So with that in mind the next two assignments are seeped in nostalgia. The first one unfortunately involved me getting my drawing cap on again for number 18 Recreate a poster you had as a teenager.
Now for obvious reasons its not too hard to remember what posters I had as a teenager. One it hasn't been that long since I was a teenager. Secondly I still had these posters on my wall until very recently but since Ive moved away my bedroom has now become the 'office space'. This is very much like when you were even younger you had the same Thomas The Tank Engine wall paper until the age of about 14 when you've finally grown out of it and replace it with posters like this:
Now in case you can't tell, and you probably can't, the poster is of the band Rage Against The Machine's album cover Battle of Los Angeles.
Now the second part of this assignment tells you to locate an piece of music that you were listening to as a teenager. So I should simply put one of the ones from this album, that makes sense doesn't it? thats easy enough right? Right? Wrong.
Simply because even though I had this poster for years on my wall, I never actually owned the album until I was 18 so instead I've included my favorite song from when I was 14 (the most awkward of the teenage years I feel) and still is one of my favorite of all times, The Stokes The Modern Age
Even listening to it now it reminds me of the time that everybody remembers going through and would quite happily never go through it again. Sorry for the pretty poor excuse of a video, but nowadays you're lucky to get any music on YouTube.
The second assignment not only made me think more about my past than I could of possibly hoped for, but it also got others thinking about theirs too. It is assignment number 53 Give advice to yourself in the past.
It sounds simple enough and it is. Chose a period in your life and like some sort of time traveling comedy film, give advice/warnings to yourself.
The time I chose was to give advice myself to was in the Summer of 2006. I had just finished college, still had no idea what university I was going to, what I was going to do when i got there and in a matter of months would be signing on the dole as i struggles to find full time employment.with that in mind here's my advice to myself fore the following year.
Quit smoking now, you will spend an unnecessary amount of time in hospital over the next year and this is one of the contributors to it.
On the same subject stay away form iron board style Evil Knievel stunts when drunk, although the resulting video will be legendary.
Although it may not seem like it at times, Sunderland is a better choice for you than Sheffield or Southampton.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t achieve as much as you wanted in your year out before university, just think about everything that you did achieve and the times you had.
But at the same time plan for your future career better, sometimes it is not always best idea to ‘live in the moment’.
Go to more FC United of Manchester games with your Dad, you will start to see less of him from now on so you might as well spend time doing something you both love.
Don’t give up on the guitar, you will never be brilliant but you will always enjoy playing it.
You will get yourself into some needlessly dangerous situations with people who should know better. Even though I shouldn’t really say this, don’t worry nothing bad will happen and you’ll have some great laughs about it later.
Look forward to the summer of 2006
Now I don't have nearly enough time to go through what I have just wrote, but take it from me, this is quality advice. What I really liked about this assignment however was the response I got when I asked other people what their advice to themselves would be.
They responses ranged from ones that obviously the person thought long and hard about "Don't go on a date with the love of your life," where the person hasn't really but too much thought into it "take more hard drugs" to the ridiculous " kick the crap out of your little cousins until they are Man City fans."
For obvious reasons I will keep their anonymity, except for the last one, that was my cousin Chris and he's an idiot. But this is one where i actually wanted more people to take part and feel that the fact that it made people think about their past, even if only for a brief time and not always with rose tinted nostalgia. So as of now I have a new favorite assignment and it is number 53.
