Ring In

So, 2012, eh? Or rather, a lack of 2011, eh? In years previous I've done a big ol' wrap up thing, where I said what my favourite movie/album/game/event/food/weather pattern/colour/screwdriver head was. Buuuut... Not this year. 2011 wasn't a whole lot of fun, I've gotta say. It was another year of school and work, nothing too notable. Well, financially, the year went a bit better than I expected. Alas, like every year, I still had two significant car issues.

Over the last few months, though, it seems like I've been hit upside the head with the Brick of Existentialism. The resulting haze has left me stumbling and fumbling around with a fistful of uncertainties that are keeping me up at night. But, oddly enough, I've come away with a couple of important realizations. I'm not sure if they're directly the result of said existentialist ponderings or if they just happened to come along at the same time and as a result of other things that have been transpiring. What are those realizations? Drawing/sketching and making music are important to me. Ok, so maybe they're more 'rediscoveries', but that still counts, right?

It's kinda sad that it's taken me this long to figure these two things out. I think that taking the illustration course last fall really killed what enjoyment I got out of drawing. It's tough when everything you do is to meant to be evaluated and scrutinized. I produced some good pieces that I'm really proud of, for sure, but along the way I completely lost sight of whatever personal fulfillment I got from the process. And over the last two months, I've found that I really enjoy drawing when it's meant for me. Not only that, but I've found that I enjoy drawing in a physical sketchbook. I still want to do more digital stuff, but I've been doing all sketchbook stuff over the winter break so far, and I've been having a good time with it.

The need to make music started with a classmate who started keeping a guitar in the studio at the beginning of the year. He'd pick it up and noodle away during break and during the weekends we spent on campus. It was fun to watch, and nice to listen to. I picked it up to try it maybe twice before the summer break, but his musical antics were enough to persuade me to go and buy a cheap ukulele. And I fell in love with it, strumming out stupid little chords. I can't sing along to save my life, but it's such a great feeling to sit there and mess around. And you know you've found something good when you think to yourself "I'll just play for ten minutes and then I'll get back to work", and when you look up you realize that forty minutes had swept by while you were trying to figure out that one chord progression. It's a great feeling. Bad for my work ethic, of course, but a great feeling nonetheless. And now I find myself with a mandolin that is just as easy and addictive to play. I've been neglecting the sax a bit, though. When I get that out I get totally sucked in. It's a 1.5hr commitment, at minimum.

And I've also kinda figured that, yeah, writing is important too. This is generally one of the first casualties to the start of a new semester, but I get a lot out of it when I do it. There's a certain peace from knowing that my ideas have been recorded somewhere and won't be a victim to my poor memory. Then there's the cathartic/expressive part to it, being able to form thoughts into coherent words, sorting things out in my head so that they make sense. And then with some more frustrating things, it's a liberating thing to get it out and put it online, so that it can grow its own wings to fly away from me.

I'm usually not the one for cliche, optimistic New Years resolutions. But I seem to have a long, growing list of things I want to change or do differently. So here is three of the more obvious ones. I'm going to keep doing blog posts (at least) once a week, homework be damned. They may be short and stupid and disjointed, but they'll happen.

I'm also going to keep sketching regularly. Don't know if I'll do it every day or not, but hopefully at least a couple of times a week. If nothing else, I want to regularly attend figure drawing, which happens once a week.

Finally, keep playing instruments, at least a few times a week. Pretty similar to sketching - try and find the time to make it happen as regularly as possible. Keeping the ukulele at school will make it easy to play. The trick will be the mandolin and sax, which I keep at home. I'll need to make the time to be here with the energy to do it.

Something to shoot for. These are probably going to be the three easier goals for me to tackle, but I think it doesn't make them less important. It'll help me to spend some time not working, if anything else, which I'm sure I could use.

So, yeah. 2011 kinda sucked. But I think it might be the start of... Something. And maybe 2012 is going to suck too, as I try and see that something through. But hopefully that path will make life better as I travel farther along it. Okay, Mr. 2012. Let's see where we go from here.
-Cril

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky
The flying cloud, the frosty light
The year is dying in the night
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die
The year is dying in the night
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die

Ring out the old, ring in the new
Ring, happy bells, across the snow
The year is going, let him go
Ring out the false, ring in the true
The year is going, let him go
Ring out the false, ring in the true

Mormon Tabernacle Choir - Ring Out, Wild Bells