No F**** Given

So I'm sat here in the library between seminars just attempting to do yet more sketchbook work even though the only thing I really want & need to do right now is to sleep for about a week. Uni is hard! There's a tweet going round at the minute, you may have seen it already but it basically says 'don't let the snaps lie to you, at uni you actually have to do work'. And oh boy that's very true. 

Truth is I'm on a full time course yet do I treat my course like it's full time? most definitely not. You see it's hard to get motivated when all you want to do with your day is eat, sleep and play Mario kart  (who even am I?). Then if you're anything like me you get stressed about the fact you've got practically no work to show for the last 2 months of being at uni and you procrastinate even more leaving you feeling yet more stressed. Motivation is a hard thing to find and keep hold of. Yes time off away from your studies is important because otherwise by the end of the 3 or more years you'll probably have grown to hate the subject you once loved. But I do think it's important to be that proactive student who is constantly thinking about what they can do with this brief or where they can take that sketchbook, or reading that book even though it's not required. At the end of the day that's what is going to help you grow and improve as a person. 

Basically this morning I was on the verge of a mental breakdown, I was stressed about what feels like a million and one deadlines I've got coming up, I was stressed about the fact that although I'm happy with my work it's not progressing as quickly as I'd like it too and I was stressing about the fact that nothing ever feels like it goes right for me. Not even joking I had to fight back the tears and the urge to just say you know what I quit, because lately that's all I've wanted to do. 

Walking out of my seminar about an hour ago I felt like a different person, I felt I'd cleared my head (well almost), having gotten past the breakdown stage and it made me realise something. Sometimes in life it's not good to act like you give no fucks when indeed you actually do. Not acting like you give any fucks could make you miss out on the one thing you actually give a fuck about. Ironically our subculture trend runs along the idea of self expression and showing you don't given a fuck which is great and it's a really cool subculture to look into. Put into perspective though is it really the way forward? I give a fuck about a lot of things, some I happily share and talk about, others I don't because the fear of saying I actually give a fuck feels too much to handle sometimes. When you really care about something it's even harder when it doesn't go your own way so acting like you don't give a fuck almost protects you from the fall. 

Anyway I feel like that was a very random post and I'm sorry if your sat reading this thinking what the fuck (lol the irony) am I talking about. If you can relate then I hoped it helped in some way. 

Talk soon. 

X

Who Am I?

Okay so the whole 'new year, new me' being a consistent blogger lasted all of about 2 weeks, let's be honest I think I was being quite optimistic with that one anyway. Still today I'm back with a new post... it's a bit of strange one purely because you'd have thought that by the age of 20 I'd certainly know who I am. The truth is when faced with the question on my course this week I didn't really know how to answer...

So I'll give you the context around the question so it doesn't seem quite so strange, those who have been reading my blog a while will know that I'm a 2nd year FCP student at NTU- whilst second year is fun and exciting it's so much more work & stress and honestly right now I'm struggling. We currently have two on going projects running alongside each other; identity (based around a chosen subculture) and self-promotion which is probably even harder as it's based around 'you'. I was that naive person who thought 'oh yeh that'll be so easy to do a sketchbook on yourself' oh boy I generally couldn't have been more wrong. Not even joking every time I go to do some self promotion work, I probably waste about half an hour or more just sitting there thinking 'who the heck am I?' like some crazy, mad person.



It's hard to say what your good at and what career you should do because at the end of the day you don't want to be 'that' person who has a head bigger than the doorframe. Yes I enjoy art but I don't want to be an artist, yes I enjoy shopping but I don't want to be a stylist, even this blog yes I enjoy it but is aiming to become a blogger just going to end in a disaster? Let's face it, it's probably a lot easier to say what we don't want to do than to make up our minds on what we actually want.



Laying all my cards down on the table I don't know where I want this degree to take me, I don't know what career I want at the end of it all. I want something which is exciting, that makes me want to jump up out of bed each morning because I actually want to look forward to going to work. I want to share my opinions but maybe not in the public speaking way. I want to travel the world but at the same time will I ever have the funds to go backpacking for a year? In a weird way yes I do feel like I'm ready to leave education and go into the world of work. But that's very hard when you don't even know where to start. The fact that at Christmas I'll be officially half way through my degree is terrifying, the uni bubble feels safe and secure, even if I am poor 90% of the time.



So I may not know exactly what I want to do quite just yet, what I do know that right now I want this blog to be a part of it. Blogging has been the only thing that ever felt 'right' if you get me, I enjoy it so much more than I can put into words. The only thing holding me back is the fact there are so many amazing, successful bloggers in the world, is there really room for one more?
I need to find my 'niche' hopefully this self- promotion brief will help me to do exactly that. I'll be sure to keep you all updated with my progress anyway.

So on a final note I'll leave you with this question:
Do you know who you are? 
See it's hard isn't it?
 We take all these lessons in life but in reality we need to learn about ourselves equally as much.

Take care & I'll speak soon, promise it won't be as long this time hopefully.

X

Photo credit: Own.