Marla Boland

 Well, a little late creating my reflections this week. I was away during week five, which was definitely not a good idea. I feel more overwhelmed than ever. I have 3 assessments going at the moment and am not following my plan of working on set subjects on set days. It is taking me so long to do everything because of my limited computer skills, and it is getting the better of me. I'm thinking of getting an outside tutor to help with the InDesign program. I'm finding it very tedious and difficult to use. It is difficult to be creative because most of my energy is being spent on trying to create the visual projects in InDesign. 

 I've made it to week 4, and I did have my doubts about staying. It was all feeling too hard. I feel like my drawing skills are very lacking. It feels like it will be a very long time before it feels natural. But I have started to hear the repetition of design terms in each class, which makes it seem like I am starting to understand the vocabulary. I guess it's really not any different to medicine. When I started my nursing degree, that felt like a foreign language, too. I've turned in 2 assessments and am not feeling very confident with the results. But I did give it my best, so we will just wait and see. 

 My 3 weeks in and still feeling very out of my depth. At the end of this week, I have two assessments due. One is a trace drawing of the Rose Seidler House. I have found this very challenging because I have zero drawing experience. I have been doing a lot of practice activities, and I think it has helped a bit. But most people in this class seem to be very natural at drawing. They have shown their work in the chat, and it all looks amazing. So, I'm not feeling very confident with the assessment. I think I will just be a pass, which is not the way my natural competitive instinct works. I enjoy doing things that I'm good at. So this has been very hard for me. I am trying to work on my feelings by listening to my husband's positive feedback. My second assessment is for Bespoke Decorating, which I haven't started yet. But have done quite a bit of reading and studying about the design principles. I'm actually finding the reflection journal a challenge, too, because I...

 I can say that my second week was still just as overwhelming. I'm struggling to stay positive with my capability of completing the work. The lecturers are amazing and not the problem. I'm reading and listening to the information but I'm not sure how much is staying in. We did a drawing exercise on Tuesday and after seeing others attempts at drawing, it made me feel that most of the others have a natural ability with the art side of things. It's making me question if I've chosen the right course. But Wednesday's lecture in Introduction to Design Studies did help with making me feel that if there is a whole class on helping stay positive and trying to give you different tools to help you get through, I think there must be a lot of others feeling the same way. I will keep putting in the time and work this week and see how I go. 

 How would I describe my first week at uni??? Well in one word overwhelming! The amount of information given in that first week was a lot for me, it's been 30 years since completing my nursing degree and a lot of things have changed and evolved. For one studying online, with no paper books is a huge adjustment. I do like paper. I have printed some things such as assessment briefs that has made me feel a bit more settled with being able to see it on my desk.  My first class of Bespoke Decoration was not as overwhelming as the Graphis Communications. For some reason I had not given to much thought on the drawing side of design. So our first assessment came