So it's official. I'm an Art School Mouse. I packed my pencil case and sketch pads and arrived for my first tutorial, bright and early on Monday morning. I got myself a coffee and sat in the cafe area, musing on my new life and what it might offer.
Ooh I was nervous. My whiskers were twitching uncontrollably, my paws were a bit clammy. My fur kept sticking up, no matter how many times I put a bit of lick on it and stuck it down again...
You have to think about where to sit when you enter a room. All the new mice were sitting clustered together at the back of the lecture room, I decided to be brave and sit at the front. A good idea, until half way through the presentation when I really needed a wee (I blame the coffee) and had to boldly walk past the projector screen twice once there and once back. Never mind. I'm a big, grown up Mouse I kept telling myself (I'm not really, I'm very small as you know, but I pretend sometimes).
The presentation basically said:-
'Welcome to the University. If you log onto the Student Mouse area you will find everything you need to know. If you can't log on then you will have to try to find someone to help you. If you don't read what's there you won't know. If you don't do your work you will fail. If you want to WIN you can basically say goodbye to sleep or any kind of life. Now.'
Well I felt a bit shaky after that, so on with the first task.
'The first task is to create a graphic novel. You have one hour to draw up 10 panels and then you must choose 3 and convert them into digital images using Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. You must then submit them in a blog (at last - one word I understood - blogs I can do!).
Blimey. So we watch a film. Some thing about Apes and bones and space ships. It doesn't last long but we have to watch it a lot of times and then draw it.
I don't know about you, but I like drawing birds and butterflies and flowers and pretty things. I don't draw apes particularly. Or at all. But that's it, that's what I have to do. After an hour of attempting I have a few scribbles that look marginally like hairy spiders that have had all their legs pulled off. Time to get them onto the computers.
The computer bit is taught by someone almost as young as my small boss, Edie and he WHIZZES through things in a very fast manner. My small brain is trying to keep up. What is this RGB CKMY business Dpi .tiff kind of file we're supposed to create? you have to what? layer what? Three hours later my brain is buzzing and there is smoke coming out of my paw tips as I try to keep up. On the screen there is a blob. This is going to be a very steep learning curve.
I manage to borrow a computer with the special software on it and I'm allowed to take it home as long as I sign a clause saying that if anything happens to it they can have my skin to make into a small rug in return. I'm not happy about that but needs must. At home I tend to my small boss, Edie, and then stay up for half of the night looking at bleeds and saturation and fill and I manage to do something good (draw over my actual squiggle ape with a furry type effect) and then something bad (realise that I have cut my mountains wrongly - keep up) and then something I don't understand which results in the whole sky turning orange and covering over the 5 suns that are shining overhead (it's art!). I console myself with the fact that I have 3 more days until submission. Yes, three more whole days with only 2 of those taken up with more lectures. I refer to the bit in the electronic handbook where it says you don't have to sleep and I sigh...
Wednesday is drawing day - a bit of a cliche - sit opposite someone and draw them. This is quite enjoyable in that it's familiar. I'm not sure about the person drawing me who seems to be taking a very abstract approach to it. I'm sure that my eyes are not both on the same side of my face, but I may be wrong. At the end of the lesson we are told that next week we need to bring in 10 sheets of large paper. And a stick. Okay.
Thursday - another lecture - this time a different person tells us that we must work hard even just to scrape a course pass and that to get a good grade we must sign over all rights to sleep, rest and eating breaks unless any of them can be multi-tasked into a five minute period, preferably in the library whilst conducting research - only we would have to leave out the eating bit because of crumbs and the sleeping bit because of snoring. We are then told that we have to produce an A0 sized black and white poster of ourselves and embellish it with paint or materials or art of any kind and bring it in for next weeks lesson. Right.
The first problem here is how to get a photograph taken. The photo tech's tell us not to cheat and use any kind of mobile phone device as THEY WILL KNOW! The second is composition - what the heck to do on this photo? In the end I decide to whizz down the hill on my scooter and get Mr. Mouse to take the photo. I think this will demonstrate my maturity.
I dress carefully in a T-Shirt - I plan to stick materials over my fur on the photo and didn't want a bulky coat to make me look like anything less than a svelte Mouse, and wellies - the hight of style and I zoom down the road. Mr. Mouse points his camera at me and clicks away. 'How many shots did you get?' I ask him. 'None. I'm using the wrong lens'.
This goes on for some time. I do run after run and my expression gets more terrified as each time, the brakes take a little longer to apply and make a loud screeching noise. Finally we have the shot - now to get it printed.
I call the University Print Bureau: 'Hello, if I bring you the file today when can you print it?'
'Tuesday.'
'Tuesday? But it's Friday!'
'Yes. Two day turnaround. Two working days.'
'But that means I won't get it until Tuesday and I'm in lectures all day Wednesday and I have to hand it in on Thursday! When am I supposed to decorate it?'
'Welcome to University'. Click.
I am stunned. I ring a professional printing company who assure me that they can print it in twenty minutes for the princely sum of three quid. Deal.
So, one way or another, I have the print and I have submitted the first assignment and it's only 10pm on Friday night - HA! take THAT 'sleep is optional' manual. I'm hoping that this rather heavy first week schedule only feels that way because of the steep learning path that I am on and that the lecturers are front loading us with a big bulk of work now to get us into it, somewhat in the manner of my junior school teacher lining us up at the local swimming baths and pushing us in, one by one, to teach us to swim (assuming we didn't drown).
And I'm hoping that the weeks ahead give me time to do what I love and use my paints and inks rather than sticking stickers onto a picture of myself.
In the meantime I'm having a well deserved sherry.
Artfully yours,
Mouse xx
I'm lying here with a small sherry, contemplating my week so far. So, after a few months of rest and relaxation it's nice to have a routine again, to get up and shower, brush out my fur and whiskers and know that I will see more people than just the post man today.
Of course, there was also something else - call it excitement, call it anticipation... or just call it plain old nerves. Yes, my whiskers were trembling somewhat as I dragged a comb through my freshly washed fur.
Checking my joining instructions on Sunday night I pored over the Welcome Meeting schedule - well, there was no schedule as such, just a time and a place. 'Be in the Auditorium by 9.45'. Okay no problem, I know where the campus is, I know where the Auditorium is, I know where to park the Mouse mobile (say mobeeeeel when you read that, as in super duper souped up car, not mobILE as in 'phone - okay?). However, I consulted with Mr. Mouse, who actually works at the campus.
'I think you'd better check that, Mouse, it doesn't actually say 'on campus'. I check. He's right. I have to go to an auditorium in a theatre in the centre of town. Oh. I don't know this town particularly well, despite living only 20 miles away for much of my mouse life, but I do know it's a kind of... mess. I think it's sort of evolved, rather than been designed, with a huge modern shopping centre near to a 60s concrete monstrosity, and a stone's throw away from some proper good old architecturally pleasing buildings. I check parking. There is no actual itinerary so I don't know how long I would need to park for - worse case all day - £11. ELEVEN POUNDS! A lot to me, now that I am a poor student mouse. I check the bus - where is the bus station - ah - there. And the theatre? Ok. No idea then.
In the end I decide to get a ride into the campus with Mr. Mouse, and cross my paws that I can get a bus from there into the town. A friendly squirrel girl with red hair and enormous brown eyes tells me where I can get the bus, but also that I can walk into town and it will take ten minutes. This being my preferred mode of transport, and the way I navigated Sweden, I set off on my sturdy paws for the walk.
I find the theatre - it is full to the brim of all manner of young creatures, colourful ones, shy ones who hide behind their fringes, the bendy kind that can sit on the floor in all manner of poses, some lone, some in packs, some huddled together, unsmiling and silent. There are some older ones, older than me, looking confident, wise and enlightened. I am somewhere in the middle. A song is playing in my head 'My heart is a-jumpin', my teeth are chatter, scarecrow, scarecrow... 'cos I'm scared alarming...' Ten points to anyone who can name the band - it's an obscure one I'm sure. I feel utterly out of place. We are handed out some 'important information'. Thinking it is an itinerary at last, I grab one. It's a pamphlet showing what plays are on offer over the next few months.
We file into the Auditorium. I sit in the middle, between two very young creatures. They introduce themselves - they are studying cool subjects such as creating computer games and they are comparing notes on halls and their room mates. I can add little to this and so stare at the stage.
We are given a welcome by the Dean of the University (the boss - his name is not Dean), and then the lecturers come out, one by one, and we are told to go and wait in the foyer in our study groups and follow our lecturers. Again, no itinerary and no time to ask if we can go for a wee first. Once located, the lecturers lead us on a walk - they don't tell us where we are going but point out useful reference points along the way 'That bar is open until 2am and do shots for 75p'.
It turns out we are walking back to the University. So, I walked al l the way into town to be welcomed and taken on a walk back? Good job I didn't book that all day parking. Once back we are told that we are not needed again until 2pm. It has just gone 11am.
After a coffee, and a read, and a good old explore of the building I am herded along with the rest of my group into another Auditorium (I can see this is going to get confusing) and we are given a timetable - some useful information at last.
The second day is the actual enrolment. This is fairly uneventful. I log onto the computer as directed, nothing happens. I am sent to sit with a technician who will sort out the technical problems and guide me through it, the system crashes. That sort of uneventful. Eventually the task is complete, a photograph is taken (thankfully quite blurry and my whiskers look okay) and I am sent off, this time, for an induction of the library. This is where they tell me how to get books out of a library. My small boss, Edie, has told me this many times so it's not particularly interesting or surprising to me. Then it's time to go home with nothing else happening until Thursday. It strikes me that they could have, with a little planning, put all of the scheduled items into a one morning induction, but I mustn't go all process management on them - remember, I don't do that anymore.
So I think I have it sussed so far. And as for the youngsters in their cool fur, well they all look normal and shy, but they do have rather large holes in their ears which I just can't fathom, really. And they say 'Awesome' a lot. So for the rest of this week, this will be my goal, to get the word 'awesome' into every sentence, at least three times.
It will be awesome.
High Five,
Mouse xx
Heja Mes Amigos,
Excuse the mixed-up, made up, mishmash lingo. I hardly know where I am. I've been on holiday.
I've not had a proper holiday in years, but since I quit the nine to five in favour of the creative life I've taken things rather more easily, and what a Summer it's been. I've camped in tents, splashed by the sea-side and generally indulged in a long stay-cation. Not for me the jetting off on plane - that was my work life of old - but the discovery of the countryside on my doorstep, with my small boss, Edie, by my side. We have picked blackberries, scrumped for the neighbour's apples (shhhh - don't tell him), tramped through fields of Sunflowers, pounded the scorching pavements in our wellies, in search of local interest points, and practically lived in the garden, painting pictures, growing flowers and vegetables and tending to the fish in the pond.
I have shared a sherry with many a creature, exchanging views on the world, whilst watching the stars and the bats flitting overhead. I've knitted several more big squares of random wool oddments towards my patchwork winter blanket and I have immersed myself in books and largely abandoned technology. How healthy.
But now I'm ready for a new challenge - and a new challenge is certainly coming! Tomorrow I go back to school! That's not a euphemism for a new job, it is actual school. Well, University! I am going to learn all about art and paint and colours and drawing and pictures and how to generally survive with no money for cheese. I'll be there with lots of young mice - much, much younger than me. Mice who will all have cool fur and no small bosses to take care of. The joining instructions have been informative. I am to turn up at an appointed place, at an appointed time, and I will be welcomed and told more. I am wondering if I have accidentally enrolled at a KGB convention - it's all very mysterious. Exciting for the young mice I would imagine, but with small boss to consider, it's more irritating than exciting for me to be informed in this manner. But we shall see.
As for the timetable of actual classes, well all I can say is that it's been sent to me, so that I can work around my small boss, Edie. It is certainly suited to the course as it's in red and yellow. And green and Orange. And some turquoise. All the different bits in different colours mean different things. Some colours are together, sometimes there are big gaps of no colour. There is no actual useful writing on it to tell me what the colours mean. I am sure I will work it out.
So wish me luck - I need to go and iron my school uniform now and try out some 'root boosting gel' to try to get my fur to look as cool and funky as the young mice. Oh, and I should probably not say 'cool' or 'funky' either. The babies will no doubt give me withering looks...
Yours Excitedly,
Mouse xx
