Jenny and I had some time alone so we went digging through each other's make up stuff. She has 20 times more stuff than I do, but there's always gonna be a big difference: I actually USE the shit I buy! She buys the stuff like it's going to be banned one day, lol! In between bitching at her for not using anything, I saw her Victoria's Secret Fat Kiss gloss. I've never tried it, so I smeared some on. Didn't like the feel of it too much, so I took it off a few seconds later. After we put the stuff back, I went to Dee Jay to see how he was doing (he was hooking up the wireless router to their house so we can all use the internet now!) and I felt a lump on my top lip. I went to the bathroom and it seemed that it was swelled. Odd, but I've had cold sore like swelling like that before. It just goes away after a few minutes. Well! It didn't.

In fact it got bigger. By dinner time my entire upper lip was so swelled that you couldn't even see the wrinkles on them anymore. So eating and drinking was a little bit of a hassle. Thank goodness we didn't go out anywhere!!!! 2 benadryls later and i was out cold. I woke up late at night and it was still swelled. This morning, the swelling has gone down alot, but it's still there...stupid make up. And then people wonder why I don't buy alot of it!!

...My saliva is a jus.
...My spit has a lactose count.
...My blood is bovine.
...I am now M-O-O positive.

Just some quotes that Dee Jay had said after eating Korean BBQ with Chris and Jenny. We landed yesterday and so far, they've just been feeding us to the breaking point. I swear I think they just want to see how much we can shove down our gullet before we puke it all out!!! LOL!

I'm debating whether or not I want to post some...well, it's not personal stuff per say, but it's stuff that Dee Jay and i have been mulling around with and the writing's all rusty and I'm sort of self conscious about it but I would really like to get some more opinions on.

Wow, that made absolutely NO sense did it, LOL!

Dee Jay and I have been working on some story ideas for a comic for a number of years now. We've had tons of starter stories, but only 2 that we've been really liking enough to keep going with. Only thing is We're at a standstill and not sure where to go at this point. Also, we would like to get some feedback on the other chapters we've written for this thing (we have about 11 so far and we've almost cleared 100 pages) I would like to run it by some people, but one, I'm not sure if anyone would read it and two, as great or crappy as it is, I would not like to have people try to steal the stuffs, you know?

I will most likely make a friends only list for a certain few to read, but I would actually like to know if there would be anyone that would even want to read it in the first place, lol!

feel free to comment. If not I'll just assume no one wants to read it (which is understandable, everyone has a life!!)

I thought that taking an early shift would be awesome. I figured that I can work early as hell, and even if I get a full 8 hours, I still get out early enough in the day to get stuff done. If I had any idea that I'd be napping as many chances that I can get while at home, I wouldn't have done the job in the first place. There are alot of places that I can't go to now because everything starts so late in the day. I've had to turn down things to do with friends because even though a get together at 9 is a really decent time, it'll kill me because I have to be up and moving at almost a quarter to 5am.

Whenever Dee Jay comes over now, he makes sure i sleep in my room so he knows that I can get some peace and quiet in there. And I feel like crap because I'm driving him to my place to be alone. Well, there's video games and my brother and my nephew there to entertain him too, lol. But still...I feel bad.

And I wanted 2 for 1 sake tonight at tatame's too....grrrr....stupid work.

2 more weeks to go...just 2 more.

It's only for 3 weeks while I'm here in Orlando (I'm coming back in august though!) in Borders at winter park. It's not much money, but it's a paycheck and it's money I so desperately need so...yeah, I'm happy!

So we made it to Mobile Alabama last night and we're here visiting Meredith. I haven't seen much of the place yet, it's only been a few hours, but...man, I'd move here just to live in one of these houses!! Almost every house here is at least over 100 years old. Some are older still. In essence her house is small (1bd1bth) but they're really nice big rooms and the walls are SO FRIIGIN' tall! The windows look so elegant and...yeah, I'd live here just to live in one of these houses. So far, I love it, lol!

After we're done bothering her we're going to make our final long trip to Orlando. I'm looking forward to seeing my family again and I hope they don't mind me taking over a room with all the crap i brought with me, lol! I'd really like to try and get a job during my time there, but it's gonna be hard because I'm splitting my summer up between Orlando and NY to see my best friend there who btw is now 3 MONTHS pregnant! I'm sooo super excited for her and I so can't wait to be an auntie again! I get to hear my brother's son call me Titi and Jenny's future baby call me Aunite. And I can't wait. It's just so hard to believe that you know...we've known each other so long and all. We've played Barbie and had sleepovers and survived an almost entirely long distance friendship. I was her maid of honor and now...she's having a baby!!

oop! and Meredith is here now so we're gonna go!

especially when I have people breathing down my back to get ready...i guess it's payback. I'm usually the one pushing people on because I'm normally the one waiting for the rest. Ah well. What's another all nighter?

In a few days time I'll be back in Orlando.

Who wants to hang out???

Leave a comment and I will
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g) in return, you must post this in your LJ.


( Can't think anymore... )

Ok...I've got a 10 page paper due tomorrow, need sketches and preliminary work to show to my drawing class tomorrow, a mini sculpture due wednesday, a flash animation that I've yet to do and of course my final animation...

and my computer fails on me. So all that information???

*poof*

This doesn't feel like it's going to be a very good week for me...

August of 07 was a turning point for me. I was packing to make the biggest move of my life for my career with Dee Jay. We were attending AFO for the last convention as local con-goers before driving over 2500 miles to Minneapolis. It was on saturday, the 2nd day into the con, Dee Jay brought me up to the stage and in front of friends, family and strangers alike asked me to marry him. It is a piece of my life that I never want to forget. Dee Jayplanned ahead of time and borrowed my mother's camera and got a friend to record the event for us. What he didn't plan was someone stealing our camera just minutes after the event happened. I'm upset that someone took the camera of course, but I'm even more upset that they took the one piece of history that I wanted to keep so badly. So far I've only seen 3 links to the proposal on youtube, and I faved them all (although one of users removed it, which I feel bad about) Now I'm a little afraid that all of them could be taken down and I'd have nothing to remember that part of my life with.

So, this is sort of an odd question, but if anyone at all, anyone you know attended AFO 2007 and recorded the cosplay event with that proposal I would love it if you'd be able to send me a copy of it. It doesn't really matter how many versions I get, I just want them to save and view and remember.

In the same breath, and this one is sort of a long shot, if there is anyone that attended AFO 2007 and had found a Sony Handycam HC65 saturday evening, that was most likely the camera used to record my engagement. If you don't believe me, watch the tape that was inside. There was some BSing in at our hotel room with some friends playing video games and the convention itself. And at the very end was our proposal.

If the person that took the camera still has that tape and has not recorded over it yet, I would love to get it back. It may not be much to you, but it's something that's really important to me. I don't even want the camera so much as the tape that has our proposal inside.

So please, if there's anyone that reads this that may have any idea as to how to get a hold of this tape, please let me know.

My email is genkigroupie@yahoo.com

Pulled another all nighter in class with Dee Jay getting my manga bookcase built. Dee Jay thought of a really neat last minute idea as we were finishing the last coats of paint at 8 this morning. We went to the Art Cellar and got 4 sheets of handmade paper with 2 red shaded bamboo pattern. I was hesitant at first, but looking at that pattern inside the bookshelf makes it look SO good! I was thinking that if I ever got another bookcase to fit my growing manga collection in, I'd also wanted to use this as a display case too. And this nice background makes it a beautiful display for whatever knick-knacks or anime figurines we have, lol!

But yeah, I'd put in about 4 full hard day's work into this thing. Not including what i've already done during class time the past 4 weeks. This project has cost me almost 200 dollars in materials and supplies to make. I'm not sure I'd do it again (I need a good while to recover!) but I'm very very pleased with how it came out. Oh, there's tons of craftsmanship issues that I'm well aware of, but it's all fixable and I don't have to like, take anything apart to do so.

I'm proud of this. I put alot of work into this piece and flaws aside, I love to see it standing.

It. Is. Finished.

*goes back to bed*

I've been the f****ing 3d shop since about 8:30 this morning. I was chiseling (yes, with a real chisel and hammer) chunks of wood because I needed 8 lap joints to make the 2nd piece of my manga bookshelf, which is the shinto shrine. I've been chiseling from 8:30 to a little after 5pm. five f****ing pm! Amber finished one of the joints I had started because I was so worn out and hungry from not taking a break. That and considering all I had for breakfast was a glass of milk, I was pretty hungry. So thank you Glych, for keeping me from going insane, lol!

Dee Jay came by to help me which was great, because the project was getting too big for me to handle by myself. With his help, I got the shrine all sized up and glued in, I got the frame screwed into the bookcase itself and puttied whatever I didn't want to be seen (screws) and sanded them down afterward. Once all that work was done, Dee Jay helped me (it's SO heavy!) bring it down to the floor and

omg. It actually looks like a bookshelf. Not only that, it looks like a cool bookshelf (for me anyway, lol)

At around 8:30 Dee Jay took me to Home Depot to get some paint and to take me out to eat dinner. Man food tastes so much better when you deprive yourself of it, LMAO

And I need to say thank you so much Jenny for watching out for me the way you do. I can't thank you enough for what you and Chris have done for us. (I have to think of something though, because it seems that I'm racking up quite the debt, lol)

When we got back to the shop we did a few beginning coats of paint on the shelves. I can't believe it's finally coming together! I'm really looking forward to seeing it done, really.

That being said, I'm gonna call it at day. I'm JUST getting back from the shop and I have to be up early for advising day...go me.

*passes out*

I cannot believe that I've just spent over 9 hours in the shop yesterday. I've been working on one of my final pieces for my fd. 3d class which we had to make something with 3 legs. If it's functional it's furniture, if it's not, it's a sculpture...or that's how the teacher worded it I think. For my project I wanted to make a bookshelf to fit my manga collection in (or at least, some of it) so it's a 4 ft bookshelf sized just for manga sized books. It fits an oversized manga perfectly with an inch above for breathing room, so the regular sized manga will fit for sure. This is the only project that I've done that Dee Jay has given me the ok right off the bat to go for. The other 2 that I've done he's told me right off the bat were too hard for me. Progress has been going at a snail's pace for the longest, because I kept having to stop to make sure I had enough supplies to finish the work and of course there was alot of planning involved so far as measurements go and stuff like that. I just don't want to screw up the cuts I need and stuff. It'd be stupid to waste money that way.

For awhile though, the thing was just a bunch of planks of wood loosely screwed in. I had just a frame of what it was supposed to look like. Yesterday though, I got all the cuts for the shelves done, hammered all the shelves in, pre-drilled, screwed in the shelves to the bookshelf, wood puttied all the screws and the 2 inch gaps for the shelves (the shelf width is 8 inches, but the frame itself is 10, so I had a 2 inch gap that I didn't want on all of the shelves) and started chiseling the notches I needed for the biggest part of the bookshelf itself: the Shinto shrine that's going to be attached to the front of the shelf. The legs of the shrine are going to serve as 2 of the 3 feet for the project and Dee Jay screwed in a piece of wood to the back of the base for my 3rd leg.

We were laying it out yesterday on a table while we got the measurements for the chiseling. I gotta say, I'm reeeally excited about this one. this thing with the shrine stands at over 80 inches tall, and I'm making the biggest in the class. I can't take all the credit though, Dee Jay has helped me out immeasurably and I'm positive that without his help, I would've had to drop out of this class or failed it a long time ago. I hit a really nasty slow snag in the project when it came to chiseling and it made me feel really bad that Dee Jay has had to come straight from work to help me on this. I actually feel really bad that he's had to help me in all of my projects though too. I mean don't get me wrong, I really appreciate all that he's done for me, but it does suck donkeys on ice that I can't just go at it with no experience like my drawing classmate Kadja or Sam or Moose or Keith or Amber...alot of those people are at the same standing as I am and are going to be persuing different majors like graphic design and and animation and stuff too, but they get it. And I just...don't. It's been a really hard time for me in this class, because I really hoped that I would've liked this class enough to learn more about sculpture or furniture design. I love the notion of being able to look at your place and be like, I need a new dining table. Some chairs would be nice too. Ooh, this would be a neat idea for a sofa.

And you can just go out and MAKE them.

Unfortunately, I've not been granted the intelligence level to be left alone with a power tool of any kind. And the moment I'm stuck in a corner I have to run for help. And I'm SOO slow at everything. Dee Jay had said that whenever we buy a house, we're going to get a fixer-upper so we can customize it how we want to. After this class I told him he's going to have to do that on his own. I laughed at it (kinda) but I'm only half kidding. While I'm really proud of this piece, I'm really disappointed with the work I've produced in the class up till now and this sort of work has really left a bad taste in my mouth.

Sorry about the rant...I'm moody I guess. It could also be that it's 6am, I've been up since about 4, and I have to be back in the shop at around 8.

*Breathes deeply*

whoo-sha....

ALL OF YOUR CREATIVE RIGHTS ARE ABOUT TO BE LOST!

There is a bill called ORPHAN WORKS whose goal is to take all copyrights away from all of us. Painters, graphic artists, photographers...ANYONE

People are trying reeeeeallly hard to pass this bill. As early as before summer. If this bill happens, you will lose ALL rights to your work! And I'm not even talking about finished work posted on the internet. This includes everything from studies to sketchbook doodles, napkin art....ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING that you've ever done!

This is a REAL important matter to anyone in any part of the art field! this can't happen!

Follow the link to hear the whole thing http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html

and here's a LONG winded paper on it (it's 133 pages, long)
http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report.pdf

And I know it may be a little dry, but listen to the whole thing. There's alot of information that needs to be heard.

This is a real threat to artists and everything we've ever done. This is SO wrong, it's more than not funny...it's downright scary.

Dee Jay said it best "I think the school's conditioned you pretty well". That stung more than it was supposed to I think and it's still hard to swallow now, but when you skip out of school for almost an entire week and don't manage to get any sort of work done you know what happens? Nothing. Nothing happens. All that work that was supposed to be submitted just gets piled on to the next week. So I have twice as much to do on my only 2 days off, and twice as much to worry about. I understand that I need the rest, I understand that it's ok to slack every so often. But when it's this much work and it takes SO long to complete sometimes we really just can't afford to waste that time. He's upset at me, I know it. It was all over his face this morning. I just didn't know what else to do. I honestly feel like skipping again and crying for the rest of the day. I just feel so pissed.

I'm also trying to figure out what I'm going to do about summer break. I want to work, but I hate to say it...I'm really tired of working retail. Call me zealous, but I want to do something more related to what I'm spending 32 grand a year on. I'd like to do more art/anime commissions, but I'm not sure where to post prices up at. Hell, I don't even know how to price anymore. I've always been told that we are WAY underpriced, but I'm not sure if we're at that experience level to charge anymore than we are now. I'm also trying to figure out how to advertise, so to speak. I'm tempted to post on DA but I don't want to sound all high and mighty by doing it.

Crap, school is starting in 10 min.....grrrr

I spent a good portion of he evening getting my pieces up for the Merit Scholarship that is going to be judged tomorrow. I'm a little nervous. Dee Jay convinced me to put everything I've done (including my first one, Jason's Shitty Day) I'm just scared. I've seen some of the stuff that's been put up before and seriously these people don't play. I mean, I'm supposed to expect that but...*shudder* I got a spot in front of the computer support room on the 3rd floor (not the most popular of spots) But it's my own fault for not getting there on time. I just didn't realize how desperate people were to be on the 1st and 2nd floor. I like my spot actually. Since my pedestal looked really lonely on that big wall, I went home and grabbed some of my animation frames and a couple morgues and tacked them haphazardly around the monitor and on the pedestal walls themselves so that it didn't look so boring. Granted, it probably looks tacky, but I wanted the walls to look like what the wall by my desk looks like when I'm drawing and it really does look like a big mess of papers tacked up any which way. Dee Jay printed me out my name thingie in anime ace font. And that was like, my finishing touch right there. I've never had something like this up for me. I know it's not anything to make a big deal over, but I'm sorta happy that I have my own little gallery thingie there. I'm still scared out of my mind, but walking by it and seeing my bunny run away from a lumberjack wielding and axe and a flying machete makes me a little proud ^_^

Now, I'm going to take full advantage of this blessing of God and try to get some sleep. I don't get very many luxuries like this so I have to take them whenever I can!!!

Now off to get some breakfast!!!

I can't believe spring break came and went the way it did! *sob*
Not that I'd done anything spectacular worth blogging about. Since Saturday, I've been going to bed at around 12, getting up between 12-2 in the afternoon, and taking walks outside. We'll go out on a whim, Dee Jay took me to the Utrecht art supply store downtown and I got some new ink pens and had a nice walk downtown. We also got some really yummy food at an asian supermarket in St. Paul. So, I need to go back to one of the closer ones here on Eat Street and stock up on pork buns, red bean mochi and lap cheong (chinese sweet sausages) which are soooo delicious it's not even funny. Slice those suckers up really nice and thin with some white rice...seriously, it's my new favorite breakfast.

I've done some homework (not as much as I should've been but whatever, it's spring break) but what's been killing me over and over that I've actually been working on since last week is my sound animation homework that was due...oh, LAST FRIDAY. Not that I wanted to bring it in late, it's just that I seem to have scanned in paper that Satan made I think. I spent days, weeks, storyboarding, character designing, looking at convincing run cycles and then putting the time into the drawing and getting good magazine clippings for the 2d pieces of it. The thing was working out well. Things were looking good and then I go to render it and...

it crashes.

Not only does it crash, it saves a bad copy of what I've done, and closes the AE program alltogether. I start it again, do it over, go to render it and CRASH again. It wouldn't bother me as much if it werent for the fact that it was crashing and dying and NOT letting me complete the thing for about 10 hours. I go to class as soon as I find out the teacher is there and I'm standing there looking at him, with my hair messed up, in my pajamas pretty much, with huge bags under my eyes because I've been working ALL NIGHT on trying to figure out why the damn thing wasn't working, just hoping for an answer to all my stress.

It's a sad day when your own teacher has no idea what you did wrong.

Thankfully, he told me that I seemed sincere enough in my dilemma and gave me the break to work on it. And did you know it's taken up till TODAY to actually find out that the solution to the thing that's been giving me all this grief and stress was a friggin' layer overlay problem. OMG I just about wanted to throw my computer out the window and switch my major to fine art studio. At least I don't have to worry about all this crap when I'm drawing and painting, lol.

I can't wait to get this thing done because I don't want to touch it anymore for the rest of my life, lol!

Other than that, things are great. I've forgotten about the luxury of nothing and how good it feels to be a part of it, lol! I know that I'm sort of dreading going back to school, but at least I've had almost 8 full days of rest and relaxation and recooperating from all the stress and pain from school lol! Now I think I'm ready to take on the last 6 weeks of school.

Can you believe it?? 6 more weeks!!! Whooo hooooo!!!!

Or at least rooting for it to get here soon if it hasn't already, lol!
I'm taking a 30 second stop-looking-at-homework-before-I-go-insane break. We've had a little streak of nice warm weather out lately (36 degrees outside!) and everything outside is getting all slushy and wet and soggy because of the mass amount of snow that's melting now. But! It's great inbetween weather which I love. Not super chilly, not sweat shop hot either. This is Goldielocks weather. It's juuust right.