So it's been almost a year since my last proper blog post - sorry. So where have I been? What's been happening? Well I am currently writing this blog post on a flight to Prague, ready to volunteer as a Prague Fringe Voluntary Assistant (which I will keep you updated on throughout my stay) and so I will start with the last time I was in Prague about a year ago.
I was on holiday with my friends getting a bit of culture and sun when I get an email from one of the members of the Arts and Humanities department of Stirling uni say something along the lines of "oh if you want to find out your grade for your honors degree please reply to this email and we will send them 9am tomorrow morning". My stomach drops. Now here was me thinking "well we're not getting out results until the middle of the month, may as well enjoy myself a bit, relax, drink cheap drink and not think about uni or anything". Wrong! I send the email as quick as I can saying that I would quite like my results yes, in some vain attempt to make them send the reply quicker - this does not happen. So the rest of the day I try to relax and enjoy my Prague experience but the niggling feeling that in less than 24 hours I would know what my degree grade would be still lingered with me. Four years of hard work with a pretty tough time in the middle had all come to this moment. I wake up early the next morning because I never sleep on holiday and check the time. 7am. Two hours to go. Wait the Czech Republic is an hour in front. Three hours to go. Crap. I try to sleep and fail and end up finishing one of the audio books I downloaded. After a long wait to until 10am when the emails will begin to send. I refresh my emails roughly every second and then finally, I see it. My stomach does a back flip and my hands shake as I tap the email. God I feel really sick. I see the number.
1:1
A first. A FUCKING FIRST. I could cry. Jesus Christ I did it. There was a point that I couldn't even see myself passing and here I was sitting with the best grade. I couldn't wait for the future, I really found my art style and where I wanted to be in the last two years and now I could really go onto a Masters. I tell everyone and we get prosecco later in the day to celebrate. It was probably one of the best days of my life, getting to celebrate a great result with great friends.
After my result I decided to take a break from education, get some experience with different things and hopefully save up a bit. It's been a pretty great year and has gave me a good amount of time time to relax and really clear my head to be ready to move on.
During the summer I take on three volunteering jobs. One was a workshop aimed at working with children with disabilities from ethnic minority groups. This was pretty chill, it was really fun to go along with some of the kids imaginations and stories they would create whilst creating their own art pieces. Unfortunately this had to be cancelled due to a problem with securing a space for the workshop. Though it was short I really enjoyed my time workig with the kids and helping them to create their work.
The next one I started working at was Six Foot Gallery, which is run by volunteers. I'm still there and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time there, it's really exciting to be in charge of making sure the whole thing runs accordingly. Curating and administration were things I didn't really have experience in and with being thrown into the deep end here I got my experience and I got it quickly. This job has given me a full range of new experiences which hopefully lead on to many more in the future.
Lastly I took on a voluntary position at Project Ability. I help out at a workshop aimed at attendees of other Project Ability workshops to give them a chance to meet some of the other members. This has also given me a range of different experiences as everyone seems to work in different areas of art and have different abilities and experiences. I've met a lot of fun and friendly people here to share my thoughts, abilities and experiences with them to help progress their artwork.
So where am I now. Over the next couple weeks I will try to note down my Prague Fringe experience everyday and keep you updated with the goings on over there. I'm really excited I loved Prague, the buildings the food and the drink are amazing and of course it's another great addition to my CV. So stay tuned!
It's really nice to look back on at where I was a year ago and how well it compliments what's happening now. I found out yesterday that Edinburgh College of art have given me an offer to do my Masters, I'm over the moon. I can't wait to see where the next two years will take me and meet a whole bunch of new people! AHHHHHH EXCITED!
Adventure is out there!
Until next time,
Róisín -x
