That should give you an indiction of how drained I feel over the last few days, due to the amount of work that I have to do. Having said that though, it's not as bad as I thought it'd be in my final year.
But let's rewind to the end of September, where my last entry left off.
To begin with, Nikki came to visit me in Chester twice before anyone got back and before I had to go back to Uni. That was fun. It was nice having an entire house to ourselves and not having anything to worry about.
Living in this house, now that Kate, Johanna and Kim are back is...well, boring. It's not the same as last year. Kate's always out so I don't really see her much, Johanna I don't get on with and Kim is mostly in her room. It's a quiet house this year, too quiet.
My dislike of Johanna hasn't gotten any easier either since we've been back, it's only be added to. There's so much difficulty with people paying me money for the bills that I'm responsible for and still, after a good eight weeks of being back, I'm still owed money by her.
I'm very happy to be responsible for bills because I don't mind sorting it all out, but what I do mind is when I have to continually ask for people to give me their share of the bill. I'm really out of pocket this year because my funds are running low and it doesn't help when money is coming out of my bank, but not being replaced.
I managed to get a fair amount of Oxfam work completed for my University of project before I got back. I was happy with my ideas. Over the course of four or five weeks, once back at Uni, I developed them into great looking posters.
I went out for Tom's birthday which was fun. It was a good night, but I unfortunately had to come home around 12:30am, simply because I couldn't stand up anymore because of my feet. They're still problematic and I'm going to have to wait until at least December to get it sorted out.
I went to visit Nikki for her birthday last week which was really enjoyable. I made her a teabag box because she's a huge fan of tea. She really liked it and ended up taking it with her to show her parents, along with me. I was quite nervous about meeting her family, but it turned out to be quite fun because they had a little party for her and her Mum, since her Mum shares the same birthday.
Thanks to the help of Liam, one of the guys on my course, I'm in the process of relaunching The Work Of. I'm very appreciative of the fact that he's offered to help and it's almost ready to be launched. I'm really excited about it being up and running because it means that I can advertise myself and maybe get some clients in and maybe get myself out of this dangerously low bank balance!
It's so low that I had to ask my Mum for money. I hate asking for money. I'm independant. I don't like relying on someone to support me or be responsible for me. But, because I'm spending so much on printing, folders, and other such graphic design-related stuff, my money is going down fast. Thankfully, I will be getting a �300 bursary on December 12th. It will be greatly needed.
Also on December 12th is my first deadline, which I only realised a few days ago. This year, I take part in national competitions to get myself out there and see if I can win any awards with my work. For one of my projects, I have to design a series of six postage stamps and they have to be ready by 12th December. I only realised this a few days ago and so now I have less than one month to get the stamps ready. This means putting all of my other projects to one side until this project is complete.
I had a meeting with my PAT (Personal Academic Tutor), Bernadine. She gave me my results for last year. I got a 65 grade overall last year. Just in case you don't know, this is how grading works:
3 (A third) - 40-50 marks - The worst you can get besides a fail.
2.2 (A two-two) - 50-60 marks - Not bad, but no effort gone into it.
2.1 (A two-one) - 60-70 marks - Great effort, with room for improvement.
1 (A first) - 70+ marks - Stunning work that impresses
I'm currently at 2.1. However, I'm not happy with this.
It's not that I'm not happy with a 2.1, afterall it's a fairly good mark, it's just that I know I'm capable of more. I know I'm capable of a first. It frustrated me that I got a really low mark last year for one of the main projects because it wasn't really the thing I wanted or want to do and therefore it suffered because I wasn't interested in it. It brought the rest of my marks down.
Bernadine asked me if I was aiming for a first this year and I said absolutely. She worked out what I had to get this year to add to last year's marks in order to get a first degree.
73.
That's 73 marks overall. That's 73 in EVERY module at the very LEAST.
On paper and especially to those who might not know how the marking system works, a jump from 65 to 73 might not be that much, but consider this. For my best module last year I had to produce two workbooks with at least 100 A3 pages in each and I still only got a 69. That might give you some idea of how much work would be involved in getting a 73 in all four modules.
There is of course another option. A harder option! And that would be to get higher than 73 in one module so I have to get slightly less than 73 in the others in order for the average mark to still be 73 or more.
It's going to be very very tough.
If I get a 2.1, I'll be content with it, but I'll also be quite annoyed at myself that I wasn't capable of getting a first.
We shall see, come August 2009.
