Archive for the 'rants' Category

15
Mar

the end is near…too near.

Today marked the start of the penultimate week of a snow-abbreviated and hectic quarter, one which promises to only get crazier before it ends, 9 days from today.

I spent today running around the school finding teachers to speak to about the benefactors of my two scholarships.  Those who had known Ann Ferguson were everywhere I turned and I got some wonderful information on her.  Everyone who knew John Johns had either left for the day or had no classes until later that week.  A number of emails were sent back and forth between the Ms. Love, the animation teacher who  “considers herself entrusted to conserve his legacy” and me.   She chastised me sharply for waiting so long to contact her, despite the fact that I’m juggling four classes worth of finals, live out of town, have known of my recipient status for less than a week, and all my efforts to seek information through the public relations representative who first contacted me have met with long delays and yielded very little.  I meet with Ms. Love tomorrow.  Hopefully she will like me better in person than through emails.

After my meeting, I still have to figure out what to say in my 1-2 minute speech, that recognizes Mr. Johns and Mrs. Ferguson, that is appropriate and properly grateful to their families, despite only just having learned about the two people who’s families I am thanking.  Oh, did I mention, those families are going to be at the awards ceremony?  I really, truly, have not the first clue what to speak about.

I feel as if I perhaps missed something in not being familiar with the scholarship application process.  Is it customary to research the person for whom the fund one is applying for is memorial?  Because a week’s worth of time — a week in which one is also scurrying to complete finals projects — seems a difficult amount of time in which to understand a person and write a short yet appropriate speech honoring them and their generous gift.  And it seems somewhat contrived to seek information about someone simply because they are gifting one with money, so as to appear truly interested to the family.  It isn’t that I lack interest–I don’t in the least!  But to seek such knowledge simply for the sake of the funds I am granted seems so…hollow.  I want to know about Mr. Johns and Mrs. Ferguson, and what I have learned today alone is fascinating.  I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to know them myself.  To stand before those who knew them best, however, and speak as if I had been a long-time admirer of theirs, as if I even knew their names before applying for the academic assistance offered in their spirits, seems dishonorable.

And I suppose, with that, I shall be checking the ‘rants’ tag for this post.

Anyhow, along with the fast and violent storm of the  scholarship ceremony and that which surrounds it, I have reading and writing to do for literature class, studying and a fully stupid art project to do for art history, and a massive re-working of my photobook with a new student and new photos for design team.  Though I can hardly wait for the end of this quarter, I know the days to come shall pass far too quickly for my liking, and that I would truly prefer it were an additional week added to our days of toil and study.

My project for packaging graphics, on the other hand, is done but for some quite minor adjustments.  So I hope.

Now I shall go eat pasta.  Yay!

10
Mar

elation and deflation

Today was a long day…extra long ’cause it was left over from yesterday, as I pulled an all-nighter to finish up a project.

Today was made of ups and downs.  The photo student I was working with on my quarter-long project seems to have totally dropped the ball and bailed, which left me in a rather bad spot…but to finish the project I got teamed up with a girl who graduated last quarter, but had such a crap graphic design student the first time around that she wants a chance to have it done correctly, by someone who knows what they are doing.  Apparently I qualify.  Even better, her subject matter shares enough similarities with my previous project that I can probably do a bit of tweaking and fit her project into my exisiting layouts without too much trouble, overall.  And since she is already graduated, I don’t have to have the project done until a week after everyone else, as she doesn’t have to have time to send her book off in time to get it back before finals.

I was exhausted by the time I got to World Lit class, AND we had our second test on Heart of Darkness…but the test was NOT hard, and I got my essay from the previous week back with nice comments and a 10/10 score.  Plus I made an observation on a scene in our book that my teacher himself hadn’t caught.

The biggest ups and downs, however, relate to my exciting scholarship award.  The up comes first:   I caught the woman in charge of the scholarship information to get clarification on a few matters, and after I had identified myself, she informed me that I had been chosen for a second scholarship as well.  Now, I don’t yet have official confirmation on that…and it’s always possible that she mixed me up with someone else that got two scholarship awards…but according to her, on top of my $5000 John A. Johns scholarship, I also am the recipient of the $1500 Ann Pearce Ferguson scholarship.

Now the down:  Awesome as that all may be, I had a suspicion that she confirmed.  I don’t actually get any of that scholarship money.  It goes directly toward my tuition.  Which is nice and all, but with how much I’m paying AIP for my education, $6500 isn’t going to make a big difference.  And I had plans for that money.  I was finally going to get my tablet, the lack of which I have felt sharply since about this time last year.  I was very very excited…and that’s even an educational/career expense.  And I had contemplated going to an optometrist to get a prescription a little more in keeping with my current optical needs.  And buying plane tickets to get to K’s wedding.

But because they don’t want me to go spend it all on beer or whatever, the money and I never come in contact.

It is all a great honor, of course, and I’m quite grateful…these awards can go on my list of educational achievements on my post-graduation resume.  And that’s all nice.  But the reason I APPLIED for the scholarships was so that I would get the chance to be able to afford my tablet.  I’m a little peeved, and feel petty because of it, and that makes me more peeved.  *sigh*

I’m exhausted and surely not writing worth a damn right now, and on the verge of a pity party for one…and there is pasta waiting in the other room, I’m ending this on the final note that I further marks in the ‘up’ column were contributed by late-afternoon coffee fresh-brewed in my cup at Starbucks and my sweetie picking me up with sushi, ’cause he knew that I could use a little boost, and it really did the trick.  Night all.

04
Mar

Entirely too much homework

Here I sit, warm cat on my lap, more caffeinated than is entirely necessary, fingers on my keyboard with my fishtank gurgling contemplatively nearby.

I should be content, nay, happy.

But what this gentle and happy scene fails to take note of is the pile of homework, just out of frame.

The quarter approaches it’s end and project due-dates grow closer.  Honestly, I’m not in THAT bad of a place.  I will probably be spending a few weekends in, and may, possibly, miss a night of sleep somewhere along the way…but I’m not horribly behind.  I’m pretty current.  I just need to stay the course, or keep my nose to the grindstone or some similar cliche.

I want to chuck the lot out in the snow.  (The homework, that is.  I still have occasional use for a good cliche.)

Every time I nod contentedly to myself and approve of the fact that I am, indeed, making some sort of progress in my personal work and my overall level of skill, I stumble upon something awesome that makes me long to ignore all my responsibilities and just work on getting better at plain simple art.  Screw art-related homework.  I wanna draw.  I wanna develop original characters and do fan art and experiment with composition and style, and improve my skill with the human figure and with faces and with expressions and with poses and forshortening and perspective and oh yeah, backgrounds too, and having a foreground and a middle ground and setting scenes and use of color and use of no color….

I have been participating in a bi-monthly art challenge…super low pressure, not full of people so intimidatingly good that I’m terrified to submit art…just something that keeps my art muscles in use and makes me think about concept and presentation…just a small thing I can do in my spare time.  Unfortunately, about now I don’t really have that, so my participation is on hiatus, which is frustrating me.

Honestly, the situation isn’t all that bad…I my partner on the photo book loves where I’m going with the design.  I’m making more work for myself than I need to for my packaging graphics class, because that is who I am — AND the work I’m doing for the project is illustrative.  If I want to or need to, I can always simply do the research paper for my art history class, rather than the giant, time-consuming project.  And my lit class is going fine and has pretty minimal homework.  I’m just feeling resentful of time I don’t have to work on my own projects, and frustrated that I’m not perfect.  Yeah, hard life, right?

Hey, at least I’m posting.  You should be more grateful.

10
Feb

storm of the…um…decade.

Of course, seeing as we are still only in the second month of the first year of said decade, there is still plenty of time for this particular little blizzard to be outdone.  Regardless, it is somewhat inconvenient.

I am speaking, of course, of the rather excessive snowfall that has brought most of the Pittsburgh area (and other effected places around this part of the country) pretty much to a standstill.

My school has been closed all week.  When I attended orientation before beginning classes a couple years back, one new student asked about weather-related school closures, and was informed that the Art Institute of Pittsburgh had bowed to the elements only once…maybe twice…for maybe a day at a time.  Well, that record is officially shattered, as all classes have been canceled since the first storm hit on Friday night.  I find this all rather frustrating, as I not only have classes to attend, but also have scholarship paperwork I am attempting to compile , and really need to be at school to take care of certain aspects…specifically imperative since everything is due this coming Monday.

Of course, I complain about the personal irritations the snow is causing, like missed classes and the path I had to dig (and today, re-dig) to the bottom of the driveway…and then have to remind myself that I am not one of the people who won’t even have power restored to their homes until the end of the week.  I have food and heat and electricity and internet.  I have tv to watch and books to read, and today I even have a boyfriend to hang out with, as he got a snow day too.

So, since I can’t really complain, I suppose I should talk about something other than the snow.

I have already mentioned my upcoming scholarship submissions, more than once.  Well, now I am up against the deadline and trying to write an essay that stays below 500 words.  The only way I have been able to say what I want to with few enough words and any measure of success has been by choosing poetry over standard essay format.  So we’ll see how that goes.

Robin G., now fully recovered, has resumed his status as resident holy terror.  He delights in wrecking havoc at truly obnoxious hours of the morning.  As long as the snow doesn’t prevent us doing so, we plan to get him neutered this week.  It will not be too soon.

After watching Army of Ghosts, Doomsday and The Runaway Bride, my Doctor Who obsession, always bubbling just beneath the surface, has returned in force.  Though, I know what’s coming next:


And you ask, will I ever give Martha a break?  Of course I won’t.  I love to hate her.  Though I must admit that there are definitely a few season 3 episodes that are more than decent.  Blink is brilliant, and the The Family of Blood is pretty great…and of course, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Timelords are a bit on the epic side.  Still…that is one companion whom with I will never see eye to eye.  Sorry, Martha lovers.

Continuing on the vein of BBC shows, a boy in my literature class recommended ‘Being Human’ to me…a BBC production about a vampire, a werewolf and ghost who end up flatmates.  I have only seen the (loosely connected) pilot and the first episode so far, but as of yet, the premise is being handled with the honesty, elegance and cleverness that I am recognizing more and more as the hallmark of the BBC–much the same way that ‘Skins’ was a teen drama that actually could have been about real teenagers, ‘Being Human’ is a supernatural drama that chooses substance over flash, and deals with the more logical difficulties the characters might have moving through the world, rather than focusing on sex, overdone costumes and fancy martial arts moves.

So…yes.  This is indeed another one of those posts that mostly concerns what I am watching on tv.  But seriously, it’s too wet to go out, too cold to play ball…so I sit in the house…and watch tv.  Oh, also, I straightened my hair last night.  It was very pretty.  Then I shoveled snow this morning and all the snow and ice that froze into my hair and then melted when I returned inside kind of undid all my hard work.  See?  I do stuff!

As Briggs got a snow day as well, we were planning on trying to run some errands, but halfway through removing the snow from his car, while contemplating the fact that half the stores we were planning to visit very well might be as closed as everything else in the city, I decided that staying at home might be the wiser (at least easier) choice.  However, this does mean that I haven’t left the house since Sunday evening, except to go on walks with Anna.  I may axe murder the whole neighborhood.

I WILL write in a rambling and unfocused fashion.  Deal with it.

Other than watching tv, I have poked at homework, slogged through scholarship stuff, and made pasta sauce…talked on the phone to my mom and goofed off on the internet.  Drank tea and coffee and read fanfics and drank more coffee.  Thought seriously about working on art projects that have been waiting for me, but ended up procrastinating.  Found a couple of new Doctor Who fanvids that I enjoyed quite a bit (hey, I told you the obsession had resurfaced) and will share with you here, momentarily.  Other than that, I really don’t have much else to say today.  Still alive.  If I succumb to cannibalism, I’ll blog about it.

First, a little love for the Master and his lady:

And next, a happy Who vid — not that I don’t love the angst-filled laments of love and loss, but it’s not all gloom and doom on board the TARDIS. (hey, there’s even a little Martha tucked away in this one!):