topsy turvy

I still don’t know what to write. I’m exasperated.

I know one thing … once I move out of this house I’ll be happy. Back to my social reclusion back with my parents. I used to resent it but now I’m seeing people are like onions, they’ve got layers but it’s generally all the same thing.

One day I’ll write the interesting tales I’ve had all term, but for now I’ll keep it off the internet.

Oi. I will blog but I have been having a life for the past week. I don’t know what to feel exactly.

I will come back as soon as my thoughts form themselves.

Wow. I think I found my calling today.

I realized how much I missed programming! I was doing a workshop with code lab and I realize how much I love the excitement of changing numbers and values in programming language. I sort of fell out of this skill though I learnt HTML fast back in its simplistic days plus my grad project is programming a video game.

There’s this strange beauty to computer code… this infinity… this order… this idea that with enough imagination, you can turn very simple mathematical things into magic.

It’s just beyond peaceful after a long, long day of Documentary Practices, which ended today. I’m going to miss my teacher a bit… this Thursday is my last class with this awesome teacher! I think he was what made this term infinitely better than all the loops I had to jump through before.

Oh well. You can’t have everything.

As I sit back and read Mr. Zizek, I can’t help but think of a conversation that happened in the FVIM lounge last year with me and a colleague. He’s very enthusiastic and I think he makes a very good and quirky director. (My other guyfriend is absolutely in love with him, because this dude is cute…unfortunately, he has a supercute girlfriend.)

Me: “I wish there was another option besides art history at this school. Like literature or pyschology or philosophy.”

Dude: “Man, I’d love to have a philosophy course, but a prerequisite of the course is that all the students would not be allowed to talk. If I had to teach philosophy at Emily Carr, I’d be a tyrant of a teacher. I’d be like “Okay, you art students, let me teach you REAL philosophy that’s deeper than the half baked shit you cite and quote your art pieces with and don’t understand”.”

The other day I happened to bump into another girl who’s in film and I look up to. She will make an amazing producer, she’s finished a degree in business and now is embarking on the art education thing. She got a job at Sony, but then took a deal with Lionsgate instead. She’s debating whether to stay at school because she said school and the real world are two completely different things and school on the most part is significantly useless.

Her story reminded me of a designer friend who left after a while. He sat in a design class and his teacher literally went:

“The truth is you guys probably won’t get jobs being a designer if you don’t have an education, it’s a competitive world out there and maybe only a handful of you guys will actually work at a firm…” etc

He sat there laughing his ass off because he designs things freelance and he had just started design at our school. He told me that our school is all just talk. One piece of advice he gave before he left was: “Just make a super sweet ass portfolio. That’s all anyone cares about in the real world.”

I’ve begun to understand them way much more with the way my life has been changing the past two months. How school has become incredibly secondary and some nights I’m up doing art til’ like 2am and go: “Oh shit, I have school right.” Wake up the next morning, run, am the asshole who comes in late and is nodding off half way through lecture. Or the douche on her macbook in the back, checking work emails and shit like that. I think I’m headed on the same path as a talented cinematographer I barely see around in FVIM anymore, he sums up his academic career at this school:

“Man, I used to be so sharp and so studious, but I went from a 3.9 GPA in foundation and second year to an academic warning this year. Fuck. I honestly wouldn’t care if I failed but then there goes all my money.”

I have been shopping today. My sister got her wedding gown and I have gotten my bridesmaid dress. (I spite thee feminists who say weddings are part of patriarchal doings. It is a hopeful dream for some girls, just like for some girls a career is what they pursue. Some guys want to get married much more than get a career, too.) I have gotten my winter wear as it will get cold. I usually don’t shop but after a year of saving like crazy to pay for my education and buying second hand/vintage, I decided with the extra money I earned from doing art to spend it on something nice.

I can’t help it: I love American Apparel. If I had to choose paying the same amount of money on something like Gap, Banana Republic or Lululemon, give me American Apparel instead. At least it looks interesting. Yes. You can buy lots of their clothes vintage (a la the huge Value Village in Richmond) which I’ve been doing the past year, but there are some pieces in there that are truly unique. Some of them are just redonkulous that they are $60+. Another store I love is the Bay. Pass me the bloody history of HBC, but I go in there for just different styles: Lady Dutch – nombre one, my fav is Lady Dutch, Nygard, Guess and DKNY. They’re always on sale and if you search hard enough, you get super unique, faboosh things.

The best place to get cheap, stylish clothing is in Tiangee in the Philippines, although you have to pay the plane ticket. Tiangee is almost like a black market minus the livers and pieces go for 50 cents – $10. The only thing I do not agree buying is the knock offs of Designers, because one, it’s probably exploiting some artist and two, I’m not sure if that money goes to gangs or not.

Here is what I think are the best places to go Vancouver-Richmond-Burnaby-wise, based on quality-equal-to-price:

Vintage / Second Hand

Richmond’s Value Village.

Front & Co on Main Street. (The next shop is a scream, it has awesome gifty things for people)

My Sister’s Closet on Commercial Drive. They sometimes have this stuff a bag with whatever’s in store for $20 days, and it all goes to the Battered Women’s Shelter.

Retro Rock both on Commercial & Davie.

Casual Wear

Shop Cocoon – its pricey, but it’s helping local designers.

H&M – really stereotypical, but seriously when you don’t want to spend a lot of money as a student, this is quite affordable if you look at their casual wear.

J2 & Jessica – These two are for both genders. Really super artsy like American Apparel, but they have sales more often than AA and it’s super cheap. I got some pretty sweet Jack Jones hoodies here.

Scout

Sears / the Bay – search the racks, go on the Bay Day, 40% everything…even the really nice stuff that costs more shoots down in price.

Aeropostale – the best deal on jeans! The quality is nice and the sizes aren’t insane, like when you go to Guess and realize you’re much fatter than you think. I scored a pair that fit like a charm for $20, though they’re usually priced around $30-60

American Apparel – in comparison to Gap, Hollister and Banana Re which charges some insane amount of money on khakis, I’d sell my soul to the hipster movement over the office drone look anyday.

Formal Wear

Laura’s Petites or Laura

BEBE’s sales rack: always 60% off. It’s always the clothes that were on display two weeks ago too. It’s coz no one actually buys shit regular priced here! It’s Marciano counterpart in Oakridge Mall also has a 40% rack much like this one.

BCBG – You always, always, always get good quality, even if it’s so expensive here.

Clubbing

Sirens or Mariposa or Dynamite – Super cheap, really flashy, and if you’re going out for a night a mayhem, why buy something so expensive? I know these clothes get fucked when you wash them a couple of times, but who wears the same thing twice at clubs?

There are many other favs of others like Urban Behaviour, Urban Outfitters, etc. But UB used to be really good, so when friends and I look at that store, we’re like “that’s for chiggers!!” UO is so very nice, but so very pricey. It’s like a store I’d have to go bank robbing to shop in. Don’t get me started on those lovely shops on West 4th – to Kits area. I’d review them but they are so ridiculously expensive!

But there are probably a million places to go in Vancouver to be fair. We have so much shopping and eating here, that’s the only two things you can do if you’re in the downtown & south Vancouver area.

Anyhoo, my last post was fudged to those with an RSS feed. I kept trying to write the feminist part and my compy kept shutting off and WordPress was having weirdness with my autosaves. But, now the evil space monkies have flown away and I hope some geeky programmer gets bad karma for eating my blog! Grawr!

This weekend is much needed! It is my creative retreat from theoretical crazies and my practice. My dad taught me how to cook two amazingly good dishes. This is one thing you learn in college: food will take a lot of your time if you live alone. The first dish is good because it keeps for a week in your fridge, plus it’s great for meat lovers:

Chicken & Pork Adobo by Jose De Los Santos

Ingredients: Pork, chicken, garlic, salt, pepper, vinegar, knorr cubes, bay leaves, soya sauce, sugar.

-Cut the chicken and pork.

-Wash the meat in the pot.

-Fill the pot 1/3 H20, put over medium heat. (If you have lots of meat, just make sure the meat is submersed in water)

-Add a tbsp of salt and a little more.

-Add a dash of pepper.

-Add 1/3 cup vinegar.

-Seperate 1 bulb of garlic, but don’t chop it up. Throw it into the pot of meat and soup.

-Put 1 Knorr Chicken Broth Cube.

-Put 2 bay leaves and a dash of sugar.

-Optional: add 1/4 cup soya sauce.

-Cook until meat is ready.

-Put pan on high heat, pour oil until it fills the entire pan 2cm thick.

-Pull meat out of pot into pan. Keep sauce in pot.

-Fry the meat til it’s brown.

-Throw everything back into pot or pour sauce into pan.

-Simmer on low heat until meat is super tender.

You can use any left over chicken for….

Stir Fry Brocolli with Mushrooms and Chicken (Or the other way around) by Jose De Los Santos

Ingredients: 2 heads brocolli, 10-15 mushrooms of any kind, 1 med onion, left over chicken cooked/uncooked, Panda brand oyster sauce

-Cut brocolli up – remove bottom stems

-Cut mushrooms into thin slices

-Chop onion in half, then slice into thin slices.

-Prepare chicken. It should be cut into thin strips. If you’re using raw chicken, precook it before moving onto the next step.

-Put the chicken in the pot with onions and oil, saute the chicken.

-Don’t overcook the onions, saute the onions til’ its soft not brown!

-Add mushrooms.

-Add brocolli.

-Don’t over cook veggies! Soft but not brown! Cover it and let fry.

-Add two stirspoons (or just an amount enough to cover all veggies) of oyster sauce. This should cover for pepper and salt, but if you feel needed only add pepper.

-Just cook til’ soft, unless you like your brocolli crunchy. Take off the stove immediately.

If you have leftovers of this, you can use it in “Pancit” which my dad will be teaching me next weekened. Free education! I also learnt how to cast off my scarf I made for me moomsly for Thanksgiving via Youtube. You don’t need to go to school and pay money for that sthuff. I used to make scarfs for my friends learning the free way.

I am a feminist at school, but hot damn not at home. Look at my post.

My guyfriend got kicked out of the feminst class at school for questioning feminist theory. He basically questioned why the feminists were still packing on the hatorade against male sexuality, when they should focus on explaining what exactly female sexuality is, without so much emphasis on its relation to male sexuality. He also questioned a teacher who kept saying “‘I’m a dike, I’m a dike” when he pointed out it was kind of silly to boast about that when really it’s OK to be a dike in our day and age, you dont need to parade that shit like an asshole.

So he gets kicked out by his teacher who says he’s too difficult and he’s making everyone in the class  uncomfortable. Hahaha, so much for being a progressive school Emily Carr if students can’t even question the theories taught to us  – I and many others applaud him, I’m a feminist but I enjoy the cage being shaken once in a while. Emily Carr just wants to load us up on ready made thoughts.

ANYWAY, this is my creative recharge away from that kinda stupidness:

Books are an immediate recharge for me: Wutherbury Heights by Emily Bronte, Zisek and his Parallax View, Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. I read too fast. I need to reread Far From the Madding Crowd, it’s such a wonderfully written book despite its plot being very simple.

I’ve brought home my dad some DVDs we will be watching, the artsy type of Emily Carr. My dad usually dives into the $2.99-$8.99 box at Blockbuster and has a collection of over 300 DVDs, but amongst all the mainstream things he gets, he gets lots of awesome things like Milk and Lust and Caution.

I’ve had a failed attempt to score tickets to VIFF. I want to go see I Killed My Mother and Ana & Arthur… but don’t have a VISA. Damn. I Killed My Mother sold out right infront of my eyes. I will catch a flick, I will! I will go get a ticket for Ana & Arthur. I wanted to go see America, which was a recommend to me… but I decided that Ana & Arthur as a documentary might relate more to my documentary I’m constructing right now because its about relationships between humans and connections. I’m rather tired of the representational politics drowned documentaries about the bunk system America has. I’ll be in the mood after I digest Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore.

Tomorrow I will be headed out to Brentwood Mall to get my bridesmaid gown and my sister’s going to get her brides dress. I’m also gonna get my eyes peeled for a sewing machine as I want to finalize my Halloween Costume, a la Terra from Final Fantasy. I’m winding down this night drawing the Zelda Four Swords comic as my drawing practice (10% done) and I’m doing my grad project at the moment. I just want to keep moving before I have to sit in theoretical sludge next week.

Good times.

I was at La Tortas with a friend, who is an amazing artist hands down. You say his name in animation and they all know him. We decided to go out because it was Friday and also a long week, plus I haven’t seen this guy he’s been so busy. It’s also yummy food – basically the Mexican Subway, a taco but in a sub instead of a shell.

We were unwinding telling each other strange happenings of the week, but also talking about this art school pretentiousness my blog seems to be about. I said to him, simply because he is my best friend and an amazing artist:

“I think the really good artists are too busy learning new things to be running around demanding attention and telling people how good they are, like all the people who really annoy me at this school. You work super hard on your animations and it shows through, your talent is carried by word of mouth, so it proves how good it is.”

It’s that whole Catcher in the Rye quote. I can’t remember it from verbatim, but it goes along the lines of: “The mark of an immature man is he wants to die nobley for a humble cause. The mark of a mature man is he wants to live humbly for a noble cause.”

And if it’s one thing I learnt from my friend and how/why he’s so good is genius really is patience and practice. Patience to sit infront of a computer and draw for thirty hours, patience to take critique and better it after the fact, patience to inspire instead of critique, patience to watch other artists work and incorporate it in his own. It certainly does not lie in extravagance and theory, as some profs would like us to believe. Those are afterthoughts. He and other gems at our school are living proof.

I finished my weekly goal of I’ve finished AfterEffects Basic Training.

I am quite elated. There’s something joyous breaking away from theory and really devoting yourself to repetitive and mundane. It’s quite zen for head.

Good day. Enough bloggin’ for me.

Whoaaaho, hello dashboard. I’ve gotten a spike in traffic for the past week! Thanks AlphaInventions & TechnoRati, people are reading the angsty tales of an art kid. It’s not like a million hits or anything, but it’s cool people are actually reading!

I love the emails I’ve been getting too. One question was:

“What are you going to do when you leave art school?”

I’m going to spend the summer before my fourth year and completely unlearn what I’ve learnt. I’m going to go into business and work at Wal-Mart as a supervisor and actively draw flowers for those glorious four months. I’m joking. I won’t be that extremist, but I’d like to learn another point of view than the hypercritical. I also love programming, I’ll probably do that.

Anyway, after missing out on lots of the first week of the film fest, after my family-orientated Thanksgiving weekend, I will catch up next week plus hit up the Writer’s Festival at the library. I love the Writers & Reader Festival mainly because it’s like shopping at the Farmer’s Market, you get local stuff. I’m going to be subscribing to Room Magazine once again!

Last night I watched Eddie Izzard and cinema/videos from India with two of my guydudes at school. They are such guy dudes. Not only were they talking about hot chicks but one was scarfing down on Cheese Whiz. The other night I was at my friend Mary’s and we scarfed down on brownies and cookies. We were cooking lumpia after a particularly insane day. Aka, before hand me and some guyfriends found out you-know-who got in as a rep.

“Fuck it,” my guyfriend goes, “this is like real democracy.”

“It’s okay. I don’t really participate in school that much anyway. I sorta come in and out of this god forsaken place.” I replied.

“Hey check out that sign dude,” my other guyfriend points.

Some art kid put a sign by the Emily Carr door:

“Abandon Hope All Who Enter Here!”

It’s a sign for Halloween, but it’s quite ironic. The kid who put it up had a big smirk on his face so it wasn’t quite a cowinkydink. I think there is hope at Emily Carr! An-ar-chy! An-ar-chy!

If it’s one class I love it’s the Frame: Light and Composition.

Our teacher is the awe inspiring one. He’s just so interested in what he teaches, plus he teaches us what he theorizes about. I wish he didn’t have to go back to Germany when he was done.

I go to school to be inspired by great masters, I go to school to see another point of view. This POV isn’t obscure, nor is it insecure and it inspires. It doesn’t create this gap that screams out: “ha ha ha, this is the gap you have to jump if you want to be where I am”, he just says: “this is where I am, but I’m willing to go over there and show you the steps slowly over this gap”.

This is a rarity at my school and I feel happy for once. My other teacher this term is pretty solid, she’s consistent. These two make up for the loops I had to jump in second year, and probably soon in my second semester of third.

I’m tired after an eight hour shoot, but our film is going to look awesome. I’m now back to learning AfterEffects before I have to return to a non-artsy fuck-all-insane-o-stress-machine environment of family and love.

Today was a pretty stressful day so this weekend is going to be awesome.

I am thankful for these things:

1. Our teacher of Frame.

2. The fact I have a little place to escape this insane art world, and that I won’t divulge because it’s my secret form of happiness.

3. My family is not quite so demanding as I once thought before and actually caring. (Moving out teachs you this so well)

4. That my roommates, despite their quirks, are good people at heart.

5. My friends are completely chill but unconvinced of the pretentiousness here kinda people. I love them.