The Death of my Dissertation

Heres my dissertation printing...

Heres my dissertation fresh off the press...

Here's my dissertation bound and ready...

Here's my dissertation with CD in the library...

Here is where it all ended. Months of relentless work, our hearts and souls put into the form of size 12, 1.5 line spaced words... right into a battered old cardboard box that was in the corner under a table...  worth it! 

so thats it dead and dusted. I will not say another word, it's just over.

The magical 10,000

Not many things move me to tears... and this wasn't one of them either but I felt very incredibly good. 

The magical 10,000 word mark seems to be impossible when you first start, its like looking up at the top of a mountain before you plan to climb it.

This is just a first draft but I have my team of expert proof readers (my mum) on the case. Now for the obligatory all nighter on thursday to make sure every little thing is perfect :)

Good Luck all my course mates :) and go fuck yourself Mr Harvard who ever you were!!!

U.C.engAged

I got fed up of writing about the academic side of university as the biggest part of my whole university experience was meeting my fiance. Yes thats right I said fiance :)

A lot of students come to UNI with their college sweetheart but I have seen it fail so many times it's enough to make you lose faith in love all together. There's this myth that when you come to UNI the idea is to get with as many people as possible which is why we have to suffer the shit ads about 'stds' and to some sad people that is what it's about (not the std's).

I was amazingly lucky meeting Mel. It wasn't the most romantic of beginnings (drunken kiss) but 2 years later and a proposal at Reading Festival '07' and I've never been happier :)

I know lots of people who have met their current partners at UNI and by current partners I mean a partner that could be the one, not who the hell are you get out of my room current partner. 

Its the one thing no manual or student guide can help you with I'm afraid. You may be a skeptic and want to be out there and single before you "settle down" but to me this all depends on your idea of settling down. It's a stupid term because who wants to settle for anything? it implies there's something better. If your thinking kids, a house, a mortgage and a car all ready then please for the love of god! your with the wrong person, get away quick.

With the right person very little should change in regards with all the things you want to do in your life. The only difference is now you have someone to share it with, someone who can add more to the things you will do. They are much better than your best friends (you can't do certain things with your best friends... well not usually).

I've seen people not give anyone a chance in terms of giving it a go and their paying for it now.

I'm rambling on but I really do feel incredibly lucky. To find someone who your not thinking about "settling down with" rather carrying on the adventure with i'd imagine is bloody difficult. So heres to everyone at UNI who has 'a someone' not just with someone.

Creative campaign Project Presentation...

As presentations go this one has to be in my top 3. At the beginning of this course, presenting was some what of a weekly hell, getting up in front of everyone to have them judge you like an animal and then at the end have "feedback" (they never held back) from people who know about as much as you do which seems pointless but the result is that now we are all very good at it (well most of us(that will drive them crazy if they read this, who could I mean hmmm,,,).

I was very proud of my ideas the images are but one out of 5 briefs that I did the rest you can view on my website :) I did the drawings with Crayola Crayons! nursery kids kiss my ass (not literally) I just raised the bar you little snot bags.

So celebrations are in order... well no not quite everyone got a weeks extension for their dissertations cuz george complained (thank you very much george) :) and so I have another week with no sunlight till it's done 

One small step for man, one giant leap towards my degree.

Business Vs Pleasure

Some people say never mix business with pleasure, well they obviously are alone and cry themselves to sleep every night out of how boring a person they are.

If there was no pleasure in business or in my case working on UCA stuff, i'd have long thrown myself off the top of the library long ago...

It is an amazingly difficult skill separating the two. In the first year your natural choice being at the beginning of your career is to spend long hours devoted to pleasure, In year two your either one or the other and your either in a frame of mind where you think you should be working harder or your thinking you should be being crazier because your at UNI. These two feelings interchange frequently.

You get to third year, the dreaded 70% of your marks go to your degree and so it's down to some serious work interspersed with serious pleasure, it doesn't happen as often as you'd like (unless you don't care about your marks and continue going out every night!) but when you do it can get rather messy as all that pent up energy just comes bursting out and makes you do things like as I saw, one of your friends being kidnapped off the street for his birthday!

It is so important to keep this balance because after all your only at UNI once and you don't want to waste it on both sides of the equation.

Right now I should be doing more work or in bed sleeping but I'm on here writing because it is part of my pleasure to write such bollocks, it's not goin out getting wrecked and waking up with the brazilian volley ball team but its something.

All ways have those little things that get you through the day if its blogging, great! if it's sex lucky you ;) if you can do something for someone else who's really stressed at the moment do it (if your a hot guy or girl have sex with them... just a suggestion...) 

hard work sucks but UNI just wouldn't be the same with out it.

Burning the midnight oil

'Burning the midnight oil'

An expression that gives that all too familiar sinking feeling to any creative that hears it. Why? because it means pain... emotional and physical pain but to us students it simply means normal working hours for a big project.

I'm in full deadline meeting mode with my first big presentation of the new year looming, I'm armed with my cups of Tea, Relentless (aka legal speed) and so I'm ready for a week of barely any sleep, blood shot eyes, mood swings, minor psychotic episodes, major forgetfulness (did I remember to...) and very irregular eating habits e.g. buttered toast and prawn cocktail crisp sandwiches at 3 am (don't knock it till you've tried it honestly...)

Why do I do it? because there's nothing quite like putting your all in to something to have it pay off, you feel like god, well I imagine thats how he must feel anyway.

It is easier to forget the work you put in than to remember what you got out of it, however this comes with one massive howling exception... if you fail.

Then it really was just a few weeks of your life you could have spent having a lot more fun.

But hey nothing in life comes easy and all that shit that was designed to make you feel better in the face of crushing defeat.

Am I a pessimist? I don't think so I'm not afraid to fail, your talking to the guy who in his first year did a whole presentation and was told at the end I had missed everything on the brief, needless to to say I learnt from that particular mistake.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I hate working ridiculous hours for weeks on end for something that could be shit anyway, unless its a success then I love it, hows that for profound...

The best letter to put in a post.

"Tea! Thats all I needed! Good cup of tea! Super-heated infusion of free-radicals and tannins - Just the thing for healing the synapses!" The Doctor

I have to get my fix of tea every morning or my brain just sulks in my skull, refusing to get out of bed (much like me). 

Forget coffee, all that causes is a heart beat of a rabbit, nausea and a horrible come down.

Tea my friends is the way forward! I owe my dissertation being on schedule to that gentle infusion.

Drink Tea, It really is my advice to any one who sits in front of a computer for hours on end.

It no longer belongs to the old or those fucking annoying middle aged women who call it a "cuppa"

 It now belongs to the strong minded people of the world who can say NO! to Starbucks and want to make a statement about what they drink. 

Tea is not a drink, It's a movement!

T-Rules!

Rubix Dude

This was my courses original logo which I have since updated but its all hush hush so I can't show you but take my word for it, it's mesmerizing, wonderful a tour de force :) well hopefully.

My course leader wanted some kind of promotion that he could give to perspective students, I looked into my research as I will be properly re-branding the whole course for my final project and I thought to make the logo into a Rubix Cube. Apart from it being a highly collectible toy, its likeness to the existing logo is great and I love the connotations with problem solving which in essence is what design and advertising is.

Here it is!!! I went to my lecture room for a tutorial and it was just sitting there, I had sent the designs over a month ago and had heard nothing of it since. It was a really odd experience to see something I had made on a mac screen existing quite peacefully on the table, I guess thats what pro designers feel when they happen on something they've made.

I immediately stole it of-course, I kinda own it...

I can not wait to get started on the re-brand after this I'm buzzing to do more.

Business Cards!!!

My first professional design gone and come back successfully from print!

As you know, Yellow Brick Road Consulting is my first design account that I won via a competition.

These are the first of the promotional materials I have been working on for Alex to come back from the printers and they look amazing, not just business cards but good business cards and as Alex tells me are the subject of much conversation at his own client meetings.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how the rest comes out, the brand has very suddenly become real and it is just great to see my work working :)

Theres only one DAVE LAWRIE, ONE DAVE LAWRIE!

Out of a possible 494,000 results, out of all the Dave Lawrie's in the world (well on the web) I come out tops on the ole google.

*proud*

Cometh the hour...

12 days untill dissertation hand in... am I scared...yes, although that would be an understatement, the whole experience is terrifying especially as I am not a natural born writer.

The feeling of going through the whole dissertation experience (I find) is more close to that of having just trod on a mine...

If I step off the mine (my desk + comp) I blow up (fail) standing there I am focused on what is happening, everything fades into nothing but... I am safe (I will pass) 

It's an odd sensation, half of you is convinced that if you stay (working) your fine, the other half, if you go you die, so naturally you stay.

Enough time passes and then you start thinking you can make it if you just run very fast (rush it) and if you don't you convince yourself you could take the pain and live with the disfigurement (the poor mark or failure and emotional scars) 

Every now and again you drift off and you forget where you are (the pub) but the hooded man with a scythe is serving the drinks.

You could call for help but only you properly understand the state your in so what do you do? you could always try denial, denial is great because everything is fine.

But no... we wait... its safer until doomsday, then we have no choice but to make the leap (hand it in) and trust it won't all explode... 

I'd be comfier under the Damocles Sword 

but it will also be all over soon and I can hopefully get back to normal because is you've just read that analogy you can see something isn't quite right upstairs.

Good Luck to all my fellow Dissertationers I have a lot of respect for you especially if your from a strictly non writing dicipline. I hope it all goes well