I'm starting to sound a bit like a broken record now, but... November was a lot?! Mostly me frantically preparing for MA hand in, then trying to let my hair down post hand-in, then realising rapidly that IT AIN'T OVER YET
It started quite nicely though — I went to my first gig since the before-times. It was kind of a surprise, as I hadn't been planning on it, but my friend George had a spare ticket for jazz man Matthew Halsall at the Barbican, and I decided that it might be a good opportunity to ease myself back in gently, even if I did spend the whole evening tensing up whenever anyone coughed.
Music was beautiful though and I'm at the age now where a seated show is [whisper it] ...quite nice
Some days it be like that. Though hormones may have played a part in this one.
With my MA final project hand-in deadline looming, I struggled to find time to focus on it because of work commitments.
I guess you could say I have some amount of regret about deciding to make 30 sets of 144 tiny items, many of which require folding...
A whole year since my perfect boy left us. I still can't believe it, and it still hurts every single day. The way he went. The space he left behind. It really does feel like the pain will never go away.
But we've been so lucky to have our new friend Chase in our lives for most of this year, who has been such a comforting and supportive presence. We're still getting to know her ways, and, unsurprisngly given her fear of thunderstorms, fireworks night was an upsetting time for her. Even more upsetting because on the 5th there were informal displays, and on the 6th and 7th there were MASSIVE displays in Battersea Park, which is very close to our house. Three days of big bangs! We tried out the 'thunder shirt' on the recommendation of our vet — it's a tight jersey suit with velcro fastenings, with which you can effectively swaddle your dog, and for many this has a substantial calming effect. This made a little difference we think, and is probably good for day to day scaries like 'hockey ball go bang' or 'smol thunderstorm', but didn't really cut it for the ultimate dog scare fest that is fireworks night. So I got her one of the dog pheremone collars, that supposedly slow-release the same pheremones nursing mother dogs give off to comfort their puppies. This definitely made a difference to Chase. She was still scared but was much more able to lie still and calm, and wasn't constantly shaking and drooling and panting. Will definitely get her another one next year!
It's kalette season yo, can't beat 'em. My favourite is roasted in the oven with salt and olive oil until crispy!
Readers of last month's blog may have been wondering, does Emma have lung cancer?! I am pleased to confirm Emma does not have lung cancer, or COVID, just a persistant, unexplained cough. Sadly the next set of tests I'd need to establish cause (maybe allergies or something else) aren't running at the moment (because of COVID), so unless it gets much worse, GP's official advice is 'keep on toughing it out and call us again in the new year'. I am entirely fine with this outcome, mostly just relieved to not be dying.
My final MA project is very colourful, and I got my nails coloured to match! (Despite having very little free time, I decided that this was important)
When my partner goes away, I have to get up at around 6 to take Chase out for her morning toilet. (We don't have a garden so this involves about a 10 minute round trip, so it's impossible to just stay asleep while doing it). Much though I hated having to do this every day when I lived alone with Charlie, having to do it occasionally tends to spur me on to a very productive day. I wish I could happily wake up at 6am every day!
Felt like my visual diaries had been getting a bit lazy (I mean, I HAVE been busy), so did a painting of some lovely plants from the park to try and make up for it. (Also maybe procrastinating putting the finishing touches on my project)
Official submission day for our final MA project was November 16th, but I was done on the 14th and sick of looking at the damn thing, so I just uploaded it and decided to have a rest. If there was anything I could have done in those 48 hours that would have upgraded me from a pass to a merit, or a merit to a distinction, I sure as hell don't know what it was.
To celebrate my (very brief) newfound freedom, I took a London excursion up to Mill Hill East, to wave my friends Jonathan and Dan off before their big move to Australia. I'd never been to Mill Hill East before. They gave me a nice hot chocolate and took me to a cute garden centre. I was also very excited to travel the entire way there up the Northern Line, starting from my new local station Battersea Power Station! (Yes I am a big nerd, we know this by now) (Also I dated this one wrong, d'oh!
Actual hand in day was a bit of an anti-climax, with the post-hand-in meeting mostly consisting of our head tutor saying 'yes yes, well done, now here's the million other things you have to do before the end of term'. I did treat myself to a lie in and lots of delicious foods though, so that was something.
Our formal submission day was on the 16th, but that was just a digital submission. We had the chance to drop off our physical outcomes at uni the next day, but that too was a bit of an anticlimax.
If you're interested in seeing my project, I have a dedicated website for it here, which has a nice explainer of it in the 'about' section.
There's also some photos of the physical object/set (and my lovely nails) on my creative instagram, here
Anyway, over the last couple of pandemic/MA years I've put on over a stone — because Charlie died (less exercise and also sad), I've been sitting at my desk a lot, and because food is a great joy that I refuse to deprive myself of. I'm not happy though, I hate struggling to run for a bus and getting tired going up the stairs, so IMMEDIATELY after hand in (perhaps too keen given how much work I still have to do), I went and joined the gym over the road. It's run by a private company, but I'm pretty sure is as close as this jurisdiction gets to a local authority gym. It's very cheap, slightly laissez-faire in some respects, and crucially has a real cross-section of the local community attending (in terms of age, fitness level, race, everything!)
Gyms are scary but this one felt welcoming, and because I got a student membership I get to attend all classes for FREE! And I got two free personal trainer sessions, which was mildly terrifying. I was paired up with an incredibly hench Persian man who used to be on the UK olympic weights team. Unsurprisingly, he tried to get me to do weights. I told him no to weights, but did take on board a lot of his advice about incorporating strength training into my workout, not just cardiovascular (i.e. using the lift-heavy-things machines not just the get-out-of-puff machines)
I like the gym so far, but we'll see if it sticks in the longer term.
I immediately jumped on the free classes bandwagon and had a great time at ZUMBA
In other 'finally finished my MA' (kind of) errands, I went down to Brighton, especially to get a haircut from my old hairdresser there, who I lost for a few years and then finally re-found. He gave me a dramatic haircut that is still growing on me. (Literally, I guess).
Here's said haircut (and some embarassingly bad drawings of my face, some days drawing just... doesn't work?!)
Went for my second personal trainer session and he made me flap the ropes about like an idiot, and yes I know all the hot hench men do it, but I will not be flapping the ropes again.
Went to give blood (which I have done numerous times before) and the nurse inserted the needle into my arm in a way that made me say 'SOMETHING'S WRONG' and quietly 'aaaaaaaagggghhhhhhh' so as not to alarm the people waiting to give, until she took it out again. Possibly she hit a tendon? Or just went in wonky? Anyway they gave me this very gentle leaflet called 'Arm Care', which should basically have been called 'So we fucked up your arm', full of information about when to panic and when not to panic. (Anyway don't let that put you off giving blood, it's a good thing to go and they give you snacks!)
I've mostly managed to stave off the winter blues quite well so far, but we kept getting the central heating wrong and the house felt like an icebox, and I got quite miserable.
As well as being very busy with freelance work, one of the things we have to organise before the end of term is a 'symposium' day, which celebrates the launch of a small publishing press associated with the course, and the publication of the course's annual book of critical design writing (which I, remarkably, have contributed to). I've been involved with the press and will be running a workshop on the day of the symposium, which obviously comes with a fair bit of organisational stress (though to be fair, other people on my course are taking on the brunt of that, it's still occupying a lot of my headspace).
I begun to somewhat regret my mid-October attitude of 'book loads of fun stuff after hand in day', because it turned out hand-in day absolutely did not mark the beginning of chill out time. BUT, tickets had been booked, so off me and my partner went to the museum of brands, which I can highly recommend if you have a couple of hours to kill near Notting Hill. We also went to Nakanojo, a quite-fancy Japanese Peruvian place for lunch, and it was some of the best restaurant food I've had in a long time! I want to take everyone there! (But you're paying next time). Was fun to have a cute date, which, considering we've been dating for nearly 2 years, we've had remarkably few of. Pandemic'll do that I guess...
One longstanding bone of contention for me on our course was UAL's stubborn refusal to offer us an end of year show. Maybe it's stupid but it was a big thing for me — I love grad shows and was really looking forwards to the chance to show off my work and see it alongside that of all of my cohort. The general attitude from our tutor in charge of organising the end of year event/s (NOT Tony pictured here, who is great) was 'the symposium is all you're getting, no you can't display your work there, tough it out', which I found, frankly, unhelpful, but I had come to peace with the fact that, ostensibly for COVID related reasons, we would not get a show. (Even though no one else seems to be letting COVID stop events running any more, for now at least)
So it came as a bit of a surprise to have it hinted at on hand-in day that maybe there WOULD be an on-site show, and then, just a week before said show was expected to go up, to be told that we would recieve no assistance in organising it, and that if none of us stepped up to plan, curate, hang, label etc, we would simply not get a show. ONE WEEK before the show hang.
Having desperately wanted a show, but also being super busy with other work, I waited, and waited, and waited for someone else on the course to step up and say 'yeah, I'll organise it'. But no one did. Most of the kind of people who like doing this stuff were already occupied with the symposium day, and most of the kind of people who don't like doing this stuff had literally gone on holiday (seeing their lovely tourist snaps on instagram made me grit my teeth a little).
So anyway hey guess what, I'm organising a show, it hangs on Friday, opens next Tuesday, and if you wanna come I'll share a link to the tickets page with people who subscribe to my newsletter. (Not gonna put it out here for general consumption as I think numbers are somewhat limited).
So now I am VERY STRESSED but in like 2 weeks this will all be over and I can stop writing about how stressed I am! (I hope)
Spent all day today drawing up an elaborate plan for the exhibition space with everyone's work in (which incidentally is much too small for our cohort, hence needing someone to lead on layout, that someone being me). Then spent the rest of the day redrawing it upon recieving new information about the space that UAL had not deigned to share with us before. Honestly the whole thing is an absolute shitshow, we got kicked out of the building yesterday because it flooded, all the academic staff are going on strike tomorrow because the university treats them like crap, and the other tutor who was supposed to be offering me assistance with this simply is not responding to her emails. Feeling less affectionate towards academia every day tbh
WISH ME LUCK 😅 (I am using that emoji about 20 times a day at the moment)
