Journal no. 3

today another classmate and i presented our draft dissertations to the class for feedback.

i have been working on my draft since the first session of dissertation workshopping last week, because i saw how my classmate became disheartened by the constructive criticism.
didn't want to told that it didn't make sense or that it had major issues.

the thing is that since my last supervisor meeting, i was able to find a new angle for my research question, and kinda rewrote stuff in order to make it more relevant to my topic.
this new angle was much clearer and more focused than the draft i submitted last semester.
but i only figured it out last week so i didn't have much time to build up the draft.

so when i wasn't procrasinating (been watching a lot of the Craig Ferguson), i was doing the literature review and background. last night i worked on the methodology and some chapters until 1.30am. i didn't submit the draft to the tutor for printing until 10am today.

btw, our new tutor is very smart, non-judgement (unlike the previous one), and kind. she also replaced the old coordinator Ray Berry, and is super helpful in giving our proper rubrics and deadlines. during our first class, she said my topic was very broad and difficult. people often tell me that. but since i found the new angle, i was able to tell people about my project in simple terms, which is a sign of a decent research topic.

i introduced my topic and showed the class 2 videos i made that weekend - one where i spider-manned around a large geometric sculpture and another where i was taking down my laundry, both with the camera on my hand/arm.
then the class read over my draft for 30 minutes and gave me feedback.

i was surprised by the feedback because they said it was good. not one, but many of them said it. "intimidatingly good" was one. wow. no one said that about my writing before because my argument was always fuzzy.
and my tutor said stuff about yeah... my writing was elegant... and it was fascinating how the eye and the hand are so important and stuff...
the funny part was how they suggested i can do experiments where i actually see through the camera on my hand. this was exactly what i proposed to do for my project one year ago. but i scrapped it because it was too dangerous to go walking around with a head-mounted display. so this is what they meant by going 360....

anyway, i was pleased that my draft made sense, even with my simple writing, and that i was going in the right direction.
but i have work on finding key practitioners in the field, to unpack some ideas more carefully, to figure out how to link action to sight, to explain why it's good to have multiple points of view, arrange it so the background has more stuff about the history of the camera, with a bit about cinema, define knowledge, and discuss how others used sight to undermine ocularcentrism.