Friday and friday and friday.

Life is full of surprises, and not knowing what's going to happen next is one of life's best gifts.
While three Fridays ago we had our first show as a group, just two Fridays ago we had our first fight against the "Man" also as a group, and last Friday what it seems to be the reaction to that fight.

These experiences are equally positive and enriching for us as a collective, although one of them was more enjoyable than the others.

First, I will talk about the shows experience:
Weeks of confusion, of not knowing what was going on, of what we were suppose to do, and how the whole thing was going to be assembled.
But there was also loads of creativity, expectations, hopes, dreams and personal and group motivation. I saw amazing ideas and pieces of work that show me the high level of artistic creativity that my classmates have, and it made me feel honoured to be in this group.

After an intense last push on the last few days before the show, we finally saw the result.
The performance was a confusing experience for me.
The shadow elements were beautiful and very effective, and I could see within it the involvement and creative input of my classmates. They created them.
The projection side was also a beautiful display of visual composition and rhythm and very rich in content of social and political statements.
But what confused me was, that that part of the show, was pretty much completely Douglas' creation.
I completely understand the pressure from the limited time and the fact that we work faster working in our own way (i.e. preference of creative dynamics, choice of content and visual styles)
But I also have to say that in the projections I missed to see my classmates' images that I saw during the creative process, images that surprised me, inspired me and gave me so much to think about this whole climate change issue.

Maybe because I was in the front and got to see the show three times, I was the only one to realise that; or maybe other people had realised it too, but I haven't heard anything about it yet, and I don't expect to hear about it again.

The second one of these Fridays started again with confusion and nerviness.
First time we were presenting individually, not enough time to feel like we have something good, and of course stage fright.

And then, when the first performance just had started, it happened, the unpredictable, the surprise:
We were kicked out of our performing space, not a chance to negotiate, off you go, find somewhere else for your stuff.
The frustration, the anger, the confusion, the frustration coming back at you.
What to do? where to go? should we perform? should we allowed this? what can we do about it?

Let's have a meeting in the Meeting Room, that ironically was our alternative space to perform.

In the meeting, with almost everyone, I felt that everyone was of the same state of mind, we were feed-up with the situation and we needed changes,

What changes we want? What aren't we happy with? How should we achieve these changes?

We found the appropriated solutions, wrote these ones down and planned the next steps, and once we were done organising and planning we went to the pub.
It was just the right way to finish this tumultuous day.

After doing something so "Un-British," such as creating a little revolution we ended up in one of the finest and more welcoming of the British traditions: The Pub

I felt that the group was getting together, that we had gone through some hard experience and now we were enjoying each other company on a pleasant one. And it felt good.

And the last but not the least, last friday.
As a conclusion for what happened the Friday before, we had a meeting with the Dean the vice-Dean, Douglas and Edwina.

I dont think any of the students really knew what was going to happen in this meeting, or even what we were expected to do in it.
We meet before, we organise as good as we could our thoughts, and the key word was "Assertiveness". Let be calm but firm, because we have the right to.

The meeting went extremely well, too well in my opinion, someone called me paranoid, but we'll see.

And now, we are waiting to see what will happen next regarding our needs and queries.

The future is unpredictable and surprises are life's best gifts, and whatever happens it'll happen. But so far I'm glad all this is happening, for two things:

One, is better for these issues to happen the sooner the better, so we know how things work and how to fight back for the next "fights"

Two, the group is communicating and working as a team, without the need of parenting or external help, we still Douglas' pets, but we are growing up.