"It is easy after all, to put your name on a list of famous designers and bask in the reflected glow of their presence. But does that change what we would do in our studio the next morning?"

Erik Spiekermann in the Foreword of Doing Good Design

Does that? it kinda makes me think about why I've set myself on a quest to read more design books. It's somewhat similar i guess in a sense. Not to put my name aside the list of big names but rather, to be able to say that I know what they're talking about and SOMEHOW...show that i am involved in my industry.

As I have promised myself, I have finally gotten my butt down to sit down and read design books, albeit mostly on the toilet throne. I guess it's a good thing I'm full of shit and shit alot cause that way I actually get more reading done.

Sometimes I feel that my attempts to actually read to increase my knowledge is more like my many quests to complete a task. read it, check it. done. nothing really is accomplished other than canceling that item off the list. it's just like i've accomplished something but learnt nothing out of it. Just to get a false sense of self worth i guess.

oh yes. Cheap thrills in life. No wonder I'm usually happy!

YAY I survived the finals!!

ok i think i don't really deserve to celebrate considering how i did the bare minimum just to get through this quarter. it hasn't been the most fun quarter and I definitely felt that I've underachieved. I did however, end up peer tutoring, student ambassadoring, AIGA SCAD exco-ing, AIGA member and do all that other extra curricular activities. I blame my bare minimum effort this quarter on how divided I am all over the place. It doesn't help either that I cant multi task and I can't divide my heart and energy.

Anyhows, my second 3d motion media piece and my final. I had originally intended it to be more disney but it turned out more nickelodeon. I blame it on them coming to school and influencing me subconsciously. I'm SORRY DISNEY. pls don't hate me for it :(



There are some glitches and horrible camera movement and rhythm and it was so hard to control cos I had so many elements in there that I wasn't able to switch to 4 view mode cause it would hang and refuse to show me anything so I was permanently stuck in the perspective view. Having to navigate the scene was a pain in the butt mostly cos my motion sickness was killing me.

I would have loved to do something more epic especially with the egg rolling scene and the toast cannons but i ran out of patience and time...mostly patience.

My twitter account followers have also grown in size without a decrease in the past few days. I'm especially delighted that it hasn't been some porn spam but like actual designers that follow me so I'm quite happy. the irony is that within the past few days of not updating, I have been getting more followers. maybe i should just stop tweeting entirely and have more followers magically appear.

wow the athletes at school are really :S

Had the "honor" of helping out my boss with a study skill session for the athletes today which in my opinion is really retarded at this stage of life. Initially I had no clue who the audience was and what we were doing and I was honestly surprised that we were expecting 50 people at this time of the quarter. Then one by one they trickled in and I figured this must be for the athletes and I was right.

The athletes here are really identifiable in the way they dress (permanently in work out clothes no matter what the weather is. this includes a headband, track shoes, shorts/sweatpants and a hoodie..and almost always...chewing gum) and they walk with an annoying swagger that just shouts "man i'm so cool and strong" even though they really aren't. That annoying attitude is kinda both intimidating yet it makes you want to punch them.

I really felt bad for my boss cos they kept yakking amongst themselves and talking stupid and thinking they're so funny and laughing stupidly at their jokes like how they often are portrayed in movies. They were excited about getting stickers for rewards and proceeded to paste them on their faces :S WOW. so impressive.

weird how when i think about singaporean athletes it's quite the opposite. Usually our athletes have the extra determination and discipline to study hard and they're more mature. I believe it's the way these americans place sports on such a high pedestal and status symbol that make these jocks the way they are.

2 more weeks. good golly.

i feel like i'm continually preparing my resume and gathering my portfolio and yet the irony is i still think they all suck. being a designer is kinda annoying cos it means that while everyone else's portfolio/resume just needs to be fancy in content, mine has to wow them visually too. and that's a problem because i'm never really and fully wowed by my own work.

I need to revamp my portfolio but i haven't found the time to edit some of my projects, re-print them for photoshoots for portfolio.

then there's the upcoming disney imagineers program at SCAD that i want to do so badly. I failed at getting in last year but hopefully this year with better and more relevant industry work and better professors to give recommendations I might stand a chance. *cross my fingers*

anyhows....it's been awhile since i last posted work so...here's just a little piece. my first 3d motion media project.



still need to work on timing and speed but i think this is at least more dynamic that what i've been producing. la la la la

great day at the beach with the roomie bre and naomi. Now that I finally have a friend who has time and a car, i get to go out more often which is kinda nice cos downtown savannah gets old after awhile. Bre likes the water loads and I guess i felt bad letting her go in by herself i have to force myself to go in too and it's been surprisingly fun and yet I still feel safe. Thankfully she bought some foam noodles so I felt safer going in to the water with the strong waves. Otherwise there's no way i'm going to go above knee level but the two times we went to the beach I went in till waist level which is a big accomplishment for me. it's fun when the waves come in and pick you up and toss you out back to the shore. kinda liberating I think.

Anyhows, we were there just lying down drying off when this guy came over to talk to us and tried to hit on us. This was the second time a guy actually approached my group of friends and I in the 2 plus years i've been here, so it was interesting. I don't think I told anyone this but the first time was during our school's cny dinner at the student center and it was naomi, me and some of her friends and there was this guy who kept walking past our tables over and over and over again and when naomi and i went down to get drinks he followed us down and back up again and after awhile he finally got the courage to come talk to us. THEN...he told us it was snowing outside which was a bad idea cos i freaked out and we left him behind HUR HUR HUR. since then he has never talked to us when we see him around school. lol. poor kid. it was kinda cute how shy he was though. Naomi and I each believe he was interested in the other and till now, we can't figure out which of us he actually liked enough to come to us.

ANYHOWS. so there we were lying there and he comes up to me since i'm the nearest one and he starts talking to us, asking us if we were here for vacation or school blah blah. and so we told him we were from scad, and he was like "oh bum that sucks." and i was like "no...i like school. it's been fun!" and being stupid, he decided to tell us that he quit school because he could no longer play baseball and all that. erm...if we tell u we like school it's obvious that we actually take our education seriously and so we will not be interested in school drop outs like him. Anyhows, he starts getting comfortable and sits down on my beach towel and started talking directly to me with direct eye contact which was kinda awkward yet you can't pull away kinda power but whatever, he invited us to stay and drink with him at a bar with his 2 other friends and i was like no thank you, we're underaged and he's like PSH...they don't care here. which was another turn off in addition to the fact that he smoked, quit school, had no aspirations, and he's obviously not a serious guy...anyhows, he left after that and when he overheard us talking about how we should take a picture, bre and naomi saw how he and his friends got super excited about coming to help us take one and we decided to just pack up and run away. hahha. very amusing. the two of them started whispering and of course, being the short kid who got washed over by waves and now have ear cavities filled with sea water, i was partially deaf and could not hear most of what everything was said but they later enlightened me. I blamed it on them since they were wearing bikini's and that since there were 3 guys and 3 of us girls...they would each get one of us and i said "poor dude who gets me" cos they were the 2 bikini babes while i'm in my black sajc dry fit t-shirt and sajc fbt shorts looking all frumpy and gross. HAHAHAA.

we took naomi home and then we proceeded to the melting pot, which was a fondue restaurant. nice atmosphere, good food and it was a pretty cool experience though I don't think I'll go back there because it's so expensive unless someone rich is treating me. we did the french dinner set which gave us the full experience of the appetizer of cheese fondue, bread and granny smith apples. It's surprising that the only thing I liked were the granny smith apples cos everything was so bitter since the cheese had alcohol in it too. then we had a salad and I actually loved the cherry tomatoes in it and tried olives for the first time. not a big fan but it was ok. the meat was so good though. we had a herb, mushroom and garlic base with some alcohol to cook our meat which comprised of big garlic shrimps (ie. prawns. they need to learn that shrimps are tiny prawns), duck, chicken, sirloin strips, fillet mignon, mushrooms, potatoes and broccoli which were all really well marinated and served with 6 delightful varieties of sauces. The meat was really yummy and tender and it felt good to actually taste duck again after so long. Dessert was a beautiful mix of dark and white chocolate with graham crackers covered marshmallows, oreo coated marshmallows, bananas, strawberries, cheesecake, poundcake, brownies and rice krispies cubes. Ate till I almost exploded mostly cause I paid so much for it and couldn't bear to waste it all. never ever spent so much on anyone's birthday not even pacey so in a sense i was killing myself over it. Then again, that kid doesn't have any other friends to hang out with since she's not in the dorms like other freshies. Good thing i decided to get her a gift instead of treating her to that meal cos it was like $50+ a person with tips. Her gift was expensive though. I bought her the new special edition for beauty and the beast cos she was so excited about it coming out and i couldn't find anything else to buy for her. bum...$80+ dollars down the drain for that one kid's 19th birthday. crazy. I think I shall remain single because I can't afford to blow my hard earned dough on things like stupid anniversaries now.

and so... for the next few weeks, i shall live on cheap ramen :(

procrastination has gotten the best of me. It doesn't help either that my 2 mograph class really sucks. I'm contemplating dropping it to a minor and replacing the available class slots with graphic design electives instead. still thinking about it though. My lack of skills and passion in mograph is not doing me any good and I hate the class structures. Maybe cos i'm still doing the basic stuff. hmmm...

We recently had a graphic design conference held by the department. I wish I could say it was great. Everyone else thought it was fantastic but I thought the event could have been ran better. Maybe cos it was a small conference. Anyhows, it was mainly about sustainability and design ethos and I honestly don't feel strongly about it. I mean I recognize the need and I will keep in mind about such issues and design accordingly but then i'm not an activist and most of the lectures just went over my head. I don't know how but I felt as though I didn't gain anything from them...and then I read the twitter posts from everyone at the conference and i'm like WHAT? that's a good point. how on earth did i not catch that?!? ah well...gonna have to try to get my hands on the recordings and re-listen to them again.

The reception process was a nice comfortable environment for networking since we had our classmates around. I didn't really meet anyone from my batch and it was mainly seniors and graduate students. I think my batch seriously sucks and it's been quite depressing. I'm thankful that tutoring and the AIGA meetings have allowed me to meet talented seniors and grad students who are inviting me into their social circle and i've been invited to possibilities in collaboration. For the first time yesterday, the whole thing about being underaged for alcohol actually bummed me out. not that I want to drink, but rather the seniors were going to a bar to drink and continue talking about the conference and networking and stuff and I wished I could join them when they invited me but I was underaged so oh well...next year then. That's what they've decided. It's nice to have all these older kids looking after you. I kinda feel really pampered cos they're all like treating me like a talented young kid that they take care of yet they recognize my abilities and they're happy to work with me. life's good.

Receptions and networking scares the shit out of me and I seriously have no balls. I'm not a conversationalist and i'm horrible at carrying conversations. But then I guess it's partly cos I have such a short attention span and a small heart so I really can't be bothered to talk to most people or stay focused on the conversation. I get bored too fast and i'm not smart nor do i feel strongly about particularly any subject. I'm shallow....like my short height. =P Just hanging out with the AIGA club president for the last bit and seeing her interact with one of the speakers/professors was quite an eye opener. I don't know how to network and how it's done so just being there with her for that one thing was like WOW. this is how you do it. Then of course I tried and ended up embarassing myself because I had asked a question that a speaker had JUST explained and I didn't remember the speaker's name. BAH. and to top it off, I told the AIGA club president on her facebook about how I attended the conference and got nothing out of it cos all the information was way above my head and the next thing i knew...one of the speakers "liked" my comment. I almost died of embarassment. I blame it on her though. WHO ON EARTH ADDS THEIR NETWORKING PEOPLE TO FACEBOOK??!?! then must censor so much. retarded. and you all know i don't censor myself very well. networking in social environments should be left at LinkedIn. (but then again....no one really goes there. LOL)

ah well glory. time to grow up.

ok...my friend is starting to get on my nerves (although she is not the reason for my unworking ulnar nerve)

it was one thing when we were working together on our projects in poetter hall all summer and it was fine when she asked me questions when i was there. BUT...now that I'm back to working at home, it is NOT ok to text me EVERYTIME you have a question and email me for a critique. Yes i am a peer tutor but no I am NOT your on call assistant or professor. nor am I responsible for finding out or knowing when events happen, where events happen, what time buildings and print shop operates. I am in no way in a position that requires me to know this information by heart and for GOODNESS SAKE. it's all online. Don't be so lazy.

BLAH. I'm fine with helping people who try but when it gets to the point where you are taking advantage of me I will not take that.

sorry. HAD to rant.

thankfully this quarter's workload appears to be relatively relax. I believe it's something to do with having 2 mograph classes instead of 2 or 3 graphic design classes. It is ironic considering how you usually are required to spend a ton more time rendering and animating but I guess it's also why you get less projects and process work requirements. graphic design on the other hand is sooo tedious in its brainstorming and conceptualization. Sometimes I wonder if I should drop mograph as a major and make it a minor instead so I can focus more on graphic design but I can't decide which one i really want to do more. For one thing, I like and enjoy mograph and I especially love to do concepts and storyboards/styleframes for it but then when it comes to animating everything I'm horrible at it. and don't even get me started about 3D graphics. sooo not mai thang. ah well. I guess for now I'll just take the stuff required for the minor and wait and see how things go? I guess that might give me more time and leeway to do more graphic design electives, do collaborative projects and do an internship.

speaking of internships, I really need to do one sometime soon and build my portfolio and resume in time for the upcoming career's fair in the spring :S 6 weeks might be too short for anyone to want to employ an intern and I definitely don't want to overkill myself and not have a break this entire year and actually have time to catch up with people and all that jazz. I'm thinking of maybe going in to chrystal's mum print shop and do some designs for them and earn some moolah and gain experience but I'm not keen on producing stuff for church all over again? I think I need some real world experience and I'm aware that they do produce work outside of church. I think it'll be useful to know how the printing process work for projects and production wise. Need to ask aunty sylvia about it though :S SO CHRYSTAL AND BROTHER..WHAT CHOO THINK???

as for now, I think this quarter has been quite a "get involved in your industry" mode. I'm now officially an AIGA (american institute of graphic artists) member and it feels strangely legit and pretty intimidating because it just means you're one step closer to getting out of school and into the working world. The fact that my credits status is that of a fourth year student is VERY scary because I do not feel that my work is up to par with standards and I'm doubtful of my ability to clinch an internship with that crap. But then again, i've been told multiple times not to put myself down or be so hard on myself cos the rest of the world is already doing it anyway. bummer. anyhows, to add to my list of curriculars for this quarter:

i'm now part of the AIGA SCAD exco as secretary, which means I am in regular contact with the president and my mentor, who is the faculty adviser and that's always good.

I'm a volunteer for the graphic design conference design ethos (good for networking yo) which gives me a free pass to the entire conference which costs a few hundred dollars to people outside of scad. and this is actually a big conference cos people from all over are coming down and the editor of Comm Arts will be there. WHEEEE :D

i'm a student ambassador

...a peer tutor

and I might be a shift leader/supervisor for this year's film festival shown at the trustees theatre (depends on whether i have the time) which gives me a chance to attend all the preview parties for free.

My email account for school and my calendar/organizer has never been this full of activities, meetings, trainings etc. I feel like a grown up :S

good lord.

Life's been intense yet somewhat fulfilling. ok not every part of it. My ambassador duties are sapping my life and energy. It's just something I'm really forcing myself to do and every bone and cell in my body screams at me and cringes in pain and horror. It did however, force me to expand my wardrobe and I now actually have decent formal shoes. I now understand why I never experienced blisters. it's because all the shoes I've worn ie sneakers, track shoes etc are way more comfortable to walk in in comparison to the "pretty shoes" like heels which kills my calves and the hard leather that bites into my skin. I now have blisters and cuts and sore calves. I have honestly no clue how i'm going to survive a long days worth of giving tours and acting happy and answer questions when all I can think about is OUCHHHHHHH. The training has only reinforced to me how painfully shy I can be and how anti social I am. Ironic for someone who's been in various leadership positions that requires me to do public speaking and befriend people. It takes all the effort to put on a smile and be energetic for strangers that I know I will not remember.

One other thing good that came out of the trainings were the etiquette training. I'm now equipped with proper table manners....but whether or not i'm gonna use them is another issue altogether. Screw manners if it's gonna take me 2.5 hours to finish a meal. Food's gonna get cold and it ain;t nice anymore. It's just silly to let such expensive food go to waste. SCREW PROPRIETY. I will not survive in Elizabeth Bennett's era of pride and prejudice.

The new roommate's been good and so far we seem to have quite abit of similarities and her family's been really nice too. esp her mum. it's kinda weird to have a mother figure around that you're actually willing to obey. I guess it's the way she phrases things and it's nice to have nicknames cos it kinda felt like i was part of the family even though we;ve just met. AND...she doesn't care if we go eat macdonalds. YAY! It's strange how even though I'm living in hte land of Macdonalds I've hardly eaten any and the finals of Summer quarter was actually the first time in 7-8 months since I last ate from the golden arches. YUM. Thank goodness she's not a health freak/allergy bum/fussy eater like my previous roommates were so maybe life's gonna be great. CROSS FINGERS.

As for now...it's back to school and time to figure out how my schedule should work out. Life's gonna be a tight squeeze and I'm gonna have to compromise here and there for things to figure out. As of now...my brain has been wired towards my future career and i'm packing my life full of stuff that will help me get places. tiring...but have to otherwise everything will go down the drain. I hate the world and how it runs by networking. Anyhows...this quarter doesn't look too fun with 3d motion graphics. I took the first class today and already I felt kinda lost and very nervous about it. Also got kinda motion sick with it. not a good sign. well...we'll see how it goes. Hopefully i'll manage to scrape by with an A. Thankfully the trial version lasts beyond the quarter so it appears i will be able to work from home and not be limited to the library 1am hours or being trapped in the timeless ex-coffin factory where you don't see the light of day. Seriously..that place makes me depressed. firstly...it's freakin far away and secondly...it's cold and grey and they have no windows in the entire building. the only way to see outside is true the clear glass doors on the first floor. that's it.

doop doop dee doop.

Just in case y'all were wondering if I was alive.

yes.

i am.


I still have 3 more weeks of school before I can finally relax and wind down and then gear up for the next 10 weeks of school before I head back home. It's weird how the days have now mushed into one another and dream and reality is kinda mixed up other than the fact that my dream world is waaaayyyy more fun than the real world and it's too ridiculous/awesome to really wholly merge both worlds as one. murders, ninjas, magic, superpowers and heros. I think my dreams are my form of escape. :D

I was just checking in with my tutoring schedule since my tutee is nowhere to be found. This marks the fourth no-show appointment in 3 weeks. At least I get to relax. :) Anyhows, SOMEHOW my mind was very much convinced that today is the first or the second of August so imagine the shock I got when I saw the calendar and it said 5th. Got me really confused for awhile there. I think I've ran myself dry this quarter and now that I'm supposed to be headed towards the big finish, I think I've crashed. Doesn't help that the final projects are the least bit exciting. ok...I don't particularly enjoy designing layouts and publications. BAH. I think some might be enjoying especially the experimental one but only if we had more time and grade wasn't really a matter.

I have 3 weeks to work on 30 pages of content and design layouts -__- make that 2 weeks since the last week is for refinement and printing. THEN i can finally clean my tiny broom closet and perhaps see the floor and table top once again. the small space has rendered me...placeless to put all my large boards and papers, which ultimately just piles up at the doorway. I am fast building up toe muscles from tiptoeing around the room and hopping from one end to another to get stuff. I can't wait to finally move to a new room which is more than twice the size of the broom closet. When I move into the new place, I shall bury my face in the fluffiness of the clean, new carpet and roll from one end of the room to another just to embrace the freedom of space. THEN, I shall proceed to delightful set things straight and orderly to decorate my room and MAYBE...build my own little studio corner :)

I have received my coated and uncoated pantone swatches. The original costs of one was a few hundred dollars but ebay (oh WONDERFUL EBAY and amazon) provided me one in MINT condition from a print shop for a mere $35. OH THE PRECIOUS PRECIOUS LITTLE THING. ok it ain't so little. it's gigantous in height due to the number of swatches and I need two hands to handle that swatch book but it's still my precious baby. My next investment would be to buy my own large format printer from Epson so I will no longer have to run to the store and pay such expensive fees for ONE project. I could have easily bought that printer for the cost I spend in ONE project. I never fully calculated but now that my prof brought it up, it makes so much sense. PLUS. I can print everything without having to rely on the stupid printers at the shop to mess it up. I will however, dearly miss my friends at the print shop with whom I have grown very familiar with. Possibly a little too familiar to some cases because it just tells me how much time and money I've spent there. They're possibly only nice to me because I give them so much of my money.

With a new laptop and printer, I'm easily set back by about $1100 to $1300. I think I shall starve myself for the next few days. Maybe eat the entire pile of scrap paper i've accumulated over the past 7 weeks from projects for my meals. At least you know I'm finally getting some fibre in my diet. :p

oh lord. what am I to do with my final projects >.< I just want to bury myself in bed and sleep it all away. I am in denial. yes yes.

drama in class today X___X

ok la. it wasn't so bad but like the projects that we had to do for the so-called lecture class was getting a little too demanding and we were frustrated with not just the demands of all the homework but also because the assignment sheet was so vague and we were so confused as to what was required. Our professor misunderstood us for being lazy and wanting just a boring lecture class based on memorisation instead of actually applying knowledge to work so he got really pissed. Thing is, we were happy with the hands on application but it was seriously too much to ask for especially since these should just be class exercise to get a taste of where the designers in the past were thinking about when they were developing the art. To make them into a full blown design project with research, development, get it from sketch to computer and then printing it out professionally plus a research paper on the topic of the HISTORY of writing and language and a presentation in the span on 2 weeks is NOT ENOUGH. then some girl cried for the second time in the span of 6 classes because she was too overwhelmed and frustrated by the professor and then the professor got annoyed that she was crying even though this is not expected to be a kindergarten class of easy work. but then i guess he felt bad and apologized for being an idiot. I have a love hate relationship with that guy.

My life has been reduced to class>work>homework. I don't have time to cook and my meals have been reduced to vending machine donuts for lunch, instant noodles if I have time to boil water at home, energy bars and tons of soft drinks esp coke to fill my tummy with gas. I eat as I walk, scoff them down in between classes, run from place to place to get things done, come home all tired and I have to sit down and sketch and generate ideas from air.

in addition to that, I have to hunt for housing, view houses, work, and finish all my homework. I think the year end winter break would be absolutely delightful to have. I just haven't been able to have the time to just sit down at home properly.

ironically, I do enjoy the classes I am taking despite the hoard of work that's killing me. At least I get to sit down at work and BREATHE and relax abit, get away from all that thinking and stress. I love my printmaking professor. she's wonderfully sweet and happy and oh so patient and she makes printmaking so much fun. There's something magical about doing things hands on like creating a drawing or crafting something. I guess it's because now that photoshop has made everything so easy, work done digitally no longer means anything. and I guess it's also because tangible stuff is way more awesome. If i had the time and money, I would probably love to do more printmaking classs.

Then there's my graphic design studio class. I was nervous about it considering how that professor has a bad rep for being super duper tough but I've been so inspired by him. His knowledge about design as not just an art but a way of life and thinking just amazes me and I love how the class only comprises of 5 people so things get into deep discussions and I'm learning so much more. For once, I actually feel like I'm learning to be a graphic designer. I look at the process that he has made us go through to get one simple thing and look at the array of sketches and developments and tools that I'm using and BOY DO I FEEL PROFESSIONAL. it's absolutely delightful and it makes the process a bajillion times more amazing that the final product itself. plus...all that discussion and reading into deep articles make me feel smarter and oh man...I realised how attractive and sexy intellect is. HAHAHA this is so wrong but I guess I'm more admiring him for his brain.

history of graphic design wise.....the "projects" are fun and interesting but it's seriously on the last of my priorities and it's just frustrating to think that the same amount of effort and thinking has to go into something so...trivial. It's definitely not anything of substance to be used as a portfolio piece but it's just fun to have fellow students to sit around and bitch about it. haha. it's always nice to have an outlet of stress relief.

meow meow meow....im hungry >.<

after spending a week organising, clearing and categorizing my font database of 3600 fonts, trying to clear up my computer and organise my files, my mac has decided to give up on me.

it is not working as it should be (ie. one click requires several minutes of waiting time. I can't even open up microsoft word without having it freeze). I am not a happy person right now.

Especially after transferring my files did I realise that the best of my portfolio works are missing (ie. I must have deleted them by accident or something which is plenty strange because I know just a few days ago I had uploaded them to the behance network.)

thus, I ran a scan to scan my computer to retrieve the deleted files, only to my utmost horror, after taking 3 days to scan up to half the amount required, my computer froze, and I had to force it to shut down the incorrect way and wait for the super duper laggy computer to start up all over again. as you can tell. i'm in no where near the world delighted.

if I lose all the data in my hard disk...it's all my photos from my my entire time here, my holiday photos, ALL MY WORK from school and more. that just sucks balls. And this will ruin my application for internships cos now i have to start from scratch. I am NOT HAPPY. on the bright side...at least I still have the files for my website....i hope.

it is so hot I think Singapore is actually cool compared to this.

it's 39 flippin' degrees. I think my blood is boiling within me and my organs are slowly cooking.

X___X

anyhows, joined a small group of kids with the international student services for a trip to Pooler, Georgia for bowling, laser tag and some ball shooting game. it was fun. not highly social or anything, but it's fine. it was a nice escape considering how long it's been since i've done anything like an ordinary person....like watch a movie and all that stuff. Savannah needs to have more life....and to have them located in accessible, safe areas.

on a side note, I really like the arcades here. it's all the old school ball games that Singapore has long ago eliminated from all the arcades...whacking mole rats with the hammer game, rolling little rubber balls into different slots, ski ball etc etc. sadly, the arcade is no longer a cheap quarter per game but a dollar now. Bowling and laser tag was very cheap though. $1 per person for a game of bowling, together with shoe rental, it was bout $4. Laser tag was a mere $3. to think singapore charges so much more for that just because it's not common to find and just cause it's considered a cooler than normal activity doesn't give them a right to overcharge for it all.

ah well.

fun fun day. I'm hiding indoors keeping as cool as i possibly can. 39 degrees...gosh. I dun even think my body temperature has ever gone that high.

good Lord....it's HOT here. I don't remember summer being this horrible last year. it's like 36 degrees burning sun and I'm stuck in my room with no ventilation save for one small fan with the diameter of the tip of my thumb to the tip of my pinky stretched out. My phone had a bit of water damage from my water bottle during the trip to St Augustine and just a 10 minute walk to the bank and back cured it cause the sun dried it all up. crazy huh.

i'm bakin bakin bakinnnn and trying to stay as cool as I possibly can. i went to the bank to bank in roughly $300 worth of pay from the graduation ceremony and one shift at the theatre which was quite delightful because big numbers that you actually earn is very satisfying knowing that you earned it and not just stick out your hand and have money plonked in it. It's almost as if money increases in value when you work for it. but then again, I guess it does because you are calculating every cent in terms of how many hours you need to work to earn it back.

Anyhows, St. Augustine was really cool. I was thinking it was gonna be relatively boring being a historic town and it was a on your own kind of trip. No adults guiding. just a bunch of international kids and whatever brochures and maps available. Doesn't seem quite a bad idea considering that we're all more or less adults except for the fact that most of the kids on the trip have a problem just ordering the right meal, let alone figure out directions to places. Despite being a predominantly male group, I ended up taking the lead which i guess in a sense was relatively satisfying to my need for control, bringing me back to the days of leadership in IJTP and SAJC.

anyhows, photos are up on facebook if you're interested. it was cool traveling with a whole bunch of strangers and ending up being friends in such a short span of time. I could very well participate in more of such events. I think this summer has been more social than my entire time of 2 years here at SCAD. I am pathetic. More social time through Stacy and James Parrish. a really nice christian couple who loves Asian culture so much they have 3 asian international students living in their house and they are the hosts of the weekly international students potluck. One room is opening up in end August/September so it might possibly my future home/family for the next 2 years. I'm still very much unsure of it because it's not as convenient as being located downtown, downtown, but it's a cheaper alternative and I can still get around with one of the dorms nearby and I have yet to see how the room actually looks like. *shrug shrug*

anyhows...new layout cos i'm sick of the old one. if i get the energy to do some work i might.....mightttttt...redo my own layout if I can figure out what the heck blogger is doing for template designs.

This is my first night in the new apartment. It's no fairy tale resort by far with my harry potter broom closet sized room, and a bathroom that has a toilet bowl seat that looks like someone shits and pees charcoal all over the bowl and on the seat. To be honest, I don't quite know what possessed me to agree to sublet this place over the other option though granted at least I wouldn't be sick from the smell of my friend's religious indian incense. 5 minutes in that place and I almost suffocated and the thought of staying there for 4 months and having all my stuff in that place smelling like that for a good 10 months or more scared me away. At least this time i wouldn't need to worry about shifting my beds, desk and all other necessities over. At least I know this is just a temporary place and possibly anything after this would be glorious considering how this is way worse than my dorm room.

So i sat down last night in the midst of my bare room taking in everything and I guess I've in one way or another finally come to terms with no longer being a tenant of the apartment. It's sad and true but at this point of time I think there's absolutely no turning back and i guess I've started moving on with my life. This new place will just be another one of those adventure suffering stories I'll be able to tell me kids one day when I'm trying to dissuade them from going overseas. MUAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA. along with alot of other truths that people don't tell you about when you go overseas to study.

To most people, including the naive and innocent young me back then, going overseas was all about a BRAND NEW EXPERIENCE *anime starry eyes*, cool new friends, parties, a new opportunity to start afresh and anew, explorations and fun fun and more fun. Yet now that I've been here it's been barely that case. True...I've explored a little....no doubt at a cheap price of $30 covering everything for school trips BUT, I do so by doing community service, digging trenches, scooping poop, weeding and more...then i earn some bit of fun and exploration of the place. I guess I'm doing things most tourists will never ever get to do, like pet a puma or go behind the scenes of a museum and a zoo, but it's still not as glamourous as the photos put it out to be. (though I have to admit....any stories told by me will definitely be WAYYYY more cool than the actual thing itself). Coming here after 2 years have forced me to grow up, and to do so really fast. Making new friends, doing chores etc. Those are now a thing of the past and I've seen moved to more advanced levels of figuring out my budget, working and studying at the same time, fighting hard for scholarships, finding an apartment, but more so with relationships. Being overseas has given my mum a chance to really be a mother to me. I guess cos being so far away meant I had no one else to rely on and it's not like any of my friends could really give me solutions. I guess in a way it was during this whole housing situation that allowed me to see that my mum was being a mum in caring and asking and actually offering productive help though I don't blame her for not being able to offer housing in the right areas cos she knows nothing about savannaah. Being further away from home I had the chance to notice the growth of my 2 brothers. One being softer and more caring and surprisingly sweet and endearing and the other growing more mature in his ways both mentally and spiritually. Perhaps it was all God's plan in making all of us appreciate each other and the things we have, especially me.

Things with michelle have gotten better. I summoned my courage and texted her an apology for being a cold jerk and honestly told her how I felt about the whole situation - anger, frustration, fear, denial, stress etc and told her I forgive her and hope we could still be friends. I don't think I've ever quite done such a thing because my pride is usually all up in my face but I figured you know...I should do the right thing for once. I guess because I felt bad for her feeling terribly guilty especially since no one quite expected things to turn out this way and things are really not going her way. I never quite thought I would have friends in serious financial difficulties, but somehow coming here, I've been plonked amongst the disgustingly rich and horrifically poor just in school alone. I'm not counting the hobos of course, but it's surprising to hear when your classmates are moving from place to place on a daily basis, sleeping on park benches because they don't have money, dropping out of school because they don't have funds for their education, going home halfway because their mum is depressed and in a schizophrenic state, friends losing their parents. It's as if the world is suddenly becoming so real to me and I'm starting to understand why people find it hard to just simply rely on God to provide.

How can you simply sit back and relax when you have no clue what's going to happen next? The idea of not being in control and having absolutely nothing to fall back on brings me into a frenzy and panic attack. I never knew I could feel this way...with the exception of the process of receiving my A level results. Hell...my future depended on that and for all everyone knew, the past results I had been getting was definitely shining the light on the path to doom. Still...it's hard to still think that God could provide and it seems like that was just a one time event because I did feel that God was calling me to SA but this time, I think I went against my gut feeling to leave the house and I have NO idea if God has a better back up plan for me this time.

Ah wells...I've also learnt that I'm also REALLY REALLY REALLY bad at reading people's characters and i'm very very influenceable.

Take for example....When I first met Emily I thought she was this emo, angsty kid. Piercings all over and dang...her facebook pictures were SCARRRYYYYY. to me at least. middle finger kid, piercings, emo eye liner, drinks etc...definitely not the kind of crowd i was familiar with. She never did talk to me but I guess somehow we started talking, i don't remember how but it was fun sitting in her room chatting with her about crazy random things like where the world will go in the future, how technology will advance, life after death etc. And then things changed after the whole housing situation and I finally saw that her opinions of the other 2 roommates were really...just her opinions of the people at her high school and it just stuck because Maddy was from her high school. I got influenced and my opinions of them were swayed too. In the end, it turned out that the other 2 girls were really nice and I had just been wrong about them under Emily's influence. I almost cried when they bought me a farewell/housewarming gift from their trip to ikea. it was this GIANT frame of super funny monster drawings that they felt screamed GLORIA! and indeed it did. I don't know how i'm going to bring it home :S oh..i'll just have to ship it home like I'd do with the rest of my bojangles. Seriously...how on earth did I accumulate so much crap? I think I have the most stuff in that house. Yet ironically, I've only spent the same sum that is equivalent to that of one bed in acquiring all the furniture in my room. As for the other non-monetary stuff....let's just say i'm a sentimental hoarder. One of these days, I'm gonna be on the tv reality show - hoarders, with professionals to come clean my house and help my organise my life and cure my mental disease.

hmm..I think I'm starting to adjust to this place already. Perhaps...i'm not as autistic as I though I might have been.

school's finally out (about time) and as usual...it doesn't really feel much different. it's like when you're stuck in it you feel so suffocated but then when you get out it's like the load hasn't really lifted either. then you feel kinda cheated and empty cos there's no legit reason to you feeling so lousy and bummed out :S

Well..what can i say? Life's confusing.

I think I didn't really put in my best this quarter cos i was quite xianed out by everything and 3 studios, 16 projects in 10 weeks is really quite draining. Thank goodness school functions of a 10 week quarter system. My digital page and web professor was very impressed with my website, more so cos it's only my second legit website that's built from scratch (design, coding etc). BUT BUT BUT the thing that made me feel really good about myself was how he said that my website was a grad student's website standard (BOO-YAH!) which is pretty awesome considering how little i know about website design. it just helps to be OCD and obsessed about such things and details. I really like web designing. it's fun with the coding. makes you feel smarter than other people for once. HAHAHA.

Second awesome thing is for my final project in my other class, my professor decided to submit it into another competition. YAY!

She found my work to have a nice balance of playfulness and professionalism which is very great. The best thing that can happen to you in a critique is have everyone try and find something bad about the work just because it's so good and it's happened to me multiple times in that class. I think with this motion graphics class (ironically without the motion. we're just designing still frames and concepts) I really pushed myself and broke out of my usual vector graphic style which is great cos i'm quite happy to see a different kind of work in my portfolio :)

i need to stop whining and man up. things have happened and nothing can turn things back. I think I might be suffering from mild panic attacks cos those sudden emotional thingy about the housing comes and go like the wind.

anyhows....just 1 more day of classes left and i'll be out and done by 1.30pm tmr.

best thing that came out of this quarter? my portfolio website. Since it's done up pretty dang well I won't have to worry about a whole load of work over the summer other that updating more work. YAY.

check it out: www.gloriawu.com

I think it was a good thing I had finals to take things off my mind about housing. but now that i'm almost done with finals and able to pack, the fact that I'm no longer living here by the end of the week KILLS me. As I pack, I recall that it just seems a short while ago that I unpacked everything and started a brand new life, my first rented apartment, my first time having my own room, my own bathroom, a tv in my room, setting it up my way, decorating it, just taking in how amazing God had been in providing this place.

I can't help but tear on my insides, wishing i could rewind time back to the day I made the decision to move, against my doubts and gut feeling that things might not work out. I guess I was greedy in getting a better deal - living with a good friend, no more parties, good location, good price, more fridge space, no worries about utilities, transport, extra space including a big wardrobe where I can actually conduct stop motion animation projects for class etc. All at a slightly cheaper price of what I will be paying. Ironically, it was the price and the amount of money I could save on living expenses and rent that made me decide to move after calculating the cost of living here alone over the summer and paying all the bills by myself for 4 months and the next year's summer over my internship due to no subletting. I tried to save my family more money and I ended up screwing myself over. I guess this is God's way of telling me not to take things into my own hands and just trust in His provision.

Now as i hunt for a new place it's hard to find one that I can feel comfortable in. There are many places here no doubt, but few are not mouldy and crawling with the famous savannah roaches, spiders and bugs due to the humidity. Especially for the hot summer and fall. When I had decided to move in with MIchelle, there weren't things to worry about other than waiting for things to go through. Now, I'm struggling to find a roommate, struggling with the budget, struggling with the knowledge of how expensive things are when shared among just 1 or 2 people. just by myself, internet would be around $50 a month, with utilities, things could easily shoot up to $150, $200 or even more. I can only sit and pray that God would provide something along the way.

Things are awkward between michelle and I now and I don't know if I can talk to her now because any reminder of just her reminds me of the house I am losing and it guts my inside out. I've not only lost a good place to live, but also a good friend. Though we got together in a group the other day for a meal....I can't help but admit things are no longer the same. We can't even hold a conversation or say hi to one another anymore. It's hard because she was one of my bestest friend here and compared to my other friends, she was the only one whom I would hang out with and now it's gone, I feel like a hermit with no friends. True...I still have Naomi and a bunch of other people, but they weren't as close.

I feel foolish for that decision and nothing I could do could turn it around. It sucks because in this case, there's no one to blame but myself. Finding a new place would be hard in comparison to what I have right now. Dear Lord...kill this feeling of pain pleasseeeee

usually by this time of the quarter I would be counting down to the end for celebration.

this quarter though....things have gone sort of haywired and all my plans including for the summer has been thrown off :( sadness. the only thing I can think about in relation to time is:

OH SHIT...NO TIME TO FINISH MY PROJECT....mai gan chiong mai gan chiong...maybe i should pon class...hmmmm...

yeah. it's not that big a deal unless you calculate the amount of money u are losing per class then it's horrible. but seriously...with finals, every class is a studio class. you don't learn anything...with the exception of motion tech 2 which is only helpful if you have done your work and ask minny-ho questions...and digital page and web class because we're actually learning stuff like how to use dreamweaver and upload videos etc.

all i can think about right now is....I WANT A MASSAGE. yes. a nice full body thai massage to stretch and knead away at my stiff, rigor mortis muscles/fats would be PERFECT right now. My work requires me to sit down in the exact same chair in limited positions for long periods of time and what do i do at work as a tutor? I sit down in the same exact few limited positions. what about class? the same thing....it's no wonder my hips are ginormous. it has grown to support the weight of my body. this is possibly a very logical explanation for why i have small feet. yes yes.

on the bright side....if i ever get paralyzed, it's not so bad because at least i won't feel the need to stretch and ache. that is...if i can still use my hands to work. I cannot imagine having to be fed. HOW TO EAT??? I'm always nervous about not being able to control food cos i tend to choke. I can't even feed myself watermelon and porridge without gagging cos i can't chew it properly...i fear....airplane spoonfuls.

righto...back to slogging my back out >.<

i am going to the mall for a chinese massage once school is done and i get my stuff packed and moved. how i miss my dad.....'s massages. HAHAHAHAHA/

i am an unfilial daughter.

with 2 weeks left, I've come to the final decision of subletting. I didn't have a choice because a friend who lived in the most perfect location for my summer school had to have an answer today and if I denied her...i would have very well have ended up with no place to live and I didn't want to end up just settling for a place and feel all miserable for the rest of the year and deal with having to move all over again. I guess this is good because if i ever need to hang around after i graduate or if for some reason i didn't finish all my classes to graduate on time, I still have a place to stay for the summer of 2012.

it's been a tough few weeks with the struggle and stress of finding a place. It didn't help that friend after friend bailed on me for housing and nothing had worked out. I guess it was all in God's plans to make sure I really had no choice but to sublet for the summer and then find something else during the summer. Also great to be able to finally focus in class and on homework without having to think about housing ALL the time.

I guess it was really hard and then I went to church this morning and everything was about how God held everything and everyone in His hands. Sermon was about having faith and trusting in God. and that meant going first not knowing what the end outcome will be. I don't know how Abraham did it because it's probably way harder for him to move his entire clan and be accountable to them, then having to claim a land that wasn't even theirs...it's almost like telling me to chase my roommates away and saying that God wants me to have it. I can't help but keep wishing I could turn back time and follow my gut feeling to deny michelle and stay on here even though rent is increasing just $25 a month (though if you think about it..this accumulates and electric bills here per month is outrageous especially in the summer)

I don't think know what God has in stored for me for the remaining 2 years. For now....I just have to trust in Him....and walk.

i've don't think I've come across so many people who dealt with drugs in my entire life until now. No wonder the standard of america is going down. How can the wonderful parts of it be sustained if so many people were high on weed????

Pretty much every place I've seen involved drug dealing/daily consumption of marijuana and God knows what other drug. The first house I saw was seriously owned by this stoner dude. bearded face, dazed eyes, drony voice. The place didn't smell like pot or whatsoever, but the moment I heard he had friends over regularly to smoke in the living room, I knew I was out. Especially since it was awkward and I can't imagine myself living with a stoner dude.

Second place I saw was a student housing that had 7 rooms, 3 bathrooms shared by 7 kids. not so bad if you do the maths. Except that 1 refrigerator was shared by all. No doubt we would all have our own mini fridge, but there would be NO place to store my bulk of freezer food. especially since I like freezing my food to make it last longer. Second problem was....there was no laundry facility! how can anyone not have a laundry facility in an area of residence when the nearest laundrymat required driving a while outside of downtown savannah??? I don't have a car and I can't afford to ask a friend..ie. michelle. to give me a ride there every 2 weeks. So this had no drugs...at least it wasn't said...but i mean...no one really keep tracks of the kids there.

Third place I saw was right behind the library. nice place, nice house, really nice and windy with a great view that would be awesome to people watch and relax and wind down. unfortunately, it would have been with 2 guys. both of whom smoke, one smoked marijuana. No doubt they were nice but I didn't think my mum would have approved of it and indeed she didn't. Even if my friends who knew them said I would be safe with them.

Things got really depressing for me by this point after NOTHING had popped up and every other possible things were just....drugged. After quite a bit of exasperated crying and kneeling in prayer to God things finally lightened up and there is some hope in the air.

I found a place down on Gaston that is slightly too far for me and rather troublesome to travel around, but it's within my budget and I wouldn't have to worry about furniture, cooking utensils etc. plus...i would have my own bathroom. The only thing that's stopping me from signing a deal right now is how it's just inconvenient for me to live there, especially to travel to and fro from the house to a school building to catch a bus to class and back and BLAH..what if it rains?!?! walking would take forever.

Second place was very interesting. I was told by the landlord that the current tenant was away on a family emergency and when we went into the house, the landlord found the guy IN the house in his underpants. thank goodness I was polite and waited outside so I didn't see a single thing but the kid living there saw me and came out dressed and told me not to rent the place because the people who lived upstairs were drug dealers and very very noisy. so...THAT was interesting.

blah...things seem to be slowing back down to a stop and I was fine and dandy at first but now as I think about what I'm going to do and how hard it is to find another place like the one I'm at, I get quite depressed and upset. sigh.

urgh...i feel so miserable now. Thanks to michelle and her mum I've lost good housing and I'm stuck floating around during the summer. I don't know what to do and I'm so stressed out. good Lord.

urgh I am pissed beyond description at michelle. How could I have trusted her and her mother again when they screwed me over the last time already?!? this time it seemed so sure with the real estate agent involved and us seeing the house and everything. and now I am possibly reduced to nothing.

I had like such a wonderful place despite all the drama and it sucks even more that after it was pretty fixed with 2 other girls taking our places that things are so nice now. No parties, no guests, hardly anyone's at home. ARGHZZZZZ. Why did I not follow my gut feelings about this thing?!?! swayed by emotions and delight of being able to live with a good friend. ahhh..i'm so pissed to be thrown into this situation now especially after i've been so spoilt by my current one.

I feel really bad to be throwing all these unto michelle and her mum especially since they feel super bad for promising all these things and now have me totally nothing and seriously screwing me over big time. i need to know that my housing situation is settled because I only have 3 weeks left. YIKESSSSS.

ARGHHHHHHH

so michelle just called me and she breaks news that she thinks could potentially sever our friendship and I knew it was gonna be bad. she's telling me to throw away all plans with her and find my own solution.

great.

yet i cant be angry with her cos she's so upset about it and it's not entirely her fault either.

WHY OH WHY.

YAY YAY YAY YAY

my professor just emailed me saying that the dean wants to submit my project to SCAD communications to put in the school catalog for next year! omg...the DEAN you knowwww!! WOO!!! AND AND AND...they're gonna submit my work to various competitions!!! WHOOOOOOO!!!

best part is...this ain't for graphic design. it's for motion graphics!! i'm so happy cos i've been utterly depressed by the quality of my work until I actually did something that looked like it will appear in the industry. YAY ME!! so eggciting

MAYBE...just maybe...i'll be one of those kids the juniors look up to because I'm well known in both the graphic design and motion graphics department...**fans self in excitement**

spring is always the quarter with a ton of bajillion things going on just because it's the end of the school year and companies come in to grab the awesome talents from the school. tons of visiting artists and designers as well as companies. I have had the opportunities to listen to the lectures of world reknown designer Massimo Vignelli, Matteo Bologna, Nick Campbell, owner of greyscalegorilla.com and ex designer at Digital Kitchens, Psyop, one of the largest motion graphics company in the US, and attend a lecture with Adobe and Apple on their latest product, the CS5 Suite. 10 lucky students from my school who were identified as talents were given the production premium CS5 suite the moment it will be released. JEALOUS. on the bright side, those who attended the lecture will also get several software freebies :)

it's crazy how technology improves. I still remember Photoshop 6.5 when I first started using it and as I look back and compare it with today's CS5, it's CRAZY how far we've come and how many improvements have been made to make our lives as designers easier, yet harder as the same time because such programs, and the ease of piracy, has almost enabled anyone to become a "designer". woes of my industry. at least the school will be updating their softwares again this summer so I'll be able to try it out on the school computers for free...well..not really. my extremely high tuition fees pay for that. but yeah. i'm lucky to be at scad. Very very few schools are able to upgrade every single version everytime. it is precisely because of this that puts SCAD above other design schools because we're trained with the latest technology for the industry. some schools are still stuck on using CS3. my only gripe with this is how it limits my work to school computers because CS5 is now running on a 64bit which makes it run a ton faster and smoother than CS4 but with that comes problems with plug-ins that doesn't exist in previous versions which pretty much screws up your work when you re-convert it or in some cases, you can no longer open it up unless u have CS5. oh woe woe woe.

Had my first ambassador meeting today. it was relatively fun. but then again...the ambassadors are made out of overly enthusiastic and happy friendly people. We had it at the SCAD equestrian center and I must say...that place is gorgeous. it's almost like a picture perfect country equestrian center in a movie. pretty flowers, white fences, happy horses galloping around, air conditioned. everything is so clean and neat the saddle area pretty much looks like a museum and the award room is FULL of ribbons. it's crazy that an art school can be national defending champions for equestrian competitions. but then again...we have pretty awesome sports teams. basically SCAD tries to make us an all rounded design school hence the school athletes are here on a full ride scholarship.

meh money....what an issue. PLS SCAD. PLS MDA. PLS DESIGNSINGAPORE. give me moolahhh. i will serve u...because i have no choice when i get the scholarships. HAHAHA.

what an eventful day! mainly all about sex though. being someone of little NO experience...this has been a very..ENRICHING experience.

in case you're wondering whether I did it and didn't tell u about my hunk...well...no such hunk has been found by far and no. although i'm small, that doesn't mean I cost less (ie. cheap). no. I didn't have sex. i DID however, have the opportunity to cross off one more item off the list of American lifestyle list which is witness sex occuring in close proximity. eg. roommate/neighbor etc. in this case I was already forewarned that it would probably take place since I already heard both voices in the shower and 2 naked people in close proximity can only lead to one thing. so yeah...it got really quiet suddenly and next thing I knew...it kinda sounded like someone was building something or hammering something into the wall or basically...banging the wall. YAY! first experience with sex. my hamsters don't count. hahahaha. in case u think i'm a creeper or some national geographic channel researcher on the human sex stuff...it just so happens that the walls in the US are very thin and their bathroom is just next to mine. yeah! it's american life whoo!

had work today which wasn't extremely tough, yet wasn't very easy either due to the shortage of manpower (which is a really rare thing because there's usually too many of us). Nonetheless, the long movie plus no intermission really led to very interesting conversations. I don't even know how we brought up the topic of using a tampon but since I've never seen one or used one and i am mortified at the idea of using one, my dear co-worker decided to...educate me. so she took out her tampon (not OUT of her..out of her bag..a used one would be very very disturbing and disgusting. especially so for people selling edibles behind the counter) and explained to me how it worked and what you were supposed to do with it. so American mystery number 2 is solved as well. I'm still mortified by it and I don't think i ever want to use that. it's just horrifying to stick that tube in u. but if u think about it....a dude's hose is way larger than a tampon tube and that's possibly more terrifying. THIS of course led to the topic of sex and boys and we ended up talking about trying to figure out how men act and think and behave and she started asking random male customers questions like "if you and 3 other guys were in a hotel room with 2 beds, will you share a bed or have 2 of u sleep on the floor?". it was a definitely interesting night. long night, but fun. got to be a janitor for tonight too since the housekeepers didn't come in today so we had to clean the theatre but that meant more pay WOO! 50 bucks for the night yo!

as I was walking home one of the savannah bicycle riders offered me a ride home so i figured why not. couldn't be dangerous cos i could always jump off. a guy trying to lug a cart and a person behind couldn't possibly go very fast and I'm not too far away from home anyway. so it was fun...sitting behind getting a free ride in the nice cool spring night right to my door. sweet!

this spring weather is getting to me. it's too nice for me to be sitting in here doing homework. i can't seem to focus and get anything done and i know....tons of people are having the same issue!

7 more weeks to summer!

I love working at the trustees theatre. you meet several interesting people.

Today though... trumps it all.

Right before the show started, this dad of 4 young girls... probably age 5 and younger came up to buy some candy (which is usually dumb especially if your kids are already hyper and bouncing off the walls). anyhows. he bought not 1 for all of them to share, but 1 for each kid. THEN he started barking and yapping at us. not figuratively. i meant LITERALLY. yes. like a dog.

to give him some credit...

he did a really good job cos he really did sound like one.

very very amusing. especially since he was a total stranger.

he was probably drunk though cos he did smell of alcohol.

OH DRUNK PEOPLE. they can be so fun to watch sometimes.

Nothing exciting has really happened by far since the Alternative Spring break trip to Alabama. For one, at least I've gotten my scholarship materials completed and sent out. I'm just hoping for now that everything gets delivered on time, and not even a day late :S meeks meeks. tons of cash involved so i'm crossing my fingers and hoping that with my application materials there on time at least I stand a chance rather than not at all. (plus all that effort down the drain. GANASAI) Despite sending my applications by the fastest possible way through USPS, (it was supposed to take only 3 days to reach the scholarship councils), the documents have only just reached singapore. which means that it still needs to be sorted out...THEN sent out. here's crossing my fingers that MDA gets it on time. then there's the mystery of my DesignSingapore application since there's no tracking number because USPS doesn't supply tracking for flat mail priority stuff. annoyance. if their idea of 1-3 business days was really 7 days in reality (as with the case for my global express mail), I'm screwed and there goes my chance of a scholarship. SIGH.

classs has been the least bit exciting, with a truck ton of projects. the usual load we have for other students taking 2 studios and 1 lecture is 8 projects and 2 exams. for the usual load of 3 studios it is 12 projects. this quarter despite taking only 3 studios, I've somehow managed to accumulate a total of 13 projects for 10 weeks, which is like about 1 entire project in 1 week? doesn't sound like alot right? people don't take into consideration the amount of thought required to analyze the design problem, brain storm, research, and execute the project. blah. i take forever to do that too so it ain't helping my time management. i can't wait for summer to start. i just want to laze around and not worry about projects. haha. i think after doing summer quarter and continuously working on different things i'm quite sianed about my work.

mamoomeee. i tried posting up my work but blogger was being stupid.

so it appears that I will be more or less moving in to michelle's apartment since it is more affordable and a slightly lighter load even though it's an upgrade from what i'm already getting. (i bet su hui is jealous now). if all things fall nicely in place, i'll be upgrading to a room with a walk-in-closet in addition to my already private bathroom. also, I would be delighted to have a pretty kitchen with granite table tops, hardwood floors and a beautiful patio to sit out and enjoy the flowers and birds achirping. (and hopefully hardwood floors instead of the current carpet bedroom that i have) it's way easier to clean my room since i shed like a dog on an hourly basis.

anyhows. i got back from the recent spring break trip to alabama and I am so happy I decided to go in the end despite all that hesitation. having such a small group meant easier bonding time and I got to know several people on a deep level which is awesome. it was quite surprising to see about half or more of the team was made out of international students, no doubt mostly from taiwan and I ended up rooming with them since I could speak chinese. any other person rooming with them would feel left out because they couldn't understand chinese. I don;t think I've ever spoken so much chinese EVER in my life. now my brain is quite in tuned to chinese again and under their influence, my chinese now has a slight twang of taiwanese. in other words...i now strangely sound like a taiwanese when i speak chinese and an american when i speak english. lol.

Got to know the people in my van very well, especially blake, the only male student in the group since he lived next door to me and was especially interested in motion media design so we often found ourselves talking about that. i love how quite a large sum of our bonding sessions involved talking about the industry and majors that we are in, ranging from discussions about typefaces around the city and in posters to motion media and animation stuff and how the industry will evolve in the future. very exciting things to talk about though it just goes to show what nerds we are. lol :p Jessica and I found ourselves talking alot about typefaces that we see around, stirring quite a commotion among the non-graphic design students. lol.

anyhows. the drive up was pretty decent and I finally got to see Atlanta though not the SCAD campus though I was told I would have opportunities to head up there again for SCAD events as an ambassador. SWEET! i certainly hope to get up there to look at the scad facilities there and visit the famous georgia aquarium and zoo. whoopdeedoo. it was kinda unfortunate that our spring break was not very spring-like. it was gloomy everyday and rained the whole way through the drive. even when it wasn't raining the sky was overcast and it was cold :( sadness. thankfully I brought a jacket with me just in case. nonetheless, I do believe that my time here during the savannah winter has sort of prepared me for the coldness and I do think I have adapted to the weather here. I was actually found it hot when it was 24 degrees..not a good thing if i'm going to return back to hot hot hot singapore.

work at the birmingham zoo was unsurprisingly mainly maintenance work now that I've gone through last year's ASB. this time though everyone was working cos we were a small team with a lack of MANpower. by the end of the first day my arms were practically ready to fall off my shoulders and I could no longer feel my toes from being on my feet for so long. no kidding. wheelbarrowing and shoveling gravel is NOT what i'm made to do. it did however, make me feel quite manly doing all that cos it reminded me that muscles do exist and i do need to develop them. lol. after all...mouse clicking ain't very strength inducing :P at the end of the whole thingamajig we got to go behind-the-scenes in the zoo and look at the animals who were off-exhibit, meeting hawks and owls and foxes and what nots. a very very sad thing is that my camera died. SADNESS. i thought 2 bars could have lasted me the whole day. STUPID STUPID MEEEE!!!

third day of the trip sent us to the birmingham museum of art where we ended up not doing anything other than visit. We thought we were gonna have hands on experience but i guess due to the nature of the work we were only allowed to see, not touch. it was really really exciting because how often do you get to go into the secret areas of the museum where the entire collection is stored and not on display and see how preservation work is done??? superbly exciting :D kinda felt surreal and in a movie. I was half expecting to see laser beams for security purposes. sadly. none of that sort. the museum in itself was great. we were allowed to walk around on our own time to view the entire museum and it was really really good. unlike the ones in singapore. it pretty much showed the history and development of art from various periods and they were mindblowingly beautiful. the romantic period american paintings were GORGEOUS. very inspiring to send me back to the canvas and paints/drawing board but I know that when i do, i would drop it all within the first 10 minutes from discouragement of my lack of skill. maybe when i grow old and retire I would actually do it out of boredom. unless they come up with something better than facebook. lol.

another project we did on this trip was to film a commercial for bark for a park, basically an organisation that seeks to open more dog parks for owners and dogs to increase socialisation, both a good thing for dogs and humans. we were there mainly to redesign their logo, t-shirts, brochures and create a commercial to advertise and promote their existence and cause. Got to meet and play with a ton of really amazing dogs, very sociable and friendly and super fun to play with. makes me wanna have a golden retriever all over again...until i think of the size of it's poop and the amount of rugs that it sheds per day. :S i want a dog who can love and be as amazing without all that work and money involved leh. either that...or scad should have pet therapy. that one day of fall fest during fall quarter does NOT count.

last day was mainly spent at an old folks home, which was quite a strange mistake. we were apparently supposed to go visit an old folks home WITH a group of elementary school students but the organizers on our side misunderstood as us going to an elementary school. so our activities were geared towards kids and just as we were about to leave, we found out the elementary school wasn't going to come with us. which was then that we realized we were going to an old folks home :S AWKWARD. lucky for us...when people get old and degenerate, they are almost no different from kids anyway so we conducted the same activities. the only annoying part was that the old lady i was working with was so frail i had to help her do her crafts under her instructions. not so bad cos i'm not THAT lazy. the one big problem was I couldn't understand what she was trying to say :S when i ask her questions she wouldn't answer them and when i narrowed it down to 2 options she said yes to both. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?? :S i was dying for that to be over. till today I still believe that community service should be kept outside of serving people. interaction with people takes up too much effort. i rather lug stones than try dealing with old people. meh.

other times on that trip was spent playing a game called "a game of things" which involves a judge picking a card from the deck with statements like "things your parents forgot to tell you" or "things old people shouldn't do" and you basically write your answer down and mix it in with everyone else's and then you take turns guessing who said what. very amusing and highly entertaining :D way better than the game "apples to apples" which is too americanised and not fun if you dont know the people on the card. i'll try to bring some cool american games home in the future :D we also visited a civil rights museum which was cool...but possibly not as cool as the science museum which was too expensive to go to. sadness. i wanted to go see dinosaur bones :( we also visited vulcan park, which is basically a park with a statue from paris which was given as a gift to alabama. not much other than the fact that you get a few minutes to look at the city lights. birmingham is too city-ish to have anything birmingham-ish to really do, unlike the everglades and it's airboat rides and alligators (which apart from that has nothing else either. lol)

soo...apparently there are plans for a year end winter break trip to another place in a similar fashion. cheap travel of food, lodging, activities and transport under the cost of $30. our new favourite question? "Is that covered by SCAD?" thankfully, most of the time the answer is yes :)

we should have known that the calm talk we had didn't last for long. It was after all, the calm before the storm and the whole entire event has placed so much stressed and tension in the entire house. not much help to the already high stress of finals that most of us are already going through :(

the fact that everything has been so highly based on he said, she said instead of going directly to one another just made things a bajillion times worser and though I have tried to settle things amongst the girls nothing has yet been fully resolved though the tension in the air has more or less decreased tremendously after the explosion.

it's just been so frustrating trying to be the middle man communicating between the two groups. while i do acknowledge the problems of both sides, I do feel for emily but I feel that I've done all that I could to help her in this process and I can do no more. My attempts at trying to bring the two groups in a peaceful conversation to settle the issue that was blown off has completely failed due to different schedules and possibly the fact that emily appears to be slyly pushing it aside. for now, emily appears to be in an unknown position of whether she will fight for the house or whether she will move. The stress of the whole issue and other things that fell apart for her can be totally felt like an aura around her and even I am fearful of approaching her and have ended up texting her despite being in a room just opposite of hers. constantly locked in her room with ANGRY SCREAMO music playing doesn't help and it's just difficult having to talk to someone who has gone through so much in just a few days and have a ton of walls around to protect her while she tries to sort through everything.

bah. i can only cross my fingers that things won't get worse as she drags it longer. I now pull myself out of the equation. each man for their own.

Ever since i burnt out from the previous project, I've been procrastinating alot. doesn't help that my professors have encouraged it by cancelling projects due to the lack of time from extending project deadlines because all of us are so terrible with following them due to the insane amount of work and quality demanded of us.

Nonetheless, my "procrastination" has pretty much been propelled towards my excitement of preparing for my career. building up my portfolio, getting my name up and ready for networking, expanding my horizons in the design world etc. in simple terms. I am slowly becoming an art geek. Despite the negative connotations from geek, I actually love that term. To me, it just reminds me of how much my future job is become a way of life, MY life. it'll no longer be work or a job, or something I do to pay off my loans and debts and the gah men of singapore or the US..whatever the future may bring...I can finally say that I see a reason why I'm working hard and I'm enjoying it. That's the beauty of being in design. We get eye-candy daily. It IS our job to CREATE eye-candy.

As such, I have decided to set to work on a blog dedicated to design alone. It shall be my inspiration resource and learning journey, design trend following place, my networking and promotional place. and today, I posted my first art related (FINALLY GOT MY BUTT DOWN TO DOING IT...) blogpost @ gloriawu.wordpress.com

hopefully I'll get more time during school break and NOT during procrastination hours to fully load up everything and get it fully up and running and hopefully get more visitations from others on it...which is why I'm now on networking sites LinkedIn and Twitter...which I still think is dumb cos who the hell wants to know if you're WALKING TO THE BATHROOM or THE WAY MY POOP GATHERED IN THE POTTY LOOKS LIKE A BOTERO SCULPTURE. Ironically, I AM trying to promote myself amidst all the dumb posts as per mentioned above and hopefully get filtered out and CLICKED on and preferably re-tweeted before being one of those #mentioned names in people's tweets and RTs. It gets me excited to read friends blogs, especially those in the design field and read about their work and progress and actually understand what they're talking about. what can i say...i'm a geek/nerd/dork...as perry likes to call me and in response, I go "DORKYY DORKYY DORKKYYY" :)

Next 2 weeks is gonna be filled with...excitement.

1. I find out whether the spring break trip to alabama is going on (or NOT)

2. I have another interview for a SCAD tutor position this wednesday

3. Roommate talk with the 2 other girls to notify them that they are gonna get kicked out next year (oohh the drama. might as well be on abc family)

4. Find out whether i got accepted as a student ambassador

5. Finals CHIONG AHHHHHHH

6. Hopefully have time to squeeze in scholarship application stuff and get wilkie's letter from singapore/auzzie.

ah wells.

PEACE OUT HOMIES!

so a friend of mine got engaged today and though we're not close, I was surprised to be one of the people she texted considering how the only time we spent together were in our 2 classes during the summer quarter. I guess i'm supposed to be happy for her but i'm not :S i guess it's cos based on what I know from hanging out for her during that what little amount of time, I don't think she's exactly ready for the commitment and all. no wonder the divorce rates in america is shooting up. it just makes me wonder how anyone my age can be ready to step into marriage. i don't think I'm ready for it any time soon. I'm not even ready for the working world...let alone something that's supposed to come up further in the line. EEK.

anyhows. soo..the reason why i didn't hear from the alternative spring break trip to Alabama is cos they haven't gotten much applicants...ok. 2. me and another girl. which is really sad because the other kids who went on the trip last year wanted to do it again. then i guess now that we're older and more into school work and the industry, these things just take a back seat. so...unless there are 8 more people who are joining this thing, this trip will be cancelled. I'll just let it be since i have stuff i could do anyway.

anyhows. my cards went on showcase at scad and other professors saw it and complimented it, which is awesome, but what made me beam was when my professor told me that other professors have heard about me so I already have a reputation amongst them. WHOOT. network network yo! I've never been so...pro-active in my future my entire life until now. writing resumes, cover letter, puttting my portfolio together. being a grown up is not easy.

everyday i get reminded of my aging process from news of engagements, pregnancies and birth. OH SCARY SCARY :S not to mention the big 21 of my batch this year. EEPS. i'm still so young in my braiinnnnnnn!!! speaking of which..i think i was a dog in my previous life. or maybe i was supposed to be a dog in this life but something went wrong. i realised this when i was in bible study yesterday when it struck me that i like getting the door when the door bell rings, i get easily excited. when people throw things i just want to run and catch it...and somehow my mind processes that my hands are the dog's mouth (which is good cos i think it would hurt real bad to catch things with my mouth), i sit and move my head as i watch objects move, i get excited over squeaky things, i cock my head to my side and i feel one ear going up like when a dog goes "huh" and sometimes i want to stick my head out the window and pant like a dog.

i have a strange strange brain.

people told me it would never get cold in savannah, let alone snow.

WELL GUESS WHAT?!?!1 global warming took place and the snow storm finally came to the south. IT STARTED SNOWING!!

AWESOMENESS :D

I SURVIVED HELL WEEKSSSSS. yes the emphasis is on the S in weeks. never slogged for so long for.erm. so long. my days were seriously wake up. class. eat. work. eat dinner. work till 2-3 am in the morning, sleep, repeat. the final stretch came when I was rushing to finish up the typography project and I ended up sleeping at 6am in the morning and I now have a permanent neck ache from bending over to cut the cards.

nonetheless. I now have a gorgeous set of self designed and cut typography cards :) Black Jack for the CNY anyone???

anyhows. that project took forever because it was practically impossible to fully please my professor. I created a totally different design and decided to try out playing with the forms of the letters of each number and showed the 4 different versions of designs to my professor and he absolutely loved what I did with the few that I tried out. Soooooo all my work during the past weekend on my original design for the entire one suite of cards went down the drain, which set me back 2 classes from everyone else. It was so hard to please myself with the designs, but much less the professor. He was absolutely excited about several, which made him judge the others more harshly because now i had to match up all 13 cards to create the same euphoria. BLAH. i never felt so stressed. My original plan was to utilize the history of Rockwell typeface for the cards, but it ended up being scrapped from the style of screen printing and colors outside the intended areas to aboriginal designs and color palette to tie in with the blocky, geometric forms of the font to i have no idea what the style of the final result is. It does however, scream very "me" once again. Printing the cards out and making sure everything was perfect was frustrating if not very expensive as well. In order to make it as playing card ish as possible, I ended up spending US$80 getting them printed because the printing company screwed it up and I had to have it reprinted without a refund of the errors because it was expensive paper. blah. now you know why designer cards are expensive. Each deck that I have right now (2 + partial deck) cost about 20-30 ish dollars. Not to mention it excludes the labor cost of MANUALLY cutting all 54 cards out and the box.

After the project was done, I was soooo done with it.

Another place I've disappeared to more was the library to work on my After Effects project - Typography in motion. I selected the song "Think About It" by Flight of the conchords because it's so hilarious and I just love some of their ridiculously funny songs. I wanted to do more of the song but didn't have the time and energy to do so which meant I only ended up with a quarter instead of half of the entire song. nonetheless, this project of animation alone, excluding concepts and storyboarding took about 20-30 hours to complete. so here you go. my second project in motion graphics.

the process it such a pain as usual...but the final results is always satisfying. What's more satisfying is hearing the pleased claps and positive critiques and knowing that there was nothing wrong with it. :)

Other updates of my life in the middle of all those hours on project is my successful application to be a student ambassador. Contrary to what michelle and I thought, they do not interview every applicant for the leadership positions. Unfortunately, despite applying for 2 positions, Michelle didn't get to interview for either. I did get an interview slot which sent me in a formal blouse, black pants and formal court shoes braving the wind, rain and cold weather of Savannah's unpredictable global warming winter weather for the interview. oh what PAIN those shoes brought to me. It was tight in the front and just barely half the way there I could barely feel my toes. which sucked real bad simply because I could still feel the dying toes and the pain it had from being squashed by my weight pushed onto them from the elevated back of the heels. STUPID HEELS. the fact that I had also worn those formal shoes a total of 1 other time for SA during some formal school event didn't help either. the mouth of the shoes was seriously eating the back of the feet and it HURT like hell. The only thing in my mind as I went through the interview was my feet and I cannot remember a single thing about the interview other than the fact that I wowed them with my knowledge of the school's mission statement. I was surprisingly not nervous and I'm not really caring if I get in or not just because I'm not sure I can juggle all that. I'm not looking forward to having to dress up for events as a Student Ambassador nor talking to strangers. I do not like people in general. haha. ANGST ANGST ANGST.

another thing that popped up is I've been nominated by my professor to be a Student Peer tutor, which is another paid job in the school which would also be great on my resume. I'm waiting to get an interview slot for that though i've been contacted for available timings. we'll see how THAT goes.

lastly, I didn't get the disney off campus trip thing which is actually a good thing because I don't feel ready for it anyway but at least i know I gave it a shot and hopefully, they'll have it again next year :) another thing is the alternative spring break trip which I wanted to go only for the sake of going on a cheap travel trip to Alabama. Sadly, with the previous more relax director gone, this new replacement is apparently over gung ho about charity work which probably meant that my application got more screened than usual and my lack of involvement in community service during my past 2 years here at SCAD basically reflects that I'm on this trip only for the fun of it. Which..of course. is very true. but it ain't so bad cos I was thinking of using spring break to put together my work and portfolio and master programs so I could do more in after effects. plus. I won't have to work with old people and mini ang moh people during spring break. oh how i dislike working with people. thus..i do enjoy my hermiatta lifestyle that I've been living for the past 2 weeks hiding in work.

just a few good, close friends like the ones back home and in australia and London would do. :)

why is everyone dying now??????

ok. not everyone. but it's quite upsetting to see friends lose their parents. two within the month of January. it's super sad because they're either my age or slightly older and it's just shocking or unthinkable for one to lose a parent or someone dear so young. I have been in that sense, a very very fortunate girl to not lose anyone to mr grim reaper by far. I say "by far" not because i expect any of you to drop dead anytime soon, but rather, because i know death is inevitable.

but then again...death has always been inevitable and it's been happening since I was born...or rather...way before I was born. I pointed out to my roommate during lunch today that perhaps the reason why everyone appears to be dropping dead like flies is simply because we are now more aware of people who have made impact and we've also reached that age where these impactful people are now older. when michael jackson first died...along with the slew of other famous individuals unknown to me but known to a million other people who mourned their deaths, I simply just thought that it was recruiting season in heaven. then again..deaths occur daily just like births. perhaps it's just a transaction. perhaps heaven has a population quota it has to keep. As i sat there eating my lunch thinking about michael jackson's death, i sat there thinking and amusing myself with the thought that perhaps michael jackson was God's plan as an evangelistic tool. of course not that his pedophiliac acts were anything heaven-entrance worthy, but rather since he was such a star, perhaps more non-christians would accept Christ just to be in Heaven to worship and sing ALONGSIDE michael jackson and be of equal status in heaven. THAT of course, is based on the assumption that michael jackson, along with elvis and the beatles and whatever noteworthy people, are up there with the big man. then again. they probably can't be king of pop/rock/whatever they were pro for up there in heaven cos only God can be king...the term queen would be very gay and possibly wrong in Heaven considering how it's wrong to be transgendered anyway. maybe they'll just be jokers.

mahahahahahaha

i am so not funny -____-

i wish i were as cool as Barney Stinson in How I Met your Mother..though less...playboy-ish. then again... that might not be so bad after all. lol. or i wish i could be as cool and funny as flight as the conchords. they are hilarious. it's a good thing motion graphics require me to look at things more dynamic and entertaining than the flat graphic designs where less is involved and it gets so boring after awhile. WHAT ON EARTH MAKES A BLOODY GOOD DESIGN??? I'll never know. I just know what's nice and not.

As I grumped all over Savannah cracking (literally cracking) my head to think of ideas and concepts for the new bunch of projects, I realised with a horror that I have been only and merely a page decorator and NOT a graphic designer. I can't doodle and produce magically amazing things like most people can. it takes me FOREVER to come up with an idea and execute a mind-blowing piece. this is quite upsetting.

and then on my way home from the library after ponning class because I had nothing to show for a work day other than a creative block, I realised how thinking so hard for my classes really does split my head and gives me a horrible head throbbing headache. well..now I know I do have a brain and I can use it...just not very effectively. or maybe the pain is just a sign that I should not be using it. After all, Ive been told time and time again by my current professor to just follow my intuition. WHICH IS A PAIN IN THE BUTT BECAUSE I HATE SUCH VAGUENESS. I realised with a sense of horror that I have just signed up for one of the hardest professions ever. Unlike being an accountant, there's no right or wrong. you either make it or you don't. which kinda sucks. oh wait wrong. it sucks.

sometimes when I find myself in such a rut, I lie in bed and wonder if I've made the right decision or not in going to art school and throwing away tons of money. and then because that cannot happen, i toss it out of my head and flip myself into dreamland. it's a good thing my brain doesn't quite hold thoughts for a very long time.