25 mar 2026, 9:03pm
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i wanted to write this blog like really nice and structured and all that fancy stuff and from the title you might be expecting the same but i was writing like the first 2 sentences and it took up too much brain power so heres my stream of conciousness-esque blog post
soo my teachers thought itd be funny to give me a lot of homework for the 2 week term break, and i thought itd be funny to go on a 1 week school trip, so here i am trying to get my shit in order before school reopens next week. spoilers: its not going well
with half complete assignments and artworks strewn across the floor and less than five days to finish all of it i found myself increasingly wanting to do anything but
i sometimes wonder if it was the right decision to take a levels instead of just heading straight to uni, but it very often ends up with me accepting that whether i have regrets or not, i'm here now and that's the inevitable truth. i also wonder if it's easier to accept the current me and the present situation because i've made something tangible - even if i could go back and change my decision, i probably wouldn't, because as much as i hate it sometimes and wish i had more time to make it better, i created something by going down this path, and in the process discovered more of myself through it.
a level art and design is very demanding, even more so by the fact that i completely missed the first term of school. ive even thought once or twice about quitting, but easily realised that it wasnt an actual option i could take. i mean.. what else am i going to do, chemistry ?!?!?!?!? (i hate chem sorry my chem teacher)
i think i mentioned this before but i thought about dropping art and design in igcse many times as well, thinking that my work was definitely not going to cut it and that this type of art just wasn't my forte. but in the end my efforts paid off very very well, and im proud that i didn't stop.
so theres no way i can stop now either. its only going to get very very tough from here on out but im looking at it through the positive lens of knowing that i wont have to start late for the next section of my art project. ive definitely grown and changed throughout this process, however marginally or insignificantly it may be. i might still procrastinate the hell out of shit and say its just me not being in the right mindset for it but on the other hand i've gained the resilience that'll be useful in the future from pumping out artwork after artwork. im essentially operating on the mindset that i'll keep changing as a person, and whether in the good or bad direction ultimately it is to escape stagnation. because i think not changing at all is in some ways worse
but in all of this i also realised that im not being creative for myself anymore. every artwork i make is for this project and there's virtually no time for me to properly sit down and do what i like anymore. and yeah maybe it could be my time management skills, but i feel like even if i did that right i'd still feel guilty not working even if i deserved a break. its not a healthy mindset but where i am now i'm taking too many breaks for too long for that to be the worst of my worries
i constantly find myself wanting to do this, do that - revamp my site; learn a new skill; start my portfolio - but at the same time incapable of starting, because the irregular, short pockets of free time i do allow myself are usually taken up by doomscrolling on youtube or playing that rpg game i just got the other day (i love hylics & neon white guys)
and even if i didnt have anything to do, all i end up spending my time on is the same unfulfilling things. i learned this the hard way when i finished my igcses last year and spend a significant amount of time trying to get myself to do the thousand different things id planned on doing when i was daydreaming during an exam.
so what do i do?? especially with so much of my creative energy spent working on my art project, how can i possibly think of drawing for myself again??
just this afternoon i was watching this video about playlists and streaming, and towards the end they suggest burning your own playlists into cds. that wasn't new to me; i'd heard of burning cds before and thought about trying it out one day - rather it was the idea of creating a cd cover that grabbed my attention.
it wasn't very complicated. in fact, it could be made from anything already in your gallery. and that's what appealed to me. i realised it wasn't unlike how i made my first zine, where i put together pictures from my gallery to make new graphics, albeit with the further step of using blending modes and tweaking colours to bring it all together.
my point is, it made me realise that being "creative" isn't limited to just drawing or photography or writing or making music. it may seem stupidly obvious - i mean, its essentially graphic design, that's something everyone knows is a creative field - but in that moment i'd been so mentally drained the thought of making something completely from scratch like drawing up a new character design or writing a new piece was enough to make me go back to mindlessly watching youtube videos for hours. but i also wanted to make something; its what ive been doing my whole life. i just hadnt realised there were so many refreshing ways to make stuff. the idea of creating graphics around music is also what finally pushed me to do my own little cd cover. i think it's bringing stuff you like into other stuff you enjoy, and for me thats art and music :3
truthfully im not too happy with what ive got so far so im not going to share my design just yet, and also im still shuffling around the songs in my playlist after watching that video.. but even if i dont share it at all i think some things dont have to be :-)