Tuesday, 2 February 2010

Clearly eager....


So...is it too early to write another?  Probably.  But who cares - it's mine!  And I'm at home in bed playing hookie...on life.  I'm just not in the mood today!  I'm in one of those moods where I don't want to talk to anyone, I'd rather be totally comfy and listening to music/reading/watching/thinking....or writing a blog. Apparently. 
(The above photog is of my little perfect sniss and I, at the Dr. Sun Yat Sen gardens in Vancouver....the best city there is.  Home!  I miss it.....but we'll visit soon...)
So - I am in University.  I study Creative Advertising.  It's good....i guess.  No, no, it's really good.  I like it a lot.  I find the politics of 'school' quite trying at times, but with my tutors and fellow students, I think I've got it pretty easy.  I often wonder if there is anything better than being surrounded by design?  I know we are ALL surrounded by it ALL the time - of course we are - but it's really great to be surrounded by the creation of it.  Being at uni in the design department is both inspirational and a drain of inspiration.  (fickle - i know..but come on!)  It's difficult for me because I'm 25, so I'm surrounded by kids who are approx. five years younger than me, and are either totally eager and a little too up-and-attem, or by kids who just chose this course because they felt they had to do something once they finished school.  Or so it seems anyway.  Either way, I know why I'm doing it.  I think...
Ideas.  That's why I'm doing it. 
My best friend, Jodi, and I are constantly laughing.  And having/sharing ideas.  I think that it's quite possibly my favourite thing to do - sit, with Jodi, laughing, at our ideas, the ones that we keep growing and growing and building upon and building upon, until we are laughing at the fact that we have actually been able to take something so little and silly, and turn it into this monstrosity of a 'thing'....and then one of us usually takes it one step too far, just for good measure. 
Anyway, that's what I like about creative advertising.  The act of having an idea, (a good idea, one with a meaning/story/cause....) and building upon it (and that can also mean simplifying it) until it's just this unique 'thing', that has a meaning and makes people think/feel/laugh/cry/hate and essentially BUY. haha, well...that's the plan one day anyway.
England is funny...well, Northern England is funny...so often I feel like i'm missing something - more often than not it's colour that i'm missing - colours and music and inspiration.  And I feel that it's so grey and miserable here, and that I'd actually have to give people beer on the street, just so they'd smile back as we were passing each other...beer or change the score for them on the footy.....and yet, I know that if i were to move back to the place where I feel the colours and music and inspiration, I'd only miss the grime and hard reality of England!  The complaining, the salt-of-the-earth faces, and maybe even that pub that I avoid at the bottom  of the hill that smells of dog, a very old and very wet dog...
Hah...England's not funny, I'm funny.
I miss Jodi - I think she probably misses me too.

SO - work. 
We've got this brief for BSM driving school.  Advertise it using any media we like - keep in mind though, that we are only lowly second years, and have not yet explored a hell of a lot of media.
My answers to the brief? Well, imagine a poster, with a picture of a car, but with training wheels - i think they call them 'stabilizers' here.  I think it's a strong image, insinuating that being with BSM is like having training wheels - simple, effective.  PLEASE if you have any comments on these, tell me - i need to hear it.  I've also written a TV ad; imagine crash-test-dummies in almost slow motion (no facial features...etc) doing silly things that we drivers do on occasion like lurching forwards in the driveway instead of backing out, running yellow/red lights, turning the wipers on instead of indicators, driving with the boot open, etc.  And then it just says "BSM, 100 years of teaching dummies to drive".   
I thought it was funny.  
I was the only one.  Apparently we can't be calling people dummies....I see the point...I'll just have to change it a bit.  even though I like it.
That's the thing though - no matter how much we like our work, we come to class and get totally slated for it! I am excited for the day that I come to work with an idea, and people like it.
(people like my stuff now, but...not the right people.......no offence mom)
xo


Here goes....

So - as my 'description' states, I am a first time blogger.  Excited? A little.  Nervous? No.  Curious? Unbelievably.  I just want to know what all the hype is about.  I can totally understand the releasing feeling of getting ones feelings out, whether that be in a diary, blog, or yelling at a partner...but to have these private thoughts aired to the public?  Kinda cool...  And it's not like EVERYONE can see/read them, just those who are as curious as I am...also kinda cool.
So I think I'll start my blog where I today - remembering how I used to be! haha

I remember I used to have a myspace account..or I still do and it's totally neglected...and I wrote a sort of blog/vent that went something like this;
"Is there a book out there that states a time limit for how long one must be in a relationship with another, before the cut-off date for being 'in love' that I have NOT read?  Is there a 'times up, you're STILL not in love, you should probably cut that off' border? If so...why have you people been hiding this from me?! A lot of time, energy and cupcake baking could have been saved on my part..."

Now, reading it, I remember exactly how I was feeling - the rantings of a girl who was just NOT getting what she wanted from her boyfriend of the time.  I was so amazingly in love with him and he JUST wouldn't give it back!  It's sweet really, to look back on it now.  Now that I'm in a completely different place.  I'm married now, and not to him :)  I moved to England, met the man of my dreams, and got hitched!  The rest...is not history, but is happening now.  I can't say I wish I never went through anything that I did before this, because I wouldn't be here, and nor do I feel like my life is just how I wanted it - similar - but nothing is ever exactly what you wanted it to be - but it can be better...  That's what I like about life - this is OUR STORY, our time!  Whatever happens every day in our seemingly meaningless lives, are pieces of our story, each with various chapters and new beginnings and interesting endings. 
Anyway, this blog is going to be my story...even if no one reads it.
xo