Going under...

I'm going under, Drowning in you...

Suddenly I'm freaking about how behind on my work I am. Every week I seem to panic about a different module and have to immerse myself in it completely whilst shouting at my daughters if they talk in my vicinity, ask me a question or do anything other than bring me cups of tea and offer me back massages.

I'm definitely not allocating enough of my own free time to doing my work. I need to work on using my study periods for study rather than using them for housework, washing, shopping, business paperwork and catching up with family/friends who happen to think I've been abducted since enrolment.






Last week we had a huge Halloween party at home and I spent most of my study days organising it. Twas a great night but in reality it's now to blame for my growing workload.....

(I dressed up as a Pumpkin by the way, a cute and slightly sexy one I hope, not one resembling Violet Beauregarde from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And the house is still all 'Spooked' up, even down to the bloody footprints walking across the bathroom floor. I do love Halloween!)





I'm also finding this week a bit stressy as my kids are off school on Half Term, meaning that I'm missing half of this weeks lessons rather than sort out babysitters. So now I'm trying to strike a balance over the next few days between spending some much needed time with my girls and keeping up with homework. So far The SwingOmeter is not really swinging at all, more it is fixed by powerful magnet pointing straight at my daughters.

We've been in the glass workshops for lessons recently. I was always worried about how I would cope around broken glass as I've always found it a quite frightening material. It turns out that I was right to worry.  During our first glass cutting lesson last week I managed to burst into tears as the broken panes of glass kept reminding me of that icky scene at the end of 'Ghost' where Karl gets speared by the window pane.  I really could curse my own brain sometimes as it often seems to work against me.....

Well onwards and upwards, I did much better in glass today, mind over matter and all that jazz. I suppose I should really return to my homework....I think my time management skills need some serious attention!

I'm falling forever, I've got to break through...

1 Month today!

One month in and I thought it's about time for an update!

I honestly still can't quite believe I'm a University student. I often wonder when will it actually sink in?

Life is great, The workload is heavy and my house is a mess. I'm eating shedloads of junkfood and slacking on the exercise.  Actually the food is something I'm really surprised about and I keep harping on about it to anyone that will listen, so now I'll harp on about it in here too.

Students are generally young, broke and pretty damn unhealthy. So what do the uni's do? Stick expensive vending machines all over the place that charge 70p for a bag of crisps or £1.20 for a bottle of coke. Even the teeny tiny undrinkable cups of vending machine slop are 70p a shot. The kiosk in our building sells overpriced crap as well, sausage rolls, chocs and pasties at petrol station prices. Not a healthy, brain building snack in sight.....and I can't get over that despite fees of almost nine grand a year they still try to make a profit out of us..Gits.

Ok, rant over back to the happy stuff....

I had a few adventures in the last month and met some fab folk. the crazy bunch on my course get better and better the more we get to know each other. I try to ignore the fact that I'm the oldest full timer by a decade ad I'm hoping that they do too....The tutor asked the other day 'who was born in the 80's?' he received blank stares and looked quite despondent until I shouted up that I was a 70's child...It turns out the rest of the full time bunch are 90's children....like my own daughter...*shudder*

So what have I learnt so far?

That I look like an Umpah Lumpah when kitted out in full Kiln safety gear - Leather apron (down to my ankles), Gauntlets (up to my elbows), Full face protective visor and scarf. Especially when stood next to another student who stands at six and a half foot tall (His apron only reached his knees).

Dumpity dooo.

That being left handed has it's perils, mainly when opening library turnstyles with my ID card; I swiped the card last week on my first visit to the uni library and then watched the adjacent turnstyle open instead of the one I was standing at.....and of course I then had to run round like an eegit to enter through the open turnstyle rather than keeping my cool and just trying once again to open the one in front of me.

 Muppet.

That I thoroughly enjoy student discounts.

Oh yes.

Hysterectomies & Turnip Mash

20/9/12 Part Two

On the way home now in the quiet carriage. Not sure why they call it quiet though.

There’s a girl opposite whinging down her phone to her friends about her meeting in London with some failed love interest who doesn’t treat her right.

And behind me are a bunch of women having a good old gossip and natter all about ‘My friend Mary’, Oven cooked sausages, Hysterectomies and Turnip mash.

I've had a perfect day. 

I am now well on the way to becoming a whizz on the London underground and I'm already hopping on and off tubes as confidently as a one-legged tight rope walker.  Actually I’m so good that I hopped off and then back onto the same tube at one point when I became temporarily convinced that it was going the wrong way.

I spent the early afternoon at the Victoria & Albert museum.  I last visited it two years ago and it was inspiring to meander around again with a fresh eye and with Applied Arts at the forefront of my mind. I adore that place, it’s so vast that you could visit for a week and still not see everything. I do need to make a point of going more often now that I’ve realised I’m capable of independent travel.

I was booked in to see the Heatherwick Exibish at 2pm and all I can say is WOW. That guy is a dude. A Genius Dude.

I think I’ll follow up with a blog entry about him and the exhibition at a later date J

Later I took a tube over to Blackfriars and went to mooch about in the Tate Modern again. The first time I visited a couple of years ago I didn’t really enjoy it so I had decided to give it another go. I really should learn to trust my instincts as I didn’t really enjoy it much this time either!  It’s nice to have further confirmation to reassure me that my choice of avoiding a Fine Art degree was the right one for me.

I also found time to wander around a few London landmarks before meeting a wonderfully lovely friend for dinner at the end of my day. Amazingly the weather was warm and pleasant which was a shocker and meant I was lugging my coat around all day. I also found that the two pair of socks got a bit much at times.

To sum up: Two Trains, Five Tubes, A Museum, A Gallery, A Formerly Wobbly  Bridge, A Restaurant, Two Pubs and A Posh London law firm. Not a bad visiting count for a single day in Londinium….

A pretty successful trip all in all!!

Down at Fraggle Rock

20/09/12 Part One

I’m feeling quite whimsical today.   As I write this I’m sat on a train to London…

 (On my own!) (And it’s the right train!)

Staring out over the rolling green fields….

(Well I was, I’ve now looked up to discover I’m travelling through a battered housing estate)

And I’m writing this using that old fashioned medium of pen and paper.

(As I can’t work out how to enable Mobile blogging on my phone)

I feel like I’m channelling some Hollywood Heroine of old writing her journal or possibly a love letter as she travels to some far off place.  Whimsical is a great word.

I mentioned previously that I’d never really travelled far on a train on my own and now I’m going one step further and I’ll actually be spending most of the day in London on my own too. It was an example of the disorganization that I can expert on a course ran by artists when I discovered on Monday that today’s trip wasn’t going ahead after all. (Meh.) By the end of the day the trip had been rearranged for a week Friday which was unfortunately of no use to me as I am working all of that weekend and a trip to London would not be too clever before a busy weekend DJing four discos*!  (Double Meh.)

I left Uni that day feeling pretty bummed out that I was going to miss the exibish. But then in a blinding light bulb moment of extreme confidence and bravery (She-ra Stylee) I decided to go it alone.  Today’s induction programme was looking pretty dull anyway. There’s a lecture for fresh faced students (as opposed to the aging haggard ones like myself …) to advise them how to live, thrive and survive,  how to check for signs of meningitis and how to look after theselves if they drink too much. With the exception of the last point I have most of those things under control so I decided it would be safe to skip it.

Therefore here I am bunking off of my course on my fourth day of university, convincing myself that it is for the greater good as I can’t possibly continue in life without visiting the Heatherwick Studio exhibition.  I’m not a total rebel though as I did ask permission from my tutor first and offered to bring in a note from my mom….

I have my maps printed to navigate the underground,  I’m wearing two pairs of socks and I’ve stashed items in various locations so as to fool the theives. My husband called me Dora the Explorer today but I think I’d prefer to be like Uncle Travelling Matt from Fraggle Rock as I reckon he was a bit cooler.

Although I would quite like to shout ‘Swiper no Swiping’ if I spot a pickpocket…..

*Not sure if I’ve mentioned this yet but my little business is actually quite cool – I’m a Mobile DJ and Kids entertainer. Well I think it’s cool anyway and much better than a real job. It’s very cool because it’s responsible for me being able to work weekends and therefore completely to blame for my adversity towards growing up and my becoming a Student J

Inspiring

19/09/12

What an amazingly overwhelming few days I have had.  Induction week is now almost over, I have met all of the lovely artyites on my course and I think I’m just about getting to the point where I can find my way from A to B without too many wrong turnings.  The more I discover about my course the more excited I become.  I chose my university due to the convenience of studying close to home and as a result I hadn’t researched Applied Arts Courses at other Uni’s. This week I have discovered that I’m on one the best Applied courses in the country and that the level of equipment and experienced technicians available is pretty much as high as you can get.  Wow!

 I think I’m going to have an inspiring few years ahead…..

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Turn and face the Strange...

Well it's midnight and I should really head to bed as in the morning I begin my new life as a university student.

Wow. 

A whole host of unknown lies ahead;

New friends (hopefully), new experiences, new challenges,new skills and a new venue in which to get lost in on a daily basis. It takes me back to my first days in secondary school, clunking around in itchy grey socks with my oversized baggage, nose buried deep in the school map which was glued in the back of my beige homework diary, trying to navigate to the geography room yet winding up in the chemistry room every time.

Wish me luck.....

In at the deep end....

5 days 

Pardon me, boy, is that the Chattanooga choo choo?

Last week I was excited to receive my first email from my course tutors (all previous mails have been random University junk mails and most of these actually have nothing to do with me; The most recent congratulating me on passing my nonexistent A Levels, which was quite nice of them really).

Talk about throwing us in at the deep end.  Our first day is Monday 17th and only 3 days later they are planning a trip to London to see the Thomas Heatherwick exhibition showcasing the works of the amazing studios responsible for the 2012 Olympic Cauldron.  How fabulous I thought! 

Then I read on,

‘We will meet at Euston Station at 11:30am.’  

Oh right no coach then?

Welcome to University Life!

I recently took my first ever solo train trip - 20minutes from Wolverhampton to Birmingham. There’s a security to having someone else journeying with me, someone to tell me ‘No not that train, this train’.  Well if this trip is confirmed then it would appear that now it is finally time for me to join the grown up world of train travel.

So I've got my clipboard, but what I would like to know is,  is the anorak compulsory?

So Chattanooga choo choo, Won't you choo-choo me home?

Countdown....

18 Days

Take your dried frog pills and put your helmet on

So it’s all about juggling really.

Here I am at the age of 33, about to embark on a full time arty degree. I run a business, a second business, a home, the lives of 2 almost teenage daughters, a husband, a budgie, a frog and I run myself ragged.  And yet I still thought:

‘Surely I can find time to fit in a Uni degree too.....’

Fast forward on through a fantastic part time two year access course and Voila! Here I am. I’m on countdown and ready to start in 18 days. 

Terribly terrified and extremely excited.

Student finance is all sorted.

(Probably the most complicated set of forms that I have ever had the misfortune to fill out)

 The makeover and self portrait photo shoot is complete for the dreaded student ID.

(WHY can they not just shoot a camera in your face like the good old days...Do they not understand the pressure of making you take your own bloody picture that’s got to be hung around your neck for the next three years??? I spent hours on it...and I still hate it!)

 Enrolment is complete!

(This consisted of Me getting lost amongst the Uni campuses in the rain, being sent to different buildings by different people, each route involving more rain, and I eventually showed up at the desk looking pretty damn soggy. Perhaps it is a good thing that the days of point and shoot ID photos are a thing of the past after all...)  

Commencing countdown, engine’s on

Did I mention the course that I’m doing yet? I’ve chosen Applied Arts for some heavy duty hands on Arts, Craft & Design; Glass Blowing, Ceramics, Metal work and more. I’m kind of hoping to carve out a niche for myself and become perhaps a cross between Demi Moore getting sexy throwing pots in ‘Ghost’ and that bad ass welding masked stripper bird out of ‘Flashdance’.

Us girls look amazing in overalls.  FACT.  Even us short-arse girls.

When I left school I went into an engineering apprenticeship and I wore my overalls with pride. I used to feel quite tough, especially that time when I had a black eye from walking into a hatch in a nightclub. Overalls and a black eye made me feel Well’ard on the Black Country buses to and from work.  I was less tough however another time when I screamed like a girl when I got my long ponytail caught up in the traverse on the Lathe. True story. I had a trip to A&E and a rather unflattering bald patch beneath my hair afterwards. Even less flattering was when it started to grow back in tufts which would spike out of the side of my head and refused to be controlled. It wasn’t long afterwards that I tired of my engineering dreams and became a full time restaurant cashier, as you do.

In truth though I’ve always had this geeky streak.  I’m fascinated by sleek engineering, science, design, obsessed by Terry Pratchett books and Red Dwarf but then I also love all things floaty, creative, cute, quirky and arty. This is why when losing sleep over which degree course I should choose I came to decide on Applied arts.  

I’m hoping that it will strike a balance between the inner geek and the inner art freak within me. 

Hoping it will enable me to revisit my youth and original hopes and dreams...

But hopefully this time without the scalped head and black eye.

Check ignition and may frog’s love be with you....