i'm still alive

Yes it's true, I'm still alive!
But it's been a tough couple of weeks! I was reminded by some friends last night that I never update now that I'm at school. I'm sorry...there are a lot of interesting things going on here for sure. How can I sum up the past month?

About a month ago in animation class we were designing a six-year-old version of ourselves. Our final project for the semester will be animating this little character in a short scene. Homework for this week is to come back to that little design and to touch it up and create a piece that shows your character in that world, like a key scene from the scene we will be doing next month.
Storyboarding is just as fun and scary as ever. But I love that class so much! It's my favorite, even though it sometimes is the most stressful.
In CG we've been modelling a hand and arm, and we just got the skin and bones in it last night. It's really a very fun class when I can stay totally in sync with what the teacher is doing up on his screen. But once you get a step behind you're behind for a while unless you ask for help. I like modelling...I thought that part was the most fun, because it's basically sculpting but with a mouse. In two weeks we get to start animating!
Thursday's figure drawing is always a nice change of pace, but I missed it last week because of a crazy Story for Animators class assignment that was due Friday afternoon. In groups of 3 or 4 we had to create a pitch for a feature film. Our group took it pretty seriously...maybe too seriously. haha. We stayed up all night Thursday, took a nap at 8 am and got up to practice our pitch at 11. That was Halloween day! So we pitched it and it was over and we were exhausted. I then slept til 7pm. Happy halloweeen! What? It's Halloween?! I didn't even have a costume ready!! Such a sad thought...yeah life here can get crazy...

There's an ongoing joke within the Section 2 students (students with their last names L-Z) about our crazy schedule. I think both sections have their positives and negatives, but my section tends to like to complain about our negatives. Thursday and Friday are really nice, easy-going days for us (but for Section 1 I think they're kind of tough). But when Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday roll around, it's hectic. Usually we have one week to complete an assignment from each class, so we have time to do it for sure...the problem arises when we have 7 assignments like that due consecutively! So Tuesdays, for example, have been dubbed friggin' Tuesdays because we have three classes from 9 am to 10 pm. Monday we have only one class, but the rest of the day is spent working on homework for one of the classes on Tuesday. Sunday is also used as a homework day for Monday and Tuesday's homework. Saturday nights have become ritual color and design (tuesday) homework sessions. Wednesday morning a group of us animator kids have our foundations class-next week we've got an essay due- and Wednesday nights our storyboards are due. When did we have time to do our storyboards? Saturday or sunday or monday or tuesday? NO! haha
OK i know this sounds like a rant...and it is...but bear with me because it feels good to get it out. So technically I should be doing my storyboarding and essay homework now. But I'm not. I will. After I take a shower and get out of class and go to the bank. And make a costume. Tomorrow is Halloween Part II, a figure drawing session my friend is putting on so that people can wear their costumes one more time. Brilliant! But I've got to get together that costume...

My motto here is this: You either get your work done, or you sleep! CHOOSE!

And now some pictures:




random pics: 1-Cafeteria Food; 2-from left to right Andre, Chong (our teacher), Natalie, Mayumi, Carlos and Rich after Storyboarding class (if you look closely you can see evidence of the Krispy Kremes that Chong brought us that day!); 3-left to right Natalie and Ellen holding up their fish designs in Animation class; 4-left to right Natalie, Chong, Rich, Michael and Carlos making the "We didn't get into Disneyland!" face! But we had lunch there--a treat from Chong--so we still had a good time nonetheless. ;)