totally not stressed
It’s really weird. Tomorrow is my last day of classes, and then finals week of course but that’s just turning in a paper and projects, but no actual tests or anything. I am totally not stressed out. It’s bizzare feeling so in control of things when so many people around me seem to be stressing out so much. Especially when I spent all of this past weekend at Sasquatch.
Sasquatch was pretty good. I’ve never camped out for any big music festivals before so it was kinda nice feeling like a hippie for a bit. The weather was ridiculous. Super bright & sunny, pouring rain, and a friggin HAIL STORM that cut Neko Case’s set short. It was crazy, I haven’t really seen a whole lot of hail since I was in St. Louis, but even then I was watching from the inside. Being outside in a hail storm with nothing but a blanket kinda sucks. So a lot of saturday was spent being wet and cold.
But by the end when The Flaming Lips were on it was all good. The Flaming Lips Experience was definately the highlight of the day. It was incredibly fun and insane. superheroes, aliens, santas, streamer launchers, giant balls, nun puppets and all around fun times. Wayne is officially my hero. Sufjan Stevens earlier in the day was also rather fun. Kitchy excessive patriotism, inflatable santas, and inflatable supermen all make for a good show.
But yeah, I’ve been feeling really good about myself the past few days. Earlier today I was all like, “wow, I feel so awesome and smart” but then when I got home I found that I had managed to mail my bill payments to myself. Go me.
revelation
So for the past few months or so I’ve been lamenting over the fact that a bunch of pants I bought during fall quarter have been increasingly difficult to fit into. And the whole time I just cursed the food and lack of excericse, which made me feel kinda sad and unhealthy. But today I remembered that I was REALLY sick with mono pretty much all of fall quarter and had the revelation that my brief moment of size 4 glory was very likely just a result of the whole being sick thing. And so the fact that I’m back to where I started before that happened actually means I’m healthy! I mean, I’m sure the food and exercise plays a part but I had totally overlooked the sick thing before. So yeah, hooray for healthy pudgy tummy!
Also, Flash is really fun! It was kinda frustrating for a while there but now it’m just having fun with it. Granted my playing is somewhat limited still, but I’m enjoying it.
gnarls barkley
I am currently obsessed with Gnarls Barkley. Produced by Danger Mouse, who also produced the latest (and awesomest) Gorillaz album. Check them out, they’ve been in my head all day. You can listen to two of the songs on that site.
rollerskating breakdancers etc
The guy that decided to put rollerbladers, rollerskaters, breakdancers, a dj, a beatboxer, and a martial artist all together and put them on stage was a a genius. We saw ISH on Friday night, which had all those things and more. It was cool. Also Darek Mazzone from KEXP before the Warsaw Village Band. Darek does the Wo-pop show, and is awesome.
Street fair was this weekend too, where I got shoes, a puppet, and a cd from “Moonpenny Opera,” who I’m sure are 3 of the guys from Circus Contraption. It’s great seeing them in the show but it’s neat seeing them play on the street in their costumes and characters, so much so that I had to draw them when I came home:
Also, my racoon puppet is awesome. He will be the star of my next movie. And I got a haircut!
Inspiration
I heard or read something a few days ago, from somewhere (good sources obviously) that not having enough time to complete things on our “real” to-do list isn’t nearly as stressful as the feeling of not having enough time to do all those other things you really want to be doing with your time. For some reason I don’t think it ever really occured to me that way. I always sort of just assumed being stressed out was due to having too many school related things to do at the same time. So I’d usually spend a lot of time “working” on those things sort of half assedly and sort of skimp on playtime, and not feel a whole lot better about anything.
So I’ve been playing around with stuff lately (hence the random stop motion the other day) and trying to learn some new stuff, specifically Flash and After Effects, cause I have all these ideas that want to be created but have very limited ways of existing. But yeah, it’s fun! Sometimes I forget how much I like making random things for my own amusement, cause I do so much other stuff for some other person or projecet or whatever.
We also went to The Student Film Festival today (ours was one of them) and got even more inspired to play with stuff.
Anyways, I’d really like to get a “real” copy of After Effects 7. As of now I’m using a trial version that shuts down in like 26 days or something. I have been trying to get one for quite some time but it’s been difficult. So if you have hook ups let me know. Or I suppose I could ask for it for my b-day. Or actually shell out the $350 for it… I suppose I really should.
And I feel like getting back into posting cool videos/animation/stuff now you should watch this little thing by Three Legged Legs: Humans
animation tuesday
I should have been designing, but instead I spent the evening moving little pieces of paper around… but it was fun.
celebrations
in my head.
This is going to be a pretty incoherent mess of rambles, but I feel like typing since all I’ve been doing is reading tonight.
The past few months have been a highly racially centric period, which is kind of weird I guess. I just feel like various racial issues have been brought up a lot around me lately so I think about it a lot. It makes me wonder what other people are thinking about. How often do non-minorities think about issues of race? Aside from just like “man, there’s a lot of asian kids in front of odegaard” or something like that.
Even though I’ve been considered a sort of “exotic other” by some, how much am I too guilty of being enchanted by the idea of the exotic other? I am currently really into Latin America, although I suppose it’s the music & dancing that I am so enamoured with.
I am really into the 1920’s, there is just something strangely romanticized about that whole decade (and the beginigs of the feminist movement). Reading about vaudville and bohemians and bebop and all that makes me wish I was alive then, if not for the whole Great Depression thing soon afterwards (and the pervasive racial tensions of the time). I am awaiting a 1920’s comeback. Out with the 70’s and 80’s comeback crap, bring me flapper dresses and cloche hats.
I think about the FedEx logo a lot. Sometimes when walking to school or in the shower or while eating a sandwich. It’s really weird and almost annoying cause it makes me feel obsessive or something. I swear that ever since someone first told me about the arrow between the E and the x (in the counter) I have been thinking about the damn logo at least once a week, if not several times a week. Considering I first learned about that in my first design history class, I’ve spent a lot of unnecissary brain energy on thinking about the logo and how incredibly amazing I apparently think it is. It doesn’t help that I see FedEx trucks on a nearly weekly basis anyways so it’s always there. And people bring it up in design class ALL THE TIME. So apparently it’s a memorable logo. Good job, FedEx.
Sometimes I go a really long time without making things and I forget how much I like making things. I’ve cooked several meals in the past few days, actually started design stuff, and been drawing. I got a sweet light box from UW surplus over the weekend which means I can go over pencil drawings with markers super easy! And I’ve been drawing with a brush pen (as evident in the previous post) and realizing I really like it. So organic and blobbilicious.
Wow. it was really easy to ramble all that out of my head.. I should stop before I get too carried away… sleep.
so many.
…
There was a girl in my VCD cut classes who was pretty cool. She was kinda quiet but had some really great design work and seemed like someone I’d be friends with. I still remember her 3 photo “passage of time” project from 166. She was obviously good and made it into the program. But then she found out she had leukemia and we didn’t see her after the last cut class. We heard she had arrangments to come back later. I just got an email from our prof telling us she passed away a few days ago.
It’s really weird… I mean, in highschool there was a girl who died from like carbon dioxide poisoning our senior year but I had never really known her. And we always heard about people getting into drunk driving things, but I didn’t really know them either. I’ve also known distant-ish family members or friends of the family who have passed away. And I’ve had a near-death of a friend. But I think this is the first time it’s been someone my age who I actually knew, even though I wasn’t that close it’s still really wierd to think about.
And now I’m really sad. She would have been a good designer and it’s weird to think about the fact that she just doesn’t exist any more. And now I can’t help but think about how terrible it will be when the people even closer to me will be gone forever. I know it’s inevitable, but it makes me really really sad and makes me want to give everyone a hug, but no one is around. = (
