Tuesday I went back to college. It was an average day. Nothing particularly hard about it and it went smoothly.
After my class with Bronek, I went outside for a bit of fresh air. After a minute or two, I turned around to see Claire (Not ex girlfriend Claire) sneaking up on me and she was disappointed she didn't scare me, but gave me a hug. She asked if I'd like to come and get some pancakes with her so I said sure. I was confused though, since I hadn't got a clue where you could actually buy pancakes.
While walking she asked me how things were with me and I said they were fine, forgetting about the fact that I had told her I'd been dumped by Claire, until she said "I'm single now too" and I realised that she had asked me how I was in relation to me getting dumped. I appreciated her concern.
We walked less than 30 seconds and ended up what used to be a newsagents but was now a small cafe, brightly light and simplistically decorated. I had no idea that it had been turned into a pancake shop - I didn't even know such things existed!
There were about 12 tables with two chairs to each in the cafe. At the back of the cafe was a counter on which was a small portable cooker and on top of that was a large frying pan. Claire said she had been here a few times and we sat down at a table. I took a look at the menu. It was quite strange seeing a menu full of pancake toppings. I wasn't planning on getting one, but I decided to join Claire in doing so and I got a banana, honey and cocoa one. While waiting for it, we walked for a while or rather, she talked and I was happy to listen.
Somehow we got onto the subject of me being single and her being single. And how it's easy for her, the way she could easily walk down a street and flutter her eyelashes at someone and have them. She smiled, disagreeing with me.
"I bet you're the type of girl who doesn't stay with someone for that long", I said. Again she smiled.
"No you're right. I get bored of them easily. I'm a bitch. I like to be kept entertained."
"I'm guessing you always have loads of guys wanting you?", I asked.
"Nah, not loads!", she replied, "but I do like being chased"
"I'd love that", I said, "To be wanted by someone that much that they'd chase me"
"I'll be your stalker", she joked.
"I'd like that"
She asked if I was going out to the AJ's and I said that I would be, as I was feeling in the mood to go.
"You never go the AJ's", I said to her, "You're the only person who's never there when we take pictures of each other"
"I never get invited", she said, not being serious.
"Yeah, like you need an invite. Everyone loves you."
"I might come then tomorrow"
Our pancakes were ready and we walked back to college. It was the first time I had had pancake to go. It was a challenge to eat, as the honey was very runny and was happily seeping out of the edges of the now folded up pancake. Still, it was an interesting taste.
We sat outside her classroom eating them and talking. I had not spent time alone with Claire before now. She's one of the only people who I've come to know via college that I've not truly got to know very much as I never see her and when I do, it's usually with everyone else.
After we'd eaten the pancakes I asked her for her mobile number and also Jamie's, as I've lost it. I then gave her a hug and went back to my class.
Tony gave us a better outline of what we will need to produce for his project.
We'll be producing a 3M Floppy Disk box design, using nothing but typography and shape in the style of an art movement. It sounds interesting. Also, we'll need to produce a lot of roughs for this project and I'm looking forward to doing that. I like seeing actual physical drawings. It makes the project look bulkier.
I showed Tony The Work Of and he liked some of the stuff on there.
After college, I walked into town with Rob, as he had asked me if I'd come with him to get a pad of layout paper. I went home after that.
Thursday was also a fairly easy day in college. In the morning, Brian took us. He gave me my mark for the Journey is the Destination project I had completed a few months ago. He gave me a merit. I was happy with that. I wasn't expecting anything higher, though I know I was capable of achieving it. He had also written a few comments on my work, such as how he's really impressed with it and it's of a high standard etc. He told me that he was going to give me a distinction, but that I needed to just show my influences a little better and I'd easily get it. The thing that stayed with me was when he said that my work is "on another level". He was about to continue the sentence on and say "to everyone else", but decided against it.
The morning was filled with a discussion about how his project should be undertaken. It's a 3,500 word report on a company, brand or product which has to have lots of research and proof to back up the findings. However, many of us were a little confused about what exactly we needed to do and really, I think Brian was too, which is why he gave us the oppurtunity to give him feedback about what we thought needed changing about the project. For example, he had said that there should be a 25 minute presentation of the report. However, we came to an agreement that the presentation should last at least 15 minutes and there is no maximum time limit.
Also, we asked him for more information about how the report should be laid out and he said he'd get us all of the information by next week.
I showed Brian The Work Of and he was very impressed. Really though, I felt as if he was getting impressed a little too easily. I knew he was being honest in his reactions, but the stuff he was looking at wasn't the most amazing of things. Still, his appreciation for my art is great and he spent quite a while looking through it.
Lunch was spent in class talking to Dylan. He's a cool guy. He's originally from Zimbabwe so he's got a cool accent. I asked him what Brian had given him for his mark on his project. He said he'd gotten a merit. I was really surprised at this and perhaps a little confused and even maybe a little annoyed.
While Dylan is very much a worker and produces what is required, he's not hugely adept at designing something that looks appealing and professional. It all looks really amateur, whereas I know that my stuff looks a lot more commercial and usable. And yet, somehow, we've both got merits for the work. It annoyed me, because even though I may be at a higher level in terms of knowing what looks good in design, it's as if that's not been taken into account much, but rather the theory of design has. I don't think this is very fair. Whether it actually looks good or not should be an important factor in marking and yet it seems as if it isn't. I could design somehow half as good as what I did design and still get a decent mark for it. That's not how things should work.
At 1pm, Bronek came in and told us that Daniel was off ill so we were free to simply carry on with whatever we were doing. Half of the class decided to go home, but I chose to stay till 3pm and do some work before going home myself. I went to bed an hour later and didn't wake up till around 10:30pm, knowing that I had no need to because I wasn't going to college. I couldn't, because the trains are on strike, which means that there was no trains at all all day to town and I was certainly not going to get the bus because that takes 40 minutes and even after 10 minutes on a bus, I feel ill. I was disappointed, because not only did it mean I couldn't go to college, but also, it meant that I couldn't go to the pub later that night.
I spent the night doing, well, nothing really. In the morning, I heard the postman drop some stuff off. Two of the envelopes were mine. One was a free walk-o-meter that I'd ordered from Walkers, which I'm going to have a go of when I next go to college to see how many steps I take in a day. According to the Walkers' website, I should be aiming at 10,000. I don't think I come anywhere near that. I'm guessing at the very most, I take about 2,000 steps a day. How many would you say you take?
Just before I went to bed, I got a call from some woman.
"Hello?"
"...is Marie there?"
"No, you've got the wrong number"
".....is Marie there?"
"No, you've got the wrong number", I said again.
"Is that Mike?"
"No...", I was getting a bit annoyed at her inability to comprehend she had the wrong number by now.
"......."
"Ok?"
"292 326x", she said both to herself and me, "that's what she's given me"
It was if she thought I was lying or something.
"Is that Mike?", she asked yet again!
"No!"
"......"
"What number are you trying to call?", I asked and there was a short silence while she seemingly rumaged about to find the number.
"292 326x", she replied.
"Well this is 292 336x", I explained to her.
"Oh...er...ok...sorry...bye"
I think I'd know if I was "Mike" or not.
I went to bed about 1pm and didn't resurface until 1:30am. Talk about fucked up. It's now coming up to 5:10am and I'll probably just sit here being bored some more. I only have 14 people on my contact list, all of which bar one are from the UK and none of them are insomniacs like me, meaning that there's no one online to talk to. Kind of sucks.
