This is a small collection of some of my school work. Some of these I am happy
with, others are half harted efforts (especially some of the earlier work). Most
of the later stuff is good, and I have given each one a rating. Offcourse, do
you really want to trust a rating by the person who composed them in the
first place?
| 2002 Uni Stuff | 2001 Uni Stuff | 2000 Uni Stuff | 1999 Uni Stuff | 1998 Uni Stuff | High School Stuff | Current Timetable |
Art History and Theory - I liked doing this essay a lot. I basically got to make up my own question here, and I choice this one because the difference in patriotic behaviours in the two countries facinates me. They are both ultra-nationalistic, but they express it in such weird ways. What specially suprised me was the sheer catiness of the American propaganda in WWII.
Developmental Psychology - A strange little task, and one that I must admit I took little joy in doing. As an experiment, we had to test a child on a set of Piagetian tasks, and then device our own alternatives to these tasks. It may have been more interesting, had we been given more than the 500 word limit. Still, my reading of the literature was pretty well done, and I hope that the assignement transmits that I know what I'm talking about, even though my liking of it is suspect..
2001
History and Philosophy of Psychology-An
excellent
essay, if I do say so myself. I pretty much read any relevant literature
on this subject, and I am quite proud of it. I also handed it in about 5
minutes from the deadline, without proof reading it! Still, not bad, I
say. I woudl've liked to look at some deeper issues of NHST, such at its
logical problems, and its current use. But alas, a university student must
keep to his question...
Art History and Theory : Portrait of Mme Boucher- I enjoyed doing this essay, and I think that it turned out really well. Most of the observations are original, and came about from looking at the same painting in the Art Gallery of NSW for about 3 hours straight. It is my little special petal of an essay, I just really like the painting.
Psychological Assesment- This essay will read funny, since it is only the Discussion part of a validation study done on the LOCI (a measure of morning and eveningness". This wasn't a hard essay, and the worst thing about writing it was the little degree of critical thinking it proposed. It is full of stats jargon, but bits are interesting..
Learning and Motivation- A reasonable essay. It is more cleverly written than some of the other ones, partly because I was quite uncomfortable with the subject. I didn't research as much as I should have, and it shows by some of the fluffiness. I still think that wine tasting is 20% skill and 80% bulldust.
Art History and Theroy 2001-Treating the female representations of Pre-Raphaelite women in paintings. It was quite limiting, considering we had to use pictures that where in the art gallery of New South Wales. Never the less, I was pretty happy with this essay. I knew my gender studies where going to come in usefull one day..
Art History and Theory: Memories in Film- I love this essay, partly because I love the films, and partly because I think that film is probably my favourite medium for art. It is also the medium which I annalyse and criticise the best. In particular, the annalysis of the Tracy Moffat film is well done here. The only part of this essay that bothers me is the introduction, which is a kind of pastich add-on; it really is only there to fullfill some of the theoretical background to film annalysis. Deluze stuff, which is frightfully boring.
Cognitive : Consious- I think that all in all, this is a fairly good essay oulining some thoughts about guilt and concious. I think it is a concept that is often neglected by theorist, and one that no one has gotten a good grasp on, except maybe Freud, and his whacky ideas. My syntax on this is awfull, and it looks like I didn't even proof read it. Still the ideas behind it are good, and it is an interesting read, if you can get past the psycho-babble.
Gender Studies : Chaning Masculinity - This is my first ever attempt to try and formalise some thoughts on changing masculinities. Offcourse, it is allways limiting when you have pressure to adhere to a question. Still, it doesn't make for too painfull a read. I think one of these days I'll write something a little more concrete.
French Literature: Alfred Dreyfuss- This is my attempt at a French Essay. It is pretty long, though it does seem to taper into nothing. I have a feeling that the file that the disk is on is currupted. Either that, or I am a terrible essayist. Either way, the french on it isn't too bad. I can read it, if nothing else.
French Literature : L'Etranger- Another French essay. The grammer is pretty bad; in fact, it is awfull, even for my standards. None the less, the ideas are fair. Besides, I love this book.
French Cinema : Tavernier vs. Audriard- I love annalysis of film. I especially like it when I can repect the directors of the films. And both these films are exquisite in their own ways. The essay itself never got the repect it desreved, since it was handed in quite late. But it is a very good essay, with some outstanding (if I do say so myself!) observations. I did spend a LOT of time watching and re-watching these films, so it better had been!
Personality: Parapraxes- Not a very strong essay. It deals with Freud's stance on dreams, parapraxes and jokes. I tried to pin some of the theoretical flaws in his work. The diction is very poor in this one, far worse than normal, but the ideas are sound (though far from original). It really is hard to come up with new stances on freud, the poor guy has been done to death.
Personality : The Self- Wow, an essay from my first year in the Degree! Boy, if I knew then what I did now. This essay shows a lot of the problems that I had when I was starting out writing a psychology essay. I can recognise that there are some good ideas in it, but it just falls short on the writing. Anyways, it is a very ambitious question, and in 1000 words it is hard to do it justice.
Cognition : Divided Attention Task - Such a dull project. This was to be our first taste of report writing, in first year. The idea was that we participate in an experiment, and then we write it up. A good idea, but you can see by my writing that I had little clue. At that point, I don't think we were even reading psych reports as such; in any case, my report clearly shows I hadn't.
Reviews for General English- This was an assigment that we were set in Year 11 general English. It consisted of doing "newspaper" critiques on three cultural events. One had to be "high" culture, the other "pop" culture, and the other somewhere in the middle. I did exceptionally well in this task, and was awarded the highest mark in the grade. Not that anyone paid much attention. Hmm, perhaps a literary carrear was my calling?
Review for Bugs Bunny on Broadway - This piece was clearly the best. I chose this as the Pop Culture segment of it. I really like this composition. It reminds me of how I used to be. So cocky, so sure of myself, and yet mystified with beauty. What happened to that little boy, was he replaced by the cynical guy that stands today?
Review for Mozart's Requiem - This formed part of the "high" culture segment. I find it amusing that I choose the flashy concert in the opera house for pop culture, and the trashy little event in the Central Coast for the high. Amusing.
Review for "Para Agua Como Chocolate" - I find it amusing that for the 'normal' culture I had the most problem. At that stage, I was too used to being lofted on high culture. I think back now.. I really only ever listened to Classical Music, or Jazz, and only turned on to things like SBS on TV. Times certainly change. I think I was more of a grown up in those times.
Music : African Music- Ha, I think that I was very passionate about my subject here, if not a little bit misguided. It is certainly far from the drier, more scientific essays in university. This one is cute, not because it reveals any real insights into african music, but because it is a very honest essay. At the time, I felt very strongly against the over annalysing of music, and tried to put that through in my essay. In high school, I guess I thought that statments like that could change the world. Perhaps they didn't go so far as I expected them to.
1998
High School