twenty on a Thursday morning, and I have ten minutes to get to work. What are you doing?”
Without speech, he moved aside, and continued walking along the road. Glancing cautiously, Karl unlocked his car, sat, and again locked the doors from the inside. Fumbling with his seatbelt, he looked up; his gaze locked upon two perspicacious, penetrating eyes of the figure he had seen moments before, fixated to the window of his car.
Tearing his gaze from this apparition, Karl turned the keys, gunned the engine, and tore off down an otherwise-deserted street. Shakily, he reached for the coffee.
“Wake up Karl, wake up,” he repeated over to himself. “Wake up, WAKE UP!”, he found himself shouting. Except it wasn’t his voice he heard shouting. It had come from behind him.
He leant his weight on the cars brake, and it shuddered to a halt in the middle of the street. His seatbelt caught him, and he turned to the back seat of the car, where the man sat. Indifferent to Karl’s driving, speaking in mocking tones – “Wake up, Karl. Wake up.” He ceased speaking, reaching a hand forwards to firmly grasp Karl’s shoulder.
His rancid breath permeated the car; Karl shuddered at his touch.
“Am I awake?” asked Karl, now uncertain of anything. The grip tightened, and Karl winced from the pain of it.
“Yes.”
“What is happening?”
“You are to be freed from awareness.”
He loosened his grip on Karl’s shoulder, reaching for his neck. His face moved closer, the breath becoming stronger, more repulsive. His mouth almost upon Karl’s throat, he saw the cross strung around his neck. Violently, he pulled away, breaking through the rear of the car and vanishing into darkness.
Skeptically, Karl glanced out the back window, wondering if he were awake.
“He broke my window.”
—-
Arriving thirty minutes late, covered in spilt coffee and broken glass, his supervisor, Lara, looked dubiously at Karl, but didn’t ask questions. “There’s a package on your desk” was all she said to him. A package? Delivered between 5:30 the previous night and now?
Somewhat intrigued, he opened it. A potent aroma filled the room as three pieces of garlic rolled from the package and onto his desk. A dagger followed. Staring as though offended by the presence of these things, they stoically remained through his blinks of disbelief.
Karl peered into the FedEx bag, finding a letter enclosed.
You are being watched. This package carries garlic that it may arrive unheeded. Tonight you have learnt of the forces of evil which remain hidden from society; these forces would not have you read this, would not have you to learn of them. You are the conclusion to a thousand years lechery at the hands of these… creatures. They are the un-dead, an accursed people, fallen to the evil one. It is said that there would be one who could crush this master, freeing thousands from his grasp, and saving humanity. This one is you. Enclosed with this letter is a dagger, forged from silver — this is the weapon with which you must destroy him, by piercing his heart. The attack on you was not imagined; your attacker must be destroyed.
“So, I’m to go around wielding a silver dagger which arrived in an anonymous bag, stabbing anyone who looks shady and wears black?”
The phone rang.
“Karl Riley” he answered.
“No.”
“Pardon?”
“No, you are not to go around stabbing anyone. The man who attacked you — you must destroy him.”
Karl looked at his phone. Caller ID showed an internal extension — 107. “How do…”
“Never mind. I can assure you, extension 107 does not exist,” the voice said, apparently getting louder, “but I do.”
The last words came not from a phone, but from Lara, behind Karl. She wasn’t holding a phone.
“Hello.”
“Umm… hi. How do you know all this?”
“There are many who are aware of this evil, but few empowered to act. Lara, whose body I occupy, knows nothing. She, like most of humanity, will never be aware of this darkness. You are elected to serve, burdened with knowledge. It is for you to act.”
With that, the figure of Lara flickered and disappeared into the air, leaving Karl sitting, at a loss.
—-
He returned to his apartment, with no word as to why he had been called into work. He imagined it were associated with other events of the night, although how, he didn’t know.
The new messages indicator flashed on his phone.
“You have… seven new messages.”
“Seven?!” he exclaimed, unbelieving.
The messages began playing.
“Hey Karl, what’s up? Phil here. You coming into work today? Gimme a buzz sometime.”
“Hi Karl, Chris calling… missed you today, everything alright?”
“Hey, it’s Steph. Where you been the past few days?”
“Karl, Lara here. Pick up the phone. Are you there? Karl? Where have you been the last week?”
There were three still to play, but Karl stopped the machine.
Cautiously, he checked the date on his watch.
“What…?” he began to speak.
The phone rang. He answered, and a voice began speaking — “I, the un-dead one whom you encountered one week ago, am coming to destroy you. Do not wonder of time, for soon immortality shall place you outside of such petty constraints.”
The line went dead. He placed down the phone and collapsed on the floor, his vision obscured by tears of confusion and desperation. A bird-like silhouette flickered past his window, casting a moonlit shadow around the figure of Karl. A voice, with no apparent origin, began to speak, chanting softly, enveloping him. No comprehensible words were spoken, but it was calming, soothing. A second voice was heard, at first quiet, but growing louder. This voice was violent, harsh. Formed words came in its speech, although Karl did not comprehend.
The first voice began to speak — he could not distinguish words, but understood. Commanded, he stood and walked. Blinded, shapes moved in his vision, as the two voices raged and fought. He felt himself being directed, moved towards the table where the envelope lay. Guided perfectly, he extracted the knife from the envelope.
The second voice shifted within his head; visions became darker, as though maddened by the presence of silver. A resonant scream engulfed his being, the knife seemingly cutting from the inside.
“RELEASE THE KNIFE”, a strangled yet forceful voice commanded, even in the midst of its agony. The desire of the soft, powerful first voice held Karl still. Remaining seemed unbearable, but releasing it? Karl grasped it feverishly, blood spilling from his hand, unable to bring himself to let it fall, trapped between pain and some other thing. The words of the letter drifted in his mind, as though through a thick fog.
…there would be one who could crush this master… you must destroy him, by piercing his heart…
His purpose clear, he drew the knife away from his body, only to bring it towards him, plunging it deep into his chest.
The voices ceased. Alone on the floor of his kitchen, fist tightly grasping cold metal, he was dying.
——-
Final submitted document was 27 pages in length, including two drafts, final copy, composition evaluation, and other working documents (including two printouts, one from email, the other from forums).
We shall see how it goes.
20 Jun 2004
Hmm. I just printed out cover pages, two drafts, the final copy, and a compositional reflection thingamajig, and it came to 22 pages total.
Doo bee doo.
So much for 1000 words… *cough*.
Yes, of course my final limit is within the 1100 mark!! I wouldn’t dream of violating that! I wouldn’t be so irresponsible as to write 1500ish words even on the final edit.
I shall say no more. ;)
The final copy shall be posted online after I return home tomorrow afternoon, as without a doubt, there will be many people still working on it tonight and tomorrow morning, and making their life easier would be boring. Or something. Plagurism sucks, hehe.
I suppose they *did* ask it be double spaced, so that unneccessarily contributed some significant bloat to the final document, but still… 22 pages for ~1500 words seems ridiculous. Meh!
18 Jun 2004
This has been bugging me for a few days. I think I’ll redesign the way news is ordered on this website – I’ve been knowing that this post will be the first one on the next page of news – so I’ve been hesitating posting until I decided I had something worth saying. Which would be a long time, so… I’ve gotten over the hurdle, and just thought “screw it”.
Probable recode of the ordering of news sometime in the near future (perma-links will remain unaffected as a design criteria, naturally), so that is something for me to look forward to. And perhaps the other three visitors to this website…
Soooo. Year 11 Political Theatre was tonight. That’d make a convenient scapegoat for a lack of posts over the past few days, so I’ll use it ;). It hasn’t really chewed that much time, but if it works, don’t knock it… Technically, the show was pretty amateurish. Hmm. Don’t try and make smart remarks about that word, or I shall request the army of zombies be unleashed upon you. Or Nikky and the book “The Future of Killing in Our Schools”. One of the above. It was more… challenging in terms of content than last years (perhaps that is a personal thing, I don’t know – no human is objective, naturally), although perhaps less humorous. By that I mean there were no random cries of “SANG CHOY BOW!!” in the middle of the show. Heh.
Okay, I think the humour was several notches above last years. But it wasn’t just about humour, fortunately – because that would be boring. It was challenging, engaging and, whilst some bits of it were fairly poor (I could name acts and/or people, but won’t ;)), others were immensely powerful. Both the first class and their movement piece (lost in a world in which technology surrounds and overpowers human interaction, where people move systematically and uncaringly, ignoring the presence of a confused and lonely person, who, overwhelmed by her surroundings, screams, collapses to the ground, and then joins in the mindless, repetitious movement of the whole cast in a form of mechanical existence), and the second with their haunting crippled army (a people struck and afflicted by the society in which they live, portrayed by the use of crutches and intense, heavy music complete with strobe, whilst images of September 11 are projected onto a screen behind the actors), score fairly highly so far as I am concerned.
Especially the second class. Technically it requires more (to good effect, I would say), but I think the use of featureless masks and equipping the entire cast with crutches was the most powerful aspect of the entire night. We (technical) didn’t do a great job with it (e.g. it could have been way better), but that was still easily the highlight of my night.
There were, of course, a whole range of other acts. Beatboxing from the guy who got into SACS Idol, didn’t come, and still managed to rank 5th on the voting system (someone didn’t tell us he wasn’t going to be there, so the record was still in the database when the application was deployed… malicious audiences suck!), and a few other interesting scenes… good, but those two major scenes outdid everything else.
Compared to last year? Possibly not as humourous. Although, that said, the styles and content of the two were so completely different, it depends very much on the audience. I’ll say this much, though – the beer hats stayed in the props cupboard this year.
15 Jun 2004
Well, for the first time ever, I left a session open too long, and it ate my cookie. WHO STOLE THE COOKIE FROM THE COOKIE JAR?!?!!?
I want my cookie back :( It’s kind of funny. I type up stuff, and give up caring as soon as I type it. I don’t really think that this is a great outlet, because I’m careful about what I type (publicly accessible websites are a little like that), but trying to make myself type what I’d lost requires concious effort. More a reflection of my laziness than anything else, perhaps? Ah well.
I’m combatting my laziness for a bit.
Three assessments happened today, most of which I was happy with. Well, all of which I was happy with, at an individual level. English, Business and a Cisco final exam.
English? It was a group performance task, and we all performed pretty well, and had prepared… enough. But the plot was somewhat lost in the space between our scripts and the audience. Or so I think… Tori would have me believe otherwise, but hey. I think we’ll do okay, so no major gripes there.
I’m not so happy about that assessment in general, though, due to the content of a certain other performance. At risk of making it worse, I won’t elaborate here. Bullying, or at least defamation, which of course passed undetected by the teacher for various reasons. Somewhat angry about that one, in fact. I’ll stop talking now.
Business was a report on Sydney Tower Restaurants, which I had done very little preparation for (save a quick Google the night before), for various reasons – I bothered to write a report scaffold on the bus on my way in to school this morning, though, which was mildly invaluable. I’m happy with the assessment, although I didn’t get time to finish completely. I used two booklets, and the last two pages are scrawled dot-point notes, because I realised I had a little too much to cover with five minutes to go ;)
The Cisco Semester 1 Final Exam, I managed to scrape in with a beautiful 73.9 – a pass is 70 – which was immensely cool. I was meant to sit that one last Friday, but due to “preparing for English” (meaning, that is what I was doing, but it was highly unproductive… had fun drawing dyslexic flutterbyes, though) I didn’t. Which, in retrospect, is almost definitely a Good Thing™ – I sat it this afternoon in the company of Year 12, who are infinitely more quiet than the year 11 cohort ever are ;) Hehe, the funny thing is, they thought they were making too much noise. You guys rock.
As promised to various people, my english script:
English script
Costume: School uniforms
Setting: SACS classroom
Time of day: Normal school times
Props + aids: Table, three chairs, paper + books, signs — “The Next Day”, “The Day Before Performance”, “Performance Day”
Kim:
Can we start, sir?
*teacher response*
Josh:
Hmm… so, what are we going to do for this thing?
K:
I dunno.
Tori:
Can we NOT do some dodgy love triangle soap opera?
K:
Just ’cause you’re insecure about your love life.
J:
How about we satirise the whole “school leadership” thing?
T:
Yeah… but would we get marked down for humour?
*Tori is stabbing table with pen mindlessly*
J:
What are the criteria?
*checks sheet*
It doesn’t say you can’t.
To Tori: What did the table ever do to you?
K:
To Tori: Could you please not? I’m trying to write!
T:
*Tori moves book onto lap, continues mindless stabbing*
Any better?
K:
*glares at Tori*
J:
To Kim: Hey, you should write shorthand.
To all: Hmm… but if we did the leadership thing, we’d have to make sure we didn’t attack anyone personally.
T:
Just because we say “school captain” doesn’t mean we mean OUR school captains!
J:
Yeah, okay.
*looks at Kim, who is writing constantly on her notepad*
Hey Kim, writing all this down?
K:
Most of it.
T:
Sooo… Do you think we can do this without being bitchy?
J:
Probably… not.
Oh! We could do a whole play where we are jealous of each others roles in the play! Like, we think other people have better parts than ourselves… and stuff…
T:
THAT’S SO COOL!!! We could be all arty!
K:
What – just be ourselves and have monologues?
J:
Yeah, kinda. It’d be about us writing this play– so crazily recursive stuff!
T:
It’d be cool…
*hesitates slightly*
…if we can get it to work.
J:
Yeah, it’d suck if we got up and everyone just gave us blank looks when we finished.
K:
But if we do it well — hey, this could work!
1st Monologue starts here. T. stands, K. and J. freeze in background. T. walks to front of performance area, and sits on a chair.
I don’t think this could work. It’s so complicated! We barely understand it, how are we going to make other people get it? We won’t do well if no-one understands what we’re going on about. I wish I had their confidence. They’re so sure that it’s a good idea. This all comes so easy for them.
T. walks back to K. and J., and sits down again. She freezes, and then all unfreeze. Dialog recommences.
T:
Yeah, okay.
*sounds enthusiastic, a slight edge to voice — passes un-noticed by K. and J., but clear to audience (i.e. follow-on from soliloquy)*
K:
We should probably finish up, Mr. Sandon wants us to pay attention.
J:
Kim, are you going to type up those notes? We actually have a practical USE for them now!
K:
See, I knew we would!
T:
Cool. Give us copies of the notes, okay?
K:
Sure, I’ll give you copies tomorrow.
All “exit”
The next day–in English.
Someone to hold up card, announcing this. (i.e. says “The Next Day”)
K:
Hey everybody, here’s the thing from yesterday
*distributes sheet with note written on*
*Tori stabs herself in the eye with a pen– okay, perhaps that wasn’t meant to be scripted*
J:
You have waay too much spare time!
*all read script for about 10-20 seconds*
T:
Hey, this is good. Thanks for writing this up.
K:
Yeah, there were some good ideas in there
2nd Monologue starts here. K. stands, T. and J. freeze in background. K. walks to front of performance area, and sits on a chair.
Why does he always have the good ideas?
Wasn’t it my idea to write all this down anyway?
I can’t believe I’m getting jealous over ideas about jealousy.
I don’t want to admit it, but there are some great ideas in there that we should really look at using: like satirising the whole school leadership thing and being jealous of other peoples parts in a play.
I wish I could come up with ideas like that.
K. walks back to T. and J., and sits down again. She freezes, and then all unfreeze. Dialog recommences.
T:
So, we should probably start writing our script, hey?
K :
*somewhat grudgingly–not noticed by T or J, evident to audience*
Yeah, there are some good ideas we could use in there.
J:
Okay, let’s get to work.
All “exit”
Day before performance.
Someone to hold up card, announcing this. (i.e. says “The Day Before Performance.”)
T:
Did everyone practice their parts?
J:
*kind of reluctant* Yes…
K:
C’mon guys! I know we can make this work heaps well!! Show some enthusiasm. It’ll be heaps of fun!!
3rd and final Monologue starts here. J. stands, K. and T. freeze in background. J. walks to front of performance area, and sits on a chair.
*Looks at Kim* How can she be so… enthusiastic?
It’s kind of ironic, actually. In preparing for a play about a play about jealousy, I wind up being all insecure about it… insecurity was meant to be an attribute behind jealousy, wasn’t it? See, we don’t even understand what we’re meant to be performing! Her confidence…
And Tori– she seemed a little reluctant at first, maybe I’m just paranoid about acceptance of ideas; but she is really good at just getting things done — I wish that I were able to do that. She’s a good leader.
J. walks back to T. and K., and sits down again. He freezes, and then all unfreeze. Dialog recommences.
J:
So… umm… how about we practice our scripts again?
K:
Yeah, good idea!
All “exit”
Performance Day..
Someone to hold up card, announcing this. (i.e. says “Performance Day”)
K:
Can we start, sir?
*ALL FREEZE*
Characters:
K: secure/apparently confident in idea
J: exhibits an ability to come up with ideas + make good suggestions
T: down to earth, implements ideas properly, and seem to be leaders.</p>
Jealousies:
T. Jealous of K. + J.:
Insecurity (don’t think idea will work — the audience already knows this one, it was the subject of the soliloquy in scene 1) about whether the idea will work, jealous of confidence of other characters
K. Jealous of J.
Jealous of ideas/ imagination — (to be soliloquy in scene 2).
J. Jealous of K. + T.
Jealous of ability to accept these ideas (i.e. the leadership of some character, convincing others of what to do, etc.)</em>
14 Jun 2004
I was @swylie‘s today, doing various stuff, and saw an incredibly cool camera. Gimmicky in parts, but still undeniably functional and generally cool. I *think* it was a Sony DCR-TRV950 MiniDV cam, but wasn’t taking notes… if you read this, Steve, feel free to correct ;)
The image quality was drool-worthy (3CCD’s do that), with a full colour(!) eyepiece, as well as an enormous flip-out screen (if the camera is the TRV950, then it’s officially 3.5” – bloody huge, compared to all other handheld camera screens I’ve seen, at any rate) which is touch sensitive and comes complete with stylus!! It was kind of scary, though – I kept thinking I was going to poke a hole in the screen… was the only un-cool thing about the whole experience.
As for the gimmicks? Hmm. Bluetooth. Need I say more? No? Thankyou. Network streaming over Bluetooth is blatantly ridiculous, especially on what is meant to be a prosumer class camera. That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing how it worked, just as a once off. I can’t see it being great quality, seeing the throughput of Bluetooth is apparently less than 750Kbps, as opposed to the enourmous powah of Firewire (or i.Link, as Sony insists on calling it) at 400Mbps, but still… it’d make for a cool tech demo.
Long story short? I want one…