Student life revisited.
Half a day's work yesterday, making me feel much more human, followed by an evening visit to the opening of the summer show of this year's work a London Metropolitan University, where I did my restoration degree a couple of years ago, with another of my old class. One of the nicer tutors had sent invitations to all of my year, and there were a lot of faces I recognised (although very few names I remembered, because I'm rubbish at names). It was all a bit strange, seeing the place again, not to mention seeing all, or most of, the tutors again (a couple had left, and one had thrown a wobbler after completing the summer show set-up, and refused to come in). This year's batch of students was formidably large and talented, with a remarkably odd selection of final-year projects, including a stuffed dolphin, a spectacular, huge carved teak sideboard from the Great Exhibition (via Kew Gardens) and a small sedan chair. When I found myself explaining what I was doing now, I was reminded of summer shows when I had been doing the course, and how impressed I had been when past students had appeared and described what they were up to after graduation. Since after two years I'm not making anything like enough to live on, this gave me a lot to think about. Neither of us fancied post-show drinks in the appallingly grotty student pub (Mona doesn't drink, and I didn't want to stand up for any longer than I could help), so I was home by ten, feeling horribly tired. Despite not getting a drink, I felt almost hung-over this morning, with a vague headachey, nauseous feeling all day, so I'm sort of glad that I only have half a day's worth of work tomorrow.