Day 57.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

I bought these cupcakes from Asda yesterday, just to see what they were like, they're the nicest shop-bought cakes I've eaten in a while. They are much better than similar ones they sell in Marks & Spencers for double the price, theirs don't even have any taste.
I am so disappointed in myself today, I've basically just stared at work all day and only done around 40% of what I wanted to, I've also eaten too much and now it is late and I have no motivation to do anything else. At least I have the bulk of preparation done for the shoot tomorrow, but I'm so nervous, it's only an hour and half... a proper hour and a half, not one where we have 2 hours to plan before hand...

Day 56.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

I love masks, the more I think about what I'm meant to be shooting for this project, the more I'm scared.

Day 55.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Over the last few days I've had so much post. I don't know what I'm going to use this wig for, I bought a black one for Moon's 'Guys and Dolls' party but I don't get why I got the impulse to purchase this one as well. Still, a pink wig has got to come in handy somewhere. It's much more pink than my last one though...

Day 54.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

I got an initial test shoot down for my final brief.
I bumped into Andy on the way to the studio to meet Moon and chanced it and he said he'd stand in, it was a good job too because it was a while before our model for the Sunday supplements piece showed up.
I think I have a better idea of what kind of spread I want to do, I just need to find a magazine that would use me, I'm thinking Vice but for me, that's a bit obvious, plus I'm not 100% on how mainstream the magazine has to be.
I got a few good shots, but it was mainly a test run, helping me gain more confidence in using the studio, and aside from needed a little bit of help with the light metering, it's quite fluid once it gets going.
I think I need more fashion magazines, this is getting expensive, I've bought around 10 magazines so far...

Day 53.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

I have been seeing this cat quite often recently, so I papped it.
Unfortunately there seemed to be some form of walking bus behind me, on top of the fact I had to take this with my phone because my bag broke on the way home.
PLUS, I dressed for wind, cold and rain and on the walk home, the sun was out and it may have even been pushing 8°, in any case I was sweltering in my winter outfit.

Day 52.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

I made a pizza from scratch tonight, it was so dense, nice, but dense and I didn't eat all of it, my topping was badass, despite the fact that mozzarella balls look and feel like testicles.
It was a little trying when trying to fix the dough together but it came together in the end.
Moon made a calzone, I think it was a bad idea, it looked much more heavy than my pizza, and my pizza was pretty heavy.
I seem to be taking a lot more photos of food recently, maybe it's a sign I should be doing things that are more interesting. Recently, time seems to be divided between reading magazines - for university, not leisure -, actual university work where I write things down and eating. Well, these things and tv and films, I've found some inspiring things in recent films I've been watching, I've also noticed brand-loyalty in Vice, I think I love it more and more each day.

Day 51.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

I didn't have a nap today but I did get some colour prints done in the colour darkroom, which I am so proud of, I keep mentioning it on every social networking tool I have access to, seriously.

Day 50.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

I am up to date with all of my University work, I feel like a class act. Although I do have to get down to reading this weekend's Sunday supplements for research but at this time of night, that can be done tomorrow, if I find the time. Tomorrow I'm in the colour darkroom for most of the day, I don't really like it, it's like being in a Saw film or something.
So todays photo is of some ink in water, I've seen it done a trillion times before and this was just a quick attempt, with some editing it looked alright, I could do better if I tried again, and maybe I will, there are after all, 306 more days to go, and ofcourse, another blog.

Day 49.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

I woke up at like 1pm today, which is mega late for me, especially at the moment. I made this sweet tuna melt, which was delicious, but I spent most of the day being grumpy for some reason. I did manage to get enough book work done though, hopefully I can move on even further tomorrow.

Day 48.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Today was filled with work, I am tired. Tomorrow, l have more work to do, I can't believe I'm 48 days in already.

Day 47.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Saw The Maccabees for the third time this evening at the NME Awards Tour at Portsmouth Pyramids, they were lovely/amazing as usual and the other bands weren't bad either. I wasn't too keen on Bombay Bicycle Club, mainly because not only did all their songs sound the same but despite being adored by the crowd, no one seemed to know the words and due to all the songs sounding the same the 'singing along' was 'duh duh duh duh duh' constantly.
The other two bands at the gig were The Drums and The Big Pink, both of which really surprised me as they sounded completely different, but better, to how they sound on their albums.
I am a bit squished, which is shameful due to the average age of the crowd, but I have a new t-shirt and got my obligatory Orlando Weeks smile, all in all tonight was mainly what I anticipated it to be. Now to sleep.

Day 46.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

I burnt my arm last week, it's all wrinkly and I accidentally scratched some of it off, my sister left me some cream for it, but it makes it really sore before it makes it better. It's probably definitely going to scar, it looks like something out of a horror movie.

Day 45.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

This is my obligatory pancake day photo, I made the pancakes from scratch and flipped them myself, I usually get Moon to do it but he was busy and doesn't really like pancakes, plus Lucy was around to help a bit anyway. They were tastier than anything you buy that comes from a packet or is already made - even if some were a bit messed up and way to thick and stodgy.
I can still only taste pancakes.

Day 44.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Today has been quite stressful, so I am quite glad it's coming to an end.
I was up so early and went into Uni only to find out that my lecture was actually 2-5pm, only they hadn't told us. So I met up with my sister and my Gran briefly before going back.
The lighting lecture was pretty fun in the end, plus it resulted in this pretty sweet photo of Joe McGorty, our new lecturer. I'm beginning to really enjoy everything a lot more now, and our next project for this overall unit looks awesome, we're shooting an actress/actor or sport star for a Sunday paper editorial, we've got two weeks to plan it and we get to choose and style our models, who probably won't be real stars we'll work our magic, so by the end of the shoot, they well be, obviously.

Day 43.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Happy Valentines Day and Happy Chinese New Year (Gung Hei Fat Choy!)
I celebrated my Valentines/New Year by heading down Gunwharf to check out the Chinese Year Year festivities. Krispy Kreme were doing 'limited edition' heart-shaped doughnuts, this was pretty good, it had cream and jam in the middle, the other 11 doughnuts that came in the box will probably be just as nice.
Moon and I had lunch at Giraffe, it was probably one of the best places we've been to to eat in a long time.

Day 42.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Finally got around to playing the Take Me Out drinking game tonight, it's ridiculous, had I been on something stronger, I probably would have had another gin situation on my hands, luckily, I am too much looking forward to tomorrow and what's going on, so I wasn't up for being drunk. It makes me sad that it's the last episode next week, shows like Take Me Out should be continuous. Luckily, ITV player provides at least enough material to play for another 3 nights.

Day 41.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

This is the first day I have ever been at University for a full day with no trips home in the whole 3 years I've been at Portsmouth, I'm not saying it was bad because it was ok, as I had group work to do, but I was sat in the canteen for around 4 hours. I had to have lunch there, they give you paintbrushes with your order number on because Eldon is the Art and Design building and the canteen is called The Arts Café, it's probably one of the crappiest things I've ever seen.
Today was a day for making friends.

Day 40.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Today really was a nice day. Without the wind it was almost warm, this part of February is nice, next month will be nicer, March is always a nice month.
Only one more unit to have an introduction for, it's tomorrow and I'm betting I will come back very grumpy indeed. Hopefully I satisfied my body by giving it a two hour nap this afternoon. Although to be fair, I was up before 8 and learning new things by 9, well, 10 past 9, I couldn't find my lecture room and sat in the main one for around 5 minutes on my own before realising something was up, it wasn't like I ended up being the only one, although, I was probably the only one who did that.

Day 39.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Semester Two got off to a blinding start today.
We are going to be looking at The Body in relation to editorial photography, which should be interesting, and - at least from my perspective - give us some real practical industry skills.
Our starting point is to get into groups and get a category - celebrity, health, fashion etc - and do a presentation on it for next week. We got health, which in some ways is really good because it's pretty straight forward and easy, but in other ways isn't that great as it's not something that everyone is interested in. Although, it's only a weeks worth of work, and will give us good insight, I'm sure the other presentations will be useful in helping me get to grips with what direction to go in for the final outcome of all this.
It seems like this unit will be a lot like the Foundation course though as it's 5 smaller projects as opposed to one huge one, even though it does all lead up to a larger outcome, I feel that it's a much more engaging way of working.
So, this was desk around an hour ago, I have fully analysed Men's Health as best I can ready to tackle the research questions we have to answer for the presentation, it's so alpha-male and the online version is even worse, but it is kind of funny that people eat it up every month. I've spent around £45 on this unit so far and it's not even fully underway, it's quite annoying how expensive medium format materials are.

Day 38.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

So, Moon gathered everyone together to make this, I didn't do it, I was grouchy from sleep and I think I'm putting myself on a diet - saying that I did make my own burgers, just normal ones though, not monstrosities like the guys did.
The featured burger is Stacy's, who was first to assemble his, he made quite a good attempt, in fact everyone did, Long did the best but no one finished it. By the end of it, everyone's plates were disgusting, I don't think anyone could eat it quick enough either as a lot of complaints were made about it being cold.
Even in this photograph it seems huge, they were huge, I am certainly not envious. Today turned out be a nice day, despite being slightly grouchy, I did get some badass results, which is what this would have been about, had the 'Burger Challenge' not turned out to be much more entertaining.

Day 37.

Day 36.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

I have finished Season 6: Part One of The Sopranos, I have also watched Saw VI.
Look at this tomato soup, I made it myself, it was delicious.
Tomorrow I'm getting back into my gym routine, and going out (again), then on Tuesday I finally get my results for the first semester back.

Day 35.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

This is a bear that Simon won on a claw machine last week, he left it at our house, Moon froze it in the freezer, it was frozen a couple more times and then frozen once more (only this time in a bin bag) and then thawed out in the sink, after that ordeal, I dried it on the radiator.
At some point in this process the bear broke and some beads came out, it was moved around last night and I stepped on several beans from then until this afternoon, I am not having anymore beans and it wasn't wanted enough to be taken back to it's 'real' home, so I've binned it, I received no formal protest so I bear (get it) no guilt.
Yes, this is what I'm talking about for Day 35, all I have done today is play PSP (until my battery died) and watch Sopranos, and had a brief interval of Take Me Out. Little Big Planet is quite fun, but the new Tekken is too hard.

Day 34.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Today I took myself out in the sun to Gunwharf, I was feeling too bunged up and ill to do anything much, but it was the most sun I've seen in weeks and weeks, and Whoppers are tasty.

Day 33.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

I think I feel an illness coming on, so I stocked up on medicine, I don't think it's working as I am beginning to feel much worse, it would figure that I would feel this way when there is so little time before I go back to uni, hopefully it will sort itself out. I think I'd rather be full-blown ill than have a cold though, colds are so annoying.
It's pretty obvious that drinking is to blame for this.

Day 32.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

So today I've been nursing a few lumps and bumps from last night, some bruises are going to be doozies, they haven't even properly blued-up yet.
I got my ex-Course leader's book in the post today, did I mention he was (he's not dead)/is great and will be missed on the course? It should be a good read, I'll be sure to peruse it tomorrow whilst nursing a sore head, I'm off out again. This is shameful behaviour really, but it's not like I have a chance to do it that often, plus dancing burns calories, something I could use doing right now, I am so fat.

Day 31.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

"Considering the amount of people here and the amount of bottles thrown onto the stage, what are you guys, fucking lightweights?

Original date for Jamie T gig: October 2nd 2009 (just so it's never forgotten as to how patient I was.)
Put it this way, this is the best gig I've been to this year, which I guess isn't a great feat because it's the only one so far - I'll do a proper review on my proper blog tomorrow morning.
It's the gig I got the most beer poured on me at, a whole bottle went down my back as well as other beer splashing in other places.
Jamie T was good. his fans, not so much, but it was a great way to spend an evening, even if I smelt terrible when I came in and my feet hurt heaps from standing around for so long. I do like this photograph though, just because it emphasises how many dickheads were in the audience and will make me remember how Jamie T laughed at them.

The whole of my gig experience consisted of a guy shouting, "Put on the shirt!" in between every song, as he'd thrown a Southampton Saints football shirt at the stage, I doubt Jamie T is deaf, everyone else could hear him and he's still a moron. All respect would have been lost of Jamie T had he put the shirt on, so I am very glad that he didn't.

It's weird liking a musician like Jamie T because so many chavs like him - I heard a guy on the way back to the station say, "He's just in some shit indie band now, he doesn't even rap anymore..."
He's always been in an indie band, but he does still rap.

Day 30.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Accomplishment today: bought a new (machine-washable) shower curtain for the bathroom, it is not as nice as the previous one but at least I can wash it.