Well, since it's been so long since I made a post, I thought I would, like, post.

I'm currently on my third week of my summer break! Classes start up again next Tuesday. I miss having two month breaks, but three weeks're better than nothing. Siggraph is coming fast, an after that Animefest. I was hoping to get a whole lot done with Atoli, but I've hardly worked on that costume. I shall regret this later, I'm sure.

So far I have the shoes for Atoli, the basic boot cover, and the shorts mostly done I just need to, like, install that zipper. Tomorrow Maggie and I are going to get together to figure out the pattern for our dresses. This weekend I also need to get to work making the reference mâché for the hat. Why am I doing this? To make sure we get the dimensions right on the hat and so I have something hard to make the side thing on since the bottom will be curved. We're going to cast the hard part the tassles are hanging from with resin with wires stuck in so we can stab them into the hat when we glue the things on. The part where we stab will be fun.

The 4th of July was great. my mom, dad, and I went to Galveston and ate at Joe's Crab Shack. This is the perfect place to be for fireworks because they launch them from the jetty just across the street so you're right under them, more so this year because the wind was blowing hard off the water. I almost got hit by a burning piece of cardboard. It was awesome until it was time to leave because traffic was horrible. It took two hours to get home and I was driving. ¬.¬

Before this all happened, Maggie and I had gone to the beach twice, once the Friday before the 4th and earlier the week before. The beach was awesome and I got TAN LINES!!! I haven't gotten so tan in YEARS. It's amazing. You can barely see them, though. They're still awesome. ♥

Today was the best day I've had at work in a while. Mind that I overall like my job (I've worked there for over four years now...). Today started badly because my boss called me and told me "By the way, you need to be at the 9:00 meeting so I don't get in trouble! See you there~" so I got up and dressed earlier than expected. Once I was dressed (Well, excluding pants since I forgot them), I sat at Fenrir and saw that Maggie had tweeted that the meeting was canceled. I confirmed this with Bonnie and slept for another 30 mintues. There was, however, Shipley's doughnuts and stuff and that was good. Also, I GOT TO PULL AUDIOBOOK CASSETTES. I hate the things and they hate me. They cut me, little bastards. They should all be tossed. Really most of this hate is directed towards the ones in Fiction, which are mostly in those brittle, sharp white cases, but they are in Children's, too, and so my hatred applies there, too. Sadly, they weren't all tossed; I was given a list of the audiobook cassettes that hadn't been checked out for a year or longer. Nonetheless, this felt good and made the entire day awesome, if somewhat sleep deprived.

Oh, and Maggie Exalted on game night on Monday. She has the best exaltation in the history of the game; she gained godly powers while trying to kick a midget in the nuts. More details here in the third from the last bullet.

Ah, and I did well in all my classes: a B, B+, A-, and an A. One of each of the four highest grades. XD

Well, there are no aps for LJ for the BlackBerry so I'm trying an e-mail post. FYI as of yesterday I own a BlackBerry! Hurrah! I'll post later about what I've been up to now that it's summer break. TEST!

lj-imgcut
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Best AIM discussion ever.

The quarter is beginning to draw to a close! This is both a wonderful thing and a horrible thing... summer break is so close but I have to finish final projects to get there. e_e I managed to get by last week, but I got a horrible grade on my modeling assignment. I need to touch it up and resubmit it.

I'm still not used to finishing school in the middle of June. At UH the semester ended in early May and then you just had finals. My internal clock is all messed up and today I realized it was nearly June and was totally weirded out. Anyway, my last day of class is on June 19, then I'll be house/dog sitting for two weeks. I still think it's pretty cool that I'll be getting paid to move out for two weeks. e_e

Once summer starts I need to work on pin designs, the paintings for the art show at Animefest, and my costume! It's been forever since I've mentioned it, but I'm still going to cosplay Atoli and Maggie's still doing Shino. Though I'm doing in-game/movie Atoli instead of art Atoli, so my outfit will be a lot greener than that weird shade on the picture. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I've pretty much dropped doing Seong Mi-na. I just don't have the time or money to spend on it. After Atoli, I'll probably stop doing contests and just make simple costumes. Right now I'm thinking about doing Nagi from Kannagi next, but I still want to do Rena from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. I've always wanted to cosplay a character that does crazy faces because it looks like wild fun. It's nice to just start cosplaying characters that SMILE after my long string of serious character cosplay.

Nothing really exciting has been going on. We got a new page at work at long last. I hope she doesn't suck and sticks around for a while because that would make her awesome. I didn't get to talk to her much today, though, since it was her first day and the boss was introducing her to everyone and she was a bit busy learning how we do things. When it was time to leave, I got trapped at work for a little while today. When I wanted to leave, there was an 18 wheeler parked in the staff parking blocking my way out of my parking space, so I went and pestered Maggie.

OK. This worked in high school so I shall now use this method now. I will make myself a schedule to follow. It's unlikely that I will follow it perfectly, but even only somewhat following it is better than not doing it at all.

If you don't care, you can ignore this. If you enjoy doing such things, you are welcome nag me about "You should be doing homework~" and such.

Tonight:

11:30-? - Work on homework, especially Modeling II homework. Get most of this done tonight.

Tomorrow:

10-3 - Work

3-6 - Nap. This may be shorter, since I tend to actually take 1.5 to two hour naps.

When I wake up - Dinner

For an hour after dinner - Slack time. Sounds stupid, but I need to slack before serious business

After slack time (estimated about 8:00)-? - Homework. Finish modeling, texturing, lighting. Render and sleep. May take a midnight nap if necessary. These actually help, oddly enough.

Friday:

WTF in the morning (aka 6-7ish) - Wake up. Do a final check on the model to see if I overlooked anything. If I did, fix and rerender.

8-9-ish - Leave for school. Make photo print of render and mount. I do this so early because no one is printing this early in the morning.

Afterwards - Nap in car or classroom until 30 minutes before class. Probably the car. My classmates are nefarious and like to do things while you sleep. Or just wake you up to annoy you and be like "Why are you asleep Aliiii~~~." Bastards.

Saturday

Work, NAP, design Maggie's damned Sen from Kekkaishi pin. I want one, too. And go play with her Nendoroids.

After this is all over: start writing down a planned homework schedule. I stopped doing this in college and when I was at UH, I could get away with procrastinating and stopped. I need to get rid of this bad habit that I've developed...

Heads up for those who know me. My schedule starting the week of July 13:

Tuesday:
Texture Attributes and Material and Lighting 6-10

Wednesday:
Modeling III 1-5

Thursday:
Sequential Design 6-10

Online (First Session):
Psychology

Sequential Design is the comic class~♥ Animation Studio I was also highlighted, but it was a Friday class and I really wanted to take the comic class as an elective. This is the second time it's ever been offered and I don't know if it will be before I graduate. Also, I'm back to my Tues-Wed-Thurs schedule. Hurrah!

Well, the guy who hit me's insurance is run by a bunch of jerks. I still can't get my car fixed and it's been nearly two weeks. In my long record of getting hit by people, this is the longest it's ever taken to get my car fixed. Poor Evelyn, having to have a dent right on her face. My poor little girl. ;_; I hope I never get hit by someone with weird insurance that no one's heard of again.

In other news, I set up this monstrosity. I figured that since I started making these things so early, I might as well sell some online. It'll get updated as I make the pins. There's really no pattern to my pin designing, though. XD

Also, my next assignment for my 3D Animation class is a commercial. I'm still not sure what to do, but I'm thinking of going with Maruchan ramen. I designed a mascot for that back in an earlier class. I'll just have to come up with a story for the 30 second commercial. The animatic's due Wednesday.

Wednesday I pestered Richert about his comic publishing friend and he hadn't called him. I hope he still needs someone to help with coloring because that's some good pocket money I can make at home.

Ah, speaking of Richert and comics, he's doing the comic class again next quarter. Registration is on Monday and I'm plotting to take it. I'm running out of basic classes to take and I still have my two electives, so I guess I'll have to use one. I also want to take Psychology online so that I'll only have it for half the quarter and that'll make my load for when I go to Animefest lighter by one class. The other two classes will most likely consist of some combination of Broadcast Design, Modeling III, and Animation Studio I. I really have no idea yet, though. I refuse to take the internship class next quarter, though, since I'll be gone for a week at Siggraph. I have no idea if they'll want me to take it, though.

Ummm... ah, Maggie says that Joann's is going to have an upholstery foam sale soon and is going to acquire the block of foam that we're going to carve our Atoli and Shino hats from. I'll have to pay her back later, though, since I just handed over a Very Large Sum of Money to the school to pay for the rest of the trip to Siggraph. Hurrah for being poor for four weeks, since next paycheck is going towards the college funds.

Slowly but surely the Pencil Test Club is working on a project! We've got a script and last Friday we completed the character designs.

( scans of my design submissions )

I did my second animation for Intro. to 3D Animation. I never uploaded the first one because it's crap... this one could be better, and I'll be improving it later, but for the time being:



Every time I see it I find things that need to be fixed. e_e But hey, it was my first time working with bones and that was a very awkward learning curve. Stupid bones. I'm sure I'll grow to love them. The model was given to us rigged and all by our teacher.

I haven't had my cute little Evelyn back from the shop for very long and I got hit. Again. My poor car. ;_;

This is the first accident, excluding when Mom backed into my car, that didn't happen while on the way to school. I was on my way to work. I was approaching the light at the intersection when a guy pulled out of the gas station to turn left (crossing my side of the street) and hit me. It was his fault and he got ticketed for failure to yield to traffic, but he tried to get out of it. Anyway, his insurance is covering it. As you can see in the photo, it's dented, there's a tear in the bumper, and the light was knocked inwards. According to estimates, I'll need a new bumper and maybe a new light, but they won't know about the latter until they open her up and look at what's going on under the light.

Poor Evelyn. This makes five people to hit her, I hit someone once, and then the rock to the windshield. In six years. Mom thinks she's cursed.

Do ya'll care if I put ya'll down as references for my Career Developemnt class resume?

If ya'll don't, can you e-mail me your work phone numbers to ali4787@yahoo.com?

I made a lot of pins and time flew

My dojo's doing an embu at the Houston Japan Festival at 2:40 tomorrow (today? haha). So if you're interested in seeing koryu iaido from the legitimate line done by a bunch of Americans, come check us out. There'll be all kinds of demonstrations, food, shops, and more to see there, too.

Unrelated, but my wine project!!! I wound up with the highest grade in class somehow.

I knew this was going to be late, but I'm writing it even later than expected! Because of Good Friday, I didn't have my Friday class the first week for school. Now I'm writing this while waiting for a huge render to finish.

On Monday I have Digital Photography and Career Development. Photography is taught by the chairman of the animation department. It's an enjoyable class, but I wish that my film photography class from UH had transferred. I find listening to the lessons on how aperture and shutter speed and ISO work boring and I keep nodding out when he's teaching these things. In Career Development we learn about resumes and cover letters and such and soon we'll begin researching jobs. I took a class very similar to it in seventh grade, but unlike the middle school class this is actually useful because I'll be using the job searching packet I'm making in class to help get an internship and, with modifications, a job. It's also only a three hour class, which is nice.

Wednesdays I have Introduction to 3D Animation with the same lady who taught Modeling I. My first ball animation was crap because I didn't like my story very much. We're learning about rigging bones, something I tried to learn in high school and failed.

Modeling II is on Friday and I have a teacher who I've never had before. He talked at us for most of the class last week, then quickly made and animated a shark doing very simple things showing us how to save on time. The homework was to model a wine glass and bottle, both with wine in them, from observation (observational modeling?) and I need to get it printed and mounted tomorrow morning. I think in the future I'll get his assignments done on Wednesday so that I can submit it for printing on the photo printer then instead of getting up early on Friday. This is actually what's rendering right now and it's huge. Even my awesome video card is really slow with glass.

The Club fair and first Pencil Test Animation Club meeting was last week, too. We were beat for most signatures by 6 at the club fair and Friday a shocking number of people showed up, as in 20+. I wasn't expecting so many to actually show up and actually be enthusiastic. We voted for officers (I wound up still being president) and discussed the schedule for preproduction. Tomorrow (today?) will be the second meeting and the script writers are submitting scripts for review. Hurrah.

My cute little Evelyn is back!!! They had to give her a whole new bumper. It's so shiny. XD I'm glad she's back.

Also, for some reason LJ is saying I have a basic account. I need to contact them... In the meantime, I'll use my basic avatar. e_e I forgot to update my card. The old one expired. e_e

Today I went to work as usual and nothing extraordinary happened except that it rained. A lot. In fact, for a little while it looked like night when I glanced out the windows.

When I left at 3, it was pouring down so hard that I got drenched. I had my huge hoodie on, so my top half was OK, but my pants were soaked through. I didn't think anything of the somewhat flooded staff parking lot and the slightly more flooded highway, but once I crossed the intersection and started down the neighborhood it got deeper. I pulled into the middle of the street and put on my emergency lights and called home to say I couldn't make it and was going back to work, then turned around and headed back, but in those few minutes the water had risen and I didn't dare cross the deep intersection to the library, plus if the staff parking was flooded before it was probably more flooded. Now I know why flash floods are called flash floods. Thankfully, there's a little gas station that's built up really high (in Evelyn I can scrape my bumper going up or down if I'm not careful) and I pulled in there. More and more cars came until the tiny parking lot was pretty full, including three postal trucks and for a bit a fire department pick-up truck. It stayed pretty packed in there for a couple of hours before the rain slowed down and the larger trucks left (It was higher than this earlier). I got down and got a drink because I was really thirsty. ¬.¬ During all this time, I was reading Death Note 5, which I had checked out from work today thankfully, posting on twitter, texting, and calling my parents because it was kinda boring.

Eventually the water in the highway got really low and I decided to go down to the other corner to McDonald's and went through the drive through to get some fries. I would've gone in, but I didn't see any parking at the time. Oh, sweet fries, how I was craving you~♥ Anyway, when I got them there was a spot open so I just parked there and ate since the rain picked up again, then when I was done it had subsided enough to go inside and dry my pants. Sitting around in damp jeans for three hours is not comfortable. This earned me some funny looks, but at least I got my pants mostly dry before the blow driers ran out of hot air.

Pants dry, I sat around inside for a while when my mom called me and asked what the highway looked like. By this point, it was flood free and only had some puddles coming off of the sides. She suggested coming down 96 to the new entrance because it was built up on a hill and wading the rest of the way home. I thought this was a swell idea because it wasn't too far from the house and I had completely forgotten about the new entrance, so I went around and others had gotten the same idea. The street goes from 96, intersects the neighborhood street, then continues to the new school they're building, but the road to the school had a barrier up. People had moved it to provide more parking space and I found a spot on the curb and started down the street. I bumped into the guy who lives across the street from me while rolling up my pants and taking off my shoes and socks (I didn't want to ruin my shoes...). He'd gotten stranded at Kroger, poor guy. Anyway, we made our way to our street and when we got to his house, I could only stare at the street and think "Great, now to cross this..." Then I saw some kids in a little canoe coming down the street, then saw they were the kids next door to the guy I walked with's house. They were kind enough to let me hitch a ride across to my house and I avoided wading in waist high water. I felt silly asking for a ride from children, though.

After four hours of being stranded, I was home!

Once I was home, I took a bath and immediately changed into shorts and my wellies and waded about taking photos. It seemed like a good chance to get some photos for my photography class and I just wanted some photos.

( Photos! )

So yay, I'm home! So exciting. I hope my coworkers' cars are OK...

Edit: I'm going to fetch the rental car once the flooding goes down enough...

Edit Edit: The rental car is now in the driveway! :D

Edit Edit Edit: I forgot to mention it, but a big section of the patio cover caved in. Dad says he can fix it, which will save us money.

Yay! I set up my laptop internet account at school. I'm here all day and neither of my classes are in computer labs, so I decided to bring Loki along.

Evelyn went into the car doctor today at WTF in the morning and I got a rental car, a Nissan Versa that looks just like this. It drives quite nicely, but the breaks respond faster and I keep, um, hitting them too hard. Also, it has cruise control, which is nice because I can't feel how fast I'm going in it like I can my Evelyn. I made good use of it when there were long stretches of no cars on the way to school. Cruise control is one thing Evelyn lacks that I really really wish she had. One thing that's weird, though, is that it's wider than Evelyn, who is a Kia Rio. It's not much longer, but the extra six~nine inches off to the side kinda threw me off for a bit.

Actually getting the car took a while, though. The insurance didn't get around to making a reservation for us, so when we were driven to the Enterprise location near the repair place, we had to wait around for the insurance to fax the information over, then that particular location only had larger cars, which I didn't want since I have to drive to school several times a week. The league City location had a the Nissan available and we were all driven over there and I got the car. Hurrah!

( The yearly curse continues )

Yep. I went to the Micro Center by the school before class because my photography teacher said they had cheap compact flash cards there (the cameras at school use them). After unsuccessfully searching for it with the sales guy who said they had 12 in somewhere in the store, I left for class. At the light to turn right on Westheimer I got rear ended by the Mercedes... my neck still aches a bit. I took that photo and a shot of his plate, then we went off to a parking lot and exchanged information. He was a very polite old-ish man on his way to the doctor. Whoops. Anyway, at first glance it didn't look bad but upon closer inspection after class, Evelyn's paint is cracked all spider-web like and when Dad looked at it he noticed that the driver side of the bumper was drooping because the supports were damaged. You can actually see this in the photo.

So hurrah! My yearly spring curse lives on. I was hoping it was gone since nothing happened last year... I hope it goes away eventually. At least we don't have to pay for it like the time Mom backed into Evelyn, when it was my fault, and when it was a rock to the windshield that one year. Damn, this makes six years now out of seven. Poor Evelyn.

Yo! My button maker came! I got to work making a test and touching the ones I have made up.

( Images )

Today was my first day of school! I'll say more in my report at the end of the week, but I'll just say that it's really weird having classes with a lot of girls now. XD

Between my two classes I went down to the Texas Art Supply on Voss and got my watercolor paper. I was going to get something more like 18"x24", but I wouud up getting 22.5"x30". I've found in my previous encounters with watercolor that the larger I paint the more likely I am to not get paint in the wrong places. Even with small brushes. I just fail at working small in watercolor. However, I forgot to get colored fine line pens. I wanted brown and blue and purple to ink the skin, feathers, and maybe hair with so that it isn't just a hard black line, but I forgot about that completely. I'm torn between getting my usual Sakura or Copic pens, though. I'll probably stick with what I'm used to. e_e Or maybe I should just stick with black. ¬.¬