Hole in my pocket

Lately I've been ordering a lot of stuff off the internet.

Today, I just got The Last Unicorn Motion Picture Soundtrack in the mail. I had to order it from Britain, as it's not sold in the United States.

Other things that have fallen victim to my obsessive consumption:
- Drawing Portraits: Faces and Figures (The Art of Drawing)
- The Notebook - saw the movie, thought I'd read the book and compare.
- Runaways Vol. 1: Pride and Joy
- Red Eye
- Wildflower
- The Animatrix
- The Perfect Score - I may take it back cuz I just realized it's full screen.
- Shine

I've also downloaded a bunch of music off iTunes. I'm trying to control myself with that. You can spend a lot of money in a short period of time. My most recent purchase was today: Songs from Instant Star. "Instant Star" is a show that comes on the N, and it's about this teenage girl who wins a talent contest and is suddenly thrust into the entertainment industry. That show is scandalous, but pretty good. I'd say the best part of the show is Alexz Johnson's singing. That girl can sing.

I've also got random pics. It's not everyday you see the fuselage of an airplane on the back of an 18-wheeler, holding up two lanes of traffic as it makes it way down a very busy street on it's way to a restaurant that's using the pieces in it's design.







I also got my hair done on Friday. I spent 4 hours at the hair stylist because my stylist overbooked a bit. I had an appointment. I'm not too miffed though, because she's realy good, and I wasn't in a rush or anything, thankfully. Friday's are a bad day to get your hair done anyway; it's always going to be busy. I usually get my hair done on Tuesdays anyway. But my hair has grown quite a bit in the two and a half months since I got it cut.


Then.


Now.

Sweet Relief

+ listening to: "Three Flights Down" by Yellowcard

I'm finally getting my hair done tomorrow, and I can hardly wait. My hair roots are so bad. . .I can't wash my hair because I won't be able to comb through it. This is where the macro feature comes in handy:


These are my roots. You can see all the kinks.

Those of you unfamiliar with African-Americn hair care probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Basically, my hair is naturally nappy. I get what's called a "relaxer" which is a permanent chemical straightener. It's the opposite of a "permanent", which makes the hair curly. So, about every six weeks I have to get a reapplication of the relaxer to the roots of my hair. People with a looser curl pattern to their hair (less nappy) can go for as long as three months between relaxers. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those people.

--+ + +--

This is Cici:



She's a really sweet girl that works at a Chinese restaurant near my house. I'm helping her with her English. She doesn't have anyone else to practice with, because everyone else she's around speaks Mandarin, and her conversations with the customers are limited.

This photo is blurry because, as I found out, she hates taking picture of herself, so I cropped this shot out of an image of some art on the wall. Cici deleted the other pics of her from the camera on the sly. >(

Shutterclick, Lights and Sounds

+ listening to: "Martin Sheen or JFK" by Yellowcard
+ drinking: sweet tea
+ watching: Roll Bounce

I got a new digital camera today. I got tired of waiting for my order to be shipped from Amazon, so I just canceled the order and went and bought the camera from Wal-Mart instead. I was trying to be patient and save money, but the screen on my old camera died out, and the images won't show up without the display screen working. . . and there are things that need to be photographed by me, so I had to get a replacement camera.

So, I've had fun today testing it out. It's a Canon Powershot SD400 Digital Elph (5MP). I had lots of fun with the Macro mode.

<
One of the first images I took with the camera.


You can see my freckles and blemishes. . .


. . .and the texture of my corduroy jacket.


Macro shot of my sister's wrap scarf


My lovely little sister, Laura


macro shot of Laura's hair


C'est moi, encore. I look so petite here.


I edited this image in Photoshop a bit.

I never realized how inadequate my other camera was. Well, I did have somewhat of an idea, because 2.8 megapixels really wasn't giving me the level of detail I desired in my photographs. I like to find beauty in relatively mundane objects, and hopefully, this new camera will help me realize some ideas. I know it's just a camera, but I'm so excited with something new, and it's actually mine. I bought it with my own funds, unlike my former camera. And hopefully, I can take better care of this oneÂ?I already almost dropped it twice. I'm a bit of a techno-clutz.

In other news
I just downloaded Yellowcard's new album, Lights and Sounds, from iTunes. It's awesome. There's definitely been a musical development, this album being a bit more orchestral than their last effort. I could be more articulate about how the band has progressed and such, but it's late/early, and I'm lazy. It's just good, is all I can manage to say about it right now. It's one of those albums you can listen to all the way through and groove to it because all the songs have a decent melody, yet some songs stand out more than others. Oh look. . .I am being a bit more descriptive, let me stop rambling.

I've a morning of more internship goodnesss to which to look forward.

^_^

Sitting, Wishing, Waiting

I really should be in bed right now.

I've got a project due tomorrow that's totally not done.

I've got to go to my internship at 9 a.m. again. I started a blog about it, since I'm required to keep a written journal about my experiences as part of the curriculum.

It's interesting the way I relate to people. I see so many qualities about myself in someone. We're so much alike. . . too much alike, it feels like, at times. . .I'm glad of it though—the awareness, I mean. I helps me keep the proper perspective on things.

I'm behind on the aformentioned journal already. It doesn't help that my digital camera is fading on me. I've had it about 2 years, I guess, and the display screen keeps going out. I guess it didn't help that it's been dropped a bunch of times. I have a new one on order from amazon.com, but I ordered it a week ago, and they have yet to ship it. Still, it's like, $40 cheaper than buying it from Wal-Mart, so I must be patient.

Ho hum. . . I guess I'll update my other blog now.

Validation

I am once again, seriously behind in my photography class. I haven't turned anything in late yet, but I haven't finished shooting for my photo montage that's due and Tuesday. I have no idea what the lab hours are, but I need to go there today and see. I should have gotten a lot of it done on Friday, but I got a late start to the day. I'm trying to gradually get my sleeping schedule back on track by going to bed a bit earlier each night. I used to stay up til around 3-4 a.m. and now I've gotten it to around 2 a.m. Not ideal, I know, but it's progress.

I had been really nervous about my initial portfolio critique in my Senior Portfolio Presentation class. It went much better than I expected, however. My professor, who has many years of illustration and graphic design experience under his belt, along with teaching for many years, was really impressed with my illustration ability. He told me that it would be a waste of my talent to get stuck in some dead-end Graphic Design job, and suggested that I could move to New York or some other big city to work.

Well. . .It's good to be getting some serious validation as far as my work is concerned. It's not that I didn't realized I was talented, it's just that I wasn't sure what I could do with it. So now that I have a little more direction, I can think of what I want to do when I get out of school. My portfolio still need a lot of work, and I have about 4 more logos to design, plus I have to do some more illustrations to showcase my talent. It should be fun and interesting developing those things.

Also, I've started an intership blog. You can read it here.

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I found a link to think on Angel's blog. This is just too cute.

little indonesian girl singing

Grunt work

I got the internship! Yay me. The interview went pretty well. The interviewer was Paula, an art director at the company. She was a very friendly lady. We chatted a bit, and then she looked at my work that I had prepared on a CD. Then she took me around the office, showing giving me a tour of the building and introducing me to the people I'd be working with. A few of the people were like, "Oh, another intern. . ." as they rubbed their hands together and laughed maniacally. I was like they were saying, "Ooh, less grunt work that I have to do. . . Muahahahaha!"

I must say that I loved the office. The building was an old house, not quite old enough to be a historic home though. It was brick on the outside, with a fountain in front. I just really liked the layout of the place. I'm so excited. I don't know if I'll be able to get many pictures or what, but I'll try. I'm really excited to finally be getting some experience in the Graphic Design field.

I don't want to gush to much. I'm just really happy. I'm not even getting paid for this, but I so do not care. I'm getting school credit, so that's fine with me. I definitely have stars in my eyes at the moment, I must admit.

Also, I had my sister take some photos of me before I left for the interview.





See those big dangly things hanging from my ears? My I went shopping for something to wear to the interview, and my little sister made me get them. The did look nice, but I never got used to the jingling sound they made every time I turned my head.

Rest less

I have an interview for an intership position at a local design company at ten thirty in the morning, and I can't get to sleep.

I bought some new clothes to wear, and my little sister made me buy these earrings that do happen to look very nice. I'll try to remember to take a pic of myself before I leave for the interview.

I've been tweaking my resume, and I've still got to prepare some samples of my work to show. . .

I'm too wired to sleep. Maybe I'll read some fanfiction to calm my nerves. . .

Hopes and Fears

For the first few sessions of my Senior Portfolio class, the instructor will go through our work and tell us what we should keep, change, and do new. Looking through all my work last night, I was greatly discouraged by what I perceive to be the substandard quality of my work. I mean, while I was doing it, I thought it was really good. However, there were a lot of things about the work that I knew then I should probably fix, but I told myself I'd just redo it at a later date.

Now it seems I have all this work that needs fixing. I'm sure it's not as bad as I think, because I made A's and B's on most of my projects, but looking at it now it seems so sophomoric and unrealized. I'm almost embarrassed to show it. The one thing I am proud of though, are the illustrations that I did for projects.

I guess I'm just really afraid of what the professor will say. He's been doing graphic design and illustration for a very long time, so he really knows a lot about the subject. I've always felt that though I have great rendering abilities as far as drawing, that I didn't really measure up as a graphic designer. I just don't feel like I'm that creative. I'm probably being too hard on myself. It's getting to be crunch time as far as school is concerned, and soon I'll be out in the job market. The whole purpose of the class is too improve one's portfolio, so I guess I don't really have that much to worry about.

I just hope I don't get too harsh of a critique.

the road ahead

Today was my first day of classes for the Spring semester. I still had classes yet to register for, and I'm in the process of finally acquiring an intership so I can get some much-needed experience in the graphic design field. It won't be paid, but I'll get credit. . .and the aforementioned experience. There's also a possibility of getting hooked up with another design-related job either at the campus newspaper of this sign shop that my friend used work at.

I'm taking Senior Portfolio this semester, which means that I'm going to almost definitely have to redo all of my design projects that are worth anything. It's going to be a lot of hard work. I've never had the instructor before either, but he's very wisened and has lots of experience—

Ooh, this song called "Tear You Apart" by She Wants Revenge just came on. I got it as a free download from iTunes, and I love this song. They sound like a cross between Cake and The Killers, except a bit darker.

Anway, as I was saying. . . I have a lot of work to do this semester. Actually, I have a lot of work to do every semester, and then I end up slacking off at the end and struggling to get my final projects done on time.

. . .Yeah. But it was good to see all my classmates again. Everyone looks totally refreshed in contrast to how they looked at the end of last semester: all strung out and caffeined up with lots of sleep deprevation thrown in. Good times I tell ya. Good times.