Annoyed at my course.
So today was stand-up day, something I'd been sweating the past 48 hours. I enjoy being up on stage, but the pre-amble - the learning of set, the fear of dying on my arse - reigns supreme and makes me... trepedatious.
Of course, today it turned out that that worry was all for nothing. Because due to our lecturer being late to the morning lesson, people running waaaay over their allotted 500 words for their monologues, another session of "limmerick making" and fucken red tape over our performance in two weeks, only half of the class got to perform their stuff today.
I naturally assumed that next week, then, my half will get to perform and they won't. To even things out and allow for more bureaucratic bullshit about what backdrop we want for our all important November 6th show. But no, not only do they get their rehearsal this week, but they get it next week as well. So when it comes to the actual performance I and everyone in my group will be disadvantaged - we won't have had as much opportunity to practice and try out our new stuff.
This sounds like me over-reacting to a deficit of only one rehearsal, but when there are only 3 rehearsals left before the big day, every chance to get on stage in front of a captive audience counts. Sure, the room is booked all day tuesday for us to practice, but there's usually no one else in there. Without an audience, a joke isn't a joke. It's a dude talking.
I wouldn't be nearly so pissed off if the people on stage today had made it worth it. But they didn't - it was nearly all the exact same(sometimes plagiarised) routines we'd seen the weeks before, oftentimes performed worse. I sat in the crowd seething - knowing that I had 5 entirely brand new minutes that I was desperate to test out.
Oh, and that's the other good news. Despite being told the importance of working on our 5 minutes since we started this course, we were told that (again as a result of too many students) we'll only get to perform 3 minutes on the night.
3 minutes is fuck all. And I am irritated beyond belief that all my hard work is going to get shaved down into a couple minutes.
Other people have taken a "what else were they supposed to do?" attitude. Well, there are two choices - either restrict the number of people on the course, provide alternate means of assessment so that the people who don't want to do stand-up don't have to(and there are some who don't) and therefore free up more time, or plan more performances, so we're not all crammed into the one night.
Not that I need to come up with these ideas, obviously. Because I am the customer in this scenario, and I am now being short-changed. Before I paid my £3000 I was led to believe that I would be getting two 5 minute performances in front of a large crowd this term. That's now been nearly cut in half.
Do I get some cash back, then? Course not.
Fucking university
Just grousing, still staying