Dwell on my Transmission

April 30, 2009

Wipeout certainly didn’t aid in clearing my head. I’ve reached Breakdown which is the final component in HD’s octagon structured system of race events. The intensity has come in for the crunch again, all races in this section are Phantom; the highest racing speed in the game. I originally thought that the pod combat would play a real peripheral role, but it’s been near opposite approaching these final stages. You almost rely on them to survive or to fend of the vicious, face less combatants. I’m looking forward to waxing some words on this one, the game is more or less tuition in managing curves. Curves are incremental to the design, gorgeously so. I can’t wait to write up my thoughts.

I find that when I’m at my busiest I can never seem to keep writing in this thing. Thus implying that I’ve currently been rather busy? Well, this year, probably not. The past few weeks have been pretty substantial for DanielPrimed, I’ve been offered two quality freelance gigs (I’ll reveal the second one later) and have been receiving some solid attention. I’ve managed to lock the writing down to a new post (500 words+) every second day which is quite the achievement I think. The topics are tasteful, arguments mostly persuasive and writing style is improving steadily. I’m pleased with how it’s all going actually. With the GSW column, link backs and responses I’ve been getting, you might be fooled to think I’m actually getting good at this. That’s great, I’m so pleased, but am still miles away.

Today I feel pretty pissed off actually. I’m frustrated at one of my teachers for a number of reasons that all popped up the other day. Firstly we’ve been given the rather tricky assignment of hunting down some literature from an Asian language (Chinese) and then explain how the distinct nature of the language (through means of grammar, words, meaning, methods of speaking, phonology, whatever) communicate culture. I’m struggling with this idea, and my Chinese friends are all clueless – I went to them for suggestions. I can’t imagine how some of the students who’ve never learnt an Asian language will tackle this. I’m also frustrated at how he dumped a pile of recommended readings on me before the holidays for my project. I asked for some readings, so he lent me 6-7 books, but most of them are basic outlines of Chinese culture, Maoist history and all that, not really relevant to my project (Chinese communication). I found out yesterday that I have a project proposal to get done by next week, and unfortunately I have a weak base in terms of references. It shouldn’t be an issue really, I have cribbed some ideas from here and there, and filled the rest in with references from the literature review. At least I’ve pushed most of the readings out the way for now. Truth is, there are no readings on my topic, my project is delving into the unknown and considering that unknown is “how Chinese people manage their language among identities”, it’s tragic to see how little academic literature has been written on it.

I’m kinda frustrated at that because I want to read some books that may be relevant to the year-long project that can actually help me. Goffman’s ‘Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’ is going to be great once I clear off the remaining three books lent to me. I’m already very familiar with Goffman’s ideologies, and have probably read chunks of the book already through the readings. Still I want to read the whole book. It should be pretty useful for the project, but I also want to tie it into a super critique on Portal and the deconstruction of the institution. Fantastic stuff.