Chuggin'

I think I've done it. I've completed all of the four projects due this week over the course of the last three days. Well, almost. I have a few secondary/trivial things to wrap up, but the majority of the hardcore work is completed. I'd say that it's a nice feeling, but the weekend is over and by the time tomorrow afternoon rolls around I'll have another project to work on. And I have a bajillion other things I should be doing inbetween. Blargh.

Aaaand I'm not sure what else to say, really. If this week will be par for the course in terms of workload, I think I'll be in decent shape for the rest of the year. I can handle this. Probably.

You know, it's a bit nerve wracking. I have four projects due this week, and I had my first crit last week. So THIS WEEK I'll find out how well I'm doing. I have all new instructors except for one, and even then now that I'm in the VC program I'm wondering if the marking criteria will be even tougher. I'll be finding out soon enough.

I'm house-sitting at the moment, so I'm not at my home machine where my CT-024 images are kept. Thus, I can't upload a new pic for the series this weekend. Bummer. This will have to do - the result of my first due assingment. It's from Typography class, where we were assigned a word and had to show the meaning of it by writing out the word with objects in an environment. I was given 'emphasis':



Not entirely pleased with how it came out. I find the dark bar along the bottom (the floor) to be rather distracting. Also, once you print it out and step back more than three feet, you can't tell any passages have been highlighted. This is a bad thing to discover thirty seconds after you put it up on the wall for crit. I coulda/shoulda beefed it up in Photoshop. Well, I actually did. But not enough, apparently. Oh well, I think the composition and concept are pretty solid. We'll see where the marks land.

...sorry folks, that's all I got for this week. It's been nothing but sex, drugs, and homework. Minus the first two parts. What a glamorous life I lead.
-Chris.

Count Basie - How Long Blues

Now the rain's a-fallin'

So I mentioned last year that the ratio of gals to dudes in art school was something like 3:1, right? Well, in the Visual Communications program, I think that figure may be closer to 5:1. Don't know why. But each class is made of ~20 students, and most of the time it's just me and one other guy. Sometimes there's one or two more. Apparently there are more gals than guys enrolling in post-secondary as is, but I get the feeling that art school, particularly the program and class I'm a part of, is a little bit more estrogen-heavy than other Name Brand Institutions.

Well, alright then. I mean, it's a bit awkward being on of the only ~10 guys in my entire class/grade/program, but that's okay. I'll get to observe and bask in a classroom culture dominated by the fairer sex. I'll witness first-hand several relationships and social circumstances generated by the kinder, and more patient and wise gender. Who knows, with those odds I might even be able to find a girl who's dense enough to be interested in the likes of yours-truly.

So I was sitting there in class, pondering this very topic, when I overhear a conversation taking place behind me. Some girl pipes up, "I don't, like, really want to, like, get married or anything. As long as I get a boyfriend who will take me places and buy me diamonds, I'll be happy."

For reals. She was absolutely serious. Either that, or I cannot read the wimminz at all. Stay classy, ladies.
-Cril

My mama done tol' me
When I was in knee-pants
My mama done tol' me, Son
A woman'll sweet talk
And give ya the big eye
But when the sweet talkin's done
A woman's a two-face
A worrisome thing who'll leave ya to sing the blues
In the night

Sergio Vellatti - Blues in the Night

Triumphantless Return

I just survived the first three days of classes, and, uh... It was easier than expected, to tell the truth. But this, folks, is what we call "a false sense of security". I'm sure it'll go all to hell very shortly.

In a nutshell, I did well with the in-class stuff, and had all my homework completed by late Saturday. I feel, dare I say, on top of things. Still, this will be my first full week and I'm sure it'll be a lot more intense than what I've done so far. To assume that the rest of the year will be similar to the first three days is a stupid assumption to make. And yet I want to believe it so badly...

It was subtle, but I've made a shift into 'school' mode. I was digging through some laundry in my room the other evening, when I realized that my world had gone two shades grayer. And I'm not talking about dust, either. It's that mentality where you're not quite seeing the world at hand, because you know there are more important things you need to be concentrating on. I've also noticed that, almost overnight, I've become incompetent at multiplayer video games. I just can't stack up against anyone else in the server - instead of being in the top ~5 spots on the scoreboard, I'm in the lower 5. Can't aim fast enough to get off the shots. Not thinking and moving tactically. And I was fine last weekend, even. It's like a switch - all of the sudden I'm just not feelin' it. I've discovered that letting my mind idle is a stressful thing to do. I get super worked up, as pick up speed circling the drain on my way to being totally overwhelmed. I worry about class A then B then C, then the car, then class D, then finances, then class E... It's a slippery slope. Uncomfortably slick.

It doesn't help that one of the first things the professors told us upon returning was proper nutrition for pulling an all-nighter. Eat once an hour, carbs and proteins, no sugar/sweets and no energy drinks. Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Oh, that familiar sinking feeling. Just when I thought "Okay, maybe I can do this..." everything gets called into question. I don't operate well on a lack of sleep. And maybe it's all an intimidation thing, but still. It doesn't help.

I secretly wish I didn't have a large portion of this weekend "off". I feel so unproductive, and everything I've done with my time feels so unsatisfactory. Maybe I should've gone in to work. That'd be a bit of a challenge - my desk/computer has already been cannibalized for other employees. Oh well, so it goes.

I'm tired. There were other things I wanted to say, I think, but I can't recall them. Maybe that's just school working on my brain, making me feel all sorts of scrambled.

My room mates started watching The 4400 the other day, and I watched the pilot episode with them. Man, that was a good show. I wish I could watch it again too.

Bleh. I'm feelin' so... Unsettled.
-Cril

Ronald Jenkees - Stay Crunchy

Beaten and Blown by the Wind

I had a discussion with my younger (~7 year old) cousin a little ways back. I forget what exactly started it off - I think we were discussing the car on my desktop wallpaper - a Porsche 911 Turbo S - and I mentioned to him "A lot of race cars have engines in the back, behind where you sit". He noted that my car is front engined, saying "But you have a race car!" I chuckled and replied "Well, most of the super cool race cars have their engines in the back." I wasn't expecting his response - "But you're super cool!"

Hah. The kind of an observation that can only be the product from the mind of a small child. I miss those simple times, the basic "if x then y" logic that was so obvious and unquestionable. Not having to worry about working overtime to pay for school or where you're going to park your fancy-schmancy super-cool 15 year-old Acura "sports car". Heh.

This week I discovered a thing called TSD Rallying (Time Speed Distance), where the objective is to be as close as you can to maintaining an average speed in between different stages. These take place on paved and dirt roads, over a total course length of 100-700 kilometers. Cars are staggered by one minute, so you'll seldom come in direct contact with another driver. The best part? After paying the $70 registration fee, any road-legal car can participate. A quick look through some online classifieds show that there are fistfuls of Cavaliers and Neons that can be had for around $500. Feels like a rather reasonable/cheap investment considering it'd be the easiest way to get into freaking rally driving. It's the kind of thing that's so approachable and easy to get into. I really wish I had known about it earlier, particularly before starting school. I spent so many years working and going home to spend my time gaming or drawing or browsing the internet. Not necessarily bad things... But they certainly pale in comparison to what I could have been doing once a month or so with an old beat-up car. Maybe next summer. If not, I will be doing it three to four years from now.

I slept in this morning. I didn't even set the alarm. It's probably the first time I've intentionally done so... In a while. I even took Saturday off - I did it once for the long August weekend, but aside from that I simply can't recall the last Saturday I didn't go to work or spend the whole day on school assignments. Christmas break, probably.

Why am I slacking off right before the start of school? I'm tired. In the bones. But I came on this realization when I got my paystub for August. Turns out that over the past two months I've logged 120+ hours of overtime at work. Not bad, I guess. Three weeks of full-time work accumulated within eight. I'm sure I could turn that into some sort of clever ratio or percentage, but I'd rather not like to know. On one hand it's a relief - it'll probably pay for three months of rent. On the other hand... I feel like I've wasted away a big chunk of my summer. I could've done more. I should've done more. Being the summer, I got a pretty sorry case of the lazies. Hopefully I can jump back on the horse in short order. Well, I'm not going to have a choice in the matter.

But now the clock winds down. I have little time left in my summer, and I've tried to make the most of it. Watched some movies, played some games with friends. The last thing on my bucket list is to do some laser engraving, watch one last movie, and play my sax/ocarina. I'm not convinced I'll be able to get to all of them, especially considering classes start on Wednesday, I work tomorrow, need to get my supplies ready, the movie is 3hrs long, and... I'm all sorts of stressed out. Bleh.

Of course, I say this like there won't be any time or opportunity to do these things while I'm actually in school. Which, unfortunately, is most likely the case. I desperately want to convince myself that the second year will, of course, be much better than the first. It's not a crazy notion to hope that things will get better, right? Well, any which way I look at it I don't think it'll add up that way. I won't be working, sure. But there'll be even more hours in class and more homework. I've done the math over and over, skewed it this way and that, and I can't find a way to manipulate it to look encouraging. At best, it'll be a repeat of last year (except for a more rapidly draining back account, due to not being able to work). At worst... I dunno. Last year was rough. I dunno how it could get worse. During the first year, we had a bunch of presentations by senior year students, and they all said that second year was the toughest. Go figure.

But there are good things about school to grasp like straws and cling to, right? There are some decent people it'd be nice to see again. There's a lot of incredible talent and amazing artwork to behold. One of the great things about art school is that you can't take anything for granted. Nothing is strange. Well, let me rephrase that - there are plenty of weird things that come out of that school. But if you see something that feels out of the ordinary - some peculiar graffiti or an odd arrangement of litter - you can't take it at face value, because it might be "art".

At the end of one day, I was leaving class and walking through the main mall to head out to the parking lot. Littered across part of the floor was a field of popcorn. Sure, you'd think it was garbage, that someone had dropped a container of everyone's favourite buttered snack. But no, at art school you can't make such assumptions. I stood and watched for a few minutes while other students, trying to leave campus, carefully tip-toed through the mess. Not a kernel was disturbed, less a delicate or intentional pattern would be upset. It was funny. Before long, it was my turn and I did the same. I have no idea if I was being watched, or if it was an art project or not. This kind of a thing is a regular occurrence by now. Something that I'm used to, something that I don't really bat an eye at. But it's still an amusing notion, when something you'd expect to be unusual is just ordinary, and vice versa.

My sleep has been... Agitated lately. Just like being awake. A bundle of nerves, a bundle of nerves. A perpetual state of uneasiness. I'm being tortured by the butterflies inside me. I woke up early Saturday morning - forfeiting whatever precious rest I may or may have not gained by sleeping in - to watch the sun rise. So I got in my super cool sports car and drove to a park - one that's practically comprised of a single, bumpy, rolling hill. I walked to the top, stood in the (surprisingly warm) early morning breeze, and took a few shots. I brought along my iPod and headphones, but oddly enough they stayed around my neck. I just kinda took it in. Listened to the wind in the grass, the birds, and the waves of traffic pulsing by the road below. It was nice. A peculiar, isolated moment of peace.

Anyways, the movie I've been watching while writing this has drawn to a close. Just like my summer. I'll survive the next eight months, right? There's TSD rallying on the other side to look forward to. Three more years. Three more years.
-Cril

I want to run
I want to hide
I want to tear down the walls
That hold me inside
I want to reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name

I want to feel sunlight on my face
I see the dust cloud disappear without a trace
I want to take shelter from the poison rain
Where the streets have no name

Derek Webb - Where the Streets Have No Name