the one that got away

There is evidence that photography is slowly taking over my life, was out with mates last night and got a few decent pics but the one I was sure I'd bagged (looked fine on the LCD) was out of focus :'( so so gutted.

well that wasn't very clever

Not sure what happened but an Aperture crash later I've managed to get almost all of my pics back, some are gone for ever but they probably weren't that good anyway. In an attempt to protect myself and accommodate my burgeoning photo collection I have delved into the murky world of libraries, back ups and vaults. My god it's horrible. A cauldron of computer geekery and seemingly friendly terms, do I want to use referenced or managed files? I've never been much of a tech wizard and several hours in front of a computer screen* have left me slightly haggard. I'm getting there though. Referenced files should keep the overall storage down but means I need to keep on top of back ups. And I don't understand how the Aperture library works really. And I need to clear some space on our hard drive. But apart from that it's going swimmingly.

slow down

[Non uni related post warning]

After rattling off several photos over the last 2 weeks and thinking there were a lot of half decent ones. Looking back over them on flickr I'm starting to think I was too quick to judge them, it seems a new body and lens has an inherent learning curve. Some have come out ok, most are reasonable after posting what I thought was one of the better ones on a forum for feedback someone pointed out a really obvious (now) patch of light behind the subject making it seem like they're wearing a hat! So this week I will be mostly looking and not taking. Want to replace the 28mm f2.8 with a 35mm f2, much prefer the field of view to the 50mm and for the amount of silly dark shots I take an even larger aperture is necessary. Then I'll need to start hammering out a few hundred pics to get a handle on that lens. Hopefully after that I can settle into a relationship I was beginning to have with the d40/50mm set up.

o m (actual) g

Seems I missed an email (what a surprise) to say conditionals are normal, just means they're waiting on police and health checks but assuming they're fine (they should be, settle down) I have a place.

In a university.




I need a drink.

what the ...?

I have no idea what this means? I have my degree etc so I called them. They weren't sure either so I've to call back in half an hour. It could be for a waiting list or a course they want me to do OR because I forgot to hand in my National Insurance number. Bloody hell it's tense.

google.co.uk

The hungry caterpillar rocks. This is all.

anticipation

Was it the Bounty ad that used "just anticipating" as a line?

Anyway, just waiting for the last email so I can get on with my life but as I sit in my jim-jams drinking tea and watching the sun stream in I get the feeling I can't really lose. I'll be gutted if it's another no not least because I've invested so much in the whole process (6 months, 3 interviews and far too much cash) but also because in the last interview I'd convinced myself this is what I want to do. In Newcastle I felt like it was the last thing I'd want to do.

However, if it's not to happen then so be it. I've been through worse (losing mobile phone down lift shaft this week is a case in point) and in every* case I've ended up better off. Kicked out of Art school, kicked off uni course, almost kicked out of uni, company worked for went bust, the list is as long as it is embarassing but in every instance I managed to find some silver lining. Today it seems even clearer, I live in a warm climate with good friends and a lady that funds my extravagant lifestyle. I get decent money for something I mostly enjoy doing and I have enough free time to pursue other interests.** Not really a bad scenario ;)

*So far, this could be challenged on a monthly basis the way my luck splutters hot and cold.

**Some might say obsessions. (They'd be wrong obviously)

3 down...

One left and I find out tomorrow. So we'll be looking for a new flat in either Derby or Madrid very soon...

the end

Well it's finally over. Sort of. My last interview, this time at Nottingham, was on Thursday and marked the last part of the process for me. It was a wicked way to end, the panel were lots of fun and cracked a couple of jokes, made me feel at home and gave lots of little nods. I was pretty shocked and held my breath waiting for the difficult question to come up but it never did. Or if it did I never saw it. I asked the 2 big questions:

Is there anything I've said you'd like me to expand upon?

No, I think you've covered everything.

Are there any weak points in my application that would prevent me from studying here?

Well it's all relative; if we have 2 Nobel prize winners applying your chances are slim but if we have slavering psychopaths then you've probably got a better chance.

Bloody hell! Bring on the psychopaths! So all in all a great way to finish regardless of the outcome especially given I'd considered not turning up for this one given how badly things went at Newcastle.

In other news I am the proud owner of a cheap and cheerful 28mm fixed lens and a not so cheap 50-150 f2.8 lens as well as a new fujifilm s5 body. Only proble is I'm helping Carla with her work for the next 3 hours...

Only a few days since I posted about making decisions and again I'm mired in self debate. (not to be confused with maths debating which is far more fun) This time it's meant to be exciting, buying a camera body, but it's turned into a bloody nightmare. Buying stuff is normally fun but this is like being cutlery for a specfic occasion, can it do this? No? well what can it do? Ok cool Ill take it..hang on this one looks better, what does it do? Round and round and round. I just want a bloody camera that will do what I want when I want it and quickly. It's a (ridiculously expensive) tool, not a car. Was on the brink of buying one until some issue with the validity of the warranty reared it's head and since then it's been a war of attrition. Essentially it boils down to whether a buy an (arguably) better body than I have for £450 or a far better body for £750. Neither is new and neither come with a warranty. £400 or more on electronic goods without warranty? Have I gone mad? Quite possibly but at £1000 new-soon to rise to £1250-for the more expensive one then it seems more reasonable. Did you see how I did that? I made hundreds and hundreds of pounds of kit (second hand and without warranty) seem like a decent deal. That can't be good.

big mon's got a book an' that eh

Carla's padre is a published author now!

nice one mR D

friends

Another short entry, it's late and I'm working tomorrow-I don't normally work Fridays and this is the 3rd in a row. I don't need to tell you I'm missing my 3 day weekend. Anyway, been feeling pretty sorry for myself recently to the extent I'm tempted to blow a grand on a camera body, *ahem*, but the G funk sent a wicked little email basically reminding me how good my bird and my mates are amongst other things. He's right, I've done well, bloody well, to assemble the stalwarts that stick by me and help me out (usually moving/selling/posting bike stuff) when I need their help. I've stayed with mates in London 3 times in the last 6 months and I'm about to crash at a mates in Nottingham next week. Even today I was bouncing camera ideas around with henkle and the funk, when was the last time I actually laid eyes on them? Ages ago. So yeah he's right, I'm well off in all the right places, which is good as I'm still gonna buy that camera.

Besazos all!

a quickie

check out sean flanigan's work, awesome. Now click on his 'info' to find out how old he is.

decisions decisions decisions

Edit: get yourself a cup of tea and some biscuits before embarking on this post, it's bloody massive.


I was going to title this post 'what should i do?' but felt that might be a bit melodramatic. Yet, it's a question I seem to have been asking myself for nigh on 9 years now. When I sat my Highers back in the day it was a done deal, med school was in my sights and if all went to plan it was in the bag. I got my grades, had done plenty of work experience and was psyched to even get an interview. So when I had my place sorted before I even started 6th year I felt calm. At least for a while. Growing up, well since the age of 12 at any rate, there were only ever 2 choices in my mind: med school or art school. My careers advisors hadn't been all that great and my psychometric tests showed a worryingly shite list of ideas, top of which was barman. Eh, ta! In 5th year I'd had to drop art as med schools didn't consider it a hard enough subject and if you sat it you were pretty certain to be overlooked by them. I took it up again in 6th year and I'd like to say I became obsessed and never looked back but that didn't quite happen. The plan had been to start painting again after a year of hard studying, put together a portfolio and see what happened more because I knew I'd never have a year just to do that. Sadly with a place at uni I slacked off and I just started getting good again (I'd lost a lot even in that one year) towards the end of the year when it was time to leave school. By then, however, I'd started to fall out of love with the idea of med school, it was never the idea of being a doctor-I've never nor am I likely to ever think that it's anything but an ace job. Sure there will be times you feel utterly powerless, impotent to stop a disease, days where everyone you speak to is vitrolic and unreceptive, times when you are so completely exhausted and done in you feel like leaving it altogether but from everything I've seen and everything I know of myself, it would have been worth it. It was never the job so much as the effect of the job, the knowledge that I would become completely absorbed by it to the exclusion of those around me, specifically my family- existing and future. So I started having doubts and decided to defer entry and do a gap year which Glasgow Uni was more than happy about. (even then I could make dropping out sound good, 'gaining life experience' I think was the phrase I'd used) At the same time I organised an end of year comedy/skit thing at school and adored it. Thinking my time abroad could be used to further something like this I took off travelling for a year. What actually transpired was me fretting about 'proper' jobs versus the arts and all the gash you talk when you're 18 and you think the world owes you something.

So I ended up back home a year later having withdrawn from med school and trying to organise a portfolio for art school. I was sat at my Dad's, whom I was living with at the time, when September the 11th unfolded in front of me. It was, and still is, a pretty fucked up thing to see and I was a bit thrown by the whole thing, I mean what use is painting or design when something like that can happen? So I contacted Glasgow uni. And that's how I got accepted to med school the second time; a phonecall, some checks of my previous application (they hold them for 5 years) and a simple 'yes' was all it took.

Of course I turned it down soon after. Again. I reasoned that the things which had put me off the first time were exactly the same a year and a bit later so I was better off in a different field altogether. Hmm. That's how I ended up in art school but not painting or even in the fine arts faculty (Glasgow art school at least is split into fine art on one side and design on the other and never the two shall meet) but in product design. Why? Well it was arty, maybe designy is a better description, but still retained an air of credibility outside arty circles, it could almost be seen as a proper job. I have to say that within arty circles it was seen as second only to architecture as the lowest of the low, well that was the perception at glasgow anyway. I had chosen a halfway house and by god did I make a mistake. I don't have many regrets but starting that abomination of a course would probably be one, it was fucking awful. Shoddily taught, under funded and just a joke from start to finish. Clearly I kept my opinions to myself though...Perhaps that's why I failed my resit.

I had submitted my portfolio to the illustration department in a bid to abandon the sinking ship which meant not handing it into my own department in time and an automatic resit. Fine, totally worth it I thought not contemplating they would fail it. Which of course they did. It would have been nice to have found that out prior to fresher's week of what I thought would be my second year though. When I confronted them and asked to see my examiner's marking sheets I found comments such as, 'is he really committed to the course,' and 'does he want to be on the course?' I took them to task on the criteria of their marking, that my work was under scrutiny not me but they were unrelenting and I would have to repeat 1st year. They refused, although allowed 2 others who failed, to allow me to carry the resit into 2nd year. It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened as I ended up at 'proper' uni and after another 2 years of nightmares with uni departments I managed to get a pretty decent degree result. It had been the hardest thing I'd done, I was completely out of my depth studying literature until my 3rd year of uni but thankfully it came together after that.

Then I decided I still wanted to be a doctor. I guess this is already a long story (well done if you've made it this far by the way!) but essentially I knew by then regardless of what I decided to do I'd end up working hellishly long hours and giving it my all; so I thought it may as well be a worthwhile job I enjoy doing. Nearly 2 years on from that point I'm about to get knocked back for the second year on the bounce. Can't say I blame them, an arts student during a recession isn't a great look and I was honest/daft enough to tell them I'd been accepted before and knocked it back. Ah well never mind worse things happen at sea.

So I'm back in the same place as I was all those years ago which isn't the worst thing in the world, there are millions of people far, far worse off than me but you tend to be more miserable about your own fate than folk you've never met, I feel. Plus in those 9 years I've managed to go to india twice, brazil, nepal and australia once each, work in a bike shop (I never thought that would happen) teach in the Dalai Lama's monastery, move to Madrid and find a bird who is every bit as amazing as you could wish for, not bad really. Now that I'm a bit older I can see the merit in just getting on with it rather than pondering and debating it forever. The thing is I can't see many, possibly any, 'proper' jobs I'd like to do so I'm quite tempted to try my hand at something creative. What exactly I'm not sure of but then I never have been.

killing me softly

Had an excellent weekend devoted to seeing friends, Friday night having dinner with Alex and Sandra lubricated by wine and whisky, Saturday we had lunch with Olga and Pavlos, I met Eric for a beer and then yesterday we hooked up with Rubén and José for lunch and cake. Superb.

Today started well, the class was relatively quiet and paying attention while we went through the timetable and menu and then Anás woke up. He's an awesome kid who got a rough time last year because he doesn't always listen, sometimes he found his hands more entertaining than the class, hell sometimes he found a piece of lint more interesting, and he would shout out (wrong) answers at inopportune moments. Little has changed.

I brought him to the front to tell me whose turn it was to do the weather and the date today.

"Anás and Fiorella."

Then he sat down. The entire class called his name and told him to go to the front, so he did. In order to illustrate names belonging to people I asked everyone in the class whose name was David to raise their hands, myself and the only student called David did so. As did Anás. Cue more shouting of his name from the mob who were caught between laughter and anger at him. I asked him if his name was David.

"Yes!"
"You're sure? you're sure your name (pointing at him) is David?"
"Yes." (nodding hard enough to shake his teeth loose)
"Your name is David?"
"Yeeees."

By now the class were in the aisles wetting themselves and I was beginning to wonder if his name actually was the same as mine, so I moved on.

"What day is it today?"
"David."

Somedays you teach a kid the difference between right and wrong, other days you're just happy when they know their own name.