Right, so now the holiday has ended. It is the first week of school as we speak.
It has been a rather hard to describe winter break. There’s, of course, the events that made it more interesting such as the A-W-E-S-O-M-E trip to the Grampians with the Labsome kids and staff members (Brrrr, the pinnacle & flat rock and the lack of mobile phone reception anywhere cept on the highest peaks).
And then there’s the lovely weather (which has just caused some minor hailstones yesterday, strengthening my belief of the usefulness of The Age’s “feels like:” temperature), dropping down to a “feels like” temperature of about 1.6 some mornings.
Of course, there’s also people(FRIENDS!) coming down to visit and telling me how lucky I am to be in Melbourne instead of where-ever they are studying in at the moment (aka Perth, Woollongong & Brissy – I hear you people). Fact is, I do really like Melbourne already.
But that is that, the holiday has come to an end. It’s back to 14 weeks of intensive writing, reading, slogging, dying-over-my-work-and-waking-from-death-again because I need to get the thesis done up nicely by the 21st of October. Caffine, well-wishes and advice are much appreciate over this period.
Good luck, whoever reading this.
Over and out.
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Requiem for an iPod
It’s finally happened. After years of ill-treatment and being tossed around, I think R I S K is finally giving up. Not much else to be said but there were sweet, good memories of it, and with it; and I think it’s about time really. I don’t intend to get it repaired and I think it might just be for the better.
Goodbye old friend. You’ll be missed.
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OUT!
Will be at the Grampians from thursday (21st) onwards. Won’t be back till sunday.
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At long last!
After weeks and weeks of slogging over the design of the Transient Spaces documentary website, I declare it OPEN!
Click here to see it.
It has been a tedious task for me: emailing and calling potential interviewees, working on the design and layout of the website, trying to understand the notion of community and the actual ‘Fair Trade Community’ itself and fretting over the very structure and content of the website. Now with all that uploaded and submitted, I have set my sights on… THE GRAMPIANS.
P.S. please leave me some comments regarding the website. would be nice to know what you think.
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An article I picked up from the library’s e-database has that title on and I think it takes two very interesting concepts to explain and reflect upon the notions of communities on the Internet now.
Too often we’ve been reading off Anderson’s Imagined Communities or Rheingold’s Virtual Community but sometimes you ought to take a more critical approach to the theories themselves. Theory remains an attempt in describing the practical, I’d say. And by being an attempt, there are instances where they just fall short of giving you the complete picture.
Maybe I’m being cynical.
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The truth about communities
There’s this certain thing about communities. Maybe it’s because of work.
I am currently working on my Communication Revolutions essay, in which I will be examining and describing the Internet, with a special focus on the use of social softwares and community sites such as Friendster, MySpace, Face Book etc.. I got drawn into the thought of looking of the masses as communities, and how these are working in shaping the Internet and how it is, or is not, comprising ‘communication revolutions’. That in itself is not easy as it seems. Being the ill-disciplined thinker as I am, I jump onto new ideas VERY quickly, and get excited with these new thoughts. And then I think about it alot, juggling it between notions of right and wrong (or rather, how I would argue it). Communities, are they something that the Internet has made visible (read: Imagined Communities)? or are social softwares a new sort of community all together?
And then there is the Transient Spaces online documentary, which I would actually love to take it a step further if we were given much more time to work on the content. A long-term observation, if you would like to call it, but I would say that being more involved with the communities (like participating, getting to know the people) would some how yield a different end product to what most of us are thinking, structuring and producing by deadline. I can’t really tell which role is better to undertake, that of the participant (more involved, and probably more biased); or that of the observer (neutral but lacking in understanding).
So which role are YOU taking? tell me about it.
I have a meeting set up with the representative of the City of Yarra Council on Wednesday morning at Fitzroy Town Hall. Wish me luck 
K.
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Who will own the news? Journalists, the new dinosaurs? « The rolling people
megalodreamer has written a very interesting article about the impact of blogs on the profession of journalism as well as the spreading of the commoner’s word that is easily attainable now with the use of the Internet.
His entry brings forth certain issues that remains highly entertaining and debatable.
Mainly, the issue of citizen journalism. While I would not say that most people out on the streets (every other you and me) could write better than most journalists, what used to set these two groups apart was the fact that the journalists were empowered. They had the access to publishing their writing to hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions. Now, with the popularisation of blogs, these are achieveable by anyone (although I would not argue that it is the same as publishing, there are other issues involved such as web traffic, credibility, etc. etc.) The providing of opinions and arguments based on the individual now, instead of a social institution (such as a newspaper), are less filtered/ highly differing/ more passionate – and perhaps more honest.
– to be honest, I dont even know if that’s what we want or need in the long run. Is credibility going to be an issue?
Is there a way for the journalist and the citizen journalist to co-exist?
I think so, just can’t be too sure. You can be sure I keep my eyes on this one.
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Haven’t you ever wondered about how tough it is to churn out 1,000 words sometimes?
That’s the case with the monster that I’m dealing with now. There is a certain struggle hitting the 3,000 wordcount although I am only writing the last 1,000 word. Theoretically speaking, it shouldn’t be this hard. I wrote the last 2 sets of 1,000 words with much ease, even allowing myself the luxury of playing around with it and time to meddle with the structure. But this 1,000 is pretty much a massive headache.
I feel,
that I havent read enough.
that I am going to mess up the structure.
that I am finding a direction, though I know roughly how the general idea and approach is going to be.
that it might just be progressively harder from now on.
- alright, 600 words down, 400 to go.
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hmmm, film critics.
putting in a late entry just before the 2,000 worder is supposed to surface.
I have spent some time pondering the role of a film critic. I think it goes far beyond just putting up words on a public media (newspapers, magazines, websites, whatever) about a particular film. By watching a film first hand (and I am talking about foreign films), how would they view a film’s cultural value?
sure, they can tell you if it’s a nice, entertaining film or a dark brooding melodramatic piece but how do they understand a film fully? are film critics all knowing cultural experts in disguise? Don’t get me wrong, I adore film critics. I live by rottentomatoes.com and probably would read reviews before going to the cinema, and they influence my decisions to purchase DVDs. But in the process of writing my research thesis, I was just wondering how these people come into play in the influencing of audiences.
This isn’t going on too well. Tell me what you think.
Filed under: LABsome, Rantings, cinema, culture | 3 Comments
the DEPARTED one – Remake: Infernal Affairs and The Departed
something to do with my thesis, I find it particularly useful as most I have spoken to has either not watched both films, or are relatively familiar with the HK cinema (like myself)
I find myself disagreeing, mainly because of the fact that I didn’t like The Departed as much. However, it makes sense because as compared to Infernal Affairs, The Departed was shaped in way that is more universally understandable. That is something I find relatively hard to explain. Also, the character development in Infernal Affairs was seemingly short-changed in the eyes of many due to the fact that most have not yet seen the prequel and sequel (namely IA II and III). Also, overall, the average running time in both cinemas differ greatly. Asian films usually border along the 90-ish minute a piece range, whereas Hollywood films usually work on a larger scale, say a 120-minute per film.
I cannot emphasize enough, however, the fact that the entry that I linked to is a good review and comparison of both films, as well as an interesting look into my thesis topic of film translations. It is definitely beneficial to me, and I would recommend anyone who has seen either film, or both, to read that entry up. and for those of you who havent yet seen either, PLEASE do watch BOTH of them.
P.s. special thanks to departedone
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Recent Entries
- End of Holiday, start of the grind.
- Requiem for an iPod
- OUT!
- At long last!
- How imagined are virtual communities?
- The truth about communities
- Who will own the news? Journalists, the new dinosaurs? « The rolling people
- writing, and the difficulty of it all.
- hmmm, film critics.
- the DEPARTED one – Remake: Infernal Affairs and The Departed
- Testing if this works… « Sathfilms
