April - the end of my college year

I have submitted my thesis and final assignments. Life is suddenly different. I don’t have exams to invigilate as in previous years; the computers have taken my job. Who would have imagined this would occur so swiftly and entirely?
Students now sit at home and complete the exam in the required time, then upload. Some may be monitored via webcam to check they don’t leave the room or get assistance, but some exams will be open-book, and of course copy-pasting is still not allowed and will be uncovered by plagiarism-checking software. I advised some of the younger students that when they graduate, whatever job they do, try to look for a job the computers can’t take.

Lucky me, no exam was to darken my door this year. My thesis project is a multimedia website. Author and environmentalist Ryan Mizzen kindly responded to my Goodreads mail and provided an interview on the offshore windfarm industry, and I surprised everyone, myself included, by making this into a short film, then a podcast version.
Ryan gave permission for the film to be released on YouTube so watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m-Jr...

The NGO Brooke, which helps horses, donkeys and mules and their owners in developing nations, also provided me with great assistance through footage and photos, and an interview with Megan Sheraton, their Media Officer.

Aside from this, I visited a Virtual Reality planning consultation, covered a United Nations conference and an African conference, investigated Dublin’s rubbish, looked at coal mines and brick kilns in South Asia,
photographed wonderful dogs, and read science papers about how relaxing outdoors is beneficial for us during the pandemic.


The website topics are:
The Dublin Array proposed windfarm;
Sea of Solutions the UNEP Conference;
Working horses and donkeys in developing nations;
And finally, a look at people relaxing in the park.

Website: https://clareobeara.wixsite.com/my-site

I also had to write a reflective essay, which might give future generations a good laugh. I started by quoting a Tom Stoppard play, Travesties, in which James Joyce is fictionally asked, “What did you do in the Great War?”
Joyce replies, “I wrote Ulysses. What did you do?”

The worst effects of lockdown – boredom, confinement, illness – have chiefly not affected me, due to being in college. Yes, this had its difficulties, chiefly technological ones. But we made it through the year. I took employment classes with a group of film and media students, some of whom assumed I would be writing a formal thesis while they were planning to make a group film. I enlightened them about my chosen multimedia journalism project option. But I could at any stage have written a thesis.

I found that of the previous students on my course, nobody else had created a website. The most popular choice was the thesis; I expect this was because the writing was easiest to fit in around third-year’s learning and assignments. Next choice was a series of five written articles, and third most popular was a podcast. One final-year class collaborated on a class magazine, which won an award.

I have been recalling a series I watched on TV as a child, called The First Years. This was based on The Paper Chase about a set of new students in Harvard law school. (We didn’t have all the options for young viewers now available, so the whole family watched all evening’s entertainment.)
When the students worked together, they helped one another and provided moral support and advice as well as practical essay-requirement help. This series seems to have been forgotten and replaced by the more recent film Legally Blonde. But I found a YouTube film in which an actual American law professor views and comments on the original. I don’t remember everyone’s hair being so long. But I do recall Prof. Kingsfield.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SEZD...

Thanks to my husband for his support and good cooking. Thanks to all at Dublin Business School, especially my lecturers, the librarians and the friendly Student Services students who kept us all entertained and supported.
During the Student Awards ceremony, hosted online, my cat won Zoom Pet of the Year Award. Here she is on YouTube making a Zoom call.

https://youtu.be/A6R4fXoZnGI

I was honoured to be nominated in several categories, either as a Peer Mentor or Volunteer, or for being part of a committee running events and producing blogs. Sustainability Society won Most Improved Society of The Year, and I was awarded the title of Volunteer of The Year.
This may be due to my blog editing, in which I gave many students their first published article to put on their CV; but it could also be because I kept showing up on Zoom calls and bringing my cat. Students like cats in meetings.

This month I am making a book free for the first time: May 13 – 16, grab a download of Dogs of Every Day: New Edition. This is turn-of-20th-century poetry and art republished by me with my own updated information and photography – all concerning British and Irish dog breeds and the countryside. Enjoy.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08CJG12SP

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CJG12SP

Anyone not in the UK or US stores should click the US link and they will be brought to Amazon.com which will offer to take them to their nearest store. All my books are in the Kindle Unlimited programme. If you enjoy a book please leave a review, which helps other readers.

Follow my published articles on Inside DBS, Medium or my JournoPortfolio page – a site I highly recommend. I recently wrote up an article about how to cover an international conference over Zoom.
https://clareobeara.journoportfolio.com/

Watch my book trailers for my science fiction series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GadPp...

Visit my website:
www.clareobeara.ie

for news, puzzles, books, reviews and events. We have created a new page for Young Adult readers. This contains plenty of horses and dogs! You can find my podcasts about Octocon on the News and Events page. I provide a Writers’ Page giving tips about how to be an independent publisher. I am also adding book covers to Pinterest boards after I review the books, so feel free to find me on Pinterest.