Oh for crying out loud!!!
EE2 will NOT have dastardly effects on your other english subjects. It's more or less an offline subject - you'll do a few hour's of good writing a week (at home) and you'll be fine!!!!!!! And you'll enjoy the writing!!!!! *wants to swear*
EE2, hour-wise, is probably the most flexible known to man. You can write whenever you choose to - on the train, in your frees. I rarely did more than a few hours per week, and it's easy enough to do in one afternoon. It's really up to you - the more work your MW requires, the more you put in. As it's creative writing, and if you have a passion for it, you'll WANT to put the hours in. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. You know what, I bet that if it was a maths subject, they'd think it was fine. All you have to do is study. WIMPY SCARED-OF-ENGLISH teachers.
*not happy*
I very strongly suggest you have a chat to goldendawn, who I think was the first (and only in his grade) to do EE2 at his school. illodous (also at the school) was also the only person in his grade to do EE2.
I'm a bit blase about their cases, because happily, they *got* EE2 before I met them. As you're still fighting, I am royally pissed off and right there on the front line with you.
EE2 is a fantastic subject for those who hate schedules. So long as you work somewhat consistently, you do work whenever and wherever the heck you please. I found myself doing no work some weeks, and writing for hours on end when I was in the right mood in other times. It didn't clash with *any* of my other subjects, and was one of the only subjects I actually looked forward to in my HSC year.
For the teacher's part, all they really have to do is have a one-hour interview with you once a week. There are three internal assessments over the year, one of which tends to be a speech, and the others are short essays. EASY EASY EASY.
In my opinion, the fundamental core of EE2 is the desire to write. If you've got that, you won't mind working on the assessments - yes they do require work, but in essence all they really do is get you to talk about your MW - your baby, your precious. (Your RS is sort of the Big Kahuna of the three internal assessments combined, and with a smaller wordcount. How beautiful! How logical! I love it!)
Keep us posted!
EDIT: Don't worry too much about having to travel to another school. As mentioned previously, at most all that will be required is a weekly interview, which can more or less be conducted over the phone, or email (god bless email).
ADDING ON: I should take this opportunity now to calm down a bit and state for the record that EE2 is not an "easy" subject, and it does in fact require work to achieve the high marks. A lot of the people here might say it's easy, because they've found the work enjoyable and hate the long hours of study associated with rote-learning, which accounts for a large portion of the HSC.
However - us writers take a lot for granted. Most of us here love to read, and have been reading since an early age. We know the difference between a well-crafted piece and a dud, and what's more important is that we have all learnt how to WRITE a well-crafted piece. We are passionate and disciplined enough to work in our own time and work on the one piece for about a year - that's a long, long time. It's not easy, but because we love it, the workload appears easier.
There is a *lot* of assumed knowledge and assumed skills in EE2. For those that have done it, give yourselves a pat on the back. For those who are considering taking EE2, make sure it is for the right reasons. Scaling advantages will be almost non-existent if you have not read somewhat extensively. You don't need to have read all the hard-core stuff, but you should still be able to appreciate them for what they are, and basic writing exercises should not be a problem for you.
Whilst EE2 might be more fun than EE1, the work can still be hard. It's different, but it's still hard. I slaved over my RS, and went through many times in my writing process where I just wanted to curl up into a ball and die - I just couldn't get things to happen like I wanted them to (and I've been writing for years!). Come on people, can't you remember the agonies of your first full draft? It was hard getting there, and hard still to re-work the darn thing into something workable. At times like this, there's no-one to tell you what to do or how to do it, you've really got to just go at it on your own. Here is where a lot of non-natural writers will taper off, saying "it's too hard". This is where EE2 writers have to roll up their sleeves, and shift the creativity onto the high gear.
Maybe it's true that any idiot could do EE2, but they couldn't all write a *good* creative writing piece. And in EE2, it's about quality.
