Zhaf and the Cellar

Tigershark Dancin'

2008-05-08T21:49:00.000-07:00

The above video is exactly why the Internet was created in the first place. And, it is yet further proof that bears have the most awesomest dance moves. Videos aside, I'm still hanging on the boring corner of the world that I always do. I'd write a more official blog post at some point, but at the moment, I am hip-deep in design homework, so that will have to wait until some future point.

Zombie Work Schedules

2008-04-25T20:01:00.000-07:00

For some reason, it is far easier for me to stay up until 3:00 a.m. than choosing to fall asleep at a more reasonable 11:3O p.m. I'm not a morning person in even the remotest sense of the word, but I am discovering that I am pretty much going to have to be in order to have a normal workaday life. Living the zombie lifestyle is nice for the amount of quiet and peacefulness that is available after midnight. There is nothing like it really. But, waking up at 7:00 a.m. after falling asleep in the small hours of the morning is like trying to push four ice cold cinder blocks off your bed with your nose and trying to roll them into a warm shower in the neighboring town. It occurs to me that the reason why all of those zombies in the movies are running amok is not their insatiable need for the culinary delights of a brain sandwich, but rather they are working on a severe sleep deficit and are angry about being forced to go to their mall jobs extremely tired.

Rainy Tulips

School marches on with its various art projects that constantly need doing. The maddening thing about all these art projects is that you can always work on a single one trying to make it ever better, but there is ever a limited amount of time to work on it, so you pretty much have to decide to stop at a certain point. I recently did a silly collage for a book cover assignment in Type class. I would have liked to have another week to experiment with glues and whatnot, but I was forced to hand it in after a poor laminating job that left a sizable burn mark above the little illustration I had made. I think it is about as obvious a large red zit on the end of your nose.

I guess this is coming up for me now because I have a major project due on Tuesday that I have yet to start, and I am planning on going to Portland on Saturday to go the Stumptown Comics Fest. I haven't started on it because I (wrongly) assumed that I had a couple more weeks. There were also several photo assignments I was rushing to complete too. As for tomorrow, I have been planning on going to Stumptown for months, so Saturday is a total wash for working on projects. I have the rest of tonight, hopefully all day Sunday, and most of Monday to work on it. We'll see what happens. I think I will get it in on time, but I want more time to work on the damn thing! Oh well, whattya gonna do? I think the real lesson for me is not how to assemble or research a nice looking art project but how to assemble and research a nice looking art project quickly. Working fast is not one of my strong suits.

I hope to take a lot of pictures tomorrow at the comic fest. I'm usually shy about taking photos of people though, so I may not be able to get any. But in any event, I am pretty sure that I will be posting about whatever happens here on the blog soon. One day, I will have my own comic and table at this thing, but for now I am content to be an attendee and observe all of the cool things that happen there. Since this is my second time, I know more about what to expect.

Walkabout

2008-04-13T23:36:00.001-07:00

The back wheel tire on the passenger side of my car had a slow leak, a problem that I had been putting off for a couple of weeks. It's not that I especially hate going to the tire shop, but, I guess I really didn't want to spend an hour waiting around in a soulless white tile lobby wondering if Jimmy the tire tech was going to discover something worse than a nail in the tire. It's pretty much a given that, with a nineteen year old car, something will need to be fixed.

And, of course, when I eventually made it to the shop and spent the expected time in the waiting room, Jimmy indeed came out and told me that the leak in the tire wasn't the big issue. The real problem was the fact that the front two tires were "completely shot." Thankfully, Jimmy didn't give me the "I really can't let you drive out of here on those tire speech," but he might as well have. Now, I don't have the $250 to have them replaced, so I thought that I would wait a few weeks before I got them fixed. But, later that day, when I took my car to another place to have the oil filter changed, the oil change people noted (without me saying anything) that my front tires were shot. In fact, they even had me sign a liability waiver assuring that I wouldn't sue them if something bad happened to me by driving out on those bad tires! Good grief.

Forest Path

In spite of (or perhaps because of) the bad news about my car, I decided that I would go for a hike in the local wildlife refuge. The hiking trails had just opened up, and I wanted to get some nice photographs of the spring scenery. While I knew that I could use the exercise, I thought the time outdoors would be somewhat relaxing, a counterpoint to the stress of the car issues I was having. And it was a nice hike; although, I think I may have overexerted myself on the trails. I'm not as in shape as I thought I was, so more trips to the refuge for exercise may be in order.

One thing that surprised me about this hike was how many animals that I saw there. Normally, I will see an occasional bird, or a deer or two if I am there just after sunset. However, this time, I saw more animals than I had before. I saw several Geese, a few interesting birds, some ground squirrels, and couple of rabbits.

Geese

Silent Little Bird

Ground Squirrel

Rabbit

All the animals above were ones that I saw on this single three hour trip. There were more geese than anything else, probably a couple of hundred, and they spent the entire time honking above, and on, the small lake nestled at the bottom of the hill and below the hiking trails on which I walked. But they were not the loudest part of the trip, although I could definitely hear them the entire time on my hike. Something like the sound of gunshots was intermittently coming from the surrounding valley. It was a bit distracting. I admit I was very puzzled about blasts of noise in what should have been, to my thinking, a peaceful and quiet walk through the woods. But, I finally realized that the noises probably were meant to scare away the many geese away from the farms and vineyards that circled the refuge. It wouldn't take long for such a large amount of geese to devastate a farmer's precious crop.

I did see some deer too, but I wasn't close enough to get a good shot of them. It didn't take many photos for me to start longing for a decent telephoto lens. There were some really great pictures that I was unable to get because I couldn't zoom in close enough to get a nice shot. Photography can be an expensive pursuit. Tomorrow, I have another photography class. I will be taking a picture of my artwork for the studio project, and if all goes well, I hope to be able to post it here soon.

Seven Paragraphs of Progress

2008-04-10T00:07:00.000-07:00

Usually I try to post a photograph when I write these blog posts, but today, I'm not going to do that. Primarily because it is already my bedtime at the moment, and since I have to get up early tomorrow to get to class on time, I don't have the twenty minutes to pull up Photoshop and do the tweaks that I normally do to the pictures here.

Class went well today. I had a chance during the break to ask the instructor who were his favorite photographers. He listed, aside from himself (good grief!), John Sexton, John Shaw, Tim Fitzharris, W. Eugene Smith, and Ansel Adams. I checked them out online and each one is a technical master at taking photographs, which of course, I knew they would be. I discovered Todd Hido the other day, thanks to a link in one of the blogs I ready occasionally, and although I am the rankest of amateurs who know little about the field of photography, I think that I would have to list him as one of my personal favorites.

But the thing that struck me, as it often does these days, is how much everything costs. Art supplies aren't cheap, and the reality is you need to spend money to create art. I know that there are those who would argue with me on that point saying that a pen and paper aren't that expensive, but I would invite that person to go to the art store and shop for supplies. You can spend over 10 bucks for a single sketchbook, and for the very nice pens, around 6 to 8 bucks. I'd love to learn how to paint satisfactorily, but I'd hate to spend 50 bucks just to make a mess trying to figure it out. I've got an entire shopping list in my head of items that I know I can't afford. And unlike the video games I longed for when I was a teenager, these items might actually help my development career-wise and personally. But then again, maybe I'm delusional.

After the instructor let us go for today, I worked on a personal image that I put in my moleskine, a project for my typography class. It features an asleep cat character in a smoking jacket and fez reclining in a Victorian wing chair. It's a silly image that, frankly, could be drawn better. I'm not normally a very disciplined person, but I've dedicated myself to drawing more--at least once a day--and so far I've kept it up. Eventually, I will put that up too.

Finally, I am writing myself a reminder here to write a post here about the time I drove up the coast in the middle of the night. I was simulataneously processing the rejection of a woman that I was attracted to with the big life worries and concerns about my future.

Thoughts like those seem so grandiose now when I look back into my twenties. I really had no idea how insignificant I was to the grand scheme of life. Now, I knew I wasn't some monumental hero in the history of the world, but I figured that I would have more impact in the larger world around me. I guess this is the ambition of youth. No one ever grows up dreaming that they're going to be a patent attorney for the rest of their life, or worse yet, homeless. There are so many people that life has chewed up; my own problems amount to just so much whining.

Anyway, it was an interesting trip up the coast that I don't think I have posted on my blog before, so I am planning on doing that soon. This is my reminder.

Class Adjustments

2008-04-08T22:55:00.000-07:00

Today, I woke up early for some reason, perhaps it was the noise from the cat trying to weave himself through the venetian blinds in my bedroom. For some reason that honestly I cannot imagine, he's been practicing advanced mountain climbing maneuvers and apparently the blinds are some kind of kitty rock-climbing gym. The cat tends to get an early start on his day, so on these days when he starts his morning ascent at 5 AM sharp, I lumber wearily out of bed, chase him out of the window and around the room, and eventually capture him and unceremoniously toss him outside.

But I admit, there is also an equally good chance that the reason I awoke early was simply because I'm not on a good (read regular) sleep schedule. I tend to work better at night, so it is not impossible for me to go to sleep around one or two AM. Obviously, this is not a problem when I have an afternoon class the next day as I can catch up that same morning. But on the days that I do have a morning class, like today, well, I just pray that the classes that day are interesting. Otherwise, I'm nodding off in the afternoon and watching the clock.

Product Photography Exercise

Today, classes were fairly interesting, especially in the morning, but the afternoon was more of a struggle. The instructor during the morning class gave her impression of the design conference that she recently attended. She said that the future of design lays in the development of making things "work" and creating "dynamic media." Clearly the instructor was excited by the ideas that were presented, but she was a little ambiguous so I was left unclear about what she meant exactly. She indicated that design students needed to learn to write (copy?) competently to compete in the design market of tomorrow, that the design job we might get in the future may not exist today, and that consultation was becoming more and more necessary in the field. No designer is an island unto themself, apparently. We spent the rest of the day talking about the letters we had designed for our homework.

The afternoon class consisted of lecture of art principles that I have heard a thousand times before, and the review of Adobe InDesign software, specifically how to use the tabs and the various keyboard shortcuts related to the functions in the character palette. I drove straight home after class, lay on my bed, and tried to rest as best I could. I didn't want to nap because that would have messed up my sleep routine even more. Later that night, after dinner, I drew in my sketchbook to try to improve my drawing skills.

Tomorrow's class is photography, and the picture above will be one of the ones I need to adjust. I took about seven photos of that pot in various positions, one of which will be used as the cover for the phony magazine cover we'll eventually need to create. It will be a nice class, and by then, I will have enough rest to get through the day without wanting to fall backwards into the sweet embrace of sleep and a warm comforter.

More Reflections

2008-04-04T22:18:00.000-07:00

It slipped by quietly and nearly unnoticed: March 19th. Not only was that day the ominous start of the Iraq war, but it also happened to be the very day that this blog began. I had been sitting in the computer lab staring blankly at the copy of MS Word 2000, trying to force something interesting to say about Moby Dick. But frankly, I was a little bored, burned out, and anxious about finishing up my undergraduate career, so nothing was really coming to me. I listlessly flipped through the pages of Melville's novel and the loose sheets of notes covering my keyboard and glanced around the room. The room was nearly empty, only about seven or so students in a room of forty computers. A few fellow procrastinators were trying to write papers like me, but one student was watching an Anime show online.

I think I believed that if I did some "free-writing," a brainstorming technique we often talked about in my English classes, something about the novel would come to me, and that would magically help the words flow into half-hearted B minus paper. At least, I hoped it would. I surfed the Internet trying to force inspiration and motivation, and somehow, I stumbled on to my friend's "web log." From there, I surfed to a few others, and then eventually, to the Blogger site itself. I rationalized that a little free-writing on a blog, with the exciting prospect of an audience of some kind, would just do the trick for me and my paper.

Blogging then was slightly different, clunkier and less intuitive. Blogger, at least the free version that I was using, did not have the ability to host photos for you, that came later. I'm not sure if I remember right, but I think you even had to have your comments hosted elsewhere too. And, if you wanted to see how many people were visiting your site, you had to pay for their upgrade. I know it all sounds very silly to talk about the old days of something that is only a handful of years old, but, in the dotcom days before Youtube and Myspace, this all seems like ancient history.

In any event, rather than write a long free form post that I hoped would spark the idea for my Melville paper I was putting off, I surfed the net for various third party blogger addons (like comments and a site counter) and began learning how to do some basic HTML to adjust my template. The layout of the site is essentially the same now as it was then, with only a few minor changes here and there.

Finley Wildlife Refuge - April 08

I eventually wrote my paper, but I really don't remember any of that. I do remember watching the bombs explode in the night over Baghdad on CNN, and noticing, as I walked back to the computer lab to print something out, how eerily quiet the streets of the town were. It appeared as if everyone except me, a couple of other students, and a bored lab attendant, were at home watching the Iraq war begin to unfold on the television. 9 p.m. might as well have been 3 a.m.

So, in an odd spirit of things, perhaps in the spirit of changes and transitions, this blog shares its fifth year anniversary with the Iraq War. Tonight, I finally updated some of the links in the sidebar, and removed the links and image tags for the third part blogging services that no longer exist. (Blogwise and Feedster are no more!) Furthermore, partially because this is an old HTML site that I am sure no longer meets any sort of web standards (if it even ever has!), and partially because I don't have the patience to learn how to fix it, the comments have been, well, completely borked. I've decided to take them offline. In its entire five year lifetime, my blog has had less than ten total comments anyway, so I don't think they'll be missed. But if anyone is really dying to say something to me, I still have my [contact] link at the top of the blog page.

My current school issues are, for the most part, all worked out. I am in the right three classes that I need for this term, and the instructor that was seriously stressing me out last term is thankfully not teaching any of the classes I am now taking. His method of teaching did not mesh with my style of learning. During the very last session of that previous stress-inducing class, I literally held my head in my hands while I, and the rest of the class, listened to his tirade about why the majority of us were going to fail in school and later in our future jobs because we could not meet his ridiculous deadlines. I suppose this could have been his way of motivating us to work really hard and do well on the final, but it felt manipulative and condescending.

Today, I went to my usual bi-weekly meeting in the "Southern City," which, as it can be, was cathartic in its way, but it was cut short as we had run out of time to discuss every thing we needed. After finishing up at the meeting and grabbing something to eat at MacDonald's, I found my way to the art store downtown and bought a few supplies: a pencil, a fancy pen, a sketch book, and a presentation portfolio. Later wending my way back north to home, I stopped off at the Finely National Wildlife Refuge for a brief visit, it being one my favorite places to relax at on these off Fridays. The seasonal hiking trails had just opened up, but as it was raining off and on all day, I decided to stay in the car. Instead, I took photos like the one you see above, and listened to the birds sing their various songs while I tried to process the meaning of life in general, and my life in particular. I know I am trying to get back on my feet financially and career-wise, but I sometimes feel as if life has spun out into a direction that I truly did not expect and can, sometimes, barely control. If that sounds a bit gloomy, I suppose it is, but honestly, I am searching for that personal bit of meaning, an emotional meaning, not a purely intellectual one, that I think we must all find in life. I like to think that the birds and their songs were trying to help.

Beginning Again

2008-04-02T03:25:00.000-07:00

I got my grades last week, and while they're not the best I have ever done, they're certainly not the worst. It was nice to have the spring break not to worry about turning in projects and doing the mental math necessary to allocate the right resources to the right assignment. (E.G. If I spend the next two hours on assignment A, I'll have just enough time to finish assignment B, which means that assignment C won't get completed in time, but that class is not as important, blah, blah, blah. It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I've always hated math, and these kinds of bargaining formulas are no different than the classical algebra one encounters in college.)

Spring Break is over and I didn't really do much of anything other than watch television or surf the net. I think I am halfway through my second viewing of the Star Trek: Voyager series that have been replaying on cable; and of course, the M.A.S.H. series is always good to zone out with.

But, truthfully, towards the end of spring break, I was horribly depressed again. I've often tried to describe what depression feels like, and somehow, I think I always come up short. Unlike cutting your hand, or breaking a bone, the pain is not entirely physical. It affects your outlook on things (of course!), so objectively noting what you're experiencing the very moment you experience it is a challenge.

Skinner Butte Blossoms

Despite that challenge, I tried thinking about it, and while reflecting, I came up with a few images. For example, I imagined that depression is like trying to run underneathe the waves of the winter ocean, akin to surfing on the opposite sides of the water. The cold tumbling currents wrap around your arms and legs, stiffening them, while also dragging and pulling on your body with the slightest movement. Or, I thought, depression is like having a companion monster who claims to love you, sit beside you on a little stool as it slowly, and remorselessly, eats your shadow, your shadow being that essential part of you which always keeps you rooted to the earth. The pain, the physical part, (aside from the lump that is just nearly in your throat), is a muscular hand clutching at the bottom of your brain stem, pushing blood up into your mind with a pulse or two. Fortunately, the grasp of that hand loosened today by a bit, probably because I had to get out of my own mind and attend to the necessary duty of going to school.

But school is not without its own problems. The instructors, all who appear to competent in the field that they teach, while discussing the course and its requirements, insisted that we must keep notebooks. Now, to my view, notes are a personal responsibility thing. The notes and the method of taking them should always be individual to the student and adapted to his needs. Yet, these instructors insist on regimenting a particular method for keeping notes, organizing them and the like, and, of course, I balked. It seems, yet again (with corresponding flashbacks to my previous class with which I had trouble), that the instructors are emphasizing behaviour over knowledge. Rather than trust that each student will learn to the best of their ability, the instructors try to enforce a one-size-fits-all study method to a diverse group of students, and I cannot express just how much I hate this. But, as I thought about it, I figured that the real issue is that I have already earned an undergraduate degree and, in the process, have already learned how to think critically. So, rather than just passively accept what I am told like many of the other students do (especially the younger ones), I think about what the best method of learning on my own would be. And frankly, this notebook scheme isn't it. And that thought further led me to the conclusion that I have been a student for way too long.

I have a couple of school schedule anomalies that I will trying to work out in the next couple of days. It isn't anything too important, just another one of those hassles life throws at you. Speaking of which, I also need to do my taxes ASAP. And, I have a slow leak in the rear passenger-side tire of my car. Soon, I'll have those things done, but I really wish spring break was two weeks long rather than just the one.

Spring Break Respite

2008-03-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

Well, if you were following from the last post, I did call my ISP, and after about ten minutes of back and forth on the phone, it looks like the problem was that the cordless phone on the desk next to the accursed modem was way too close and interfering with the wireless Internet signal. So, note to self, the cordless phone and the wireless Internet modem are mortal enemies. The phone, since it is not attached the computer, was consequently banished to another room and the problems have been dramatically less.

Problems with school are also over, at least for the next or so. I've really been having a lot of problems with one of my instructors, problems not over the work that I have actually been doing, but over his teaching methodologies which, in my view, are focused on the complete wrong thing. I've broken out in a mild case of hives (seriously) because of the stress induced by that course. Right now, I am in that limbo between the end of finals and the day they release the final grades, and I really hope that I do well. But this term was more of a struggle than most. I've been bouncing between a philosophical "what-does-it-really-matter" attitude and a worry that slowly encroaches on that equanimity.

My Cat in the Snow

Regardless of what happens on Tuesday (which is when I assume the grades will be released), I am looking forward to relaxing on this week of spring break. I'm very relieved that I won't have to worry turning in assignments for which I have no enthusiasm or meeting some instructor's slightly out-of-touch demands. I do need to register for next term. And I might try to do in the next couple of days, but only if the spirit strikes. One of the things that I thought I might do is work on my neglected webcomic during this break. While I managed to make 100 posts on it, no small accomplishment in the field of amateur comics, the last one was posted in early July of last year. In any event, this next week's time for myself to recharge will be a nice change of pace.

Curse You Cable Modem!

2008-03-08T23:18:00.000-08:00

I've just tried to have a reasonable conversation with computer's DSL modem, a conversation which ended with the modem telling me--and I quote--to "go to Hell!" Therefore, this blog post telling you about it will not be very long (and of course there will be no pictures this time) because I only have a few brief moments to sneak a few sentences on to the Internet before the modem discovers me, gets itself into angry snit, and tries to strangle me with its USB cables. I see a furtive phonecall to the ISP in my near future. Let the Internet withdrawals begin!

Trauma in the Sea of Japan

2008-03-07T01:10:00.000-08:00

Before I first officially enrolled in college those several years ago, I thought I would read Herman Melville's Moby Dick. I was in my early twenties then and, recalling now, I'm not fully sure why I wanted to read it. Perhaps, I thought that reading such a dense book would be a mental challenge that would somehow prove my worthiness to attend college. College had been a much-hoped for but still unattainable goal at that point in my life, and I had some insecurities about my ability to "cut it." Work was remorselessly grinding the human spirit out of my body with its incessant demands for more circuit boards and its general lack of concern about any personal need I had was demoralizing. Even though I had some measure of responsibility, the bottom line seemed to be that I was a meat-robot needed to press buttons, feed machines raw materials, and enforce humiliating human resource policies that I hated. The act of reading Moby Dick at the point was more important than the book itself. The act of reading Moby Dick hinted at the promise of a better life that would allow me a measure of control and therefore dignity.

So, after my evening shifts at the factory, right before falling asleep in the sleeping bag on my bedding pallet (I had no bed at the time), I would read a one or two chapters in the early morning dark of 3 or 4 a.m. I admit that, initially, I skipped over some of the middle chapters that I found especially boring. I didn't understand Melville's metaphysical point of describing the nature of whales or the natural world. Yet, the description of the harpooneers and the process of nineteenth century whaling was very interesting, and the end of the book was exciting. And, going with the popular interpretation, which I must have absorbed from the mythology and popular culture of the book, I saw Captain Ahab as a man whose faulty pride and inability to give up his own anger towards the whale was the reason for his self-destruction. And that was that. Moby Dick was an adventure novel with a cautionary tale against "monomaniacal" obsessions and prides.

In college, I was reintroduced to Moby Dick in a couple of my literature classes. BY the end of my senior year at my undergraduate college, I wrote a paper about the book that won me second place and one hundred dollars in an essay contest. Not only had I gained a new understanding of the book, I was developing a new language for talking about it in terms of literary high criticism. Moby Dick was Dark Romanticism, with a captial 'R.' For me, Moby Dick had developed from a mere adventure novel into a metaphysical exploration of the nature of good and evil. The instructors and professors would frequently try to convince us students that book was arguing that the natural world was a morally dangerous place that inevitably lured people to evil, but on that point, I was unconvinced. Instead, I saw the book as an exploration of character that was less about proving a point about world's evil and more about one man's (Ishmael's) search for the enduring truths about God and his world through the agency of other people, the sea, and his own heroic-or-not actions.

And then, I went to Graduate school where Moby Dick was again discussed. I was finding that certain middle-aged men, the professors, really enjoyed the book for its masculine adventurousness and were using the book as a mirror of their own thinly disguised and unconscious attempts to self-aggrandize themselves as heroes. Like the man called Ishmael, they were on a heroic quest to definitively explain the world and the way it worked, only instead of through whaling, they were going to do it through high literature. I suppose this is why I enjoyed my classes with the professors (who were mostly women by the way) who were intent on exploring or moderating a good conversation rather than making pronouncements. I am not sure that I gained any deeper understanding of the book itself, as by this point, it had become familiar. Grad. School, it seemed to me, was about taking a few minor threads from certain books in the literary canon and trying to spin entire blankets out of them. Still, even with my frustration with this improbable process, I enjoyed the seminars ont he book. I had my favorite chapters, my favorite characters and scenes, and had gleaned a variety interesting facts about the book, its author, and the period in which it was created. Part of the appeal could also have been Melville himself. As I saw it, he was an earnest, if somewhat tragic figure forced to earn a living as a customs officer at the end of his life. Hawthorne too mainstream and a little phony, Poe was an adept drunk and liar, and Thoreau was a weirdo camping out in his own backyard trying to talk to trees.

And, now, with my academic literary life over, I find myself thinking about Moby Dick again. Thankfully, these thoughts are no longer encumbered by the high literary theories or concepts of Deconstruction, Dialectical Marxism, Perfomativity, Phenomenology, Signs, Signifiers, or Signifieds. Instead, I think of Captain Ahab. Rather than a villian who destroys himself and others over his foolish pride, I see him as a much more tragic figure. He was whaling in the sea of Japan, essentially doing his job in order to earn a living. There, he has an accident and a whale, the white whale, rips his leg from his body. I imagine the trauma and pain of such a physical assualt on the body and try to think about what that might be like to experience that. To feel your leg being pulled from your body, to feel the fear and panic of the event as it happens, to feel the fear of instant death or the worry of a lingering one, to be utterly afraid of leaving the world and your family before you're ready to linger for weeks just moments away from dying, to be fitted with a wooden leg replacement is nearly unimaginable.

And, often, it seems to me, for every physical trauma there is a deeper mental anguish that is at least twice as worse. The body always heals much more quickly than the mind. So, in light of this, what else was Ahab to do? He was a wounded man desperately searching for a way to absolve his trauma. He, of course, thought that he should hunt the whale and kill it. But, emotional traumas aren't as easily resolved and are never, ever purged. The challenge is not striking back at the embodiments of our pain but figuring out how to coexist and cope with the tragedy if it. And yet, how was Ahab to know this? He did the best he could. In a sense, Ahab's real death did not occur when he was dragged below by the whale, but when he suffered an emotional trauma that completely devastated him. The time between is Ahab as a ghost, a shade that represents what he used to be to others and only emptiness to himself. He is the present absence that captains the ship unswervingly to the death that began in the sea of Japan.

And, I suppose, for me, that is Melville's message: figuring out how to live with the pain that tries to destroy us, figuring out how to bear and endure the traumas that we encounter in life without sinking under to our own self-destruction. This where the application art to our own lives come in, which is for me, the message of literature: how do we learn about ourselves in a way that betters us individually and our condition as a society. So, speaking personally for just one example, I have a genetic tendency to depression that I have to figure out how to coexist and cope with. Before, I suppose I've always sort of thought about my depression as something to cure and be completely rid of. Instead, I figured I've learned that I need to manage it properly, so I am master of it rather than it being master of me.

Broken Shack

2008-02-25T23:44:00.001-08:00

Okay, so it has been forever since I last posted something here, and really, I am not too sure what to say about it. I guess I needed some kind of hiatus because of the demands of school have been a little much. As for December, it was nice just to have the break and "veg" out.

But, thinking further, perhaps the most difficult part of the last couple of months has been the emotional adjustments I have had to make to my new life. I'm in a transition in more ways than one.

For example, I went from having a regular source of income (okay, student loans, but still it was nice) to an income that is significantly smaller and a bit less reliable. I am eminently grateful for any amount of cash I can scrounge, but not having as much as I would need to live as independently as I would like has been a major stressor. Career-wise, I am in the midst of retraining from an Literature Academic to a "creative," which is what people who work in the field of Graphic Design apparently call themselves. That bit of jargon seems little arrogant to me because it seems to imply that everyone else in the world of work is somehow less creative, which of course is not true. For example, the creativity needed to keep a mindless job like flipping burgers or pumping gas interesting is significantly huge, and the creativity needed to please an insane boss is about as creative as one can get. But, as they say in academia, I digress. Essentially, I have been in an emotional malaise, in which depression plays it meager part.

In our North American society, a man my age has typically built up a series of resources and accomplishments: a steady job, a savings account, a retirement fund, a house or a car, a family, etc. And yet, it seems like I am still preparing for all of that. As much as people try to reassure me that these materialistic goals aren't the ultimate purpose of a life, they don't seem to acknowledge that not having them is a major distraction from finding or following that other true purpose. Once your basic needs are met (food, clothing, shelter, etc), you can move on to thinking about your emotional needs, and once those are met you can move on the next step and so on and so on. Now, most of my basic needs are being met (thanks to the generosity of others), but I worry because in a single moment, all the security and things you depend on can be taken away just like that.

This ability for things to change drastically (and not for the better) in a single moment is deeply unsettling. This was what I learned from my experience in graduate school. The course of my life significantly changed when I left it. So, um... so yeah. I am still trying cope with all of the realities of life that are a result of that experience and the current place I find myself.

There are a few things that I think I need to do. In no particular order, they are as follows: cook healthy food for myself, develop a regular (and reasonable) exercise schedule, develop a regular time for working and doing homework, develop a reliable time for relaxing from that, and developing my personal life to include more friends. I guess the basic message is that I need to take care of myself. In some ways, I feel like an old shack with broken slats that is leaning over, or a jumble of old and ragged clothes. I know I can turn things around, but it's hard.

Turkey Trot

2007-11-22T01:37:00.001-08:00

Wednesday morning, as I was driving into school I nearly ran over a group of four or so turkeys. Yes, I said turkeys. And yes, I know it sounds ridiculously improbable. I mean, what on earth were a group of turkeys doing wandering out in the middle of the road, just one day away from Thanksgiving? Escaping? Getting one final look around at the world before accepting their honored place in the Thanksgiving oven? At the time, I felt a small panic expecting an impending explosion of turkeys into a catastrophe of feathers, but I managed to recover enough to find that all of the turkeys, largely unconcerned about their near death experience, were in tact and casually meandering from the road to the field nearby. After puzzling over such questions, I figured that either the turkeys escaped somehow, or that someone had intentionally let the turkeys out in order to give their surroundings the appropriate decorative touch for the holiday. Wild turkeys aren't native to our area. The turkey episode actually helped in way because I had hardly any sleep the night before, so the brief terror I felt and the attendant adrenaline helped me feel more awake.

As if you couldn't tell from the previous posts, the last couple of weeks of school have been pretty stressful and unhappy, primarily because I had fallen behind on some important projects. I spent almost eighty hours! working on just one in a period of only a week and a half. I know this because, as part of the project, I had to keep track of the time I spent on it. It may not sound like so much, but remember, this was in addition to the other work and obligations I had for other classes.

Concerned about my ability to pass the class with my being behind in my work, I talked with the instructor which helped to clarify which homework had priority. The instructor indicated that while the late work will have an effect on my grade, it isn't as disastrous as I had imagined. Her concern was that I continue to come to class despite being behind in work. At least four students have dropped the class, two of which have dropped the entire program. Attrition is showing more and more, but on the plus side, the less people who complete the program means there is less competition from my design peers.

And, while I still feel unhappy about my prospects for a good grade in the course, I feel much better about passing the class as a whole. "Passing" this class is my academic goal right now. I can work on "passing and exceeding" in my future courses, and I feel confident that, in those future courses, I can better avoid the mistakes I made during this term. Today, I even managed to impress the instructor and the other students with the work we did in class, which was nothing more than construction paper cut-outs of small icons, but it felt good to get praise nonetheless.

The stress will ramp up next week (Dead Week) I am sure. If I had Adobe Creative Suite Three at home, I would be able to do much better with the homework I think. It's easier to work in bursts of varying length at home rather than try to hammer out marathon sessions in the computer lab. It might be better if I lived closer to the lab, it takes me an hour to drive to school one way, without turkeys of course. Tomorrow though, I set aside all of these concerns and will focus riding out the chaos of family Thanksgiving with as much equanimity as is possible to manage in a house full of crazy people.

Knitting Sea Chanteys

2007-11-12T00:18:00.001-08:00

Well, as if you couldn't tell, I've been a little stressed and depressed lately, mostly having to do with school and my life being in general disarray. While the threads of depression are still woven into my spine to some extent, I think I am over the hump on this latest bout of it. Wednesday will be the next day I will have to prove myself, so tomorrow and Tuesday will be full of work.

Today, I slept in for as long as I could, 11:00 a.m., before I had to raise my dizzy head from the pillow and get in the shower for work. Work was largely uneventful except for the appearance of creepy man skulking about the back of the shop. I only found out about him after he left, but I did make sure to tell everyone to let me know if he showed up again. It wasn't anything he did; he just gave everyone a bad vibe.

I guess I was preoccupied with the boss' computer. I noted her firewall was down, so I called her to ask about it. She explained that her Ebay account was hacked because of a weak password, and when she was corresponding with someone from Ebay to sort out the mess, took her firewall OFFLINE!?! to send them an e-mail. Frankly, I was a flabbergasted! The closest analogy I could think of would be if you were driving along the highway, saw a police barricade up ahead, and instead of slowing to a stop--the reasonable thing to do in said situation--you slammed the gas pedal completely against the floorboard hoping you could jump the gaping chasm ala Dukes of Hazzard! I tried to not sound too incredulous and consequently make her feel unduly defensive, but I don't think I succeeded. I did forget to write my time down, so I hope the boss catches my mistake before the checks go out. I will have to tell her about it soon.

After dinner, I settled in to watch television and surf the internet for cartoons, art inspiration, and illustration tips, something that I do more often these days as I seek to improve my skills. For example, Little Dee is one of the comics that I occasionally surf, and it is a pleasant read, especially seeing it develop as it has. I think Chris Baldwin, the guy who draws it, is really talented, and I missed meeting him at his booth at the Portland Stumptown comic fest this year. Little Dee, for those of you who don't know, is about a silent little girl who lives in the forest with a bear named Ted, a dog named Blake, and vulture named Vachel. One of Vachel's hobbies is knitting, which helps to explain the following bit of inspired creativity, a knitting sea chantey!:

We Rogues of Wool

I have never posted a video before, but this was too good to pass up. One of the reasons that I think it works so well is that the characters are so strong and developed. And, somehow, the combination of characters really manages to evoke a childlike sense of the world and the overall comfort of creation that children seem to feel. It was a nice boost and uplift in what has been a dreary past week or so.

Bad Surprises

2007-11-06T00:42:00.001-08:00

When it was clear that my graduate school career was pretty much dead, I had to do some hard thinking about what I was going to do next. I was deeply depressed, out of money, way in debt, and had met enough homeless people to know that I was only just a few steps away from sleeping out on the street.

I had spent eight years supporting myself with a bad job and going to Community College. After earning my Associate of Arts degree, I took a leap, got expensive college loans, and transferred to a State University where I spent three years earning my Bachelor of Arts in English. Then, I spent three years trying to meet the demands of grad school. In one way or another, I had been in school for fourteen years in school. Let me repeat, FOURTEEN.

But during grad school, personal troubles, most of which I couldn't help, overwhelmed me, and I found myself facing a personal crisis that, in many ways, is ongoing. In a period of months, I lost my apartment, my girlfriend, my career, and my remaining self-esteem. With the help of counseling and medication, I picked up what pieces I could and re-enrolled in Community College, this time in a design program. However, as a result of the grad school disaster, I am left with my share of emotional scars, one of which is anxiety about being out and around people. It may not make any logical sense, but there are days when I can get ready to go to school, put on my jacket, get my keys, and then find myself sitting on my bed unable to move. This happened to me on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Sunday, I had to work.

So, in class this Monday morning, I find out that the major design project that I believed was due next week is actually due this Wednesday. I am way behind on it. If I had found the emotional fortitude to go school on those three days the previous week, I would still be slightly behind, but I would be in much better shape.

Also, in a discussion of due dates for the remaining weeks of winter term, the instructor asked how many people had their own copies of the software we use in the course, software that costs hundreds of dollars by the way. Everyone--except me--raised their hand. This means that the other students can work on their stuff at home without being required to drive into campus, an hour away from home for me, and can work without having to worry about when the computer lab opens or closes. (The hours for the lab are pretty restricted for a College in my opinion.)

Suddenly realizing this morning that I was imminently facing a poor grade, or a zero, for this major project was depressing. So depressing in fact, that after class I drove the hour it takes to get home, turned off all of the lights in my room, closed the blinds and went to bed and slept for four hours in the middle of the day. When I awoke, I drove back to school and skipped my evening class so I could spend until 9:00 p.m. in computer lab working on the project. At 9:00 p.m., the lab closed.

Desperate, I called my sister and asked her if she could give me the number for the library at her University, which she did. When I called, I found out that it was possible for me to use their computers as a "community member," but only for a limited time, two hours a shot at most. My best option, I realized, was to go home and try to do as much on this project as I could offline. On a hunch that only comes to those who are truly panicked, I discovered that I can download a 30-day trial of the software I need, something I am in the process of doing now. I've spent three hours downloading it so far, and it will probably take a few more hours. The trial software is not going to help me tonight, but it is possible that it will help tomorrow night if I am still not done by then.

It is not at all certain that I will be able to finish this major project in time. Tonight, I was in the lab until it closed, and early Tuesday morning, I will be back again to work all day. And, I am still depressed, but not as much as before.

Cross Species English

2007-11-03T23:51:00.001-07:00

A bird bit me this morning. Specifically, a cockatiel. And while I thought it would be a nice surprise for the bird to join me in a warm shower, the bird decided it would be a nice surprise to bite the ever-loving fire out of my index finger.

It was one of those cross species misunderstandings that often occur because none of the animals I know can speak English. Heck, none of them even understand English all that well. The dog does much better than the rest, but he has no motivation to improve his meager comprehension unless there is a treat involved somehow. The dog's first and best language is the language of food.

But, if I could intelligently converse with the bird, I would have said something like: "Hey bird, let's go for a shower. I know how you really like playing with the mist and water. And to be totally honest, you seem a little bored of the fabulous vistas of the living room. A visual change of pace might really refresh you." The bird might then be able respond with something like, "Wow that sounds awesome! Let's go!" Or even say, "Gee, I'm not feeling up to that today; I'm stuffed from eating that delicious millet you gave me earlier!" Instead, ignorant of the bird's mood, and faced with the bird's obvious ignorance of my good intentions, I blithely stuck my hand in the cage only to have an ornery bird open up a can of proverbial whoop-@!& on my finger mere seconds later.

Cross-species English could have also helped with the above picture of Busby the cat. I would have been able to ask him to keep his pose for a minute longer so I could properly get his face in focus. As it is, the fence at his feet is in better focus than his face. You may not be able to see the difference in focus all that well with the above small picture, but you can really tell when the picture is at its full size. One of the basic skills of photography seems to be bringing to mind all of the variables and making the corresponding adjustments as quickly as possible before you lose "the shot." I have several more pictures of this cat on that same fence, but they are all terrible. The funny thing to consider though is that in the scant few seconds just before those shots were taken were really great "potential" pictures that are now irretrievably lost to the Fates.

On a personal front, I am still dealing with a lot of anxiety. I make several fantastic plans about what I am going to do in day. I even get dressed up and ready to go, but when it comes to actually getting in the car and driving off in order to put those plans into action, I run into an internal brick wall and sit in my room to stare at the wall instead. I tell myself: "O.K. I'll give myself just another moment, and then I'm off to run my errands or accomplish some meaningful work," but each moment slides by without much of anything happening. I don't want my school to suffer because I am having trouble getting out of the house, and I don't think it will this term, but it's going to be tough. Unless you've been there anxiety-wise, it is hard to understand. Sunday, I am going into work and so, in a sense, I will be forced to get out of the house. But the deadlines for some pretty important school projects are looming, and I am getting more anxious and nervous about finishing them on time. This next week will be crucial.

It seems like in this last year or two, I'm constantly discovering some new facet of feeling, some new emotional scar, that affects me more than I ever would have thought it could. I think I am healing them all and am becoming a better, healthy person for the future, but then again, I wonder if I am making progress or just wishing that I am. If you gain spiritual virtues through suffering, I suppose I am making some spiritual progress despite my seemingly outward failures. Sometimes though, it can be hard to tell.

Creativity and a Rut

2007-10-31T00:22:00.000-07:00

I've thought about posting to the blog here about a million times, but when I think about what to post, I find I am completely out of ideas. All the writing classes I took in college suggest that I shouldn't really worry about what to write and just start writing. Free writing they call it. It's good advice I guess, but something holds me back. The last few months have really brought home the difference between intellectual knowledge and emotional ability. Knowing what to do, and mustering the will to do it are two different things.

And, of course, while I felt a little lacking in creativity when it comes to writing, my dreams have apparently taken up the slack. I've been on a train, part of an early 20th century comedy team much like Laurel and Hardy, a tour guide on a small ocean trawler, and an antique dealer in a bizarre musical instruments. In one memorable dream, I lived in an ocean-front town, bright and summery, will several million people (including myself) milling around a large cliff-side estuary. An impossibly gigantic wave would occasionally sweep up the estuary and take a few of the happy people out to sea. Most everyone, however, was unconcerned about this seeming tragedy as it was an apparently normal everyday occurrence. I've had a couple of dreams that take place in ocean-front towns. In one, I lived in a small apartment that housed a few people who were part of an artist community. I'm not sure if any of this means anything.

I think I've been in a rut for the past few weeks. Other than school and television, I haven't done anything of note--except, perhaps, attend the funeral of an old friend. I hadn't seen him in over 15 years, and of course, I thought I had at least several more years to make a visit. His death was a little bit of a surprise. I made a special effort to attend his commemoration. Although he was not an Indian, he had a lot of Native friends to whom he meant a lot. I arrived just as things were beginning to start with a drum circle and singing, much like a pow-wow. Towards the end, they passed around an eagle feather fan with the idea that whoever was holding the fan could say a few words about the departed. I enjoyed hearing about my friend from the people he touched, but it also made me regret not having made the effort to have visited him earlier. Every once in a while, I find I'm thinking about him and his spirit and the stuff he had to deal with in his life.

As for myself, I am hoping to overcome my rut soon. I just need to work a little harder at it. I might be thinking about the past and the future too much rather than living in the present, but then again, I don't like that thought either. I can think about whatever the hell I like as long as I get what I need accomplished, right? It's a complicated balance that I guess I am still searching for. Maybe things will look better in the next few weeks.

Odd Comtemplations

2007-09-22T00:07:00.001-07:00

I've been in a odd contemplative mood for most of the last several days. The summer has now largely evaporated, and the memories of my doing anything substantial during this time are like steam vapors that drift far away from, and well beyond, my grasp. Somewhat hibernating within my darkened bedroom watching re-runs of the various Star Trek incarnations or fighting digital monsters in the fantasy lands programmed inside my laptop, I've effectively isolated myself from the outside world. And the sense of dull dissipation I've developed is like an inertia magnet that only attracts more void, more nothing.

Lately, most of my interesting adventures take place at night when I am deep asleep. For example, in one of my recent dreams, I am traveling through a town with a shallow river running directly through its center. While I am in the act of crossing it, I notice that the river washes over main street and somehow runs into a distant cavern far below. (Perhaps this is an unconscious echo of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan," especially the bit about "where Alph, the sacred river, ran :: In caverns measureless to man.") I manage to make it across the river, only to immediately find myself on a broad wrap-around porch of a wooden Victorian home. It is now dark outside, and I am locked out. I search around the edges of the front door and front windows for some way in, but am unable to make any entry. I begin to hear something, a rustling of activity, below the porch. Leaning over the steps in a brief investigation of the noise, a little girl, just a toddler, appears with large round eyes that are mysteriously shining with an eerie and watery luminescence. The little girl is scared, lost, and has been crying. Moved, I gather her up into my arms, holding her, and she clutches at my side with a strong monkey-like grip. She is still scared, but now a bit mollified that I am taking care of her. I awake soon thereafter.

I've given up on trying to interpret the symbology of my dreams during this period of odd feeling. It is too much work to delve below their surface meanings for obscure insights into my evolving character. But this is not to say that unanalyzed dreams like these do not also have a mysterious effect. It is like being scratched in the unconscious part of your mind: you may feel it's presence during your awareness of it while simultaneously awaiting for the sensation to vanish just as briefly as it appeared. I can still feel the itch of this dream somewhat, but I am also sure that, in another two or three days, I'll probably have forgotten it.

School starts on Monday, so this afternoon, to avoid the inevitable crowds, I bought the yearly parking permit. I am not sure what to expect from this next round of classes as my expectations for myself are under heavy reorganization. In the past, especially with regard to my own assessment of my potentialities, I had been a perfectionist expecting nothing short of total mastery, total success at the many things I attempt. But I am slowly learning that I have often been too hard on myself; the effect of which, when I am unable to meet my own impossible standards, has been to leave plenty room for me to berate myself or allow others to treat me poorly. (After all, if I feel like a failure, then I am unlikely to challenge you when you treat me as if I really were a failure.) Knowing this, I am trying to unlearn unrealistic patterns of perfection, but I have yet to develop a healthy alternative the holds the same motivation that perfection had. Will I always miss not having been able to get a Master's degree in English Literature? Can I feel the same way about a career in graphics that I once did for becoming a professor of literature?

The answers to these questions are not unrelated to my thoughts about perfection, answers that are still shrouded for me. I suppose this leaves me, essentially, in the odd mood I mentioned in the beginning of this post. When you come right to the bottom of this whole thing, I feel confused--a sense that I believe I may have been feeling for awhile now. But perhaps, this feeling of confusion is also a progress of some kind, especially if I remember that, only a year or two ago, I was coming from a place of feeling totally sure about all the wrong things. Certainty leaves too much room for blind spots.

P.S. It has been ten days since this year's fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attack in New York. I admit that I have been too self-absorbed to think about such things lately, but today, while searching through my lists of blogs that I read regularly, I stumbled on this web documentary. It is the thought-provoking account of that attack five years ago from eight professional photographers who were in New York when the attack happened and the towers fell. Towards the end, it perhaps gets too political for some, but if you have the time, I would highly recommend seeing it. Also, if you have the time, you may want to listen to a cab driver's first day driving her cab. It is has a similar connection to the events of 9/11, and happens to be from one of my favorite blog authors.

Pigs and Dreams

2007-08-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

I've heard that some people have a hard time remembering their dreams: these people will either say either they don't dream at all or the last dream they can remember having was several years ago. On the other hand, I can remember my dreams fairly easily. I might even have two or three memorable dreams in one night, which to me, seems like a lot. But at the very least, I will have a dream that I can remember about once every week.

This last dream that I had the other night was fairly disturbing. There was a very large pig underneathe a queen-size bed. It had lived there for several years, stuck and very probably in pain, but I had only just discovered it. Initially, I tried to feed it placing my hand near its mouth to feel its weak bite, but this was not working. I pulled the mattress and the box spring off to the right, leaned them against the wall, and released the pig from its imprisonment. Before it's snout was the only thing visible, but now the whole pig came into view. It was stuck in a metal frame and looked entirely hideous. I'll spare you the exact details of the visual, suffice it to say that the pig looked disgusting because it was covered with sores and wounds. Still, I felt pity for it and tried to bring it back to health after releasing it from its abusive confinement.

The dream has stayed with me for a few days, and the literary critic in me cannot resist trying to sort out and interpret the metaphors. In a way, (that I will leave completely unanalyzed), the dream is symbolic of a very rough two-week period for me. I have been eating too much, sleeping irregularly, and spending a lot of time alone. I'm going to be changing a few things soon that will help me come out of the funk that I find myself in, but at the moment, I am just trying to maintain some positive habits that will supposedly pull me into a better place. Despite popular cliches, staying still can sometimes be a type of progress.

Mossy River Bank

Anyway, all of this aside, I have been reading more, perhaps not enough, but definitely more. Right now, I am reading Rick Moody's memoir The Black Veil, and I enjoy the artistry of the sentences and the narrative so far. I'm hoping that it will provide me with some inspiration to get to my own writing. Writing on the blog can be problematic sometimes as it is a essentially a public medium. I've thought that I should write more in my personal journals because there I can be a little more free with my expression. I've read some of the journals I've written over ten years ago, and it is interesting to see how I have personally grown, but also note where the journal really works as good writing (in just a very few places), and note where it the writing is truly terrible (on nearly every page). I have had similar journal thoughts when it comes to my art. I really need to practice my drawing skills more, especially as I have not drawn a single thing since the final week of Spring Term.

Really, I have spent much of my time, perhaps too much, on the computer playing World of Warcraft. It has been a little easier emotionally to explore the forests of that silly game, than go for hike in the woods twenty minutes from my house. But, I have been making some attempts to get out of my so-called comfort zone. The cup of coffee picture at the top of the page is evidence of a recent trip to be out and about, and I am hoping that positive steps like these will help me build the momentum up to be more confident in general. In any event, I'm hoping the next two weeks go a little better.

The Unknowing Burden

2007-07-11T01:42:00.000-07:00

Depression is an ugly hulking thing that follows you around like a shadow, and the longer it stays with you, the harder it seems to get rid of it. Its ethereal tendrils seep slowly into your being tightening, minute by minute, its tangle of roots around your bones. You become comfortable with it's hot and weary presence, and unless you purposely try to notice it, it melts into your subconscious, disappears from view, and settles on your shoulders to become the unknowing burden.

It's this seemingly disappearing aspect of depression that sometimes confuses me. In the popular imagination, one usually thinks of someone with depression as a person who feels "sad" all of the time, of someone who carries grief around with them like a candle in the overwhelming dark, of someone who is always two seconds away from crying. That would be an "in-your-face" type of depression. But, for me anyway, that is not how it most often shows up. Instead, I sleep a lot during the day when I can (naps for two or three hours), and then at night, I can't seem to fall asleep until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. Depression also causes me to think a lot about my life in terms of mistakes I have made and opportunities I have missed, like the "wasted" money on graduate school, or my failed relationships. I don't feel like eating much, and when I do eat, it is usually only to fill my belly. I get headaches frequently. I almost always feel like I need a nap even if I am wide awake.

In brief, I feel like the mayor of failure-town. But these are not grief-inspiring thoughts as much as they appear to be evident "facts," and in the false guise of "facts," these thoughts mask the depression. The real fact, objectively speaking, is that my brain does not make serotonin like a healthy person, so these negative thoughts of failure have some roots in a very physical cause. I have the hardest time getting my mind around this concept, but there it is. Just as a person with a broken leg would have some trouble walking, a person with messed up serotonin levels has trouble being "not-depressed." I've been in a depressed phase during the last week or so.

Actually, I guess I would have to say that it has been more than a week judging by how often I have posted on my blog, but this week has been particularly bad. I've not met many of my goals and I have spent more than a few hours in bed during the middle of the day. I am trying to change that around, and I would have to say that I am making a little progress. After all, I am writing this blog post rather than telling myself how I should be doing something other than watch television. I also did some cleaning up by removing a lot of clutter and generally making things look nice.

Another thing that I managed to do just for myself was accidentally go to a Civil War Re-enactment. It was an accident because I had meant only to go to a State Park and possibly go on a hike in a natural setting. I looked up some nearby parks and made my choice, but when I got there, I found that there was a large reenactment group doing their thing. I took some pictures of the battle behind the "Confederate" side of things and then looked around at the various displays after the faux fighting was over. It was a nice distraction away from my various problems at the time. I further distracted myself by making a little comic about the experience. I think that the next two weeks are going to be better for me personally. I am already feeling good enough to a blog post, right? So, I think I have reason to hope for the future. Until next time.

The End of the First Year

2007-06-12T23:24:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day of my first year in the Graphic Arts program. Okay, so they call the program “Visual Communications,” arguing that designers do more than just graphics, but whenever I think about the businesses that want to buy the kind of design services I am learning, I can’t imagine a single one of them wanting to hire someone called a “visual communicator.” It sounds too damn new-agey, too esoteric, like something akin to voodoo. If I were a business owner trying to sell my product or service, I would want a graphic artist.

In my current plan, I’ve got two more years of this graphic arts program to complete. This next year is the one that I’m looking forward to because I’ve gotten beyond the silliness of introductory undergrad courses. (While some freshman kid straight out high school may not realize some college assignments are busy-work, a hoop for instructors to feel justified giving the final grade, I’ve done so many I can see them a mile away.) But now the appetizers are done, we finally start getting into the meat of the program. And then, I think I will be better able to judge if this program is going to get me where I really want to go, or if I should start in another direction.

Anyhow, I’ve spent the last couple weeks finishing up final projects. On friday, I went out for a mini-hike near some forest falls I know. This trip was a little different from the ones I have taken in the past though. Those previous trips were for pure pleasure, but this one was a little about business. Our final project in photography class is to create a shampoo ad. I figured that I would take a picture of two shampoo bottles near the waterfalls to convey the idea of fresh and pure. It was not the best pictures I have ever taken, but then again, they are not the worst either.

To setup, I had lie on the very edge of the water and hold the camera as steady as possible. Even still, my pants got a little wet. Also, while the idea of a forest stream and waterfall conveys the idea of cleanliness, the reality is that both are pretty messy places. For instance, the mud was thick and it hardly ever dries out cause it is always shaded by the trees, so it was tricky keeping dirt off the shampoo bottles while simultaneously trying to keep the camera dry.

The above picture is from that trip. While I was wallowing in the mud trying to get a perfect picture of a shampoo bottle, a man taking his cat for a walk in the woods came up to the bank behind me. It is not everyday someone takes a cat for a walk, so I asked him if I could take its picture. In retrospect, I should have asked him a lot more questions: what was the cat’s name, does he take his cat for a walk often, or even what did he do for a living. However, he seemed painfully shy (makes sense in weird sort of way), so I just made a random comment about how I like taking pictures of nature scenes like the falls.

The Barn Trip

2007-05-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

This morning started out with a minor walking trip through the dewy grass in my sandals up to the big red barn to recover the small pet carrier that is stored there. Normally, I don’t visit the barn that often; and I don’t think I have ever been in it at 6:30 in the morning. If I am not digging out a half of coffee can’s worth of chicken feed from the barn’s feedbox as the substitute “farmer” in place of my dad, I really have no call to be in that dark and dusty place. But this time I needed the pet carrier because the cat (the cat which I never had any intention of owning in the first place by the way–long story) was going in for her operation. This vet trip gained particular urgency in the last couple of weeks because the cat had been seen cavorting with the stray tom who lives in the woods behind the barn. Not a good sign since the last thing I need is another set of kittens: one set was already too many. In any event, I managed to pack her off into the carrier and have her driven to the vet. The cat is currently spending the night there after having been spayed just this afternoon. The other cat, much too young to be neutered yet, has decided to stop being a pain and settle down after an hour of trying to sit on my keyboard, assuredly some kind of feline entertainment.

The only other reason beside the pet carrier or chicken feed that might be cause for me to be in the barn is the fact that some of my old things are in its upper loft. These things comprise about eight or so boxes and are mostly filled with old textbooks or schoolwork scribbled down in notebooks from my undergraduate days of about six or so years ago. I tell myself that I should move them to prevent any more of the thick barn dust from settling on it, or to prevent the inevitable dew from wetting that dust and caking those papers with a fine mud thereby warping the pages. Probably, I will move it sometime in the summer.

Still, even though I was a little tired, I braved the rickety ladder and opened up a couple of boxes to retrieve six of my notebook journals that I had written during those early college days. Back then, I fancied myself as a writer of sorts, so I included everything that one who considers themselves a “writer-to-be” in those journals: poems, phrases that I thought interesting at the time, a few overheard conversations, or memories of things I had done. I had been to a few author readings, writer presentations, or library events where writing was concerned, and invariably, aside from questions about how to get an agent, the speakers mentioned that the best way to develop “the craft” of writing was to keep a journal. After all, artists have their sketchbooks, so writers should have their journals. Most of my journals were written before I had a blog of any kind, and in that regard, if I had never created a blog, I would probably have filled up a lot more than just these six.

I still keep a written journal to write things down when I don’t have a computer on hand to type something off real quick, but mostly the blog serves most of my creative writing purposes. I’ve only had a chance to read one of these older journal and already two things stand out pretty clearly. One, my writing was pretty terrible–overwrought and whiny–which I have to admit, I can still be guilty of, but trust me, it was far, far worse back then. There is a lot of awkward complaining about being lonely and trying to be a “good person,” which likely meant that I was really, really, really lonely and had more than my share of self-esteem issues. The second thing I noticed was how, back then, my writing was less focused on my personal problems. I suppose I use my writing more these days as a way to explore my emotional life and sort out how I feel about things or my past. Even though the old writing is terrible, I miss the creativity it expresses. I think I should go back to writing more poems. A few of my undergraduate professors had mentioned that I had some talent for it, but then again, that is the story of my life: potential that doesn’t seem go anywhere. Perhaps this is my basic personality, but I sure hope not. I’d really like to be able to have accomplishments to be proud of rather than a truckload of regrets for things I haven’t done or things that didn’t pay off with the results I really wanted.

Gaining Ability

2007-05-16T22:02:00.000-07:00

I only got about four and half hours of sleep last night, but despite that, I managed to get to school on time this morning without frantically speeding down the highway. Somehow, I also managed to finish up a lot of previously incomplete work during the afternoon. Energy and motivation had taken a vacation during the past couple of weeks, but surprisingly, for some unclear reason, I found them again. I just have a few more unfinished projects to complete in the next couple of days. I need to print up a few photography assignments on the school’s fancy Epson printer tomorrow, and I further need to complete a couple of overdue life drawing assignments by 11:30 a.m. It’s doable, and I am still confident I can get it all done.

By 5:30 p.m. tonight, I was ready to quit working on assignments and begin the trip home. It takes an entire hour from the school parking lot to my front door at home, so the trip is a bit of hassle, but today’s sunlight and light road traffic made the trip home almost pleasant. Between stoplights and the ever-present muffler fumes from the other cars, I had time to muse over how I’ve really gained some real artistic knowledge these past few months and, while I definitely need to practice my skills a lot more, began to reflect on how that knowledge is getting incorporated into my current work. I only have to look over at some of the beginning Art students struggling with their drawings and designs to see how I have gained an ability that they have yet to develop. I have noted in myself a tendency to be overly insecure about my own abilities, especially as that may relate to a future paying career. Self-esteem, anyone? While I am not sure that being gratified at noting my abilities above the other students is necessarily a healthy thing, it does go a little way to maintain my confidence in myself.

But back to the four hours sleep, my being up way too late was my own fault for not turning off the television at 11:00 p.m. like I had planned. Cartoons and late night comedy proved to be too compelling. The afternoon nap I took yesterday did not help matters either. The cats like to zoom around at midnight anyway, so my being up late accommodated their schedules if not my own. They seem to like to have an admiring audience to their feats of destructive acrobatics, but don’t seem to understand that I wind up watching more out of concern for the objects they invariably knock over than any admiration for their capacity to leap from the bookcase to the windowsill across the room in a rainbow-like arch. I am sure that there are more than a few things under the bed that either one of the cats has pushed or carried away there than I really care to know about: a dusty sock, a toy mouse, a deck of cards, or a forgotten scholarship application for instance.

My graduate school life of a couple of years ago seems like a million miles away today, but I can still feel its lack in my life. I want to clutch its memory with a granite squeeze and press it into the firmer side of my heart, but it seems less like granite and more like a drifting summer smoke chasing its way out of my hands whenever I grab at it. Summer days must cause me think of grad. school more than during the darker days of winter for some reason. I am not sure I will–or at this point in my life, even could–return to a possible future career as English professor. But now, and I mean right now as I sit in my chair typing this on my laptop, I feel the need read a lot more often between now my next blog post, whenever that will be. I hope it will be sooner than next month.

Midnight Worries

2007-05-02T05:03:00.000-07:00

Another night that I can't sleep all of the way through. This time, I am pretty sure I was awakened by the sound of my glasses hitting the floor, and the initial grogginess I felt wore off after a few minutes of searching for them under the bed. The culprit, as if I didn't know immediately when I heard the report of the frames bouncing on the ground, was one of the four cats living in my room at the moment. You know, cats are great in small doses, but for extended periods of time, they become like pebbles in your shoe: an irritant.

As for the Court I attended the other day (mentioned in my previous post), although it was very interesting, ultimately, it was also very disappointing. I discovered halfway through this process, that thanks to the State Legislature, if one gets a fine within a school zone, it cannot be reduced by the judge at all, which of course meant that I had to pay the full amount of the ticket, $206. The judge noted my driving record was immaculate up until the school zone ticket, further noted that my violation wasn't all that extreme anyway, and expressed his own frustration at not being able to reduce fines for cases like mine. (However, I'm not entirely sure if he was really frustrated, or if he was just putting on the show for the others in the courtroom and saying that he was frustrated to make me feel better for not reducing the ticket.) Overall, I did worse than the elderly lady who forgot her disability permit to park in a disabled space--a potential high dollar fine of which she only had to pay $20--and I did much, much better than the Mexican guy who, because of previous fines and violations, is likely to spend some time in jail. I felt bad for him because he seemed very worried.

School is going okay at the moment, but to be perfectly honest, I think I am feeling the wear of the appearance of not making any progress. It is like the hope and optimism I had for a comfortable future is being ground into a fine powder against the twin rocks of debt and my previous failure to complete graduate school as I would have liked. At this point in my life, mid-thirties, I imagined that I would be in a decent paying career, have health insurance, a nice apartment, and have a healthy savings account. Of course, I am still grateful for the continuing support that I have to actually pursue a new school path, a place where I am trying to build new hope as an artist rather than an instructor. However, all I have to do is think about the talented art students in my current drawing classes and see the evidence of even more talented students who have already completed the program to feel a lot of trepidation about the future viability of this new path. My talent for art maybe nothing more than a mediocre skill easily attained by others who have more energy and devotion. And in the highly competitive art job market, competitive as all jobs in the humanities are, you have to really stand out above the rest. I think my best hope for a career most likely lies in the ability to learn how to operate software like Photoshop, and not in the ability to create a work of art with the lyricism of craft. And as fast as computers change these days, my meager skills with Photoshop can disappear with the advent a new software standard, or more profoundly, a new technology.

I think about all the kids who wanted to be in the NBA compared the minuscule amount of kids who actually made it. Hoop Dreams, anyone? Or, I think about all of the kids I've met in the college who want to become famous movie directors. Their hopes far exceed their potential, but they don't know it yet. The film students who have any kind of experience in film making, however modest it may be, tend to keep these hopes secret knowing what an embarrassment that their foolish hopes can be. In the Literature world, it is like everyone who wants to write a novel, imagining the millions of dollars that will flood in when they do, but never put a word to page, or worse, never read a book--or if they do manage to tap something out on their laptops, cannot make even a simple sentence bend to their will, much less come to life.

I will try to get back to sleep for a little bit. School is in a few short hours. I will continue to go and put my time in there as it is my best hope for a brighter future, and I will try to remain optimistic about future success. But in the dark night of the early morning hours, optimism is a much tougher thing to hold on to than it is in the daylight.

Sleeping on It

2007-04-25T23:21:00.000-07:00

I woke up in the middle of the night (4:30a.m.) when the cat in my room knocked over an empty birdcage. The birdcage was okay but my heart took a few minutes to get started again, and then a few minutes after that to start beating normally. Night terrors are really no way to get up in the morning, but it turns out that they are pretty good for keeping you awake after the initial shock. I couldn’t get back to bed, so I made breakfast, took a shower, and drove into school.

The funny thing about the morning class today was that the instructor spent about half of it talking about how wordpress was a such great blogging system for posting your photos. Sure, blogging is great (I’ve done it for four years now), but I think that the instructor oversold it a bit. He seemed to indicate that blogging was a great way to get your personal photos noticed by the general public. Over these four years, I have seen the kinds of hits I get from “the public,” and unless I do something to appear in the papers (like win the lottery), it seems very unlikely that my blog is going to get noticed more than by a handful of people a week, and those people are usually looking for something else.

Tomorrow morning, I go to court. I’ve got a traffic citation ($200!) that I need to get resolved somehow. I am hoping that I can get it reduced significantly because $200 bucks is a lot of money for someone who hardly has any. I was told by a classmate who has gone through the process before that the most the judge can reduce the fine by is 1/3rd, so it is still going to hurt, but hopefully not as much. I’ve never done anything like this before, so it will be interesting to see what happens, but right now, I really need to get to sleep so I can wake up and arrive to court on time.

Drawing upon Thought

2007-04-06T04:47:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I went to the first figure drawing class I am taking this term. I was initially nervous because I had heard that this particular instructor is a little demanding; and also, I felt somewhat nervous because I had been out of practice for some time, the type of classical practice a college art class seems to require. However, towards the end of the class, the instructor wandered over to where I was drawing and commented that my drawing was actually very good, the sort of compliment which makes me slightly embarrassed. I nervously smiled, laughed, and then tried to point out the drawings flaws: the composition wasn't very balanced, the model moved so the back look out of proportion, etc. The instructor countered each one, partly for encouragement.

Compliments, it seems, are always harder for me to take because I am always ready to receive criticism, deserved or not. And of course, criticism is always seems easier to believe, easier for me to mentally support, even if I know it is not necessarily rational. Not rational, just how it is. When I was ten years younger or so, I once overheard someone talking about receiving compliments and that it was generally considered polite to simply say "thank you" and leave it at that, advice which I remembered and took at this occasion.

Despite my various personal insecurities, I am looking forward to this class. It is not very often that I have the time (or, admittedly, the discipline) to explore my art in this way, a not-uncommon problem among artists and fellow art students. Plus, I am hoping to gain a few insights from the instructor about the larger context of the art business and world to somehow become more of a self-starter. I look around at the paintings that hang in the various small-time coffee shops and small galleries and have the thought, perhaps naive, that I could do something similar once I learned the "secret," learned the right techniques, and got introduced to "the scene."

In a connected way, I have been having a lot of thoughts about getting my master's degree in English again, to work towards becoming a college instructor. It is the other area in my life where I seem to have some ability, and have received enough compliments from others, mostly instructors, to make me think that I have serious potential. However, enough major obstacles remain to where these thoughts are not entirely developed: for example, I can't afford much more debt, the competition for those jobs are fierce, and the idea of facing 30 or so people per class is a little daunting, even if the students are all mostly young and have their own worries.

Anyway, these are the types of thoughts I have at night, when I am alone and the thoughts pour in like cool soaking water. I went to bed too early tonight (technically yesterday) because I was tired, so I woke up in the middle of the night and began to write this post. But I can feel the fingers of exhaustion slowly curving around my back muscles and crawling up to my neck. It's time for bed again. When I wake up, I begin work on my scholarship application. It is due by 5:00 p.m. and I still have personal statement to write. I highly doubt that much will come of this application because I already have a undergraduate degree. It is even possible that having that degree will automatically disqualify me for consideration, but there is nothing in the application that says it will for sure and I certainly won't get anything if I don't apply. Time for bed.