SAM

You may have seen/heard of Sam Towner before on this blog - he completed his foundation year in June and has to be one of our most engaging and exciting students to date. He is about to start his degree in fashion at Westminster. He secured one of 30 places out of an initial application of over 1500 - he is a star in the making and I loved teaching him - actually, he didn't really need that much teaching - he was just fabulous to have around. I have somehow managed to convince him to share his journey with us. It promises to be an interesting one and maybe we won't have to wait too long for our new Alexander McQueen (god rest his soul).........

Here is his first entry, preceeded by a couple of lovely shots from our new college perspectus - I understand that he is available for modelling for all new knitting pattern catalogues........!!!

SAM'S FIRST DIARY ENTRY............

Its the second morning I'm in halls now. My house mates are all very different: so far, there are 3 guys, including myself and 2 girls; there is ryan who is studying music production, claire who is studying clinical photography (and wants to specialise in creative photography come her 2nd year), nick who is a fine artist turned illustrator, myself; studying fashion, and Aki who is studying media. Aki is from japan, and is probably the quirkiest individual I've ever met; you can't help but smile and kick yourself beyond the worlds of England. One of my friends, Ben, who joins our group the majority of the time; he is studying commercial music also, but more towards performance. He's performing on Friday, and we've agreed that if anything goes wrong, I'm going to jump on stage and make an idiot of myself. All in all, they are lovely people, we all seem to gel and end up talking for ages about all sorts, if given the chance. Already, I feel I'm learning a great deal about myself and I feel myself reflecting and developing as a person very quickly. Not drastically and not in an unhealthy way. Though, at this point it would be dishonest of me to deny my hangover and how uncomfortable my stomach feels. My housemates and have expressed the clarity we feel with our group, even at this early stage, and a loyalty has already surfaced itself at certain moments. Being away from home is not something that's unfamiliar to me, but this test has been sweetened by the circumstances I've found myself in. Not to look on the glum side, but maybe its too early to tell. As it is, being at uni has provided responsibilities that have enabled me to develop further and I feel really positive about moving further into adolescence and not to sound too much of a cliche but, 'the big wide world'. This is definitely the best decision I've made, and I feel very lucky with the circumstances I'm in at the moment.

We went out last night for a student union night where we met a lot more people from the night before; a few of which make me ask a lot of questions to myself: meeting so many people in such a short period of time allows you to build up a repertoire of associations and familiar faces for the nights and day ahead, but I feel this will narrow itself down as quickly as it has built up. Yesterday I finally met a few people from my course group; all my house mates seem to have met quite a few people from their courses, so naturally, the anticipation has been building. First impressions: One guy who came on to me, despite telling him I was celibate, and another was a girl (emphasis on 'girl' and not 'lady'. 'Lady of the night' maybe - oo whada bitch); the type that isn't unfamiliar to me, at least. I'm trying not to be cynical and just 'hope'.

As little experience that I've had of the industry so far, I feel I've gained enough to understand what stereotypes you can make of people: with everyone I meet, I try to reserve judgement and look beyond the facade that some naturally gravitate towards. I'm yet to find the true individual person within, but I realise this may not be a frequent occurrence (I hope 'old man syndrome' doesn't reside in me just yet). Judgement and jokes aside, these 'people' are potentially my competition for the next 4 years and beyond. For now, I'm happy with who I've met, who I am, where I've come from, and what direction I aim to be going in. For now, my only goal is to remain true to myself, and the only path I aim to go is upwards; these experience can only serve to develop me on a personal level and understand my career choice further. Bring on my first day of activity towards starting my course: student welcome and enrolment!