Jamie Henderson's Site: Exam Season

In Portsmouth University, exam season is a-flowing and test upon test is taking place for many of the students. For me, though, this is not the case; thanks to the large amount of projects and design work undertaken through the last semester it seems that many of my ‘exams’ are just hand-ins for notebooks and portfolios. This is fortunate because I don’t like exams- no one does, and I am careful to rub it into my flatmate’s faces that all I have to do is an hour long multiple choice & 750 word essay and that’s it!

Getting my portfolio handed in the other day was a little manic, as you can imagine. I had 4 projects to print and arrange aesthetically in my A1 portfolio (which is monstrous) in a very short amount of time. In fact, just to get everything sorted I had to work up until 5 in the morning before sleeping for 2 hours and then walking into University and dumping my folder into a room full of stern-looking examiners. Afterwards, I stood around for a while watching my studio group add their portfolios to the pile and chatted about what they’d submitted. One of the maddest things I heard was from a Bulgarian student who had taken the time to print all 15 of her A1 sheets in the IT suite- totting up around £100 of printing costs, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that this probably wasn’t the final hand in for the projects and that some things may have changed before the end-of-year hand in.

Because of the large amount of time between then and my one and only exam, I decided to take a little time off and travel home for a week’s relaxation a time off. I travelled down on the train last Thursday and it was a good experience for me since I hadn’t travelled from Portsmouth on my own beforehand. Travelling on the train turned out to be exceptionally easy and thankfully my train was on time at every station, even though it took 5 hours to complete it was a relatively relaxing train journey as I ordered a coffee and crisps and sat munching- taking in the view, listening to music and reading a book.

So now I’m back in Devon, and it is good! As usual, to celebrate my return I went out with my family to have a curry which was fantastic. It seems that we do this for EVERY special occasion. Birthday? CURRY, good exam results? CURRY… you get the idea- I don’t complain though… a good curry every once in a while is good for the soul. The weather’s very dull and grey, but that’s to be expected here on the moors I suppose. It’s certainly good to be back, although nothing ever changes around here- which is reassuring at least. (This is especially true for Plymouth, where I heard a woman on the phone shout “I only got a U in maths, I can’t work out them prices! I hate man-shoppin,’ no you can’t have the LaCoste trousers, they’re well expensive”… After that, I knew I was home.)

Yesterday I went into Plymouth and bought some new headphones for the train journey back, I felt a little guilty seeing as they cost around £70 but I figured that they would sound infinitely better than the standard shipped iPhone headphones that can’t be turned up higher than a ‘room temperature’ amount of decibels without creating a shrill squeak for all those around me. And so, feeling a little remorseful I trudged out of the apple store clutching my expensive new ‘V-MODA’ ‘Vibe’ headphones. This is what they look like:

When I got home and tried them out I quickly realised that they perhaps weren’t as much of a rip-off as I’d expected. I can honestly say that the sound was absolutely awe-inspiring, especially the bass they created, which was face-shattering. I’m sure many audiophiles would shake their heads with disgust, but I really enjoyed the overpowered deep, rich tones. Their looks are completely killer too, the shiny metal separator and bevelled buds steered me towards them like a moth to a flame. Not only this, but they’re very light and comfortable on the ear also, which is brilliant for me because I can guarantee some very, very long nights working with these in my ears.

One of the most interesting pages on architecture I’ve come across recently was some of Tadao Ando’s stuff. He’s a Japanese architect and a real inspiration to many. One of my favourite blogs- http://archidose.blogspot.com/ directed me to some photos of his modern art museum in Fort Worth. It’s an amazing project, apparently modelled on ‘…pavilions that float on water…’ as Ando describes it. The ‘pavilions’ are massive 3 storey double height galleries supported by Y-shaped posts and concrete above 1.5 acres of shallow water. Here are some of the best pictures, in my opinion: