I’m Hearing: Linkin Park – Don’t Stay

Shit. Last night was the first time this week that I got more than 4 hours of sleep. I am so unbelievably exhausted…no motivation, energy, or creativity left in my body. Tuesday night I was at the computer lab till 4:30 AM (so I guess that was really Wednesday at that point)…got 2 hours of sleep then showered and went to painting, was a half hour late. Wednesday I called in to work and used the time to work on the damned project, and ended up spending the entire night in the IRC (the place where I intern) by myself getting it done. Once again, I left at 4:30 AM Thursday morning, so basically I stumbled home, showered, then went to my 8 AM class. There was no point in sleeping then, so I didn’t.

Looking around at my classmates was enough to make me see just how bad this semester has been for all of us. Heads were nodding as people tried to stay awake, dark circles and bags had formed under eyes, and the surfaces of the eyes were blank and glassy. We all looked like the walking dead. And of course no one had their 10 million thumbnail sketches done for the class, and our professor couldn’t do anything but shake his head and laugh at our pathetic-ness. I heard that the graphics professors are starting to get upset at each other for assigning too much work so that their students aren’t focusing enough on their own projects, and losing focus at work (since a lot of us work together at our internships too).

So I was finally able to leave home without a giant bandage on my finger today. The wound healed itself up remarkably fast…it’s kind of cool to look at because it’s just this slice missing off the side of the finger…it’s so smooth and clean it’s kind of disturbing. Still a bit tender, but mostly okay now. I’m still typing as if I can only use 9 fingers though, since I actually retaught myself how to type without using that finger this week…weird.

God, I’m even getting tired of my own complaining. That’s saying a lot because I just love to complain about stuff, but I’m starting to annoy myself now. I haven’t really had time to consider how this shit sounds to other people…I mean, compared to a lot of people I don’t have things bad at all, but for chrissake, it’d be nice to have ONE fucking day where I could just relax and watch a movie or something without having to worry about when I’m going to fit in time to do 150 more thumbnail sketches and 3 full-scale comprehensive digital layouts for my GODDAM project proposal……GAH, I’m just so frustrated!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought about how nice it would be to step out in front of traffic since that would be a quicker and less painful way to incur death, but I’m sure with my luck I’d just end up horribly disfigured and paralyzed rather than dead. <shrug> I don’t have time or energy enough to walk outside anyhow, so it doesn’t really matter. Though if this gets any worse, the X-acto knife that mangled me this week may actually start to look attractive…

(Of course I jest about that out of utter frustration…there are far too many beautiful things in this world to end life just because I’m overstressed over stupid projects. That’s not my style anyhow.)

It’s not really that I’m feeling totally negative about everything…there are things that have kept me sane during these trying times, like friends and classmates. Well, mostly classmates…since I haven’t had any time to do anything with my friends. ;_; There’s a group of about 5 of us that are always in the lab together late at night, and we tend to have a rather fun time amidst all our complaining. The difference with whining about shit with classmates rather than friends is that they are all in the exact same boat, so one comment just builds upon another, and no one really gets annoyed because it’s all just so pathetic.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how close I came to losing it this week. Holy shit. Lessee, this must have been Tuesday night in the computer lab. There were 3 of us in there at about 2:30 AM (Wed morning), and one guy said something that wasn’t all that funny, but his tone of voice just caught me the right way and I started laughing. I caught one of those infectious laughing jags where I just can’t stop laughing, and then anything minor just perpetuates it until my own snorting and gasping just makes me laugh harder. This went on for about 15 minutes, until I could no longer breathe or see (too many tears)…then I thought I’d settled down and the guy who made the first comment said something totally unrelated to the original comment, and I started up again. Not because anything he said was funny, just because he’d been the one to get me going in the first place (unintentionally, of course). He was like, "Oh shit, I was gonna ask you a serious question too." Finally I snapped myself out of it when I realized how crazy I was acting, and I felt really sick to my stomach. :\

One of my other classmates was babbling incessantly all day, and at times having full blown conversations with people who weren’t really there. I had a dream this week that he was a baby, but still had his same face and was talking as if he were fully grown. Two other classmates were taking ham dinners out of cabinets above my head and were fighting over the microwave to see who could get theirs cooked first. I woke up with a giant puddle of drool on my pillow. I think that happened during one of my 20-minute power naps.

Oh yeah, <laughs ironically> I forgot to mention that I also had killer cramps all week. That was a load of fun too, dealing with that while sitting in a fucking office chair for 14+ hours a day. I was amazed at how much better I felt when I could just lay down for awhile. I can’t believe my body is still functioning considering the hell I put it through. I have no problem admitting that I really believe someone up there is watching out for me, otherwise I’d be completely falling apart.

I kinda wish someone would just say, "SHUT THE FUCK UP ANN, WE DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR STUPID SHIT ANYMORE." That would knock some sense into me and would most likely cause me to cry. If I cried, I’d be able to release some of this tension and stress, and maybe I’d even feel better, even if my self-esteem were lowered for a time while I pondered how annoying I am to people.

What the fuck, I’m wishing for bad shit to happen so I’d feel better. I’m totally messed up.

I’m really okay though…I’m still sane and I’m still alive and relatively healthy, and I guess that’s all that matters at the moment. I just have to get through this horrible shit so I can breathe again someday.

I’m Hearing: Linkin Park – Faint

So today was pretty awful, but strangely I’m not in a bad mood. Maybe it’s because I got my Suckspeare booklet done in the end. Who knows. But anyhow, some nasty shit happened today…errr, yesterday…

I woke up sick to my stomach so I went back to bed for awhile. Had some really fucked up dreams and woke up feeling a bit better. Also got to talk to Ross for a bit, which always makes me feel better during the day. :-) Then I went to painting class where my first nasty surprise greeted me. The cover for my paint thinner container was missing…that was the first mysterious clue that something was out of place. My palette (which is a sheet of glass) had a giant crack running along its length, and my paint thinner had been spilled all over the paint. My painting medium container was also completely empty. Curious. I started painting on one canvas, then I happened to look over at my 7 foot canvas and noticed that there was an imprint of the missing cover of my paint thinner container in part of the painting, as if someone had mushed it into the paint while it was still wet and turned it a few times to grind it in. :\ Not too far away from that was a giant dent in the canvas. One of my classmates told me he’d come in the studio one night last week and found the canvas laying over the top of my paint cart (which is a giant metal thing on wheels) and the giant dent was where it was pressing against one of the corners of the cart. He said it was so deformed at that point he was sure it would have to be restretched. Christ.

There are two possible scenarios I can imagine here. First off, I should mention that my classmate told me he’d come in and the window was wide open, so it’s possible the canvas just blew over. That would account for the spilled paint thinner, and the cap could have fallen off and one of the janitors just swept it into the garbage. That could also account for the imprint of the cap in the paint and the cracked palette (if the canvas hit the cart hard enough)…but that doesn’t seem realistic. My first instinct was that it was either a nasty accident and the person was too scared to ‘fess up about it, or else it was just malicious behavior. I have absolutely no way of knowing. In the end, nothing was really ruined (aside from the palette, I guess)…I was a bit perturbed, but I kind of shrugged it off and went to work on a different painting.

So I thought the rest of the day would be okay. The only things I needed to do were to print off the Suckspeare booklet, trim it, and bind it. Well, that became a bit more complex than I anticipated. I printed the sucker off, then went back to my room to trim it. So the fucking thing kept sliding around on me because there were 45 pages and the surface of the paper was very slippery. On my final cut, I sliced off the tip of my left index finger with a fresh X-Acto blade. It was so sharp and the cut was so clean, there was just this chunk of my finger sitting there, about 1 mm thick. It bled like fucking crazy of course. I ended up bleeding all over the last page, so it was unsalvageable. I bandaged up the cut and went back to my workplace (where I printed off the first copy) and printed off another. Gah. Thank god I work there and get free printouts, or I would have wasted about $40. Spent another mess of time folding the damned pages, then went home and trimmed the second copy. I ended up fucking that trim job up too because I could no longer use my index finger to apply pressure to the ruler, so it slipped around even more than the first time. <sigh> So I just basically gave up and went with my less than perfect copy and took it to the art building so I could bind it. That went fairly smoothly, ‘cept I grabbed the wrong size wire and had to redo it. It ended up looking halfway decent, but certainly not as good as I would have liked considering the huge amount of time I spent working on that damned project. Gah.

Then I went in the painting room and worked for a bit, and got sleepy so I took a nap in one of the more comfy chairs while I waited for the other design class to get out of the computer lab so I could work on my other design project. Didn’t get much accomplished because a bunch of people in the lab were getting addicted to Homestarrunner.com, so I watched in on that of course. Couldn’t help myself. Found it was difficult to type with only 9 fingers, but did it anyhow. I’m doing that right now, and am actually quite amazed at how much I’ve written considering that fact. Gah. GAH! Left the lab around 1 AM because I wasn’t getting anything more accomplished. I have 3 days to get this project done, so I have a little breathing room, but not much. I’ve already talked to the heavenly energy and asked for a bit of help…I’m sure I’ll get something at the last minute. That’s perfectly fine by me…the only goal I have now is to simply pass my design class. If I get a C I will be overjoyed. How pathetic for an honors student to aspire to such lows…reality doesn’t quite make sense sometimes. And of course, if I fail that class, I won’t graduate in December…so…yeah…there’s a LOT riding on this class….and there’s only TWO projects for the whole semester….sheesh. Fuckup once, and you’re done. Bah. My painting teacher has been very understanding of my graphics situation but also told me this morning that I am right about on track with where he expects me to be regardless of anything else, so I think I’ll be okay in that class as long as I keep working steadily during class times.

Hmm…so much complaining has been done. I still don’t feel angry or upset about any of this stuff that happened today…I’m so far beyond any of that at the moment…and all I feel like doing is showering because I feel so grimy. My hands smell like linseed oil so I may hold off for awhile and sniff them for a bit.

Mmmmmmmmm, linseed oil. There is absolutely no other smell in this world that I enjoy more. :-)

I’m Hearing: Audioslave – Light My Way

Yeah, so I successfully managed to completely reverse my sleep schedule this week…twice. After Monday night, I ended up sleeping all day then working on my projects all night. One night (I can’t even remember which one it was anymore) I got up at 5:30 PM, then worked on my project till 6 AM, messed around online for awhile, then finally went to bed at 8 AM….then repeated it again the next night. Oy. I’m almost back on track now…but not quite. In any case, I spent the whole break working on my Suckspeare booklet, which I finally got done last night. I have to go print it tomorrow morning, so I suppose it would be in my best interest to get to sleep soonish so I can get over to the printer early.

Anyhow, lots of birthdays this weekend…Ross on Friday, Brian today. Brian took us to Victoria’s today where I had my usual fave, fetuccini alfredo with mushrooms….and strawberry cheesecake ……..mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! sooooooooooo good. :-)

School starts again tomorrow…I almost feel like this week was wasted since I really didn’t have a break…no time to sit around and play video games or just watch movies. Just sleep and work on projects. I wish I had time to relax a bit. ;_; Well, I guess this is the price I must pay for wanting to graduate in a timely fashion and have a decent portfolio to show… :\

I’m Hearing: Machine Gun Fellatio – Unsent Letter

Okay, so I did Tae Bo anyhow. The knowledge that I’ll feel good for the rest of the day is great motivation to get my ass moving. I went to the convenience store in the student union to buy some milk, so I got a taste of the weather. It’s not quite as warm as the past couple days, but I still didn’t need a coat, so that’s a plus.

I’m Hearing: Not Much

Oof. Yesterday is what I might call a full day. I spent 8 hours painting, worked on 3 of the 5 paintings I currently have going. I really got into the right mindset for this and my only frustration was that the paintings reached a point where they were too wet to do anything more with. At that point I went down to the computer lab with the intention of working on my graphics, but the guys were there so we spent a good 3 hours whining about our workload and making comments about our quality of education. Nothing was accomplished.

Then I went home and hopped online. Played some of the Trodgor arcade game…only got to level 12. :-( In the middle of one of the higher levels Dave messaged me and I got sworded. Since it was St. Patrick’s Day we decided it was necessary to play drinking games so he came over at like…midnight? I can’t remember. We ended up watching Young Frankenstein and for some reason A League of Their Own. I found that choice rather amusing for some reason…maybe just cos I was pretty far gone at that point. He left sometime after 4 AM and I finally fell into bed.

So yeah, an interesting day.

The weather the last few days has been *fantastic*…I mean, it’s been around 50°F two days in a row now…I’ve been able to go outside in shorts without freezing my ass off. As a matter of fact, on Sunday night I decided to take a walk at about 10 PM and it was still quite warm at that point. I even went down by the river to sit for awhile and I didn’t get chilly. It was really interesting watching the water because both shorelines still had about 25-30 feet of ice that reached out into the river, but in the center the water was free and open. That’s one of those kind of surreal images that people who live in warm climates miss.

Not sure what the weather’s like today since I have yet to go outside. I don’t feel up to doing Tae Bo at the moment…perhaps tonight. Drinking doesn’t make me sick the next day, but it does make me feel extremely sluggish. A shower would do me good right now, so I think I shall do that.

I’m Hearing: 10 Things I Hate About You (on tv)

Spring break is finally here. I spent the entire weekend on my couch crocheting…and it was fabulous. Sleeping in late, getting up when I was ready to…ahhhh. I did Tae Bo this morning for the first time in two weeks–it’s the first time since then that I’ve had enough energy to do anything other than fall over on my couch in exhaustion. <sigh>

I’ll be spending the whole week working on homework. When I look at the alternative, it’s a pretty good deal, but I’m still frustrated. I’m still just…alone. I feel so cut off from everyone else, and I feel forced to do this shit. Yes, it’s my choice to be here, my choice to be a good student and graduate…but if you know me at all, you know that I feel like I’m letting myself and others down if I can’t do quality work when it’s expected of me. That sounds pretty pathetic when I think about it… :-(

I dunno, I guess I’m just in a pretty cynical mood at the moment. Not feeling too good about myself or what I’m doing. I broke down tonight when I saw a really lame commercial on TV…can’t remember what it was, but it was insignificant. I just kept thinking, "This shit isn’t what life is about…why do I even waste my time?" Then I started thinking about what I thought life was about…and my conclusion was that it was about love. My best intentions are all about doing things out of love, or out of my own inner passion, which in turn becomes a manifistation of love. I have so much love inside me, but DAMN, there is so much shit in this world that rips into me, makes me feel downtrodden and worthless…and no, I know it’s not just me this happens to…but for whatever reason my brain heightens and expands every little detail until something small that wouldn’t bother anyone else for more than a second becomes a huge deal for me.

I’m obsessive, my head is always in the clouds, and the one thing that means anything to me in this world is love. Yet I sit here feeling isolated…my heart is reaching out…and then I have to go do another graphics project.

Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture?

I’m Hearing: Deftones – Change (in the House of Flies)

Holy shit. I was feeling incredibly sleepy so I went up to the breakroom to purchase a caffeinated beverage (Dew) and I entered just in time to see a bald guy in his mid 20′s with multiple body piercings and red/white checkered pants launch his entire body at the vending machine. "These things suck!" he cried as I laughed in surprise. He gave a little chuckle and left the room. That was the funniest fucking thing I’ve seen since Trogdor.

I’m Hearing: Incubus – Nice to Know You

I’m so freaking tired of staring at a computer screen all day every day. That sounds a little terrible to say because every freaking aspect of my life is by necessity centered around that piece of machinery, but I just want to spend one night doing something like sitting on my couch crocheting and listening to music rather than working on another graphics project. Or even getting a chance to paint once in awhile…my god. I am sooooo looking forward to next week when I can have a bit of time to myself….I’m starting to dread getting up in the morning because I know I have a good 10-14 hours to spend staring at a monitor…I’m getting headaches now from eyestrain, which is obviously not a good thing. :-( At least my cold is starting to go away now.

Oh yeah, and as promised, these are the pics I used for my Taming of the Shrew booklet. I think they’re rather hilarious since they’re so out of character for me.

We had our first critique in painting class this morning…it’s actually rather amazing how the quality of paintings and style of paint application varies from person to person in the supposed "advanced level" class. Some people are far beyond average, while others just don’t seem to have found their niche or style yet. There was an amazing amount of timidness in a lot of the work that I found surprising. I’m not saying there isn’t timidness in my own work…just that others seem to be having more trouble with that than even I. <shrug> I guess in a lot of cases, the artists don’t seem to have a very solid idea from the beginning, and it shows. I cannot even start painting if I don’t have a strong concept already, so this half-hearted weak slopping on of paint that I’ve witnessed in classmates just seems like laziness or apathy towards what they’re doing. There isn’t much attitude in their work. They’re just going through the motions, and there’s no vibrancy and life in the execution. I find that disappointing, but I really shouldn’t talk since I haven’t done jack shit in that class yet. But at least I have some cool ideas to work with. :\

And I’m still afraid I’m going to fail my design class. I have no ideas for the project and I have very little time to complete it before it’s due. I can’t afford to fail it, cos if I do, I won’t be able to graduate next semester. My other classmates are in the same boat, and most have the same attitude I do. There is no rational reason why I should fail the class; after all, I’ve never gotten anything lower than an A/B in any college art class….in fact, now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve gotten anything lower than a B in any college class. Hmm. This is not right.

I was finally able to get on IRC a couple times this week but not for longer than an hour at a time. Sigh. I really miss talking to people, ‘specially my Aussies. Mmmmmm, Aussies…. :D~~~~

Very very tired. I really need a nap right now…in about an hour and a half I can finally go home for a bit.

I’m Hearing: Tool – Sober

As I was scheduling for next fall’s classes, I discovered that I needed to make a quick decision, the outcome of which would determine my graduation date. I could either graduate in December 2003 with my degree in graphics, or take 2 additional semesters and graduate in December 2004 with graphics and painting. Well, due to my financial situation and the fact that I’m getting really tired of school, I’ve decided to drop the painting altogether and graduate next semester. I won’t have a huge credit load to deal with so it won’t be too terrible…but…it means that things are going to be happening a lot sooner than I expected. Instead of attending classes in Spring, I’ll have an entire semester to do other things…like find a job. :-O Yikes. I signed a full year (and then some) lease for the house next year so I guess I’ll kind of be stuck around here. I dunno what I’m going to do. Obviously I’ll have to find a job or I won’t be able to afford my rent…but sheesh…that’s less than 9 months away. A little sooner than I had in mind.

And one small thing that bugged me is that if I graduate in fall, I won’t be able to graduate from the honors program because there is one class I have to take that’s only offered in spring. Oh well, it’s not really that big of a deal in reality, but it would have been nice. I can still graduate with honors, I just can’t add the extra "whatever" title or get the medal or whatever it is. I dunno. I can just think back to the many many semesters of early registration and smaller classes that the program allowed me over my career as a college student.

Oh yeah, I offically have no money now…I paid off most of my credit card bill from tuition today…so I’ll be poor for quite awhile. ;_; That sucks majorly. It’s gonna be hard not spending money, but I have no choice now. I’m not going to borrow funds, no way.

So about this past week…it was one of the worst I’ve had recently. That’s horrible to say since I’ve had some pretty shitty ones as of late, but it was *bad*. I had too much stuff to do, and I had to give up many of the things I enjoy doing just to get stuff done. And even then, I hardly got anything accomplished, except for successfully contracting a bugger of a cold. I’ve been so sick this week, and have had no time to rest to recover. :-( I look and sound quite pathetic and I can’t do much about it. I did get a decent amount of painting done, which is good, but I still don’t have nearly enough done. Gah.

As I was working on my Taming of the Shrew booklet, I tried to explain to people what kind of imagery I wanted, and in the end, I ended up posing for my own idea because my display of apparent anger seemed pretty realistic. Well, I had a lot to draw from this week…I got some fantastic images of myself in an apparent fit of rage. Maybe when I’m done with the project I’ll post some of them. I was surprised by how angry and scary I can look. o_o

Got voted Computer Science Club secretary again for next year, which rules. The irony of the diversity of the club has reached its peak as three of the six offices are held by non-compsci-majors. Nice. :-) Someone else’ll have to take over for me in spring though…hope there’s someone who wants the job.

I’m feeling quite cut off from the world…last night I came home from class exhausted and ill, and after showering, collapsed on my couch and stared at the wall for about 45 minutes. I was very well-aware of all the things I have yet to do, but I had neither the energy nor motivation to do anything at all. I scanned my shelf of DVDs and nothing seemed interesting…I sat at my computer for a bit but didn’t feel like doing anything related to that…I thought about crying but wouldn’t allow myself that luxury. I also thought about drinking but I knew that would be incredibly stupid because I have work today, not to mention the fact that I have a nasty cold. Drinking when you’re ill is just asking for an ass-kicking. So in the end, I just stared into space that entire time, till I just gave up and went to bed.

My motivation and interest in things around me are quickly waning. That fucking pisses me off too, because I have so much passion and love inside me, and I feel like my flame is being stomped out by the demands of school and work. I’m becoming a ghost of who I think myself to be, and it’s scaring the shit out of me. I suppose I could stop being so adamant about getting good grades in my classes and just take it easy a bit, but in the end I’d just feel guilty. There are things bothering me that I can’t possibly explain to most people, so mostly I have to keep these things to myself and let them fester. I’ve written a bit, but nothing I’d ever show anyone…and it doesn’t help much. I’m thinking about taking the entire week off for spring break and just catching up with everything, including sleep. I am in such desperate need of a break right now…if I don’t get one, a breakdown may be in my future. Fuck.

I’m Hearing: the sound of phlegm dripping down my throat

Sniffle, cough, hack, sneeze. Yep, I’m sick. Too much stress, too much paint thinner; not enough sleep, not enough food. I’m gonna kill myself at this rate.