I spent a good part of the afternoon yesterday catching up on Flickr. One of my reasons for slacking off on Vox is that a lot of my neighborhood hasn't updated as frequently. The other reason is that some of you are updating so much I don't know how I'll ever catch up. I think I'll just have to start fresh and get back to older posts when I can.
"Inspriation is nothing without the will to create." I made that up. It's real. It's in your face. Bam! It's also something I need to keep in mind. Motivation has taken a dip (something seemingly common for myself) even though I can see the goals I need to tackle with greater clarity than normal. That was an awkward sentence.
Of course seeing what I need to do is not the same as knowing how to do it. I guess that's really the task at hand.
I feel bad for neglecting Vox so much, I really do. And sadly the first meaningful thing I've been compelled to post here in a while was under 140 characters anyway.
What was your very first job?
My very first job was mowing one of our friend's businesses lawn. I mostly did it myself, but my dad helped a little. And by "helped" I mean he kept doing extra things like spraying for bugs and then adding it to the bill without asking beforehand if he should spray for bugs at an extra cost. So after a while I was told he didn't need my help anymore.
After that...hey why is the first paragraph indented like that? Stupid Vox. Anyway...oh right my second job was working for my best friend's dad. I was paid way too much to do way too little. It was the very definition of a "sinecure". Overall it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed working hard the few times we worked hard. On the other hand it also made me aware of how friggin lazy my best friend was, and gave me the first inklings of underlying creepiness which years later resulted in me breaking things off with him. ANYWAY.
What I consider my first "real" job was at the movie theater. True, I got a check from the last job but it felt more like being given free money, and that never sit well with me. Instead at the theater I was overworked, undervalued, given no respect and paid far too little. So progress was made. I had a whole lot of fun, learned much about life, made some wonderful friends, and got some great stories to tell from some crazy adventures. It was also where I had an embarrassing uber-crush on a girl, saw my group of friends destroy themselves from the inside, lost trust in people, became embittered, and hurt my knee which required emergency surgery. You win some, you lose a lot.
Of course that was a low-paying grunt work. While I may have taken great pride in it any idiot could have done it. Actually every idiot did it. So shelving at the library might actually be my first real job. Around the same time I also worked at my college bookstore but I'll skip that. At the library I got raises, went to meetings, had a say in what went on, and even had a shiney name badge. After working at two libraries and three different positions, I think I can safely say this is my first real job.
Of course it's only part-time. Maybe when I get full-time that will be will be my first job.
I stayed up until four in the morning painting my room. I'm sore, exhausted, and not close to being finished. The walls are done (two coats!), the ceiling is done, but all the little things of trim have to be surrounded with painters tape and meticulously painted. After that I have to clean my tile floor and move everything back in the room.
In other news, I got my first Brandolier of Carrots yesterday! Nik and Caprice almost got it too, but technical problems with the website kicked them out after it said their orders went through. That's just crap.
Also...probably other things but I'm too tired. More news later.
Not quite accurate as my mother and sister are traveling, and I'm staying here.
The two of them have traveled to magical Massachusetts. Since my dad works during the day and I work..not much at all, I basically have the house to myself for the week. To avoid wasting any precious moments I made a schedule.
I woke up at 5:30 this morning. For the first time in two months it wasn't my Gibby alarm, but a severe pain in my right shoulder. That's going to suck if it doesn't get better soon. Then we were off to the airport to drop off my mom and sister, back home to get the jacket my mom brougth, off again to the airport, made our goodbyes, back home again, and when my dad left for work I was alone.
First thing I did was eat the Lucky Charms my mom got me. Tradition states that she must by me a sugary cereal when she leaves home. So I've gotten about three boxes in my life from her. The last one when I was around five, I think.
Then I went to Lowe's to look at paint. I'm maybe possibly going to paint my room. Since I planned on taking everything out of it, getting rid of some more stuff and cleaning the foor, it seems a good time to do it. I have a couple ideas of what colors I could do, but no clue how to go about getting the paint there. Mostly today was to estimate costs.
And then to the grocery store. That was fun, but I was taken aback when I discovered that I had no idea what to buy. I should have planned out some meals ahead of time. The lady at the deli upsold me on some freakin awesome cheese based on my request for muenster. Also I got like, well not "like" but exactly four pounds of maple and brown sugar ham. Not sure what I was thinking. I'm looking foward to a fiendish sandwhich idea. We don't have a full size freezer anymore so I was prevented from buying a lot of frozen junk food. And really, nothing there really excited me. Why is it that by the time you have a chance to do something, you've gotten past the need to do it? I did buy a gallon of chocolate milk just because I could.
On the way home from the grocery store I skipped the usual turn because I have to park the truck on the road, and I hate having to turn it around. So I thought it would be easier to just go pass my street and come in the direction I needed to park. What I didn't count on was the unannounced blocked of for construction next turn, so I had to keep going straight. And somehow I ended up by the Fiesta casino. Which is on the other side of the store I just left.
ANYWAY on the way home for reals this time I saw a car preparing to come out of a gas station. No, I thought, they aren't going to try to pull in front of me. That would be madness. They have to look this way and see me speeding towards them. They wouldnt' do that. Well they did. I quickly made a calculation based on the velocity of my speed, weight of the car, and stupidity of the other driver and rationalized that I wouldn't be able to brake in time. So in Speed Racer fashion I jammed on the turn signal, went left, and then right again, pulling in front of them to avoid slamming into traffic in the middle lane. It didn't really phase me, but if I happened to be looking the other way or reacted a little bit slower that driver could very possibly be dead.
And yes it was an old lady. So she wouldn't have missed out on much.
When I finally had some time to sit around, I cooked myself a frozen pizza. That's right. All for myself. Unfortunately it sucked. Last week I made one for my dad and I that was just perfect, but I couldn't remember what it was. The one I got burned a little bit and was overall not great. Oh well.
Then work. Which I am now all alone. By myself. Nobody to lean on. The loniest number.
Tonight I'm going to eat some top ramen and maybe watch Firefly. Exciting stuff.
Today is Limerick Day. Share a limerick please!
The Limerick With No Title
I was told once told by Vox to share a limerick
And tried my best to think like a beatnik
But stalled I became
When considering a name
And settled for a fourth wall smashing gimmerick
I'm iffy on that last line. "Gimmick" doesn't quite flow as well. So I made a new word. Shut up it works.
Show us the most useless thing on your desk.
What might be my final project at NSC.
What this is about
If you can’t already guess, the direct inspiration for this is Rene Magritte’s The Treachery of Images. It’s always been a favorite of mine as it nicely destroys the preconceptions we usually must have in order to accept art for what it is. All (well most) forms of art ask you to believe in the artist’s beliefs to a certain degree, yet here Margritte assures us that he did not paint a pipe, because it’s not really a pipe at all. Also I’m a sucker anything that confuses people.
The outcome is just the vehicle for my message. Actually, perhaps it is less a message and more of me conveying a wide array of emotions to no one in particular. You don’t grimace in pain when you stub your toe for the benefit of an audience, after all.
First of all I decided to opt for the media project rather than the paper. Because I hate rough drafts. I hate them so much. When I decided on the art option I realized this is probably the last media project of any kind I will complete for this college. Not because I’m graduating. Because they have no classes left to offer me. This is defeat, not victory.
Realizing that (ever read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?) I thought about the work I’ve accomplished since I was a freshman. It seems like a long time, and while I’ve come quite a ways from my MS Paint days, I’m still unsure if I’ve done enough. And then in some chaotic bolt of inspiration I immediately knew what I would do.
And what was that? What is it, rather? It is bits and pieces of my entire college career. I created a collage of what I feel are my most important works, the milestones and the archetypes. There is artwork, computer design, photography, film reels and even some pages from the sketch books I started last year. I managed to represent at least in part all of my classes. Except “Sound Design for Media Production”. Couldn’t figure out how to make a visual representation of that one.
When I finished I came to a further realization that a majority of what I’ve included dates back little more than a year ago. Does an artist simply become more prolific when skill is gained? Or did I waste a lot of time?
That is assuming I am an artists, of course. Which is the point. “This is not art”. That’s what it says in the middle of the negative space pipe (if the online French translator is reliable). The piece I’m submitting is not art. The works inside it are not art. I’m not bemoaning my lack of talent or crying out as a frustrated artist. I think I’m pretty adept at some skills, in fact.
But artist? I like what I’ve done. But I don’t feel I’ve really created art yet. So I’m not an artist. Not yet. That’s the continuing goal. And these four years, no matter how they end, are only a small part of that.
Which would make this the climax, I suppose?
Today I managed to get rid of four more boxes, through methods of getting rid of stuff and properly redistributing what went where.
I'd have to say this is the very limit to the amount of books I can get rid of. Maybe if I clenched my teeth and shed some tears I could get rid of more, most likely in the non-fiction/textbook field, but it wouldn't be enough to make a difference at this point.
I was talking to Caprice and was thinking of a word...like...not motivation...when you have a groove going...kind of...I'll think of it later.
Next week when my sister and mother are off to sunny Massachusetts, I'll have the entire house to myself for most of the daylight hours. Say it with me. Muaha. Ha ha. Ha. I plan to use my extensive free time and my free range of the house to take everything I own out of it. I did this once before during my early years of High School, I believe. I underestimated the total mass of my materialism and it took over the house for a few days. This time my room will take up a lot less space and I'll better plan for it.
Once everything is out of my room I'll do an extensive cleaning. My tile floor never has been properly cleaned since it was put in, which was also early high school. I'll give the walls a good scrubbing and anything else I see fit to do.
Once my home base is in order I'll attack the rest of the house. I have a week to clean and the drive to clean hard.
MOMENTUM!!!! Glad I figured it out. Anyway...
I'm under strict orders not to make decisions about getting rid of anything in the household (like those ugly lladro figurines are worth anything). Ignoring that...-I mean "despite that" that. I won't ignore it- I think I can get a lot done. Getting rid of stuff is key, but I can work around that by doing some major cleaning and organization. I'M COMING FOR YOU, DAD'S COMPUTER/FILING DESK!
