Saturday

Well, the degree show is finally up and ready to go to the exam board... it was a very long and difficult week and I'm pretty whacked now. The Top Up had their Private View last night. I had a chat with someone I used to work with 15 years ago and saw a few of my old students. One of them ( from last year ) was at the D&AD awards dinner last night - he had been nominated for a major award, he only came 4th in the end but for him to get so far is pretty stunning. It's actually a very good show indeed - some excellent work on show and worth the effort to go and see.

I was so tired that I had a couple of drinks with some staff and went home. In The Clown ( which was very quiet but smelled very bad ) a woman came up to the bar and paid for her drink with two tinned fray Bentos chicken pies - the ones in the round, flat tins. I realised at this point my life had taken a very wrong turn.

Next week is all the formal exam board and marking - not allowed to talk about any of that until after the process is complete, which is fair enough. I'm part of my own marking panel with 7 others, and then Illustration - and this year I'm also on the panel for Foundation. I'm also working this weekend and have to prepare somehing in German for monday morning.

On Wednesday, the external examiner comes down from London and checks all the paperwork and veracity of my marks - then we meet with the university formal on Thursday and the final grades are awarded, it's a very formal legal process... but a bit of a pantomine too. This year we are using a new marking system which is, frankly - a bit of a dogs dinner and has massively increased our workload.

Going to clean up the house this morning and go out for some decent food. I've eaten nothing but crap for weeks, and as a result - put on weight and feel quite listless. I look pretty rough too. A guy I work with has new glasses and they are exactly the ones I wanted... but also very expensive...

Better get my head together...