Developing film
Jap, I’m still developing pictures of the past, and I have loads more to do

Writing
Yay! I planning and working on three articles as well as finally getting back to my “RoomB100″ and do some blogging!

Invetigating pinhole photography
Oh my, oh my – I’m getting a pinhole camera – yes, another camera – and I , wanna have a snoop before I get my hands on it – a kind of instructions/destructions web search kind of thing

Friday Photo Walk
I’m currently working on a one-year-performance piece and I like to combine it with a awesome and exciting walk down to the village and -as you can guess from the name – take loads of pictures

Light Night
Woop woop – meeting some friends for some alsmost too early christmas lights fun – and loads of chesnuts and mulled wine. Maybe even a little fake snow and some mince pies, but they are optional

Website Updates
Jap, getting behind the laptop again and updating my website http://www.touchingwetpaint.com – got an online shop http://www.redbubble.com/people/atomicducks and several other new things coming!

Camera/s
[As many as I can!!] The record my world!

Ok folks, here is the deal: While I’m writing this, I should be writing my MA design studies proposal, but here is the thing – I can’t.
And it’s not that I haven’t been trying for almost two months now and I need to get it done… I have tried everything: free writing, organised writing, bullet points, using my journal, reading up on new and old stuff, post-its, using my laptop, my typewriter, good old fashioned ink and paper. I have tried writing at different locations, upstairs in my workroom, downstairs, in front of the TV, with the radio on, in total silence. I practiced yoga, went for a walk, took pictures, been in the garden, sitting in the kitchen, wrote on the floor, took my laptop to bed, write in German and in English, read all my old journals, borrowed some books, talked to friends. I’ve drunk coffee, hot chocolate and tea. I have literally tried every kind of tea I could find in the cupboard from fruit to herbal, white to red, green and black , Good Morning and Good Evening blends, organic, teabags and loose leaves … Believe me, I have tried everything and I am exhausted! I truly am. I have now written the equivalent to a paperback novel and I still can’t write this proposal… it is just not happening.
To be honest with you, I can’t wait to start my Masters – although my future as a postgraduate student seems to hang in the ropes at the moment … I really need to get this piece written, and I guess that this pressure doesn’t help me even a little bit.
I could write you another undergraduate dissertation straight away. And I am serious here. As challenging and painful as it was, I enjoyed working on it and –without blowing my own trumpet too much – I’ve done a pretty good job, well, and the fact that I receive a first for it (but again, I don’t want to tuut my own horn too much). I can write dissertations. I can write design proposals and I can write essays. I can write reflective pieces, poems and I’ve even written a film script for a short movie once. I am good with words. And yet, I am writing this and not my proposal.
I am a postgraduate student. I have the needed disciplines, skills and personality traits – I am ready to carry on studying and I believe that the University of my Choice would benefit from me joining them. I am at a point in my design career where I consider an MA as the most important next and vital step. My personal dialogue with design has just started and I am not ready to just let go of un-investigated ideas. Considering I graduated top of my class and live and breathe design thinking, I could join a design company and stop and alter my journey momentarily. I would not be able to go deeper than I require, I am in need of a design mentor. I have too many un-answered question. I would just be working and maybe, yeah only maybe, I would continue with my quest.
I am open to new leaning; new locations, new thinking and I believe that I can continue finding the right path in the world of design by completing my MA.
I know all the reason why I want to continue studying. I wouldn’t have looked at options if I didn’t want to. I am as sure as I can be. I know what I have learned during my undergraduate studies – all the skills I acquired, from using a drawing board to computer generated renderings, using clay and wood and even pasta. I have learned about design basics, about architecture, materials, green thinking and colour theories. I have studied Saussure and Derrida, investigated Plato and “the Cave”. I worked with light and shadow, I have collected and organised, written essays and hold presentations about my own and group work in front others students and tutors. I have used digital manipulations and I have used acrylic paints. I am capable of designing a website and taking a picture with an analogue and a digital camera. I have learned to read – critically read and write academically. I have established my own web presence and I have made friends. I have won a photography competition in 2009 and one of my designs has been shortlisted in an international design competition this year. I am good at what I do- I love and respect my position in design – I am a graduate three-dimensional designer.
And I am sitting here, this time drinking some apple juice with cinnamon, trying to find the right words to fill in my proposal. Maybe I just take it far too seriously, but on the other hand, an MA is serious business. It is my future and I don’t want to jeopardize any of it. This report could make or break me and at the moment, it is breaking me. I don’t want to write something that is far too open or closed, not do I want to write something that only makes sense for me but anyone else reading it won’t see anything apart from “blahh blahhh bla bla blahdii bla” … I want this proposal to show who I am and how interested I am in design, but this proofs to be more difficult than finding a unicorn to share lunch with…. Seriously? Seriously!.
I am at breaking point – I need to get this document finished and I know what I need to write – damn, yeah –I have written pages and pages about it, but nothing that I feel justifies my true intentions to the letter.
Maybe this is the point, maybe I cannot write about this because I am too immersed into it, too close to see beyond, or just simply not ready to write about it. Maybe this is it. Maybe I need to finish my MA to be able to say where my grounding in design is. Or maybe I am mistaken and I just need to pull myself together. The information is all there, maybe I just need to take the plunge and send it all off.
I have dreams about this and all I think of every waking minute is this document. I am truly living it. Just why can I not get my proposal down in words…. Why can I not just sit down and write it?
By now, I have written 1089 words and counting and I can write more. I can write you a short mini essay on chocolate cupcakes or the monobloc chair. I could write you a poem about “white’ness” or just a quick not that someone has called for you. Say anything and I start working on it. I guess we have reached the point now where my frustration turns into full-blown anger and sadness – an anxious state…. Situation desperate – Send help. Writing is part of a design student’s life and I can write personally, academically, reflectively…well … normally …Where is a @(#%]&! muse when one needs one?

Sometimes I just need to let the wind blow through my hair.

September war schon immer mein Lieblings-Monat. Windig, warm und farbenfroh.

Sunflowers looking at me, apples hanging, growing on the trees. Pigeons flapping through the air.

Jetzt ist meine Zeit – mein Anfang, mein Ende, meine Mitte. Jetzt bin ich da – vollkommen.

I am me now – I can be here and be happy – I am free.

Behold, the sun! And a space shuttle shaped spec of dust – Awesome!!

Staring into nothing'ness.

Thinking of the one that got away.

What will tomorrow bring? Will I continue to shoot in black and white?
Thirty-one days and thirty-one images.
Empty: Well, every journey starts with a first step.
Frozen? In time, motion or matter? I am intrigued.
Clever? You are the judge.
Scary? Maybe. As scary as two pieces of charcoal on paper? Perhaps.
Scared yet or am I boring you?
Futuristic? Possibly. Only by looking into the past one will be able to tell whether the future was exciting or not – it becomes a waiting game. But wait, this is another project!

Today’s word is: futuristic. Guess one will have to wait and see.

The Story so far on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kurzgeschichten/sets/72157624505556195/