six

November 3, 2018

It's been a good week, my boyfriend came to stay from Tuesday through to Friday, and we went into Liverpool on Thursday. I got some lovely new clothes, ones that I can easily mix with other outfits and are all super soft.

I did notice that in the changing rooms, my jeans have been feeling a bit tighter than usual... I have put on about half a stone during the end of my masters degree (eating out a lot...) and whilst I am still quite slim (5'3 and 51kg ish) I'm definitely skinny-fat (?). I'm very padded, with very little tone or muscle. I did begin lifting weights around July time, and I loved it, having a personal trainer was a wonderful experience. I'm thinking about getting into it again, however PT's are pretty expensive. I'm gonna see if I can start 'easy' and do some bodyweight exercises (gotta start somewhere huh) whilst I'm unemployed. My boyfriend, a friend and myself are interested in 'couch to 5k', which seems to start you off easy into running. My parents have a treadmill too, which may help with my worries about going outside in the cold to run this winter!

Since it's a new month, I think it's appropriate to share my goals for November.
- Start couch to 5k.
- Finish the web project for local business.
- Online volunteering: create 100 webpages.
- Get a part time job!!
- Start applying for artist studios.
- Build up my social media presence as an artist again.
- Begin research into commisions and full-time jobs.
I'm also working on creating a 101 in 1001 list, as well as a 30 before 30 list. That will eventually fill up the third navigation link above my main content. I've been snooping on my past websites from over 10 years ago and I found a super cringe worthy '50 Things to do before I die' that I made when I was 13! Maybe I'll do a big blog post about all the tasks and talk through each one, and review my '50 things' list 10 years on. ;)

five

October 27, 2018

i feel better after last week. i've applied for a handful of jobs and i'm going to start volunteering at a local museum (volunteer web page publisher ;)) helping them create their website. no word from the job front yet, but it hasn't been too long since applying so i'm gonna give it a little while. it's all barista/retail work and christmas temps so far, i haven't been brave enough to apply to jobs in the field i want to work in yet.

i totally forgot that at the beginning of this month i set myself goals to achieve by the end of october, looking through them now, i'm doing pretty okay. some have taken the back seat as time has progressed, for example: promoting myself as an artist has taken a back seat whilst i don't have a studio to work from (to get a studio i need to afford rent, which i can only afford if i have a part time job at least). another goal, which is figuring out a redesign for a web project has also been slower than usual, but that's all for good reasons as i really want it to be perfect. as for goals that i've completed: i've updated my main portfolio, and i've built this personal space for me. i'm doing better than i expected, if i'm honest!

perhaps when i've finalised november's goals, i'll post them here as well. it'll be nice to see how accountability works as an element to my productivity!

four

October 20, 2018

well my month off ended a few days ago. i've not really done much of the applying for jobs and voluntary things yet, my boyfriend was visiting for a few days this week and then forgot his bag, so i had to get a train to the city he was in to drop it off. i have all these tabs open with full time and part time job opportunities open, including studio applications, bursaries, all of that yet i can't bring myself to focus on any one at a time. maybe i need to spend a day dedicated to full time jobs, a day to part time, and a day for voluntary/studio/etc.

i feel really under experienced, and a lot of places require experience or a specific degree (museum studies compared to the general fine art). it's pretty exhausting just thinking about reading through job descriptions and realising i'm probably not 'qualified' for them despite having a relevant masters degree. although, i do have the tendency to shoot myself down before i've even applied. maybe volunteering in galleries whilst part-timing at a coffee shop is the way to go? to build up the experience that the full-time or 'better' jobs require whilst earning money in a day-job.

i also need to stop thinking that the job i'll end up with now will be the job i'll end up with for the rest of my life. it's a weird time right now and there doesn't seem to be a standard where you can compare your progress to previous generations, less jobs offer opportunities to grow (at least in the arts sector) and we're all just kind of fumbling our way around until something works out. i guess i'm just desperate to move out of my parent's house and into my own apartment in the city.

three

October 12, 2018

so i did end up getting more work done on the website for the small business, i'm just waiting on them to get back to me. it would be really nice to get that sorted by the end of this month, so i can focus all my energy into the job search.

i'm still shopping around for wordpress things - i can't seem to find or figure out the php code to 'plug' comment authors names at the bottom of a post, so it might look something like "plugs: name, name, name" etc. i'm sure i'll find it.
i'm also looking for a reliable theme switcher plug-in so that visitors here are free to cycle through different themes. i guess that is today's task!

in terms of offline junk, my boyfriend is coming to stay at mine for a few days soon ♥ we are long-ish distance (scotland/england) so it's lovely when i get to see him. i also got some dental work done today, one of my fillings had fractured and i had to get a new one. owwww

time to grab some painkillers

edit still not having so much luck with the 'plugging' comment links on wordpress, if you think you can help, please get in touch x

two

October 9, 2018

weirdly enough, now that the blog is public, i'm getting a little bit anxious about starting this up again. back in the day i used to love having this as a diary or journal to talk about stuff in, the feeling of having people read it and comment and understand was amazing. now it feels a bit... nerve wracking? the internet has changed since then, back then it was really hard to find out who you were then in real life, now everyone is on social media and it is significantly easier to find out who someone is.
i'm also a little nervous because i'm worried i won't keep this up and it'll just end up as another dead / failed online project. :(
i'm still tweaking the code, it's not 100% valid however the majority of the errors are due to an emoji script wordpress automatically inserts, and i kinda want to keep the emojis in my posts, so i'm not sure what to do. more research into seeing if i can fix it i guess heheh.

i've been doing the konmari method lately, and i have gotten rid of so much stuff! my room at my parents definitely feels 'lighter', although i've had a massive headache today so i didn't really make as much progress as i thought i would.

i need to sort out my priorities for this week, i need to work more on a web project for a small business. and then focus on the other things like 'konmari' and other leisure related things. this includes starting to seriously look at job applications, job vacancies and signing up for job alerts! my month 'off' after my masters degree is coming to an end on the 17th, so i kind of want to use the next week ahead tying up all those jobs and tasks i 'never got round to doing'. one of those tasks is this website ;)

one

October 7, 2018

I told myself that if I can just write 300 words today, I'll be good. I'm still deciding what I want this blog space to be, what I'll do with it and what I'll post. Most likely a diary like the good old days, it was nice when I could just rant about stuff in my blog ten or so years ago. so i guess that is what this space will be. maybe i'll post pictures of what i'm doing, tasks i need to do in the day, stuff like that. or cute gifs, both?

looks like i need to fix smilies too, they will be cute. i'll see if i can get them on the comments form.

this month of doing nothing after my masters degree has proved to be... kinda productive? productive in the sense that i'm getting on with projects i've wanted to do for a long time (like this, updating my portfolio, tidying up loose ends) instead of being bombarded with university work and deadlines. it's just, nice. after the 17th i'm going to be back on the job hunt looking for big girl jobs though, as well as part time jobs to tide me over. although my description says 'neet' it's not something i want to be for longer than necessary. so before then i am just getting my to do list of stuff to do checked off as much as possible!!!

ok so today's tasks includee
- A2 kon mari clothes
- B1 kon mari books
- B2 kon mari papers
- B3 plan week ahead
- C1 shave undercut
- A1 tidy up, photograph and list tv on local sale sites
- C2 read for a bit :-)
a pretty nice little list to start me off, let's hope i stick with it. i hope i stick with this blog too, i really do.