So, here I am two years later! I am in my LAST semester of this degree. I am still doing jewellery. I love it so much more than I did in my last entry here. I never intended to stop blogging on this thing but I guess I just forgot about it. Now here I am two years later feeling like I've learnt so much more. I guess I always felt that deep down there was something greatly appealing to me about making jewellery. It doesn't really matter that I hardly ever wear it. For me it's more about working on something at a small scale, refining details, and just that whole fulfilling feeling when you finish something and see how far you've come. Jewellery, although still stressful at times, is really the only thing that actually helped me get through this really tough period last year. The only reason I hated it at the beginning was because of other problems affecting my mood, and I know this because I felt so much better about being at uni from 9-5 working on projects and feeling really good about life after it, even if I didn't get much done by the end of the day due to so many things going wrong. I learnt to just take every mistake as a learning curve. In fact, every day I would aim to make at least one mistake on things because then I would know how to avoid them next time. It's definitely more of a positive thing for me, and all the stress simply comes from trying to meet a deadline on top of being told to tweak ideas according to a lecturer's advice; something that won't ever happen when working as an actual jewellery artist, thank goodness.

I can now see myself working in a studio, hopefully sharing with a fellow artist or jeweller, and just popping out a dozen pieces a day and loving every minute of it. I still have plans to study illustration though, because that is something I feel would really help me in all areas of my future career. One thing I can definitely confirm to you, is that when things feel really really bad, they usually get better. You just need to trust your instinct. If you're having trouble deciding whether to continue with a degree at uni, and even despite all the stress you still feel like you can't just give up, then by all means you should continue with it and just come out better at it than you'll ever expect.

I'm really glad that no one reads this blog because I must sound like the biggest douchebag right now.

But I've noticed how every time I feel like I've hit my emotional rock bottom, a few years later I look back and realise how much I've grown and how much I've learnt from it. I don't believe in God, but I'm starting to understand what people mean when they say they're blessed.

Reflection

It's nearing the end of this semester, the end of the first year of art college. It's had its fun, lonely and stressful times and I have to say that first year will most probably not be a favourite of mine. I'm hoping that next year will be a lot more fun, and that I'll make a lot more friends than I have this year once I get used to everything a lot more. I'm not a hundred percent sure whether I will end up transferring to a different degree next year, but the application is in and is being assessed regardless, so that I have the choice to accept it or not.

I'm trying to think really hard right now about whether or not I want to stop taking Jewellery. I've done one semester of it and as bad as it has been, maybe second year will be a hundred times better because I'll be used to the surroundings and the people. I'm already getting used to everything about jewellery, bar some things like using machinery or getting started on new projects, and even though I have such a passion for hating the subject, at times I feel really amazed by the fact that I can now create these things from scratch - something that I never really saw myself doing until the last year. If I quit jewellery I will never really see how far I could take my ideas in 3d form, and never see what I could come up with conceptually in this method of expression. At least not for a few years if I decide to go back to it one day. When I really try to think about the next two years, it occurs to me that one university year really isn't that long. Each semester goes for only about 14 weeks and jewellery makes it seem all the faster because of how much work goes into each project. I'm thinking that maybe I could stick to it just for another two years to complete the course, and by then maybe I'll like it enough to do honours if I get in or else go to other colleges to learn more specific areas of jewellery making. I could take it all pretty far in the future....there is a lot of potential and I think about how it could end up that I start a really cool line of jewellery. Anything can happen.

If I decide to drop Fine Arts and transfer to Art Theory, I will be writing a lot and taking drawing electives to cater for every part of me that enjoys the comfort of sitting in solitude and writing or drawing, and it sounds amazing. But if I did jewellery, I could have such a wider art practice and more pathways to choose from, and I can draw all the time at home.

Maybe all of this stressing out over jewellery will help me in the future. Maybe its a sign that I will do really well with this in the future. Maybe it will all pay off in the end. There is still that bit of hope and motivation to keep doing jewellery, but always those moments when I just want to drop it and be comfortable.

I guess all I can do now is wait and see how my current project pans out and see how I feel about it all at the end of this month. No doubt I will be writing a blog entry about it soon.

Changes

Yesterday confirmed a definite change in the course of my life for the past two years. I don't want to go back to being miserable about a certain someone, and would rather that we were just friends so that it can never happen again. I feel really positive about it this time, and I really want to challenge myself to stick with this plan permanently. I'm going to toughen up and take some risks and not think so much about what could happen later. Or at least I want to remain optimistic about the future.

xx

Change of plans

I have applied for a transfer to change my uni course next year. I am not 100% sure that I will end up changing by the end of this year, who knows, maybe I might grow to love jewellery when I'm done with this current project. But at the moment its one of the things that have been really making me depressed. I can't explain how or why it is effecting me this much, but it's definitely the slaving over something I dread that has a great deal to do with it.

Jewellery is cool to look at it, and I understand that jewellery can have great sentimental and ancestral value. But I don't feel it's important enough to me. I have been having the worst time trying to make my mind up about things for the last month and a half, and I can't help but feel like jewellery is making a lot of things worse for me. I stress about the project because I can't really get it done at home as I don't have the right tools, and the amount of time we have to make it means we have to stress at the last minute a lot of the time. If I changed to art theory I can literally do it whenever and wherever I want. I can go sit in the park, in the library, in the car, in bed, etc. The best part about it is that the subjects sound amazingly interesting and insightful and so do the assessments. I know I will stress the same with Art Theory as I might for Fine Arts, but there is always that element of knowing that I will get it done without having to worry so much about it as I am able to work on it whenever I want to. Maybe I'll go back to fine arts in later years of my life if I really want to. But right now I can't deal with the pressure of jewellery. I'm not obsessed or passionate about it at this stage, so I can't do it. That's all. If it turns out by the end of October that I am completely in love with jewellery, I will be very happy, though (obviously). In a sense I am actually hoping that I will grow to love it more within the next few weeks, just so that I can keep at something without dropping out. But I guess only time will tell.

Another thing I am planning on changing is my hair. I need a haircut. My boss/hairdresser has been nagging me about it for months because I have the worst ends and it's simply getting too long for it to be truely healthy. I'm going to miss my long hair but at least it can finally be healthy. Hair grows! Cutting your hair is also a sure sign of letting go of the past. I just want to feel refreshed. I guess cutting my hair is a symbol of my choice to finally make up my mind and do something about things that are making me unhappy. Even if it all sorts itself out in the end, I just want something to change about myself and my life and most importantly, my attitude towards everything.

Childhood

I’m having a really weird and sad moment thinking about high school. I suddenly miss those days when I first met all the friends I have now. I’m trying to remember what I thought or how I felt when I first met them, and how my perception of them may or may not have changed since then. It kind of makes me sad because I feel like even though I am still meeting new people at uni, there is this weird unexplainable feeling about meeting people in high school that I really miss. I never thought I’d say I miss high school this soon. It even kind of saddens me how we’ve all changed so much in some ways. Like we’ve been some how sculpted by society and everything we’ve been through. Not that there’s anything wrong with changing, but it still makes me feel quite sad thinking about it all. Although I am really happy to have the friends I have now and for so long.

I was just thinking this morning about my friend Marisa who I have known since we were in year 3 or so. Our mums were and still are friends, and we are the same age so naturally we got along. We spent pretty much every afternoon after school playing games at my house. Stuff like School, Offices and Food Shop, or making secret clubs with our own secret code alphabets, climbing the three in my backyard and jumping on the trampoline, or playing dress ups or taking photos or doing plays in front of our parents. We stopped hanging out when high school started.

I really miss play time. You know, like when you could come up with the most outrageous things to do together, like forming story based games in the cubby house, mums and dads, dress ups, pokemon, tip…or weird missions to capture people or collect the magic stolen gem.

Being an adult is both liberating but terrifying. I feel things I don’t want to feel and think about things I can’t stand thinking about anymore. I notice so many more things that I don’t want to notice because I start thinking about it too much. People tell you not to worry but you continue to do so.

I still remember when I was little I used to look at older girls and think “I wonder what I’m going to look like when I’m 18. I can’t wait”, and now here I am and I never would have thought I’d be into the things I’m into right now or feeling the way I do about myself right now.

I miss my primary school aged self. I feel like I was also so much nicer to people back then. But I remember I started to lose it when someone borrowed my yellow faber castel marker and gave it back all used up, and then saw that they had their own markers meaning they probably swapped them. Yellow was my favourite colour back then, too (wow, symbolism much). I was also bitter when someone stole my awesome pencil sharpener not long after. I felt cheated because I had always been so nice to people and couldn’t believe that someone had the audacity to steal from me.

I also remember feeling sad for my mum when I’d lose or have something stolen from me, or if I didn’t like my lunch or if I dropped it on the floor. I still remember when I fell off the monkey bars at school and landed shin first on the side of the little iron platform thing and scraped my shins really badly and blood was dripping down both my legs and no one was there except for one girl who I didn’t know, so she didn’t care. It was the most painful thing I thought I had ever experienced. I came home and told mum and she kissed me on the head and hugged me.

I want to go back to….1999. I think year 2 was probably my favourite year of primary school. I was in the split class with year 3 and so me and Stella only hung out with girls in year 3 and they were so much nicer than the other girls in year 2.

I am having the biggest block right now, with this jewellery thing. I have one more design to do and I can’t think of a good way to do it. I’ve been procrastinating all day.

Myspace nostalgia

I was just browsing my old Myspace blog and I can't help but feel like nothing much has changed in regards to the way I think. Most of it is pretty pessimistic stuff, but then there is also a hint of optimism in them.

But I honestly have to say that I felt quite sad after reading it. I have a friend on there who I hardly talk to anymore, even though we used to talk everyday over MSN as she lived about two hours away, and we would tell each other all our problems. We would successfully cheer each other up every time and I really miss that. Not to say that I don't feel cheered up after talking to my friends now, but I still miss that particular friendship. We are still friends now, don't get me wrong, but we just seemed to have lost that special bond and I don't really know why it happened. We didn't have a falling out or anything...

I also feel that the fact that I still get worried from time to time about a particular relationship between me and a good friend, is a really big wake up call to the fact that I really need to pull my socks up with all of that. Not that I still get as negative about everything like I used to, I am a lot happier these days and have been since around the middle of last year. But I am finding myself still thinking about the same things sometimes and forgetting some other more important things. I can't go into detail with it though, because it's such a long story and a bit personal. All I'm saying is that I haven't felt like this all year about a particular part of this situation and then recently it was brought up again and I lost it, again. Hysteria is my middle name when it comes to these situations. Not that I'd say I'm alone with it though. But I don't want to be like that anymore. I need to remember what has been said to me, and what I have promised to myself time and time again.

I feel like it is really time to fix a lot of things in regards to the way I think of the world around me. I have so much pent up negativity, but so much hope in trying to make things better at the same time, that I actually end up losing hope in everything because I can't take it. It's just a horrible feeling when you feel like you've come such a long way but then realise that some things are still the same. I don't want to go backwards.

Actual Pain

Actual Pain have made a collection inspired by old horror movies, in particular, werewolfs.

This is the Crowley

This is the Dracul, although I don't really see any difference between them.