Still Alive (really.)

Hi, my name is Kat and I should update my journals more often.

Timeline of my life for the last few months:
- my sister got engaged at the end of July
- I went home for a weekend in August for an anime convention and my mom's birthday
- my sister moved into a new place with her fiance (beginning of September)
- I moved into a new place by myself (mid-September)
- my parents came out to visit over Thanksgiving.
- I turned 21 (mid-November)
- I started guitar lessons (end of November)

My fingers hurt.
(Still getting used to the strings.)

I have also been writing fairly obsessively. I try to get in two thousand words a day. Nothing concrete, mostly just rambling short pieces.
Talking to myself.
Talking to the voices in my head.
(I'm not crazy, I swear.)
I've been following the NaNoWriMo formula for a couple of months now. It's been working pretty well.

October wordcount = 50,143
November wordcount = 52,081

I don't know. I need to do little things to keep myself busy.

The only New Years resolutions I do every year are: read more, write more, draw more.
I've read almost fifty books this year, so that's covered.
My writing quota has been getting better (see above stats). Who really cares if it's just rambling? "Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self." Cyril Connelly.
I'm trying to get more arting stuff done. I have lots of ideas for typography posters. And I've joined a couple of artjam forums. I need to find my camera and start taking pictures again.

I apologize for my rambling.
Coherency is not something I worry about anymore.

clap if you believe in faeries.

Randy Pausch "The Last Lecture"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

I highly suggest clicking the link.
It cannot hurt, it can only help.

In other news, I am intensely enjoying the end of my schooling, doubly so as my sister is in Montreal and I have the apartment all to myself. :D
There have been many trips to the library. And many hours spent reading. And many hours of not feeling guilty for spending many hours reading.
I have, so far, read ten books this year (I am not counting the number of graphic novels, as I consider them appetizers compared to the main courses regular novels offer.), and while I do not know how many books I had read at this point last year, I find it safe to say that it is a considerably larger number. Today I just finished reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe by Douglas Adams (yes, i know, finally)

Other books I am currently engrossed in (yes, all at once, and in no particular order):
World War Z Max Brooks
To Be Continued... Michele Karlsberg & Karen X. Tulchinsky (eds.)
To Be Continued...Take Two Michele Karlsberg & Karen X. Tulchinsky (eds.)
A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World: Writings from the Girl Zine Revolution Karen Green & Tristan Taorimo (eds.)

I have been contemplating starting my own zine. Because zines are cool.
Mine would be a rambling affair punctuated by nonsensical/nonlinear prose, poetry, and illustration, and probably more haiku than most people have ever seen since high school English (or something). I would reach out to all the creative people I have ever met (of which there are many, going by my Youthwrite network alone).
There is also the question of print or digital. Because I am painfully lacking in funds by the second, I am thinking that digital = practical. And would also help me flex my web design muscles that have been growing rather flabby lately.

My plans over the next few weeks include tackling a commissions list I've been ignoring for years (yes, years.), and putting together a website for a friend of the family from back home.
And then I will be going back home, at the beginning of May. (Gods, I miss everyone so much.)

I am not sure how the whole graphic-design-employment thing is going to go. I'm choosing to stay positive and not worry about it too much until I get back. I know I have the skills, and I know I have talent, and I've gotten a lot of good feedback on my portfolio and my website (//pimp).
I'll be okay. :)

(Gods, I never meant for this entry to be that long, it was only going to be the link and that's it 0_o oh, well. Later, dudes.)

everything's so blurry

Maybe it's because so many of my friends are gamers (just calling it like it is, dudes), but I found the video massively amusing and true. I really like how the art director used a man for the "main character". And some of the avatars are just so cute!

And in other things that have caught my attention (like it's so hard):
http://feltron.com/
Imagine being so together that you can create an annual report for yourself :D
I want to do this. One day. Year. Whatever. Because, as we have said before, I am a graphic design NERD.
Nerd in general, graphic designer on the side.

(and, if you're a nerd like me:
http://daytum.com/
here's something to get you started on your own annual report recordings.)

Midterms are next week. Look forward to angst-filled posts starting...in the next few days. Although by going to school on my days off, I have been able to effectively brainwash myself into thinking I've accomplished a lot. (hahaha, seriously? I know, right?)

Inner Voice: Go draw stuff, bitch.

...Inner Voice is right. Going to work on illlustrations for Senior Project now (gah, I need to start posting those and spread the...messed-up-ness of my mind).
Later, later later. (procrastinators of the world unite!...Tomorrow.)

Ah, on an ending note, I have no idea where I saw this (either in a magazine, on a stamp on devART, or an icon on livejournal):

1. social life
2. sufficient sleep
3. good grades

Pick any two. Welcome to college.

(LOL)

I'll mend myself before it gets me...

I did a reading for myself on Thursday night with my new oracle cards. 

First Card:

Recharge your batteries. 

Second Card:

Detoxify your mind and body. 

Third Card: 

Be honest with yourself. What is your heart's true desire?

And all of these cards jumped out when I was shuffling them. I didn't even need to draw one. The cards are onto me...

My moods have been something of a rollercoaster this quarter. I have my highs and lows, ups and downs. When I get up I have no idea how I'll feel when I go back to bed (when I finally go to bed). Every hour I'm not working on some project or another is one more hour in the morning I'm staying up (I am grateful, in this way, for afternoon and evening classes, otherwise I'd get no sleep at all). I've been staying up late, sleeping in, drinking too much coffee and energy drinks (though much more of the former). I feel guilty whenever I'm doing something that isn't schoolwork (including updating this sad little once-a-month-no-more blog; I'm even doing it in class, so I'm doubly bad). 

I alternatively feel confident and depressed by my Portfolio project. Whether or not I will have everything done in time on time and looking good is always questionable. And then there's certain people who have missed a couple classes, and I worry about them too. It's hard to be empathetic. Maybe that's why I'm so unsocial. It just seems easier not to care. (wow, that makes me sound bitchy. Sorry, I am very tired, and don't really know what I'm trying to say.)

Things to do, things to do, and people to see (eventually). Sorry, people, you will have to wait so that I don't completely fall apart. Because in order not to fall apart I need to see you. I have a hard time finding balance in my life. 

Perhaps I shall write more later; class is over and I have errands to run before I throw myself back onto the grindstone. But I also know I need to take time out, time off, to breathe. I need to keep reminding myself that everything is going to be all right. It's hard sometimes, you know?

Wake up Exhausted

Once again, things are reduced to numbers around me. Or, more specifically, times. 

Yesterday, class ended at 5.30. I left school at 8.30. I got home at 10.oo. I stayed up all night working on Portfolio work and went to bed at 4.45. I got up at 7.18. I was at school again at 8.37.

And yet I am still functioning. Going to pull another semi-all-nighter tonite so that I can go into school tomorrow and print off my Design Tech. assignment due Tuesday (Monday's a holiday, thank God). But anyways. 

Yesterday, while I was working after class, I was going back and forth from the mac lab to the printer (basically from one end of the floor to the other). A lot of people had gone by that point (after all, it was Friday night, only losers stay late on Friday night, ahahaha...). I was the only person in that computer room, and when I went to the printer, the hall was completely empty as well, even of the security guard at the front desk. And I thought,

What if the world just ended, while I was working, and I just didn't notice? 

And then I thought, 

How typical of me.

I have been busy. Deadlines live up to their names. I still find things to amuse and inspire me so I have tactfully avoided going completely insane. Not that a little dose of insanity is bad. But I do worry; sometimes it seems I'm not that far off having violent mood swings that consist of breaking everything in sight. Like the computer in front of me while I'm completing an inane assignment that is a complete waste of my time, or my instructor's head when he/she asks me to complete an inane assignment that is a complete waste of my time. 

Today's amusement consisted of going to The Dark Knight. AMAZING. MOVIE. 

The Joker is my knew favorite psychopath. 

promises to keep...

Time passes by far too fast for my liking. 

Especially if that time passing is measured in two weeks. 

However, there was enough that happened over the course of two weeks that I am satisfied with the way my vacation was spent. That doesn't mean that I'm happy to be back at school, but life can never be perfect, can it?

Cosplaying at West Edmonton Mall was definitely one of the highlights. Even if my feet did hurt like hell by the end of it. It was FUN. I am totally making a tradition out of that. 

Seeing Meg was another. Even if it was for a brief time; it was worth breaking the year of not-seeing that had built up. I know she worries about me; I'm working on it, babe. 

Getting off my ass and writing another chapter of Story From Hell is the last in the top 3 highlights on my brief sojourn back to the prairies. The last time I finished a chapter was...too damn long ago. Definitely before I moved. Everything seemed to stop when I moved, which is completely unacceptable...

I'm trying to do better. I want to take everything I have promised people, and get it done. If not by the end of this quarter, then by the end of the year. Then I can let myself breathe...and let the next year's promises begin to pile up. Sorry guys. I know how much you like my writing and art, and I keep on letting you down. You have the patience of saints, every one of you. 

It occurs to me, every now and then, that I am incredibly lucky to still have the friends that I do. After all this time, even after putting miles and mountains between us, after I ignore them for weeks at a time because of school and my own unsociability, they still want to be my friend. I've wondered, sometimes, why they don't just leave me alone. But then I wonder, what would I do if they did?

I would probably just fall to pieces. 

I promised, when I left, that I would write back at least once a week. It is another promise I have failed to keep. It is hypocritical of me, to fear being left behind when that is what I am doing to them. Every once in a while, when I get a text or e-mail from someone saying they miss me, or why haven't I e-mailed them? I have to feel guilty, when there's no reason to. It would be so easy to just keep my promise. 

Why don't I, then?

...okay, having deep, in-depth conversations with myself at midnight is not a good thing to do when I have a ten o'clock class tomorrow and need eight hours of sleep plus coffee in order to function. Good night. *goes off to ponder life*