Back to School
So last fall I taught, as a kind of experiment, a street photography course at Shih Hsin University, at the invitation of an acquaintance who is one of the instructors there. With Chenbl’s assistance, we managed to fit some amount of instruction in the limited time the students, all seniors, could devote to the class, and had a little exhibition on campus at the end, to some small acclaim.
The folks at Shih Hsin liked what we did, and invited me back to teach in a more official capacity this year, teaching a freshman photography class as an assistant professor. During the vetting process for the position I was required to submit my education credentials, and realized that an actual graduate degree might come in handy in the future. So I started looking at graduate programs in the arts, and found to my dismay that Taiwan doesn’t really do photography majors per se. I looked at filmmaking and other programs but the timing didn’t work. So this spring I applied to a master’s program in music production at Chung Yuan University in Zhongli. To my surprise, I was accepted.
This has resulted in kind of a crazy situation this fall. Starting last week, I’ve not only been teaching the regular community college photography course I’ve been doing since 2015 (Covidian interruptions aside), I’m now teaching the university course as well. And, in addition to my regular jobs and recording our latest album and playing shows with the Ramblers, I’ve also been attending classes at Chung Yuan U several days a week, mostly afternoons. Fortunately for me, the new T-pass system means that my monthly ticket covers all trains all the way from Zhongli to Keelung, so I won’t need to spend extra money, and I’ve always liked train travel anyway. And it’s cool to be in a new place; I’ve been to Zhongli several times over the years; I quite like the vibe there, so I’m looking forward to getting to know it better.
I have to say it’s quite strange, the feeling of déjà vu while wandering around a new campus, looking for the building where one’s next class is, after several decades of not doing that. I have no idea how I’m going to get through all of this (I am so lucky that Chenbl is helping out with classes), but at one point I just decided that the attempt itself is an interesting, worthwhile thing to do, regardless of whether it works out in the end. And if nothing else, it’s an interesting way to shake things up. I haven’t blogged much recently as things had settled into a kind of equilibrium, but now that all of…this *gestures* is going on, I should have more to write about.
My first week of classes was quite surreal; some of my professors have heard of me, or at least the Ramblers or Panai or Chalaw or other people I’ve performed with over the years, or they’ve heard of my photographic work, or the books I’ve written. But there is so much I don’t know about this subject that it will be quite a challenge to get up to speed in quite a few areas as up to this point I’ve mostly contributed performances and coming up with solo lines etc. rather than being deeply involved in the actual recording process. I’m taking a recording class that requires me to learn Protools, and another one that requires knowledge of Cubase. Another class is on media editing, which I have experience in, and one is concentrated on lectures by experts in music production, which looks interesting. I’ve signed up for a heavier load this semester as I hope to get more credits out of the way so I can have more leeway later on the programs, but we’ll see how that goes.
In any case, it should be a ride. I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes.
