Thursday, March 30
As you can probably tell from the sporadic blogs, I haven't been doing too much. College is getting into one huge big mess that I don't know how to get out of. At my tutorial last week David said that if I get into these states then I should come find a tutor and talk to them to try and find a way out. But I can't talk to anyone when they're all dropping like flies. He's been off all week sick, Anna has quit and Christian has chicken pox and has been off for the past three weeks. So I have all these problems and I don't know how to solve them. It's looking like I might fail my photography elective, I desperately don't want to do my drawing elective, I have no idea for a story for my snowman, let alone a storyboard, and what's worse is that I don't care.
I got extremely depressed about this all on Tuesday. It was so bad I was needing to hurt myself, but I managed to not cut myself. I walked out of the life drawing class yesterday due to Sharon saying I was taking a lackadaisical approach to my work when all I was really doing was looking after myself. I didn't say I was going, either. The only thing which does seem to be going ok is my essay for Critical Studies. Had a tutorial last night and he was very encouraging. Pity it's essentially meaningless.
So life isn't too great right now. I'm veering between being very depressed about it and not caring about it, but the problems are still there when I don't care, I'm just ignoring them. I don't know which state is worse. The only thing which is getting me through is the thought that in 2 weeks I can go to Belfast and get hugs and strokes and nothing will matter for a short while. But Rory has a horrible habit of making me face up to problems and not just ignore them, so I suspect this bliss will be short lived.
08:00
Wednesday, March 22
Life is plodding along. Deadlines are whizzing by at unprecedented speeds. Or at least, looming ominously in the near-distance. Ostara was on Monday, though I did nothing to mark it, despite promising myself I would. I was planning on planting the seeds I bought a couple of months ago, they need sowing soon, but arsedness failed. Today felt much more like it should have been the first day of Spring. Monday was cold and overcast, with a cruel wind. Today has been warm, sunny, inviting. The crocuses are out, there are still some snowdrops left, and the dillodaffs are either on the verge of emerging, or already on display. The wheel is turning, life is continuing, it's up to us to make sure we keep up with its pace.
Yesterday I went to my first pilates class in 5 months, with the girl-from-the-internet-whose-name-I-can't-remember-who-I-went-for-a-curry-with. I'm a little sore and achey from it. Maybe I'll be able to persuade myself to go every week. I certainly need more exercise as the amount I'm doing with my rowing and cycling isn't enough to counteract the huge amounts of food I've been eating, unfortunately. Rory made me get weighed on Sunday and it was Very Bad News Indeed. I now have over a stone to lose. No more sweets, no more snacky food, chocolate milk only as a last resort, and certainly no more double portions of Coco Pops in a morning. After two days, my stomach has already started to look a little smaller.
I realised today or yesterday that I seem to have a group of friends in college. In September, I would sit near them in the cafe in the hope they would ask me to sit with them, whereas now I automatically go over to them and plonk myself down regardless. This then made me worry if they're actually sick of me and wish I would go away but are too polite to mention it. I know they've been going out on a Tuesday evening in Leeds but no one has ever asked me to come along, which is fueling my suspicions. I probably wouldn't come if asked, but it's the principle of the matter... And speaking of them, today I was accused of inventing the word "spurious". In fact, every time I use a word they don't know I am accused of inventing it. At this rate I'll have my own new language by the end of the year.
19:12
Saturday, March 18
On Thursday my Relate counselor gave me a new exercise. The previous one required thinking about sensation whilst in the bath. This one follows on from that and wants you to think about sensation whilst using talc or lotion after a bath. Seeing as I don't have things like that, yesterday I went on something of a shopping trip. It's been a little while, about 6 months, since I last went to
Lush, and so about time for another visit. I was happy to discover they have a new soap called
Big Hugs but didn't buy any as it wasn't very fragrant and so didn't allure me, certainly not in the way that
Honey I Washed The Kids does. They've also got a new line in soaps, or
shower jellies. I had great fun with these - I stood and prodded at them for 10 minutes, giggling as they wobbled around at my touch. Simple things, eh? They're much more wobbly than your standard jelly and one of them even has glitter in! Needless to say, one went in my basket.
Fast forward to this morning then, and I got in the shower, ready to experiment with my new purchases. It was certainly an experience. Normal jelly can be hard to keep on a spoon in the time it takes to get it from a bowl to your mouth. This jelly was far worse, I spent half the time groping for it on the ground. Amusing, yes, but not something I'd want to try if I was in a hurry. So in summary, shower jellies: not for Monday mornings when you're late for work, but could be great fun if there's more than one person in the shower.
13:37
Monday, March 13
It's been a mixed bag, this last week. I finally got my project finished and handed in, thankfully, I was fully sick of it. Our new brief is about Storytelling. We have to create a character with which to tell a story. For a week I had no usable ideas, "A pencil! It can have fights with a felt tip!" until yesterday when, inspired by the weather conditions, I created a snowman. He doesn't have a name yet, suggestions are welcome.
It's been a relief to have a character, I was starting to get very stressed about it. Now I only have to worry about my essay ("Could it be argued that Fine Art should be assigned greater value than more populist forms of visual communication?") which I don't have a clue about. And only three and a half weeks to discover one.
I've been researching into alternative courses still. It seems the Graphics Art people aren't interested in me, they suggested I try Contemporary Creative Practice instead. If ever there was a course which wasn't me, it's that one. It's about as unstructured as a penis after 15 pints of beer. If I change to Interdisciplinary Art and Design, my degree will come from the Open University, not Leeds University, who are stopping validating courses from other colleges, starting in September. So it really seems like my best bet is to stay with VisCom. I think I need to talk to the second year tutors to find out what would be in store for me. David couldn't help much as he doesn't teach second year.
On Tuesday I went for a curry with someone-from-the-internet-whose-first-name-I-can't-remember. It was promising, I might be able to persuade her to be my friend! Then on Thursday I went to the
Black Dogs night with Robert Dane. It was mental. Wonderful and mental. There was art exhibits, including a large pile of origami animals, a raffle with the prize of a bottle of absinthe and a Bic razor (so you could cut your ear off), a quiz in the style of
Family Fortunes, giant Twister, line dancing and a test to help you learn how to be an artist. If you performed the exercises and the artists deemed you worthy enough, you received a certificate of Artistic Merit and a badge saying "I am an artist". The exercises included colouring in without going over the lines, join the dots, copying a picture (there was a choice of a horse's head, a circle, or a bloke getting his jaw broken), drawing a man running for a bus, spot the difference between the two
Guernicas, and lots of things featuring sexual arousal. Needless to say (again), we had a great time. However the day wasn't quite as good, as my digital camera went missing, suspected stolen.
Saturday we went to see Das Wanderlust. There was 5 or 6 bands on, most of who were OK, and two who were fantastic - the aforementioned
Das Wanderlust, and
The Warm, a mad electro, Japanese three-piece who I loved so much I immediately bought the CD. I wanted to see
Monkey Swallows the Universe last night, but Robert was working and anyway, it was snowing, so I stayed home instead.
This week is relatively easy. No scheduled classes, so I'll be staying at home, trying to find some energy to do some work. Back to Relate on Thursday, after a break. And that's about it.
16:30
Monday, March 6
I've been ill, of late. Caught some of the cold / flu bug which goes around every winter. Luckily I didn't get it too badly but I'm still snuffly because of it.
And now, tell me what you think about me! But only if you really know me, and aren't just some weird cyberstalker.
The positive things and
the negative things. Unfortunately you can only choose 6, so you might need to make repeat visits.
17:19
