Gym!

I just splurged and bought myself a gym membership at a small gym 15-20 minutes from my house with a pool, pilates and yoga classes, and a sauna. It's a bit pricey, but I want to try it for a few months and see if I can get myself there a few times a week. It's a nice place, clean, well-lit, and according to a classmate that works out there, it's rarely crowded. I handle stress a lot better if I work out on a regular basis, so I figured if I was going to splurge on one thing for myself this month, this should be it. I even passed up some amazing high heeled boots so I could do this (and if you know me in person at all, you know that this redhead NEVER passes on expensive footwear).

I am going to try to fit a few workouts in next week, because I know I'm going to be a girl-shaped ball of stress come Monday.

And now, back to work. I have an essay to finish- I'm writing about Francis Bacon and the Polanski film Repulsion, and using them to discuss isolation in London. Then I need to finalize my wreck of a dress for the fashion show and find a new model (my model just flaked on me). No rest for me....

My Social Life, in Summary:

What's a Girl Gotta Do To Get Some Instruction Around Here?

I knew that moving to a new country along was going to be hard. I knew that the fashion program at St. Martins was incredibly difficult. I knew that I would be lonely, that the weather would be crappy, that I would be a broke student who would have to choose between food and art supplies. But I've run into so many difficult things that I never could have anticipated. It's all of those things that add up when I'm not looking.

I had a complete meltdown the night before last. I swore I was going to leave school and move home. I believed myself as I said it, and I said it a lot. I said to to a classmate. I said it to my boyfriend. I said it to all my room mates, one by one, and then again as a group over dinner. I told them that CSM could go to hell, and that I had known from the moment I was accepted into this school that it was the wrong decision. I kept on saying it until I passed out curled up on my bed. I wanted to wake up back home and pretend this whole mess never happened, because I was so furious at my school and my tutors.

Before I continue, let me explain something that I just figured out myself. Here at St. Martins there is no equivalent to what an American school might call "a teacher". We don't have classes either, instead our schedule is project-based. On some days of the week, we have a tutor in to meet with us individually. Our tutors are the head of our program, and they are not there to teach us, but to offer guidance and critiques on the conceptual/design level. They also grade us. On certain days of the week we also have technicians in. Apparently technicians are either there to assist us with sewing/drafting/making difficult things, or to (get this...)do it for us, if it's too difficult. Yes, you read that right. Technicians are there to help us sew things that we don't know how to sew. Because CSM isn't training seamstresses, they are training designers... That's a mindfuck for me. (At my last school if they found out that another student, much less a hired professional was helping you do your homework, you failed the project.)

So we have Tutors and we have Technicians, but the gap in between that in my experience should be filled by a Teacher is left empty. Instead, St. Martins is all about making the students teach themselves through trial and error.

Ah, the dreaded trial and error...

There seems to be a certain artistic disposition that lends itself to creative experimenting. These are the kinds of people that couldn't think inside the box if they tried. They will try anything to get the look they want, no matter how strange or silly it may sound. These are often the people who make it in a business that is always looking for the next innovative thing. These are the sorts of people that end up at CSM.

I am not one of those people.

I am an idea person. I have no patience for the actual construction of a garment. I hate sewing (I have been known to fall into fits of rage while trying to sew) and I despise the problem-solving aspects of pattern drafting. I understand how these things work, and I am very good at helping others find solutions to the problems in their work. But when it comes to my own work, I have no patience for the process.

Maybe I'm just lazy...?

So to clarify, I am a person who designs, understands how to construct and make the design, but needs help making it, or have someone to make it for me. Because when I run into a problem I cannot solve I am not the kind of person to experiment over and over until I find the solution. When I hit a wall, I call in a specialist (read: a teacher) to help me break down the wall.

And this is where all the trouble started the day I nearly got into a fight with my tutor.

At our last meeting, my tutor had suggested that I try a brand new technique to make my design. Excited at the suggestion I immediately went out and found five different books at the library on the topic. Over the weekend I browsed the books, bought supplies, did a series of tests and experiments, and felt confident that I could make this crazy idea happen. All I needed was some help coming up with a way to work around one problem I couldn't solve.

I went into the classroom that day with some very specific questions. I wasn't entirely sure where to begin with this project. I asked the pattern drafting technician for some advice, and that is when the trouble began. Her answer was, "I don't know. I've never done this before."

I couldn't accept that solution so I reworded my question to be more specific. She told me that she had no idea and that I should go buy supplies to experiment with.

Frustrated but determined, I spent the next three hours running around the city blowing my food budget on supplies. When I came back to school and began working I was optimistic. But each technique I tried was failing and I wasn't sure how to proceed, and every time I asked someone for help I was given nothing but suggestions on ways to spend more money on things that may or may not work.

All I wanted was some god damn help from a teacher. I had done all the research and work to teach myself how to do something new, and now I wanted some educational support from the institution that I pay huge sums of money to. But no!

Through this ordeal what I discovered is that at CSM, they do not teach you anything. No, at CSM they assist you in discovering things on your own.

So I stormed out of the classroom feeling as though I had just moved halfway around the world to attend a school where they do not teach us anything. And now that I have finally made a pathetic excuse of a home for myself, I was going to have to pack up my whole life AGAIN and move back home to finish a degree at a pathetic technical school.

I was so furious and miserable that day. I needed to talk to someone who would understand where I was coming from- someone who wouldn't try to solve the problem for me, but sympathize about how much effort it takes to just LIVE sometimes when you've just moved to another country. I wanted someone to agree that the whole CSM system was shit and that I had left everything to come here for no good reason. I wanted someone to agree with me, and to come fly out here to help me move home. Or maybe I wanted someone to just fly out here to give me a hug and let me cry on their shoulder for a little while. I just needed a friend. But I don't know anyone in London well enough to show them this raw, exposed side of me.

I wanted to call my best friend back home, but it was the wee hours of the morning. I don't have an international calling plan on my new phone yet, and I haven't been able to talk to her since I moved. I didn't want the first conversation we had to involve waking her middle of the night to cry in her ear. So I texted my boyfriend, who listened to me bitch and cry and swear that I was moving home for hours, until he decided I'd indulged in enough of a pity party to need a verbal slap upside the head.

I wish I could say that he shook me out of it, but he didn't. Instead I curled up on my bed and hugged my knees, sobbing until I passed out. I woke up an hour later shaking from the cold and crawled under the quilt, feeling ashamed of myself and miserable.

Needless to say, not my best day.

But I did learn something about how I have to approach my education here. I realize now that if I am this stressed about a single project, I need to rethink my approach even if it means I fail again. I decided to scrap everything my tutor suggested and do something entirely different, whether or not he likes it.

As a result of this decision my mood has been much more upbeat. I am incredibly stressed for time as I am starting over on a project most people began a week before, but I feel better about what I am trying to do. I am experimenting with fabric and trying to teach myself some new things.

And as a sort of penance for being such an emotional mess the day before, I went into school and spent a lot of time helping many of my classmates with their patterns. As one of the only students in the class with any drafting experience, word has spread that I can offer some sort of advice. It made me feel better to know that although I am struggling to keep it together, I do know something about fashion.

More than that I realized that I love to teach. My classmates suggested that I look into being a class helper for first year students for pay. I would love to do that, if I could. It's so satisfying to work with someone and solve a problem. Although I do not know the conventional way to do things, CSM shares my opinion on pattern drafting: if it fits, and it looks the way you want it, it is correct and bugger the rules.

So teaching is good. But I've found that what I like best about it is working with another designer to make something. Which made me think that I would like to try my next project as a team project. I plan to find a partner to design with before informing our tutor that we are a design team for this round of the game. That sounds like a recipe for success, in my opinion.

So CSM and life in London is turning out to be a lot more difficult than I expected, in ways I couldn't have anticipated. It takes so much out of me just to stay afloat that I feel very brittle of late. But I am trying to stay optimistic. I've spoken with a counselor at school about my concerns, and she informed that almost every international student at CSM starts to feel this doubt and depression at the three to five month mark. She also assured me that it will get better.

It will get better.

I was worried that going home for the Christmas holiday would make coming back to London harder. But now I cannot wait to go home and I wish I could change my flight to go back next weekend instead of the 16th. I am hoping that being with my friends and boyfriend and family will recharge my batteries for my next round in the ring against CSM.

I just have to keep reminding myself that it will get better.

I Hope Nostalgia Makes This All Seem Better

I really truly hope that a year from now, I will be able to look back on this quarter and sum up the horrible experience in a few sentences that sound nonchalant and wise. Maybe something like, "during my first quarter I failed every project. My ideas were laughed at by my tutors, and any teeny tiny shred of confidence I had in my ability to design and communicate visually was shattered. Wow, I sure learned a lot, darn skippy. Those were good times." And then I could nod sagely, pat a first quarter student on the head, and go back to work.

Yeah, I hope hindsight makes this all seem like a good ol' learning experience. Yup.

And Once Again, I Am Not Okay

I hate to admit it, but I am having a really tough time with the long distance relationship again. I thought that I pretty much had a handle on it after The Boy left London and went back home, but it seems I am falling apart yet again. The little congratulations I was giving myself for finally being a more independent woman were a little prematurely given, I think.

I hate being in a long distance relationship. I love my boyfriend, but I am not built for this kind of situation. It is fucking with my head and my heart every second I let my guard down. In order to survive it I must keep myself tightly wound up and securely locked down, carefully avoiding anything that will remind me of the life I don't get to have with him.

Burying feelings is not a good way to deal with anything, especially something as explosive as this, so I have to be very careful to not put myself in a situation that would loosen me up. One glass of wine and I am online begging my boyfriend to move here, and considering dropping out of school to go home to him. It's pathetic, but it's my reality at the moment. Despite all my efforts I haven't found a way to make the sadness of missing the person I love into romantic melancholy.

The last few days have really brought all these feelings to the surface again because I expected to be socially busy this weekend. Three times I got dressed up to meet classmates for some work and fun and three times I got stood up. (They had good reasons, and I am not mad at any of them.) So instead of having a nice time developing new friendships, I once again found myself alone in public, with nothing to do but hunch over my sketchbook and order another coffee so as to appear that I had intended to be alone all along.

See, I have no friends yet. I have a boyfriend thousands of miles away, eight hours behind me, who I cannot see or touch, or go to when I need comfort. I am trying to fill the spaces left by all the people I care about, but I've had no luck. Each day I socialize in class, but have never found myself invited out to any of the events I hear about later.

When I am in class I feel a huge sense of relief because I am around people I like who seem to like me too. I am not hiding my sadness, I am actually pretty happy when I am at school. But I must be keeping myself isolated from all the people in some way, because I am not being invited into their social lives.

I love London and school is keeping me very busy. But I am slowly sinking into depression. I'm not exercising, I'm eating like crap, I stay at home alone, awake all night and when I do sleep I don't sleep well. I'm desperate for friends, someone I can talk to. My best friend back home hasn't been able to talk with me since I moved, and she has always been my companion in my most difficult times. I am so utterly alone, in a city full of people, full of life. I've never felt lonelier than my time in London.

So yeah, things are fine. I'm fine, everything's fine. School is fine, life is fine. Everything is just fine. I'm not dying, I still have all my limbs, the world isn't ending. But I'm not happy, and I don't know what to do. I can't move home and leave my career behind for a boy. But I can't live like this much longer.

I can't deal with being alone every day anymore.