Uni Life...Part Two

Part Two of my look back on uni life as results day gets ever nearer!

Year Two: Rickisms, Sounds, Noise and Silence and a peculiar conversation about Terry Venables and Osama Bin Laden's brother!

So we entered Year Two with a few drop outs from Media Writing. I swear some people started in Year Two that I never saw in Year One and others that I only saw once or twice reappeared having passed the first year without actually having to come to lectures! It was all running along at a normal pace until one lecturer stole the show with his motivational speeches that Churchill would be proud of...or not.

The lecturer in question, Rick Hudson. He began slowly, in a lecture about something to do with story books or the like. I was seated half way up with Jamie and Dave and we were all making ourselves busy (I believe I was writing a Media Writing version of Bohemian Rhapsody) while Rick strutted his stuff on the stage. He came to a section about the renaissance...

"What do you think of when you think of 18th Century renaissance..."

No answers from the enthusiastic audience....Still no answers....we were worried about the silence so started to lift our heads from our various doodlings and Rick looked right at us...

"ART"

A single word that became an in joke between the three of us from then on in. As in some parts of the first year section on this site, I guess you had to be there!

It didn't end there. Oh no my friends, there was furthar extrodinary antics from the Hudson. In a lower key seminar, attended by around 6 people (I remember myself, Jamie, Hannah and Alicia but sure there was a couple more!). Rick was giving individual advice to the merry folk of Media Writing but it wasn't exactly what we had hoped for....

"The first draft is ALWAYS shit" ....Ok, well maybe...

"BOSH IT OUT"....What?

"Being a writer is a stupid job"...Bugger, wrong course...

"What's the point? Who cares?"...Hmmm, I was starting to wonder...

"Is this all just a load of bollocks?"...I think it might just be...

"If you don't like it, sod off"....Ok...

"Who wants to write short stories?Why? What's the point?"...Rick, the unit is all about writing short stories!

Stuff of absolute legend and there's more to come in a thrilling finale to Year 3 tomorrow when Rick sends us off in a majestic way!

Elsewhere in Year Two, I was united with Jamie, Dave, Alicia and Becky in a Radio Production unit. We decided after some SOUND advice from our lecturer Sanda, to produce a ten minute drama about a typical conversation around a fruit machine. Doesn't sound too exciting I know but believe me, it worked to great effect. It was very handy to have the union right next door to the radio studio and we felt obliged to have a drinky-poo to get our minds at ease before a recording, which was probably the reason for us starting at a serious drama and ending with a comedy written pretty much entirely from spontaneous conversation between 3 of us.

Jamie's dad works a casino and during one random conversation about who our characters could be, he mentioned that at one point in said casino, Osama Bin Laden's brother and Terry Venables were guests! Now there's a drama for you! Once we sobered up a bit we realised it wasn't the best idea for an academic piece so created our own characters!

The radio show was probably the most fun thing I've done at uni. The preperation, trying to find a quiet pub to record background noise, the numerous cock-ups in recording and putting it together was an amazingly funny process and something that certainly didn't seem like work. Doing it with your best mates on the course made it even better and I think we all look back on this time as a lasting memory of uni.

So that's the 2nd year covered (I think) and tomorrow you can see the final part in this epic trilogy and as an added bonus we have the Ten Commandments of Rick Hudson!