Since getting my formative feedback sheet from Martin for my Research for Design project and him giving me less than a pass mark and ticking the 'concern with academic progress' box, I've been working hard to make up for the work that I should have done weeks ago. I knew I'd get a low mark when he gave me the sheet anyway. Luckily, this semester, I've been much earlier in realising that I need to stop being lazy and get my work done.
I'm really good when I'm under pressure. I go into overdrive mode and produce more work in a weekend than I do in six weeks. Maybe everyone's like that, though, panicing and trying to do as much as they can. However, I'd like to think that the stuff that I do do is thoughtful and, perhaps more importantly, I can produce nice final visuals, which a lot of people can't.
Last weekend was spent doing work for that project and I was happy that it was a bank holiday, meaning that I had an extra day off Uni to do more.
On Tuesday last week, I had my Design for Web lesson. Neither Georgina or Ben - the two people in my group - showed up. Georgina has the ship, Ben has the website. I have nothing. I'm responsible for coming up with the ship design, building it (with Georgina), designing the website, buttons, sounds, colours and intro. And yet strangely, if you were to ask me to show you it right now, I couldn't because those two have it all. It really bugs me that for this project, we've had to work together. I don't like relying on other people because then you lose your independance over the project and it makes them responsible for the kind of mark you'll recieve at the end of the project. How is it fair that if someone doesn't come into the lesson, you get a lower mark for it?
I spent the lesson doing absolutely nothing. I had nothing to do. I had no site to work on and no ship to take photos of. I haven't seen the ship for a good five weeks now, since Georgina hasn't turned up for that long. It's really annoying.
Wednesday was spent doing more work for Visual Research and then on Thursday, I spent the whole lesson drawing. I didn't touch the computer once. It actually felt really good not to do so because I'm so used to sitting in front of a monitor that I think sometimes, I forget that there are other ways of producing things. It was quite amazing how fast the time went over.
Friday, I showed Martin three of the pages I had designed for my book. He had some comments which I took on board. He was critical of them, but not harsh.
On Friday night, I started to think up a schedule in my head of how long it'd take to get all of the pages done with enough time left over to work on my other two projects. I say two instead of three because really, Ben is responsible for Design for Web, meaning I should only be working on one project, but I'm really worried that I'm going to have to put together a last minute site because he won't show up with the one already created.
In total, there are 17 pages in the book and each one takes roughly three hours or so to design. As I said, I had designed three already to show Martin on Friday and then on Friday night, I designed a further two. The same was true of Saturday and then I went a step further and designed three on Sunday night. I was up until 6:30am doing them. This brings the total up to 10 and the good news is that four of the remaining seven pages are pretty much nothing but text, which means they'll take less time to do. The other three pages will stil take three hours, but I'm now confident I can have them done by this Friday.
In total for this project in the space of three days, I've used 20 pages worth of designs. This is usually the amount of stuff I do in a month. The fact that I've been producing so much work lately has led me to run out of plastic wallets. I went to the shop to buy some, but as usual, they had sold out. I decided to look on the Internet for them instead, but found that they were actually more expensive. However, I found one site that sold them in bulk. 100 for �30 or, 500 for �105. Since I'm going to need a lot of them over the next two years, I decided to buy 500. 500 plastic wallets! I don't think I'll ever run out again.
Today, I had my Visual Communication lesson. I hadn't done anything new for it even though it's been two weeks since I've seen Debra. However, she didn't say anything and was in fact quite positive about my work and gave me some advice on where to go from here.
After the lesson, I played pool with Tom. I won three of six matches and the current score is 13-4. He's kicking my arse, but I'm trying my best to come back.
Tomorrow is my Design for Web lesson and I'm praying that Ben shows up, otherwise it may be time to start designing a secondary website. I can do it, just that it's going to take time out of my other projects.
Even though I don't actually have any final pieces of work for any of my projects just yet, I'm far more confident about them than I was last semester and I know that with a week free next week, I can get the work done for them easily. I need maybe two days on each project and they'll be complete and that's far better than spending a weekend doing all four projects like I did last semester. Things are falling into place nicely.
Yesterday, Abigail was getting very frustrated with one of her projects for University. She has to design a website and she doesn't really know how. I do and I've been trying my best to help her but today was her deadline and she needed it done. She actually asked me if I'd create her website for her and she'd pay me �5 to do it. I felt both sorry and shocked that she'd asked me. I mean, what happens when she actually leaves Uni and needs to get a job? She can't go paying other designs to do her work because then she's hardly a designer herself.
I would have actually happily done it, however, if I had had the time because I don't want her to fail her module. I wouldn't have taken the �5 of course, that would just be silly, especially considering that to make a proper website, I'd charge in the region of �200. She didn't get it done in the end.
Now onto more enjoyable news.
A few weeks ago, I began talking to a girl named Lauren. I had messaged her on OKCupid because she looked and sounded quite nice and we've been getting to know each other quite well. We really want to meet each other and when I've finished with all of this work, I plan to go and see her. She's lovely.
A few weeks ago, I began talking to a girl named Emma. She had messaged me on Netlog and she sounded nice enough so I told her to add me to MSN and we've been getting to know each other quite well. I want to meet her and when I've finished with all of this work, I plan to go and see her. She's cute.
A week or so ago, I began talking to a girl named Steph. I had messaged her on OKCupid because she looked and sounded quite nice and we've been getting to know each other better. She's interested in meeting me and maybe spending the day in town or something. I want to meet her and when I've finished with all of this work, I plan to go and see her. She's cute.
A few days ago, I began talking to a girl named Lisa. She messaged me on OKCupid. "ur hawwt!", her message read. I think that's the first time I've ever been messaged on OKCupid first, let alone by someone who is very nice looking. With such a message however, I was very dubious, but gave her my MSN address anyway and sure enough, she's very real and seems to think I'm gorgeous. It made me laugh when she was saying she liked me. I hardly ever hear it from anyone. She's very interested in meeting me and maybe spending the day together and going the cinema to watch Spiderman 3. I want to meet her and when I've finished with all of this work, I plan to go and see her. She's gorgeous.
Yes, make that four girls who all want to meet me. How cool is that?
Too good to be true. I have a busy summer! Ha!
But seriously, I don't believe I've had so many possible interests before. Maybe one and possibly two, but four? Never. And they're all really nice. None of them are, well, weird, for lack of a better term. I go for some really weird girls usually, but these are all fairly normal.
I can't wait for Uni to finish so I can go and meet them.
