By Marley Muirhead

A New Blood Bath

So it’s the Sunday before half term and when we come back D&AD starts. I distinctly remember someone from last year saying “January and February are fine, but whoa, when you get to March? Yeah, you won’t have time to see anyone”. This time at the school also hosts one of the few seven-day weeks Marc expects us to work. Normally he insists that weekends are reserved for the sacred practice of recuperation (and passion projects). So it doesn’t take a detective to deduce that the next four weeks are going to be an absolute blood bath. A New Blood bath. Flipping hell, I didn’t even plan that but that was beautiful. Gonna have to change the title of this scab now. FYI it was originally “let’s get ready to rrrummmbblllee”. Would’ve been cute if Ant and Dec hadn’t defiled the phrase back in 1994. Anywho. Unlike how is often for the case for Sherlock, Poirot and Lady Marple, this murder is one we can take measures to strategically avoid. Here are ways I intend to use the half-term to achieve exactly that.

1. EAT A FROG FOR BREAKFAST EVERYDAY: So as part of our time-management class we were taught to do the task we’ve been putting off first thing in the morning. I feel like that’s a bit easier when you have the stank breath of imminent daily deadlines breathing down your neck. With all this unoccupied time, I need to make sure to stick to this.

2. TIMETABLE ERRYTHANG: Similar to the point above, structure is sexy. Structure helps us procreate. Tonight I am going to block everything in my diary til it looks like a wall that a certain U.S. president might have a wet dream over.

3. 97 SMPS, 98 SMPS, 99 SMPS: I am going to write 100 SMPs this week. I have been neglecting writing them and that ‘ish needs to change.

4. Z IS THE MAGIC NUMBER: I need to sleep. Sleep is my redbull, by coffee, my cocaine. I need to catch up on it.

5. #PASSIONATE FROM MILES AWAY, PASSIVE WITH THE THINGS YOU SAY#: I have not been passionate about my passion projects lately, and I need to be a bit more devoted to them. So this half term I am going to write one poem, one piece of flash fiction, and send some emails about something else I’m working on.

6. FEED ME SEYMOUR: I’m really proud of the strides I’ve made with my book so far. The scores from our last portfolio hand-in really surpassed my expectations. But there is no rest for the wicked and that’s exactly what I want my book to be at the end of this term. This week it’s going to be fed at least three new scamped campaigns.

7. WE ARE FAMILY: I am going to see my family, my friends, my lovlies and just forget that SCA exists while I’m with them. We’ve just had a new addition to our family and I haven’t met her yet. Ideally, I would like that to be before she’s crawling in July.

8. AFTER EFFECTS: Everyday this term I’m going to do a YouTube tutorial on after effects to get more comfortable with the software. I think I’ll sling together loads of footage from my years at uni and try and make something cute.

There are a bunch of other little things I have to do as well but those are the bones of it. Essentially I want this half term to ramp my take-off into the next six weeks, I genuinely believe that’s gonna be one of the big contributors to my success during it. Ta-ra for now!