i know these are cropping up everywhere and it probably wont get read much but here goes, i wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous new year!

2009 was....not a great year. a lot of bad things happened in it to a lot of people and it seemed to be one of those grin and bear it years.

It has been a year of self discovery for me i think. sometimes when the worst things happen we find the best in ourselves and in spite of all the bad things that have happened (including a freind of mine dying) i am feeling much easier to cope with the bad things but im just concentrating on university for now. I still need to sort myself out a lot as id got myself into such a mess this last year with depression and various things.
Third year is much better in any case, im finding it frustrating but much more fun and my flatmates this year are awesome

lessons this year has taught me:

appreciate the little things. sometimes when the crap gets piled on it makes you see the gold of the good bits better.

Freinds are valuable.

I can be stronger then i think i can....however i am also very bad at motivating myself.

Sometimes no matter how badly i think of myself its not the way other people see me  but i can be very irritating when im in one of those 'im useless and i hate myself' moods so i apologise to my freinds who have to put up with my crazy moodswings for that.

Being single can be hard but you have more time to get things done for yourself.

if you dont often drink, Polish servings of gin and tonic are not a good plan. especially combined with strongbow cider x____x.

i am who i am, and i dont need to dress or act a certain way all of the time to be that person.

No matter how bad things may seem, at least i am not wheelchair bound or in an abusive family or starving and when i look around and see what other people have to go through i know im pretty damn lucky to have my health and such great people around me and the opportunity to go to university for an honours degree when i left school at 16.

Lastly. The only thing holding me back from getting to where i want to get is myself, which i need to work on.

Hopefully though this next year will be a good one and much better then 2009. I can remember last year at this time dreading 2009 as i just had this weird feeling that it would be a really bad year, looks like i was right. I feel a stronger person for it though...and ive come out of it with an intuos4 wacom tablet 8D.

New years resolutions...i dont generally make because i know i never keep them. just the usual stuff though, losing weight, getting a more regular sleeping pattern, remembering to go to the gym often and setting some time aside to socialise every so often rather then turning myself into a recluse which doesnt help my depression at all.
Also not procrastinating as much. Probably isnt going to happen though. All in all im feeling pretty optimistic at the moment though for a change.

happy holidays of whatever belief you follow!

i got an intuos 4 for christmas and i think im in love <3. it is hands down THE best tablet ive ever used, its so smooth and the pressure sensing is amazing and the pen is so easy to hold. this may kick start me drawing more on the computer again.

i hope everyone has a safe and happy christmas. i need to go make food for when my cousens turn up now XD. we are having a quiet family dinner, we dont even have any decorations up.

10 hours sleep in two days and my second can of relentless today with little food and im as high as a kite XD, i think im scaring people, im so hyper its unreal.

its been an interesting day, ive suddenly got a whole heap of new ideas coming into my head. i feel very much like im a new person now, theres so much potential and ideas that are buzzing round in my head and i just need to grab them and force them to make sense but i think ive reached a point with my work that i dont know where im going but i cant go back, not in the same way. i feel really inspired today

now i just need to go through my 92,000 + photos to see what i can find

this week has been fairly eventful. ive had 4 anxiety attacks because i was stressed out about having my reveiw and an essay due in on monday.
i actually had my reveiw today which has actually been much better then i thought and has given me a direction. i was trying to stay clear of painting as it seemed like the obvious choice but my tutors want me to go back to that. i have a LOT of work to do before christmas ;___;, but at least they want me to start painting again which is great, im really wanting to get going with it right away now.
i still have to finish my damn essay by monday as well.

ive also discovered i now hate pelicans passionately after seeing them eating baby seabirds alive on a nature documentary on tv and seeing the poor little buggers they were eating struggling in their throats as they swallowed them whole. i keep getting nightmares about it.

Whoever designed the library here did not think about people with vertigo, why does the art section have to be on floor 5, you can see down two floors when you are going up the stairs and it makes me want to hurl as i feel really sick with heights.

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4.
' He had to get away. The canoe sloped easily into the water, and he paddled frantically for the gap in the reef that led to the open sea.'
Nation - Terry Pratchett
2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What are you touching?
A wall

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
a pelican eating a baby bird alive. i was in the gym at the time and theres tvs on some of the treadmills, someone was watching a wildlife documentary that i wish i hadnt seen as its been haunting me all day.

4. Without looking, guess what time it is?
17:45

5. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time?
17:41

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
my heartbeat

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
when i came back from uni today

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
my new sketchbook

9. What are you wearing?
Jeans and a black top thats cut like a v at the front and is short sleeved.

11. When did you last laugh?
at Sarah's expression when i was squeezing a piece of cotton wool full of red food colouring and saying 'wow this looks like ive murdered someone'

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
a poster of a phoenix, a poster of two people stood on steps surrounded by water looking at the sunset and a weird poster of a castle that screws with your eyes with the perspective.


13. Seen anything weird lately?
My artwork

14. What do you think of this quiz?
eh

15. What is the last film you saw?
i think it was Spirited away but im not entirely certain. it also might have been the Truman Show


16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?
id get liposuction to get rid of the areas i cant seem to shift then give my money to charities and causes i think are deserving. maybe buy some land and trees to give to the people who are running the project to replant the caledonian forest or buy some motorised wheelchairs for old people who cant afford them...stuff like that. id put some into savings so i could get by but what would i want all that money for. money doesnt make you happy. as long as i had enough to live on and a place of my own id be fine. id do up mum and dads house too.

17. Tell me something about you that I don't know:
im pretty certain i have a type of OCD called dermotillomania

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
reduce the human population considerably so we arent royally screwing the planet.

19. Do you like to dance?
no, i know im crap at it.

20. George Bush:
i think my dog Jed has a slightly higher IQ

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?:
Illeanna

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
im not entirely sure as most male names i know are either taken by my family or used as rp characters, theres a couple id name a boy after though.

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
depends on the circumstances, im happy in scotland though i admit ive never actually been abroad.


24. What do you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
You did allright kid, even though you made your own way here

i tag anyone else who fancies doing this

Okaay people i need some help with my research for university.

Im wanting to do a project based on dreams so id like you to tell me what you dream about, in as much detail as possible regarding dreams you can remember. You dont have to reply in here, you can note me if you feel more comfortable with it.
Im wanting to see if theres common elements in dreams that i can incorporate into a painting.
Nobody would write on the sheets i gave out at uni so i need help XD. it can be anything

for some reason whenever i look at journals the actual box for the journals isnt wide enough and the bars of options down the right hand side obscure half of the text....which i must admit is really annoying me even now as the journal history box is covering up some of what im typing.

onto day 4 of a splitting headache, ive got no idea what im doing for university. all it seems to be doing is confusing me, i dont have the faintest idea what they want from me so i feel like im crawling around in the dark. all the tutors say different things, i want to do realism but one teacher wants to see me loosen up and get more emotive and a different one wants to see me doing studio setups of stuff to paint in my realism style. We have no course structure or guidance at all and we also have to write an essay on Place and how it inspires artists work and what it means...argh.
fortunately ive been diagnosed with dysgraphia which means i can get coursework extentions when i need them for my writing thank god x_____x.
Id quite like to go back to sleep but ive got research to do and then ill have to make an appearance in my studio i suppose....ive got no idea what to do though. apparently im too much of a literal thinker and in all honesty all i want to draw is nude people.
sometimes i really hate contemporary art....and i hate the fact that its changing me not into a better artist but someone who doesnt know what they want to do or how to do it anymore. my tutor was talking about the cliche portraits of horses that have been done to death and in a way i can see his point. he says i have to find a unique way of drawing them that never has been done before....trouble is ive found that with creative things someone has usually thought of the idea somewhere else even if you came up with it yourself.
one of the main themes of what they say to me is 'we all know you have skill, but you arent reaching your full potential and you need to do something more' but what is it ;____;
i get so sick of this sometimes i really do

Its been some time since i updated this, i feel a lot has happened since then but i wont really go into all of it. At the end of summer i went a little bit off the rails, i feel like ive had a total personality shift but in a good way for me, even if its left me wondering what the hell happened. a freind of mine freind dying really kickstarted the whole process i think.
Im back at university, been really ill with the flu for the past week which is irritating because i joined the gym at the start of uni and a combination of falling hard and bruising my tailbone and getting the flu means i havent been there much of late.

There might not be much work from me for a bit, my wacom bamboo tablet pen broke and until i next go home and get my rather battered intuos 2 which is hanging in there even though the pen got chewed up by a puppy im not going to be able to do any more digital work.
Its also too painful to sit down for long periods of time at the moment with my bruised tailbone so im having to lie on my bed most of the time...not the easiest of positions to draw in.
methinks a new wacom tablet is on the wishlist for christmas

Im going to have so much work to catch up on at uni. Fortunately my flatmates this year are great even if the net seems to be haphazard at best. Ive managed not to kill them all with the flu yet too which is good even though this has made me feel worse then ive felt since the really bad flu i got when i was 11.
Anyway just a note saying i am still alive.

just to let my watchers know i might not be around as much on DA. ive had a lot of work stolen from here recently and im just sick of it, ive not even been uploading new stuff ive done because im so sick of people stealing it.
my artwork is not clipart.

Also...a freind of mine has died in the last week and its contributed greatly to my growing confusion...i really feel like im having a quarter life crisis. i feel like a totally different person then i did a month ago, im very restless and my mood is all over the place, i dont know what i want or where im going anymore and ive been snapping at people. (the term moody demon bitch of hell comes to mind). my head is so messed up im just trying to sort it out at the moment and i feel the need for space unless i seek for otherwise so i may or may not have time for DA. ive never been affected like this before and ive lost a lot of freinds before. Too much has happened recently, its taking some getting my head round.

i have decided at least to go back to uni and give third year a try...ive got this far already. i might as well finish my course.

life's too short.

that one of the adverts on DA keeps triggering trojan horse virus warnings? my antivirus keeps having a spaz but i dont know which advert its on.

life is.... confusing right now but i have decided to go back to uni at least. ive been offered a room in a shared flat right next to a freind so that might be better then the ones last year who never spoke to anyone. i really was considering giving it up at one point....i just need to re-apply for my funding now.

i dont know which direction my work is going at the moment, i keep wanting to draw pretty badly and i really should get some good photos of my university work too. ive got several pictures in the works but nothing new there, ive always got wips going.

my gran's leg is slowly getting better at least, shes doing remarkably well considering she broke it in a place they couldnt put a cast on it and had to pin it instead

well....im having a good day. my gran is visiting us and she fell in her room and broke her hip so i had to go into hospital in an ambulance with her whilst she was x-rayed and now ive found a note saying theres an art theif...from Poland. again.

im sorry, i know there are Polish people out there who dont steal peoples work but why whenever they do is it always Polish people? O.o dont they teach people what copyright means or something? the last 7 times ive had my work stolen its been by a Polish person.

[link] this person has taken the liberty to remove my copyright notices as well. can anyone tell me what the person said about the pictures?

[link]

[link]

[link]

[link]

i was forwarded an email today by a freind. i dont like sending on chain emails but i thought that this one had a message i would like to share...so im posting it here instead.

I did not write this, it was just from an email, ive no idea who the original writer was but it touched my heart, and i hope that others feel the same way about this.

' People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person...
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, To aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.
Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, This person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it, it is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons, Things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson, Love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

Thank you for being a part of my life, Whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime. '

its been a whilst since i updated this but ive kind of lost interest in DA at the moment. i do still check it but with all the changes its just lost something that was there when i first joined.

life is...ok. still have no job or money, and i still dont know whether i want to go back to university.

im having one of my sessions of feelings of impending doom and paranoia....not helped by the fact that the isects seem to be dissapearing from around here. we havent even had any greenfly in the garden for about 3 years and we are organic here.
something isnt right, the birds are demolishing the bird food in our garden when this is usually a quiet time of year for them so they must be hungry.
if all the insects dissapear we really are screwed...the food chains for the wildlife will collapse and there wont be any pollenation from the insects so our food industry will pretty much collapse as well.

maybe im just being paranoid...but i wonder if some new pesticide is being used by the farmers which is killing them all off.

my laptop is failing, the screen has a faulty connection somewhere and goes white if i move the screen and the touchpad doesnt work. it keeps overheating too, i really need a new one.

beyond that, ive really got into customising my little ponies recently, its quite soothing.

Well i had my assessment today and i got a C...i was pretty dissapointed considering i got an A last time. i guess i must not have shown improvement or whatever even though ive been trying hard, they seem to have been pretty harsh on most people this semester.

its reawakened the whole 'do i want to go back' debate in my head again.
mum came to pick up my stuff from my studio space at uni and then we went back to my student flat and sorted out a few things to take back home though most of the clothes and dvds still need sorting but the paintings and things were taking up so much room in the van anyway. it was nice to spend a bit of time with mum away from the house for a while, ive missed living with her.

im relieved its getting to summer now and i can rest for a bit, ive got so much stuff i want to do for myself and not have to worry about having to complete university projects though there is a summer project of gathering images that inspire us.

ive hardly slept for 3 days due to stress and now im just tired x____x

aargh, my assessment for university is approaching, ive only got a week left to finish everything and ive still got a massive painting to finish as well as another one to do some finishing touches on....help XD.

those of you who have watched me for years, back from when i was frequenting elfwood and epilogue regularly will know my unifrogs...anyone who knows me well at all knows of them...so when i typed in unifrog on google to search for one of my unifrogs on elfwood as id lost my favourates link i was not amused when i came across this [link]
this certainly wasnt around at the time i first drew them and yet as is the way of things i will probably get accused of copying the frog on the card....just like after the LOTR films came out i got accused of copying the Mumakil just because id drawn a 4 tusked elephant...several years before any of the films came out -____-

as you can imagine im not best pleased, however the type of money behind yu-gi-oh! means they could hire a whole army of lawyers so really theres nothing i can do. im still not happy about it though. i am willing to accept that people can have similar ideas by freakish co-incidence but my unifrogs have been around for years...i hardly feel its wrong to be suspicious. at least if they try anything with me over mine my online galleries have proof that my ones have been around for years

in any case mine are better, they have goatee beards. *sulk*

ive started sculpting a dragon (yes another one) progress can be seen here [link]

i keep meaning to write new journals but keep forgetting what im going to say, i fail.
i have a pear tree in my bedroom...yay. its not for me, its for my mum.

im trying to decide at the moment whether to continue with uni, take a gap year or take another path....not sure what to do at the moment.


..... i cant think what i was going to write now XD. damn *too sleepy*

this is a thought that struck me yesterday on the bus when i was watching two people with broken legs and crutches get on the bus and go and sit in the disabled seats.

not all disabilities are visible...im suspecting im dyslexic, ive suspected it for a long time, but i have something thats just as invisible....depression.

it really annoys me when some people say that depression doesnt exist and its one of these craze illnesses or excuses....it is a real thing.
it isnt just feeling sad either, people who have never felt it have no idea what its like.

true depression is when for no reason at all you go into really down moods, where the only comfort is in the shadows as the sun is just a harsh white light...theres no colour or warmth in the world and all you want to do is curl up in the dark in bed and sleep because the world cant get you there. its not just sadness, its a hollow, aching, bitter emptiness that fills you body and soul....everything feels muted, the feel of the wind, the sounds....when people talk to you its hard to take in what they are saying, and then you are so sensitive that even just the slightest thing can make you feel worse....much worse. Its like drowning in your own head.... fighting a battle with someone who you cannot beat because that person is you...and knows all of your moves. it is possible to get out of it for a while but it always comes back.

its tempting me every day to drop out of uni because all i want to do is sleep so i cant get away from the stress of the world....im fighting it, im making myself do excercises every day so i can lose some weight and get fitter and maybe feel better about myself....because when you are depressed no amount of people saying otherwise will not help when you feel bad about yourself. maybe getting into a routine will help, though its something ive never managed to do.

the general consensus by most of my freinds in real life is that i should probably be on anti-depressants...but i dont want to risk losing my creativity...my darkest times are when i create the best of my work....i just wish i wasnt so unstable with it. its like starting to run but falling flat on my face after a few steps...again and again. I try my best to hide it, to not make people worry about me but sometimes its affecting me so much it is tangible. it helps to have some escapism, to have a place in my head i have some control over....a place i can retreat to away from the stress of it all.

ill never stop fighting...because i know there are people who care about me...rely upon me....but sometimes even that is just so hard to bear. it is a disability for it is debilitating sometimes...and so very misunderstood as well. just because someone looks like they are ok....it doesnt mean that they are. people with depression are people too...not a label

ugh i have an essay to finish by monday...ive no idea what to write yet...just vague ideas...my brain simply does not want to function at the moment

mondays are just fabulous.... not

i got shouted out of bed at 7:50 by my dad who had been apparently trying to wake me up for 50 minutes by banging on the door and ringing the bell because my ears are full of wax and i go practically deaf when im asleep. i cant even hear the doorbell in this room at the best of times and the back door is nearly on the other side of the house. he doesnt have a house key which doesnt help. i was up late cleaning up after the dog who had an upset stomach all over the floor too, and cleaning up after a dog thats had diorreha in the middle of the night is never fun. Poor Jed, he looked so guilty, sat in his bed with his ears down. ive been awake for half an hour and my hearing is only just starting to get back to normal after being asleep and its still muffled on the right hand side. ive got used to sleeping through noise as i sleep with my window open a lot of the time and theres a building site right outside the student flats where ive lived for the past 2 uni years. they start making noises like drills and hammering at about 6:30 am which is pretty much when he started banging on the door so my brain probably thought it was something to do with that if it did hear it, i used to be such a light sleeper before i lived there. now i can sleep through heavy machinery and hammering going on with my window open, though my ears being so muffled when im asleep doesnt help. i told the doctor about it weeks ago but he never did anything about it...just told me to put olive oil drops in my ears which have done nothing.

i was up late reading stuff for my essay thats due in next monday and trying to make some sense out of the powerpoint presentations of the lecture notes. its on Primitivism, a topic that i have no understanding of whatsoever...i swear most stuff written about art uses made up words. all the lectures use these huge long words that none of the students have ever heard before but dont get explained to us, nearly everyone doing the same one im doing leaves the lecture hall with only a vague idea of what we are supposed to know. it doesnt help that i missed a few of the seminars due to various things like my stress based illness flaring up.

i have a week to write 1500 words on a topic i dont understand...how fun. im dreading my dissertation in 4th year, i think thats about 50,000 words *eep*
im good at the drawing side of the course but the writing really lets me down. i got an A for my painting coursework and a C for my essay. im good at creative writing but no matter what i do i seem to be hopeless at writing essays. I seriously need to get myself checked out for dyslexia, its getting harder and harder for me to read things and take in the information. i can write ok but my brain doesnt seem to be processing what it reads as well as it should. im spending my whole time training the side of the brain that doesnt do the writing, thats the problem, ive been training the drawing side which deals with images but no words or numbers, and ive noticed the better i get at drawing the worse i get at reading and writing.
i should probably start reading more...i need to read Twilight so i can give it back to the freind who lent me it as ive had it for months. i misplaced it whilst moving from one room to another and only just found it again (sorry Iona)

ah well. i get my new glasses today, though with how today is going they will have the wrong lenses in or something

so...after over 2 weeks my new glasses are finally ready, its taken them long enough, they said they would be ready in a week. im heading home today so i can pick them up tommorow....ill miss a day of uni but...eh, i need the glue gun that i have at home to finish the mask im making for my project anyway.

the mask is already getting a lot of positive comments from people, im thinking of making a few more to sell. ill stick up some photos when i get it finished.

just a 2 hour long bus journey to look forward to now *sigh*