Peter Lewis’ Portfolio

My interview went… rather unexpectedly. It was very informal, so I felt rather awkward in my suit and tie. However, awkwardness aside I got a place and I’ll be off to start the course in October. 8 weeks and 2 days to go.

I’ve been sifting through the work that students have done at the NCCA and it really is impressive (You should check out the Top 20!). I shall link to a few websites of the some of the students on the Top 20 that I’ve stumbled across (I can’t remember how): Matt Birkett-Smith, Matt Ovens, Daniel Lim and Ben Jones. I hope a few of these people are progressing to Masters level, as it would be nice to meet some talented individuals who know the ins and out of the University. According to Jon Macey, the MSc course leader, only two artists are progressing to masters level from the BA.

This whole summer has been one long Wait. Waiting for results, waiting for jobs, waiting for Bournemouth to interview me. Now I’m waiting to hear from Bournemouth Accomodation services and waiting for information on my scholarship application. But October will bring an end to this monotonous holiday.

However, it’s my birthday on Saturday: One blip of sound in the otherwise silent sea of events.

Edit #1: Now you can actually see the links. Hoorah!

Edit #2: This whole Bournemouth thing, while exciting, is proving to be very expensive. I had to pay a £250 deposit to get on the course, the fees are £5,300, the rent is close to £4,000 and today I was disgusted to see that I need to pay a further £350 to get a place to live. So… I am most displeased. Hopefully this will be worth it in the end…

:(

Here we are in August, at last. I know it’s just after the middle of the year, but it always seemed like the middle to me… August brings days on the beach, occasional rain, lazing about in shorts, many birthdays (including my own, huzzah!) and a middle-mark to this enourmous haitus from Education. Unfortunately August also brings heat, and the heat brings with it sleeplessness, so here I am writing this at 4:30 am. I hate night-time, yet lately I have been squandering my day-time.

Below (link) I mentioned that I would be writing my reference for Bournemouth University. This is all done now and is, in fact, the main reason for this update: I have been invited for an interview there on Tuesday, so I’m hoping that goes well. Naturally I will post up here what happened for the small collective of people that read this.

On a related note, I am pretty annoyed (read: disgusted) with Teesside University right now. Before I continue, I must say that their facilities are brilliant, their lecturing staff for games programming excellent (with a few exceptions), and overall I loved every minute I was there. Yes, even despite Middlesbrough. However, what they excel in is let down by their totally rubbish administration. Not only did they forget my payment details for my rent (resulting in much financial aggravation which is still haunting me), but they refused to disclose my results (so I received them late), and I hadn’t heard anything about my Masters application for nearly two months. About a week ago I received an application pack for Masters through the post! Evidently they lost my application. However, no more than 20 minutes later I found out from a friend that they’d contacted him and told him all Masters were cancelled. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

The power of semi-paralysed monkeys with calculators and typewriters will never cease to amaze me. They can send out application forms and use telephones. Shocking.

This is sad news in a way, though. Admittedly after the discovery that Bournemouth was a possibility, I had decided that it would be a better place to go. The reasoning behind this was simple: it offers the better course and that’s all that matters. Also, there was only a small chance that the one at Teesside would be running, so in the end I simply resigned myself to the fact that I will never go back to study at Teesside again. After all the mess I’ve been through with them lately, there was a time when I was overjoyed about this, but it’s really kicking in now that I will miss my friends and our escapades in Mordor Middlesbrough. Before I knew that I was choosing not to go back, but now that choice has been taken away. It sounds silly, I know, but there’s a small yet crucial difference.

Oh well… Always look forwards, I guess! Onwards, to Bournemouth! Arrr.