I woke up feeling like today was going to be a good day. You know that feeling you get when you're just in the mood to be active? To be productive? That's how I felt today was going to pan out and strangely enough it did.
It started a little silly though. I tried exchanging some landscape plastic wallets for portrait ones in the shop which I had bought them from and it took 15 minutes for them to do it because they couldn't figure out why it was charging me �1.80 for the same wallets. But I finally got them and made my way to University afterwards.
Today I have Design for Web, where I'm making a website for a futuristic vehicle that can travel on land, sea and air. It's going fairly well, but Ben, who is in my group is essentially the flash designer, whereas I'm kind of instructing him on how I think it should look. I don't like working in a team, though. It means you have to rely on others and I don't trust other people enough to get the job done and get it done correctly. I thought this of Ben when we first started because he said he had lots of experience in Flash, yet seemed incapable of showing it.
However, in the last two weeks, he's managed to convince me otherwise, because the site is coming on and to a standard that no one else is at. With my concepts and ideas and his work in Flash, we're starting to put together a nice looking website.
Because I have Easter holidays starting from next week, I'm having to put my trust in Ben a hell of a lot to make sure it gets done. We have to present the site as soon as we get back in three weeks. I don't like this. I'd rather do the site myself. "You will do it, right?", I kept asking him. "Yeah", he said, half heartedly. If he doesn't do it, it means that I get marked lower because of it too.
He did/does make me say things like "Oh, I like that" and "That's perfect" sometimes though and that's why my trust in him is improving.
Kevin wanted to see how far we were up to and I showed him what I'd been creating the night before and he liked it. It takes a lot for Kevin to look impressed so it's always nice to be able to do it.
I also asked him for some advice regarding me working for SpiraCreative. Basically, I wanted his opinion on whether to do the work for the experience or whether I shouldn't do it because I'm doing it for free. He didn't really have time to talk, but said to come up to his office at 3:30pm and he'd talk then.
Emma, from Spira emailed me a day or two ago because she wants me to come to her office tomorrow to discuss some other projects she wants me to work on besides SpiraCreative's site. And I asked if this would be paid work. Her reply:
Hi Neil,
The first project is EventFrog, that's our project, we are working hard to make it a big success so hopefully having it on your portfolio will be good, so I wasn't planning on paying a fee for this. We are not expecting you to do the whole site, that is what Matthew works on, but to provide some design input, which we will discuss on Wednesday.
The second project is for a client, the money they pay us is to cover our office rent. However, if it all works well we could pay you once the client has paid us. We could pay you a fee which we would agree at the sign-off of the website. If this model works well I would be happy to keep paying you for all the client work you do. By going well I mean, if we can turnaround projects quickly I will be happy to pay you for that, and hopefully you will see your student loan diminish!
Does this sound OK?
Maybe as payment for Spira and EventFrog we could offer you some free web hosting?
When the SpiraCreative site is done, we will do a launch event and press release to the papers, so hopefully lots of people will see your site.
Look forward to seeing you on Wednesday,
Emma
EventFrog is their flagship project currently. Or at least that's the feeling I get. I wanted to ask Kevin about whether I should work on it when I would be getting nothing out of it. "It will look good on your portfolio" is a big excuse not to pay someone. That's like going to a car dealer and saying "But if you give me a car for free, it will look good on your showroom". I said I'd go and see her anyway tomorrow at 10:30am.
Later on after Kevin had gone, I needed to ask Mike, the technician a few questions about some problems I was having. He's a really nice guy and good at his stuff. After helping me, he said how he'd heard from Kevin that I was really good at my stuff. It felt nice to be complimented and have the recognition that I'm doing well.
Towards the end of the lesson, me and Mike talked quite a lot about various things relating to the course for about 15 minutes or so. After that, I went up to Kevin's office to talk to him.
Kevin's office is, well, nothing short of a closet. It's tiny. I have no idea why he doesn't ask for a bigger office somewhere.
We must have talked for about 25 minutes about me and my work and throughout, he was saying how I was reliable and friendly and that I do great work. Again, to be hearing it from someone who has a lot of experience behind them feels like a big compliment. Regarding Spira, he basically said what I already knew - don't let them take advantage of me. And I am/will try my best not to.
After that, I went to play some pool with Tom. Before today, the score was 97/76. I had already given up hope of beating him quite a few games ago. Today, he finally got his victory of 100, but not for lack of me trying to prevent him. He missed the black three times before potting it and I managed to at least get one game back before he won. Final score: 100/77. After Easter, we're resetting the scores and starting again. I WILL win him this time!
It's 6:25pm now and I'm very tempted to go to bed for a bit, even though I know I could easily manage to stay awake until tonight and get a proper night's sleep. But, I know that if I go to sleep now, I'll do work through the night. But if I do that, then I'm going to have a crappy sleeping pattern even more and I'd quite like to spend tomorrow awake in the day so I can maybe finally go and get my hair cut/styled. You should see it. It's laughable.
And then after Friday, I'm off Uni for three whole weeks, which I certainly need to catch up on everything. I plan on going home for them so my Mum and Gary are coming to pick me up on Sunday. The sad thing is that the only reason I'm going home is so I have a fast Internet connection and can restock my dwindling supply of TV shows. It will be nice to have a comfy bed though.
So, that was my day today. Nothing amazing, but it made me feel good having people who I look up to compliment me and give me recognition.
All days should be like this.
