Desmond!

So I now officially have a degree, it seems really really weird to say it. Ever since I started this course I couldn't quite believe I was a degree student, like I have said many times I never thought I would get to uni let alone complete it. I never classed myself as the uni type, not because I didn't want to go to uni but because I didn't think I was smart enough. Anyway for those of you who dont know I got what students call a 'Desmond' which is a 2:2.

It is a really nice feeling to be honest, to say that I have a degree is a huge achievement for me and I still cant quite take it in. I am however quite excited about the fact that I can now put BA after my name (I think this excitment will wear off in a couple of weeks)

Even if I hadn't managed to get the degree I wouldn't of changed these past 3 years at all (even my 2nd yr, shocking I know) because the experience of going to uni has taught me so much. However after saying all this I am glad that this part of my life has finished, and I cant flippin wait untill the next part.

I am so thankfull to God everyday for how he is working in me, and for what he has given me and I cant wait to see what he has next for me. This year is going to be very exciting and is most likely going to be hard at some points but all I need to do is trust in God daily, because he knows what is right for us. Here is a verse a friend sent me via text on results day which really really helped.....

' cast your cares onto the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall'

AMEN!

accident prone and clumsy! whats the difference?

So i've been thinking today what is the difference between accident prone and clumsy!? because I get called clumsy quite a lot and I agree with that however if there is no difference in these titles then I would prefer to be called accident prone it just sounds soooo much better than being clumsy. It was just a thought and if someone would like to explain to me what they think the difference is I would be very happy! Anyhoo moving on........

I have had a really good couple of weeks, a few weeks back I had been feeling far from God and a little low, and a bit fed up to be honest but some lovely friends prayed for me and I have just been feeling really flippin happy again!! This week has been particulary amazing as it was Mobilise, God just spoke to me about so many things, mainly about handing my burdens and worries to him. I have been worrying a lot more lately about so many things that are coming up like my degree results, finaces and things I am going to do next year as part of Impact which I worry I wont do very well. However God has just calmed me, I think that something I have always struggled with is worrying and anxiety but God has calmed that a lot this week.

Last night was pretty brilliant to, I got the giggles which I hadn't had in sometime either, laughing is amazing I love it!

anyhoo I best split like a banana and leave! (HA HA HA sorry just something some lovely lass said this week which I cant stop laughing about!)

xxx

Update!

Blimey! Its been just over a month since I last posted, that is quite a lengthy time. So whats happened in the past month well I finished uni which to be honest I didn't find it as amazing, scary, exciting as I thought I would. I guess part of me still hasn't quite realized that I have completed a degree, maybe that wont happen untill I get my results (which is in a month and I am rather annoyed about that as its sooooo long to wait). I then went on a lovely holiday to visit family in Ireland which was fab as it meant I could just chill with no worries about uni and work. All I did for 9 days was sleep, eat and shop flippin brilliant. Thats all thats happened really, exciting huh!? he he he.

Well I am looking forward to the summer, except from the whole working at a coffee shop full time bit but the rest will be good. Also only 2 months till my next adventure starts impact and moving home again! which I am very excited about. Its going to be weird though because for the past 3 years I have been surrounded by mainly non-christian people and now I am going to be surrounded by mainly christian people which I am really excited about, I can't wait to learn from them all.

Anyhoo im off to bed

night allXXX

'Isolation'

This piece of work is my final piece of my degree, and will be shown for my degree show. It is called Isolation, and is also based around ideas of claustrophobia. I have chosen to look at fears in a lot of my projects because they are things that have caused me to worry a lot in my past and is something that I often struggle with now, but not as half as bad as I used to. I guess now I dont see the point, but I have enjoyed looking back at my past for my photography. This piece of work is a small model room that I made out of foam board and tracing paper, the chair is a small doll house chair I painted white.

'The Forgotten Walk'

This piece of work called 'The Forgotten Walk' was from my first project in my third year, it is again about when I was bullied but this work was looking at the psychological effect it had on me. Every night during the school term I would have nightmares and sleep walk because of the stress and worry, so I decided to document this by photographing the places I slept walked. The photos are blurry because I wanted to show the sense of me seeing where I am going but not using my vision properly because obviously I am still asleep.

'The Fearful Journey'

Finally managed to get my work on here, which in a way is quite scary for me. I dont know why but I get really shy when people want to see my photography course work because I dont think they will get it! ha ha ha! well here it is.........

This is my last project I did in my second year called 'The Fearful Journey', it was about when I was younger a got bullied, and the worst time for me through the bullying was when I would walk home and the bullies would often shout out me. I decided to re-shoot the roads I walked down and underneath put my thoughts as I walked. The work was 6 photos put up on the wall like posters. Anyhoo hope you understand this!

Prayer and Patience

I have been thinking recently quite a lot about how God has been working in me and changing me me over these past few years. When I think of the person I was a few years ago compared to the person I am today there is quite a big change. I used to be a very self-conscious person, it would get me really down and very paranoid about a lot of things, like what people are thinking and saying about me and also paranoid about how I acted. God has changed that over these past few years, don't get me wrong I am not saying that I am completely comfortable with who I am, because I still struggle with things but not at all like I used to. I am a lot more confident now, I understand that I have silly ways of speaking sometimes and silly things I often do but I dont get paranoid about them because whats the point in that, I laugh at them now which I would have never been able to do a few years back. I would have been embarrassed and beat myself up about them but God has changed my way of thinking which I am so thankful for.

I remember a few years back asking God all the time to help me to stop thinking the way I was, because I didn't want to feel sorry for myself anymore and I wanted to be less uptight and then I would get really upset because these feelings never changed but it is only now have I seen how much he has answered my prayers. I love God he is so amazing!

One major thing I have learnt is prayer and patience! I am such an impatient person but God has taught me over these past few years that I have to be more patient, he has taught me to understand that he has a time plan for everything. God listens to us and he also knows us inside out he knows what we need and when we need it and will bless us with what is best for us.

anyway I think I have gone on enough now.

Bye allxxx

I'm in a putting photos on my blog mood recently (and also I am kinda avoiding doing work! he he he) I was looking through my photos of friends and outings we have had and thought I would put some of my favourite ones on here.







Anyhoo hope you liked

XXX

Photographers

Well I thought for this post instead of boring you with whats been going on in my week (which has been pretty average) I would steal an idea from what Becky.f does in her blog and talk about photographs/photographers that I like and that have also inspired me as a photographer (thanks becky).

Well one of the first photographers I really heard about and was struck by was Diane Arbus, she is a portrait photographer, but is very well known for photographing quite striking people. I remember seeing her work for the first time and being drawn in.
Another photographer that I like is Gregory Crewdson, I find his use of lighting fasinating and the way he constructs his images really captures the viewers eyes, he shoots his photographs as if he is photographing film sets. I just remember seeing his work for the first time in London and spending ages looking at the very large prints.


One other photographer I want to mention is one that I haved loved looking at ever since 1st yr of college which is portrait photographer Anton Corbijn, I cannot tell you what it is about his work that I like because I dont know! but here are a few of his images anyway!



Ok well thats it I guess, I am scanning my negatives onto the comp in the next few weeks so hopefully I will have some of my own images on here soon!

Anyhoo i'm gonna go to bed now

Night allXXXX

Officially an Adult!!!!!

Wow! I haven't posted in 2 weeks! I dunno how that happened just been busy I guess. Well my week has been good, turned 21 last friday which was really cool, I am now officially an adult, It is also scary because I remember quite clearly turning 13 and thinking how old 21 is! and now I'm 21. I had a really good day though, got my haircut in the morning, then spent some time with my parents, then went for a lovely picnic on the beach with rach, krust and pic. Then in the eve had a few of the girlies round (pic, krust, gem, debs and ellie) which was really lovely we sat out in my back garden chatting for ages and ate lots and lots then at bout 10pm we decided to go to the beach so we grabbed a flask of tea, some blankets and my mum grabbed a load of her jumpers and made sure we were all warm enough before we left! lol! I love her! and headed down to the beach. I tell you now I haven't laughed so much in ages, we all just went a little mad.

Then on Sunday I went back to uni, I love my housemates when I got in there was a pile of prezzies and banners up. I was thinking the other day that I have just finished my final ever student holiday, because I am not doing a masters, no way! ha ha ha! I am really glad yet quite sad that in 8 weeks I will have finished education forever!!!!!!!!! Its a really weird feeling because as much as I want these 8 weeks to be over and done with I also dont want to wish it away because once its done its done!!!!

Its hard though because all I can think of at the moment is september! For ages all I have wanted to do is give a year for God and its finally happening and I cant wait, so its hard to enjoy these 8 weeks when all I can think of is sept. But I know God is going to bless me even more so in these next 8 weeks than what he already has.

Something else I have been thinking about is how much I have changed, its weird I didn't think I had changed much whilst at uni but over Easter I learnt that was not true! I guess sometimes you need people to point things out, I am so thankful for what God has done in me, and the person he is making me to be, I cant wait for what he is going to do in me next year!

Right well this was a pretty boring post I do apologise! but there we go!

bye for nowXXX

p.s some more silly things that uni has taught me

1. My parents seem smarter than what they used be!
2. My mum's meals is something I look forward to!
3. Getting mail is so exciting!
4. Being spontanious is a must at uni!

My Song!

'Nobody does it better, Nobody does it half as good, Baby your the best'

Ok so last summer me and a few girls were sitting watching bridget jones 2 when this song came on and Kirsty started singing this song at me! I was a little confused and didn't understand why she was pointing at me but then found out that for quite a few years this was her song for me which she has sang everytime I did my silly Maddy things and what is hilarious is that she thought I knew about it, but I just thought she liked that song! HA HA HA! an example of my silly ways. I was quite proud of this, I have my own song which I love.

So this afternoon I have been thinking about what my silly ways are and some of most classic moments, which I have now have made a new name for which is Maddy Madness or Maddie's Mad Moments (any other suggestions welcome). Here are some of the things I can remember:

One is I have an incredible ability to trip up in most places, the most memerable moment of tripping was in New York outside madison square gardens I was carrying about 10 bags and I literally tripped and fell in a second it wasn't even one of those running trips where you try and not fall, anyway I fell flat on my face in a sort of star shape still holding all my bags, all my friend could do was stand there in shock mouth wide open whilst this new yorker ran up to me shouting 'oh my god, oh my god, are you ok' (when reading this read that quote in a new yorker accent it sounds funnier) I got up so fast bright red and laughed all the way home! with a quite painful knee.

A few other things are, I often dont tend to look where i'm going which means I often bump into people, I constantly get my words mixed up so end up saying such stupid things, and in my house at uni I have now officially become 'The clumsy one' because I have broken A LOT of plates, glasses and mugs, fell up our stairs many many times and have been the only one to start a small fire.

So yeah Nobody does do it quite as good as I do, but I dont mind cause if I didn't then I wouldn't be Maddy! so if any of you have your own funny ways do share! or if you remember any classic maddie madness do share I like laughing at myself! ha ha ha!

Anyhoo gonna go eat some chocolate now! as it is easter! XXXX

Highs and Lows

Ok well today has been a rather odd day I must say, its been filled with highs and lows. Which is odd because I haven't had a day like that in quite some time. It started off like every Sunday morning starts off for me which is lovely church, which was a high point of the day as I love going to Jubilee! and obviously I love worshipping God and learning more about him. Then we went onto Coombs farm to stroke the lambs and laugh at the sheeps making hilarious noises and we also went on a tractor ride which was very cold and windy but fun.

Then I got home and suddenly had a low and I dont know why! it was really weird I just started to think about how I talk and how annoying it might be to have to listen to me! I dont know why I started to think this but I did. I came to the conclusion that I talk before I really think about what I am trying to say which then means I often dont make sense and I start making a fool out of myself and this got me really angry and upset. I often say stupid things, and I laugh them off but today I was thinking over some of the stupid things I say and nearly started to cry, rather bizarre. Then that got me even more annoyed and upset because then I started thinking 'oh maddy, your just to emotional and sensitive, get a grip'.

So anyway after this low point I decided that I would go to seeking God even though I wasn't really in the mood as I felt like I just want to curl up in bed a cry (i really really dont know why I felt like this) but I headed down there anyway. Which I must say was a very good decision as it was one of the best prayer meetings I have been to. God was talking to us all so much and I went from wanting to cry and practically doing it to feeling this amazing amount of Joy and praise in a matter of seconds! wow! I really really do love God he truely is amazing. This eve just reminded me once again that no matter what happens in our lives good, bad or scary that as long as we have God in our lives we never need to worry. He fills us up and gives us strength and if we have faith in him for what tommorow brings then all are fears will slowely fade away. Praise God eh?

Anyway just thought I would share my day with you all, best go to sleep I guess got work tommorow. night night x

Chavin it up!

So had another pretty good few days! especially on monday night when I got to dress like a chav for a night! Its very surprising how much fun acting like a chav can be. I did feel like wearing what I was wearing I couldn't talk normally (as did rest of the people who were dressing up) so there were alot of sentences like 'wot ya chattin bout tho?' 'get outta ma space' and 'wot is up wiv ureself?' and for the first time on this blog I am putting some pics! so you can take a look at us chav's!






Something I have been thinking about recently is all the little stupid things I have learnt at uni and little things I do at uni! So here are some of them I thought I would share with you!

1. I now know most of the words for these songs:

• 'I am the one and only' Chesney
• 'Sweet child of mine' Guns N' Roses
• 'I would walk 5000 miles' The Proclaimers

2. Phil and Fern (this morning tv) have become my friends!
3. Closing the grill door (even if it is only a few seconds) whilst cooking lamb chops will cause a fire!
4. Cleaning your room can become a form of procrastination (instead of doing uni work)
5. You learn the art of having a good nap!

Theres loads more but I will share them with you in another post!

bye for nowXXXX

Lovely!

Well these past few weeks have been good, they actually have been some of the best weeks I have ever had at uni! and to be honest I dont know why. Maybe because I have felt really relaxed there, or that my project is going quite well or that this is the best living situation I have been in since I went to uni! but it has been good.

Also I am happy because I have come home to sunny Worthing for 3 weeks! there is something about this place that I will always love and I am trying to put my finger on it. Obviously its the people! my great friends and family but also I guess when I get here I always feel super relaxed, I know my way round and well its always lovely hearing the sea in the morning! and weirdly I love the sound of the seaguls! so its nice to be home! and like Dorethy said in wizard of oz 'There's no place like home'

I know this post my sound boring and is very short but a good friend said to me the yesterday 'a blog can just be a diary of even the mundane things that have happened to you' so I thought I would talk about how nice my week has been!

anyhoo thats all folks!!!

Life as a Photography Student!

Ok so I said weeks ago that I would talk something about what I actually do on my photography course, so I have decided that i'm gonna explain now!

Well to start with I just want to explain that my course is very conceptual, so all of the photographs we do have to be explained with a deeper meaning and we have to be able to justify in quite a lot of depth why we have taken that photo the way we have. Which sometimes I find very frustrating because I just want to pick up my camera and take photos purely because I wanted to! and nothing else! I do find that it can often suck the joy out of photographing, because if you can't find an idea that is meaningful and interesting enough then it can become this HUGE! chore to find that idea and can become so frustrating! However if you do find that interesting idea it can be soooooooo much fun! Although I do admit the work I do on this course might not be where I want to go when I finish as I LOVE photographing people but because I cant find an interesting idea that I can clearly explain my reasons for doing, which I can use people I have chosen to go another route with my photographs.

So what do I photograph!? my practice at uni is mainly under 2 titles! Autobiography and Narrative, for the last two projects I did (one end of 2nd yr, the other beginning of 3rd yr) I looked at a time in my life that was quite stressful and upsetting for me which was when I was getting bullyed. For the first project I photographed the physical effect it had on me, by photographing the walking journey from school to home. This was horrible for me as the girls would shout insults at me. The way I captured this was I shot the streets as I looked back, as this expressed me looking back at the girls to see how close they were. These photographs were produced in a poster like form with sentences written underneath each photo that expressed my thoughts as I walked. Sentences like 'why cant they leave me alone' and 'only 2 minutes left and i'm home'.

The 2nd project was the mental effect it had on me! during this period I would have a lot of sleep terrors due to the stress of the bullying and I would sleep walk every night in the school term. To express this I had 10 small prints in a line on the wall like a story board, taking the viewer from start to finish of my sleep walk in the night the photos were of places in my house I slept walked, they were blurred as my vision was there but not being use normally cause I was in a dreamlike state!

Now finally the project I am doing at the mo! I am looking at the idea of claustrophobia, as this is something that came up in my last project and I am interested in it as I am effected by this a little! At the moment its a work in progress so I think I will explain what I did when I finish! Also I think I have explained enough about my work already! lol!

I do apologise once again if you cant understand what I just said and if I rambled! I realise this was a lengthy post! but I just felt like I needed to explain what I do as I understand I dont often talk about my photography work!

Thats all I guessXXX

Plodding Along........

So i've been sitting infront of this laptop now for flippin ages! trying to figure out how to put what i'm thinking into words, so here it goes! if you dont understand it, find it boring or if I ramble I do apologise! So these last two weeks have been pretty interesting! my project at uni is really coming along and i'm really enjoying it, which is really good because there is nothing worse than trying to do a project that you dont enjoy because you never have any good ideas and then it becomes this mega struggle to produce anything worth showing. So I am really chuffed that my final project at uni is an enjoyable one, not only this but I really feel like I have learnt/been reminded of a lot of things in these past couple of weeks.

Well the first thing that I have really been thinking about is how I should be enjoying every moment more, lately I have been plodding along with everything not taking much in. Which I shouldn't be doing because I only live on this earth once and I only experience uni once and I should be taking every moment of it in and experiencing these last few months to the fullest! I guess its so easy to get to the end of things that have taken up quite a chunk of your time and have such a routine about it. So something that I am going to try and do is take in every last moment of uni as I wont get it back once its finished!

Secondly God has been really speaking to me, because of my plodding along attitude I haven't been as close to God as usual and he has really been bringing me close to him again! It was amazing a few days ago I got a lovely facebook messege from my lovely friend Nicola that gave me real reassurence about my future and how God is going to use me in the future and then literally 2 mins after reading that I recieved a text from my other lovely friend Kirsty explaining how she felt God was reminding me to fix my eyes on him. Wow isn't amazing how God speaks to us!

Anyway I think I will stop going on now, but I just want to say one last thing!

Thanks God your Amazing!

God blessX

Photography and Me!!!!!

So......I've been thinking a lot about my photography future lately! i've always thought about it but more in the sense of what my next project is gonna be on, (oh and who's photo board is next on the list, crocker i will get to it i promise) but I guess now because my degree is coming to an end I have started to think about it more in the sense of what the heck am I gonna do with my degree. Also there is a huge! part of me that is thinking am I actually good enough to make a career out of it! On some occasions I find myself tense up when people ask me to help them with photography things because I get scared that I am going to do something wrong.

I remember a year ago someone asked me to play a VERY small role in taking photos for a wedding and they asked a bunch of people not just me and I got so scared that my photos would be the only ones to muck up or be rubbish that i made some lame excuse to get out of doing it! Things like this just make me wonder how my future in photography is ever gonna happen, and it scares me. I guess I have started to realise is that I care a lot more about photography and suceeding in it than i thought i did, Photography has really been the only thing that I have managed to pass at! he he he! I was never the brightest person at school and when I got into uni i was seriously suprised! I guess these feelings of being scared to take photos for others is the fear of maybe failing and the one thing i have always passed at! but thats not the way I should be thinking! because if I dont take a step out and photograph for others I will never get a chance to pass at it! and I will never be able to call myself a photographer. I guess its just gonna take time for me to grasp the confidence! small baby steps I say!

Anyhoo thats my thoughts for the day! best go to bed!
night allXXX

Whats Next???

So my week has been very full, which is so good as for the past few weeks my days have been pretty empty and I have been very lazy. Went on a road trip to Gt Yarmouth with my housemates this weekend just gone and it was so much fun! very tired at the end but was a nice break from southampton. God definatly blessed me with fab housemates this year. Got back and have finally got excited about my final major project and have started to really work on this project. (will talk about what its about in another post)

When we got back from yarmouth I was reminded of how fast this year is going! its only 4 weeks till easter and then after that I only have 8 weeks left of uni! wow! I am so excited about the months to come especially September. For all those who are reading this and dont know what I am doing in Sept, I am doing Impact! This is where you give a year to work for the church! I am going to work for my home town church in worthing, as I feel like this is my family and I want to help them. I have wanted to do this since I started uni! so I am pretty excited about the fact that it is so close now, what has made it more exciting is the fact that a few weeks ago I found out that my good friend Jeni is going to be doing Impact in worthing to! which has really relaxed me about the year as I will be doing it with someone I know well and I am really comfortable around I really think that we will work well together and we will learn lots from each other! and who knows its still early days there might be someone else which is exciting! guess we will just have to wait and see.

There is also more.......not only will I be working with Jeni but living with her to and also living with our lovely friend debbie! its so exciting. I cant wait to live with christian ladies as I have never lived in an enviroment like that before, I am so excited to learn more than what I already have from them, there faith, wisdom and love of God! I thank God so much for he has really blessed me, its amazing how he works, I thank him for last year! as I have learnt so much from it and now I cant wait for what he has to teach me next.

Bye for now I guessXXX

My Rock!!!

In this post i think i just wanna talk about something that has been so important to me for the past 7 years! this is my faith in God! He has taught me so much and quite frankly i dunno wot i would have done without him in my life! When i look back at how my life has been and how i got through things that i got through i honestly believe the way i acted and delt with things would have been completely different if i didn't have him in my life. I guess especially through uni he has proven to be my rock! Not only this but has blessed me with so many things and left me with so many promises. One thing I have learnt from uni about my faith is that is so easy to praise God in the good times when all is going so well but when things are going wrong we often find it hard to thank him! but what i have learnt is that praising him in the bad has given me strength and hope!

This weekend has taught me that God will bless us for trusting in him at all times and he will make our paths straight! when i was in my second year i didn't exactly have the best time, but by putting my faith in God he got me through it and gave me strength! And i praise God that he has got me through it.

I cant wait for the things he has planned for me in the next months! (which i will disscuss in another post)!

Thats all for now i guessXXX

'I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends'

Well from the title you can kinda guess what this post is gonna be about, I remeber when I was about 7 I never had any friends, I know I know how sad! but for me at that time that was all I ever hoped for, some kind and true friends, and now 13 yrs on I can honestly say I have an abundance of them. Over these past few years I have become more and more thankful for these people in my life. I guess when I got to uni the people I met were so completely different to me and finding people that had the same views as me and the same things in common as me was very hard, dont get me wrong I have met some amazing people at uni and I will always have them in my life, but I guess uni made me apprieciate the friends from home more and more. And without sounding anymore cheesier than I already am I guess what I wanna say is thank you to those people! you all know who you are! thanks for being there for me, and putting up with me this post is for youXXXX

My First Blog!

Well I guess I will start this blog by explaining why I am doing one! A couple of weeks back the realization of coming to the end of my degree hit me. The idea that in 15 weeks time I will not only have completed my degree but also completed my education altogether. For me this is a very exciting yet quite a scary prospect, I have been in education for 16 years of my life and that's all I really know! so finishing this degree to me kinda means that I am now officially an adult how scary is that!? so from this realization I guess I want to express what uni has taught me, and also to look at where my life is heading after my education life finishes.