By Charles Olafare

 

 

Bad Weekends

 

When I’m not at SCA, I spend my weekends working in a clothes shop. Between SCA and my weekend job, I haven’t had any real free time for what feels like ages now. Its a real shame because it means I don’t just miss out on spending time with my friends, I also have zero time to engage with any culture.

 

No art galleries and no trips to the cinema. No lazy Saturday afternoon jaunts to the park by way of the pub. No spontaneous Sunday brunches. No spontaneity at all actually.

 

That’s one of my biggest bugbears about my time on the course overall. Pulled between pillar and post of work and study, I don’t have time to do anything other than sleep. And even that is fitful and stunted at the best of times.

 

My next weekend off is 18 days away. Sad, really.

 

I thought I’d try to round this post off with some sort of resolution to end it on an upward note. But really can’t extract an upside from any of that, it just sucks.

 

Passion Projects

 

At a crit this week I was asked if I had any passion projects. I answered no and I’d never felt so boring in my entire life. Actually, come to think of it, I do have a few recent passion projects I’ve picked up out of necessity:

 

• Waiting two months for my first month’s paycheck from my current job. This one’s a bit of a niche one, but the long and short of it is that if you ever find yourself working for a Japanese company, you may have to adjust to a very bewildering payroll system.

 

• Worrying if I’ll be able to afford to get to school the next day. Lots of banter to mined from this little labour of love. Usually kicks in about Wednesday or Thursday depending on when my weekly travel card expires. Involves very guiltily asking my mum (who is pretty hard up herself tbh) for some loot. If the coffers are dry, I devise a route using my arcane knowledge of barrier free rail stations and busses you can hop on the back of.

 

• Falling asleep as soon as the clock strikes 10pm on a Friday night. Pretty self explanatory this one. Feels more like a calling than a project, but why do we need to put a label on the things that move us creatively?

 

• Feeling like I’m constantly standing on the edge of an emotional precipice and staring at the ground below. Love this one!!!

 

• I’ve got a collection of vintage point and shoot cameras and try to take some snaps with then when I can.

 

 

 

 

The copy scores 76.9 in the Flesch Reading Ease test