And The Work Just Keeps On Coming...

So this is officially the maddest fortnight in my entire educated life here at the University of Winchester in terms of the workload. The deadline for the Final Year Project is getting ever closer, and the deadline I set for myself for the Final Year Project is getting ever more closer!

What hasn't helped this week is the two essays I have somehow had to find time to write and hand in over this last week. But I'm not complaining too much, especially about the first one (finished and handed in on Wednesday). You see, one of the modules I'm currently studying is American Crime Fictions, which is not actually an English Studies module - it's American Studies. However, to cut a long story short, this essay was really more of a film studies essay than anything else.

Now for those who don't know - which may be all of you, I can't remember - when I started learning here at Winchester I started doing a fifty/fifty degree with a combination of English and Film Studies. Obviously, English was a subject I've had a lot of experience with, but Film Studies was, at the time, incredibly new and incredibly exciting to me. And, to a certain level, I wasn't disappointed. I got to watch some fantastic films, most of which I doubt I would have ever watched if it weren't for the course.

But the work was another matter. I found the essays, though interesting to research and write, tough going, and the marking incredibly strict, much stricter than English. Another thing that really got me annoyed was the level of competence in some of my lecturers. Not that they didn't know their subject - man, there are some smart people teaching here- but I do remember writing in my notepad during one lecture that it was taking three grown men ten minutes to work out how to use a DVD player. Erm, ok, maybe a Film Studies teacher should be up to date on the simple aspects of today's technology?

For those reasons I decided that Film Studies wasn't for me, and so dropped it in my second year to concentrate on English full time. And yet, it was really refreshing to go back to Film Studies this week in order to write this essay on crime films properly. I can't help wondering that, maybe, if I had a had a bit more experience with university work before staring the course, I might have done better on it? I guess I'll never find out. One thing's for certain, though: it never, ever killed my passion for film. I wonder what's on tonight?

Laters.