Project Work is, by it's nature, an infinitely intellectually stimulating subject that truly succeeds in tingling the cognitive palate. Peppered with components that stand as true paragons of academic excellence, such as the Preliminary Idea (What is preliminary to an idea? No idea), where we spin truly innovative proposals for projects that will probably never see the light of day, the Group Project Proposal (Fundamentally more of the same,but this time we do it as a group! Positively scintillating!), the Evaluation of Materials (We take random articles and essentially beat the crap out of it in an academically rigorous fashion, before deciding to use it for research anyway, proceeding under the assumption that we may lack time for deep research in order to score well for a H1 subject), the Written Report (We write some crap, plagiarize more crap, and wax lyrical about some grand cause or the other, then expound on in detail some hotshot activity which will probably remain indefinitely in the works), and last but not least, the oral presentation (preen and posture before a group of people, speaking passionately about aforementioned grand cause and statiscally probably unrealized grand grand project). Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Are you stoked? I am.
What is the ultimate aim of such a subject, besides its intellectual depth, or lack thereof? Indoctrinate the timeless values of academic research in us? I think 99% of the student population was already indoctrinated with such values ages ago. It's fairly simple. Type random topic into Google, click on relevant (or perhaps even not-so-relevant) website that contains content that coheres the most with whatever you aim to accomplish, copy, paste, and modify the language to avoid the plagiarism hammer. Oh, and perhaps you should spruce up that font and organization a little. Et voila, research al dente!
Perhaps it is to teach us the value of teamwork? That sounds deep and meaningful. Of course, Hitler was also deep and meaningful when he spoke at length on the need to maintain the purity of the human gene pool through perfectly justifiable methods (justification varies from person to person, I might add, for gassing people is delightful to one man as it is horrific to another). In any case, I would think that a significant proportion of us students would also have grasped the rudiments of team work by now. It's sort of an instinct that's cultivated over time, you know, like looking at each other blankly while trying to build a sandcastle when you were a kid before realizing that you could build it even higher if one got on top of the other. Then we have the formative years, in which most of us learnt the true value of teamwork as we perused each other's homework for inspiration, to put it nicely. So, it seems that teamwork needn't to be foisted on us through a subject which wouldn't teach us much about the value of such things, scratch that, anything, anyway.
Or maybe Project Work finds it's forte in aiding us in cultivating our oratical skills! How about that? The oral presentation component will make us all more eloquent and confident speakers! I'm just guessing here, but maybe those who are oratorically challenged would have just a tiny problem with getting their hiney up in front of a panel of people whose aim is to tear your project apart, and crap rainbows out of their posterior, or in this context, mouth. They would then be deeply encouraged by the abyssmal grade that might follow their less than successful attempt at emulating politcal propagandists (Speaking passionately about things we never ever plan on doing), and become highly motivated to continue on the path to oratorical success. Or they might just take a trip up to the third floor of one of the school buildings to enjoy the breeze and most unfortunately tip over the edge, which might or might not have nothing to do with aforementioned abyssmal grade.
So what exactly does Project Work teach us, in its capacity as a world-changing, paradigm-warping H1 subject? Maybe it does help us hone our research reflexes. Why, I've learnt a lot of things over the past couple of months. For one, did you know that those ruthless Americans actually torture inmates at Guantanamo Bay with twenty-four straight hours of the Barney the Dinosaur theme song? Shock and horror, gas me instead, please! Anything to halt the agony! Unfortunately that titillating nugget of information is not entirely related to the project at hand. But hey, did you know that Sesame Street was attacked for insinuating homoerotic tension brewing between Elmo and some other random furry puppet whose name escapes me at the moment?
Fascinating, isn't it?
Digressing now, I would like to marvel at the sheer volume of concerts/performances for the various performing arts CCAs that are inundating the calendar. One could kill oneself trying to attend them all. Sometimes one might have to split onself up just to attend two different performances. I mean that literally, because someone scheduled Dance Night and an ELDDFS Play on the same two days, at the same time, a true masterpiece of effective timetabling. Unfortunately it seems like ELDDFS had to bear the brunt of that gaffe, having to practically throw tickets at random passer-bys in order to get to half-capacity while people are actually tripping over others as they are packed in like sardines at the Dance Night. This of course leads to the age-old philosophical question: Which came first, Dance Night or How The Other Half Loves?
But sometimes you get a pleasant surprise from attending these performances. You are coerced to, I mean, politely requested to turn up at something like the String Ensemble concert and realize that your dear KI Class Rep is in String. Too bad she disappeared before I could give her a flower. I had actually neglected to purchase said flower, but hey, what's a small matter like existence between two KI students, right?
