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happy new year

hey there

i know, i hardly ever put anything on this thing anymore. see, it's like this, it's actually hugely frustrating, i haven't done any weaving worth speaking of AT ALL since i started college. and yeah, i ken like that there's more to life than intersecting two sets of threads at right angles to each other, but i like it you know? and i'm supposed to be down here to be doing that. and the knitting is really quite interesting, and actually i guess a potentially productive money-spinner in terms of actually producing sale goods, and it's handy to know how to actually cut patterns and sew properly, with a machine, and print is fun and is so something i quite enjoy and want to do more of, but the thing is i feel like it's gonna take forever before i get to do any weaving

and here's the other thing right, well one of them, there's a whole rake of things doin my brain in right now, but here's the other thing like i say. see, in first semester we had two whole days a week of either knit or print right, and that's all good. lots of time in the workshop standing on your feet actually DOING THINGS (not like all just drawing and trawling the internet for pictures of bleeding dresses to put in research files. i mean, i have an appreciation for fashion like, but only insofar as i like what's actually wrapped up, i mean, i could care less whether a hot girl's wearing a gucci dress or a bleeding sackcloth). but next semester we do weave (finally). but only one day a week. and yeah, cool, it's all semester rather than just half of it, but we're gonna be doin CAD as well, and for all that i spend a lot of time on the internet, i just HATE HATE HATE working with computers, especially on creative stuff, it's just so bloody soulless and life-crushing. i mean, what is the point, really?

so i guess that's just one day standing up moving my limbs and the rest is going to be spent on my rear-end, slowing down my metabolism and withering away what little muscle mass i have left since i stopped actually working physically, and i'm like so unfit and that's all there is to it. i so have to take up farming or landscaping again, but christ, who's gonna give an unskilled manual labourer (and a skinny one at that who doesn't know anybody down here) a job in this economic climate?

people look at me and assume i don't know one end of a spade from the other, it annoys me.

i am pure ranting like, and i apologise, i'm just having one of those "what on earth am i doing with my life?" moments, well it's not a moment, i've been deeply troubled about my social condition for a number of years now but one just tends to ignore these things and muddle on through.

but the period between now and christmas has so far been totally bat-shit bonkers insane, what with the drinking and the partying and getting dangerously drunk with exes and going out with an old crush (like, for years kind of a crush) and her new boyfriend (who's totally sound by the way, and at least i care about her enough to realise that). which is all good i guess, cos he seems good for her and there was no wierdness, although the craic was blatantly like "hey, i ken you're into me and have been for ages so here's my manny, just so you know like, and we're all still friends like and it's all good, so yeah"

or something along those lines.

but yeah, emotionally turbulent. and also, coming to a realisation of what seriously good friends two people in my life who i haven't spent enough time with in the last few years are and how they know better about what i need and what i want than i do, cos i never think about these things seein as i'm a bleedin Stoic. which brings back home in all it's full amazing glory the unavoidable fact that i've had no-one to actually talk to about girl/life stuff for so long and still don't (without coming into edinburgh, which is a hassle) and it's total pish like.

and that's just the thing, i am totally not clicking in Gala. everyone is lassies like, and my only mates i don't have anything in common like. i mean, they're great people and all that, but can you imagine trying to explain to a fashion-and-boys-and-shops lassy what it means to live in a tree and why you did it? or even bring the subject up without everyone thinking you're a total freak?

though i did meet a nice spanish couple the other week, so i guess i've got a fighting chance of building a mad "let's all get hammered and find random people" drinking culture there. it's worth a try. if things still aren't working by the end of this semester i'll seriously have to think about switching to a different institution

so i guess when the stream of conciousness has been written down i guess the lack of weaving in my life is not the problem at all, and of course it's other things. so obvious really

Comments

Dorothy said…
Hope it is a happy new year for you! I think the frustrations you have with the course are just how it is with education, you have to meet the course requirements and that means you can't go wandering off exploring other directions.

I totally, utterly agree about computers, having grown up with them and although being good at using them has always helped me in the job market. Given the choice of use a computer or a pencil & paper, the paper wins everytime.

I'm hoping to get up to Edinburgh before too long, if I can get something arranged I'll let you know and maybe we can meet up, put the world to rights a bit and talk weaving stuff.

As regards the "what on earth am I doing with my life?" I find it's best to start from the point that life is futile and so anything slightly worthwhile or fun has some value. At least you are doing a course learning new skills and new ways of doing things. I'm unemployed, watching my money slip away and trying not to lose my nerve. Best to just live in the moment.
Andrew Kieran said…
aye sound, well if you do, drop me a line or find me on facebook if you're using facebook. my email is apk5@hw.ac.uk

i can be found on facebook as Andrew Kieran, my profile pic is a pastel pink darth vader
Anonymous said…
Sounds really bad. I hope you can get back to the loom soon, for some relief. From my own experience the anger can help in a way. The whole "I'm going to squeeze an education out of this place if it kills me, and then I'm going to shake its dust off my feet" thing.
Dorothy said…
Love Trapunto's attitude! In the spirit of "don't let the b------s grind you down". I've noted your e-mail (I'm not on Facebook, I'm a Luddite when it suits me). When I went back to Uni for a law course in 2004 I discovered textile books in the University library - I got an extra education to the one I'd signed up for and maybe it'll take me somewhere?
Anonymous said…
But you're the only guy on campus???? Sorry but I still can't get my head around how that could be anything other than awesome! :D
Anyhoo, if things don't work out can you change campus to somewhere closer to civilisation?
Andrew Kieran said…
aaah, yes welshboi, but you're forgetting one very important thing, a very important and inescapable part of my psychology, which is this (and i really shouldn't have to point this out):

if i ever see ANY oppurtunity to be thouroughly miserable i will grab it with both hands and hold it dearly to my bosom. hooray for misery! hooray for unfulfilled striving! hooray for not being happy with what you've got even if what you've got is a magic cow that shits roast potatoes and pisses beer!

you know i'm right. oh, and as it's you, i just thought i should point out:

You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong about everything. When you get to the pearly gates just you remember i said that, and remember to feel silly.
Meg said…
Finally got through it, mate! Gee, a skinny male art student for manual labour - that's as bad as me trying to get a part as an elf in LOTR/Hobbit movies!

"What on earth/life" bit, I'll be 52 in 2.5 months and I'm still asking myself that, but whoa, you have a gift - you have those two friends who know you so well and care about you!!!

Listen to everybody, and remember, some of us envy that you are on this course, you know. Not that we don't understand your pain, but what a great long-term plan!

And looking for misery - a Scottish thing? How about being a short/fat, middle-aged, Japanese female, who went to a Catholic convent school and had a tenuous relationship with her Dad?

I can so easily tell you it won't matter in 20 years, but you're there and I'm here so it DOES matter to you! And you're in the thick of it. So chin up! Tackle that misery first. And find some loom time.

On to the next post!
Meg said…
About that long-crush thing. I dated my first boyfriend from the time I was 17 to 22, and he dumped me for another girl. In retrospect, he had an alternate the whole time we were dating.

He found me on Facebook 2 or 3 weeks after I got on there. Long story short, I didn't get my revenge, but after a few intense chatting, in the very wee hours for him, I found him an intolerable bore and unfriended him in 3 weeks. 29 years of self-doubt and self-whatever disappeared.

Like I said, you're in the thick of it, and it is utterly serious, but remember in the back of your mind somewhere that these things may happen.

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