Stayin’ alive.

Oh, hello!

What’s new… I start college on September 7. September 2 is a “portfolio review” to see if I can go from Pre-Graphic Design to Graphic Design. Since I am a web designer, I’m feeling fairly confident that I’m a shoe-in. I guess you never know, though. The guidelines for the review list previous work done at college, and all my examples are websites I’ve made. Unfortunately, all examples cannot be digital. So I had to print out websites, which really is not a great way to showcase your work. Things are sized down, colors are muted. At any rate, I’m hoping the examples will be sufficient. I have nothing else! I haven’t drawn or done any artwork in years. Besides – it’s for GRAPHIC DESIGN; shouldn’t examples of graphic/web design be what they want to see? Fingers crossed!

I’ll have a lot less free time when school starts. Especially Tuesdays and Thursdays. I do believe my schedule will have me up at 5am (which will be every day, for the bus) until my last class ends at 8 or 9pm those days. So not looking forward to that. I didn’t want any evening classes, but one that I need is only available then. I’m hoping I’ll buck up and use the college gym when I have a big gap between classes. We’ll see how comfortable I feel. If the gym is mad busy, I’ll probably pass. It’s “free” (if you consider $12,000/year for college “free”). Riding the bus is also “free” for being a student.

I’ll be getting a locker and bringing my own lunch/snacks so hopefully I don’t have to pay inflated prices for crap in the school restaurants. I even bought a super cute new lunch bag and matching insulated water bottle holder (you know how those metal bottles sweat!). I’m fairly certain I won’t need to have a Macbook, at least right away. I emailed the instructor for my 2-D Digital Design class, which stated needing a Mac, and she said as long as I have Photoshop and Illustrator (I do) I’ll be fine. I’ll have to use a school’s Mac to upload assignments or something, but whatev. Better than dropping $2k on a neutered machine with less hardware features than I’ve got already! Ordered a new 500GB hard drive for my laptop so I should have plenty of space (I have 160GB right now – ugh!).

I am so not looking forward to being stuck around a bunch of pretentious art snobs every day. Hipster Mac fanboys and -girls. Nor 18 yr old hyper dimwits, especially if they come to class fully decked out in their goddamn pajamas. I am thinking I’ll be blogging/tweeting a lot more when school starts. Mostly to make fun of people. Am I a bad person?

Thankfully I don’t have to take, like, composition or math and all the other basic stuff. Hoping I’ll be around older more mature people. And with the economy (so sick of that word) the way it is, I’m hoping there will be a lot of, erm, geezer students like myself. I’m 28! That’s like 30!!

I signed up for a few clubs. One for video gamers (I’m not sure how well I’ll fit in, being a noob), one for playing the game Go, and one for playing desktop games. I don’t know if the last one is like D&D or something cool like Battlestar Galatica. I’ll at least check them out. Also signed up for the Art+Design club. If it’s not too pretentious, it should be cool. I need more friends!

The coveted and later acquired boots.

I’m not sure if it is the closing of a chapter in my career (thank FSM) or having a steady boyfriend for really the first time ever, or what. But I suddenly have an obsession with fashion. I have never been a fashion girl. Always tshirts and jeans and sneakers. Forever and always. Now? I own like 6 skirts. I have a bunch of cute tops that aren’t tshirts. In fact, I kind of cringe at wearing a tshirt anywhere but at home. I like heels! I’m obsessed with buying cute booties with a wedge or thick-ish heel that I can walk in. I only have 1 pair so far, but I tried on a pair the other day at a store and fell in love! They were so hot with jeans. It took everything I had to put the $60 boots back on the shelf. I am sure I’ll go buy them some other time. But I couldn’t justify the purchase quite yet. I’m unemployed! I do so enjoy browsing various websites for shoes, bags, jewelry, clothes (that might fit me – but rarely do they, so I like the accessories more). That’s browsing – not buying! I’m even a bit of a brandwhore. This is not Angela! Or rather, not the old Angela. New Angela is really a whole new person.

Old Angela? Workhorse, depressed and angry, single, drab in appearance.
New Angela? Going back to school, feeling somewhat hopeful (but still depressed a lot), boyfriend, caring about how I look.

Closing doors, starting new chapters, big life changes! Exciting!

Written August 28th, 2010 at 3:41 pm and filed under Education, Fashion.

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Fugly shoes, revisited.

Thank you, New Balance! I feel justified. You may recall, I had a bit of a rant on the hideous Skechers Shape-Ups in Fugly Shoes. New Balance (love their sneaks) comes up with a far more attractive version.

Though I still think the effectiveness of these “toning” shoes is in the fact that people walk more than they usually would just because they’re wearing new sneakers with grandiose claims of effectiveness. Something of a placebo effect, I guess you could say.

Written August 23rd, 2010 at 7:10 pm and filed under Fashion.

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Professionalism is boring.

I remember back in the late 90s taking a college-level writing class — and being bored out of my skull. Why the hell does “professional” style writing have to be so dry and dull? Would you rather read something that is conversational and relate-able, or something that is written the “right” way and makes you want to cut your wrists and bleed on the paper to make it interesting? I can’t believe instructors can stand to read that shit day in and day out.

Who the hell decided what is “professional”? Who decided that everyone in the working world has to conduct themselves in only that one professional way? You must write your resume like this, you must conduct your job interview like this, you must do this on your first day, you must act like this in front of your employers/associates/clients. You must, above all, never be yourself. Don’t talk like you normally would, don’t conduct yourself the way you feel comfortable, and surely don’t ever have an opinion unless you water it down so as not to step on anyone’s toes. Before you say anything, run it through your political correctness and buzzword jargon filter. Don’t ever say what you really mean to say. It’s like you’re performing a play every day. Here are your lines, this is your role, stay in character.

I certainly don’t think anyone should act and talk like a complete moron. I just hate that everything you do relating to a career has to be done only one way. This is especially bullshit when in a creative field. How is anyone supposed to create art when they’re supposed to be in this one box of behavior and thinking on the job?

An aside – designers, don’t you fucking hate it when someone tells you to “think outside the box”? They never really want you to think outside the box and do something amazing, they want you to think outside the box of good taste by doing it a completely shitty/stupid/outdated way. As soon as a client or employer says “think outside the box”, fucking dump their asses quick as a jackrabbit. Game over. Otherwise, resign yourself to doing something awful and omitting your name from it.

Back to my point, why can’t we speak and act like humans? Why do we have to pad everything with meaningless bullshit? I don’t want to be an automaton, and I have a feeling no one else does either. So why do we all still try to be this way with our careers? It makes no sense! Let’s say “fuck that” to the conventional professionalism bullshit!

Written July 9th, 2010 at 10:57 am and filed under Business.

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Goddamn fucking moronic elitists.

You may recall my previous rant about college/uni being a rip-off. If not, well: college/uni is a fucking rip-off.

Earlier this year, I decide I should amp up my design skills. I figure a BFA in Graphic Design might be a great idea. Enrolled, accepted, go to orientation and registration earlier this week.

Required: a 15″ (at least) Macbook Pro.

Cocksucking motherfuckers.

But it’s free sales tax! Your loans can be used to buy it!

It’s still fucking $1,699, plus the software I’ll be required to purchase and use! I’ll be lucky if my student loans cover my tuition, much less this overpriced fucking thing.

The kicker is I have an awesome laptop, with the entire Adobe Creative Suite. It works amazingly. I’ve been a designer for 10 years (5+ professionally) and never needed a goddamn Mac. Ever. Now because people are ignoramuses and think Macs are “easy to use”, Apple has their fingers in the fucking university system, with their grossly overpriced shiny junk.

Don’t give me that shit about Macs being better with design. A) I have my doubts, and B) it’s $1,699+ that I don’t have. So all the arguments in the world will not make up for the fact that requiring this hunk of shit may mean I cannot attend university.

It was also great when, during the tour of the campus, it was pointed out a few times, that new wings or fitness rooms came in under budget, so the college bought a bunch of flat-screen TVs. Uh, assholes, how about kicking some of that money back to your students that you are robbing blind?

Goddamn, I hate higher (priced) education. Motherfuckers.

Edit: I am trying to find a more reasonably-priced used Macbook on eBay, but I’m certainly not getting my hopes up.

Written June 24th, 2010 at 12:30 pm and filed under Education.

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