Squeaky stress balls.

Where's a stress ball when you need one?

I officially have about three days to write my 2000-word essay on liberal democracy and Althusser for Media, Culture, Power - and I'm at that starting point where I'm going, "Hey, who's Althusser?"

Now that's it's Week 11 of a 13-week semester (not including exams and the quickly-gone-by midterm break), I honestly thought I was going to get away with not having to do any presentations for Media Texts. But today, in our second-last tutorial of the entire semester, the tutor discovered my existence reached my name on the register and assigned me a reading to present next week. :/ But he also assigned my friend Eka to the same reading - so I was like, "So, we're sharing yeah?" and he basically said yes. :D Twenty-two glorious pages on "The Kinder, Gentler Gaze of Big Brother" by M. Andrejevic. Whatever. It can totally be done. It's a chapter about reality TV, how can I complain? :P

Malaysian Cinema essay due next week, Friday. Number of words to be typed: 2500. Number of words completed: ZERO. But luckily Pete Teo already did my e-mail interview yeah? That's like one big part done! :D The rest will just be nerdy Internet research. Note-to-self: If I ever am lucky enough to meet Pete in person, I must belanja him yumcha!

The really stressful things: Broadcast Journalism documentary and Malaysian Cinema pre-production film and film pitch. Those are three very stressful affairs!

It didn't help that I was running around today like a headless chicken trying to arrange Very Last Minute interviews for Broadcast Journalism. Basically, what happened:

Lecturer #1 asked us to interview the head of our school. The head of our school told me to interview Lecturer #2 instead. Lecturer #1 said no, interview Professor X from University Putra Malaysia instead. I call Professor X - and it was really weird because he had no idea who I was, yet there I was, harassing him on his cellphone. Professor X says oh, sure, but he has No Expertise In Graffiti At All. So then we decided to interview Lecturer #2. Lecturer #1 says ok sure, it's totally up to us. So I have to call Professor X and tell him, "Err, sorry, looks like we don't need you after all!" in as polite a way as I could. Between the multiplicity of exchanges I'm trying to contact both my group members to find a time we can all be available. I email Lecturer #2. Thank God Lecturer #2 says yes, no problem! Lecturer #2 is a godsend.

So yeah. Wednesday, between my classes, we're going to interview Lecturer #2. :) Going in front of the camera stresses me out - but I'll be super glad when all of this is over in a few weeks. This documentary (and it's script, which we haven't written at all) is due Friday, 23rd October. Technically, that's just two weeks away. Don't forget there's the rest of filming to do, plus scripting, music, and editing. And cramming in our massive amounts of footage into 5 minutes. ARGH.

Way too many assignments! 13th November 2009 will be such a wonderful day. Because it will be the First Day After This Semester. Alas, still 38 days stand between me and 13th November!

Why did I ever delude myself into thinking I wanted to be a journalist or reporter? Chasing people to be interviewed, perpetually hunting for contacts, asking them questions they usually don't want to be asked, being bounced from one place/person to another, waiting for people, waiting on people, spending more time by the phone than by the metaphorical pool? Only to have your entire story butchered or completely tossed by People Higher Up?

Studying journalism has convinced me that I don't ever want to be a journalist! I just want to take all these skills and apply them to something I really enjoy - like advertising. :D

P.S: Look what Mei designed for me! :D Hehehe it's so titchy and cute! Check out her new website at Bazaar Hunters.