REFLECTIONNOITCELFER

I’m writing why I am awesome because I need to give myself an ego boost - I can feel myself explaining myself to people, trying to convince them I am doing well, that i’m not stupid and trying to be people’s friends.

I need to cut that shit out RIGHT NOW

I need to remind myself that I don’t need anybody, stop stressing about how I am perceived by people, not give a fuck about whether or not they think I am a ‘cool’ person and am worried about what they say behind my back.

I have a job to do, I have things that need sourcing, making, distressing, I have organising to do, I need to know what order I would do them in and what exactly they need done to them. 

I am awesome because I can make anything, we need something and I can tell you where you would get it from, what needs to be done to it, the materials you will need and the problems that may occur and how to solve them,

I am awesome because I work extremely well in groups of people, I can listen to them and figure out what they need, I can manage myself and I can control the quality.

I am awesome because I can organise large scale events in a short amount of time, I can delegate roles and tasks and I can actually enjoy myself while doing it.

I am awesome because I have a great job, a loving partner, skills and abilities as well as hobbies that fuel my interest.

It’s been a while, a myriad of things have happened since I have last needed to come here to write. I’m now working in the Armoury Dept of the New Zealand Film Industry, running my own side business of street art and illustration and am trying to figure out what to do with my life.

I’m doing that thing again where I live slightly in the future and attempt to figure out what I want to be so I can take steps now to get there. The reason why I do this I have found is that I have a tendency to exhaust myself when gunning 100% towards something where I haven’t actually properly understood where I am going ie I think I have an idea about where this assignment is going, go 100% and then figure out afterwards that i’m going in the wrong direction.

Is this just life? Loops of this shit? 

I’m afraid of looking back and wishing that I had of gone down a different path and that I have wasted my time getting to that point when there was a much faster and more efficient route. 

I would like to change my mindset here because I feel like this is a trap completely. I feel like either way I go no matter how much I worry and plan I will still look back and see an easier/better/more efficient route.

Instead I would like to: 1. stay present and thinking about the job I am doing right now and doing that to the best of my ability for a set time period - ie 1 year 2. When thinking about the future consider not the money or the position but the enjoyment of doing such a thing - what makes me happy and what can I do for long periods of time.

I took today off work, after yesterday dealing with my flatmates my mood has been very flat. I’m also stressed about this puppet i’m making, I don’t really like where it’s going, the deadline is looming and I am dreading having to come home to work on it. I just want it over and done with as soon as possible.

I’m trying not to put this mood on anybody else but my efforts aren’t really working when I withdraw like I am, withdrawing is what seems to flag to people that i’m not ok and so inevitably it disrupts the mood. The other option is for me to ignore it all, that usually doesnt go well so i’m just trying to reflect on this now to potentially get some of it out.

I’m worried about my drive, worried because there doesn’t seem to be much of it recently. I’m trying to figure out what I enjoy doing and then do that but it’s difficult to find what I enjoy doing. I think smoking less weed will help with this as I seem to be bogged down quite a lot rather than calculating and searching as I usually am.

So what am I going to do about it? Lets begin with smoking a bit less weed huh, relaxing for the next couple of hours before rehearsal and then doing what I need to do when I get there.

Hello, it’s been a while since I’ve written. I’ve learnt another life lesson, maybe it’s one i’ve already encountered before but in a different way so I am sitting down to write about it so I remember.

I had a new flatmate, we will call her S for short and she moved into our house, now she is awesome, really cool, beautiful, lovely soul, stunning really and me and her get on like peas in a pod. She’s the camera to my tripod it’s awesome. 

Over the last few weeks we became really close, she felt like my new best friend, we have all of these plans about the future and what we are going to do and adventures and company ideas etc etc and then on the day after my 22nd birthday party she just up and leaves and goes back home. Not going to lie, i’m pretty cut up about it all despite how I have been acting which is more so worried about her and her health.

Here is my account of what hapened, we go to foxglove for a drink with her and my other flatmate whom we shall call J and we sit down and have a couple drinks which is nice and then another friend whom we will call L comes and joins us. Now L is my partners new best friend and has been sly getting with S which was awesome cause now its like the 4 of us. About half an hour in S starts getting really weird and stops speaking altogether it’s very strange so me and J and L just keep having a good laugh, we go upstairs and we chill out and have a few more drinks and then we go home. 

The next day we get a message saying that she needs to leave back home and she doesn’t know when she will be back.

J and I were talking about it and it seemed like she got jealous, or envious or something similar to that when L wasn’t giving all of his attention to her and she was taken out of the glorious moment we were in having fun and drinking and started thinking too much, worrying about what might be, what people might think, blowing things way out of proportion.

Ive messaged her and she just keeps saying that she needs to sort her head out and stuff like that but I’m still cut. Those plans I was making with her were real, I had started shifting my focus to those so that I could do them. She missed J leaving for auckland, we didn’t even celebrate her being here, she said we would have a party this weekend just gone to celebrate my birthday properly and she still isn’t here. We have christmas plans, we have festival plans, we have travelling plans, vigilante graffiti plans all of it and it’s gone now. I have no interest in picking them back up with her again, not after that, not just to have them disappear for what I saw as nothing.

My definition of success

- don’t forget this in the face of the wider cultural need for success

recognition, responsibility

a balance between money and enjoyment

and a balance between work and leisure

challenge - to always be learning

Dream goal

personal - awareness and acceptance of self

professional - recognition and responsibility

project - probably some giant interactive permanent public structure of sorts

Next year

personal - follow where my interest takes me without worrying so much about where it leads

professional - continue to network with the right groups of people and learn and evolve my skills

Had an interesting couple of days, I went into school on Sunday in a very bad mood, quite pissed off at everybody really so there were no smiles, no encouragement, nothing.

It was very hard to please me and I was surprised at how people reacted, I gained a certain amount of respect which to me was strange.

The only other time I have experienced this was one time where I was sick and I didn’t want to be there, I just wanted to leave, get in, do my job and get the fuck out of there and because I was so short with everybody I again commanded respect, people started listening harder to what I was saying, picking their words carefully and also people started to check in with me about what I thought about something.

I then tried this again today to no success, I wasn’t able to recreate that mood I was in and I’m also thinking that being short with people isnt the way to treat it either. I’m going to break down what it was in hopes of progressing this and using this effectively.

So Sunday I didn’t agree with people, when somebody said something I immediately questioned them to find out if it was unecessary or if it was something I should be spending my time on

I was also very quiet and focused. I stood back and observed with silent ... not judgement it was scrutiny 

I stepped forward at important points, I told people that I wasn’t ok with something and that it needed to be better.

I provided solutions without fear of being wrong, when they were wrong I dropped it.

Today I noticed that I didn’t do a few of these things, I did some of them but not in the right way also.

I agreed with people quite a lot, an instant yes rather than a pause to think and evaluate what something was and was not doing.

I spoke too much unnecessarily, jumping in without the intention of directing what I was saying, just flip comments hoping someone would jump on them.

Not so successful here.

IRP was pushed to the background because of Mother Courage and I can’t say that next term that will change so much either so I need to figure out a way I can continue to work on this project and milk it for all it’s worth.

I did this flippantly, tested when I could or could be bothered and managed my time sparingly, jumping in last minute when I had a spare moment.

This term I directed my own project successfully but it was not a smooth ride which is why I am reflecting on this process now so that over the next six weeks I can be extremely productive and follow a process more strictly.

Things I noticed that went well through the process - excitement was in abundance - ideas were also in abundance - technical skill we had enough of to learn at the same time as producing  - collaboratively we worked well, we understand each other and can be harsh and forgiving.

Looks like we have the seeds to grow a great successful project which is great because there are a lot of things to now work on: - I focused too much on logistics again and not the idea therefor work and research would be done and then the idea changes bringing us back to square one -  I didn’t do enough wide research to ground my work so I was lacking a greater understanding of the job the radio needs to do - we didn’t get enough time to meet seriously to discuss the design and do some solid work, this was not set up by me either we sort of just jumped into it without properly thinking about what was needed to do separately and together.

As far as self direction goes, I chose a project and jumped into it half heartedly, I could direct what needed to be done but not what needed to be questioned and found it hard to express what was most important to me while testing.

Next term I want to first set up how we are going to be working, how Cameron and I can get shit done together

Biggest learning was here, the last three posts fall within this area of learning.

About a month ago I hit a point where I thought I had the design, everything clicked into place, it functioned, it looked beautiful, it all worked and I had my world rocked to the core by the HOD telling me that it was not the end.

I realised that I was holding on to concepts, cute ideas that worked well but overall did not serve the wider world of the production as a whole. I was forced to go back and re-question what the job was but what held me back was the fact that I had already designed the logistics of how it would work and every time I changed an idea it would change the logistics.

It put a strain on my visualisation I had to let go of it all because I didn’t have time in the quick turnaround to produce the things I wanted to produce It put a strain on my collaborators because they had to deal with me being upset at the same time as I began to doubt whether or not they actually believed I could do something 

Whats exciting is that as soon as I had gotten over that I directly applied it to my work, and within the next few weeks I had overthrown my own design because it wasn’t doing the job of the production.

This term was interesting, I kind of just ignored people to try to get shit done on my own, this isn’t really collaborating.

Within my little design team I feel like we have an ease of communication because I have created it, the amount of times I have pulled either of my team members up for snapping so we can communicate effectively is huge but with the wider team I have been opposed to doing this because to be honest I cannot be fucked.

I saw the wider effects of this the other day when we were told to sit down together to voice our frustration. I told them I was in my own world and let them know that I would pop that bubble a little bit to help out. From now onwards I will be doing that.

When somebody is putting down another person I have some go to sentences which are: - you don’t have to like them but talking like that doesn’t help the work - come on they aren’t doing it on purpose they are obviously struggling - what small things can you do to help the situation to make it easier for everyone 

The job of a designer is to visualise ideas and problem solve.

I have let go of a lot of my fears and blocks around presentations and visualising ideas. I now don’t put so much pressure on producing, I am realising that I will never get all of the things I need to together to show ideas, no matter what I will always want my sketches to be better, it needs more layers of colour, it doesn’t have enough detail etc etc

Now my focus is on what I need to get out of the meeting, what am I questioning, where does it need to go in order for me to move forward and what visuals can I prepare to help us get there so the director/other designers understand where I am coming from.

What am I going to do to help me here though? I can’t really produce good final sketches quickly and realistically, my models are realistic but I spend too long doing it, the photoshopping over sketches is fast but not realistic.