Last year when I finished my final year exams I began a summer job with a property management company. During this time I tried to figure out what I wanted to do. Namely I tried to get a Visa to go and work/live in New York but it seemed the only way this would happen is if I got a company to sponsor me to go over and work with them in my area of study. And as I didn't want to be a psychologist and didn't have a hope of getting anything through English, this idea never materialised. My next idea was to give it a go doing something I'd always been interested in and I started looking at fashion design courses where you prepare portfolios for real fashion college. Through this I found a Fashion Industry course and decided this would be a far more sensible route to take. I liked fashion, I liked writing, and I always jokingly said I'd work for Vogue when I grew up, so this course looked promising in helping make this happen. Plus I wasn't throwing away my degree, I was just putting a more creative spin on it. September came and away I went to Dublin, where I spent a lot of the year on the 7 and the 46A going in and out of Dun Laoghaire! and outside of course work I found work experience with freelance stylists, as a dressers backstage at fashion shows, doing visual merchandising in shops, I did a stint as a retail sales assistant which has to be the most boring job ever, I assisted at vintage fairs, worked with photographers, learned important skills such as how to network, met with editors and designers and set up a blog. This blog I then tried to orientate toward fashion so in applying for jobs and whatnot I could reference it in truth.
Then that year was over and I was back in Galway and back with the property management company and back to square one: what next?
I didn't tell many people what I was doing but I applied to lots of magazines and then applied for lots of regular jobs and then just wanted to run away. Fuck the lot of it. I went to Spain to Keith's house in the mountains in Spain where I got really high by the pool every day, reflecting on life and the usual existential crisis stuff. By the time I came home I had it in my head that I wanted to go to art college. Because it's what I've always wanted to do. That or be a librarian. In school they talked me out of putting Art down on the CAO so I compromised, put down Arts with an 's', deferred my place and went to GTI for a year to do the portfolio course with all intentions of re-applying to the CAO and going on to do fine art. But one thing or another led me to NUIG and I'm honestly so glad I studied there and had the opportunity of a liberal arts education. But the 'what if...?' has come nagging at me - what if I had done art? What if I were to do it now? And so after an extended period of extreme mental turmoil I'm preparing a portfolio.
It's closing a door on one sort of happiness because I could be in London with Chris right now. But hopefully it's opening a window on a future of lifelong happiness as this is the only chance I'll have to do it and get any sort of financial help from my parents (that being the living at home and not paying rent scenario) and it means I'll get to do what I want and what I like all day every day with the super extra bonus of getting paid for it. Who said you can't have your cake and eat it? Ha ha well maybe instead I'll have bread and butter and eat it because a GIANT loan is coming my way if I get accepted anywhere. Just don't ask how I feel about not following through on what I've done thus far. Lets just say two things: I'm not made for the fashion world because I'm too much in my own world to keep up: I'll always love books.
Well that's where it's at. Artistic endeavours and a self-imposed social isolation; I'm keeping myself hidden away whilst I try and be productive because there's so much to do and so little time.
Although, that said, I did take a break and venture out to party at the weekend because Chris was home for two days and we couldn't possibly not rendezvous.
No comments:
Post a Comment