I’m a total fraud and I don’t belong!

Not really. I know that isn’t true, for all the standard reasons people give you to make you feel better. (You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t belong; they don’t let stupid people in; blah, blah…)

However, I am beginning to feel a bit out of my depth. Mostly because I’ve never done any sort of media studies before, ever. I’m doing my Masters, but in a strange conversion kind of way that has given the administration all kind of headaches (like RMIT needs any encouragement to be a shambles). So the two years before this were a while ago now, and were a GradDip in Editing & Publishing. Which I guess is a kind of media, but not in that capital M way that means engaging with theory and learning how to make films and websites and documentaries. And they so weren’t academic. At all. So although my inner nerd is relishing the opportunity to actually use my brain again, I’ve got that galloping fear on the go, where every article I read makes me realise I don’t know anything.

If I’d figured out that trackbacking bizzo (God, I’m a luddite too!), I’d put Tessa’s comment here and reassure her that she’s way ahead of the game, and I’d say that Ali’s mention of Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophical work “The Inoperable Community” and Bernard Stiegler’s Ars Industrialis movement, scares the crap out of me!

I’ve done enough study over the years to know that it will be ok, and that I’ll learn (some of) the things I don’t know and that it’s only 12 weeks of my life and I can do it. But oh lordy, what I wouldn’t give for the heady days of the undergrad with all the time in the world to think and talk (and drink) and figure things out. Trying to get through this semester and be a grown up with a real full-time job is not going to be fun.

At least there’s a couple of long weekends (with chocolate) on the horizon…