It started with me handing my work into Bronek and Tony. I have to point out that I'm actually the only one bar Rob who has completed everyone's work and Rob is questionable. However, I am the only one to have gotten my packaging design printed off and although it was unfortunately not made into an actual floppy disk box, I'm glad that they've been printed off on A3 for all to see.
In addition, I also gave my font to Tony. Although technically, I didn't create the font specifically for this brief, it answered it anyway so he said I should use it. It meant that I could bypass creating a new font on the computer. I was happy about this as it meant less to worry about. However, one thing I had forgotten to bring to college was all of my roughs for both my packaging design and my font. Luckily, in addition to being a tutor, Tony also works at a company literally three minutes walk from my house. He said that he'd be happy to take it off me the next day at his work. I was very thankful about that.
I found it pretty funny that the class was a bit confused and stunned really, when Tony had to explain to them that the deadline for all of the work to be handed in was today. Both Tony and me couldn't quite believe that they couldn't quite understand this, trying to ask for more time to complete the work. As Tony said though, if a client has given you a deadline, you can't just ask for more time. If you haven't finished it, they'll just get someone else to do it instead of you.
One thing that REALLY annoyed me was the fact that although I had gone to the trouble of making my font the correct way and using the correct programs to do so, the rest of the class had created their font by simply tracing over some of their sketches, which they had scanned in. No real attention was paid to actually making a decent font and instead, they simply all produced horrible results within that lesson because they hadn't done it over the past two months and were now struggling for time. It annoyed me because I do all of my work on time, but not only that, I do it to a standard to which it should be done by everyone. I feel that most of them are pretty lazy when it comes to doing actual work and most are more than willing to just go home and forget about it.
In addition to that, I got pretty pissed off at Tom for the fact that although Tony had told everyone to put their packaging files in one folder so he could get them printed off, no one had. Tom finally did, but, he put them in there as Illustrator files instead of PDF's, which was what Tony had wanted. I noticed this as I was keeping an eye on the folder, seeing who was putting what in it. I mentioned to Tom that he had put the wrong file type in the folder and he asked would I do it for him. I said no.
I said no because I'm tired of doing things for people like that. Doing something as simple as resaving a file. He's asked me before and I've done it for him. Infact I've done a lot of things for the good of the class but it all seems to be a waste of time. So, I am hereby giving up helping as I have over this last year, since no one is bothered.
Finally, around 5pm, I got out of college.
On Monday, I had finally got round to writing my 3,000 word Lucozade report. The thought of it was daunting and yet once I began writing, I found it to be pretty damn easy and I actually had 300 words too many. I was happy that I had it out of the way and that I had produced a fairly professional sounding (hopefully) document which Brian will find a joy to mark. Or something.
On Wednesday, I went to see Tony at his workplace and gave him my roughs. I thanked him for letting me give them to him and he said it wasn't a problem.
Thursday and I was disappointed to learn that Brian would not be in. I knew this anyway really, but wanted to make sure. Besides, I had to actually print off the report for him anyway and attend Danny's lesson in the afternoon. All I did all morning was sit there being very very bored, as I had now finished everything.
Just before I went into college, I said hi to Pam, my old graphics tutor. She stopped me for a moment to talk to me.
She said that she and the other graphics tutors had been talking about me. She said she had told the others about my boredom on this multimedia course and how it's not challening.
Basically, she actually offered me a place on the second year of the graphics course without doing the first. I was pretty amazed.
She had just offered me a place on a second year graphics course just like that, without ever having done the first year of it. Jamie on the other hand had apparantly only just managed to scrape through and here I was now being offered a place on the course which he had been working towards for the last year.
If I were to take up Pam's offer, it would mean that I'd be in Jamie's class again. Heh, not only that I'd be in a class full of hot girls! Not that that's here nor there of course.
Sadly though, I had to decline, as tempting as it was to accept. I mean, I've done a year of this multimedia course now. If I were to accept the graphics course offer, this year would have been a waste because I wouldn't get a qualification for it. I told Pam this and said how I might as well finish this course now, now that I've done a year of it. She said if I changed my mind, the offer would be there for me to join in September. Pretty cool, but I must decline.
I watched as people carried on with their work once I went to class, frustrated and panicing. Some were working on things that should have been finished weeks ago. Others hadn't even made a start on them. Again, I felt pretty angry that I was seemingly the only one to have gotten it all done within the amount of time given except for Rob.
However, after asking if I could have a read through Rob's report, I was pretty disappointed to realise that although he had written a report about Ford, it was 3,000 words about the company and nothing else. No explanation of their advertising, no analysis of the questionnaire he'd produced, nothing that was actually required by the brief, just copy and pasted paragraphs of text relating to Ford, but nothing to do with the advertising of Ford which was what the whole report should be about.
I mentioned this to him, trying to make him understand that he hadn't done what he had supposed to do. He response was disappointing, saying that he would give it to Brian as it was and he didn't care whether it was wrong or not.
I don't know whether to be sad or angry at these people really. I mean, there are some like the likes of Will and Dylan who do want to work and then there are the likes of Sean and Ray who take every oppurtunity to go home early. However, even the ones that do want to work aren't progressing nearly as much as all of the tutors want them to.
Although Bronek gives the class plenty of pep talks, saying how well everyone is doing that's a complete lie really I think. There have been so many deadlines pushed back because people haven't been mananaging to finish work on time or have trouble doing even the basic of tasks which they learnt in the first few weeks of the course. When I enrolled on it, I honestly thought that I'd be the one trailing behind and everyone else would have been creating in one form or another already in years gone by. You know, as a hobby or something. But no, most of these don't seem to have done that.
There's Abigail though, who loves photography and she's managed to take some really nice shots. Alex/Will are also creative when they want to be. But, they all lack focus, choosing instead to mess about half of the time.
I'm going off track here.
Anyway, back to Thursday. Jamie came and found me around 12:30pm and we talked for a while in my class about random stuff, then finding Stan and Patrick in the library.
I miss my friends. I miss being in the same class as them all as I was last year. Sitting in my class now, I feel so bored most of the time, even when I have plenty of work to do. It's no fun coming to college anymore, but more like a chore. That's not how it was last year.
I said goodbye to them and returned to class at about 1pm. Danny appeared around 1:30pm and I asked him was there anything more I needed to do, since I had finished all of his work. He said he wanted me to design a flyer for a hard house music night. It's for his friend. I said I didn't want to do it and I didn't. Instead, I decided to go walkabout with my camera, taking pictures of places around the college. I had nothing else to do in class and I guess I felt a little smug really that I could just leave the class and go do whatever I liked.
At 3pm, I had decided that I would go and see Batman Begins. I told Danny that I was going and off and he said make sure I was in the next day and I went.
Batman rocked. Most certainly a great film. I was happy I went to see it.
Thursday night I changed my mind and designed Danny his flyer.
I decided not to go in on Friday morning because I'd only be sitting there bored again. I did however, go in in the afternoon, only after 15 minutes, I wondered why the hell I'd bothered. I asked Danny.
"So...was there any reason you wanted me to come in today?"
"To make sure all of your work is complete and to get your mark"
"..."
It was done two weeks ago and my mark is hardly incentive to spend money to get to college to sit there being bored for three hours.
At the beginning of the week, no one had finished any of the projects except me and Rob (and as I said, Rob is questionable). At the end of the week, no one had progressed it seemed. Amazing.
What I find even more amazing is that I bet half of them still get either a pass or even a merit. Not because their work is good, but because the bar is set so low it seems.
For example, on Thursday, Bronek spent 15 minutes with me giving me my feedback on the last project I had produced for him, the one minute video which I shot with Jamie. He have me a distinction for it, albeit missing two parts and that was because he said he doesn't give distinctions on first projects.
While I was happy about the mark, it's not like I had done anything that I felt was out of my way. Another thing is the fact that there was pretty much zero planning in terms of storyboards and whatnot and yet I still get a distinction for it? Hm.
For my projects, I've been getting merits and distinctions. Others have gotten merits too and I guess that kind of annoys me because I feel my work is of a higher quality than theirs. I feel that three grades doesn't neccessarily reflect how good someone's work is and someone with a merit might have only just managed to get one, while someone else might have only just managed to miss out on a distinction, meaning that those two people might have a very different quality of work.
Anyway, where was I...
Yeah, Friday. Pretty much no one had finished everything. Friday was the very last day of college, which meant that anyone who hasn't finished fails the projects and gets a referral. But, I bet you any fucking money Bronek decides to give them even more time in September to get the projects completed. If he does, I'm going to be so angry at him because then that's not fair on people like ME who get all of the work done on time.
I had decided that after college, I would go and see Sin City. Danny and a few of the others were going for a drink together but I said I wasn't coming and went to go see the film instead, quite relieved to be away from them for the next two months.
Sin City was incredibly boring. There were moments when I felt like walking out. I just found it so dull, even with all of the fancy effects. Waste of money.
And so that concludes my week. Mostly boring really.
I don't really have anything planned for how I'm going to spend my summer holidays. I'll probably just sit here, at my computer, as usual. Fun.
