What I've done

So Monday was just a day sat in the stadium full of admin and no heating whatsoever. Tuesday was an absolute disgrace. I was cautiously optimistic that I was actually absorbing the information and breaking down whatever barrier in my head was stopping me from really understanding audio, Tuesday was just one long horrible day. First we all drove out to the nearest shopping park to get lunch and the people who I went there with drove off and left me there, an hour's walk away from the stadium. Then when I got back it was straight back into audio physics and theory and it was all going fine until the tutor started talking about physical wavelength. I was struggling to get my head around it and everyone else was getting it and making calculations based on it and I couldn't understand how. Out of 80 people, when asked if everyone understood I was the only person who didn't. And I totally missed the next section on harmonics because I was trying not to cry.

I had a sort of dismal revelation at the same time. I really wanted someone to comfort me at the time. I was miserable with it, and I was sat in a room full of people I don't really know that well and I've lost contact with most of my school/college friends, the rest of which are distributed across the country at university somewhere. So I didn't get a hug and I realised I have to man up. Which is crap. I want a hug. I like hugs.

Two days have passed and really focussing, sitting right at the front and asking a question every five minutes and getting dirty looks and very loud huffing noises from the rest of my class has actually allowed me to understand the parts of audio I didn't understand a bit better. I have a tentative grasp on it. We'll see if it holds tomorrow when I have six hours of dynamics, effects and a lecture on microphones (?!) when it gets all complicated again.

I was grumbling to my step-dad about how much I'm struggling with this part of the course, and he's laid out the fact that I set myself ridiculously high standards to work to. In my first assignment I got 70% and was gutted. Turns out that's a First, and I still think that I could have done better. And I'm beating myself up because I don't fully understand what I'm being told about audio, something I have no interest in going into anyway. But I really need to know. It's £5995 a year to be there, it would be stupid (I think) to write off an entire subject.

I don't think I'm doing the university thing properly. I just don't have it in me to go out, go mental and walk around with a traffic cone on my head. I have assignments, I have deadlines. And I want to do well because that's pretty much what I do.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. I'm back at work for the first time in six weeks tomorrow night. I can't wait to get back to lighting bands again. Something that comes naturally!

Oh nooooo...

Hello. My name is Nicole and I am 20-and-three-quarters years old.

And I don't want to go to school (err... university) tomorrow.

I am a lighting person. Give me a stage and I will light it up beautifully. Or I will try to. But tomorrow is the first day of a 4-week module on audio. And I can't stand audio. Even though I've studied it for years, I dont get it. I can have it spoon fed to me and I still can't wrap my mind around it, and it frustrates me no end. I find the whole thing stressful and upsetting.  I had a bit of hope that this time round it would be easier because they're starting from scratch but I had a nine-hour class on audio mixing software last week and I had to sneak off for a cheeky cigarette afterwards, I was that aggravated. And that was just one day.

I'm already miserable with it. My books arrived for this module the other day and just scanning through, with everything all broken down and explained,  made no sense in my head.  It feels like usually my brain is a sponge for information and currently it just feels like a rock.

I haven't been this edgy about going to an educational establishment since the days of 12 word spelling tests.

B ig
E lephants
C an't
A lways
U se
S mall
E xits

Yeah I can spell.