worst blogger!

That is me!

I promise, when I don't have a bazillion things to do, I will WRITE A NEW BLOG POST. With content and such. Promise.

Okay?

To do....

Things I'm gonna do today:

1. Search for a great bag pattern to sew a bag for me mum.
2. Ink the robot designs I created last night for the website.
3. Bake peanut butter cookies and figure out what to make with the Indian eggplant I found at the farmer's market in Orlando this past weekend.
4. Cut out pieces for a super-cute dress from bamboo fabric I've had stashed for two years.
5. Laundry (blech).
6. Spend a half hour on the Wii Fit.
7. Watch season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while eating whatever delicious thing I came up with.
8. Draw some more robots.
9. Stay up past midnight.
10. Dance around.

Yup, this could work for me.

Update on my life: I am "gainfully unemployed". I passed my certification test with flying colors, but the schools aren't hiring so much. I'm going to look into tutoring places and private schools. I'll be fine in the meantime doing what I'm doing. I leave for Indiana for a long visit on Friday. School starts in just over a month (did I mention I got a scholarship? Exciting!) and I'm wrapping up financial aid business. It's good. I've been sleeping really well and feel like my old self again. Today I am wearing an outfit that makes me think of French 1950s musicals. It's a good day!

Oh, the internet.

My tummy is growling quite a bit. Hey, it's lunchtime!

I've been cramming my head full of early education knowledge. I think I forgot how to be a student. I definitely think my attention span is shorter than it used to be! I blame you, internet. Too many things to...oh look! Shiny! Hey, what's this? Wonder how the weather is...hey, lolcatz!

Oh, internet, I can't stay mad at you for long.

But man, I am slowly re-conquering algebra. Yesterday it was health and stages of cognitive development. Today it's taking the pre-test and weeping silently. Tomorrow it's all review, mostly of algebra. Then, it's the DAY OF. RECKONING.

I was unsure how to spell "reckoning" for a good 30 seconds, there. I think old knowledge is getting pushed out of my brain. Although, I think memorizing every Simpsons episode and all the song lyrics to that "Neutral Milk Hotel" album (them's a lot of lyrics) already pushed most of it out, like how to find my house most of the time.

I have 16 days left of work. 16 working days. This is awesome.

I was just reminded of "poultry internet". Internet attention span strikes again!

Retrospect

I guess my last post's outburst was not as professional as I should be. I just read the one before it, back when I was all starry-eyed with hope and such, and I got so angry about how things had turned out, that I needed to release a valve right then and there. I'm not apologizing for it, though. This is my personal space, my own little corner, and I reserve the right to say whatever the hell I feel like saying. This isn't my professional website, and I never intended it to be such. I have to stay sane somehow, you know?

In better news. I registered for my certification test today. I'm very nervous. The test (which is the certification test for Early Childhood, i.e. K-5) is in two weeks. I need to start studying like crazy if I want to pass it on the first try, and I really do. If all goes according to plan, I'll have my test results in June, and can then start applying for jobs after that for Fall 2009. I'll have to enroll in the Master of Teaching program as well, but you can have up to 5 years to complete it, is what the friendly person on the other end of the email at Armstrong told me. Also, it's a forgivable loan, meaning if I teach here in Georgia for a certain amount of time, then the government will forgive any loans I'd borrowed for this. Which is GREAT. (Also, getting two masters at the same time is a fantastic idea, I am sure - I plan to never sleep again.) But, I'm really excited. And a little nervous.

Our friends came down for the Sidewalk Arts festival this past weekend. They're all amazing. They're all doing what they love for a living, and they're happy with their lives, as far as they told us. They're so creative and working in fields they really enjoy. I admit, I was more than a little envious. Of course, they've had more time to figure it out, carve out a space for themselves, etc...I'll get there. I'm taking steps to get there, as we speak. We were walking by the river, in beautiful weather, and I was lost in thought, thinking about how much I hate my job, and why I hate it, and that I had to go back there in a matter of hours... and I just sort of realized, I don't like this anymore.

I don't think I want to be in design anymore, at least not for a while. I like design, but if I do any more, I think I'd want it to be on a smaller scale, freelance maybe, picking projects that are interesting to me and turning the rest away. I'm rather sick of pouring my creative energies into something I could give a flying fig for. I'm tired of working at something that makes little to no lasting impression. And I'm tired of having my efforts belittled and ignored.

So, I'm gonna go be a teacher. It feels better already.

Haha

Hahaha! It's not November anymore. This is ridonkulous. I, basically, suck at blogging.

I am up to all new sorts of things. But I'll have to go re-read the last post to tell you all what they are. Heh.

I'm still working the same job in Awfultown. I don't think I've blogged since I got it. Well, it was not the rosy picture of design happiness I thought it would be. The owner is insane, the hours are ridiculous, they outright LIED to me about vacation time, my boss actually screams and yells at me and cries when she doesn't get her way, the boss's husband thinks we're all day laborers and refers to me as the "intern" (yeah, right), etc... I pretty much despise every waking moment I'm here. But I don't have much longer. I'll be leaving the very end of May to go frolic among the corn for at least 2-3 weeks. I can't wait. It'll be good for my head and heart to go home for a spell. I need to start recording all the f-ed up stories from this place before I forget them all through repression. Heh. Today it was my coworker informing me that he pretends this place is in a bizarro universe that he must endure for 8 hours, and then he gets to go back to the real world and that's how he gets through the day. Grown men playing make-believe. This is what it reduces you to. AWESOME. I asked for some direction today, for a logo revision that was sent by someone who spoke very little english. I told her I didn't understand what she wanted. She said, "He wants you to be a designer! YOU tell HIM what the design should be! YOU!" So of course, four hours later, the 5 versions I came up with were all wrong. So she sat down and drew what it should be, because she knew all along. Uh huh. Awesome indeed.

Savannah's getting hot and sticky but is still retaining the beautiful weather for a little while longer. I give it a week. We turned on our air the other day only to realize that it was broken (again) so I'm pretty glad it didn't decide to do this in August.

Must finish horrible logo. Must then drink a lot of gin. The end.

100

This is my 100th post.

For having a blog for so many years, this seems kind of ridiculous. But, even a few rows at a time will eventually get you to the end of a pair of socks, no matter how long it takes.

Yesterday was Halloween, my most favorite day of the year. I was a pirate, as I did not have time to make myself a costume, and so used one from two years ago. Last year, I had no costume. I was sick as all get-out, and had barely enough energy to put on a "boo" halloween shirt and watch zombie movies with my friends. It was really the goodbye to everyone, I just didn't know it at the time. And then, I was gone a few days later. So strange.

This year we dressed as pirates and went to River Street, the oldest street in Savannah. It was a great night, chilly but not uncomfortably so, with just enough people down on the river to make it interesting. There were suprisingly few people in costume, and so when we did pass someone in the TRUE spirit of the holiday, we gave them a smile and a nod, like we were in a special club. I guess we were. The shadows that we cast on the cobblestone street looked much more in place than those around us. This is such a strange town.

There's something about the creativity of this town that just bowls me over. My favorite site of the evening was a group of people walking down the street dressed as tetris blocks. And they locked together. BRILLIANT. They won halloween.

We ate at a very nice restaurant (which would be strange, seeing as how we were pirates and all, but less strange as our waitress was dressed in a Hooters Girl outfit) and watched Treehouse of Horror. I fell asleep after it stopped being Halloween. It was a good day.

Well.

The weather's finally changing here. I thought I was going to die if I had one more beautiful, sunny, 80 degree day, so thank goodness THAT'S over with.

It's very bizarre here. I didn't notice how much I rely on the changing of seasons as a kind of natural calendar until I moved to where everything is green and hot, and then green and slightly less hot, and then green and hot again. (I am exaggerating, it does get cold here- it just takes it's sweet time in doing so.) It was the beginnings of October and I found myself reaching for my long-sleeved shirts, even though I was still in shorts and loose cotton shirts. I think I'm just sick of summer clothes- the wrinkly, sweaty, clingy, gauzy business of it all. I want layers, wool, jackets, scarves, fetching little gloves, boots. Oh god, my boots!

Well, finally, this weekend feels like fall. I feel snapped out of the lethargy that never-ending hot hot days can bring on. I had to wear TWO jackets last night, and was thrilled. My feet are cold. We turned the air conditioner off. Hooray!

Now I can bring you all up to date on the fun changes in my life.

First, I got a new job. Shall this become a yearly tradition for me? After exactly one year (pretty much) of working at the magazine, I decided that I'd had enough of those shenanigans and I got a new, better, shinier job. Honestly, the magazine was great because I learned a lot about design and production, keeping a deadline, etc, but there is nowhere in that company for me to go. Newspapers are in trouble everywhere, so there wasn't much chance of me ever making much more money than I do now, or moving into another position. So I put my feelers out and got a new job at a company called XXX. (Names have been changes to protect the incompetent.) It's substantially more money, a smaller company, and best of all, only the design director to please. I think I can grow a lot there, and do a lot more things (as in more variety of design). I'm a little apprehensive. But that's just because it's a new place, new people, new learning curve, and all that.

And they're very flexible with vacation, which is great, because I'm starting grad school next summer! It's limited residency, so I'm only out for four weeks out of the year. I'll have an MFA in Illustration at the end of three years, so in summer 2012 I'll be done. Then my evil master plan of teaching will fall into place, hopefully, and I will be set. I already have the subject for my doctorate dissertation picked out, too, but let's not overstep ourselves...

Last year around this time was such chaos, not knowing where I was going to end up, where I would find a job, what I was doing...it was very frustrating. And then the chaos of moving here, getting settled in such a foreign place where I knew just one person, learning a new job, trying to find solid ground. And now? I have a plan, I know where I'm going and what I want, where I want to be. It feels pretty good.