The new life of Kat!

Oh my lordy what have I done!

2011-03-09T17:38:00.003Z

Well, it has been some time since I have posted but I am back in teh land of education doing an access course in Marine and Environmental Science to hopefully confirm my place on a renewable energy degree! But boy is this hard! SOOOOOO many assignments!

I love to learn but I really hate the workload.......

Mires Mor Videos

2010-05-20T11:57:00.004+01:00

As part of a promotional website project I have designed a website for a community project called Mires Mor. These are the videos that we have edited from the Open Day.

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me2everyone.....

2009-07-06T14:34:00.002+01:00

http://www.me2everyone.com/497993

Hello

From late June 2009 me2everyone is going to be a cool new website where you can meet friends, chat, shop, play, watch videos, create an art gallery, open a virtual newspaper, play the free inworld lottery and make money from your own online store! You and everyone you know make the decisions, shape the world, create real incomes and share in the profits. It’s a new place where you meet new people or invite your friends. Learn new skills or expand your business. Find the love of your life or help the planet.

Oh and the great part is that every member also has the option to become a shareholder in me2everyone PLC - a British company all without spending a single penny! me2everyone is free now, free forever. They are about to recruit 70,000 people to run their own customer care business too so if you know anyone that needs some extra work, this could be ideal for them!

If you are looking for something really good in 2009: something that changes your view on the world, then you really have to spend just one minute and look at this website. This is an excellent chance for all of us to make some real progress in 2009 and beyond! Please do not miss it.

Could it be???

2009-06-23T13:04:00.003+01:00

......that summer has arrived! Quite surprisenly as normally in the weeks of Wimbledon it rains! Of course as this year is the year they finally have the roof on centre court it is typical that we have blazing sunshine! But I am not complaining....

I have in the past been an avid Wimbledon watcher, but I miss the great legends of the sport! Boris Becker was my favourite and I notice that this week he is featured in I think Hello magazine as getting married.. ..... but I do wish him congratulations!

So come on Murray even if you are a scotsman it would be great to see you win Wimbledon and give the British Grand Slam a UK winner!

2009-06-23T12:01:00.001+01:00

is checking out ping.fm

Summer Break!

2009-06-15T11:10:00.001+01:00

Well so far I have done zilch! It is quite an odd feeling not having to have a reason to get up! To be honest to say I have done nothing is not really true, I have been camping and of course done my first farmers market! Anyhow, I have a pampered chef party coming up on the 10th July so I have do a challenge ahead of me in terms of having a tidy house and somewhere for guests to sit!

Those of you who know me well realise that I am not naturally a tidy person. It doesn't help having the house full of so much stuff, I still have boxes from my previous house and of course the contents of the shop are stuffed into every nook and cranny.

So today I have at least made a start, have moved the mountain of washing from the sofa and then hoovered up the spilt dirt from the plant pot, put some washing in and sorted a bit of recycling.

There is a huge long list of things I have to do from ebaying lots of hosiery to decorating my sons bedrooms..... hence why I struggle to know where to start. But now I have a deadline.. 10th July watch this space to see how it develops.....

Cupcakes and Celebrities

2009-06-15T10:57:00.000+01:00

A very exciting day for me today in two ways, Firstly it being my first time at a Farmers Market selling my lovely cupcakes! Last night I had a major 'iceathon' which took me into the wee small hours but I had produced many of the following scrumptious flavours

Red Velvet with Mascarpone
Vanilla with Lemon & Pistachio
Lemon Poppy Seed with Lemon & Lime
Chocolate Noodle Doodles
Vanilla Cherry Dream
Lemon Sunflowers
Vanilla Butter cream Sundaes and Flowers
Blueberry Muffins

SO imagine my excitement for the second big thing when none other than the lovely Dawn French bought one of my cupcakes. Of course at the moment Ms French and Ms Saunder's are doing some great videos for the Utility Warehouse, entertaining and highly amusing! I wa thrilled to meet her as I do love her type of comedy and have enjoyed many a night in laughing my socks off!

Anyway, back to the cupcakes 130 of them are now being enjoyed in the local area and I have had requests for different flavours and to please come back. SO despite a very late night and sore back I think I shall, despite being hard work I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how much people liked them today.

Of course should you liek to try one of them I am happy to pop round with a selection and at the same time introduce the benefits of being a Utility Warehouse Discount Club member ;-)

put the kettle on.........

1 down 1 to go!

2009-06-07T21:03:00.003+01:00

Well I have to admit that it has come faster than I thought but I have FINISHED my first year!!!! All assignments have been handed in, I have to redo one over the summer but apart from that finito! (I made it ha ha ha)

It Really has been a mixed year in terms of how I have felt about the course and element's off it along with what we have had to learn. I am assured that year two will be learning more about web design and as long as I pass my 3ds max then I will be back.....!

Building a Business

2009-05-27T00:16:00.002+01:00

Despite being on half term break I can say that I have been putting some things into practice. My limited understanding of 'code' has enabled me to put up a business blog and edit links and such like. So am pleased to report that some things have been going in, all is not in vain...

Also I am happy to say that the website that I have put together for Mike Munds has been well received. all I now have do is make things on it work...LOL

story so far

2009-05-24T23:18:00.003+01:00

Half term is upon us and I have to say I am soooo relived. i m still in a quandary as to being on the right course. My main reason for staying is not the right ones me thinks. If I leave, it will be yet another thing I have given up on, however if I stay I could waste another year and the funding on something I am not enjoying. Lecturers have assured me the second year is better but I am struggling. I failed my flash assignment which was as expected due to not knowing or understanding the program. So that means re-doing it over summer.

The current 3ds max is due when we get back and all I have done is create a snail and managed to get it to move but it has no real character nor a scene so I feel another fail coming on.

Personally I have to question if I have the passion or drive for this, but in all honestly I feel that at the moment I don't have either for anything.

A positive note is my pass on the 2500 word essay, and it seems daft that the one part of the course I am doing well in is the one that has had the least interest. Explain that one!!!!

progress report

2009-04-21T23:34:00.002+01:00

I have to say that I have been very slack in not posting over the past 2 months of term. Mainly as I thought that unleashing my frustration may not be constructive! I feel that putting my enormous range of emotions into cyberspace may not have been one of my best ideas, so I just vented to friends and the occasional tutor!

Needless to say I finally got to grips with the 3DS max at the eleventh hour and managed to produce a room complete with camera fly though. It was a massive struggle and a very ooohhhh why wont this bloody program do what I want, oh yes it is because I don't understand it kinda struggle.

The same can be said for my efforts on Flash.

However I did produce and Essay! Yes I wrote something, amazing eh.

So I have yet to receive any marks back, but then we have only just returned to college. But what does amaze me is that I only have 8 weeks left of my first year. It has flown by!

Two weeks in...

2009-01-24T10:07:00.002Z

to the second half of the term and things are moving along a bit. We have now started on Flash and 3ds max, both programs are ones that I want to master but....... 3ds Max is HARD! I honestly thought I would get to grips with this program as I can think in 3d space, however I am struggling, but mainly form a design point of view. An here lies my problem that I feel is going to be my downfall as a web designer. I have the ideas I just dont have the skill or talent to put it into practice. But I suppose that is where a graphic designer would come into play. My frustrations were high on Wednesday when I just could not remember how things worked or how to achieve something that we had been practicing the day before. Retention of instruction...ggrrrrrr

BUT I have to just keep practicing and start small, I think on this awesome program.

So onto flash, another program that I really want to get my teeth into but I feel my drawing skills will let m,e down. I have to say that I am eager to get the assignment brief on this module so that I can see if any idea that I have rolling around in my head at the moment will be relevant.

Also this term we have started on HTML and web pages using dreamweaver. We have been given our assignment on that one and I feel that I may have to go talk to a certain gym owner to see if we can barter something out about doing his website. Mainly as that is what we are required to do, to listen to a client brief and see what we can come up with. I have other sites of my own that I also plan to work on one of those being the Liskeard Netball Website. It majorly needs an overhaul and updating as I have not touched it since I left the club last year.

A gentle start to the term and I am glad to have a reason to get out of bed. However have now developed a liking for cream cheese and bacon bagels thanks to the student union LOL!

A brief update

2008-12-05T13:41:00.005Z

Has been a bit of a mad time at the moment so have not done my usual daily updates, so thought I would see if I can add my animation that has been handed in this week for my assignment. Its very basic but did involve the use of filters, and even a bit of drawing that I did all by myself which was mainly the mouth of the submarine!

Hopefully I will achieve greater things in the future..LOL Some of the other's are fantastic even at this stage but due to not being very artistic I do find I struggle with thinking things up!

Week 10 / Wednesday

2008-11-20T22:08:00.003Z

Well I have to say that today was a good day, I never quite know how to take the mornings as it is often doing some arty stuff that I and if I am honest have little interest in, however today put that into practice with the software of Adobe Premiere! And what a great peice of software it is and I so bloody wish we had learnt more about it sooner. Following on from last week and the etchings that we did of man in motion, after scanning them in we then were putting them together as frames and then animating them with the software. I added some sound as well and had my man in motion walking down the stairs to the sounds of 'to boldly go where no man has gone before' I am somewhat chuffed with it, as simple as it was, to me was fab.

Now I continued in the afternoon to use premiere to animate Gerty, previously I had been doing this via image ready, but I do much prefer premiere as you can add sound, along with having a clear indication of how long the animation is. So Gerty now disappears in a vortex, reappears in the sea to be eaten by a submarine shark, yes terribly sad ending for poor Gerty but it means I can add the jaws music in the background for comic effect as well as showing some drawing skills in turning the front of the sub into a mouth with sharp teeth.

The down side to the days events were the lack of lecturer in the afternoon, Our regular lecturer had been required to be on a field trip with the year 2 students, and therefore we were left with no cover! Now this is not allowed as students are not meant to be left on our own due to health and safety regulations. Not good! Sometimes as discussed often by the group we feel that we are an after thought due to the overloaded head of course, and a lot of content has been geared more towards the animation side of things. Hopefully it is just a glitch ........

Week 10 / Tuesday

2008-11-18T22:11:00.002Z

Well I have to say that the computers at the college really need up dating! The keyboard on my machine today had a mind of it's own and had to have the Y key practically pushed through the table to respond! The shift key was obviously suffering from depression as one minute it would be fine the next minute nothing, and other quirky things were going on as to the control key being a sulky teenager!

So armed with this it was interesting to say the least in trying to figure out how to get key commands to work.

I carried on with the animation assignment today and concentrated on the intro, created the title of GERTY in patterned text that appeared one letter at a time all still very simple. In terms of showing I can use the drawing tool, following a tutorial I created a leaf! I am planning to have Gerty do something on or with this leaf to add to the animation as I have yet to get it to 10 secs.

We also had a look at what others had done with their projects and I have to say I feel mine looks rather pathetic compared to others, far to simple so a tad worried as to the marks I will achieve!

Week 10 / Monday

2008-11-17T20:57:00.002Z

oooohhhhh I am so having to drag my arse out of bed now! I think it has a lot more to do with general tiredness rather than the lack of will to attend college though!

So Illustrator today, and I have to say that I learnt what I feel will be a very useful tool. It is to do with finding paths and the dividing them so you can make text entwine other letters, or cut out the centre of objects exactly with the compound path feature. Great for creating optical illusions like a decreasing coloured tunnel. But most useful for logos as you can remove sections of letters or shapes. All very good.

So this afternoon Phil is back to health and back at lectures, and so we had to do our poster presentation, oops as I had not prepared anything or even looked at a poster. After spending a whole two minutes thought I came up with Gone with the Wind as a classic poster or a simple poster of Alien. Laughable both of these were then featured in Phil's power point! At least I Didn't have to look for the posters online, I went with ALIEN as I loved the simplicity of the poster whilst still installing a fear in the darkness and of course spawning the most famous movie tag line ever! When you did look closely at the poser it was brilliant in creating the feel of space as well as the fear of something being out there. And I also think that the X-box has kinda copied the glowing egg for their logo, or that may just be my observation, but the glowing egg opening gives you the impression of that there is something in there and it doesnt feel friendly!

I do enjoy the groups presentation days as you get to see what other people choose and gives you a kind of insight into their interests and of course I do love a good group discussion, just find it hard to keep my mouth shut!

Week 9 / Wednesday

2008-11-12T22:24:00.003Z

Ahh last day of the college week....

Also I refer to this now as arty morning! And Indeed this morning was no exception, using acetate sheets we etched out man in motion. Finally I can now say would you like to see my etchings' LOL!

I dont have any idea what I have really gained from this but apparently what I produced was good, so what did I do. Basically had photographs on a sheet of a man walking down the stairs, taken from a book whose name escapes me but highlights the fascination with human movement and involves naked people walking, running, throwing and other various things with the photographs being taken at all the stages of said movement. Using different tools I etched out the form in a negative or positive aspect. (will upload photo's later after they have been scanned in)
Then ink was dragged across the acetate and then slowly removed, the idea is the ink stays in the 'etched' bit, you then wet some paper, blot it and place it over the acetate and put it through a huge press to make a print.

Anyhow all four of us (howie was absent) had a print made, this then lead to the usual discussion of what the hell is this for and how is it relevant to our course!!! Wont go into what was said but never the less we viewed other online course content to see if we were on the right one! And a discussion with one of the 2 second year students didn't really help.......

PM

We looked at the layouts and target audience of various website, today at college was 'cultural diversity day' so along this theme we were instructed to find a cultural website and how it appealed to this target market. I pulled up some website on Christianity and Wicca , the first being a slick blog style layout appealing to no one in particular, whilst the second was a garish amateurish layout that didn't really flow or had continuity. Both had all the information needed just different was of putting it across, oh how I would like to redesign the Wicca one to tone it down in glare and make it flow and be more organic. (and all this was filmed as well bit unnerving LOL)

After group discussion about other websites we went on to work on the assignments that are due in

Week 9 / Tuesday

2008-11-11T23:26:00.002Z

Our half day....

With the deadline fast approaching for various assignments more time was spent on Gerty gecko animation. So after having here wander down the page she then gets sucked into a vortex and spins into the darkness. I did this with the use of various filters including motion blur, Gaussian blur and noise along with hue and saturation.

So far so good but now I have to draw something to show I can use the other tools in photo shop I cant say I have artistic talent to do free hand so should be interesting as to what I can come up with to fit in with the animation all ideas gratefully received...!

Week 9 / Monday

2008-11-11T23:20:00.002Z

Ah well a lazy start to the week! I seem also to be struggling actually getting my arse out of bed, I am knackered and think my body has gone into shut down mode. I did manage to drag myself out of bed and kick a teenager out of his bed as well, lazy bugger!

Arriving a smidgen late I found that we were not into the class yet. Peter is first thing on a Monday morning and mainly teaching us Illustrator. Our task today was to master the text tool. You can use this tool to write normal text, vertical text, text in an object. You can also type text onto a path, so if you have a shape like a spiral you can type onto it and have your text spiralling.

More useful is turning the text into outlines and then being able to manipulate it and therefore making your own text, great we have been told for posters.

I guess a lot of tools come into their own when you are using them for work, as in designing something eye catching. I did use this tool to make my own text for the Orb of Sutekh game cover.

Now in the afternoon a lecture on Posters was planned however Phil has taken ill so we all had the afternoon off, which was great as I picked up little man early and had extra time with him, and of course saved myself the three + hours of childcare!

Week 8 / Wednesday

2008-11-05T22:06:00.002Z

I do struggle to understand Wednesday morning lesson. The lecturer is great and I feel a very interesting person, however I find the lesson itself a bit odd but I guess all will become clear in time to it's relevance. We had pictures today of people including Joan Collins, Margaret thatcher, prince Charles and so on and we had to relate them to the other pictures that were types of chairs. I think this is referred to as conceptual art and I appear to have stumbled upon 'discourse' with Bart Simpson and a Baroque Chair. See if you can work out why...LOL

I cracked on in the afternoon with some more animation with Gerty, she has now become plastic wrapped...ha ha. I have to expand the animation some what and maybe get her moving onto a different frame, I thought maybe into a conveyor belt in a toy factory, hence the plastic wrapping. or changing colour in a new setting like a chameleon. Who knows so watch this space so to speak!

Week 8 / Tuesday

2008-11-04T19:12:00.003Z

By Jove she's got it!

At last today I manged to animate a gecko, I was thrilled with myself! I decided to totally get to grips with this animation assignment today and at least choose something to animate, can't remember exactly how I ended up with a gecko but I did. I then decided I wanted to make her move across the page, possible get wrapped in plastic and then blink.

Reasons for this is that it would show use of filters, the cut and copy tools along with of course layers. SO I did grasp the blinking bit, and have also cut out said gecko a few times copied layers and also split Gerty into different body parts to be able to animate a leg movement. I did get a crude movement across the page but need to accentuate the leg movements more.

So all in all I am soooo chuffed with myself today to think that I am finally understanding stuff, until that is Steve went headlong into the explanation of Adobe Premiere and I was totally lost after about a minute! But have been assured that all will become clear upon use...AAAAAhhhhh!

Now I am going to attempt to load CS3 onto my PC in a mo and will hopefully be able to upload Gerty to show you how cute she is!

Week 8 / Monday

2008-11-03T20:51:00.002Z

Of course half term was week 7 and I have to confess that I did not do anything towards the coursework! I had total time off as I had big decisions to make about other aspects of my life.

SO back to college today and well not much to report really. Bit of a nothing day as far as 'teaching' goes. Fiddled about with photoshop and did learn things called actions, which can be a crude way of adding animation, however I did then get to grips with animation in image ready which I had been struggling with. Now all I Have to do is find a photo that I feel I can manipulate and I have 5 weeks to do it, which may sound lots of time but in reality it is going to fly by, so i really need to get some stuff finished.

I must also get my copy of CS3 loaded on to this machine as you can sort of backward engineer files by saving them as a tiff as it will also save the layers which is the important bit for showing how you did something, so tomorrow whilst I have the plumber in fixing my bath I shall do that!

Our afternoon session was working on the manifesto project, and we have hopefully chosen the manifesto to do a presentation on. The 2000 first things first is what we are going for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Things_First_2000_manifesto it is a re-worked manifesto of the same thing done in 1964, so will be interesting to see if things have changed and if any of the designers who signed the original one did in fact achieve what they set out to do.

Now for the 2500 essay to be done I have to choose another manifesto and do personal research, all very scary and 'out of my comfort zone' as one thing I am crap at is research and dissection of a written piece!

Week 6 / Wednesday

2008-10-22T23:54:00.003+01:00

Woo Hoo I made it, not only in to college but to half term! I didn't honestly think that I would be going in to work today due to staff illness, but after a text to say she was going in I had to get my arse in gear and arrived 40 mins late.

However the class was only really getting started so didn't miss much. Word impression or super imposing was the subject matter. You basically took a phrase and represented it with words into a form. My best effort was the 'water water everywhere but not a drop to drink'. I did 'not a drop to drink' in the shape of a bottle with 'water water' and 'everywhere' as waves. And apparently it is good enough for my portfolio so am chuffed.

Did some more on my orb of Sutekh and now have a back cover with some screen shots and a sword that I did myself in Illustrator. Am very pleased with the whole thing, have a few bit of texts to do for it to look like a real cover and that is one down two more to go!

Was pleased to see John in today as I know he was feeling a bit gloomy about the whole thing. Half term is upon us so we get a break if we want one, I am amazed it has come round so fast, which is scary as it means that the end of term will no doubt come just as fast. Along with it the deadline for two assignments.

Week 6 / Tuesday

2008-10-21T18:07:00.001+01:00

Unfortunately had to take a day off today due to having to see the bank ref my business. However also looking like due to staff illness I may not be in tomorrow either!

Week 6 / Monday

2008-10-21T18:03:00.002+01:00

Well as we enter the last week before half term things are looking good. We learnt a few more cool things in illustrator, mainly turning a star into a .swf which was pretty cool! Illustrator really is a great piece of software, and I really do hope I can master it. sadly another student is feeling like they are struggling and therefore considering leaving which is such a shame as we all work at a different pace and often find ourselves feeling a little out of place and outside of our comfort zones.

rather a slow day in all as the afternoon was taken up with the initial presentation of the manifesto assignment, but quite a few people did not attend. Our group had a bit of a backwards jolt as we have decided to change who we are doing the manifesto on, mainly as another group are doing the same person and we fancy something different so are now researching someone new!

Week 5 / Wednesday

2008-10-16T16:17:00.002+01:00

Much better day today. Did some cutting and pasting today for real! using nondescript shapes we had to do opposites as in inside - outside, strength - weakness. Teamed up with Howard and will see if the other group get our meanings from what we have cut out.

The afternoon was taken up with working on the orb of sutekh game cover, have now added PlayStation logos and certification plus other bits and pieces, created a good effect using plastic wrap and colour dodge and feel that I have almost finished one part of an assignment.... result!

Week 5 / Tuesday

2008-10-14T22:38:00.002+01:00

Not quite sure what to make of today........

Nothing seemed to come into focus, we were working on the animation project and nothing I did looked right, in fact it looked crap. I feel that maybe I have got the brief wrong in my head to be honest, so back to the drawing board, or rather photoshop!

New day tomorrow so hopefully I may have some inspiration overnight and find something that I feel I can animate!

Week 5 / Monday

2008-10-13T22:34:00.003+01:00

Well what a day! Today I made my blog public to the rest of the group and had two assignments with the word ESSAY in them! Oh lord.......

AM
The day started well despite the traffic jam due to new but kinda old roadworks on the A30 about half a mile from the turning I take in the mornings.

So into Illustrator with Peter and I was quite pleased with my efforts to draw a fish using the freehand pen tool, I even managed to split him onto different layers and draw a bowl complete with seaweed. I really must get some pictures up loaded of these masterpieces! My inspiration came from some great drawing tutorials via you tube. Well worth trying some of them out. I confess to not be artistic and struggle with stick figures, so to now have drawn a cartoon fish I am progressing......LOL!

PM
So heading in to our only lecture of the week I am wondering what we have in store, and today was focusing on our PDP, something which I find difficult to use in my present work situation. I envisioned me still continuing to be self employed after hopefully passing the course, so anything I do will be related to working for myself. However a development plan is just that so I can look at it as to how I am going to promote myself to others so have just talked myself into it being relevant, as getting clients is a job in itself!

However I am glad that I started the journal via this blog as it was mentioned to start one. So I decided to speak up and say about mine and then show the rest of the class. Not sure yet if that is a good or bad thing, the thing with cyberspace you forget that it is out there for everyone and anybody to read what you write be it on a blog or public forum. Often you get so engrossed n what you write or reply that you forget that you are never addressing a person privately (in most occasions) Maybe I should put some sort of disclaimer on here ha Ha.

Anyway we then went on to talk about manifestos and what they are about, bit like a mission statement (I think). We have formed splinter groups to come up with a presentation on a person manifesto of our choosing and incorporating a view point to the presentation from our perspective/element so we have a representative of each subject graphic designer, animator and multimedia design in our group. we have chosen A very popular designer for our subject, mainly as there should hopefully be a mass of information about him as he apparently has over 3000 product design out there.

Oh and we also learnt about plagiarism and how to avoid it! I have to say that the essay part is one of my weakness, mainly as I never see the point of them, so far I have avoided them in my lifetime, but then I have now put myself VOLENARILY into a education system, so I have to deal with it! Of course the last essay I did was way back at school and did not involve any kind of research, just a story that I made up, not at all close to the kind of essay for this course! Thank god for spell check and word counts!

Anyhow should any fellow classmates decide to follow my blog welcome and would love feedback via comments as I have the power to delete those I don't like LOL!

Week 4 / Wednesday

2008-10-09T21:09:00.003+01:00

Totally different kind of morning with Design Principles today. Met our other lecturer Dave Cope.... and was introduced to what design was all about, mainly that it is about opposite. Looked at some pictures to grasp what artist empathise on and how we can use this in our layouts of pages etc. We then had to draw....Ahhhhh but I have to say that I was very pleased my with bed picture!

Basically we had to draw our morning journey to work and next week one of the other members of the group is going to interpret it, am quite looking forward to it.

Also found out today that half term is almost upon us which I was amazed at as we have only just started, it makes me wonder why people bother to work when student life (at the moment) seems so easy going. But then I do wonder if I have a different perspective due to starting college and student life from the other end so to speak. I have already experienced stress and worry in raising children and running a business. Had highs and lows with marriage and divorce so maybe I am viewing college life from a very different perspective.

Have come up with my first adventure game draft today and by accident I created a very pretty 'orb' and so 'The Orb of Sutekh' has been born. I fancy this adventure game to be based around a goblin or elf like creature with a passion for cupcakes, and the orb is the giver of these amazing cupcakes that hold the power to longevity and the power to get the elf home. Or something along those lines, not fully thought it through if I can will upload a picture of the cover in progress. Of course those of you taht follow my sister's blog will already have heard of 'sutekh the giver of cakes' and whilst looking up the names of egyptian gods I found the 'Seth' or 'set' the god of chaos was also written as Sutekh so couldn't resist! So two happy accidents resulted in an idea!

Still not found a lift share, but big sis starts college on Monday at Falmouth so may Be picking her up along the way somewhere if it coincides with timings.

Travelling in to camborne college there is this 5 minute window where you either have a choice of half the car park or if you miss time it' grass verges or a long walk. Interestingly enough the Chybucka turning causes a ghost traffic jam, an interesting concept that happens when someone brakes and this goes down the line and eventually a traffic jam occurs. It's a proven fact, so whilst as a road user you are being courteous in allowing cars across the junction by braking instead of just slowing down you cause a sometimes two mile tailback.

Week 4 / Tuesday

2008-10-07T21:43:00.002+01:00

Am well chuffed with myself today! I have a theme in my head that I want to do for the animation brief/assignment that we have, it's underwater (of course!) and today I found a tutorial online (http://www.andreibilan.blogspot.com/) that showed me how to make an awesome underwater image! I am amazed at what you can do in photo shop, however it does blur your view of the world in terms of images and how it is very hard to believe what you see nowadays!

Ducky got animated - dear ole ducky after being warped, masked, twisted, blurred and liquified he then got animated into doing the afore mentioned functions. It's good to see him morph before your eyes into some strange new kind of duck, and to know that you understand how it happened.

Have also been running various things through my head in terms of work. So I did a few searches on job sites and am now looking for a part time job in a place where I can further my experience in the web design and using of photoshop. Have thought about contacting the unlocking Cornish potential to see if they have any thing to offer. getting hands on experience in the industry I feel would also help my chances to emigrate, after all it isn't just the degree potential employers are looking for, experience is just as valued. I have to fully omit to being bored witless with retail, along with the fact that it just isn't making the break even point! I have to let go..............

Week 4 / Monday

2008-10-06T23:20:00.002+01:00

We met a new teacher today, he will mainly be teaching us on Illustrator and got us stuck into the benefits of the pen tool. We found out a lot more on depth of what this particular 'tool' does and the way in which we should use it of using it. First off we drew a cat, and I was quite pleased with my effort as I profess to not be an artist in any way shape or form. The ting I like about the pen tool most has to be the way it can draw curves, very funky and of course useful (else it would not be there). Next Monet was a house and I added a garden fence and crazing paving! Very enjoyable

On to the afternoon we had our first oral presentation on our 'logo' task. I choose the history of the VW emblem, mainly as of what it means to me. I feel it represents a kind of freedom, in the 60's it was associated with free love in the 'hippy' bus. But I was in fact shocked to find out that it was brought into production by Hitler, who of course suppressed the freedom of masses of people. And that the original logo was the swastika inside a cog, Kind of Ironic don't you think. It was interesting to see the other logos that people chose from google to the smiley face. Also in the history of logos and how the meaning they started with are not as relevant today, like in Starbucks coffee being a twin tailed mermaid that has changed considerable over the years in response to peoples perception of the image.

Week 3 / Wednesday

2008-10-01T21:49:00.003+01:00

Cracked on with the second assignment today involving researching computer games covers so that we can get some ideas on designing 3 of our own. One for a historic strategy game, an adventure game and finally a shoot em up game! Now when I first scanned through the brief I did think we just had to do one cover and choose the type of game, but 3...AHHHHHHH!!!!

In my trolling through the Internet I did find a hazard warning game on a driving agency site that was fun along with some stupid gunny bunny!

So I have chosen 'chess' as the historic strategy. However I have the view of the cover in my head but trying to extract it from the grey matter onto the screen is difficult, not being naturally gifted in the art department I feel I have some large hurdles to attack with this course. I thought I would do a kind of watermark checkerboard and have various chess pieces on the front, some mocked screen shots on the back and age range plus a write up of the game. In the end my head hurt so saved work so far and played around with illustrator and some of the tools. Still working on the banknote as well.

So a reasonably productive day, but mind kept wandering a lot in regards to the fab dive I had yesterday and the 33 more to get under my belt in preparation for Egypt on my birthday....but that is a whole different story!

Week 3 / Tuesday

2008-09-30T22:00:00.003+01:00

Had a guest speaker in today, Matt Pengelly from the BBC. We were treated to an insight into video journalism and some coverage of what he has done. Lots of discussion about the changing face of TV news reporting and how it is getting more inmate in regards to people acting more natural on camera, the hidden stories of a story and the falling cost of equipment.

Then back tot he classroom for further practice and instruction on Photo shop - turned red peppers green and green peppers red! Got to grips with hue and saturation, the lasso tool and remembering to layer!

Then I rushed out as this was our half day and went diving at porthkerris, fab way to spend the afternoon! I am loving college........ ;-)

Week 3 / Monday

2008-09-29T21:10:00.002+01:00

Cracking on with illustrator we had in insight into the remaining tools available, and then resumed the work on the banknote exercise, however I had missed this due to having to work Wednesday last week due to change in days attending. So there I was staring at a blank screen and ....nothing, I mean NOTHING. Frustratingly all knowledge drew a blank, I couldn't remember bugger all from last week. GGgrr I felt so stoopid and finally got some inspiration from Steve as well as a recap of what stuff did..Phew. My topic for the banknote was based on our barmy economy so chose to put the leader of the great monster raving loony party screaming Lord Such as the figure head and dedicated it to the bank of bonkers! Watch this space you never know it may catch on.

Our first lecture happened this afternoon, and it was very much not what I was expecting. It was in introduction to design history and it seems that instead of being talked at we are calling more on the power of research to track the changing face of Multi media, and first off to define what Multimedia is would be good for both us the students as well as the lecturer..coming from a furniture design background I think this is just as much of a learning curve for him as well as us.

Our first assignment is looking at logo's and what they mean. I am quite looking forward to this one. Of course the most successful logo for brand image is the golden M, now recognised all over the world and makes no difference to what is langauge is written underneath. Very powerful especially when you look at hidden messages of logo's with red and yellow being most influential colours for children...! Will up date how my presentation went next week.

Also today have received our 2nd assignment...AAhhh I mean two! Both due in on the same date as well, so the workload and research is creeping up! think I will swing by my friends house tomorrow and collect the pressie of CS3 he has for me, at least I can gt in some practice at work on photo shop and illustrator, am also wondering how to create an animation !

Week 2 / Wednesday

2008-09-25T13:59:00.003+01:00

So today we have been introduced to Illustrator, and what a fab program that is. Getting to grips with it is similar to Photoshop as off course they all come under the same brand also including flash and dreamweaver.

Our first little task was to design a logo for ourselves, which was interesting as when you are then presented with having to think up something new rather than just work on a given image you sit there staring at the blank screen thinking........and thinking....... See I am not naturally artistic, cant draw to save my life! So I did something simple in terms of fancy fontisim and whiskers for the 'Kat'. I was pleased with how it turned out but am hoping that in time I get better at designing!

Student loans now are all approved so that is a relief, so so far so good.

Due to other commitments I could not stay on for the second half of the day which is a shame as it was a task of designing a bank note, which I would have enjoyed, and benefited from But I can give that a go when my new whizz bang PC arrives and I install my software. So all is not lost.

Week 2 / Tuesday

2008-09-23T23:13:00.002+01:00

Yippee, today I actually learnt something! Got to grips with Photoshop today and finally understand layers, various tools, manipulation and so on. Become very well acquainted with ducky and added various bits to his forehead, cut him about a bit and hid him behind a sandune........

Now I can't wait to crack on with the assignment. We have to do a short film/animation using Photoshop, I have a few ideas running through my head now all I have to do is figure out how to put it into practice, and yes it will involve a fish by the looks of it ha ha ha!

I really enjoyed today, this is what I have been waiting to do, Photoshop is so widely used and now I can use it, well chuffed!

Also had news about grants and loans, so that is moving along nicely so all looking good.

Shop is a bit more of a problem, mainly as have to re-jig things with staff in regards to the full day changing from a Tuesday to a Wednesday, and also my Saturday staff has handed in her notice, argh!!! Just when you get on an even keel, but I am pleased for her change in circumstances and don't blame her for wanting her Saturdays back.

2008-09-22T20:59:00.000+01:00

Ah forgot to mention that the bad bit of the day, is the fact that the powers that be have decided to change the multimedia people to a different schedule over the days, so after getting staff cover at the shop I now have to change it again, very inconvenient I have to say, also I am not the only one this effects, a colleague now has to change her hours at work!!!!

Week 2 / Monday

2008-09-22T20:29:00.001+01:00

What a super day, and so glad it was not spent in a classroom. Off we go today on a 'field trip' to www.geevor.com mine, we were teamed up with the students of the graphic design course. It was to see how well the can draw apparently, so off we head to the tin mine. Now I have never been there before so was quite looking forward to it.

Our tour guide was Janet, and I have to say that she is a very knowledgeable guide, we started at the crusher, and shaking tables in the mines workings along with the mineral separating tanks. My sister would have loved it as it was very steam punk kinda thing. They have just had 3 million invested in repairing all the roofs, so the place is looking good!

After all the inner workings, we then went into Wheal Mexico, it is a very old mine shaft dating way back 100's of years, and it has an unusual entrance that relies on pressure rather than mortar joints, and this is very rare in mining and unheard of in Britain. The mine itself was blocked up by tons of rubble, and was only discovered when it was shifted to enhance the view. The name of the mine was found on an early map of the area, but no one has a clue as to why it became known as 'Mexico'. I will try to upload the photos as soon as I can get the off my phone!!!

The next part of the trip literally was across a field! We were trying to track down the site known as 'Carn Euny', which is an early settlement that dates back to the 5th century formed of relatively simple iron age 'round houses'. After getting a bit lost and walking along a very muddy bridle path, we eventually found the settlement but it was worth the yomp!

Carn Euny still has the circular drainage gullies and post holes surviving, the round hoses have now completely disappeared, that site was excavated by archaeologists back in the 60's. Still quite intact though is an underground stone chamber, according to the info 'This distinct type of monument, found only in far west of Cornwal known as a 'fogou', deriving from Cornish word 'ogo' meaning cave.'

It was quite cold inside but so peaceful, what it truly was for in unclear and is thought to be a place of refuge or a cellar for cold storage, and it was cold even on a very sunny day!

Worth a visit, and I am sure there is another way to it from the other side as other visitors were leaving differently as to how we did.

All in all a very enjoyable day, I can say that at this time I like college!

Week 1

2008-09-17T21:58:00.000+01:00

Well you could say I have made it through week one, but I feel that would be cheating as it hasn't really started. So far day one (Monday) was the big Induction day. Death by power point in the lecture theatre, then campus tour, lunch and then a review of what the course entails. By the end of the day I had a massive 'eye' headache made some new friends, signed up to lift share and booked an eye test!

Tuesday was a non event day for the media design students, so went to work

Wednesday was freshers events, so I thought I would pop along to this. TOTALLY not what I was expecting. Now I had the idea that it would be like something out of the movies, lots of people running around doing daft shit covered in shaving foam or just butt naked. Nowt like that, no well toned buff bodies, just a few kids on a bouncy castle or being human table footballers!

So I had a mooch round the info tent, signed up to register interest in being a student ambassador, put myself forward as the college netball coach and had a good ole chin wag with the conservative rep! Oh my how old did I feel!!! So I went along to the student bar had a J2o and a packet of crisps to feel more 'student' like. Could not indulge in a beer due to having to drive home..pah!

I am sure that next week will be a whole different ball game as we start the course, I have now however invested in a whizz bang computer ready for my plunge in to computer graphics programs and took my first student debt on!

Who is KAT????

2008-09-14T15:20:00.000+01:00

Well I am a single mum of two boys, one big one small. I currently have my own business in retail and feel that I need new challenges to hopefully get rid of this currently disposition of having missed out on something, recently or rather within the past two years I feel quite unfulfilled and feel a strong desire to accomplish something!

Living in Cornwall and surrounded by the ocean I learnt to scuba dive in the October of 2006, it has given me an urge to find out more about sea life and the ecosystems within it. Back at the beginning of the year I decided to learn more about web design as I feel it is a career I may be good at, BUT... lately I have a desire to also do a degree in Marine Biology, so that is now something else I am exploring!

I plan to stay 'single' as I need to as cliche as it sounds 'find myself'. Plus I really dont plan on having the time for a full on boyfriend.

Further passions include being as Eco friendly as my budgets and options can obtain. I am fortunate enough to have a HUGE garden, so plan to erect a poly tunnel, even if it does cut out my gorgeous view, but fresh food is a bigger priority at the moment. I recycle and compost what I can and burn those I can to heat the house and provide hot water.

One of my biggest personal challenges is to cut down on my food shopping, mainly due to the amount of wastage when doing a traditional once a week shop, another reason for growing my own, and coupled with that my biggest investment has been a large chest freezer!

How I am going to fit all this into my forthcoming busy schedule will be a mystery but without challenge what point is life, monotony is brain death!

A New Dawn

2008-09-14T15:14:00.000+01:00

Well tomorrow I am viewing as the start of my new life as a new me. At the age of 36 I have decided to return to an establishment of learning, quite a thing for me as after leaving school to go to college, due to illness I could not finish and then shunned learning to become a student of life.

And I have had quite a life, but now I want to rediscover who I am rather than who I have become shaped by those who have had far to big an impact on me.

So not only will I be learning to become a web designer, but I will be learning about myself and the new choices ahead of me, ones that I can make for myself with only what impact they will have on me and my two boys to consider.