It was a day that started out like any other… Actually it WASN’T!

I walked in to the Networked Media lecture, eyes still puffy from crying after having been harassed at my usual tram stop by a middle-aged man who thought it was ok to be totally wasted by 1pm on a Tuesday afternoon. He first attempted the whole old-fashioned handshake where the gentleman kisses the lady’s hand coyly, however he was so drunk and disorderly that he was having a full of make-out sesh with the back of my hand :S Gross! Of course, in times like these there was absolutely no-one else around to help me escape this situation, I pulled my hand away and tried to be friendly as he persisted in asking where I was going. He followed me onto the tram and sat next to me. I told him my boyfriend would be waiting for me at the next tram stop and he got off, carrying his 2 plastic bags full of loose cans of Jim Beam and a couple of bottles of vodka. I hoped that he wouldn’t meet any other young “gorgeous thang” on his way to well, whereever he was going to drink all that booze.

Needless to say, I was not in the most inspired mood coming into that lecture. But by the time it was over, I was excited about the next 12 weeks in this course. To say I had an epiphany might sound a bit extreme, but somewhere in between the horror I felt when Adrian said these lectures probably won’t ever have any lecture slides (me being known to be OCD about my note-taking, I found this very unusual and difficult to process) and his estimate that after graduating we will probably never write an essay again, I suddenly realised that it isn’t about how to do something, its about how to be something that matters… and thats why I need to be here, at RMIT University, sitting in building 12, level 5, room 2, and 3 rows in from the front.

This idea resonated with me. After all these years of learning to construct a sound research essay, or a perfect hard-news story, or a short ‘mash-up’ film, I have learnt what to DO, not how to BE. I am a very text-book type learner, my creativity level is somewhere below negative 1. I need to learn how to come up with my own ideas, as well as to understand and embellish on others’. It made me think, a good employee can do x, but a great employee that can earn enough money never to have to catch the tram again, can turn x into something memorable by putting their own flavour in it. Much as Adrian did in the ‘Unlecture’… Breathe out Chantelle, there is life beyond textbooks and essays! 🙂