Abducted?

No, inducted. I've been inducted, as in Induction Week. It finished yesterday, so I guess I'm officially ready to get down to business. During the week at the University, we had four seminars that previewed the courses on offer and watched a few films. On Friday, we watched about 5 hours of avant garde 60's short films and a feature by Don Levy called "Herostratus". It was ponderous and excruciatingly long. A pivotal scene was the juxtapposition of a woman doing a strip-tease with the slaughter of a cow. I'm guessing this is supposed to mean that the woman (or sex) is just as much of a commodity as the butchered cow and just as vile to watch? The producer of the film (now in his late 70's) was there to introduce the film and answer some questions afterwards. He hadn't seen it in over 20 years. That's about how long I would need to wait before ever seeing it again. Even still, I'm glad I saw it and it's fun to see films that you might not otherwise see. Plus, these "artsy-fartsy" ones get your academic juices flowing.

It's going to be a good semester. Busy, but good. Apart from the film archiving course (which takes two full days every week), I am taking a course on early British television which is designed to complement the archiving. Presumably so we have a better understanding and appreciation for the material we will encounter in the archive. I'm also auditing a Horror genre class. The professor agreed to let me sit in on it without having to submit work. His only contigency being that I have to commit to coming to the class on a regular basis. That suits me just fine! Really get my money's worth. They've also given us the option of going to any of the undergrad film studies lectures and screenings if we want, as well as weekly postgrad research seminars. I'll definitely do a little of both, time allowing.

Classes start tomorrow at 9:30. Here's my Autumn semester schedule:

Monday
0930-1330 -> FM009 Early British Television (and Screening)
1800- ???? -> FTV Research Seminars (optional)

Tuesday
1000-1300 -> FM 019 FHR: The Horror Film (audited)
1400-1700 -> Screenings: Key Issues in Film Studies (undergrad - optional)

Wednesday
1000-1100 -> EASF1F03 Key Issues in Film Studies (undergrad - optional)
1300-1600 -> Screenings: Early British Television

Thursday
0930-1730 -> FM005 Film Archiving

Friday
0930-1730 -> FM005 Film Archiving

-RP-