Errand Running

I didn’t realized that I had lots of homework to complete during the CNY break…until now. I thought I could use the break to do quite a number of things I want to do. But sadly, things you need to do just eats so much of your time that you don’t have any left to spare for your own.

There’s one big word that everybody has take account for but doesn’t want to. The word is called

“Res -pon – si – bi – li – ty”

Yes, responsibility. The more I get older, the more responsibilities my parents feed on me. It’s easy to be responsible for yourself and but to take responsibility for your family can be quite a pain in the neck. But I guess it’s all part of the process of caring and loving for someone else other than yourself. Nevertheless, I find it such a pain sometimes. Before the next day begins, I have to jolt down so many “to dos” but not “want to dos” :

- service the car

- pump petrol

- check tyre pressure

- trim my hair

- help friend with photoshop assignment

- register rocky

- take rocky to vet to spay

- pass kuih to ah yee and popo

- wash my popo’s dog (WAT? That tiny little tick infested smelly dog?!!!)

- Typo assignment

- ship perspective

- unidentified object assignment

- book tickets for film harmonic orchestra

- drive to SS15 to photocopy this and that

and the list goes on and on and on…

I really wouldn’t be half as annoyed doing it if I didn’t have that much homework.

Powerpuff Trash

Yesterday afternoon my sisters and I decided to watch cartoon network again during lunchtime. I haven’t watch it for months. So what was on? At first I thought it was our good old powerpuff girls cartoon series…but what came out was this:

A manga-fied version of Powerpuff girls, naming themselves Powerpuff Girls Z.

WHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT?????@#^%&^%^*^)(**%&^%

So we decided to watch 30 minutes of the first episode….and it was TRASH!!! ARGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOw could they remake powerpuff girls into a Sailormoon-Doremon-fusing-mangafied overly cute powerpuff girls!???!!! Their super powers are so lame that I don’t know how much more LAMER can it get! The storyline is just…UGH!!! And they take about 10 secs to transform using that sailormoon overly cute transformation??? It’s a Japanese company, not American. The Americans would had throw the whole series off.

The word “cute” in manga style is so off my vocabulary.

What did they do to the mayor??? His now super serious?

I felt like…

Yes, I’m so being sarcastic at this point. How can they do this to one of my favourite childhood cartoon? I’m gonna beat up that Japanese company.

Making competition irrelevant

For the last 3 days I have been spending 70% of my time in bed reading. My sis asked me how many times I had gone back to bed (because I normally fall asleep when I’m reading), while my mom nags at me for reading under the dim light.

” Oi! You’re gonna spoil your eyes!”

” They’re already spoiled!!”

This is my moment. My lazy moment. A day to myself where I can laze around and not worry about anything else. MY lazy day. Don’t spoil it.

Yesterday when I was eating Apple donuts with my family when Karen came up with a random question:

Karen :  “I wonder how some things are so different than anything else that no one could really copy that thing. It’s like so distinct.” ( Like her Ipod)

Rach : “It’s all about Blue Ocean Strategy…making competition irrelevant. Swimming out of the bloody red ocean into uncharted areas. Instead of eliminating competition, break free from it.”

And there goes my mom and dad, astonished that their daughter actually read books like “Blue Ocean Strategy”. So I pretended to act as though I’m smart until I said:

R : I only read like…what…10 pages of it?

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Yesterday night, I decided to read from where I left off, since I’m already done with Eclipse. The good thing about this book is that it’s easily digestible. Most of the best selling business books are. So I finished reading it this evening. But to those who had never read this book before, what exactly is “Blue Ocean Strategy” all about?

Blue Ocean Strategy is all about creating and uncontested market space, making the competition irrelevant. Instead of focusing in beating the competition, make the competition irrelevant by creating a leap in value for buyers and your company(pg12). In this new market space, the company monopolizes the whole market, and their soon-to-be competitors find it hard to imitate them, unless, they too, learn how to be innovative and find new uncharted areas.

Caricature of Obama

30 minutes sketch in class. I love this subject .

New Forum for DG081-1

I would like to inform you guys that we would be having our own forum page – www.dg081-1.forummotions.com. I just opened it today. Would try to keep it constantly updated yea.

Why a forum page? Because blogger is so……..

Sharp ends that poke the back

I was quite moody 2 days ago over the number of unfinished work given that is destined to kill us if we continue to let it pile up. The workload given to each person is the same, but differs from each individual depending on how much effort he/she decides to put in. So I guess I’m classified under one of those super gila assignment maniac which try to go overboard with whatever I do. But I still do question the whole TOA system of work overload….I ask myself that question, A LOT.  I find that there’s a big flaw to the whole system, that we were not trained to be wholesome people, but robots. This is serious “all work and no play makes Rachel a dull girl” kinda thing,  that the academy believes a lot in hardwork but not balance in what we do. Honestly, I feel like a dead zombie at times no matter how normal I look on the outside. It’s really hard to give people a nice light-hearted unforced smile as a greeting when you just feel like sleeping on the sidewalk on your way to college.

Anyways, I totally tortured the semi-broken sharpener for our analytical study model sheet assignment. I love details and complexity. But I wish I didn’ t put so much time doing this but rather, focus on other assignments as well.. But what the heck, it’s done. And I’m happy. Seen enough visual dictionaries and cross sections to know how they layout information. : )

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My sister lend me a set of classical music CDs to sooth my inner nerve when I’m doing work I’m not fond of. It’s called “250 years of Great Music” ranging from Mozart, Bethoveen and Tchaikovsky to Chopin and a whole other bunch of composers I don’t know. It did help, a lot. I find that most of the original music were extracted and reinnovated to put into computer games like Fable and some other cartoons. The musicality of it is very similiar. I actually am more into Orchestra music suited for blockbusters but never really went into depth with classicals. But I kinda like what I heard.

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A few days ago we are informed that PAS has won the Kuala Terengganu by-election. The outcome was very much anticipated by many, not knowing who would win – in the end. But I got bored of reading the papers of the same old trash how politics are being played. The Star, especially, has utterly transformed itself into a pro-BN propoganda media, which everyday, all we read is that the opposition is bad and that BN is the party that can lead and administer Malaysia forward. My foot. The news is so one sided. Ish. I really didn’t have the time to check out Malaysiakini. But either ways, this election was very similiar to the Permatang Pauh by-elections, except  the outcome of KT was just a meer extra 2000 heads. I’m happy though. Because a few weeks ago Najib was boasting like he already won. Now we can jolly well flash our butts at him – the Bart Simpson style! Muahahaha!!

I thought I could stay up to watched the inauguration of Barack Obama yesterday night. Turns out I couldn’t. The sofa was just so cozy and soft and warm that I just zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……….. ( I really can’t help it! Have not been getting enough sleep) I gave up waiting for his speech and went straight to bed. Watched it on youtube the next day. His speech was, as usual, charismatic, confident, fluid, and strong. For a 20 minutes speech, my eyes were peeled straight to the screen, not wanting to miss every word he said. His firy speeches kinda reminds me of how St Paul preached and wrote his letters – Full of hope, but also always addressing the situations and problems faced. You’re not chasing air, if you have high hopes and dreams but also are practical and realistic in facing current challenges.  It is achievable and believable. The question is, is whether Obama can really bring change, in this current crisis that is by far heavier then what any other president had ever faced?

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My dad decides to dump some of his old “Personal money” magazines in my room since after he spoted me reading it in his car. He said I should read more finance stuff, other than politics and art. Aheheh…my room is pretty much dumped with books,  trash, magazines, stationeries, whatever. A lot that I have to read I have not read. I just took a whole pile of my younger sis “witch” comic books and dumped it in my room as well. She wanted to give it away. But I guess I’ll role back to some good old comic reading. After a year and a few weeks in an art college, we do see things differently. Instead of being entertained as an audience, we try to see  things through the eyes of a director, or the comic book artist.

Road to the past

It’s only the second week and I can tell how much I’m gonna like 2D animation. It’s like walking back to my past. Okay, I think I have quite a sad childhood to began with. I watched 5 hours of TV a day to relief my stress from a communist Chinese school. Don’t ask. I think I could have watched nearly every episode of Dexter’s laboratory and Powerpuff girls. But I could solidly remember “Mickey Mouse house”, where they feature all the classic silly symphonies with that old time charm. And yea, I hated “the House of Mouse” and “Mickey Mouse Works”. Trash those unoriginal cartoons!!

So today we watched a bit on the history of animation. I always told my sis I wanted to make stories one day using only music alone. It’s like some silent film, where you get all sorts of emotions out using the visuals and music . Syed lectured a bit on film making and storytelling – Watching a movie is like going on a journey to another dimension. To me, it’s like a vast pool of emotions being bottled up in a 2 hour time frame using visuals, music, and good storytelling.

Just like our stop motion project last term, we’re really excited for next week’s line animation outcome. Not so excited over the piles of assignment degenerating our lives. But what the heck, the only time when I get all moody when I’m doing it is 1) when I’m alone and 2) in the middle of the night, when everyone is asleep.

Good thing we have lecturers like Syed. I was planning to burn down the school before I graduate, but I guess he changed my mind. Haha.

The Stapler

The stapler is suppose to be your friend. I want to murder it.

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This is like illustrating on visual dictionary on a stapler. Click on image to see the awesome tedious horrendous details.

It’s the first week and there’s already plenty of work to do. I thought I could buy some time to read books and watch a couple of movies, but sadly I can’t. It’s gonna to be assignment after assignment for the next 4 months. Blogging days are going to be cut short dramatically. I think I only have time on Saturdays and maybe the wee hours at the morning. But still, I’m glad there’s still time to walk the dog and run. But making sure I have time to read the Bible.

It’s a run through of all the subjects this week. I can tell I’m gonna like 2D Animation and cartoon character design. I’m not going to like moral studies, analytical drawing, and typography. I think. Well, too early to judge ain’t it?

Cartoon Character Design class is a lot of fun. The assignment this week is also light and easy. We were drawing and animated form of different expressions from our friend’s face. So, here’s a series of expressions from Victor:

This is how Jean looks like, when she’s happy, sad, angry, jealous, excited, moody, disgusted, scared, confused ……

The handsome version of Darren. Lucky thing I didn’t post the not-so-handsome version of Darren..haha!

I thought about this when I was doing the stapler assignment, that we should have a compilation of tips, walkthrough, cheats, tricks, short cuts and fast track ways to survive in TOA. The title should be “THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SURVIVING IN THE ONE ACADEMY” or maybe ” CHEAT YOUR WAY THROUGH THE ONE ACADEMY”. And then, sell it to all the juniors…MUAHAHA!!! But of course, there’s no ultimate way to cheat your way through assignments but then I learn that finding the fastest shortcut way to assignment completion is essential. For example, when I was a freshman in TOA, Yen yen thought me to screw the blade and use a pair of scissors when cutting curves. I got a 9/10 at the second attempt, not with blade, but scissors(cheater). I got tips on how to do certain assignments from other classes who were faster than us so I wouldn’t end up having to redo. I could finish my Illus project quick because I remembered all the hot keys. And I used live trace on graphics which is so not allowed.

And there are some things we work as a group to complete. Like when one class has loads to complete the other class works on the project first. Or maybe exchanging rumours here and there on this lecturer and that lecturer give hints on how you should execute specific assignments. Or certain things like skills and techniques – Why some people pick up faster than the other? I don’t think it’s mere talent but I think it’s how a person see’s technique and skill being done. Sometimes I think the fastest way to pick up a skill, is to understand it first. Drawing is kinda like a study on forms, negative and positive spaces, relationships, tonal value, anatomy, stucture, foreshortening, perspective. So when you understood these things, drawing would be as easy as ABC. And that, definitely is a shortcut. So why not create such a book? Jolt down every survival tip from seniors. If we ever had the time to write it.

Btw. Christmas over. So, back to the same appearance on my blog. I actually like this one coz of the spacing.

Next Assignment – 300 pages of flipbook animation…here we go.