Hi, all, just popping in to make an update. There’s going to be some changes to the site soon, as I update everything now that I’ve got some web design classes under my belt. We’re starting to get into flash now and I’m loving it (not nearly as intimidating as I thought). I FINALLY update N:Bi, which was long over do, but I’ve had a lot of school work (matching with working 30 hours a week) so finding time for my own stuff has been difficult. I’ve included a little show below of my latest work, and expect a massive upgrade of the portfolio section. That’s about it for now, everything else is just the same old gripe about monies and not having any time for anything (even though I could easily solve that by not constantly procrastinating.

Posted: February 4th, 2009 under Blog, News.
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I had no idea I’d let this blog sit for so long. It’s not that nothing has happened in two months so much as….well, I’ll be honest, I’m in a rut. But for once I’ve managed to do something about it. I’m going back to school.

And I don’t mean in the ‘some time in the future when I’ve got th money and the free time’, I mean in two weeks. Why? Well, let’s be honest, I’m never going to have all that much free time–we’re adults, we traded our free time for working ‘personal growth’ exercises (or in my case random bouts of alchoholism) and money isn’t going to come until I get a better job–which isn’t going to come until I get more schooling. So, time the bit the bullet, accept the debt increase, and get ‘er done.

Of course, the debt won’t go up that much, such is the glory of community collage after university. The bills just aren’t comparable. I’ve actually got it worked out that I should have most of my tuition paid off by the time I graduate, and since I’m going into a field with lots of job opportunities and my course involves a work term, I’m looking at a much better start than with my BA.

I’m studying Graphic and Print Design, which will give me a lot of the technical knowledge I haven’t acquired on my own. As my Argosy peeps will attest, if I can do this sort of thing for 20-30 hours a week (mostly pushed into 2 days) for no money, surely to god I’ll do it on a regular schedule on a salary. And not hating what I do for a living is pretty damn high on my list of life goals.

Which is not so say that I’m rejecting my writing side. Far from it. I’ve finally started writing the story that’s been in my head since high school. Of course it’s changed a lot over time, but I’ve gotten a good start. I spent a lot of time trying to decide if it should be a graphic novel or just prose, when eventually it came to me–do both. An ambitious but very rewarding medium for creation, at least if you’re someone like me that has to have it all.

We’ll just have to wait and see how all this pans out. Certainly you can expect to see more art here (actually, it should be noted that the portfolio does get periodically updated with no notice here, the same with the links section), and I may start a journal of sorts of how my story progresses–outlines and character sheets, that sort of thing.

Posted: August 24th, 2008 under Blog, News.
Comments: 2

Disapeared again! Sorry folks, I haven’t had much to post here lately since I was putting most of my energy into updating my Naruto Doujinshi. I’ve finished the final chapter in volume one, updated the website (and by “updated” i mean added more options than an outdated links page and an option to view the doujin) AND there’s a contest going on. check out the main page if you want to participate.

 Now that that’s done it’s taken quite a bit out of me. Match that with being screwed over several times when trying to get aparment (like when people say they’re going to meet you to view the place and then just not being there and telling you later that they’ve already rented the place out, etc, and see last post for the most extreme example to date) has left me feeling a bit depressed. I had this creative surge a while ago which seems to be absent. I’m not so cranky today, and I’ve got two possible places lined up, so keep your fingers crossed for me if you’re reading and you care.

Posted: March 19th, 2008 under Blog, Random Rants.
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So, I really, really thought I had finally found an apartment, and it was as perfect as one can expect, but that fell through. Largely becuase my potential landlord and the guy that actually owns the property (who lives in another part of the country, of course) are complete clusterfucks and told me two weeks ago that I had a room and they’d let me know when my ref checked out so i could move in immediately, and then when I finally got a hold of them yesterday they told me that “uh…actually we might be selling the place and we don’t know if we want two dogs and blah blah blah we were gonna let you know at the end of Feb.” WHAT?!! Jesus, some people make me so mad I can barely see straight. And since I stopped looking for two weeks (’cause I thought I had a place) all the other leads I had have gone cold and I’m at square one. This has been going on since November and it’s really, really pissing me off. And my poor puppy is not handling me being out of the house for 12 hours straight (only 8 of those are me working, the rest is spent on the bus and god forbid I want to go anywheres on the way) and has started tearing apart every bag of garbage she finds. If i had my own place I could puppy-proof it, but my dad’s house is basically torn apart and filled with boxes of my stuff, his stuff, my dead grandparents stuff, my brothers stuff…you get the idea.

*sigh*

On another note, I’ve been very productive with my Naruto doujinishi; if I continue at my current rate I should have it finished by the end of next week (this chapter, I mean, not the whole thing, that’ll take years).
However, today I forgot my pens, and so can’t work on it at work like I’ve been doing. I did of course bring a pad of paper. I’ve had an original story in the back of my mind for some time, with some fairly well developed characters and some ideas I’d love to explore. Yet I’ve never really sat down and tried to peice through an outline before. Well, a few hours later and I have over three pages done, and more coming. The damn thing seems to be writing itself. Of course, now I have to decide whether I want to write it or draw it…or maybe both? Hmm…must put by brain to work on that one….

Posted: February 8th, 2008 under Blog, Random Rants.
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I have so much crap it’s not even funny. Honestly, I think my donations are what keeps the Salvation Army afloat.
Every time I move I tend to not just pack my stuff but to go through a sort of purge. First step is to put my entire music collection on shuffle, which usually results in me not only listening to music I haven’t thought of in years, but singing in the hallway at the top of my lungs. The second step is to usually get rid of half of my wardrobe as I brutally analyze which items I wear all the time, only when I’m running out of laundry, and never. I then go through random nick knacks and so on, usually producing at least two-three bags for donation and at least two bags to just throw out (no one needs my old floppies).
This time is a little more intense since I’m finally cleaning ALL of my stuff out of my dad’s house. Always before I could leave the stuff I wasn’t sure I wanted to part with there, but my dad’s getting ready to retire and he wants to fix up the house he has now so he can sell it and move to the country (ie as far from other people as possible). As such I’ve been going through sketches –nearly– as old as I am, little horse models people bought me when I was six, etc. There’s tones of things I used to like when I was young that six years later are as opposite to my style as possible. Getting rid of them was nice, like a final acceptance of what I have become. And not throwing them out, but giving them to someone who will want them is better, like a way to accept what I was.

Just a thought I had while looking at a porcelain sculpture of a cherub riding a pony version of a Pegasus.

Posted: January 28th, 2008 under Blog, Random Rants.
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Getting some things done today. Rare day off and after procrastinating all morning I finally finished somethings, like setting up an appointment for my puppy’s yearly check up (what all good pet owners do! don’t wait for them to get sick before you do something about it, kids!), and finally finished sprucing up this page. Actually spell checked the sections (why hadn’t I done that already, I’ll never know) and customized things a bit more. Though briefly about integrating my portfolio into the new design but the current system is just way to easy (also, it would take me hours just to do the damn thumb nails). Anywho, if you notice something please let me know, otherwise I think everything is as I want it. Oh, and I added a few new pages to the Links section, and if you’d like to do a link exchange you can comment here or email me.

Posted: January 16th, 2008 under News, Uncategorized.
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We all go through changes, whether we want to or not, or admit them or not. I’d like to think I like the person that I have become more than the person I use to be, though the person I am now wishes she had some of the stuff the person I use to be took for granted.

I had my first visit to my Alma Matersince graduating two years ago, and it was an enlightening experience. I only managed to catch up with two of my former professors, but it just so happened that they were two of my favorites. Of course I had the fear that they wouldn’t remember me after two years, but apparently my insesent comment making, and excessive over due essays made an impression. One of the professors I spoke with was the one I mentioned in my last post, Dr. Wills, who’s first question was to ask if I was back doing my honours in English, which, if you knew my GPA, you’d probably wonder at. I suppose we aren’t always aware of the impressions we make, and the fact that someone I respect so much thinks I’m capable makes me not so ashamed of some of the half assed work I put in towards the end of my degree (read: I had a major burn out in third year and should have taken some time off, but in stead just didn’t hand in several major essays…somehow still passed…).

I don’t think I’d ever go back and do my honours, though maybe someday if I have extra money and free time (Ha!) I would consider auditing some courses since the class room atmosphere was really my favorite part. However, the comment did get me to thinking about the education that I would like to get, as in my forgotten design addiction.  I’m still paying for my BA, and will continue paying for the next six years, so going back to school full time is essentially out of the question. Not to mention the fact that by the time I have enough money to go back and do the minimum two years it would take to get the accreditation I want I’d be in my thirties, makes me leery of devoting all my time and energy towards that goal.

Yet going back to MTA, drinking tea and eating a nice club at Mels, getting some fancy cup-a-joe at Bridge Street, hanging out at used book stores, just soaking up the atmosphere of learning and academia made me crave it again. I know this sounds corny, and I don’t usually go for that, but the feeling was acute and has remained with me for longer than a simple twinge of nostalgia ordinarily would. The result is a drive to make changes, to get things done that I haven’t felt in a long time. It’s easy to sit at your dead-end job, and your three hour commute and think, “If I stick at this for a while, it’ll get easier to do the things I want.” Now, I think, “Screw this, I’m going to get things done now.” There are ways to get certified and skilled that do not involve university, and considering that most of my current design skills are self taught this might even be the way to go.

I think my main hope is that by combining adobe certification with a BA in English, SOME publishing company will want me. Honestly, its gotta mean something. And if not, than….well, this website will probably look pretty friggin’ cool by the time I’m done, and I’ll have more reason to like the current me over the old one who had no idea what she wanted.

Posted: January 12th, 2008 under Design, Random Rants.
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The apartment hunt is on. I’ve found a good one, but I have to remind myself that I shouldn’t settle with only looking at two places. I’ve finally managed to get my phone switched over and I’m starting something of a routine. Golly, it’s like a normal life. Now if I can live in one spot for a while it’ll be great.

Now, I’m realizing that I’ve been writing here a lot lately. Much of that has to do with my just being really, really fucking board at work (read: I waited an hour and twenty five minutes before getting a call today) but also I do love to write. It’s something I’ve forgotten about in years past, though I’ve tried to rekindle the experience. Honestly, I used to wake up early to write stories, then bring paper to school and keep going as much as I could during class, even publish my excessively ambitious star wars fan fiction online and live off of the comments I got (those were a lot of work, you know. 5 1/5 books at 150pages a pop ain’t nothing to thumb your nose at if you know what I’m sayin’).

I went to university to write, and wound up doing just the opposite. I stopped writing entirely. I blame a bit of it on loss of routine (I blame a lot of things on loss of routine, you’ll notice). Waking up early when you have a roommate who doesn’t is awkward, and then when you inevitably fall into the student life style and it becomes a near impossibility (at least for a weak-willed person like myself that cherishes her eight hours of sleep a night). However, I am aware that I am rationalizing. The real problem was that I was in an academic environment and they wanted me to change my writing style to something very foreign, and I didn’t wanna.

I can write formally. It is within me to do so and to do it well. However, I don’t like to. I like whimsical writing, just take a look at some of the essays I’ve posted in my portfolio. I want to be engaged in what I’m reading and writing, just as I liked to be engaged in my classes. It took me years to figure out how to apply a whimsical style of writing to my essay work, and only because of something that occurred rather late in my degree. This isn’t to put down the wonderful education I have received, it was a great experience. However, the first part of your degree is spent, by necessity, having strict grammatical and formal stylistic conventions, as well as MLA formatting, reamed down your throat (comma splice, comma splice). I understand this, but it didn’t make it hurt any less when I had 20% deducted off of an essay for double spacing after my periods in my Works Cited.

Crap like that actually sours a girl on writing, makes you wonder if you like doing what you actually thought you liked doing. Maybe what I thought I liked wasn’t writing at all, but something else, something somehow made lower by virtue of the fact that it did not fit into the English student’s Bible, the Modern Language Association Style Guide (or rather, the supplemental Bible, since everyone knows an English students actual Bible is the OED).

It wasn’t until I had a very special professor, Dr. Deborah Wills, that I was able to see beyond that. I took her Critical Theory class in my third year, and I wish I had taken it earlier. In fact, I wish I had planned my whole damn degree differently, but that’s another discussion (actually, maybe that’ll be my next post, since it might be fun to try a linear progression in topics for a change). Anyway, this was a class to teach you how to criticize. Now, you might think that they would teach you that in your first year, but you would be wrong. Hell, I know I would not have done as well in this class if I had taken it in my first year. This class was more, for me at least, about finding my critical voice. There are so many ways to write, and in the classroom environment created in a normal English degree writing isn’t actually a focus. I tell people a lot that my degree taught me to read good. At no point in my degree was I taught to write. I was given a framework and left to my own devices. Of course you received tips on your writing when you get your essays back, but rarely were you given the opportunity to go back to that essay and try again. You simple had to hope you would pick it up as you went along.

Let me say something that I believe is an unequivocal truth: THAT IS NOT A LEARNING TECHNIQUE FOR WRITING. I can trial and error my writing skills on my own damn time and get my friends to read it, or go to a tutor. This is not worth the tens of thousands of dollars I spent. So if anyone is wondering let me tell you a secrete; an English degree is about literature, it is a medium specific study of history. It is not about writing. Writing is something entirely different.

I keep trying to go back to Dr. Wills’ Critical Theory class and I keep getting distracted. So pardon my digressions and I’ll try to focus on what I’m trying to say: her’s was the first class where I was specifically told to flout literary conventions in critical writing. When she told the class that MLA formatting and formal writing were not required, it was met with part cries ecstasy and release, part gasps of horror and panic. For some, the removal of that formal framework is like pulling the proverbial blanket from under their feet. For others, like me, it was like an excuse to have fun with words again. It’s not even as though I went completely overboard, but just having the freedom to write an essay and insert personal pronouns was amazing. How can we take ownership of our ideas if convention keeps us from attaching them to ourselves except through awkward formality, “…is the opinion of the author of this essay” doesn’t really have the same impact as, “…is what I think.”.

Ok, so the point of not referring to ourselves in the first person is supposed to indicate detachment and objectivity. I get it. Yet how can we be expected to get excited over something, to write with passion and conviction if we are constantly forced to forge a linguistic barrier between our thoughts and our presentation? A literary essay is NOT objective, it is an argument, it is an opinion of an interpretation that you are trying to get other people to agree with. It doesn’t matter what the author’s intent was, it doesn’t matter how many other people agree with you. The act of writing an interpretation is as challenging and as difficult as writing the work itself, at least it should be.

The act of writing should never be easy, and it should never be static. It should be as organic, lively and engaging as language itself. Otherwise, it’s just fancy words.

Posted: December 17th, 2007 under Literature, Random Rants.
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I am in extreme pain. And I don’t mean a mental affliction, a blow to the heart and soul. I mean real, physical, stabbing death, gasp out loud even when you’d rather not type pain.

I was sitting on the bus on the way to work today and suddenly my back started to spasm. It would do it randomly, whether I’m sitting still, moving, though more often when I take a deep breath. I’ve had this problem since I threw my back out for the first time when I was 17. When I was still working with the ponies, I’d hurt it all the time, especially when we were loading/unloading at shows. It is probably sciatica, though like most of the other mildly serious injures that  I’ve received, I’ve never had it properly checked. However, it has been pointed out to me by another that I usually complain the most when I’m experiencing some stressful event. Now, I can deal with a 1500 pound animal trying to kill me, I can deal with tight deadlines and hard work, I can deal with other people’s extreme and unnecessary emotional angst around me. 

The thing that stresses me out more than anything is money.  Probably because when something goes wrong financially in my life, it means bad things. I do not have any savings, never really have. My parents do not have any savings, and have made a relatively low income their entire lives.  I have no partner to leach off of and I don’t think I would even if I could. I’ve always had a strong aversion to borrowing from other people, though I’m pretty lenient when you ask me.  It’s strange, because I’ll mooch food and other goods and services with the shameless aplomb of a trannie whore. I dislike currency, yet covet it. Someone gives me a toonie and it’s a life altering event. I have massive student loans, credit card debt, and all the other bills that people acquire in this world.  And as I look back, I’m realizing that any mishap with my student loans is an instant (or near instant) invitation for fiery pain.

What this amounts to, in my completely non-expert opinion, is that I have some sort of psychosis. I get stressed, and my body punishes me. This is a stupid psychological reaction, and I’d be extremely interested in reading some sort of research as to why.  Probably my body is telling me to avoid financial ruin. Well, thank you body, I got the point and I’m doing my best, but right now call centre is the only answer I have for you. And Robaxacet(c), sweet, sweet, robaxect.  Probably mixed with bourbon.

Posted: December 11th, 2007 under Blog, Random Rants.
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Eek! I disappeared for a while. I have this new thing I’m trying out, it’s called a “job”. It’s crazy, I sit in a room and answer phone calls and emails from people who are annoyed that their groceries arrived five minutes late. I’m not even doing this consistently (I can go a whole hour of sitting at my desk, doodling and waiting for the phone to ring). And then, after five days of this, they hand me a check. EASIEST MONEY EVER.

I had this weird block in my mind that i would never work at a call centre, that to do so was admitting defeat in some way. As if employment at such an establishment marked the beginning of my downfall into mediocrity and the abandonment of dreams. However, the need for this other concept that I’ve tried to ignore for most of my adult life, that concept being a thing called “currency”, drove me like so many others into lowering my standards. I’m trying to get a little more realistic in my plans. Get an apartment, maybe get a friend for my poor abused puppy (she’s staring at me right now, trying to figure out why I don’t want to go for a half hour jaunt in the icy death that is the outdoors), and start saving and getting things under control.

I’ve spent a lot of time recently trying to figure out what it was I wanted–if you have a goal in mind you can endure all manner of torture in order to get there, even saying the phrase, “Thank you for calling the Fresh Direct Delivery Status Team, my name is Jenn, how can I help you today?” forty times a day. And after careful examination I think my current goal, and really the goal I’ve had since graduating university, is to “get things going”. I want to establish my own spot, colour it my own colour, not struggle with my bills (I’ll be paying them for a while, I’d just really like it to not be a struggle) and get some sort of a routine down. People crave routines and I haven’t had one in some time. In university I’d have one for three and a half months, then next semester get a new one, then summer get a new one, then back to school and all over again. Then graduate, get a crappy job and start a routine just in time to get a potentially cool job except this job is the antithesis of routine. Do that for two years until you realize it’s making you miserable and come home, and try to get a routine. Since hitting that point three months ago I’ve moved to my dads, then to my moms, and then back to my dad’s again. And in a month or two I’m hoping to have an apartment that is mine, that is as permanent as can be. I don’t even care if it’s a dive at this point, I just want to live in one spot for MORE THAN THREE MONTHS and not feel pressure to get things done before I ship out again.

You know, I spent a whole day about two weeks ago trying to put those thoughts into words and suddenly it just happened that I think I got them down perfect. Well, sorry for ranting and thank you for reading if you made it this far.

By the by, if you’re a drunkducker, I’ve been posting my Naruto doujinshi there, so if you prefer that format over that of my website, check it out. And I’ll be updating my portfolio soon with some new stuff.

Posted: December 5th, 2007 under Blog, Random Rants.
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