Birthday Work

It’s my birthday!!!

Yep, today’s my birthday which means lots of phone calls, well wishes, in some cases - teasing. But no matter what it is all good fun.

Quick review of the week leading up to this most important day.

Really...not too much. We officially started out ‘5-week’ project - the PSA we have to create about how important art is. Anyway it got kicked off fine. We got a few lectures form the teachers about what they expect, how we can start, then got left alone. 

Lon and I have been working separately in a way. We know each other’s concept and have been working on smoothing them out and creating style frames. Originally I had 2 concepts working and he had 1, but we can only present 2 total on Tuesday so we asked Dorian to pick for us - 1 of mine and Lon’s. So I’ve been working extra hard to make sure my concept is perfect so it gets picked during the pitch.

One of my style frames.

Really that is all that’s happening since the core classes are now all combined. And Halloween wasn’t too special - it’s honestly one of my least favorite holidays.

Quick note: My high school band - which my youngest sister Amanda is still in - had Nationals this week. For the first time since I was a freshman in the band Gami WON NATIONALS!! Congrats People!

Now on to my birthday.

Katie was the first person to call at 12:30 in the morning. She knew I would still be up since Saturday nights is Anime Club that lasts at least until 1am every week. To her being first to call also means that she loves me the most. 

That part is questionable.

The world also gave me a gift in my opinion since it was daylight savings and I got an extra hour of sleep!

After a good sleep I did some reading and made some scrambled eggs and ham. After an episode of The Crazy Ones it was off to acapella practice which was really short since the conductor was sick.

Unfortunately I couldn’t take the day off. The style frames were taking forever but I was able to sit outside and do the work there for a bit.

Since it was my birthday I didn’t have to cook dinner so went to Emma’s room for the Sunday Night “Birthday” Dinner. Teriyaki Chicken, rice, and vegetables with strawberry short cake afterwords. It tasked awesome.

In the end my birthday wasn’t anything grand, but it was still a very fun and relaxing day in it’s own way. 

5 Week Project Angst

Seriously, I didn’t even notice that the week was gone.

Well, kind of. Like I noticed the days passing but it didn’t really register.

The week was beautiful though. It was nice and cool out. You had to wear long pants and a sweater in the evenings. It was just plane beautiful.

But, alas, it was only outside that it was nice.

My core classes are starting to wrap up so we’re clear to do our 5 week project. If you remember last year it was for the Sarasota Film Festival. This year it’s for art advocacy. Again we have to work in pairs and each pair was given a word to base their animation on. Ours is “deceptive.”

The idea is that you plug in the word, make it “Art is deceptive” then try to prove it to be wrong or show the word in a good light.

Not only is that a bit difficult, but you have to add the issues of working with a partner on top of it.

Last year I worked with Karim and we didn’t talk much at all for the first 2 weeks. But we found a way to work together and turned out something huge. I even was depending on him to do a lot of things, not just for the animation but to help me stay sane. Today I count him as one of my really good friends and often talk to him about things outside of our common classes.

This year was also unlucky.

And not an unlucky like it was at first last year. This is just a Fate-Hates-You-And-Your-Going-To-Go-Insane unlucky.

My partner’s name is Lon. He is older, about 60-something, and decided to go back to school. He is always late to class and the work he hands in looks like something my art-challenged sister could make in half an hour. (No offense Katie) On top of that he is very annoying. Constantly he will tell old stories of his life because they might, in some obscure way, possibly relate to a part of what we a talking about. And if he isn’t doing that he is asking questions that were just answered.

It is beyond frustrating to work with him.

But I bite my tong and move on.

Not much else can be done.

Everyone in class understand, kind of, what I’m going through. No one really likes Lon. So they all offer to be a bounce board for ideas - since Lon keeps going off down opposite paths every hour. They also offer walks and outings to let me rant and vent.

. . . 

This is all making me seem really mean. I have nothing against older people. I love my grandparents. But I find him totally inept. My 78 year old Grandfather, who is going through serious lung issues and finds it difficult to talk lots, would be better at giving a pitch than him.

. . .  Seriously. I’m not trying to be mean. It’s just the truth.

Anyway, wish me luck. 

DISNEY!!

Guess what! Guess What! GUESS WHAT!

I went to DISENY!!!

Okay, so I’ve been over a dozen times but it doesn’t change how much I love the place.

Truthfully it started out rotten.

Katie decided to try taking a bus that would bring her from her campus to a rest stop near Orlando. It was scheduled to be there at 6 and since our plan was to be at the Not-So-Scary Halloween Party that night and it didn’t start till 7 we had time. The plan was to pick her up, grab some Wawa, check in to the hotel, then get to Magic Kingdom as the event started.

But plans never work out.

There was tons of of traffic for both of us so her bus got delayed by an hour. So I went to check into the hotel first and then headed to Wawa to get diner and some more gas. Of course that is when she calls to say she’s there. Fine, I get the food and head over. Google said at school that it would only take 15 minutes. My GPS should be able to do that.

Nope. 

My GPS is stupid - a fact Katie refused to acknowledge until Sunday. It took 40 minutes to get there the way it wanted + all the traffic, then had me miss the rest stop. Lots of other stuff happened. A bit of yelling, lots of crying, but finally we were together at Magic Kingdom!

The party was really amazing. We watched fire works, saw the parade (amazing) went on Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain, and even did some Disney Trick or Treating. In the end the night was awesome.

The next day we stopped at Wawa for breakfast before going back to Magic Kingdom. We decided to spend the day doing things we haven’t in a long time like the People Mover but we still did the classics like Buzz Lightyear - Katie kept hitting some special spot and got an insane amount of points. Most of the rest of the time was spent working on our other siblings birthday surprise - that I can’t say what it is since they might read this before they get it.

For lunch we went hotel hoping on the monorail as we visited the different resorts and helped ourselves to some self-guided tours. For an actual meal we ate at the Polynesian.

After we headed over to MGM (Hollywood Studios - not that we ever call it by it’s new name) we got on Tower of Terror, Great Movie Ride, Mupets 3D, and drew Stitch at the character studio. A quick meal then off to Fantazmic where they introduced a new element to their show with new Mickey ears that could be synced to the music. Very cool.

After that the park closed so we couldn’t get on Toy Story. Instead we went to Downtown Disney...eventually. They did something different with their parking and blocked off all the lots. Instead you had to park in the Disney Casting Studio across the street but there were no spots left. After 20 minutes of driving past the same cars I finally just kicked Katie out of the car to follow a guy to his car and keep the spot open. A slightly creepy and underhanded way of parking, but it worked. 

Our last day had us checking out then going over to Animal Kingdom for the first time in about 5 years. We went on the safari first which really changed but was awesome. Not only did we see all the animals but we saw a baby giraffe and baby elephant but we were siting right behind the driver in a row to ourselves - and he was very cute.

2 hours later saw us walking out of the park having done all we wanted and heading over to EPCOT. We really just wanted to relax and take our time walking around the different countries which worked out well since it was the food and wine festival. We decided to go ‘around the world’ and taste a bit of food from everywhere. All delicious.

5 o’clock came and we had to leave to get Katie back in time for her bus. Like I said, my GPS is stupid and we had it running with Katie’s phone. No clue what it wanted in the beginning but even as we pulled in the car was saying that we were still 40 minutes away. Stupid.

But the bus was late anyway. I waited for a bit, but left at 6:10 since there were 3 others waiting with her and I was getting tired and still had to drive. 

Eventually I got back to school along with Katie - bus was 40 minutes late. I can’t wait till I get to go back to Disney!

Interesting Events

So some interesting things happened this past week.

First, the really good new. I got an A+ on my History midterms. The teacher really liked all of my essays and I got a perfect score on the test. That really kicked the week off to a good start.

Another cool thing that happened was in Animation. We started an exploration to learn how to key out green screen with Nuke and found out that we are also doing a project on it. Not just a project, but a project with clients. And not just any clients, but a professional baseball team: Baltimore Orioles. 

They had two of their players come in for the shoot as well as their mascot. It was very hectic but also fun. We are now going to take the footage and create short animations in the backgrounds. They then promised to play the clips on their big screen in the stadium.

The final big thing was on Friday night. Every year the Illustration department has a large gallery opening with current student work. All the pieces are from the students of that department and are create just to the competition of getting in. I go every year since so many of my friends are illustration people.

So the event is known as Illist and you have o dress nice: halfway-decent as my Dad would say. You go, look at the art, eat a cookie, chat, and take a picture. It’s kind of nice. And this year Brenna won first place! She got $300 which is going to be deducted from her tuition next semester. 

Basically that was the interesting part of my week. The other classes are going well. We’re actually going to be starting the concept work for the final project soon.

Best of all, next weekend I’m meeting Katie at DISNEY WORLD!! We’re going to go to the Not-So-Scary Halloween Party and I can’t wait!

Momma Comes to Town

Sorry for not updating last week but I was a bit preoccupied last weekend.

So what had me busy?

Well first off this past week was midterm week. For my Core classes - Animation, Design, Concept - it didn’t really mean anything since the term layouts are a bit different for them. But I did have my other two classes, Psych and History of Modern Architecture.  

History came first in my week so I had to tackle that first. The test was simple, just a 26 mix and match terms list. The difficult part was the three essays that had to be handed in that day too. Those took a while to knock out.

Psych was creating an altered book based on an alter-ego of yourself and also submit an essay on it. I chose to alter Harry Potter and the Scorers’ Stone since it represents so much to me and my family. My alter-ego was under the category of Self and was therefore easy to write. Again the only thing it needed was time, about 16 hours total.

But I didn’t really have any time this past week.

Reason: Mom was in town.

Now I love my Momma and everything worked out in the end but it is the reason I didn’t update last week.

See, I normally send essays off to Katie to proof-read for me but Mom was visiting her first so I had to finish the essays by Wednesday instead of Sunday night. That way she had time to look at them before Mom got there. 

Of course it didn’t really work and they weren’t finished until Friday, but they were still read over.

Anyway, Mom was with me Monday-Wednesday of this past week. I had classes until 6 on Monday (my History midterm class) so we didn’t meet up until then. We also really only had time that day to get some dinner and ice cream before I, and my friend Alicia whom I brought along for food, had to get back to school to prep for morning classes.

Because I worked hard over the weekend I was able to not have anything to do on Wednesday and so spent Tuesday night with Mom at her hotel and all of the next day with her too. Tuesday wasn’t very exciting, just some mini golf, dinner, and TV, but it was fun. The next day was when we did everything.

First it started with a 2 hour kayaking tour of the Mangroves which were very draining. By the time that was done it we about 12:30 and we were both really hungary. We got some burgers, walked around, then headed back to the hotel where we went swimming for around an hour and a half.

After some showers and a little breather we went on a hunt for new shoes. I have been using my sneakers from last year but it was decided that I should get some that actually fit my ‘new’ feet right. We went to 3 different stores before stopping. Since neon colors are ‘in’ right now all the sneakers were neon and to me just plain ugly. So instead we headed over to Verizon and I got my first Smart Phone! It’s a blue iPhone 5c and so far it’s lots of fun.

We decided to then look for a place to eat when we spotted a New Balance store. We figured we would stop in to at least get my feet properly measured if nothing else. Turns out that when you go in to get help for one of their people you get lots of different tests. First he watched how I walked on my feet, then he measured them, and finally he had me get them scanned to see where my pressure points are. As it is, I put all my weight on the heal and ball of my feet and my arch is so high that if didn’t even come up. He then went into the back and got a pair that would be then best for me as well as an insert to support my arch. 

Neon. Ugly. Wouldn’t go with anything I have.

We bought them.

The argument was that helping my feet heal and re-learn how to support me was more important than the look.

Yeah, okay.

Some Hibachi and frozen yogurt was our dinner and in the end I got a new phone, new shoes, a shirt, and some halloween earrings with my mom. Not that that was what mattered. I loved seeing my mom and it was nice for her to be able to get some time off before having to go crazy with breast cancer awareness month.

So there was my week, more or less. Classes are moving, new phone is fun, physical therapy is coming along and I got to see my Momma. Nothing wrong there.

All the Activities Went Crazy

Sorry for the late update. The week was really busy.

Not with classes. No, those are going normal.

The real thing that kept me going crazy thins week was all the clubs I’m in and extra things that had to get done.

This year I’m in 4 clubs, that’s 2 more than last year, and it seemed that this week they all had something crazy going on.

Ministry of Magic had a fundraiser on Wednesday selling butterbeer and t-shirts. That lasted from 11-3 but thankfully it wasn’t that hot of a day. 

After that I went to see my counselor to keep her in the loop about graduate school. I brought the binder I had made with all the school information organized as well as the notebook with the summarized notes. She was very impressed with the amount of research I have done, my organization, and my timeline for the next year concerning application. I will be more or less applying to all the schools I find.

By the time that was all done I had 3 hours of down time before going over to the Goldstein Kitchens and helping the AIGA club bake cupcakes for the fundraiser sale that was happening the next day. It lasted another few hours and by the time we were done we had 168 cupcakes and I had very sore feet.

Moving on to Saturday I had a very early morning. The acapella group was doing our first community event by signing the Star Spangled Banner at the beginning of a heart and stroke foundation walk. We had been told that we would be singing at 7:15 so we wanted to meet as a group to drive over together at 6:30 meaning I was up around 5:45am. Normally I’m up early for a college kid - 8:30 - but this was insane.

We got to the location and found out that they changed all the times and we weren’t needed until 8:30 so we decided that we would go down the street to the farmer’s market to get some food. Somehow our conductor started talking with this old man who found out we were a singing group. He asked us to perform at his little restaurant for his wife and that he could get us some good community exposure. In the end we promised to stop by if we had people after the other event.

The Star Spangled Banner went well but our numbers got cut in half as 3 out of 6 cars left to go back to school due to work deadlines and the already hour delay. Nearly half the people left were new-bees and we didn’t know any of the arrangements. In then end we had 15 minutes to learn the some Some Nights before we headed back to meet the old man.

We did surprise his wife a lot as we just walked through the door singing. Only one table had people but she was so happy that it didn’t matter. We latter learned that it was the couple’s anniversary.

Saturday night also has anime club and so my day lasted until 1 am - ending up o be about 20 hours. The good thing was that we had 7 new-bees there that stayed the whole time! Things are looking up for this club.

Finally I got to Sunday. A meeting with my partner for some light Design homework, acapella practice - we started learning a Harry Potter song - then supporting the Mixer club and my friends in it by buying some fried rice at their Maid Cafe fundraiser.

I hen had to get dinner ready. This week we had baked chicken parmesan, penne pasta with sauce and some french bread. For dessert I made a cookie that was a peanut butter dough with smashed pretzel combined with a chocolate chocolate chunk and caramel dough baked together. There was nothing left. 

So yeah, the clubs are killer sometimes but really, I’ld be so bored without them.

It's Only Been a Week?

If I had to sum up the week in one word it would be LONG. Honestly, looking back it seems crazy to think that some of the things only happened a week ago.

First off let’s start with school.

Not interesting really.

Art History is boring - modern architecture is ugly in my opinion. Animation is slow - we started making animated postcards but everyone got really confused in about 30 seconds so we had to slow down. Concept is nothing - we’re going over how to do a good 1 minute pitch. Psychology is non existent - since it was 9-11 this week we talked about what everyone was doing that day. And finally Design which is just confusing - I like my branding designs one minute, hate them the next, fix it, love it again, think it looks to student like, then change it again. It’s a crazy cycle.

Anyway, I mentioned 9-11.

Yeah I know, with all the talk it has gotten it’s getting to be a bit old...well I think it is.

We talked about it a bit in Psych. Our teacher brought her husband in who talked about loosing his brother - he worked in the second tower a floor above where it was hit. We then went around and talked about what we remembered from that day. It really depended on where you were from. Those of us from the tri-state area remembered those from Florida or the West Coast. On top of that we were in what 4th, maybe 5th grade. Soon college kids won’t even remotely understand since they were too young to remember.

For my family we’re just happy. Happy that my Grandfather is alive. He was suppose to be flying that day - on one of those planes I think too - but his boss pulled him over a day earlier at the last minute so he wouldn’t be flying on his birthday. 

This year he turned 78.

Personally I don’t remember much. Kids got pulled out of school when they weren’t expecting to be picked up. The teachers kept walking in to each other’s rooms and talking quietly. Dad was waiting for us in the doorway when we got off the bus. American flags were on everyone’s mailbox for a week. No one told us what had happened for a while.

A few years later I found the middle school and high school kids all watched the live footage...that must have been hard.

Okay enough sad talk. Good things happened this week too!

I had an interview for a babysitting job. The parent’s were looking to find someone to be their regular go-to sitter. A quick - and I mean quick - interview at Starbucks later and I have the job! No dates yet but they said soon.

We also had 3 people come to anime club on Saturday and stay the whole time! Now they just have to do it every week.

The new season of Legend of Korra started on Friday and we’ve added it to the cue in anime club. If you haven’t seen it yet I would recommend it.

Ummm....that’s it? I think so. 

Okay, so it might not seem like a lot, but really 5 classes, 4 clubs, homework, research, Sunday dinner,.... it’s a lot.