Failure

Chapter 9: Failure

Three down, three more to go. I think this will be one of the challenging terms that I'll be experiencing. Especially dealing with four subjects. A subject with a new lecturer, followed by the same faces. Well, to break it down, I had a filming subject, a film criticism subject, a research subject, a digital media subject, and a news writing subject. The same faces include Mr Bawang and Mr Mugam.

Starting with a filming subject. Believe it or not, I knew this lecturer. His name is Mr Edward. I met him on a film set about two years ago. Was doing a short film with a friend who wanted to enter his film in a film competition and that's how I met him. My first impression, I thought he was not a lecturer. he honestly looked like a student. Looks like a young guy. Talked to him at first, and I can tell he was the chilled-out type of person. But once it gets to work, he's very serious. But I think that's a good balance to have. Sometimes, based on my experience with dealing with teachers, most of them tend to have only one personality. It's nice to have a lecturer who treats you like a friend outside of class. This subject is the one I was most looking forward to. I wanted to showcase to Mr Edward what I can do. I knew I have experience in filming. So this is the first time I get to show my strengths. Well, due to lockdowns, I wasn't able to showcase my talents to him. This was due to roadblocks being put in each place, it was quite tough to get out without having a valid reason. I could have found a way to bypass the roadblocks, but I didn't want to catch the virus and pass it on to my family. Especially when the vaccines were not rolled out just yet. So in the end, since this was a group assignment, my group went out somewhere to film. I had no choice but to stick with editing.

A film criticism subject. Funny story, Mr Edward taught this subject. I had a choice of doing photography, business, and film crit. As these three subjects were electives. So we had a choice in which one we wanted to do. I still remember that day I bumped into Mr Edward. It was around college and he knew I was already in Diploma. He said, "Lewis, I expect you to do film criticism." Thanks to him, he already made my decision. I would have done photography, but I had already done it in the past. Business was not my interest. Anyways, film criticism was a subject which is quite enjoyable. I enjoyed it. Assignments included us just watching two to three movies and we had to analyse things such as their music, plot, cinematography, etc. I remember watching "The Interview". The one directed by Seth Rogen. Followed by his acting. Followed by a group assignment which included the group analysing a film together.

Digital media was an alright subject. The lecturer was alright. But this subject didn't interest me because it was learning things about social media and stuff like that. It was learning about the types of communication used online.

Communication research. Back again with Mr Bawang. This subject. Well, Not to say I liked it, nor I didn't like it. It was a subject that was quite heavy. The subject is collecting data about our respective topics. If I'm not mistaken, I and my group did something related to music. At least the saving grace was music. Music is something which I like. I mean, we all like listening to music. Especially music can be used in different ways.

News writing. This subject I did previously. It was intro to journalism. But this is like a sequel to the previous subject. Anyways, it was Mr Mugam. I feel a lot more confident compared to the last time doing this subject. I feel like my writing has improved a bit. And I felt good with Mr Mugam. Normal assignments included writing a newspaper article.

But there's one day that I'll not forget. It was for news writing. I described it as the day I failed myself. It was 13th July 2021. Believe it or not, it was five days after the 8th of July. Where I encountered that "eventful moment" two years ago. This was for a group assignment. It involved us coming up with a video relating to racism. I was in charge of the editing. If I'm not mistaken, our group recorded early on. And I had like a week and a half to edit it. The deadline is on the 14th of July, 8 AM. For the past week and a half, I just told myself, "I still got time. I still got plenty of time to do it." But that week was just horrible for me. Watching England lose to Italy in the Euros on penalties, and I need to edit this video. So, on the 13th of July, it was like any normal day. I knew that I had a deadline to catch. So for most of the day, I spent time editing it. It was a 25-minute video, and I needed to add subtitles. As I got to midday, I manage to do 7 minutes out of the 25 minutes. I thought I could get it done. As it reached the evening, I asked my friend for help. Had some dinner, and just cracked on. I still remember in the afternoon, I told my group that they can see the full video by 9 PM. Well, fuck me. I showed them some progress. I can tell I fucked up by leaving this at the last minute. I made a load of mistakes. I knew that I could be the reason why my group fails this assignment. I didn't want to carry that burden on my shoulder. After speaking to my friend Mohnish, he just told me "Look. You've done most of the work. Focus on the things which you can make right." That stuck with me. I just had that feeling that my group will just hate me. But I just couldn't sit down and do fuck all. I remember at midnight, I grabbed a cup of coffee. Because I knew that I wouldn't sleep. From midnight, I set a deadline for myself to complete it by 3 AM. As it reached 3 AM, I was nowhere near completing the video. The subtitles fucked me over. So I thought to myself, that I can complete it by 4 AM or 5 AM. Nope. Still didn't complete fuck all. I decided at around 5:30 AM, I just deleted all the subtitles. From that time, I just rendered the video. Took about 20-minutes to render it. I was shattered. Just wanted to get some sleep. As it reached around 6 AM, I had to upload it to YouTube. Before uploading it, I just did my final checks. Checking if the video was presentable and other things. Manage to upload it by 6:15 AM, and went to bed at about 6:25 AM. I knew I just had about an hour and a half before the presentation. I was presenting this video to Mr Mugam and Mr Edward. I had to wait for like an hour or two before our group had to present. The minute I heard my name, I just turn off the audio on my PC. I didn't want to hear the video. I've just seen it too much. As it reached the end, both lecturers liked the video. Manage to get positive feedback. I think its content did it justice, but I feel that I just wanted to make sure the flow and the video were presentable. I'm just glad that everything went smoothly that day. Still a day that will stick with me for a while. Well, I think the 8th of July was the one which will stick with me. But this is up there. But I still ask myself, why didn't I ask for help early on? Maybe I didn't want anyone to help? Maybe I wanted to do it all by myself? I think I learned that don't be afraid to ask for help. It's better to ask for help. I feel like it's no shame in asking for help. As we got to the end of the term, I manage to pass all of my subjects. Was a tough term, but just glad I got through it. Almost reached a year in my new diploma. So far, I feel like thanks to the lockdown, I wasn't able to showcase my full potential. But I hope with the vaccination roll-out, we can return to face-to-face classes. I was enjoying learning from home, but I still miss face-to-face classes.

I've got another term left before January I need to go for my internship.