The late but final part of this series is here. Any fool can drop an assignment in a submission box but here at Jono's blog we show you how to do it in style.

Cover Sheets

Your epic essay detailing the rise and fall of the fax industry will become an anonymous assignment when it goes into the submission box. Unless you've taken the time to build a close relationship with your tutor (or bribed them) they won't know who you are or what your writing style is. With that in mind you should make sure your name and student number is on every page of the assignment and, more importantly, that there is a cover sheet on there. Without one your assignment might spend days, bouncing from department to department, until it eventually lands on your tutor's desk and they immediately deduct 100000% for being late. Cover sheets can downloaded or found outside of your submission box. Online submissions usually require a cover sheet as well but tutor's are sometimes more forgiving.

Referencing

Remember that great quote you found and included on that fax machine assignment? The one that really brought all your points together in a way that you just couldn't manage? The one you forgot to reference? The one that you're now being accused of plagiarising? The one that lost you your place at University? Always check all your references are in place. Forgetting to reference isn't an excuse that will carry much weight. Also always check you're using the referencing style your professors want. Full referencing guides are available on the library portal.

Turnitin

This is a wonderful program that scans and compares your essay to its huge database and finds any plagiarism. If you simply copy and paste a whole section from Wikipedia then the chances are turnitin will pick up on it and you'll get caught. Not every unit requires you to put an essay through turnitin first but you should always check with your tutor. The important thing to note is that turnitin can take as long as 48 hours to get your essay back to you. Allow for this time because your tutor might not accept it as a valid reason for your assignment being late.

Otherwise you've finished your first University assignment. Once you put it in the box do your best to completely forget about it. Stressing over what result you are going to get won't do any good. My advice is; clean up the mess from the hours of sitting in front of your computer, eat a healthy meal and then go out and do something fun. Regrets about what you should have done can wait.

With one week to go until this semester comes to an end I am racing against the clock to finish all my assignments.

What I have to do by this time next week:

Write a total of 5000 words.
Prepare a photography portfolio.
Present a photography portfolio.
Write a test for Media Law & Ethics.

This is a super short post and for that I do apologise. Embedded below is a video I hope you will enjoy and accept as my apology. (I just searched the word ‘cute’ on youtube and picked the first video that came up)

Murdoch has set up a sort of quiz that determines which of the four dominant thinking styles you use is. I took this quiz and was rather surprised when it told me I was creative.

You see I’ve never really considered myself to be overly creative, while it is true I love to write I always thought creativity had more to do with painting beautiful pictures or composing a melody. This got me thinking about the true nature of creativity and what it meant to me, so without any further delays I present my thoughts on creativity.

As I’m writing this post I’m surrounded by the cardboard boxes I’ve been using to pack up my room. When I say surrounded I mean I’ve constructed a crude box fort at my door to repel any would be invaders of my realm. It sounds a bit stupid, and perhaps it is, but this is exactly what being creative means to me. It’s about taking a look at something mundane and choosing to instead see something spectacular.

With that in mind and with chalk in hand I headed up to campus with some friends and we drew a pretty cool chalk mural. Despite all the stress from packing and the left-over tension from exams I really had fun with the chalk and I think our end result speaks for itself. I wanted to show you how I see the world, a place that’s exciting and full of inspiration, even in the most unlikely places. Perhaps it’s a side-effect of having an over-active imagination but I honestly believe that my creativity comes from all around me and I need look no further than my window to be inspired.

Of course there is a down-side to all of this as I often catch myself day-dreaming in lectures and doodling all over my lecture notes. Last year during one of my foundation unit lectures I completely blanked out the lecture and instead spent the time sketching a penguin riding a motor-bike. By the end of the lecture I was none the wiser on the topic that was being talked about but I had come up with an entire back story for this penguin. He was a loner who hated the snow and ice and always wanted to escape, finally his chance came in the form of a lone hells-angel whom the penguin mugged and stole the motorbike from. It seems whimsical and pointless but I never let that stop me because if I did ideas like this blog would never exist.

Creativity also means facing every obstacle with a new approach; you don’t want to solve the problem like the hundreds of people before you have. This can lead to some fun and inventive solutions that a lot of people perhaps wouldn’t consider. It can also lead to a great deal of frustration if your solution doesn’t solve the problem or small details de-rail your efforts. I cannot count the number of times I’ve had a great idea or plan that has not come to fruition because of a small detail, or numerous small details, that I’ve overlooked. The trick is to not be discouraged by these set-backs and instead apply what you’ve learned each time to your next grand scheme and sooner or later you’ll exceed even your own expectations.

If the video is anything to go by what I am most passionate about is not getting hurt which is certainly true, however I believe the real question to me when I started thinking about this assignment was “What is passion?”

Passion is a loaded word that covers both good and evil. We see people who are passionate about causes they support and we see people commit crimes of passion. Therefore passion, to me, represents a powerful driving force. Whether we use it to build or destroy is entirely our own individual responsibility. I also strongly believe that passion is mutable, it can shift and change over time but it will always be that powerful flame within us that drives us to excel at our chosen tasks.

So after answering those questions, at least to my own satisfaction, I needed to seriously ponder what career my passion would drive me to pursue.

I’ve lived in a lot of different places, studied a lot of different things and wanted to do a lot of different jobs. I studied Law, Psychology and English Language when I was at Varndean and I was really passionate about each of those subjects so when it came to University I tried to pick a degree that would allow me, in its own way, to pursue those options. I wanted to be a lawyer, a psychologist and a writer all at the same time so it was clear to me that I’d need more time before making a serious decision on my future career.

Fast forward two and a half years and here I am, still trying to decide what I want to do with my life with only one year of university left. Thankfully a lot has happened in those two years to help shape my life and give me some direction to follow. The simple answer now is that I want to be a writer.

Writing to me represents the art of language, whether in songs, poetry or even stories. I certainly find that I am better at expressing myself in written language and I find writing sincere prose to be easier than public speaking. I also have a very active imagination and writing allows me to tap into it and express it in ways that mere spoken word could never do justice. I also really believe that writing is the most honest and open way of communication I know. It isn’t easy to put your most personal thoughts into words and share them with others but the fact you do gives weight to anything you say.

Whether it’s writing my own books or for a small newspaper is not the concern for me, the point is to be doing something that I really love and managing to turn it into a career that I can make a living out of. I have no illusions about the difficulty of this and I am willing to take on extra classes, do post-graduate studies and work as an un-paid intern all for the chance to make this happen. It’ll be a long and difficult journey but that’s usually the case when you set out to achieve something worthwhile.

This kind of undertaking also isn’t possible without friends and family. They are the ones who you trust to be ruthless with the red pen as they look through your work and highlight what works and what doesn’t work. Sometimes their criticism can hurt and learning to take it on board is hard but if you’re too afraid to show your work to the people close to you then it will be even tougher to show to the whole world.

Of course success isn’t guaranteed either, the publishing market can be fickle and so is inspiration. Thus we see the darker side of passion, you want desperately to be a writer but you aren’t published or you cannot seem to find the words to express yourself. This is a risk that cannot be idly discarded but you cannot let it paralyse you either. I know the likelihood of being a successful author is slim but I will still give it my best shot.

Also, just because I am always honest with you guys, I do my own stunts and they hurt.

As part of assignment 3 for the Murdoch Blogging Competition we were asked to think of 10 things that Murdoch meant to us. I grabbed my camera and renowned hand model Callum Smith and headed up to campus to give you guys an idea of the things I like to see when I am on campus.

1. There are islands of peace on a busy campus

This should speak for itself really. Campus can get a little bit claustrophobic at times with so many people around so it's nice to have the option to retreat and find a bit of peace and quiet. This photo was taken at the Murdoch Peace Garden, there's a small open gazebo with a waterfall behind it's here I occasionally go when I'm feeling overwhelmed by assignments and the press of the crowd.

2. There is an honest-to-God Bank on Campus (I think)

I may be the only person who thinks this is cool but if you decide you desperately need to apply for a bank account and you happen to be on campus then you need go no further than the Refectory. I don't personally bank with Bankwest but I still get a lot of use out of the ATM they have installed just outside their branch, many is the time I would have starved were it not there.

3. Beers between lectures!

Perhaps one of the best/worst things about going to University is discovering that there is a bar on campus and that it is open during the time you are on campus. It can be a huge temptation to drop by in the gap between lectures and tutorials to have a few beers with some friends. I will neither confirm nor deny that I have ever done this but I definitely think it's a great part of Murdoch.

4. You can access the library 24 hours a day! (Sort of)

Again this is a bit of a double-edged sword. If you have any studying that needs to be done then you can access the library with your student card at any time. This has occasionally led to me being there till 4 a.m so I do advise only using the library in moderation because it can be habit forming.

5. Steamed BBQ chicken buns!

You may notice that the photo doesn't actually have any steamed BBQ chicken buns but I promise that is just an optical illusion and I didn't eat them. The steamed buns are perhaps my favourite food from the Refectory and for the price I could probably live off them for a semester. I won't for obvious reasons but it's nice to know that the option is there.

6. There is a lot of weird/cool art on campus

Case in point the photo above. I can't honestly say that I know what the sculpture is about/of but I still think that it is pretty cool. There is also a statue further down from Bush Court that regularly gets new clothes from willing donors. Most recently it was dressed in really colourful garments as part of Pride Week.

7. You can book a ticket home on campus!

Murdoch has a travel agent on campus and they are all really nice and helpful. I was able to book my entire flight home these coming holidays and pay for it on campus without any major dramas. They are also used to dealing with students who don't have much money so they try and find you a decent fare without making your flight a ridiculous series of stop-over's.

8. Students without Borders and Social Justice Centre

Feeling like you want to make a difference in the world? Look no further than the Social Justice Centre. They offer a really wide range of volunteer opportunities and ensure that you'll have a great experience. They are also there to help out any students who experience any sort of discrimination which still happens these days.

9. Wide variety of native flora and fauna

On my second night at Murdoch I got to meet a Southern Brown Bandicoot, also known as a Quenda, as it hopped around outside my flat. Murdoch is surrounded by lots of common Australian plants and gum trees so as an international student it is pretty cool getting to see some of the weird and wonderful plants around.

10.Chance of encountering Pirates!

There is a pirate flag hanging up at Murdoch University Village. Statistics show that you are 90% more likely to run into a pirate at Murdoch than at any other University in Western Australia and not the kind of pirates who use the internet to violate copyright law but the genuine article.

So that is my top ten list for why I like Murdoch. This kind of task is very subjective so there's a good chance that a lot of you won't agree with me on the particulars but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

Let me be honest here, I am not even slightly artistic. I don’t say this to be modest or to make my banner look more impressive but rather to communicate the sinking feeling I got when I read what the assignment would be.

Anyway the first order of business was to come up with something that would be inspirational but not hackneyed or condescending. This involved a long session of lying on my bed staring at the ceiling, my mind completely blank of all inspiration. I really didn’t think I could do this assignment and that self-doubt was the biggest obstacle I faced. Lucky for me that I have really great friends who were prepared to help out any way they could. They endured a few pointless brainstorming sessions with me before I finally settled on something I felt was helpful to understanding University and the people who attend it. But before I could give the idea a place on campus it still needed a physical shape.

Last week was the final study break before the end of semester and, predictably, I didn’t get much studying done. Rather the time was spent sourcing arts and crafts material in preparation for a marathon session of banner building. My original vision for the banner was a simple affair that was made from paper and illustrated with simple felt pens. It was only when I was in the Craft store that the possibilities and options I had really became apparent and my vision for the banner began to take on a life of its own. Without giving too much away big sheets of cardboard and tubes of finger-paint were purchased and the construction began.

So with the banner taken care of the next issue was where I would hang it. Bush Court was not allowed under the competition rules so I had to really think about my other favourite spots on campus. I could’ve picked the Tav where I’ve shared more than a few drinks with friends, the peace garden where some pretty brave ducks swim or one of the many places where I’ve passed the time between classes. In the end I picked the Peace Pavilion because it was there, during my orientation week last year, that there was a free sausage sizzle for all the humanities and social science students. I met a lot of new people that day and the realisation of how big University actually was began to sink in but it wasn’t that scary because I was surrounded by people in the same situation as me and if they weren’t panicking then I didn’t need to. This all relates back to my banner but we’ll get to that. So after making sure that the University wouldn’t mind me hanging up a big banner the location was settled. We set B-day to be Monday the 5th of October, yesterday in other words, all the preparations were completed and we hung the banner up in the flat to prevent any damage occurring over-night. That was when I first realised how much bigger the banner was in comparison to the one I had in my mind.

I think at this point a bit of explanation about the banner is in order. I do owe my long-suffering art teacher from primary school a great deal of thanks for the finished product. She would always walk around the classroom and ask the students what they were up to, I never understood why she would approach me at all as it was a chore for the both of us but to her credit she persisted in trying to educate me. The most memorable time was when she walked up to the easel where I was industriously working and asked me what I was up to. I don’t quite remember what the painting was meant to be and I doubt I knew at the time either so I launched into a very creative explanation of what it was trying to be that she listened very carefully to. Then she took out a pen and wrote on my paper “K.I.S” which stood for Keep It Simple. In the army of course it has an extra “S” for “Stupid” which I think she would have dearly liked to have put in but her professionalism did not allow her to. It’s one of the few lessons from primary school that I really took to heart and I believe my banner benefited from it.

My banner simply reads “Believe in” and has two blank sheets of cardboard underneath for people to give their own opinions on what they believe in or what their passion is. The idea was that instead of just telling you guys what inspires or motivates me and hoping it would work for you, rather get everyone who wanted to contribute to tell you what motivates them. University is scary and a lot of people worry that they won’t have anything in common with the people there so I also wanted to show just how normal and down-to-earth the students actually are. It was also a great excuse to sit out in the sun for a few hours.

Anyway B-Day came and brought with the first day of spring, I don’t want to say the two are related but it’s too convenient to be ignored. Our first attempt to hang the banner did not go as planned as we had not counted on the wind that tried very hard to tear our banner down from the poles. More hole-punching and twine threading later and the banner was firmly tethered and B-Day had officially begun. It was great fun. I got to meet such a huge cross-section of the people who studied at Murdoch and each of them had something to contribute to the banner. We got some pretty interesting answers and not all of them serious but that was kind of the point. It was the student banner and therefore it needed to cover both sides of the student psyche, serious and fun. However no matter what people were writing they were all smiling and I would like to believe they all enjoyed the experience. As for what I believe motivates and inspires me, I think it would be all my friends. They are very special people who helped me out with the project and I don’t think it would have come off without their help and encouragement.

I’m sitting behind my mahogany desk, one of the few left in the world, staring out across New York City. My executive office is located in one of the beautiful skyscrapers and though I am a little bit scared of heights the view is no less breathtaking. On my wall, placed so visitors can easily see, hangs my framed degree. It is a simple piece of paper that reads:

Jonathan Gurney, Bachelor of Arts in Security, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Studies.

I look up and smile at it before turning back to the blog entry I’m composing and...Freeze. None of this is real. Let the desk vanish, taking with it the fancy office and skyscraper view. My real desk is actually located in an open-plan environment; I have my own computer and company phone line (extension 8859), a rather nice desk lamp and a whole 1 metre of extra space before the next guy’s desk starts. My computer is currently showing a really boring screensaver of the company logo. I tried changing it a week ago but the IT department insisted that I keep it the same.

Pinned to the wall of my cubicle is a picture of a rather dirty looking dog chewing on a forlorn teddy bear. This is my dog Dickens, I have to pick him up from the kennels when I’m done here as I can’t really leave him to his own devices around the house. Underneath the picture is a post-it which simply has the word ‘milk’ on it in a very untidy scrawl. I gave Dickens the last of my lactose free milk this morning because I was sure I had another carton under the sink. I didn’t. No milk means no coffee which means a much slower day. I could grab a mug from the employee lounge but I will be leaving early today anyway, Tuesday’s always end early because the upper management has late lunch meetings with the competitors. It’s a civilised way to do business and as we all get the rest of the day off I sincerely hope it continues.

Let’s talk about my job. Am I a best-selling writer or an international super spy? The cubicle environment should really have given the answer away. I actually work in an advertising firm doing research on the impact some of our previous campaigns have had. Thus I have joined so many other graduates in the great tradition of doing something completely un-related to your degree but I’ve still found a lot of the skills that I picked up during University to be very useful, particularly the research practice I used to have to do. I’m also not very senior in the company, I have at least 3 bosses and each of them seems to want something different which is another thing University prepared me for as I used to have to take 3 different units at once. I guess the people in charge have taken notice of this also as they are hoping to give me extra training and give me more responsibility, there was even some talk about giving me the chance to help develop an actual advertising campaign. If nothing else the extra money would help take a bit of the pinch out of mortgage payments.

My salary is decent enough at the moment to have allowed me to take out a reasonable mortgage on a small house. It is by no means my dream home but it’s comfortable and it has a small garden for Dickens to run around in. Also it’s quite handy for a small park that is only about ten or fifteen minutes walk away. On days like today, when I get out of work early, I generally walk Dickens down to the park for a good long game of fetch. It tires him out nicely so by the time I am getting ready to go out with some friends he is fast asleep in his basket. I think we will be going to dinner and then karaoke tonight. Hopefully I won’t be expected to sing, although I guess most of my friends were there for my hugely drunken performance of ‘Build me up Buttercup’ when I was still at University so it’s not like I can really embarrass myself more than that.

As for writing, well I haven’t let that fall entirely to the wayside. I contribute the occasional article and opinion piece to a local newspaper. It doesn’t pay at all but I like it, although one of my recent opinion pieces drew the ire of a local resident who proceeded to send me some very angry letters but they have since apologised. I think one of my greatest achievements was brought about through the newspaper. There was a plan to demolish the local park where I walk Dickens and I was asked to do an article on it. I think it would have been very easy for me to simply write a scathing denouncement of the construction company, but really for them it was simply good business so I didn’t. Instead I tried to come at the issue from a different perspective, simply reminiscing about the good times I had enjoyed at the park and how I would miss it. I could not have predicted the vocal response that this article would get as it seems a great many of the elderly residents in this area also have very fond memories of the park and were horrified to find out it was going to be built upon. The sight of a hundred old folks picketing a construction company is something that I will never forget. The article was so well received in fact that, according to the editor, the newspaper was contacted by a much bigger publication asking for the details on the writer. I haven’t been contacted yet but it was still quite exciting.

So that’s really a snapshot of my life as it is right now. It may not seem like I’ve accomplished everything I wanted to when I was in University but now I am in a position where I actually know how to accomplish those goals. If I could give myself some advice I wouldn’t waste my time by telling him to work harder, he never listens to anyone that says that so why would he listen to me? Instead I’d tell him that his degree isn’t magical and most of the harder work comes after University, but if he completes University he’ll be a lot better prepared to face it. Now if you’ll excuse me I can see my boss getting up from his desk with his jacket, this is usually the signal that the rest of us can go home. I mustn’t forget milk.

Jonathan

Last night I was sitting in front of my computer, researching the hundreds of sources (well at least ten) than I need to be able to write my assignments. This isn’t that unusual, generally speaking I do use the computer to do most, if not all, my assignments. What was unusual was the open punnet of strawberries that I had absent-mindedly been grazing from.

I don’t wish for you to think that a magical punnet of strawberries had appeared and I was shocked by it, rather I was surprised to find that I was eating healthy food while doing an assignment. On average I have perhaps 10 assignments per semester. They vary from group project work to online quizzes to the essay that I am currently working on. For the most part I find the assignments to be easy or at least easy if I have been keeping up with the readings and attending lectures. This all changes when the assignment in question is an essay. I don’t know what it is, some people call it laziness and others call it procrastination but I genuinely find it difficult to work on these sorts of assignments unless it’s in one great block. I have friends who do a bit of work in week 1, a bit in week 2 and finish it in week 3. I feel very jealous of their pain-staking preparation but no matter how hard I try to emulate their good study practices inevitably I find my concentration slipping away until I end up on Wikipedia doing random searches and reading articles on super-volcanoes.

I don’t wish for you to think that I never get my assignments done or that the essays even require that much preparation. Generally speaking I have only had 2 extensions and I always make the greatest of efforts to meet my deadlines. I also say with no small amount of pride that I have never failed an assignment. But that does little to mitigate my great feeling of shame that I do not seem capable of planning anything in advance. Murdoch actually offers seminars and workshops on dealing with procrastination and managing your time but I’ve never found the time to attend any of them and I hesitate to skip lectures to make the time. Anyways that’s not really the purpose of this blog post; rather I would like to take this time to explain why I found the strawberries so shocking.

I try to eat a balanced diet. I cannot say with any truth that I have ever really succeeded at this as, no matter how much I tell my body that broccoli or spinach is good for it, I still buy my fair share of snack foods. Usually this is because of my unusual appetite while I’m writing assignments. I tend to enter a sort of fugue state where I ignore everything including the passage of time, anything my flatmates say to me and my need to eat. Of course this rather upsets my stomach that then begins to whine and bitch about the lack of sustenance, so I fetch a packet of chips or some chocolate or some such trash to placate it. However as the night grows long the fugue state grows worse. I begin to eat things that can hardly be described as food until eventually I am chewing my pen into nothingness. Eventually I will leave this state and stare in amazement at the devastation that has been visited upon my desk, empty chip packets, chocolate wrappers, pyramids of empty cans and a very forlorn pen that looks like rats got to it. Sadly I never really have time to properly lambast myself as the assignment is then due.

After submitting it however I vow to never eat junk food again. From then on it will only be dry crackers, healthy fruit, and a 5km run every morning. This vow will have been completely forgotten by the time I’m next visiting the supermarket and I see the great specials on chocolate (3 for 2).

I guess what I’m trying to say is that practicing good nutrition is hard if you tend to favour the crucible method of essay writing so for part of the semester you may be susceptible to a mild case of scurvy (this actually isn’t a joke I know a student who has suffered from this after he attempted to survive solely on mi goreng) but every now and then your brain will make the right choices for you and you’ll look down and find strawberries.