Chapter 2. Modi
10 years ago, a 4-month-old rabbit dachshund came into my life and peed all over my fancy winter jacket. I still remember it clearly since it was my last exam (descriptive geometry) at my very first winter session (yay! but not really), and it was also the 22nd of January.
My energy efficient memory stores this date not because I got C in one subject I actually took seriously and enjoyed, and not because it was my favorite winter jacket that had been ruined. That day was my Birthday, and back then I was still excited to live it.
By the time I turned 18, I was so sad, exhausted and frustrated that I couldn’t think of a single thing I wanted as a gift. I was bored at University, tired on my way there, annoyed by my narcissistic ex and overwhelmed with loneliness. Drama queens like to refer to this state as depression.
I didn’t think of myself as a depressed person back then but I secretly hoped for a magic pill to appear and improve all aspects of my life. Thankfully, my parents got it for me. It didn’t take away my physical exhaustion and didn’t fix my first serious relationship but it did make me feel loved and relaxed when I was home.
They got me a dog and I named it Modi.
The fluffy reincarnation of Amedeo Modigliani became my best friend right away. After all, there were so many things we had in common! For example, having to sit and wait.
Back in 2009 I still lived with my parents whose place was 2 and a half hours away from my faculty building. If I had a better brain and thought of logistics in advance, I would never have chosen to study there. But for 4 to 5 hours a day I was stuck inside multiple trains and buses. Just sitting and waiting. Forever. Roar.
If I were completely honest, I’d say that the other 6 to 9 hours I spent in University were pretty much a waste, too. I could name maybe 3 subjects which didn’t make me want to shoot myself and one of them was French. Definitely not something I hoped for after passing entry exams.
In fact, my whole University chapter ended up being the opposite of what I wanted for it to be. When I imagined this stage of my life, I thought I’d be excited to go there each and every day. Excited is not the word. Driven. Inspired!
I imagined partying with students from other faculties (mainly, nuclear physics boys because that’s where all the goodness grows according to my stepdad). I was looking forward to doing homework in a library full of wise ancient books, the way they show it in British movies. I thought I’d participate in local events or hang out with friends after classes. At the very least, I thought I’d finally have friends!
Yeah, that’s what I thought. In reality, I ended up in another hamster wheel similar to the one I had in High School.
I’d wake up at 4:30 am every morning to do homework, which I started on my bus ride the night before. I’d have breakfast at 6:30 that thankfully wasn’t porridge. I’d leave home at 7:15 to be able to catch a ride before traffic jams began. If I was lucky, I’d make it to Saint Petersburg by 8:15 and have a chance to sit for half of my subway ride. I’d walk in my faculty building by 9:30, half an hour before classes. I’d hate my life even more at 10.
Parties, libraries, and awesome events were never an option because I didn’t have time nor energy. And when I did have time, I spent it on attempts to fix my broken relationship. Or waiting for it to fix itself.
Dear God I spent so much time waiting for a lot of things to happen. But mainly, for someone to finally teach me how to draw for a living and not starve. The same way Modi waited for someone to come back home and play.
Another thing me and Modi had in common was not knowing how to be cool.
Being a boy, my dog didn’t think it was necessary to lift his leg when going on a loo adventure. I’m not sure if it had to do with the fact that his first outside experience happened on the coldest winter day or the fact that there was no role model around to teach him life. Regardless of the reason, he kept doing it wrong, and each time we were outside, dog owners referred to him as a girl while their pets attempted sexual contact. Poor Modi. Thankfully, it didn’t last forever and in a few years, he finally mastered the craft.
I, on the other hand, needed more time to master mine. The day my drawing and painting classes started, I realized what it feels like to be absolutely talentless and lame.
I don’t mean to show off but I had never experienced problems with any other subjects I studied. My brain could always accomplish both technical and improvisational tasks. But when it came to drawing boxes and painting vases… It just kept exploding.
For quite a while I felt color blind in my attempts to see shadows in still life compositions. My watercolor paintings were often flat and boring. I couldn’t understand why blue is not blue and red is not red while most of my groupmates seemed rather comfortable mixing colors.
I kept breaking the perspective when drawing cones and cylinders. Doing it without a ruler seemed cruel and wrong. Very cruel and very wrong. By the time I had practiced enough to not fail epically, our teacher introduced still life with drapery. Since that happened, I was never able to impress her again.
By the end of the first year, I had absolutely no illusions about me ever being good at this, that’s why I started using my other skills to succeed. For example, programming.
Some of my cool and artsy groupmates suffered badly at C++, Java and other geeky languages. I helped them with homework while they fixed my sad landscape paintings. System.out.println(“I didn’t care about the ethics, I just wanted to stop getting Cs!”);
It worked, and somehow I managed to get through 5 semesters of hell without daily humiliation. Which is probably not enough to say that I became cool like my dog, but it’s definitely better than nothing.
Speaking of nothing. Both Modi and I practice “an All or Nothing” approach to life. It aligns perfectly with our greedy nature.
When we want to cuddle, we’ll cuddle the hell out of someone. When we want to eat, we’ll make sure to go for all things yummy and delicious. With no exceptions and sacrifices, we travel through life in a boat called “Hedonism and Curiosity”. That’s why it’s really hard for us to cope with something that contradicts this policy.
Guess what? 5 years I spent studying design ended up the worst period of my life because it never satisfied my cravings. I can’t imagine an education more chaotic and useless than the one I got (even though I know it probably does exist somewhere).
In Russia, we don’t have this narrow profession-focused program which a lot of people study in The West. Our timetables are full of classes like History, Philosophy, Psychology, Law, Natural Science, Physical Culture, foreign languages, several kinds of Maths, Economics etc. Whatever they decide to include is always mandatory.
Someone thinks that this complex and diverse knowledge is great for personal development of students. I say it’s shit. It creates this illusion of “All” but in reality, it ends up more like “Nothing”.
I was introduced to numerous subjects and skills but I didn’t get a chance to master anything except knowing how to use Adobe Software. If I knew that in advance, I would rather watch tutorials and start working as someone’s assistant right away to learn from a professional.
It’s not like we didn’t have professional designers among our teachers, it’s just that they didn’t have enough time and material motivation to do a good job (yeah, teachers’ salaries in Russia are quite sad). Their goal was to give us a taste of what graphic design/painting/drawing/3d/photography/video editing/animation/branding/web design/frontend development is. If we wanted to dig deeper, we should have done it in our free time.
Free time?! Don’t get me wrong, if I did have this time I would probably dig deeper. But that time was taken by History, Philosophy, Psychology, Law, Nature Science… bla bla bla… and Physical Culture. That’s why in 2013 when I finally received my diploma, I started selling board games. Because that’s the kind of thing I was at least qualified to do.
Today I am 28 and Modi is 10. Our “official” education ended around the same time when I received my Bachelor’s degree and he mastered the “Give me a ball” command. Which probably says a lot about our intellectual capabilities but unlike a lot of people we don’t need badges and statuses to feel cool and smart.
I didn’t have a desire to go for Master’s because my greedy brain couldn’t afford more stagnation. Modi didn’t learn more commands because he’s snobby and stubborn like me.
And don’t you think bad of Modi now! I also don’t see the point in running after a stick to only bring it back. One stupid dog started it and now everyone seems to follow. That’s not how we do things in our family. We’re original.
Anyway. University was quite a ride. Definitely not the one I’d ever want to repeat. But whatever came next, was quite a ride, too! A useful one! Finally.
