Date for Entry: (Friday 24th January 2020)
Actual
Date of Online Entry: (Monday 27th June 2022)
Dear Diary,
The time for the final year came and I knew I would be forced to do this ('year long') course. It was a course I knew that Degree students had to put together a project together like a book called a thesis and I was very scared of it since my certificate days. The thesis was just one of the many reasons why I did not want to do the degree in music.
There were no fixed days and times for thesis meetings with Mr. Sharma. He had agreed to be my supervisor for this project. I can recall people telling me to pick a topic that I was "interested in music" or "what is it that interests you the most" about something from my field of study.
Truthfully, I had no idea what I was interested in. Indeed, I had to go back to my second year days in primary school to study my entire life. Instead, I discovered questions bringing panic instead of a topic. It made me question why I was into music. It was not something I chose on my own. I only knew that it was chosen for me. And when passion came to the 'brainstorming table', I realised that I was going with the music as a person walking with me for all this time.
I did not understand why it would take me so long to find a topic. I felt left behind when others in the class were already with their topic and filling out their forms for topic registration. I even had a whole meeting with Mr. Sharma on just picking a topic alone. He was telling me that it is good to have three really good topics in case the one I chose was already taken or written on. He had to take a phone call in the middle of it so that gave me some time to think of it. All I could think about was Dr. Remy's Music Literature of the Steelpan Course.
That course was something I wish I could have expanded on because I knew I liked making books from small. I could hear my thoughts from within saying, "Pick a topic you could talk on plenty." It made a lot of sense. I had a lot of work to work on and if it was a topic I could "talk on plenty" I would have exactly what to say, where to find the information either at home or in the library and how to structure the whole project. The bonus on it was that steelpan is a major aspect of the Caribbean and it still is a section of music that requires expansion.
It was not easy convincing Mr. Sharma after his long phone call, to accept what I had written down in my copybook as the topic. We came up with two other topics and after I got some time to work on the wording, he reviewed them. By the end of my individual steelpan class with him the next week, I had my topic registration form filled out and he had to sign it, along with his copy and my copy. As soon as he signed it and I got into the car, I asked daddy to take me down to the 'Big UWI' to submit the three forms immediately ( **** September 2019).
Link(s):
- Course Guide.
- Approved Topic Registration Form.**
SEMINAR #1.
* Unknown/Forgotten (Saturday November 2019) *
We were asked to attend an online class for the thesis. I was very excepted because it was the first online class I was attending. The platform was called Blackboard Collaborate. I found the software very professional and really high-quality. This was a part of UWI's My-E-Learning. The PowerPoint slides were amazing. I appreciated all of the decorations. This plenary was not stressful or as scary as I thought it would be.
Link(s):
SEMINAR #2.
* Saturday 12 October 2019 *
The second semester was to be done in person in a classroom in the Humanities Building. I cannot recall the time it began. The entire class in a complicated group from all other creative fields were assembled. We met Dr. McCollins and Mrs. Marshall who ran the course in person.
This plenary literally gave us insight into everything expected in the project. Towards the end of the seminar, Mrs. Marshall gave us back our topic registration Forms. They kept a copy that was supposed to be theirs and I received the copy for Mr. Sharma and my personal copy.
Link(s):
MID-YEAR "SUBMISSIONS"/REVIEW.
* Friday 20th December 2019 *
This was the submission of a form that the supervisor had to fill and I had to submit it in Mrs. Marshall's cubical down at the 'Big UWI'. On Thursday before, I had enough of someone provoking and damaging me all semester long.
The semester and exams were over so I went to set up my little table in school to do some painting in the Cheesman Building. I want the distraction from everything that had happened to me. This was a wish of mine to be able to sit in school and do the painting. All the pieces would go towards my composition assignments for the composition course with Mr. Sharma.
Surprising an art school don't have a place for their painters to paint. I listened to the piano pieces for the exam going on inside Lecture Room 3. Did not know it was an exam until I heard applause.
As the exam came to an end everyone exited the building and then I saw Mr. Sharma and Mrs. Ramlal looking down at me. He told me that the submission for the thesis mid-term review was supposed to be done and we didn't go through it. Didn't even know I had to do that. The moment the joke came I could have exploded.
So when they left me: I packed up my stuff, went all the way home, got my flashdrive with the project, and got back to school at the scheduled time that same day. I had an hour to wait to get back to school in the office's waiting area for the student there to finish.
The project was looked at with everything that was done and Mr. Sharma filled out his supervisor's form. It did not take more than an hour to do. As soon as that was over, I went down to the 'Big UWI' immediately again and submitted that form to Mrs. Marshall. Overall, I'm not sure how many students would have done this but it did seem like an important exercise to see if the student was doing their work.
SEMINAR #3.
* Unknown/Forgotten Date (February 2020) *
This was the final seminar for the course. It was a very lengthy and energy-consuming one. It was a review of everything discusses in the previous seminars and also some other guidelines on the submission and the content of our projects. My hand was writing as fast as it could while the two ladies spoke. Their advice and comments were not in the slides.
Link(s):
FINAL SUBMISSION.
* Friday 17th April 2020 *
The date above was the deadline for the thesis. However, for me, I was at home number two in the shed having a review of my thesis (on Thursday 16th April 2020). I decided to convert the Microsoft file into a PDF and then have it submitted to the appropriate portal of UWI's My-E-Learning platform.
Indeed, it was an early submission. My work was already reviewed with Mr. Sharma the evening before and he told me to "keep checking over and if you really want to submit early then the choice is yours." I asked for his opinion because I wanted to submit it on time.
I did not want something to go wrong such as glitches or an overload of students on the platform causing a delay with their uploads on the deadline mentioned above. I decided to enjoy the rest of the evening. One short surprise scare was that Dr. Remy told me I spelt Mr. Funk's name incorrect without the K. I didn't bother. The project was complete and was finally over with until the deadline at 4PM was met.
Link(s):
Daryl Zion M. Ali
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