By Poppy Cumming-Spain

You’ll never guess what I was doing last year…

Your guess is as good as mine. This time last year was a Monday. I only know that because I looked back in my calendar to see if I had anything booked in there. I didn’t. So it was probably a boring Monday like any other. Doing work that made me unfulfilled and underwhelmed. I have no idea what I was doing exactly, except that my job was to produce Google Analytics reports for Guardian Labs online content. It wasn’t for me. And I doubt it was an important day, or I hope I’d remember it. How sad is that? A day in my life which I can’t remember.

You might be thinking that you can hardly remember what you were doing last year either. And fair enough. But it’s still sad. To think that every day in your life isn’t memorable. Surely having something to remember about every day is a great life goal? Although it might be unachievable given our memory capacity (I seem to remember the book on the reading list about memory said that capacity is a misconception and it’s all about training, but anyway, I digress).

Nonetheless, it was another dull Monday plugging figures into a spreadsheet. I can easily guess that whatever I was doing I wished I was doing anything else. And that makes today, and every other day I’ve been at SCA special. This year I’ve never had Monday blues. Or Sunday dread. Or wished the week away. I haven’t been living for the weekend, I’ve been living. On a number of occasions I’ve had weekend plans and wished that I didn’t so I could work on campaigns (I can’t claim that I’ve cancelled many). Kinda sad, perhaps. But it tells me something great. This is really what I want to do. I can’t believe that one day someone will pay me to come up with ideas. It makes me feel so lucky to be where I am and doing what I’m doing. So it’s not surprising that I don’t wish the week away, or get Sunday dread, or Monday blues. I’m happy.

And that’s because SCA is my happy place. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I need a break from the dark, busy studio. But I love being around John and our mentors. I actually hate it when we have holidays because I get out of routine and into a mixed up weird headspace, so I’m dreading next week.

So, even though I’m so excited to (hopefully) catapult into the industry later this year, every day in the countdown to leaving SCA makes me sad. It’s changed my life and part of me doesn’t want to leave, although I know it’s right. And when I do I know I’ll look back and remember what I was doing today because I was at home at SCA; and not just because this SCAB will remind me.

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