In most major undertakings, I like to sit down with a blank page and mind-map out the expectations and the  things that I want to get out of it. It’s been full of busy recently, so I didn’t manage to achieve that before the MA started on Monday this week… And what a week it’s been!

We’ve had a fat week of learning. We’ve been screenwriting. Already something I never expected to do! We are a class of 27, but the task this week was to work in smaller groups and come up with a five-minute ‘short’ around a central theme. The five sub-groups had to work independently, from conception to first table reading (via premise, synopsis, outline to script) in four days – oh and then collaboratively, in a writing room environment, link the shorts together. We smashed it. We’re not in danger of blasting through the short film industry, but we have a project that our outstanding tutor, John  Finnegan, is happy to work on and develop over the year. That’s outside of his, and our remit. I’m game (of course).

The University IT systems are a maze to me at the moment, and in both my degrees (1986-9, and 2004-8) there was no IT to support the learning. For the MA, as with every course in Falmouth University, everything happens online. That has both pleased me (I like it that everything is just there), and terrified me as I can see the demands in full glory. I already spent one evening randomly clicking through modules, and downloading things haphazardly. Fortunately I caught myself, and was able to coach myself back from blind panic. My friend just starting her PhD said, ‘I feel like I’m at the foot of a mountain,’ and that resonates with me. I can just about make out the path, but there is one, and I’m taking my first steps, and loving it.

Aside: I’ll find a quiet space and complete the mind-map. I mightn’t share the outcomes until the work is done in a year’s time.