Yesterday at Uni the rather talented and nice bloke Seb Ly (seb.ly) came to talk to us Digital Media Design students about creative coding.

He showed various examples of cool effects created using simply JavaScript, which, basically, floored me. It was awesome. For the first time in many years I was properly inspired to get coding and create.

He quite rightly pointed out that if you’re learning through making awesome, fun stuff, it’s SO much easier to learn and be motivated than if you’re learning towards stuff you don’t give a rat’s ass about.

Yesterday afternoon as a result I coded this in JavaScript for a bit of fun (oh and then wrote loads of stuff down about a potential Squage JavaScript game…):

Particle Bouncing Things!

(The code’s a mess, but I was just playing :) )

Toodles,

Pat

Well, it’s been quite a while since I last blogged.

It’s been a busy few weeks, filled largely with Uni work but also with some pretty epic social moments thrown in: primarily a weekend at Alton Towers and a visit back to Essex involving staying up til 11am and going to an engagement party on 30 minutes sleep. Some more local fun stuff’s been going on too and some Uni-mates-based piss ups are approaching nice-n-fast!

As I write this, I’m in the 5th week of Uni, with one more week of the first module (Visual Communications) to go – and hence deadlines a go-go next Friday. Once it’s complete I’ll probably dump some of the work online so you can see what we’ve been getting up to.

The following Monday starts the next module (Visual Language), which is a “competition brief”. I’m still not entirely sure what that means. I guess there’s a competition and, as it’ll last 6 weeks, it’s “a brief” rather than “brief”.

Oh and all the while the “cultural and critical studies” module churns along, involving lots of the stuff that I’ve no experience and, to be honest, interest in: reading up about artists and art movements in various books and on various web sites. That’s right: I love drawing and doodling, but I’m not particularly into history of art. That’ll change, I guess (/hope). But hey, come on: the last time I wrote an essay was when I was doing my GCSEs. (And you’ve never claimed to be anything other than pig-ignorant! – Squage). Oh, thanks for popping in! (Pleasure! – Squage)

In case you’re wondering, I’m generally doing a 40 hour week (including coursework outside the classes) – plus, when I’m not shattered, some (but not many, yet) other creative bits in my spare time. So it’s not a total doss. Hopefully that’ll make you feel better about your taxes, although given I’m paying for everything myself bar council tax I guess that’ll only make you feel better if you live in Brighton & Hove…

Anyway, other than the course I still like it down here, not least because I bought a £5 sandwich toaster from Sainsbury’s. It’s made my breakfasts amazing.

I am nothing if not rock and roll.

BYE!

Pat

P.S. I finally get broadband on Thursday. It’ll mean blogging without walking a mile first or without praying I don’t go over my quota on Orange’s incredibly generous 500MB monthly mobile broadband limit. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do with all this freedom! Probably just watch the 10 hour version of Trollolol on Youtube…

Well, this has been quite a couple of weeks. Hello from St Peters House in Brighton!

I sit here in one of Brighton Uni’s many libraries, listening to tunes on my headphones and using my laptop and the Uni net connection to research children in soap product advertising.

This is all part of the first module, where as a group of three we’re having to come up with a whole load of marketing materials for a rather excellent, Sussex-based custom soap company.

It’s been quite a fortnight. I won’t lie: moving back into a full time education mindset has been bloody hard work.

Weekends and evenings are no longer time off, necessary, but then Wednesdays and Thursdays no longer have to be work either. You don’t get spoon fed stuff, you’ve gotta go out and research stuff yourself and work on your own steam. And there’s no easily definable right and wrong thing when it comes to creating a sketchbook full of book, poster, shop and gawd knows what else research sitting next to several design drafts. All annotated to the max, of course.

It’s a world of difference from an IT job, trust me. And it’s been bloody tough to get used to this.

But I think I’m largely there, now (thanks in no small part to support from awesome friends). Two weeks in isn’t bad after 9 years in employment! One thing working full time for years – coupled with actually really wanting this course to be useful – has done is given me a MUCH better working mindset than Uni the first time round. I’m spending a LOT of time on the work and social stuff comes second to it.

So THIS was what I was supposed to do last time? Damn :)

Anyway, aside from all that I’ve been socialising a fair bit – World Zombie Day in London a week ago was incredible fun, plus I’ve been to see comedians Alex Horne, David O’Doherty (just… brilliant!) and Andrew Lawrence, plus Noah and the Whale last night. Oh and a couple (but only a couple, so far) of pub trips of course.

Oh and walking. A lot. Our course is based at City College, which is exactly a mile walk from my flat. I’m walking at least 2 miles a day, and I’m losing weight slowly but surely – which is nice!

Anyway, enough rambling, I’m off back to the flat. Internet next Friday, baby! Ooooh yeeeah!

Pat

Well, I’m tired. It’s been a long week comprising of a mixture of confusion, concern, worrying, excitement, understanding, downloading, uploading, photography, sketching, editing, walking, cutting, laughing, glueing and – surprisingly – not drinking. Gotta love a budget.

I’m not really sure what to tell you other than that there’s a good crowd of people on my course, we get on well and I in spite of initial worries, I’m gonna really enjoy the course.

I could say some more stuff, but to be honest I’m tired so I can’t be assed. Besides I’ve got some sleep to get in before dressing as a zombie and wandering around Leicester Square tomorrow.

Oh yes. That’s how I roll.

Before I go, that “uploading” I mentioned above consisted largely of 200-odd photos from my France holiday! They’re here: BONJOUR!

Toodles,

Pat

Yeah, you heard me, October. I’m dissing your ability to be autumnunal. Whatcha gonna do?

[Checks the weather]

Damn. Well, thanks for three days of loveliness at least, oh 10th month of the year!

Today I started University, officially.

A relaxed pace 20 minute walk (without getting lost – boom!) got me from my flat to the classroom, tshirt and backpack on my back and shorts on my legs. The morning was spent getting to know people on the course, and doing some creative “Here are some basics about working to instructions vs working to your own brief” tasks.

The first was a “make yourself out of plasticine” task. Mine was not the best thing I’ve ever made. We’ll just leave it at that, but let’s just put it this way: I felt it appropriate to add a sign for him to hold with “Help!” written on it.

The second was a “make a paper airplane” task. Pretty simple, but we had to choose a set of instructions from whichever website we chose and ensure we didn’t just do a basic, standard paper plane. So there were some odd designs in that room. Some flew better than others.

Mine… well, to give you a clue, mine was called “Death Trap” after a few trial runs.

We were told it wasn’t about the results, but that it was a way of showing a few things to us. Which was lucky, really, :)

Anyway, this afternoon saw us wandering around some little art galleries in Brighton, which was really nice (there are some pretty awesome and varied pieces of work in this town!), helped largely by the sunny weather.

Yesterday I had a nice walk along the seafront to the pier, along it, along the beach a bit and through The Lanes in Brighton, all in shorts and t-shirt. It was pretty damn nice. But not quite as impressive as the day before…

Saturday I got up early, headed over to Casa RaiNMatt to watch the rugby, then got on our bikes, got on a train, headed to Chichester and cycled to places called The Witterings.

What are “The Witterings”? Basically, a selection of beachside areas called things like West Wittering and – wait for it – East Wittering.

We went to the west, which looked and felt like a beach area in the Med. Just beautiful. And hot. Very hot. We spent the afternoon there, doing things such as swimming in the sea (on. the. first. of. oct. ob. er.), sunbathing and making sand turtles, starfish, sharks, clams and fish.

There are photos, but I’m not in the pub and I’m not waiting for Oliver RangeTelecoms to let me upload them from home (did I mention I wasn’t online properly yet? ;) ).

An 8 mile cycle back to Chichester and a tasty meal at Smith and Western later, we headed back to Brighton a bit shattered.

All in all, a very good few days.

It was nice to squeeze the last possible bits out of summer.

And now, to knuckle down and start filling up my sketch pad with work for my first module: Visual Communications *.

Toodles for now!

Pat

(* No, Carter, this Visual Communications is a different one to our Friday night “Stand at the side of a park in dirty macs and waggle ourselves at tourists” type)