So I found a great book today 'The Poetics of Space' by Gaston Bachelardwhich analysis the house, once inhabited. A space that shapes all other life experiences, an organic space effected by what goes on beyond its walls. "Always a container, sometimes contained, the house serves as a portal to metaphores of imagination." There is a wonderful chapter discussing how a snow storm outside makes a house seem cosier, a hurricane makes it feel safer etc. By this train of thought I have come to the conclusion that the reason I can't get out of bed is not laziness, but merely the fact that the baltic circumstanses in my flat at the minute are resulting in an exagerated version of the symptoms described above, and as a result I should stay where I am or risk cutting off the 'portal to my imagination'!

Returning to this blog after a little time out I feel some documentation of a final year art student is in order. So 20 grand in debt I have returned to final year after a vague attempt at a summer trying to pay off some of the Prague indulgences (quite how I managed to spend so much when beer was still 70p a pint I will never know). So what did I do? I got the only summer job that would vaguely relate to my degree - gallery assistant. May I add that for this prestigious post you not only have a formal interview with not one but two members of staff, but you are also required to do a presentation on the artist. This would all be great if I then hadn't spent the summer as a glorified (yet underpaid) security guard - my most challenging role being to rugby tackle small children as they ran full pelt at priceless pieces of... well paper mache! And so I return to fifth year with the satisfying knowledge that this is what the last four years were about (five if you count the foundation year I had to do to get on the course in the first place), I am not officially a qualified bouncer.

I have now been back three weeks but avoiding the depressing task of admitting my waste of a summer, after all there isn't much creativity left in the brain after three months staring at a wall. So instead I spent the day napping and trying to read some books on Installation (more napping than reading it has to be said as we're all too mean to put the heating on in the flat so therefore the only place to read is in fact in bed). This may have been a more successful task had I not discovered that my library card has an extortionate fine on it which I am refusing to pay out of principle as I think these people should be legally obligated to let you know when the fine reaches more than the price of the book! I therefore refused to pay it and moved libraries in a fit of self-righteousness. This library however didn't have the long list of apparently popular and highly publicised books I was looking for so I had to contend myself with three of the ten. How I even thought I would be able to get through three when I read at the pace of a snail (and nap in between) was quite a mystery to me and so feeling most discontented I sat myself down and... looked at the pictures.

I had the wonderful idea of going into college this evening to potter around and maybe try my hand at a bit of paper mache myself in a lovely empty studio but oh no, it now seems that every art student has become a creature of the night, all feeling very smug that they are in past the obligatory 9 to 4 first yr hours and so peace was disturbed, people want to know what your doing (which I don't know), what you have been doing (I usually make something up that sounds a little more intellectual tht staring at a wall) and basically make themselves feel better that they are deffinately working harder than you (which they all are unfortunately). I am going to stomp home and start again tomorrow, I can probably come in at 9 and leave at 4 and avoid everyone in the studio that way.