SOME PERSONAL INSIGHT:


Just a side note - this is what blogs are for, right?


To be very honest, within the first term of this year I knew this course wasn't for me. Right throughout my time enrolled here I have wavered as to whether to stay or go, because of the constant feeling of stupidity and my inability to live up to not only my tutors but also my classmates expectations - as in I feel as though I am constantly letting people down (which I'm fairly sure is all in my head - but even so it is still an extremely heavy mindset to carry around with ones self). Some days I come in here with high hopes and a good attitude. Other days I struggle to shake the feeling of uselessness and inadequacy off and quite honestly just feel like a pain in the ass. I'm not sure why I'm so down on myself, or why I feel like this so often (because lets be honest, everyone does every now and then, right?) but I'm not going to lie, this year has been really, really tough for me.

I originally came to this institution to study performing arts - the only reason being that the idea of escapism and acting as something/someone else day in day out is an overwhelmingly attractive lifestyle for anyone, I assume? I thought it would be something I actually enjoyed doing, because school really wasn't the thing for me, it felt as though I was wasting my life away in a high school full of people who were constantly in and out of my life - just the typical high school journey for anyone really. I couldn't wait to get out of there. So I left school, I honestly thought this was the right thing to do. 4 days before my performing arts course was due to start - I got a phone call telling me that the course was cancelled. At this point, I had already gotten a student loan, I had already left school, and I had already disappointed my parents. As you can imagine it was a pretty rough feeling, I couldn't go back to school, I couldn't (and wouldn't) just work full time at my job as a checkout chick. It felt as though my life had been tipped upside down. So the very next day (when I managed to stop crying and actually leave my bed) I went down to SIT to try and get into another course, that hopefully I'd actually enjoy. I applied for the Bachelor in Digital Media but my hopes weren't very high as I was only 17, I didn't have university entry and to be honest I had no interest in film at all. I was desperate. To my surprise I got in.

I didn't know anything about Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator or Maya. I didn't know anything about Premier pro, Compressor or even Macs for that matter. I didn't understand aperture or shutter speed. Nor did I know the difference between Sony and Canon. This was like a new world and I was surrounded by people older than me who I had this uncontrollable urge to impress. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing - at all. Everyone around me was so happy to be where they were, they knew why they were here, they knew where they wanted to go with this. Most of them had a fair idea of what things were, I wouldn't say their knowledge was in-depth, but they could understand  it, and it made me feel super shit when I couldn't.

Obviously this year has induced some pretty shitty feelings in me, and I keep thinking that maybe the people around me don't quite understand me, just as I don't understand anything they do in/with film. I don't think of myself as a lazy or attitudinal person. I don't think of myself as immature or intelligent. As I've said time and time again, I don't see myself working in film, i don't enjoy making films. I am not like you, and you are not like me. I am embarrassed when I fail, or when you do better than me, which may seem petty. However I believe I am a person that, when I enjoy something I strive to do well, and when I don't - I simply don't very much try at all. And for me this is something I am learning to stop. I have a shitty attention span, if something doesn't interest me straight away - Ash is out. This has been a disadvantage to me and again I am working on myself as my own project.

So clearly I have been struggling, and as with almost all assignments I have attempted this year, I have misinterpreted what I need to produce and what I need to do. Two assignments that stand out to me are the self evaluations required in Video Editing and Video Craft during semester one. To me - a self evaluation is evaluating oneself. So, a bit like I am doing in this blog post, I wrote about my strengths, and my weaknesses. The challenges I faced while studying these papers and what I felt had hindered my marks from being the outcome I had wished for. But yet, both times with these self evaluations I was knocked down? My opening line for both these papers was "I have really struggled with this paper" - and that was the blatant truth. I had more than struggled with these papers, I had spent endless hours of beating myself up over my stupidity and my inability  to understand or keep up to the standards my class mates continued to deliver at. I had cried time and time again because of my feelings of worthlessness and the constant thoughts of not being good enough and going no where in life consequently. I had harassed Adam to spend endless hours slaving over a computer explaining things over and over and still, months onwards - I still do not understand. I've not come to class several times simply because I didn't want to waste my tutors time, because them even trying to teach me was doing just that - wasting their own time. But among all these emotions - was a enormous sense of embarrassment. Embarrassment for even enrolling myself in this course and for ever thinking I could do it - because it turns out I couldn't do it, and I still can't. It turns out though - self evaluations aren't even really about yourself. They're not about your feelings or thought processes. Their not about the obstacles you felt like you had been overcoming everyday. They are about what you have learnt, and what the things you learnt are there for, how will you use them? They're actually about things you know, but things that are not about you. I didn't think there was a right and wrong for a self evaluation, but there is. Everything is very black and white. Up and down.

I've been here 7 months now. I think I've learnt a lot, even though I'm still not as good as my class mates (understatement of the century), and I am very aware that I never will be. This year has been a massive learning cur for me, a huge eye opening experience. I never knew there was so much to the film industry and to be honest I never even thought about what went into making a movie. I've met so many awesome people (including my amazing boyfriend). I'm glad that I've turned up here, and that next year when I'm studying in Tauranga, or years from now when I'm hopefully living somewhere sunny; I'll be able to look back and appreciate a year of hell (that wasn't really all that hell-ish for other people) that taught me so many valuable lessons. As I've said, I'm shit at basically everything in this course- but despite that, I actually have learnt where my strengths lie. I'm good at talking to people, gathering information, standing my ground, and being fiercely feisty when I need to be. And if radio school doesn't work out for me, maybe I'll find something i enjoy doing that maybe includes some of my strengths. This course has actually helped me find myself, which I believe is important for everyone to do. I'm not going to get a bachelors degree in digital media. In fact, I probably won't even leave with a certificate because of the abnormal amount of failures I have caught myself. But I don't even mind that much... because I have learnt so much anyway.

I've only got a couple more months enrolled at SIT. Although these next few months will be just as difficult as the last 7 have been, I am actually looking forward to the many more challenges I can overcome. As well as dreading every challenge I will need to overcome. Because it is torture but I know it will all worth it, and maybe then - I can cross it off my list.