I’ll Radio Your Script

Well it’s started. Hope today went well for everyone! First things first, I thought the paper was alright. Nothing overly great but nothing overly awful either. I’m wonderfully awful at picking questions for the exam. A scribbled out first paragraph is like a trademark of my work at this stage. Once that’s out of the way I can settle down to a good essay 🙂

Okay, so Section 1 Comprehending. Overall I thought that the texts were nice. A quick refresher from my scrawled-upon pink paper (which, due to glossiness, is bloody hard to note upon might I add).

Text 1, A Personal Future was an interview with Seamus Heaney, including questions from the interviewer. Its question B was an interview with yourself in 50 years time; you’re successful, discuss your youth and its influence. Text 2 was a Nobel Prize acceptance speech from Al Gore. Its B was a letter “intended to be read by future generations” on your “hopes for planet Earth in the year 2050″. Text 3 was an excerpt from Fahrenheit 451 by a SF writer called David Bradbury. Its B was a friggin radio talk about the importance of books.

Skimming through the paper very briefly, I chose Text 3 as my question A, avoiding Al Gore cos I can’t select 4 features of anything very well. Also, all I could think of was, at the end of his speech, leaning in towards the microphone to whisper to the crowd “Sssh. A whale is in danger”. (600 points to whoever gets the reference to the best comedy of all time). I quite liked the questions on Text 3 but often get sucked into the trap of writing too much for a 15 mark question. I got the guts of a page on both of those and forced myself to move on- but overall my timing worked out okay. So long as I can avoid repeating the timing mistake tomorrow.

Ah question Bs. Personally, I didn’t like them. Avoided the letter in case I messed up on address formatting- I’d looked at it before going in but was still only about 70% sure. So I went for the interview. With my future self, a successful and happy doctor, right? Wrong. A social worker. Who solved the problem of inner city drug-use and binge drinking amongst teenagers. Where the hell did that come from? I live in the country too. Closest thing to a city centre is probably the spot in town where drunks congregate on a sunny day outside the pubs.

It’s a couple of pages long and the questions don’t really follow a natural flow but hopefully it will be okay. It’s of above average length with a good body, I hope. Never done radio scripts but what annoyed me was last night I was thinking about them- how I’d format it, what I’d do. I shrugged it off… mainly because I listen to trashy, studenty stations like Spin. Can you imagine what they’ll be correcting? “Ok today we’re talking bout books…lol jk…. text in now for an iPhone with an eReader app preloaded k?” Sorry, I don’t listen to Lyric or Radio One. And who has the time the past few months to read books other than the heaving Biology and Chemistry textbooks?

The essay titles, immediately, made me happy. What a choice, for everybody! Usually I make essays up on the spot but I had one prepared about helping teens survive the “storms and stresses” I think it was of adolescence from an old paper so I worked it up a bit and sent it off- again, the focus probably wasn’t great. I spent the time talking about personal reltionships and friends after school and how to handle it- hopefully that meets the brief.

No freaky nightmares or anything yet, and we didn’t talk about them at school… had any?

I’ve visions of Rich, Regan, Goneril and Boland chasing me through Lear’s storm on the heath – the four horseWOMEN (come on, it’s Rich) of the Apocalypse. I’m cramming Lear, comparative… and Yeats, Kavannagh and probably the 2 chicks. I’d actually like if Rich came up though, I think she’s got great unifying times…

Now I’m heading into town to grab an Irish Times… probably be called down the stairs from study “MISTER X! THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THEM THERE LEAVING CERTS IN THIS PAPER!” Then I’ll probably be compared to myself in the article. Ah, parents.

Again, hope today went well – it’s all done now, no point reminiscing, just keep on going. We’ll be done soon and out partying, scrubbing Lear out of every brain cell 🙂

Mister X