Right uh to get rid of this wall of text, and also to show that I'm infact still alive, here's Merry Christmas to y'all. Have a good'un!

It's early thursday morning, August 28th 2008. And I'm at work. Just like so many other poor souls, I am thoroughly wrecked this morning, feeling an overwhelming need to go to sleep at any second. Why is this? Obviously it's my own fault, and there's not really anything extraordinary about it.It comes from a good mixture of getting bed late, and getting up early, and repeating that for a few days. I'm still in the process of climatising to my new work environment. Yesterday however did not help.

When I get up in the morning I go to work and work for eight solid hours infront of a computer, designing company logos, ads, signs, events and fuckloads of car-vinyls. I'm the sole Graphic Designer at this company, and my boss flaunts me as his new AD, which is ofcourse preposterous, but he's a nice enough guy so he can joke about all he wants. My work isn't exactly highly stimulating, and the skills I've been building within conceptualising and more finely tuned design don't get used TOO much. It's mostly procedural work, making whatever is needed, for when it's needed, and lots of the stuff is given, with a minimal need for effort from my side. The thing is when I get to work in the morning I end up finishing maybe two or three briefs a day, so it's fairly hectic, so when I get back home, I often just CRASH on my bed. This did not happen yesterday, as the first thing I did when I got back home was to do some interior restructuring. I started the laborious task of rearranging my "living quarters" (I live at home with my parents for the moment, which naturally blows), and yeah... it was more a hazzle than I ever did imagine.

I have a huge room, but I also have a HUGE bed. So big that it takes up HALF the room. Now, my bed found itself on the wrong side of the room from where I wanted it to be. And in the other corner there was a desk, some shelves a lounger with stool and a coffee table. When I started moving things around, I soon found myself locked inside an enormous puzzle game. Things had to be rearranged, cleaned out and twisted in certain angles at certain times to unlock the next item that needed to be moved and twisted to unlock the next. Technically there wasn't enough space to move around in, let alone manouver a giant king size bed from one end to another, but somehow I managed. But the mess man, oh God the MESS! I found shit in there I didn't know what was! Shit that wasn't mine. While I've been away my old room has been turned into a mausoleum of excess, and now I find myself throwing shit around, piling it on my bed as I move it around. While doing this pieces of plastic and bags constantly find themselves being stuck to my feet and keep coming back as I dispose of them to the other side of the room. There's shit overflowing EVERYWHERE. I was fairly annoyed to say the least, and uttered curses onto old Gods long forgotten. Finally the puzzle was completed, the bed resting where it should, the desk placed in it's designated corner and the shelf that belongs to it placed on top instead of on the floor as it used to. all surfaces are covered with litter and odd bits and pieces of wires, USBs, magazines, borchures, expired credit cards, bowls and glasses and small baskets with random shit in it. To make shit even more exciting there is a huge pile of shit in one corner of the room, which I haven't even moved while doing this. It's chaos, but now it's chaos with a workflow, so it's getting somewhere.

At this point I'm super tired, but I've got an overdue deadline for a freelance assignment waiting on me. No time to sleep or rest. Nope. Straight to the office, and get some shit done. I have to go out of the house and to the office of my parent's camping resort, cause such dangerous and wholly useless things as an internet connection is not something that's been invested in at their place. I start my long overdue assignment, and end up cranking out two full versions of the application I'm designing. The work takes me all evening, and I find myself free to go to bed at 2 AM.

Back to my room. I realise to my horror that I left the scene half finished. There, on my bed, my massive, massive bed, is a pile consisting of books and various other shit. I consider sleeping on the pile, but get to my senses after a short burst of sleepy desperation. I pile up the books in several hurdy-gurdy stacks on the shelf over my desk. The sight is quite impressive. There must be well over 30000 pages in that pile, and all of them have been read. I start to think what I've actually got out of all those books, but discard this potentially disheartening thought and clean up the rest that's on my bed. I now wonder how many other books I have lying about, and that I really should get hold of them and add them to the hurdy-gurdy pile. I know that there's atleast thirty books missing right now, and that those would just add to the pile's awesome. I briefly consider to get out all my CDs and DVDs aswell, and stack them in the same shelf. It would be a monument to my consumption of information and entertainment. With these last fading thoughts, I go to sleep, and sleep like the dead for about four hours, before I get up, and start yet another day... that will be much the same as yesterday....

TURN BACK SINNERS THE END IS NIGH!

Three years. For three years I've been fighting my way towards a degree in Graphic Design. And now it's done. Wow. Many of you probably think "wtf this dude's a Graphic Designer? Pssch, he just wasted three years cause his shit still sucks" and if you did: up yours chum. But still, I raise a good question actually. What the hell HAVE I learned through all these years? Well. It's sad, but I can easily boil all my hard earned experiences down to about ten points.

So I proudly present:

GARD HELSET'S
"THE 10 THINGS I LEARNED THROUGH MY EXCESSIVELY EXPENSIVE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE"

1. Cut the fluff. If something don't add to it, take it away. Too bad I love fluff..

2. It must make sense. The content of whatever should be relevant to the context of whatever.

3. Keep it simple. Even if it's complex.

4. Don't be clever, be honest.

5. Always address the majorities. An individual may be smart, but people are stupid.

6. Be positive, even when suicidal.

7. Never do anything until the last second.

8. The solution to any problem is more than often painfully obvious.

9. If you want anything done right, assign the right person to do it.

10. Innovation is a myth, design is dogmatic.

THE END

---

That list is as good as any portfolio.

In the end I could have skipped all of this and run by common sense. In fact, if I DID use any common sense, I'd skip college all together. I'd skip the stress, the poverty, the loans and debts, and I'd have a career by now. But what I do have now is LIFE EXPERIENCE, two weeks of stubble, a theoretical piece of paper I assume is in a nice flowy wooshy script with some gold filigree which states that I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Graphic Design. Whether I got any honors, I doubt it, but honor is for asian people anyways.

I now have stuff to look foreward to. Getting a life for instance. That thing so many people have told me repeatedly to get. Also, I look foreward to pay taxes, as I want the right to complain about people on benefits living off my hard earned tax money.

Right now I've sent off a huge box of random shit back home. Cost me £110, and yeah, ouch, pain. But whatever. The value of the box was probably like around £500 or more, so yeah, I ain't interested in paying all that shit again to make up for lost property. There's a better chance of that shit getting back home than my luggage that is going with British Airways. They have a tendency of sending my luggage to Timbuktu or shit. I dunno how they do it, but those throwers in the back handling those suitcases must sometimes have some great pillowfights the way these things are being treated. If it weren't for the weight limit I'd fill my bag with bricks.

Oh, right. I've forgotten to upload shit here on dA lately. I've made more comics, but yeah.. I sorta loose inspiration the minute I start the submission process and leave it undone. I'll have em up soon enough for you who actually care.

I'll be seeing you around.

Norway next.

KKBYEBYE

G

Wyyrd number 62 is.... NOT TO BE FOUND HERE! Nor will it ever. Why? Cause I'LL NEVER MAKE IT! =Iselen did it instead! Lookit! ---> [link]
She obviously wanted to get in on my fame *COUGHwhatever¬¬*, so all you guys who might or might not care, go and show her some love! n___n

Also new computer, internet's dodgy but back, school blows and life goes on thank you bye bye.

G

Mick

Wick

Dick

I rhyme for the brothers on the corners.