A6 - Revert to Type

Typography…simple…at least that’s what I thought before starting this Unit. I was surprised at the depth that you can go into typography. When we first had our lecture on this topic, I can honestly say that I was so naive about what it entailed. I seriously thought that it was, as simple as putting your uppercase here and your full stops there. And learning what fonts are appropriate for certain tasks. But during the first lecture I realised how much I had to learn. You could go on learning typography everyday, it’s such a deep topic. And with many areas also, for example font and letter name typography, Newspaper typography, design typography and I’m sure there is many more to add.

During the A6 assignment I learnt so much about the design world, that is considered to be standard practise concerning such skills as type, and also I believe that I have gained the experience short it may be, but the experience of work that you could receive at a work place the Pressure work. This coming with the timed, surprise assignments. It was certainly a different way for us to work, walking into a room not knowing whether you would be given a task to complete and how long you would be allocated to do the task, it gave me a feeling of anticipation and excitement. And I believe that in each of the tasks I performed as well as I could have done, in respect to the pressure, and the skills I had then. I feel I would possibly complete the same tasks again in much quicker time, and to a possibly higher standard, but none the less I am extremely happy with the work that I have produced.

Running along side these surprise tasks the preparation for the presentations had to be completed, including research slide shows, hand outs and on top of this learning the presentation, but although my first reaction was a little fear at doing another presentation, when I fought it through I realised that because of the time allocated to do this task, there was more than enough time to learn the presentation and there couldn’t be bad nerves on the day if I knew the slide show well enough, and I found that the more I worked on creating the slides and hand outs, I was inadvertently learning the presentation without actually trying, which was a major plus come the deadline day, and the days before, as I didn’t have to knuckle down so much and try to cram it all in.

Overall this assignment has been impressive, it kept me interested with the surprise assignments, and I enjoyed completing them. I believe it was a healthy mix between the two (presentation and Timed assignments) and it didn’t call for drastic time planning amendments as there was plenty of time to complete both. But I will say that although I enjoyed the whole journey to the deadline, come deadline day it gave a shock ending to a smooth ride. By this however I do not mean that the presentation went bad, because I felt it was pretty good, I was happy with my performance however I believe I should have done better with a few questions and again surprise element added, but I believe I should have answered more questions correctly than I did, but I feel I answered enough to show that I do have an understanding of typography.

I thought that the final act of the deadline day was the shock ending, I knew we would have a tough task given to us, but I really did find it tough. Not just in the topic, but the time that the tasks had to be completed in, to finish in that space of time you must really be organised and very well prepared, I unfortunately did not finish this task, so I’m not optimistic about how my grade will fair. As obviously a failed task is a failed assignment. But all I can do is wait and see how i did, and look forwards to starting the new assignment.

Draw the Curtains

Presentation time, from an expected visitor and myself, plus a trip to the Underground and the Times

Deadline day is drawing ever closer in fact it’s one week away, and it’s time to finalise, hopefully! Personally it’s been a great week; I was present at a very interesting presentation from a fellow pupil, and now working in the industry. I think that I speak for us all that it was a worthwhile experience? A great contrast from the Design Mechanics trip report. It was good to say that he had the time to come and speak to us and share his experiences in and out of college, and I enjoyed it. It was a real eye opener as to what people well companies will pay for a website, and how designers can capitalise on this and charge high rates, and actually giving them what they pay for.

I liked the impression he gave as to the laid back and friendly approach they took with each other, with being able to work from home possible, take breaks, lunch breaks, and the atmosphere of relaxation even when there actually under the “cosh”.

Unfortunately although I asked questions, today in our feedback meeting, it ought to up questions that I wish I had of asked him, which I didn’t pick up on quick enough to ask yesterday. But I was fairly happy with my contribution, I do feel that there should have been allot more questions thrown at him form us all though, it was a good chance to get into the head of someone who we possibly want to emulate. And it could be considered as a wasted opportunity. He again proved the point that is always stressed to us also, about design for the user, you may have to and will have to design something you really dislike but you’ve got to stick it out because it pays the bills, and he made it clear, and demonstrated it with various examples. So it begs the question who is actually in charge and who actually designs these websites, if clients can be so picky. Could in some instances you only be the Greece monkey and their, the brains?

Important and constructive criticism/feedback was gained on my presentation which I am grateful for also, and I feel more confident that I now have a practise run under my belt and useful it was. Plenty of imperfections that need correcting but time is on my side, and hopefully it’s a clear flat run to deadline day, no “off roding” welcome. Jamie

Don Don, Donn..

User Testing, Started and Finished but it’s not over by any means! Leading up to the User Testing day, I wanted an almost finished website, so I could get all possibly niggles out of the way and concentrate on making it better rather than still building it. And fortunately I did this, which enabled me to get feedback, and act on it…soon, that is.

Moving round the room however I was surprised at the amount of websites still not completed, for me personally I saw user testing day as a mini deadline to get my website up and running before that date, so that the feedback I would receive was actually going to help me improve my website before the hand-in date. But it was pretty obvious that every one in the room didn’t see it as that, or if they did it didn’t show, but by saying that I’m not in any means trying to offend or criticise the websites, as in my opinion there are some great websites around the room, I was impressed with the different ideas that people had imagined and put into practise.

It was a long morning however and I hope everyone had the desired results they were hoping form but I know that it gave me bits and bobs to work on, and I gained the feedback I wished for in certain areas, such as my images. I now have many opinions pointing me in the direction I need to follow to improve my website, and I aim to get these improvements made, and get further feedback on those. But that’s enough of that, let’s get into some bombing. The infamous task bombing.

Two tasks to be exact on Thursday morning, there was a part one, and a part two, which when completing task one, task two was not mentioned, to keep the “Surprise” aspect. The order of the day was to create a layout for a newsletter “All That Jazz”. In this hour the main goal was to chose a suitable column layout to stick with, that would be suitable to use for many issues, and to create the page header. It seemed a fairly straight forward task but when time is ticking down, and your sketching roughs, you just cant wait to get an idea to click, and then to produce this on the computer, with this being sort of a newspaper style, white space had to be filled, and this proved difficult for my initial design, when being told this I had about ten minutes to correct, and in fact change my design, which put the pressure on me but I worked it out and got the work in on time!

The second task was then to fill the page space that was surrounded by our previous design. We were given the content, and an image in which we could crop and resize to how we liked, but as is the case with the newspaper designs, getting all the text to fall in line, leaving no Widows, Orphans unnecessary gaps is a real pain at times, and you end up changing font sizes and leadings over and over, it really puts the pressure on you when you’re having to do this minutes before the deadline. But I must say I enjoy it, it surprises me how many different designs people come up with in such a short space of time, when you think that the designs you have down on paper is pretty much the be all and end all, is fantastic. There are some really talented people in the group and that shows when they produce something different than the simple kinds of stuff that I do. It also surprises me at how quickly you can actually produce something, its all definitely good practise for us. Jamie

Team Time...Time Team...

During feedback sessions we were given the information that in the second year there would be a team task. The subject unknown but we had to give our thoughts on the idea, and our possible roles. Who would want to be the big time boss!? And who wants to let the credibility fly by and just be the ground hog worker!? Though in actual fact there is more to the idea of just putting your hand up, and volunteering or bossing your way into the Leaders position. As this role would take part in less practical work and designing and if the volunteer was the strongest designer or somebody with the most skills, then would you not want these kinds of people more hands on!? And so you’re with the idea of the weakest person in charge? Well would these "Stronger" people listen to a weaker link? I guess this then comes down to your team’s strength in depth and the respect you would and should show each other. Mixed roles would have to be taken on surely!?

After leaving the feedback room, we were told to visit http://www.belbin.com/downloads/Belbin_Team_Role_Summary_Descriptions.pdf, this is a table of Team Roles, showing the team role members strengths and of course weaknesses. If you check the table out you can see that there are nine roles, or brackets that you could be placed in. Reading through the list and the strengths and weaknesses I would probably regard myself to be in the "Team worker" role, contributing skills such as co-operative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic. With general downsides being indecisive in a crunch situation, although I don't feel I’m actually that bad. I would say that the weakness I have would be under another category. This being "Specialist" (contributes on only narrow front, dwells on technicalities).

I feel this because I don't feel I have the skills to be a lead designer somebody in charge of the designing and the technical part of a project, but the basics I can do. I would accept responsibility and do what I was asked to do, nothing special, just acceptable. I wouldn't either class myself as being a great leader in a task, as the organising of time wouldn't be of a great and accurate standard.
I take on a leader’s role at work and football, but these are my strengths. I'm good at what I do in both of these so I have the respect factor from my workers, and players and I take the leaders role and make it myself. I enjoy the power of telling people what to do, and in that case I guess that because of this I show the weaknesses of a co-ordinator. At work I tell people to do things that I myself could do, and in many cases when they do these wrong I have to make up there mistakes and fix wrongs. This also applies to football, I like nothing better than to shout my mouth of all game long telling people what to do and what they should of done, I like motivating my players and making them feel the fire in there bellies to give that extra mile that is needed, I like it when it all comes together and I see what the team has achieved at the end of the game and how well we did, leaving me never without a loss of words when something goes wrong and I feel they need to know about it. But doing this in something I’m not established in is a different game all together, would somebody who is and they know are considerably more talented and skilled than me in this business listen to what I had to say and tell them? And would I have suitable and appropriate things to say? I don’t think that I would.

All of this is definitely worth thinking about in deeper depth, and its something I should definitely do, as I have only cracked the surface and it would be an advantage to know a bit of background knowledge in different roles that you would need to be taken on within a group. And what roles would gel and stick together to create a smooth running operation. Jamie

"Going Underground" Mr Weller!?

After a long spell away from college, an early finish Thursday and then Wednesday off for...a trip to our very own capital...London! Since the finish on Thursday I had been looking forwards to the away day "down south" but unfortunately it was full off "shoulda woulda coulda". A real disappointment that the Tate was actually shut when we arrived after trailing across London on trains, and tubes. Well I say shut, it was open but the visual fancies were hidden away, behind doors, guards and big white sheets. As I have never seen that side of London before I was really looking forwards into getting an "Artie, or in fact a Designie" head on, so it was a real let down when the truth hit. Not that I didn't enjoy what was to follow but it was a real waste of a journey in that sense, although Level 3 and 5 slides were concurred, I left my mark on the Tate..a fearless child's slide rider!

After the disappointment we then had the day to explore, and explore, walk and very tempting with all the apparent "Joggers" jogging around was jogging. But walking sounded the best to me. I'm sure you all know its an absolutely huge place and you never really well I never really knew what was round the corner...Trafalgar Square, Soho, and Oxford Street in fact. Overall I really enjoyed myself and it was a change of scenarie, and a great experiance. I enjoyed the company all the way there and back and throughout the day which made the day just flow and flow, it was suprising how fast it all actually went.

Thursday and the much argued title of "Task Bombing" take cover for "Jonathan Gee" and the "Hokai Oriental Gouache" I actually enjoyed this, I did initially fear this, but when it came I found them interesting, and brought out a productive side of me and no doubt us all. Definaly an experiance and a taste of what we would have to face in the workplace, havnig to Stop, Drop and Roll. Check out my Designs and let me know what you think.

See you all Next Week. Jamie

Well That's Enough of That...FIGHT!

Well this week the new Assignments are well underway, and the progress I have made is a real confidence boost to me. Starting the week I was lets say, "Bricking it" what the hell is "Dreamweaver" and what do I do !? but after a couple hours of playing around, I figured out a few "Basic" techniques that would help me in doing what I wanted to do! (Create some kind of web page) After all of the playing around it gave me some kind of confidence booster that I needed to get kicked off with the creation of my web page, and that I did. From Monday onwards I have without knowing it been tinkering and tinkering with Grids, Guides, Cell's, Tables all kinds of foreign tools.

So here I am, Thursday...and I thought that I have been a "Weaver of Dreams" - Hubert 2007 (Thanks Dean) for long enough. After I left college this afternoon, and by the way I hope the Huddersfield Outing went well too all who went, I came home and sat down to some researching. I found myself in a battle between Helvetica and Arial, something I thought I'd never say but an actually battle between Helvetica and Arial, feel free to play...http://www.engagestudio.com/helvetica/. Also for those of you who are in search of Helvetica games try this test out http://www.iliveonyourvisits.com/helvetica/.

I never thought before that Fonts and Typography went so deep, to me before a font was something I used to write. If i liked it I used it, if I didn't well then..I didn't. But there so much behind them, which amazes me. So much history and feeling behind letters and numbers! Just like colour, my eyes have been opened to the world of Design, Designers and of course the tools these workmen/women use. Jamie

A5 - Builder. Design #3

The feedback I recieved for my previous Designs brought to my attension that I had too much "White Space". I have countered this as you can see by using a light shade of grey. I like the effect it has had on my design, It certainly draws your attension much more effectively to the important information. Where as the pevious design allowed your eyes to wonder around the page.

Design #3

A5 - Builder

Heres what I did this Self Study, Just a quick go at using Dreamweaver. This is something like what my website will look like, so please leave feedback...

Design #1












Design #2

Welcome Back..

Welcome back everyone, I hope you all had a great Christmas and New year, but unfortunately play time is now over!

The start of Interactive Media in the new year is now under way, and the introduction of two new Assignments supports the case, A5 and A6. Having looked at these assignments they do look fairly interesting, and it's no secret that there is less writing involved than the previous assignments. Although i didn't mind the amount of writing previous as my experience is that the writing comes compulsory with an assignment, but I would say that its a relief to see that there is less emphasis on this now.

I am really looking forwards to getting underway in the creation of the website, I am practically a complete novice to website creation, so I am eager to see how I do, and also how quickly I have to again learn new software. I am sure that during this creation period many errors will occur so I aren't looking for an easy ride what so ever.

As for the second assignment which we no very little about, I cant really comment on but what I will say is its quite exciting at the prospect of not knowing what you are doing until the day, hour or minute. But of course this comes with a slight feeling of unease as I don't know how i will cope with possibly a timed task or the difficulty of it.

Overall it feels as good as it could be to be back, but its time to get on with it so here we go! Jamie

Learn You're Lesson

My last week of the holidays are now coming to an end, with only two days left of my own, it's time to gain a work mind set, ready to start and complete the remainder of the course, and the remaining assignments that are left.

Looking back at the first half year, I would be in denial if I was to say that I was completely happy with my performance, and that there wasn't much that I could improve on. I have mentioned many times before that I desperately need to improve my attitude to self study, I simply didn't do enough, and I was extreamly lucky and it took a lot of effort to get my last two assignments in on time. But in the same manor not trying to make excuses as to why this happened, I experienced computer troubles for a while, and it was this that set me quite a fair bit back, but I Know that it was up to me to make that time back up, and I simply didn't.

I desperately want to improve on this in the near future, as I believe it would make the second half of the year run much much smoother, as the work will get harder. At the moment I am in the process of attaining something that will help me in achieving more self study time, as I have finally come to my senses and gotten rid of my dodgy machine, and instead of relying on my sisters machine I am going to purchase a new one for my self to replace the infamous one in which I blame my downfall. This should be happening in the coming week, and I am hoping that this will free up self study time and allow me an opportunity to do self study in short bursts whenever they are possible, rather than waiting for a full day to open up, to beg and borrow my sisters PC.

Before I began to write this blog entry, I had a little scan of my Formative Statement that I completed in September. I have no doubt that I chose the right option in joining this course, as it's been a great experience, and I believe that a University or a full time job, would not of been a much greater choice. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in studying on the HND Interactive Media course, and long may it continue. I have come a long way from the time that I wrote that statement, I wrote that I was eager to start the course properly and start my first assignment and now three assignments on I still have that eagerness to receive new assignments, as I no that I gain so much, new skills and tricks and also knowledge of new and exciting software, that I have previously never even heard of.

In my statement I wrote that for the future I wanted to successfully complete the Interactive Media course, to the best or to exceed my best ability, unfortunately so far I am not exceeding my ability and in my opinion I'm not even reaching the level of work that I could, which is really disappointing to me. But I feel that an advantage of knowing this is that I have alot of time to change it, and I hope that I will keep my place and have the chance to do this. I already believe that so far I have changed alot from when I first walked through the door of the classroom. I believe that I have gained a level of professionalism in my works appearance, which I was never taught to have as a skill before and a skill which I am glad to have, as the assignments that I have handed in, I look at and can't believe how different they are to my previous college assignments from years before. But the most important to me are the skills I have picked up in the software we use, when I first used the likes of "Adobe Pagemaker and Photoshop" I didn't have the slightest clue what to do, I would go as far as saying I didn't even know how to open up a new page, and know I can create pieces of work in both of them, all be it, to a novice standard and I do realise that the skills I know are nothing to what is still to learn, but this only makes me more eager.

Overall the past months I have completed on the HND Interactive Media course are a mixture of many emotions, and I've had many ups but many downs, all of which I believe have added to me as a person, I have made mistakes and I hope that these mistakes will be me a stronger pupil for the remainder of the course, as I firmly believe there is much more to come from me, and I have much more to learn. Jamie

Christmas Break, Christmas Cheer

First off all I would like to apologise for the late entry, my PC did indeed break again, and I've also been away at a family members up until the start of this week.

Looking back to the Deadline day, all I remember is the moment a huge, and I do mean huge relief was lifted up off my shoulders. The day before this date I was in total panic, I started the day with quite a large amount of work needed to be completed, and I truly believed that I wouldn't of met the deadline. As you would expect this is not the greatest feeling in the world and not the best start to a holiday, knowing that you have failed the assignment and in conjunction the course, only making it half way. This was the biggest wake up call of the year, a real slap in the face if you will. I was so proud at the end of the day at what I had achieved, and I realised that I could achieve quite a substantial amount of work when I actually got my head down and worked.

The day of the hand-in I felt quite ashamed at the amount of work I left myself to do on the last week, but I forced myself to praise my self for actually meeting the 12pm goal. I'm in such anticipation at how the assignment will fair, I so hope that it achieves a pass, and I get the thumbs up to carry on with the course, which is so important to me. Failure would be unacceptable and the shame I would face, and the disappointment and should I say the "Grief" I would give my self is something I do not want to experience. So my fingers are firmly crossed.

On a more positive note, It has been such a great experience completing the first half of the first semester, and It is truly a great course, I wouldn't think twice at recommending it to anyone who was interested in joining. I have met alot of great people and already learnt alot from the three assignments I have completed, and I am so eager to learn even more new skills and gain more knowledge. For the second half of the year, I desperately need to get my head down, and give the course much more attention, because big problems would occur if I don't, and I believe the first step at doing this was realising that it does actually need the time, and that I have done.

I hope you've all had a great Christmas and New Year, looking forwards to starting the course again (well as much as you would expect) and hearing all of the story's that people may have, enjoy the rest of your holidays. Jamie

Christmas Joy and Cheer, Full of Smiles and Happiness!?

Here we go! This week has been for me a tough and tiring week, the last week before the now dreaded Deadline Day! Wednesday morning I attended fully knowing that I had a lot of work to do to be able to reach the submission standard assignments for the following day, ready for the following Thursday D - Day.

This pressure almost boosted my enthusiasm to work however; I feel that this week has been my most productive week of the course so far. I have accomplished and gotten on top of so much work this week which has enabled me to relax slightly but still knowing I can’t put my feet up for the holidays yet! I have to give it one last push to reach next Thursday’s deadline, so it will take the dedication over the weekend from self study to enable me to relax and polish my work off for the day before the deadline, which is something I aim to do so hopefully I can produce the work in self study time to enable this.

The one thing that I have found this week is that no matter how much you think you are nearing an end to your assignments the more work you actually find that needs doing, it’s an endless process. Each time I collected all of my work together I realised id missed something out, or needed to complete something to hand in, it gets really tireless and I especially had a torrid time with PageMaker! Because of me finding pieces of information which needed adding, or taking out and then on top of the feedback meeting discussions I had amendments to make, and every time I made them I had to shift images about to the following pages, move references up and down, or to different pages. Add pages delete pages cut and paste here and there, it’s been an absolute nightmare that still isn’t over after a day of tinkering well two days of tinkering! It’s getting to be such a bore but I know that I have to stick with it or else I’m going to hit big problems next week so not to self – Keep it up and crack on!

I am aiming to pretty much get A3 out of the way this weekend with only minor adjustments to make so that next week I can fully concentrate on the A4 assignment which I need to do, as I can truthfully say and admit that it hasn’t been getting the attention that it needs from me, as for weeks I have been working on the A2 work. This is something that in future I really need to work on as if I had two running assignments both as hard and as large as each other I wouldn’t have a chance of getting both completed, I have been really lucky that the A4 assignment is fairly short and helpfully broke down into 4 tasks.

Overall a dull and boring week but at the same time so relieving, but I have to say I cant wait to walk out of the door and get my self home for a long sit down in front of the T.V or the X-box and relax, a well deserved break form work! Ready to crack on with even more work! Could it get any better!? One week till a big Christmas break better I believe...see you all next week. Jamie

Now that's Nice..

Great week this week, both days consisted of designing for me, which made both days fly by with ease. Wednesday, the Back to Basic assignment day, I was designing templates for the final look of my website. Although I didn’t finish these, I now have a greater idea of what I want my final website appearance to look like. A must find this week for self study is content images! Internal, software and external are all needed, so feel free to drop me links to help me out!

Unfortunately Thursday had a down side; my image restoration project has to be started again, due to feedback received in the meeting. Being told to start from scratch again after I know how long it took me to get to that stage, wasn’t such a good thing to hear but what one must do he must do, so I best get cracking on with that to once again reach the stage that I had previously reached.

But of course it’s not that simple, having to get A3 ready to submission standard and complete the image restoration again is a tough feat, but on top of that I now have to create 2 Jazz banners. One has to be a tall skyscraper banner and the other a rectangular shaped banner (I have created some ideas for these and uploaded them so please leave feedback and let me know what you think). But know the pressures of deadline day are upon us yet again, twice over or you could see it as 3 times over including A1 SketchBlog, Ohhh my! And the banners aren’t as easy as you would think either, they do take quite a lot of time, and a fair bit of tweaking to please myself and more importantly the Assessor!

I really need to knuckle down this self study week and get my work to that submission standard week; it would really help me out if I achieved this as I could gain as much feedback as possible, this in turn easing the pressures of deadline week when fears and nerves set in, no slacking!

Website Design Idea

Let me know what you think..

The Three old Champions...

The Three Old Champions

A complete contrast! This week has been made up of two completely different days; Wednesday was a complete bore personally, consisting of Researching, Writing, Researching and again writing. We were doing our A3 Back to Basic website content and god how the day dragged from start to finish, but it had to be done. But although it was dull and boring it was quite relieving. Knowing that, the dull side of the assignment was pretty much out of the way and it only lasted a day! Also it was a good feeling to see that I’d completed a lot of work in that day but I think that in future it would be better to get this kind of work done, the boring, but important work out of the way earlier or possibly do it in sections i.e. Not a full day of it, as it really makes an already long day and even longer day.

Comparing that to Thursday, Whoa what a contrast, my first experience of Photoshop (one plus), new skills learnt in Photoshop (two pluses) and a sense of great achievement as what I created to me personally in my baby designer eyes is non short or brilliant. What we did was, we were given an Image of three old men, a Battered old image, and our task was to turn this, "Crispy" old image into a nice new "Shiny", "Glossy" photograph. I thought when the task was to me, it would completely and utterly lose me, and my lack off skills and knowledge would show through but I believe I’ve done really well and I’m really proud. At the moment it’s still lacking the colour that a few people were adding but I can only take it one step at a time so that’s still to come. (Feel free to leave feedback on the image when it's up on here, it's much appreciated)

After my day with Photoshop I think that I ought to purchase my own copy as it would be really handy, and also I would not mind having my own copy to play around on, it’s really grabbed my attention with what you are capable of doing when using it, and as they say “Practise makes Perfect”. Jamie

Note to self: Self study (note it down) as proof how much self study I have undertaken and what I have achieved in that space of time. Also complete A2 Referrals!

A bunch of Neurons running in parallel

Nerves, Colours and Presentations…
On came the projector
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Presentations
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...
I’ve done them before…I’ve done them in different languages and I’ve done them in different subject areas…no problem! During the lecture I especially took note to the bad mannerisms and posture stances wanting to make a really good go of it, I really thought I would have no trouble at all.

Mellow Yellow well…turns out Yellow bellied, I under took research with my partner, searching for various physiological and cultural differences and meanings to do with yellow, how wrong could I have been in thinking yellow was just a colour, there’s so much information from search results, so many different meanings and cultural importance’s I was shocked! A slide and a fact sheet were created as visual aids to my presentation, with various facts and meanings of yellow and yellow images…right I’m ready to practise!

Vacating the room not quite knowing where I was going and what for I wondered off down to the drama rehearsal room, down there I read through my script altering here there and everywhere hoping to get it making as much sense as possible so I could go and give a worthy presentation, getting it over and done with. I thought I had rehearsed enough and the clock struck 2 so off I went to meet with the rest of the group to the christened “Green Room” awaiting the call for the long long mile walk. “Dead Man Walking” walking the green mile and all!

Calmly sat in the “Green Room” I was second up. Whoa quick call, lets get it over with. I began the walk up to the operating room and the closer and closer I got the more the nerves built up, the longer the walk felt and the further away the room door got! Knocking on the door everything quickly shot back into place…Bang! The door was right in front of me with my task waiting. As I stood at the front of the room, looking out on the whole of the audience, two to be exact…but with double vision at dizzy heights it seemed like a lot more. I don’t know why I suddenly got a serge of nerves, I’m normally a cool person under pressure, tests have always been nothing to me, confrontation and all sorts of things were people might experience nerves I don’t, but this time…this time I got all the nerves I should have gotten from anything else all thrown into one!

I began the presentation and I believe the only part that was easy was saying my name. I knew that fairly well…first hurdle over but I clipped the hurdle and I was slowly, embarrassingly, gradually, staggering to the floor. All I wanted was a bucket of water for my head, a pint of water (or some other kind of liquid) for my mouth and a bucket of sand to swallow me up. It was terrible and worst off all not only did I know it but the audience did too. Not impressed, I was asked to do a retake which in my opinion went a lot better than the first attempt I knew more than my name, I flicked slides, and half of the audience did agree but unfortunately not the target audience which we’ve all being learning about. I looked like a Duracell longer lasting dancing, moving, jigging all over the place rabbit. My breathing wasn’t correct, I needed deeper breaths, but in my opinion I just needed to breathe!

Joining back up with the other victims down in the Green Room was to be fair a fairly relaxed atmosphere, but minutes felt like hours, oh how it did drag…to great relief we were all called back up to the operating room and sent home.

As much as I am disappointed with how I did, I am however glad it’s over with. I don’t know why my reaction was how it was but I don’t want to relive that situation for a while longer.

Next time I defiantly need to practise and rehearse a lot more and a lot more efficiently than I did this time, maybe practise more methods and work a lot more closely with my visual aids in order to complete the presentation smoothly, I believe the more I know about the subject and what I am doing the easier it will be to me. Jamie

Still Growling and Still Sore...Get the Laptops away from Me!!
I can truthfully say that it’s a great relief that this week is finally over. It’s been a horrible week full of stress, torment and all sorts of unnecessary problems. It all started so well what with looking forwards to working all week long with Friday and Monday mornings my only days off and I just knew how busy work was going to be great! I thought to my self with all this work I really need to fit self study in somewhere...anywhere! So I sat down at my pc Friday morning ready to do some A3 “Back to Basic” work…simple…
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What is with this wait…why isn’t my pc powering up!?
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Still Nothing, (you can imagine the words coming out of my mouth) turns out my pc has decided to pack up and leave, Great! So I dashed off to work in the end, worked all weekend long, days and nights. Monday arrives and my pc is still AWOL and no work can be completed on a machine so in a huff I crack on with some sketch book work knowing full well that I would slide behind.

Wednesday and Thursdays actions in detail are in the post below as you can see, but it didn’t get any better having to miss Wednesday morning and subsequently Thursday, reading blogs I’ve missed out on the first PhotoShop outing, it just got better and better!

I managed to get hold of a laptop today and hate them as much as I do I was glad to be able to do some constructive assignment work, not wanting to speak about this week no more I am completely looking to next week and hopefully with a new or just fixed pc and the opportunity to do some work…The Bear Still with a Sore Head. Jamie

The Bear with a Sore Head - Apologies
I would like to apologise to all my fellow peers for my late arrival Wednesday and for no attendance on the Thursday. I would like to say that my late arrival on the Wednesday was planned as I had to make a trip to Leeds for a Medical and Health Examination, the guy I saw is hard to get an appointment with so I couldn’t change this for another day and had to stick to what he gave me and failure to attend would of cost me 100pounds and upwards so I had to take the time off, but I did give notice and it wasn’t just a lateness out of laziness im glad to say.

Thursday however was unexpected, and as of yet I wont be attending. I woke up about 8:45 and I seriously couldn’t move. The reason for the medicals in the first place is because I was involved in a car accident and the result is I suffer from back and shoulder problems. These had more or less gone away until yesterday, when the doctor poked and prodded away at all the areas. He also made me do all sorts of strange exercises to judge how much pain and discomfort I was still in. Yesterday I didn’t feel any recurrence from any of that though so I attended college as quick as I could of, but this morning I got hit with the stiffness and pain, also the painkillers he gave me seem to be making me groggy but that could just be the late morning im not sure! As well as the free drugs he gave me, he also has given well the insurance company has given me free physiotherapy, I have absolutely no idea what this entails but it’s free so how could I complain!

Anyway I do apologise, and just so that you all know I am going to be doing work and not skiving away, although im off to lay in bed for a little longer first…The Bear with a Sore Head! Jamie

Time Planning - Note to Self
Friday! A bad day for my two assignments and my health, my PC has died! friday afternoon i sat down in the hope of bieng able to do a few hours of work before i had to leave the house, and i hit the huge snag of a broken pc, that is still not fixed. This is something i didnt plan for in my time planning and do not have time for! ive tryed and tryed to fix it but to no avail, so i have been unable to do any self study on a machine. ive tryed to keep my self on track by doing a bit of sketch book work but theres no doubting howuch of a blow it is. i desperatly need to find out whats rong with it and fix it before i get into some deep deep trouble and fall behind with my work...i am currently fighting with my girlfriends lap top so i do apologise for the bad grammer and spelling, because i am absolutly useless with these things, i will edit the post and make sense of evrything when i get my own computer up and running, so for now turn a blind eye if you will. Jamie