Nagging

I've been told to update my blog. So I've decided to go with a theme today:

What's the point in having a blog if I can't use it to bitch about people who don't agree with me?

1) I got my results back for the semester recently. I did better than last semester, but still not as well as I'd like. I had a really good first year so getting low marks doesn't really make me all the happy. But then I generally do better than I deserve so i really shouldnt be complaining at all.

But one thing I did notice is that in my studio theory class I had two different teachers for the year. One (the Dr) is very academic and cerebral. She likes to use really big words and I can imagine her and Tycho would hit it off. The other (the Boss) is a practicing artist who can be pretty vague at times about what he expects and stuff but he's generally easier to understand. With the Dr I got 55% for the semester, which was for a speech and an essay. For the Boss I got 80% also for a speech and two reviews (roughly equivelant to an essay only different style). That's a jump of 25% in marks...

2) Benjam and I like to have discussions about ideas for stories and games and parodies and stuff. We like to talk about how we'd rewrite the third matrix movie to make it not suck or discuss how one would rewrite the Harry Potter books if Harry got put in Slytherin house instead of Gryffindor. Benjam's friend wants to make a video game (I may have mentioned that) and Benjam and I were discussing different potential storylines for an rpg. He wanted to adapt a story he'd been working on that is essentially of the fantasy genre and I wasn't that keen. I was trying to offer up alternative ideas, one of which was a murder mystery set in a wizarding academy. Eventually he got fed up of my rubbishing his idea and my attempts to surplant it. And he told me he didn't want to talk about my idea any more it was cliched.

Ok, so I get the whole Wizarding Academy is fairly similar to the Hogwarts thing. But there are differences. The academy would be more of a college with a lot more senior wizards and studying and stuff instead of professors, the students would be adults not children. The wizards would be far more in the style of Gandalf and the old fantasy wizard genre. Apart from Harry Potter (and it's arguable progenitor the Worst Witch) I can't really think of how Wizarding Academies as a genre is cliched?

I asked him how my idea was any more cliched than your stock standard fantasy adventure. He said "It's the story that sets it apart." How is this not applicable to my own idea? Is there something about Wizarding Academies that makes stories concerning them impenetrable to non-cliched storylines? I asked him what about his story set it apart from the cliche, his answer went something along the lines of "Well they travel to different lands and stuff."

clap clap clap

They travel to different lands... and stuff. I'm sure it's that "stuff" which will set it apart.

Feel free to tell me why my idea is more cliched than his. I long for your criticism... and the opportunity to bitch some more.