i realised the small words on the other post aren't visible..

so here is another one. Pls read this as you get to the relevant section. I want you to read this.

see you all tomorrow. 10:30 in the studio.

those were my actual words...don't know why font has gone funny. Sorry. So I wasted a morning by coming in when I thought we'd be having a meeting. 

Still, nobody was posting their info on fb. It really ought to have been very simple, as I know two of them have fb on their phones. And I'm not sure what phones the others have, but if i can log onto my slow computer every five seconds as a responsible group worker would do, so could they. Were they just reading my messages, laughing and ignoring them??  I was very busy, and I was working with fb on, so it would be like we were working in a group. None of my time was taken from work by being on fb, listening for the little beepy noise that would alert me to my being taken out of Coventry. I heard no such beep.

A couple days ago, I again, for the third or maybe fourth/fifth time posted that they give me their info now. Becasue otehrwise i wasn't going to be able to do it. IN another mesage i explained clearly that the process of authoring their content, and then typing it on the typewriter was a long one. Still I was ignored.

Today, after yet again none of my group showed up or stayed to talk with each other- a sad fact made more poignant by the sight of at least three other groups in the room, working on their manifestos, some having finished and just needing to fold and finish-   I felt awfully dismayed and miserable. What had my group done? Despite my efforts, we still hadn't even met once as a full group. We'd met just once with 5 out of 6 of us there (good enough for that day, cos tetley was ill) and that was in the ideas stage. I didn't and don't know what's been done, cos there's been no communication, even when I ask individuals what they've done. We haven't started to plan exaclty how we'll bind it. We've talked, and drawn it out, but not bought materials or anything cos that had to wait unitl we had the content all sorted. Is the content sorted? No. When's the deadline? two days from now.

Which brings me to my biggest bugbear.

Today, after I got home, i was determined to forget the reset of the highly-useless-from-my-point-of-view group, and do my own manifesto. But then i got home and discovered one more person had posted their info. I had to respond and say too late. There was no longer any time.

  Yes i was annoyed by the whole thing, but i don't want to jeopardise the look of the manifesto by making them find their own way of typing it, but sorry, i warned them. Now it really was too late. This girl had a bit of a problem about that. Kept saying can't i do it tomorrow? can't i do it on wednesday? they've all been busy, she said. (Why not say so then? And busy doing what since she's missed a lot of our meetings?) We've got till thurs, can't i  do it later?

   NO, i said, cos i've got three ppl who didn't send me their stuff. Making up a whole biography for them when i know nothing of their creature is unrealistic and pointless. Writing up a profile even when i knew the info took about 45 mins, that was how long it took to commputer-type tetley's, and he sent me brilliant info. If i had nothing, it would take far longer. And i was not working slowly.  Then typing always takes longer. About an hour. So, as i nicely explained, working ridiculously fast (and risking typiong mistakes with the typewriter) it would take me 6 hours. Couldn't do it today, I was doing other jobs today. can't do it tomo, we have a packed schedule tomo. Wednesday, we'd need to be putting it together, not still writing individual pages. Not forgetting binding, printing, and repreoducing two more copies. There just wasn't the time. There isn't the time.

I felt she was being very sarky. I don't know if this is the point of this blog, but i need to write it all out, as a cathartic exercise. She was making out like 'everyone is busy, so we all ahve to do what we said we would'. I gave them opportunities, didn't i? I'm not trying to be awkward, there simply isn't the time!!

   She said i could have creative license. I pracically laughed. Still the point wasn't reaching home. Plus she started asking if I done the other things i was supposed to, to which i proudly answered yes, cos i've gone A and B the C of D, if you know what i mean. (above and beyond the call of duty). Then she started accusing me, saying maybe i should hve just written one history for all of us, as an organisation. HELLO? This is why seh should have met up more often, and read my messages? I did that a week and a half ago!!

She suggested, under my 'creative license', the profiles could be much shorter than the others. I said if they are, and we have the time, no probs. But still, making it all up from scratch is too hard. As a compromise, I asked what she was doing today. She could write her own short thing, and that would make it a lot easier for me to simply type it. Her response?

No she was too busy doing the things she'd agreed to do. 

I live a christian life, so i won't swear. I never swear. But my-oh-my... the CHEEK!!! I was going to just leave it. She'd said see you tomorrow and ended our convo with two kisses. Odd. But my self-respect wouldn't let me and  so i said that was a shame, because we were all supposed to write our pwn profiles originally but WHATEVER. xx

self-growth

maybe i can take the positive out of this whole experience. i'll have to see tomorrow.

it will be very awkward tomorrow having to face them all, and especially her. I'm undecided as to what i can bring tomorrow to do. Bringing my typewriter would be too heavy, really. i did consider it, but it would be backbreaking, and i'd possibly break it. So no. It's old, and the case is already breaking. It's a good 50 years old, i'm not risking it.

sadness...

I have never been so depressed with a project...

I am hating almost every minute of this.

Like I possibly said before, this project would've been perfect for me, but because it's groupwork, I feel a foreboding sense of loss as to what could have been if only this awful group project had been individual. That sad fact makes my misery more profound.

It is entirely frustrating working with people who seem not to want to work, nad who have no apparent concept of time. Halfheartedness doesn't work, you have to devote energy to a thing to make it good, and then you can rest. Work hard, play hard. I work hard. And usually i have so much work that i don't have the time to play. I wouldn't mind this if i felt like we were all pulling our weight/contributing. But i just don't feel that. Maybe they are, but if so, it's in secret. But if so, why ignore my messages continually, and then make it clear they're ignoring them on purpose by paying immediate attention to the messages of others?
    I willl not do it all on my own. I believe I've been entirely reasonable. Point in question?

     We were all supposed to do our own profiles, then post them on facebook so the rest of us could see. So I went home, created a fb group so we could post stuff easily to just us, and subsequently, as a baptism to my creation, posted my profile.
    Immediately it got a good response and two days later I was asked to do all the profiles, as well as my original job, which was to write the history pages. I said I would, and i didn't mind doing them, and using my typewriter, which was very stiff from rarely being used, and running low on ink, JUST AS LONG AS PEOPLE SENT ME THEIR INFORMATION ON THE WEDNESDAY.
   Because how can I write histories for creatures I know nothing about? It would defeat the purpose to have me make it up. I tried that with one and it was completely bland. I needed to kjnow, OBVIOUSLY.
    But did anyone send me their info on weds?
     Yes, Tetley did. And so I did his page, no problem. Took about two hours, altogether. That weds was suppsoed to be the hard day of work, and we were all going to meet on thurs to show stuff and put it together. But half the group was absent when we made that plan on tuesday. I was being very reassonable by posting what we'd decided they needed to do on fb, and by his promptly doing so, Tetley proved it was possible. My message had not been lost in cyberspace, or encrypted, and it was not invisible. I continued to pester the others that day and the following days for their info, but got no response.
     On thurs? tetley came in for the first time, which was great, cos he'd been really ill, so it was good to see him. camilla came in after, and we got a bit of talking done before they had their tutorials. The others didn't turn up at all. One may have, but by that stage I'd had to leave so I could go home and continue working. Why ignore my message? It was very clear:

see you all tomorrow. 10:30 in the studio.

those were my actual words...don't know why font has gone funny. Sorry. So I wasted a morning by coming in when I thought we'd be having a meeting. 

Still, nobody was posting their info on fb. It really ought to have been very simple, as I know two of them have fb on their phones. And I'm not sure what phones the others have, but if i can log onto my slow computer every five seconds as a responsible group worker would do, so could they. Were they just reading my messages, laughing and ignoring them??  I was very busy, and I was working with fb on, so it would be like we were working in a group. None of my time was taken from work by being on fb, listening for the little beepy noise that would alert me to my being taken out of Coventry. I heard no such beep.

A couple days ago, I again, for the third or maybe fourth/fifth time posted that they give me their info now. Becasue otehrwise i wasn't going to be able to do it. IN another mesage i explained clearly that the process of authoring their content, and then typing it on the typewriter was a long one. Still I was ignored.

Today, after yet again none of my group showed up or stayed to talk with each other- a sad fact made more poignant by the sight of at least three other groups in the room, working on their manifestos, some having finished and just needing to fold and finish-   I felt awfully dismayed and miserable. What had my group done? Despite my efforts, we still hadn't even met once as a full group. We'd met just once with 5 out of 6 of us there (good enough for that day, cos tetley was ill) and that was in the ideas stage. I didn't and don't know what's been done, cos there's been no communication, even when I ask individuals what they've done. We haven't started to plan exaclty how we'll bind it. We've talked, and drawn it out, but not bought materials or anything cos that had to wait unitl we had the content all sorted. Is the content sorted? No. When's the deadline? two days from now.

Which brings me to my biggest bugbear.

Today, after I got home, i was determined to forget the reset of the highly-useless-from-my-point-of-view group, and do my own manifesto. But then i got home and discovered one more person had posted their info. I had to respond and say too late. There was no longer any time.

  Yes i was annoyed by the whole thing, but i don't want to jeopardise the look of the manifesto by making them find their own way of typing it, but sorry, i warned them. Now it really was too late. This girl had a bit of a problem about that. Kept saying can't i do it tomorrow? can't i do it on wednesday? they've all been busy, she said. (Why not say so then? And busy doing what since she's missed a lot of our meetings?) We've got till thurs, can't i  do it later?

   NO, i said, cos i've got three ppl who didn't send me their stuff. Making up a whole biography for them when i know nothing of their creature is unrealistic and pointless. Writing up a profile even when i knew the info took about 45 mins, that was how long it took to commputer-type tetley's, and he sent me brilliant info. If i had nothing, it would take far longer. And i was not working slowly.  Then typing always takes longer. About an hour. So, as i nicely explained, working ridiculously fast (and risking typiong mistakes with the typewriter) it would take me 6 hours. Couldn't do it today, I was doing other jobs today. can't do it tomo, we have a packed schedule tomo. Wednesday, we'd need to be putting it together, not still writing individual pages. Not forgetting binding, printing, and repreoducing two more copies. There just wasn't the time. There isn't the time.

I felt she was being very sarky. I don't know if this is the point of this blog, but i need to write it all out, as a cathartic exercise. She was making out like 'everyone is busy, so we all ahve to do what we said we would'. I gave them opportunities, didn't i? I'm not trying to be awkward, there simply isn't the time!!

   She said i could have creative license. I pracically laughed. Still the point wasn't reaching home. Plus she started asking if I done the other things i was supposed to, to which i proudly answered yes, cos i've gone A and B the C of D, if you know what i mean. (above and beyond the call of duty). Then she started accusing me, saying maybe i should hve just written one history for all of us, as an organisation. HELLO? This is why seh should have met up more often, and read my messages? I did that a week and a half ago!!

She suggested, under my 'creative license', the profiles could be much shorter than the others. I said if they are, and we have the time, no probs. But still, making it all up from scratch is too hard. As a compromise, I asked what she was doing today. She could write her own short thing, and that would make it a lot easier for me to simply type it. Her response?

No she was too busy doing the things she'd agreed to do. 

I live a christian life, so i won't swear. I never swear. But my-oh-my... the CHEEK!!! I was going to just leave it. She'd said see you tomorrow and ended our convo with two kisses. Odd. But my self-respect wouldn't let me and  so i said that was a shame, because we were all supposed to write our pwn profiles originally but WHATEVER. xx

 

 

The latest

Been doing this autghor project for a while now, and it has been the most...interseting of projects ever. It has been really good in that it has broken down a lot of my mental boundaries as to the nature of illustration,  and forced me to think  outside the box.
     The first part of the project passed uneventfully: draw or collect our nmost important things, but then the second half was instant;ly harder, though fun. We had to translate those 'functions' into 'form', and create a character. I was surprised at how hard that was, seeing as i usually do that sort of thing for fun. I supppose the thinking conventions of the task nmade it seem harder: having to really think everything through, whereas usually i just go with my gut an make more stuff up as i go along.

   Making the creature as a costume in one and a half days was an experience and a half! I didn';t fininsh, but i it was pretty much basically made.... I finished it later that week. It was also really beneficail to have the two costume designers, emma denby and riitta ikonen, in with us. Their work was AMAZING and it was truly great and inspiratinal to see what sort of vastly differnet things illustration students had done with their degrees, especially emma who had been a camberwell illustration student. Talking to them  was a true eyeopener. 
  I spent so much money though on making!! :( I was already broke but now i can't even afford to buy food :( :( and  i wanted an ipad this year!!!  lol i said that last year....

the next stage was  more challenging. Groupwork always is. It was very fun making the film, and going out in central london dressed as loons. The public's reaction was fantastic, we got stopped and asked for photos! Only after we'd departed the southbank did we think maybe we should have abandoned the project nad just stood on the street with bowls at our feet. Does one need a licence for that?
    The editing bit was the boring no fun bit, as really, all of us couldn't really do it. It basically became the job of one or two of us, and they got a bit stressed i think as a result. And it was so long!! But we made a good film.

I was looking forward to finishing with the groupwork, it always makes me uncomfortable, i loathe the organisational dificulties nad hte lack of control i have over my own work. Imagine my falling heart when i learned the nex tpart of the project was still in our grpoups, and for a month!!
     It's been very very hard to coordinate everyone, i keep thinking, if only i was on my own, this would have got done last week. we've only had one meeting where we've all showed up, and even that was missing one of us, but he was really ill, so legitimate excuse. Since then, the project's been up and down and round hte bend, as we all try to fit in our slants.
    i  feel as thought i'm doing hte majority of the work. i could be wrong, but i haven't heard from two group members in three days, don't know what they're doing, and i've been working solid for two days now, with the exception of this morning where my time was wastedby coming into uni. I thought we were all meeting, as we'd agreed to, but it was only three of us, with only my work. I had to leave before another could arrive to continue working: I'm doing practically all the writing in the manifesto: the history nad hte profiles, and by typewriter, which takes forever and is painful.  I'm writing it all becasue my author-voice fits best, adn i don't mind that, in fact, i relish th ecompliment becasue of course i want to be an author anyway, but i'm a ;little annoyed becasue the others are supposed to be swending me their info, practically done, for me to embellish and write in in my style. One i was able to write on my own becasue i'd had tons of chats with the creature's creator and i practically knew her as my own. but the others....i was highly dependant.  As of now, only one person has done as i asked. It's been two and a bit days...
   this is the problem with groupwork.... I get on well with my fellow groupmembers, no problems there, but this disorganistaion is not how i like to work and it's getting a bit frustrating as it impinges on my time adn stops me doing things i need to do for myslef, whilst it seems others continue to do theirs....

will kepp you posted.

:)