What have I been up to

I didn't do a lot of art over the summer.
I did a lot of talking to people, and I started making sure that my body was okay from the sorry state I was in during the school year.

I started a job as a Tour Guide on my campus, which was wonderful and fun and nervewracking and awesome.
I got to be a homework mentor for my school's precollege program, which means helping and hanging out with 15-17-year-old comic book geeks. That worked out pretty nicely.
And lastly, in the week before school I was part of Orientation again.
And I started feeling like.... maybe I'm just not that good at doing art. I mean. I'm okay.
And classes started and now I feel like.... this is what I'm doing and I can do this forever.

I cooked. I prepared food and ate healthy and started doing beginner work-outs and walking miles. I feel great.

So as a last note on the summer, I got much better at talking to people, I gained a little more independence, I dyed my hair bright pink. I came into school knowing a lot of people and mentally prepared for the year.

I'll add drawings when I can scan them.

first week down!

I'm been to a majority of my classes. And so far, I'm pretty excited for awesome.
At the end of this semester, I'll get a good handle on flash, after effects, general character animation, world, animation, and art histories (generally 20th century). And my 7th class is drawing. I think I'll learn more than last semester.

I need to make sure I eat meat every day, and make sure I don't forget citrus fruit altogether. The last thing I need is to accidentally get scurvy from forgetfulness.

Back at school, forgetting to post

It's so exciting to finally be back. It's wonderful to have to depend on myself for cooking. I can't wait to bake little tea biscuits like a little old lady.

I've found Zoo Tycoon again. I will do all the scenarios! Videogames should help me be able to finish short term and long term goals, I will play more of them.

I'm excited to start classes, but I really can't wait to do concept art for a D&D campaign (not mine). Maybe I'll even make my own.

video games

I have found Railroad Tycoon II, and I have installed it on the ancient XP in the basement. THe good news is that the basement is where the exercise equipment is. The bad news is that television is horrible and I shouldn't watch it. Even history channel feels like a horrible joke, exploiting mental illnesses and having ghost shows.

I've also been playing Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on a borrowed DS, until I find out what's wrong with mine and try to fix it.

I also must clean the Christmas-present mess from my room. I received a lot of things that secured my place in the kitchen, and I'm not ungrateful.

Some crazy part of me really likes going to bed at 12:34am. It just feels correct in an odd way. I've been sleeping something like 9 or 10 hours every night, amazing. I am remembering my strange dreams more and more.

Welcome to the beginning of the end.

Finals are coming. And I have the privilege to do 3 final projects on the same day. That day is also my anniversary.

In un-finals-related news, we have been covering mirrors, reflections, refractions, glass, all sorts of fun things. We covered ray-trace and depth map shadows. The still below is from a rendering of my Thanksgiving-homework, a showcase of my work.

The bottle is supposed to have a label on it, the 'background' is cheap and not lit well, the ray-trace shadows are grainy. The bottle also doesn't have the refractions that (I think) will make it look like it has a shell rather than a thin layer outside a darker layer. And there are no bump maps on anything.

In the spare un-school-related news, I've been excitedly following the 2012 republican debate. When I registered up to vote, the card my parents got in the mail said that I'm a registered conservative. I tried to register as 'nothing' or 'other' or 'independent', I don't want to be part of a party this early in my life.

In less serious news, my hair is purple again! A skunk-stripe of purple. It's the very top layer of my hair.

But at the same time. I've been in the computer labs (loosely) from 9am-12pm, 4pm-11pm. I'm looking forward to baking cookies tomorrow morning.

backtoschoolbacktoschool

As the summer comes to an end, an end for the college-bound, I am so glad to get out of this place. I've done my own laundry, other laundry, and a ton of cooking all summer. I still have all my towels, bedsheets, and winter clothes packed. Most of my clothes will be able to fit in a luggage. I have a few bins.

So now all I have to do is finish cleaning out my room, fanticize about grocery shopping and write my initials in the books I'll bring. (There's a lot more work than that but I'm not worried.)

I'll miss being in constant contact with old friends. From school, I became more conscious about my appearance as I met more people and had to make new acquaintances. I became a lot lazier about that as I was home.

So I guess after being so anxious about not doing anything, not doing anything didn't kill me. It's not happening next year.

mroe summer

Still more summer. But I'm gladly busy with my quaint (at the worst, pathetic) goals. Like watering my garden in the morning, and I'm still trying to make the best pancakes ever. So far, they involve cornmeal.

And I guess that's what I look forward to: food. Not fast food, not out to dinner, I want to make it. It's a fantasy of failure and having to try again. It's an occupation of time. I want to find some creative way to mix flour, butter, sugar, and milk. It's precious.

I painted half the livingroom, rearranged the furniture, and packed a full garbage bag full of stuff from a sideways bookshelf.

I'm still doing my self-portraits. I don't know when they'll ever be online, but they will. I should probably put an adult-content warning. Nothing explicit, but as a project inherently about body-image, and clothes are unnecessary.

Keeping Busy.

It's been weeks, and everything is still a mess, except, for some reason, my head. One month till my birthday, another and I'm at school. I'm keeping busy:

Gardening. I borrowed a rototiller and cleaned up a plot in the backyard. It's midway through June, but mom already bought the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. I even consulted my books (what's the point of having them if you don't read them?) to get the spacing and planting right. I love the work. I hope that some day I'll grow my own vegetables.

Painting. I have the paint, I haven't painted my room yet.

Cooking. I'm trying to make the core recipes for next year, make sure I can make real healthy food in a short amount of time with a few ingredients- how much can I do with flour, eggs, butter, sugar? Would it be cheaper to bake my own bread?

Asking Questions. I want to know how businesses and politics work. I love learning about it. What laws govern businesses and religion and politicians and real estate and how they are interpretted. I've become increasingly interested in corruption and I want to be able to understand the economy better than an art student stereotype. I want to have intelligent conversations with people. I'm also preparing myself for the upcoming presidential election.

So, tomorrow, I'll wake up early and make french toast ravioli.
http://www.newlyweds-blog.com/2010/09/23/stuffed-french-toast/.
I probably don't have ricotta, but I'm thinking of putting something else in there, like eggs or PANCAKE BATTER. Pancake in french toast. THIS is what summer is about.

cuts

I am cut up. I have cuts all over my fingers from a hard candy experiment (very hand candy), in places where the band-aids don't stay on for long. There's a pimple-turned-cut at the corner of my mouth, which will never heal because it is constantly reopened. My fingers have paint on them, which needs cleaning. My nails are, for once in my life, consistently longer than my personal average, and 8 1/2 of them are painted purple (aforementioned band-aid attempts). The worst of them, I believe, is a 1/2 inch cut that is not artery-deep, but reopens uncomfortably at the bend of a finger.

I think the worst part of this physical affliction is that it will all heal, with time. And other things will eventually take their place.



In an unrelated event, I got netflix, and started watching Firefly. And then I found out that there were only 14 episodes, and I was very sad.

hard work procrastinating

I'm writing this because I'm almost done with a drawing that took me about 4 hours, with many many breaks. Maybe it took me 2 hours. It was supposed to take me 6 hours, about, but there isn't much to copying a drawing and deconstructing the figures within it. I don't even like the painting. It's also about 3 x 5.5 feet. In crayon, too, because why the hell not? I want to draw from real people.


Yesterday, I went to animation club, and it was wonderful. This is where I want to be, and I want to do so much of it and work hard at this. These are people who know what I know and more. They give reason to my existence.


Once again, I was convinced that whatever the asian station in the cafeteria makes, it's going to be good. I don't want to know why, but I always end up eating actual vegetables. Thanks, Pratt, for sneaking peppers, squash, broccoli, watercress, etc into my asian food. And also rice. I have wooden chopsticks and a ricecooker in my room, so, I guess I really miss herricks.


I sort of wish I was doing more... hopefully I'll get real busy and won't have to say that again. But I can get 10 hours of sleep a night. I'll just have to keep a sketchbook.


The first three are platonic shapes, which is my 3D course, basically. Isocahedrons, cubes, octahedrons, dodecahedrons, and tetrahedrons. Fun fun fun. My current hw is to remake the first one, slightly larger, with more interesting external tabs (all the others have the tabs hidden inside).

LCD work:
#4, Eggs and white backgrouds.
4A, Direct light
4B, Diffused light
4C, Direct, one color-aid wall
4D, Direct, color-aid wall and floor
4E, Interesting composition.


#6, a value gradient with magazine


#7A, color study of apple in windowsill, direct light
#7B, color averaging grid of that apple

Prof. Layton, keeping my brain working.
Driving, keeping me on my toes.
Cooking, keeping me alive.
Now all i need to a set-up of my watercolor set, and to finish making the sketchbook for them.

Summer Progression

I decide what I want to do this summer.


I want to read:
Dune
Wind, Sand and Stars
The Accidental Masterpiece
Some classic Asimov
Whatever people hand me. This has been working out, so far.


I want to play more video games:
Jak and Daxter
Super Mario Galaxy
Bioshock
Portal
Ratchet and Clank


I will do my own laundry.
I will organize my shit for college.
I will wear some new clothes and let go of tee shirts I've been wearing since middle school.
I will fill in my watercolor sketchbook.


I didn't realize how much my life was based on opposites until I spent a lot of time with someone who keeps a steady medium. I realize that I get excited and elated and irate and frustrated very quickly, but not usually at the same time. And it takes me longer to get out of the mindset than to be led into it by the situation.


New vocabulary, courtesy of reading Magic novels. Still not playing, though.

Karl, the Book-Binding Master, and Pratt, Accepted Students Day.

I can't cut things straight (even after all that foam-core), so this was aggravating. I liked the gluing part, and I liked almost forming a book. And I really admire the patience Karl had, even through the fire drill and people not working the whole time (limited supplies). I took notes on the process, so that I can keep making books after the workshop. I would like to make my own sketchbooks.


Apparently my practice is hard. Cooking every day. I don't think it's hard, because I have to eat every day.


Pratt. There were about 600 people accepted out of 6000, and they were all invited to Accepted Students Day. A lot of them went. I was really really nervous this morning. And then we were broken up into different departments, and I went with the film/photo students. We watched sample student movies/films/slideshows, and broke up into majors. There was this documentary about a high school production of West Side Story. I thought it wasn't serious, that it was a mockumentary, but it was real. Oops.
     There were about 12 students for animation. How many people applied? How many did they have room for? How come I was the one with the prestigious (so I read) scholarship, which I found out is given by major.
     The first animation studio/room we saw was next to the Chem room with a 'Liquid Nitrogen Deliveries through back door' sign. That's a plus. But the second one had a bulletin board. Someone had posted, "The winds of change, are changing." and the picture of a unicorn.
     That is from this student film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6kNxf6axY4
Geekout. This is one of my favorites student films. At this point, I realized that yeah, I think I'd fit here.

baked french toast

I still need to make a new Reading blog. I have been reading every night, and I've been marking up the everything. It's only Wednesday, but by Friday I need to have finished whatever chapter of Lord of the Rings: tTT ends closest to pg. 60, finish at least to pg. 100 of The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea's sequel), and have the first chapter of the Stac book done.

By the end of break, I want to be 150 pgs into LotR: tTT, halfway into the next book of the Earthsea series, and I want to finish the next 2 chapters of the French flying book.

Baked french toast. A delicious recipe that I want to play around with. Because, in a perfect world, syrup is unnecessary for a lasagna-like slab of french toast.

It's still snowing.

Today I followed another recipe from Instructables. Candied Orange Peels. They worked out, except for a minor detail: I used an old orange and bad tangerines. Old fruit leaves a horrible after-taste.
It would have worked too, if it weren't for those pesky kids, and their stupid dog.

good tea, but i'll still have lipton in the morning

I'm getting a dog tomorrow!! His name is George, and he's a newfoundland, and he's not totally trained but that's okay and I can't wait. The house has been empty for too long.
edit: sometime next weekend. he still needs his vaccines and we need to get the right food and bowls.


In the last two days I have been to two very different teashops. This is the article, super-brief and without my notes, and I hope to touch on the same points for each place.
1. Tea and Sympathy, a very British tea shop with some very good food, and seats about 24. British high-brow teas, really too expensive for me. Real food, a real restaurant, just very small. I don't know where they cook it all. There are closets bigger than the kitchen. Don't miss its candy shop next door. Good for a small number of your closest and dearest, and be ready to pay city prices for real food, like pheasant and shepard's pie. If you can afford it, go right ahead. I'm just cheap. Mostly an older crowd.
4.50 for 3 cups in your own teacup, saucer, and small pot. Around the block from three train lines, in the West Village on Greenwich ave.


2. Witches Brew, the eternal living room of comfort. Even the ceilings are fabric. Tea and coffee, but I don't think it had meal-type food. After-meal desserts. It's about the tea, though. That was good, I'll be back for more tea and pie. Self-made menus are really not easy to read, but they look cool. Seasonal decor, soft lighting, soft everything. Normally for a younger crowd, but not for little kids.
2.75 for a small pot with your own tea, loose-leaf, about 2 or 3 small cups. West Hempstead. Not cheap, but it's a fair price for food that wasn't made in a microwave and some comfortable couch-space.
    and from a few weeks ago:


3. MoJoe's Cafe, eclectic new york cafe right by Mineola train station, used to fast-pace. Looseleaf teas in hand-wrapped bags. Not just cupcakes, the cafe also has a full grill. The best thing, though, has to be the decor. It's an eclectic combinations of every decade since the 50s, including an original Donkey Kong arcade game. The first game Mario was in. Ever. And I don't think I mentioned the hand-drawn signs for everything. Has people from everywhere, especially with the train station and Winthrop hospital across the street. Don't get stuck on line when the shift ends at 4.
1.50 for a small cup of tea. Cheap in comparison, but it doesn't come with a pot, teacup, and saucer.

Sacred turkey

My grandpa did it. He ordered out thanksgiving. I was going to cook and bake and now it isn't sacred anymore. I realize that he's just 'taking care of the family', the old italian ideas, but still.

Seeing a show just takes everything out of me. Sitting still is juxtaposed against thinking frantically.

Goal for the day:

[x]  Write the start of a calarts essay. 9.15pm.

[ ]  Start outlining neuroscience chapter, copy and color diagrams.

[x]  Get the paint-pens to work. 2.50pm.

[ ]  Finish Thor vol2.

[x]  Make a pin-cushion. 3.15pm.

There's gloom and doom while things go boooommmm..... in Dexter's Lab!!

I want to cook on halloween. Chicken soup and pork and garlic bread and pumpkin muffins. And I don't want to use a recipe for them. It'll be practice for thanksgiving. I don't really have anything else to do. Anyone can come over, if they want. It'll be a regular dinner party.

The best thing about making the movies, I think, is that there weren't any big egos getting in the way. That has definitely happened before. I thought the chronological shooting worked better for us- we understood the story better. I don't understand how anyone can shoot a film unsynchronized without a storyboard telling them what to do next. I can't wait to work in a new film group.

Been working on a scifi epic that keeps me busy. I'm working with the history, starting from a Mars-colony revolution. My basic concept is that history repeats itself, broadly, and space travel will make time longer. Now, everything in instantaneous. But in Middle Earth, Boromir travels a hundred days to Rivendell. This change in the perception of time is important. It's like different planets in the future are different countries in Europe in the middle ages.

I have a lot of information I don't have opportunities to use.

TOURISTS! PREPARE TO DIE!!!

I baked two identical loaves of bread yesterday, and today there was only one left. I will definitely be baking bread more. It's incredibly cheaper than buying bread. Now, if only I could make my own peanut butter, the world would be a better place.

A deleted scene from Lilo and Stitch. This is a pencil test (fully stolen from The Pencil Test blog), which means that these are the drawings from the animators, without the inking and coloring.

"Does girl control ocean?"

This prompted me to take out the ol' Lilo and Stitch dvd. I haven't seen this movie for a few years. This is how to not get your homework done.

poetry, and the importance of blogging.

The blogs came up today in STAC, and yes, I do read them. I feel like blogs are written so that someone listens to you. So I'm here to listen. Because it's important.

I found a wonderful place today: there are desks behind the reference section of the library. No one knows where they are, so I get a whole quiet place to myself, with reference books. I went through about 5 or 6 looking up late 30's fashion. There's a whole Tom and Jerry episode- The Zoot Cat.

STAC magazine article idea: simple, quick recipes that save money. Like '5 things to do with a loaf of bread'.

We wrote poems today that were supposed to be random. Not random, but stochastic. Random, but with a sense of 'what are the odds of that??'. My poem, with a touch of editing. Starts with someone else's line.