Good News and Bad News

Right. So the good news is that we finished the house. We now have new carpet, new hardwood floors, new painted walls, newly cleaned rooms, and new carpet.

Of course this means that we can on longer be on the carpet with food or drink which is annoying, but by the time summer rolls around Dad should be fine again.

He also hadn’t wanted to put up a tree this year. 1) We got rid of our 15ft fake tree last year. 2) We haven’t found a new on that fits the new requirements. 3) Dad didn’t want a mess in the newly made room.

However, my sisters and I were adamant on getting one so decided that we would look for a real one and put it all up ourselves. All the boys would have to do is be quiet.

So we got our mom and set out. Of course though it was the 22nd and the roads were packed. First we stopped and got lights, a tree carpet, and water collector. We then set out to the garden shop we know still had some trees before trying the farms. We never actually got there though.

On the way we were passing by the old church were the Boy Scouts sell trees every year. They had just finished the day before, but 2 trees were still there. So we checked it out. Turned out that one of them was great - about 6.5 ft tall with no major holes. There was no sign, no rope, no nothing that indicated you couldn’t just take it - so we did and decorated it that night as a family. It has a few issues, but for a free tree it is great.

On to the bad news.

On Thursday the 20th I let out cat Minnie outside as normal. She is an indoor/outdoor cat and enjoys hunting so I thought nothing of it. That night she didn’t come back before dark (which she normally does in the winter) and we had a rain storm that night. We honestly haven’t seen her since that Thursday afternoon.

We have looked everywhere around the house, but with 55 acres in the back - about 50 of them being woods - it is really hard to even look. I’ve put up notices on Facebook, have the shelters on alert, sent out flyers to our neighbors, but we’re really worried. I honestly think she got hurt in the storm and is unable to get to us. Hopefully she can get to someone’s house and they take her to the vet (which we are contacting the day after Christmas).

All we can do is hope.

I'm Alive

Yeah, it’s been a while. Sorry.

Anyway, getting home was...fine, it just seems like I can’t travel without something happening. I had to fly out of Tampa and leave my car at school so as not to pay for a month of parking. So I scheduled a pickup from a shuttle service I used last year. They comforted it - 10:30 am at Publix - my reservation. My roommate give me a ride and we get there at 10:32. No shuttle. We waited, called dad, waited, and waited until 11 and gave up. Thankfully my fight wasn’t actually until 5 so my dad was able to go on a different shuttle at 2. Fun.

But I got home in one piece. Made my parents see Wreck it Ralph with my youngest sister and I, went out to eat, did some Christmas shopping, had a lazy day, and scheduled a time to see my girls at Moore College.

And that was what I did Tuesday. I took a train a bit before noon and got to the school by 1 and walked around waiting for someone to get out of class. I was very upset to see Moe Brooker’s name not on his door anymore (my Design teacher and the one responsible for me liking design) but he is only teaching Graduate classes from what I hear.

It was a great time. I got to see my old roommate and catch up with most of my friends I left (they were in the middle of finals so were a bit busy), toured the LOVE park with it’s Christmas fair with my old roommate, went out to dinner with some people, and just had a good time.

Originally I was going to stay in Philly, but with my one Grandfather not doing great I decided to take the train to his house instead. Meaning I had to take a train from Philly to Trenton, change trains then go from Trenton to Metro-park. Simple, I’ve done it tons of times when I actually went to Moore, but traveling is impossible for me this year.

It wasn’t big, just that the ticket machine wouldn’t take the debit card, or the credit card, so I finally used cash and got to the platform - only to see the train pulling away. Had to wait another half hour but oh well.

I only stayed at my grandparents house for little over a day but I still managed to help make several hundred cookies, decorate the tree, see my Aunt and Uncle in a small quartet recital, nearly finish a puzzle we have been doing for over a year, and help with Christmas shopping. What can I say, I love my grandparents.

The rest of the week was okay. My sister and brother came home from college on the weekend, we’ve been finishing up the house so all the walls just got painted, carpet is going in today, new furniture comes on Saturday, my youngest sister is starting to learn how to drive (scary), trying to find a tree before Christmas, doing some last minute wrapping...the usual holiday crazies.

For those who care, I really am working on getting online this set up for my work, just half of my work is on the external drive I left in Florida - so it will be a while. And incase I don’t update in time - Merry Christmas!

No More

Finally, finally I get to go home. Well, tomorrow at least.

The rest of the week from the last time I wrote wasn’t that interesting. Since I was getting so much sleep I kept thinking it was the end of the week since the past 2 have kind of blended together.

After Monday I only had animation left and for the first time in nearly a month I didn’t have to go into the labs until after noon. 

We knew we had a lot of layers (20,178 not including the lights and cameras) so in order to export it properly I had to finish the animation on Tuesday.

Therefore Wednesday was dedicated to rendering.

Karim’s job was to figure out how to do it and started at 8 before his morning class. I came by at 12 to help babysit the computers.

We had 7 computers running and it still took 17 hours...

But it went well. The client liked it and the teachers loved that we were actually able to get it out. They talked to us the longest and didn’t even comment on how it looked, just trying to figure out how it was done. We even had our classmates asking us questions. I bet at least 85% of our final grade will be biased on the fact that we got this out.

20,000 + layers, come on, we deserve an A.

A screenshot from the animation. Over break I'm getting vimeo
so you can look at everything then.

Anyway, that was my week. Today was just packing, cleaning, and saying goodbye as people started to leave.

This time tomorrow I’ll be back in Jersey, but for now I have a ‘party’ to get back to.

The Week You Never Want Again

It has been a week? Really? It feels like 2 days and at the same time, a month. That’s what happens when you hardly sleep at night.

But that is what finals are all about.

Let’s break it down shall we.

With this combine project in Motion Design it means one final for three classes which has smaller (but no less important) passes. Then there is the Fine Arts final, and Bio final which is a project.

And guess what! They all have a due date on the same day. December 3rd. (Animation had a pass 2 due Thursday and pass 3 due the 3rd).

On top of that we had spring registration (finally), the Christmas party on Sunday (for which I still needed a present) as well as maintenance coming by to finally fix our sink.

So I needed an attack plan. I had an animation to save and fix, 5 sculptures and objects to make, a nature project to come up with, maintenance to check in on, a present to buy, dinner to make, and decorations to put up.. This is where no sleep comes in.

Basically everyday I would wake up at 9 and opened the door for maintenance, settled them in and got to the labs around 9:45 taking a break for lunch at 11 (unless a morning class which means up at 7). Continue working on animation until 6, dinner, then work on Fine Arts until a sculpture is made (normally done between 3 and 4 am). 

That was the schedule for the week days where I was able to make 5 figures in 4 days. Our sink finally works right without water coming back up, and I registered alright. Got some classes I wanted, one not.

What it looks like in the end. 

The weekend came and so did me going shopping at Home Depot, Jo-Anns, Dollar Tree, Kohl's, Michael’s, Target, and Publix (plus a stop at the beach for some nature).

Saturday was devoted to creating the objects for Fine Arts, painting the figures, and creating their environment. Here was the excitement for the day. I was cutting the basal wood with my box cutter in a very wrong way and slipped cutting my finger. Being stupid I out it under water (it wasn’t deep but angled and bleeding a lot) and the blood wasn’t clotting. Then my sugar level jumped off a cliff (I hadn’t eaten all day) and very nearly passed out. I would have if my roommate didn’t notice and get me an ice pop. 

Fun.

Sunday came and so did the Christmas party. I had to get up at 8 to put the pork in the crock pot and threw some laundry while I finished FA. I wanted to make biscotti and it took 3 tries to get it right. By then it was time to kick out my roommates and decorate. I was running, but I did it.

Pulled pork, pasta, baked potatoes, and biscotti. 14 people, secret santa, dinner, dessert. Perfect.

We had a lot of left overs even with everyone stuffing themselves so I brought it all up to our labs and gave it to those still working (we finished on Friday so we had time to render - my partners job). They were all happy and there were fights over who got what. 

Back to the rooms and I make the last thing for FA (a tinny bouquet of flowers) then do all of Bio. Originally I was going to compose a picture frame with different nature and make a second one with stuff from NJ, but that was boring. Instead I got some empty ordainments from Michael’s and filled them. They look great!

Fluffy beach plant

Acorns

The Beach

Dunes

Spanish Moss

Berries

Plants form the beach

So it is now Monday and I’m still alive. Finger hurts, animation still needs helped, but FA and Bio are done for the year! Only a few more days until I go home!