Week 1 - My first last

Today is the last day of the first week of an amazing year I am yet to experience. So far , I cannot describe this with anything less extreme than surreal. I am actually studying shoe design.

My days are so busy they that at the end of the each one everything is a bit of a blur, displaced events, all equally vivid but scattered around my memory, falling into the folder named London, ignoring the carefully selected sections like October the 8th or Thursday. Today's morning was days ago, so were todays classes and evening work shift. All I can do now is breathe and enjoy this moment of satisfaction and freedom – today.

Using my laptop's calendar to reorganise and sort my impressions of this week, I can tell you that Monday was the first of five, the briefing day – the start of it all. We met at JPS (John Princess Street) to hear about the plans for the first term (now – mid-December). In these few months we will be working on two separate projects. First one is called ISHE ([iši] how cute!) which stands for Introduction to Study in Higher Education. This one is to prepare us for bigger and more advanced project in later years. We were asked to choose an object which has a special meaning to us and would want to investigate it further. I chose a decorative tin storage box (http://prntscr.com/8p9kbw). We will have to visually explore this particular item in a min 20pg. portfolio and write a 1250 word essay – I'm really excited about both of these tasks!

Next project is called Product Technologies and it is meant to teach us about the construction of different shoes, techniques used for making them, different materials, use of the specialised machines...everything we need to know about the process of shoe making. The interesting thing about this is that we will get no special books on the topic, instead we will each write our own shoemaking manual, alongside with physical samples, which will act as a reference book for the next 3 years and more and will also be a 100% of the grade for this subject.

Taping the last and making a pattern :)

One of the first tasks we had to do was deconstruct a shoe, we got on our second day (we also got our own lasts and specialised toolkit!!). On Thursday we learned how to prepare our shoe patterns for a court shoe…there was a lecture on shoe illustration.... aaa my head is going to explode. Too much info, error, error. The thing I love about this course so far is that it’s really hands on, practical and real. All the people who teach here have had years of experience in different fields of shoe industry and are really helpful, knowledgeable and accessible. The other thing is, everything we learn, from day one is aimed at the real world. Alongside our course specific knowledge, we learn how to be professional, how to present ourselves, to prepare a portfolio. Examples are taken from real students and real industry projects.

Deconstruction of a Chelsea boot O.o

Coming from an environment where the average is 4 written tests per subject, and you have 13 subjects, and oral questioning and extra marks, this is all very new. But having started on my projects, it is starting to show that this kind of work is even more demanding than studying for a test and takes up for more time. I hope that by working on the project I will actually learn and REMEMBER most of the information I need for later without hours and hours spent revising and all-nighters every other week of November. Cheers.

P.S.: Last = a form around which the shoe is moulded

New wardrobe for £8! - London vintage haul

To start my life in a new place, I needed some new clothes to really transform my wardrobe into a more exciting place (to get rid of that gut-wrenching morning feeling of ihavenothingtowearpleasehelp away for good). I was also decided on not spending much money on my upgrade, for obvious reasons (£££). I have found an event that a friend was going to attend (fb) – a huge vintage sale, everything for £1. Sooo I went.

When I was sure, I was in the right area, all I had to do was inconspicuously follow all the funky/hipster dressed people. They lead me past a huge que of people, witch at first, I thought was a queue for something different, it couldn’t be the vintage sale…could it? It was. The mass of people that continued around the block, was about 100m long and 1 m wide –at 11.40am!! (The sale as supposed to start at 11am, and I was going to be there on time. But then traffic happened). Since I had nothing better to do, and I was meeting up with a friend who was also late, I decide to just fry in the sun with the others, reading my 1pound edition of Macbeth and pray to god all the he good pieces won’t be gone by the time I get there.

I got there... in about an hour and a half I met with my friend and paid entrance fee (£1) for both of us, since he didn’t have any change on him. Inside the mysterious chamber that turned out to be a plain white room there were a few pallets (skids) put in a row creating 3 separate corridors for us to walk, some stands with hangers with sweaters and jackets on the sides and a few metal-net boxes with hats and such. I must say, it was a mess. The vintage was really just a synonym (not really) for second hand and it was not at all easy to find pieces that I liked. However, after good 2 and a half hours of deciding and contemplating, I have decided on 6 pieces that I liked, and my friend picked two. We paid £8 at the counter and happily strolled out with bags of clothes that all together cost £10. (AMAZING!!)

1.First thing that I got was super cute looking burgundy coloured fluffy hat, that would go perfectly with a pink dress that I bought at Bestival for - coincidentally - £1 as well.

2. Second thing was a black and white cotton shirt that was actually found by my friend first, but was too small for him. I have worn it a couple of times now and it is very comfortable, versatile and surprisingly warm. (you probably know I love wearing male shirts tho).

3. Just out of curiosity, I picked out a pair of faux leather pants (Yugioh abridged people will relate with me on an emotional level – yes Twigi). I tried them on and to my absolute surprise, they fit like a glove. They were also high waisted, which was something I have been wanting to get for a long time.

4. Well the blue sequin shirt got chosen merely for the laughs, but I may put it to god use some day. Definitely great party wear.

5. The next thing, which is the cute black sweater with pink stars was picked up right at the end for 2 reasons: 1. It had starts (*) and 2. I actually came to the sale to get more warm stuff for winter (and this was actually the only proper winter thing I got XD).

6. Aaand last but not least –drumroll- my absolute favourite thing in my wardrobe right now…. The amazing Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe skirt. Ta-daaa. So I was just browsing through some boring piles, saw a glimpse of the bright blue and just snatched it before anyone else could get to it. It was meant to be. (I got the bag for free at the UAL freshers’ fair).

So this post sums up all my new clothes bought in England for a total price of £8! (£1 for the dress from Bestival, £1 for the entrance fee to the sale and £6 worth of hidden treasures). So even if the common saying (is it?) goes something along the lines of: “London will take your money…” I think this shows that it will also give you some amazing deals if you take the time to look for them.

My new place

So, I am still alive. Yes. I haven’t really had time to post anything proper, because, I'm not going to lie, my life right now is quite busy. But today, I felt like I needed to take some time off to write an update.

I have successfully moved in to my new residence in North London, I have had my first job and I have officially stated school at University of the Arts London.

So first a bit about where I live. Since my funds are quite low, I decided to hunt for a cheap private accommodation on my own, rather than settle for super expensive living in the student halls (138 per week or more). Having looked through dozens of rooms, I found my absolute favourite one. It is affordable, really bright (2 roof windows), cosy and quite close to my school (when I say quite close, I mean 40min to 1h of commuting every morning). I share the bathroom and a kitchenette with a lovely Chinese student, who has already lived here for a year. The only downside really, to this place is that it doesn’t have a proper hob. ''WHAT!?'' was my first reaction, but after spending some time living here, I think I will find lots of original and healthy ways to prepare food – I have managed to survive so far (I have a microwave, kettle, toaster, egg cooker, vegetable steamer and a rice cooker).

The house in which I’m staying is located in North London in a clean, very green and lively residential area. Shops and high street is a 2 min walk away, tube 15 minutes. (And the gigantic Alexandra palace park just 10 min walk omg). TL;DR, I love this place.

I will write about Bestial (job) and uni some other time, promise^^.