A Sketch A Day Keeps The Sanity At Bay

I know I wrote about 30 days of whatever challenge in the winter term to be accomplished in the last 6 months or so.

Well we all know that didn’t happen – definitely not under time constraint considering how tragically eventless this term has been – although admittedly last semester was quite busy.

ANYWAY, enough of that. It was about new/newish things I wanted to try out and have the discipline to continue for a month at a time. But, I guess I realized maybe I should start with things I like to do and see if I can develop those little bits of skill I have over a longer period of time.

So lo and behold: I challenge myself to sketch something for each day of the Winter 2011 term (need to upgrade sketching pad). So roughly 120 sketches should be produced by the end of the semester. I think a sketch (sans pencil outlining first) would take about a solid hour. So an hour a day to do something I like doesn’t seem that intense, does it? I can fit in my classes and other fun stuff =] To do is to live, ya?

I guess I should put some outlines here, not so much to constrain myself but to know where the lines are if I so want to brush past them:

1) Small sketches, not full 8 by 11, although this reminds me I need to get a good solid sketching pad soon. Using my IDC writing pad will last for now (while I sketch anyway for fun XD)

2) No pencil outlines, unless I want to do the drawing in pencil only. And unless I want to do a more formal drawing, and not a sketch

3) Try to use only one utensil, like how I’m currently trying out my staedtler triplus roller (by no means an artist’s pen) just for fun. Anything that makes a mark can be used. Perhaps try other mediums – but don’t get fancy at the base.

4) Use drawings already existent (online or print). Unless I want to get creative. This is a drawing exercise, creativity can chill this term =) Maybe at the end I can draw more character-based, from-my-head drawings if I want to get shifty.

5) Forget drawing classes. Hip hop and night classes are enough to worry about – oh and swimming, gotta get ready for dem beaches (getting off topic but that’s okay)

Happy drawing!

-L

Unnecessary Stress at Night

Last night word got around in our class (at midnight) that the marketing report was due the following day, where the original deadline was 2 days away. Lo and behold the world went up in chaos. Everyone freaked out. Some went through all-nighters, some ragequit (like me) because of lack of manpower and not giving a shit.

The next day, the prof apologized because he wrote the wrong date or something… like seriously?

This level of carelessness is detrimental to student psyche. Today was also the prof eval day – and for the very few people that actually showed up to his abysmally boring class and listened to his rant (I was not one – conscious decision at 9am), they were gifted with the rare opportunity to violently object to his prof-ism and exact absolutely no change in the administration (re: bill zou for actsc231 last semester).

Anyway, my point here in this short rant is that the quality of our professors at UW were starting to suck in 3rd year – with bill zou, and peter balka before for stat230 but in general they were decent.

However, at Laurier, this semester, all profs were terrible, except for maybe the HR prof – he seem to care and is charismatic and I go to his class – so that shows something.

Marketing prof – boring and disrespectful and disorganized and don’t know what the hell he’s doing.

Ops prof – cannot understand a word he’s saying. I’ll blame the accent.

Finance prof – self-centered bastard who makes you pay $90 for an online textbook that has 0 resale value (so guess what? I’m learning from textbook and ditched all his classes since first week =P)

On the UW side: CS330 prof – tries but dang just reads material… honestly attention span this semester has went to hell.

Even if I get decent marks this semester, I’ll know it didn’t come from motivation and it certainly didn’t come from the quality of these profs.

Good luck to me for finals! (and the 3 projects due this wednesday… fun)

-L

Procrastinating Methods

- look up breakfast recipes at wee hours of the night (possibly aided by late night hunger)

- look at webcomix. namely SMBC on repeat random.

- watch the same youtube mvs over and over –_-

- writing this blog

-L

Need to Stop Getting Into Things…

…that don’t result in any productivity, i.e. pointless, time-wasting, emotionally-exhausting ventures that don’t amount to anything but bad feelings and unnecessary tension.

Life is too short to dwell on unhappy thoughts.

Stop being a psychiatrist and analyze everything and get into the nitty-gritty of stuff that are between others. How would I do this if people come to me for help and ventilation (I don’t know if this actually works out in meaning but I’m going with it).

I am weak against denying people help, and sometimes things come too close for comfort and I really don’t want to deal with it, too tired to deal with it, see no point in dealing with it, just would not be beneficial to my general mental health to deal with it, so I need to make myself stop dealing with it.

Maybe I should psychoanalyze myself in such situations and define first and foremost what I want, in the selfish sense. Would it benefit me in any way to deal with something that doesn’t directly affect me? And if not, then why do I want to get into things? People are shifty creatures; it is impossible to know with certainty, or within well-defined error bars, what one may think, how one may feel, and how one may react. In fact, it can have a negative impact on me if I get involved.

So why do I do it? Do I want to help? Do I care so much? I hope that is not the case, because it only shows more weakness, and a new level of masochism I don’t need right now.

Why can’t everyone just be happy, accept each other, and get along.

There’s no point in being emotionally invested in such interactions. Honestly, what is wrong with just being simple, expect simplicity,  and just enjoy life and each other’s presence and differences?

I DON’T UNDERSTAND.

I should stop over-complicating things in ::cough:: the other aspect of my life too –_- Just Do It – Nike.

-L

K-Pop Music – Why I Dig It

Just to justify to myself. Which I really don’t need. I’m just bored and it’s late and … I have nothing better to do? XD

- I can’t understand the lyrics, so any crappiness in that department (of which there are plenty instances I’m sure) will be blissfully ignored

- usually have very catchy english snippets (that I sing over and over in between moments of silence to the annoyance of all present)

- the rhythm is awesome – usually in combination with instrumentals (if we’re talking ballad) or electronic beats (if we’re talking dance/regular pop)

- addictive

- the pop stars are funny (through variety shows that they populate) and cool looking (because the poppa companies don’t take no slackers … and pay a ridiculously amount of money to get them into latest trends: shave off one whole half of head, so there!)

- it’s asian. gotta love it.

- the female voices don’t sound as annoyingly high-pitched/cute as j-pop stars; I ignore chinese female singers because of the first point above

- the male voices don’t sound as strangely angry and coarse as the j-pop stars; I ignore chinese male singers because… they honestly can’t sing

- they dance, I like the routines

And finally, on an unrelated note:

J-Rock is Awesome.

-L

Lamenting

I am attempting to write once more. I figured I might as well try something to encourage the characters in my head to breathe for once, away from suffocating grey matter.

I saw this ad in MathNEWS from sci-fi club at UW about writing a 7500 word max story in the fantasy/sci-fi genre. The worlds in my head fall somewhat into that. I still harbour many of the same characters from so long ago, developed over long bus rides to and from school, and random snaps of vision while staring into white spaces.

I discovered that I can psychoanalyze myself using the stories and the characters; they express my fears, passions, failures, and hopes. Everything seem so developed in my head, until the inadequacy of words takes hold and when faced with a white (or whatever colour backgrounds I’ve tried) document, I am either slow, or writing in a mess of sporadic heat – with 0 grammar considerations and 0 style. I am only mad at the style.

I am also overly critical of my words, squinting at their feeble existence and willing unsuccessfully for them to be perfect, to be right, to fit with the developed vision in my mind’s eye. To breathe, essentially.

So I shall attempt to take on this writing contest – a small one not worthy noting, but good for practice and just getting a fraction of my worlds out there, onto a tangible surface.

Because my mind is translucent.

-L

Poppies

Happy Remembrance Day.

Politics aside, lest we forget about lost human lives.

-L

Trying out Windows Live Writer

So the other day I upgrade windows live messenger because I was intrigued by the link between the messenger and social media sites like Facebook – it took me a day of fiddling to get my Facebook chat onto messenger, but it was worth it. Now I’m permanently on Facebook… but only in so far as the updates and chatting goes, for anything more substantial (like note writing, no hating, Lisa, you were okay with it last December, I have another note to prove it, so not 8 years ago =P we were making html websites back then XD hehe) I would still have to go onto Facebook website interface, but I like the direction this partnership is going.

So, apparently upgrading live messenger added on some other programs, as expected from MS (whenever you download something, a whole slew of other “related” stuff are added as well, usually not too exciting). Mind you I had unchecked all the extra downloads, but apparently there are a few “mandatory” ones – like this live writer. It connects to blogs, like WordPress, but I’m used to blogger, so here I am. A lot of formatting is simplified, and I do appreciate the word count function. Content management, ftw. =D

Ooooo block quote is just a click away.

• lists are cool
• yes, they are

I think this will make blogging easier – since it links to my account without my having to sign in every time.

Oh pictures:

Yes I realize I’m using this as a filler image… everywhere. Meh I’ll get a new one soon.

Dude, is this an emoticon… bunnies =D

I can split posts too:

10 Ways To Good Health - as seen on a cup at a sushi restaurant

1. Less Alcohol, More Tea
2. Less Meat, More Vegetables
3. Less Salt, More Vinegar
4. Less Sugar, More Fruit
5. Less Eating, More Chewing
6. Less Words, More Action
7. Less Greed, More Giving
8. Less Worry, More Sleep
9. Less Driving, More Walking
10. Less Anger, More Laughter

<3
-L