I met Jamie, Danielle and Mike around 6:45pm and then we went to Rob's together. We had all brought alcohol. One of the things that annoys me about, well, me, is the fact that I don't particularly like any of the alcohol that anyone else likes so I have to bring my own kind that I can actually stand.
Others arrived at the party a while later and everyone was having fun. Even I was having fun and usually, I don't like houseparties but this one was going well. Dave came for a bit, but he had to leave and go back to his house because his sister was having her birthday party and he wanted to be there.
For the most part, people sat in the garden and most started playing a game called "I never ever". I hadn't heard of this before. Apparantly, you say something that you've never done. For example, "I've never had sex with a stranger". If any of the people you're with have had sex with a stranger, they take a drink. It sounded a bit silly at first, but there was certainly a few "I've never evers" that people drank to that were shocking! It was funny.
Rob's brother and his mate came home around 10pm and either is brother or his mate was very drunk. His name was Mark apparantly. He came outside and began to pretty much crash our little party. At first, he was amusing because he was just trying to be funny in front of us, but after about five minutes, we all just felt a little embarassed by him and we went inside.
That was pretty much when everyone decided that now would be a good idea to go home, even though if he wasn't there, no one would be thinking of leaving.
Rob was understandably pretty pissed off at Mark, ruining his party. He took him into the hall and said something to him while all of us were in the living room a bit downhearted that the party had suddenly come to a halt. We then heard the front door slam and that was the point at which we decided that it would be best to leave.
However, instead of going home, one or two people suggested that we head over to Dave's party instead and in the end, that's what we did. We didn't stay there for more than an hour or two, but it was a way to at least stay out for a bit longer.
Jamie told me that apparantly Mark had also brought drugs to the house and that had pissed off Rob even moreso and rightly so.
By now it was about midnight and everyone was ready to go home. I caught a cab back to mine and fell into bed soon after.
The next day, I asked Rob if he was OK online. He said he was fine and that he was sorry for what happened. We had all told him it wasn't his fault but he was very apologetic.
On Monday, the lump on my foot began to hurt again. Whenever it does flare up, my heart sinks because I know that for the next two weeks, I have to limp instead of walk. However, just two days later, it had gone! I was very happy about that. That's the quickest it's ever disappeared. Unfortunately, I know it'll be back.
In other news, I've been very productive over the last few days. In this entry (at the bottom), I gave a list of things that I wanted to complete while I was free from going to college all summer. That list is now growing shorter and tonight, I can cross off another item.
Over the past two or three months, I've been trying to come up with a suitable design for my portfolio website. It's been hard because I don't really have a name for it. It's just Neil Martin - The Work Of. It's hard to come up with a logo for such a name but finally, I've made something that I'm fairly happy with and in doing so, I created a website around it that showcases the best of my stuff.
Version 1 was all about packing in every single piece of work I've done since 2002, but version 2 is much more selective and only has my best work on it including the best projects I've completed from college.
So, I present to you: The Work Of
Have a look through the work and tell me what you think.
From here, I'll now design some stickers which I plan on sticking around town. I'm hoping that maybe one or two people will see them, view the site and get in touch and ask me to do some work for them. I think it's wishful thinking, however, but still, it's worth a try. I'll also design some business cards.
In this entry, I said that I was buying �100 worth of books. Today, my final four arrived and they're so...sexy! I think I made an excellent choice if I do say so myself. They're full of great designs and I'm jealous of everything I see in them. I'm hoping that by reading through these books, I'll have a better understanding of what actually makes great graphic design.
One of my favourite books that I now own is called How to be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul. It's like a manual of how to be successful in the graphic design world. It has so many things in it which I never learnt at college, yet should have. Just simple things like how to cope with an interview, how to actually get one in the first place and what your portfolio should contain. I'm only on chapter two but there's so much stuff that I've already read in the book that I feel better for knowing. If ever you plan on getting into graphic design, I definitely reccommend this book.
Other books include Area, which is huge. It's slightly bigger than A4 in height and about 1 & 1/2 in width. It has 1,000 pages of pretty much nothing but artwork. It's heavy. It's colourful. It's excellent.
I'm hoping that everyone's going out to the pub on Friday. Also, I'm hoping Hannah will come out. I invited her last night and she said she'd come if she can after she's been dancing. I'm not so hopeful though, really because 'after dance' means that she wouldn't get into town until at least 10pm. It might not even be worth her coming. I'm going to see if I can get her to just come out earlier and skip her dance lesson just for this week.
You know what bugs me these days? It bugs me that my diary has to remain password protected and yet I'm writing more than I ever have. I really enjoyed and appreciated all of the feedback I recieved from people reading it when it was unlocked and now that it's locked, I get less than 20 views per day of it. Before it was locked, I got 100 and frequent comments.
Still, those that do read, I'm happy they do. However, I will be changing the password once more soon. You'll need to get in touch with me if you want it.
I think that's it for now.
