“The road ahead is long and winding my son, persevere”

Week 2

Once again, I’m presenting you with a saying that never got said. Sounds very Karate Kid doesn’t it? That seemed to be my overall feeling for the week though, but that’s how it goes – the first task is always the most mundane. It had to be expected, although I’d be lying slightly if I said I that I expected to be doing a lot of researching and boring old writing in the second week. Writing is a small passion of mine as well, but with all the strigent guidlines on academic writing from the exam boffins, I find myself having to tone down my style which takes half of the fun out of it. “Where is all the learning of Flash and Photoshop?” Etc….

Nevertheless, it’s been a busy week for me, after rounding off the end of last week finishing off my goals of the project and the target audience, everything looked all fine and dandy and a bit of breeze. I had planned to do the competitive analysis this week, then the delivery requirements the week after but Steve thwarted that idea quickly when he asked to see both at the focus group. It did begin to worry me slightly - as I thought these two would take me at least a week a piece – but I knuckled down and spent a lot of time getting them practically complete. That sense of satisfaction when you’ve wrote the last word and you hit that last full stop is so good. I’ll be honest: I even surprised myself by how much work is possible if you’ve got that big looming weight on your back called pressure. I’ll have to make my brain worry more often. Now I’ve seen how much work is possible first hand, I feel I’ve discovered something about myself that I never knew: that I’m actually a rather quick worker when I try, but I tend to be one of those people who like doing things in short bursts. If I just worked that little bit longer like I did on this, I’d get so much more work done.

With those two done and only the references to stick in, I set about starting on the designs. This was the bit I was most looking forward to, as I’ve always had a small love for drawing. I used to draw regularly at high school, but it never developed into anything else. If it had, we’d be in a very different place, and I wouldn’t be writing this right now. Ooo… how paradoxical. Anyway, I once again knuckled down for a whole afternoon and drew out a ridiculous amount of thumbnail designs – and loved every second of it. I love the whole process of the design section – starting small and developing your ideas up to the bigger picture is a really satisfying feeling. I think I’ve just about arrived at my final choice for the design, but I’m going to spend a little longer tweaking and making changes because I’m an awful perfectionist. It can be a problem sometimes, but in this case if it means spending a little longer on the designing I’ll love it.

Everything is starting to fall into place now, and gone are the feelings of dread and worry. I’m even beginning to get the hang of time management, which is a personal demon of mine that I intend on banishing. The whole situation has just turned over a new leaf inside me – the feeling of determination.