howlin'

WHoo Friday!

Kristen's brother Anthony is in town for the weekend.

Got up a little earlier than I did yesterday. Had toast and emergen-c. Ate my sloppy burgers later on as well.

Yoga had some insane hip folds. Like...sustained pigeon and stuff. Friday yoga focuses on longer poses and the "yin" side of things. It was a lot of hard work but it feels good to really work out the body. It was hard getting my bike into the studio because Joey's film set up blocked the entrance to my studio. But it wasn't blocked on the way out.

Kristen, Mark, Anthony, and I went to see Howl at Cinema 21. Howl as in Allen Ginsberg. The film was in part an animated telling of the poem, the court case, reenactments of what preceded the poem, and reenactments of an interview. Ginsberg was played brilliantly by James Franco. It was a special showing. 21 years ago on this day, Ginsberg read in Cinema 21. The showing was presented by Gus Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy, Milk, Good Will Hunting) in person! He introduced the movie and a guy who knew Ginsberg. He also pulled up on Skype James Franco! Who couldn't quite hear us but gave some good feedback about his role.

Anyway, that was really cool and it didn't even cost extra! The film was good as well. It had a great balance in visual styles and the changes between time periods were depicted clearly and were well paced. Good film, aided by having a fabulous introduction. Worth checking out on DVD I say.

Mark treated us to Sushi afterwards. Yay sushi! Now we are enjoying tea. Three days in the weekend left. Time to get cracking.

my (thurs)day off

Ahh glorious Thursday. Sleep in. Eat some oatmeal. Went down to Trader Joe's to get some salad and apples and bananas and other stuff. It was a gloomy cold day. Boo. It was warm yesterday. Portland needs to make up its mind. Halibut and salad and orange juice for late lunch.

Chatted with mom on the phone and talked about phone plans and how phones tend to be specific to plans so switching plans would mean getting new phones...most likely.

All but one fish in the fish tank have died. Need to get some more.

Also did some more laundry. Whoo clean stuff!

Then when it was drying I went out for a quick First Thursday trip. Went down to see Monsterbation at Pony Club. It was gory and visceral and naughty, but a really good show. Gnarly theme, good artists. Dom, Sivonna, Jon, and Erin all had pieces in it. Went back to Gann Brothers Publishing to see Robin's work on display. Karen, BT, and Mel were there with snacks. I partook in snacks and then headed back to the apartment for laundry and Community.

Great episode of Community. Chilled for the rest of the night. Tomorrow is work time. Yoga! There is also a Get Stuff Done night at Karen's, but I think the stuff I need to get done wouldn't be done so well there. Time to make a list!

dried and ready to go

Last week, the week of blah and anxiety, really screwed up my sleep schedule. Didn't get that much sleep and didn't intake any caffeine. When the after lunch animation screenings rolled around, I fell asleep during one. But I have it written down so I'll check it out when I'm conscious.

Anyway. Got up. Tried blow drying my hair. And surprise surprise when you use a comb and don't dry dense clumps of hair, it actually goes quite quick! Who knew?

Animation was critique of the Dragon stop motion projects. Hill had an amazing Rubik's Cube show down that had a long solving sequence. Ours was well received, especially the focus. It ended up being in a weird format though. Stupid iMovie. Oh well. Oh wait. The critiques happened after lunch. Before lunch Rose gave a nice lecture on the unrreal in animation and we watched some Jan Svankmejer and some stuff from the Brothers Quay. Really surreal stop motion stuff. Good, just surreal.

I got some soup and bread for lunch and sat on the loading dock with Morgaine and listened to a girl drum on plastic buckets. She was really good. The soup, not so much. But I put it in the school fridge to eat later.

It was nice and warm outside, but the animation lab was cold. Spent most of the day in windowless rooms. So yeah, we critiqued and then the teachers swapped out. Anouk showed us how to do joint puppets for our next animation. And she showed us some videos too. That was when I took a nap. Then we worked on our character concepts for the puppet. TJ and Kelly and Anouk and some other classmates all talked about their kids. I've never been in a class with so many parents before.

I stopped in at the print lab and Karen's thesis poster is looking awesomely awesome. BT was helping pull paper. Then I finished my bread and soup and sketched some stuff.

In class we reviewed thumbnails for the first part. I'm doing a snarling self portrait tee shirt. It should be awesome. Once I get it drawn, I'll ask for shirts so that anyone who wants one, can have one. The rest of class was a lecture on portfolio stuff and review of portfolio. I'm a little behind on that, but I'll get cracking. Just need to locate the good quality version files of my artwork.

Walked home with Kristen. Put my feet up. Time to doze off now. Before I knew it, my weekend had started again. Dang.

yeah buoy

I can't find my favorite sunglasses. I don't think they are lost, just severely misplaced.

Woke up this morning to find that somehow or another, a bunch of spam email was sent out from my email. Don't know how to stop it or what it was about, but thankfully people seemed to take notice that it was spam. Also cleaned out my email contact list. Had a lot of people I don't remember in it. Ha.

Anyway, slept in. Got up. Did the morning routine. Picked out my books. Read my email. Actually got a good response from Martin and Iskra about my thesis prompt mock up thingie. I'm starting to find some good directions of thought to go down. I just need to concentrate on verbalizing these directions more. In class Martin gave us a little speech. It was the "I'm not going to talk about that email but you should all be thinking about it so I don't even need to put you in your place" talk about what to do for the next assignment and things. Say what you will, he can command a room. Then we had private meetings with him. Madeline went first and when she was done we walked and chatted. I returned and had my meeting. It went well. Talked about some of the directions I want to go in and the directions I don't want to go in. It was mainly encouragement for thoughtful design and not dumbing things down and maybe making some posters to go along with the zines. Yeah.

Beth and I rode back to my apartment and I made sloppy burgers for us! We, along with Kristen and Tabitha, had a nice little lunch gab and bitch session. Now I have sloppy burgers to eat for lunch tomorrow. Hurrah! It was nice. Then yoga came and Beth went home.

There were 12 people in yoga! And I'm actually a little more in shape that I thought I was. My strength isn't totally gone. My flexibility is and my mind keeps wandering more than usual.

Stopped by the print lab to give Karen an encouragement hug. Her latest poster is looking wicked awesome. Can't wait for it to be finished.

Went home. Watched Raising Hope. Which all of you totally need to be watching. It is hilarious. Then I ate some pasta and did hella dishes. This school week isn't heavy on things being due. Next week is. I'll have a busy (thank god) five days.

Now to sleep. Long day!

starting up again

Yesterday:

Another miserable pointless day.

Today:

Point has been found! I went to William Temple House with Kristen to check out the self help section, because there might be some research potential in there. Get some cheesy stuff about social groups or whatever. I walked away with Cat Fight: Rivalries Among Women - From Diets to Dating, From the Boardroom to the Delivery Room, The 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The Healing Connection: How Women Form Relationships in Therapy and in Life, Quality Living in the Semicircle of Life, and The Farther Shore: A Natural History of Perception. All for 2 bucks or less. And I picked up a kicking pair of white heeled booties. Yeaaah! The reading I had was way out of my depth. This stuff seems more on my level. And I'm actually a little bit excited about them. Especially Catfight. I was talking with Kristen about how women sometimes reinforce negative self image through the repetition of negative words like "fat free" "dieting" and other things. Like...women bring each other down more than popular media in my opinion. So I got to thinking about that, and the way my self image has changed since women have come into my social group more dominantly. Actually that comes into my mind often.

There might be something there to talk about. Something that interests me. What kind of art would come from it, who knows. But the idea that peer groups can also be negatives...who knows? All though Psychology Today reports that social groups with more women tend to have higher esteem, because women also toss out little compliments on a more regular basis. "Oh your hair looks nice" "great jacket" and so on. Two sides.

But yeah, once that thinking started, I began to feel a lot better.

House and Lie to Me were on tonight. Whoo television.

Tomorrow is just professional practices. But it is the scary class with Martin. But I have research materials to bring in! And thoughts to discuss! Then yoga! Then Glee! Then Raising Hope! But before that, Student Council. Well, I don't really need to go to that. Nothing I am interested in is up for vote and that would mean getting up at a reasonable time. I should probably spend time reading before class. Getting things sorted out and ready. Duh duh duuuh.

Actually looking at this Quality Living in the Semicircle of Life book...has a lot of medical stuff. These books are for sort of skimming and chapter jumping anyway.

bad

AHHHG BAD TRILLIAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING? NOTHING! AHHH!

Sod it all. There is no motivation, and this is the big kahuna. I don't understand what is going on.

I took a walk to get and make change for laundry. Takes a lot of quarters and I don't tend to have change. It was a nice walk. Sure I can get laundry quarters from Trader Joe's but it was a nice day and I felt like walking and listening to audiobook. The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. Narrated by Ron Perlman. It was a nice walk. Got some groceries as well. Made what I call sloppy burgers. Not sloppy joe's as I didn't try to follow a recipe. I just cooked up some ground beef, onion, and when that was cooked I added ketchup, mustard, and barbecue sauce. Then I plopped that onto some burger buns and had a salad. Yum! I have two left over for, well, left overs.

I haven't had this low of energy and tasks to accomplish for ages. Years maybe...if you exclude summer. I came back into school and being part time with no job leaves too much time.

I should get a job. It would get me out of the house. But then once I get cracking on the real school work....like...I like having the time to devote to my education but I'm in a free falling stand still now. I don't know what to do.

Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad.

I just sit, sleep, eat, and stare.

Need to start making some lists. Some things to get done. Animation has some stuff. I have to sort through all my art back ups and track down the quality documentation files. Have to think about my damned thesis and get all WHOOO about it. I just want to draw portraits of people I like! I should just draw some portraits anyway, just for fun. Get me in the mood for other art practices. Yeah. That will be good. Also have to come up with some sketches for the advanced illustration assignment. Mm this is good positive thinking. Thinking of things to do that will get me on the right track.