Annual Blog Post

Well, it's been a year and 15 days (probably 16 by the time I finish writing) since my last blog post. It's not like anybody ever reads it anyway I don't think - most of the feedback seems to be from spambots posting nice comments about where I can source some cut-price viagra.

So, to catch up, this time last year I would've been in the early stages of second year. Second year was a bit crap for various reasons, and I finished up feeling a bit dissatisfied with where I'd ended up, artistically at least. By the end of it, I was really glad to be getting out of GSA for a while, since I'd be going on exchange to the University of New Mexico in the US. I did my usual summer stint at the bike shop, and by mid-August, I found myself in Albuquerque.

Albuquerque is quite a lot warmer than Scotland, though you probably didn't need me to tell you that, right? I got some mental sunburn, especially cycling around trying to find flats spread all across a very expansive city. Eventually, after dodging a few real dumps, I found myself (concidentally) in exactly the same flat that Theresa and Chris from Glasgow had stayed in the year before. The nearest Ikea is all the way up in Denver, so Walmart had to provide the furniture.

The only thing that was kinda worrying me was my class schedule. I'd been advised to take 200-level courses, roughly equivalent to second year at uni. The problem was that there were only two 200-level photography courses, and I hadn't been able to get on early and register for them due to a computer system error, so they were full by the time I got there. Luckily, I managed to beg a spare place on one of them, so I ended up with a timetable consisting of Digital Imaging Techniques, Intro to Printmaking, Modern Art History and History of Photography.

While there are many things I find confusing, bewildering or just plain annoying about the way the American educational system works, perhaps the biggest and most noticeable difference has been that of the workload compared to that of GSA. I find myself with a very frustrating mix - there's a lot more work to do, in terms of volume, but very little of it is particularly challenging.

Admittedly, my printmaking class is pretty challenging, but I put this down to the fact that I've never really had to create decent artworks without the aid of a camera before, and having to rely purely on my clumsy hands leaves me somewhat limited.

My big worry is that I'm going to be somewhat left behind as a photographer when I return to Glasgow. I've been hearing all about the really interesting stuff that people back home have been up to, and all I've been doing is photoshopping daft pictures of penguins looking at abandoned shopping trolleys (I scored a perfect 100% for that assignment by the way).

What I have been doing is trying to keep my own little personal side project on the go, shooting a LOT of Polaroid snapshots as I go along. I guess there's no deeper meaning to these, but they are really good fun (when my camera isn't deciding to spontaneously destroy itself) and definitely go a long way towards trying to keep me at least reasonably sane.