Well, it's been over six months since my previous journal and I just thought I'd update you all with what's been going on and what hasn't.

Previously I'd mentioned I was setting up ps/design, my freelance design business. Well, the website is now up at [link] and is fully operational. As of yet, I haven't had any business offers come my way, but I know these things take time. One thing I am doing to promote my business is taking it onto Twitter and trying to drum as much interest up as possible using this social-networking site.

In the last couple of weeks, things have looked better with regards to my designing ability as well. One of my favourite sites, abduzeedo.com, opened a competition to design a widescreen wallpaper. They had three prizes going, including a 2TB external hard drive (handy!), but that wasn't what made me enter. Abduzeedo (Fabio Sasso) has been a great influence on me of late, with his great tutorials and style, and wanted to submit a piece solely to say I had. On the first week update, my artwork was included - the very first artwork I had mentioned on another website by another designer. That alone was good enough, and good enough to make me believe in myself and try to make ps/design work even better. I continued making wallpapers and entering the competition and lo and behold, the final update saw 4 artworks of mine included in the update - cue more Brownie points! (Although the one I believed was best wasn't included - ah well, you can't win them all.) The winners will be announced next week on the 20th July, and I have no illusions that I'm going to win. It's good enough that I have been mentioned and that alone is praise enough to make me become a better designer.

My second point earlier in the year was that this year I was to be getting my tattoos. Alas, this won't come to fruition - maybe not even next year.

You see, the employers I worked for are arseholes, putting it lightly. Not only were they family, meaning I had to work twice as hard to be 'equal', but they were also immoral bastards who made a profit from one of the country's hardest working sectors. They published 'emergency services support' magazines - which I unfortunately helped design and create. The basic premise was that they included corporate goodwill messages and editorial from the emergency services themselves, and that the magazines were the distributed across the country. Only the former part of that was true, and the magazines never got to see the light of day - thus it became a con. This also led to a lot of outside interest from rival companies who would try anything to get a hold of the magazines so that they can 'steal' the advertising for their own profit (sorry if I'm confusing you). This is where their lies come in.

After they decided to cut our hours and wages due to low income, someone within the company (supposedly) started to 'leak' details of advertisers to other companies. Nothing much was said, and the matter soon disappeared. They then decided that I should start full-time again as the other designer had a full load and the magazines weren't being designed/published. I started full-time again, and then the rumours began flying thick and fast. All of a sudden, masses of company data was leaked and all of a sudden, the finger was being pointed at me - alas with no evidence. The only evidence that was waved at me was that I left a blank DVD in the other designer's iMac - the only Mac in the office with a SuperDrive (DVD-RW) - which I was using to try and burn music videos to so that my daughter could have a DVD with all her favourite tracks, instead of waiting for MTV to actually play music.

That was the only mistake I made, and unfortunately, that was enough for them to confirm their suspicions. This went on for 4 days (with the other staff constantly talking about me behind my back, the other designer threatening me and forceably throwing me to the floor after I challenged his authority to discipline me, etc.) until on the Thursday, the boss basically accosted me and challenged me face-to-face to admit to the details or he would 'rip me apart and kill me.' Having not done anything of the sort I flatly denied it, saying that it was a load of crap and someone was out to get me. At this point, I should mention that I still hadn't seen any evidence they said they had against me. They accused me stabbing them in back because they cut my hours/wage and that they had seen me walking down the same street that one of their rivals was driving down at the same time . Well, without disclosing how much I was earning, I lost a grand total of £30, due to certain restrictions on any wage I earn (£5 if you include me paying back the staff loan I had borrowed.) I don't know about you, but would you leak company secrets because you lost a fiver?

Well, that was a good 2 months ago and you know what? I may miss the money, but I certainly don't miss their paranoia or the stress that comes with that kind of job - constantly having to explain where I'm going, why I was late by 5 minutes, showing them my internet history and so on.

So now I'm looking for any graphic design jobs in the Liverpool area and I hope to find one soon, as the little one is a demanding bugger! But then again, all women are lol! For now though, until that dream job comes along, I'm looking for a job in other places, such as supermarkets and shops and will be carrying on with ps/design in the hope that it becomes successful enough that it becomes my job, as well as my hobby.

On that note, I leave you again until I update next! Cheers!