Yes, I have been really bad about these updates. It is hard getting back into a habit and trying to juggle my new activities.
Anime club is going strong as we finally got new people. 6 new people. So its nice to know that the club won’t completely die next year - as of now.
I still tutor local kids twice a week. They are very manipulative. A few that I have known for a while know keep trying to keep me longer. It often works which is good for them, not so great for me. Not that I leave to go to class, but making dinner and getting my own homework done is kind of important too.
I don’t have as many classes this term - only 4. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday I have class 8:30 - 11:30 and the other days I have class from 12:30-6. This give me time to do work as it now takes a lot more hours to get the projects done.
My classes are Japanese Art and Culture (with the same teacher from Architecture and Chinese Art and Culture). An easy class. I have Costume Design where you might as well call it character design class. Well, concentrating on the costume. The idea is to create outfits that tell the story of the character in a glance. A bit of work, but everyone is a senior working on thesis so we get a lot of slack.
Then there are my CORE classes. This term it is Thesis 1 and Adv. Animation - this is more or less a support class for thesis with a few mini projects.
Everything was going fine. I had a schedule I was keeping. I was either ahead or good. Then it fell apart this week.
My thesis is a ‘story’ with fish as the characters. That means that they have to move like fish. I have 2 types - a goldfish and a betta fish - both modeled using hyperNerbs (basically makes the model smooth.) Today I was learning how to character rig with one of the teachers, Morgan. Everything was going fine. Then he says, “You should attach rigs without hyperNerbs.”
Okay. Fine. We take it off.
(For those of you that don’t know - they look totally different and WRONG without the herbs if you modeled it that way.)
“Why is it like this?”
“It’s how all the tutorials said to do it.”
“…”
Now I have to re-make the fish. It won’t take too long, but I now am going back doing something I did over a month a go.
Now for rigging.
Basically, rigging is not easy. You can learn or years and still learn more. I was asking to be given a 16 week course in 2-4 days. So what does he say?
“We should have started this process at the beginning of the year.”
Really? REALLY! I asked for that. I went to all the teachers and said that I needed to learn how to rig this stupid fish, but no, they just found other ways for it to swim. Sure it works, but that isn’t all it has to do.
Oh, but that’s not all.
- I have 10 essays for Grad school to write and finish…NOW.
- A 5 page paper due in a week.
- The second pass of thesis is 1.5 weeks. (And it has been in a stand-still for 2 weeks as I can’t do anything else until the rigging situation is felt with.)
My emotions aren’t helping either.
- I’ve been questioning myself if I am even good enough to apply to grad school.
- My dog, Diehl, looks like he will graduate from the Seeing Eye to become a Guild dog. Its great and all, but I’m getting tired of loving something for a year then never seeing them again…
- Our pet dog, Nick, is getting old - really old. I’m terrified that he’s going to leave while I’m at college too.
And the cherry on top?
I just want to go home.
This happens every year. I get to a point where talking to my parents every night just isn’t enough anymore. I want to go home, but I can’t until December.
I hate Florida.
My ray of sunshine?
I get to see my sister Katie this weekend when we go to Disney. Sure that means I have less time to get everything done, but right now I’m so stressed and frankly depressed that time at Disney with my sister sounds like a dream.
It has not been a good week. Here’s to tomorrow.
