Melissa Loa’s Weblog

“Although you were biased I love your advice
Your comebacks they’re quick and probably have to do with your insecurities
There’s no shame in being crazy, depending on how you take these words
I’m paraphrasing this relationship we’re staging”

I love music. It totally mellows me out, especially when I’m having such a bad day. I haven’t ever really had a bad day, in a long time. There’s always something at the end of the day that cheers me up.

 I was supposed to go to work to do food orders for my mother because she went to a seminar. I was going to do the food orders, then leave and do my assignments.

What ended up happening: I went to work. Had to stay all afternoon –one of my coworkers didn’t show up to work, so I took her shift. I didn’t get a chance to work on my assignments.

Work was just hell. I’m not even kidding you. Everything was a huge mess. Due to my carelessness, I blended a drink without the top on. I guess you know what happens after that. My coworker brews a pot of coffee, but somehow it overflows? I think you get the picture. It was just a huge disaster.

So on my way home, I guess I was totally out of it by then. I was coming out of Highway 99…  So I guess I didn’t step on my brakes hard enough, because I rear ended someone (but his car was fine, my car was fine. No damages! No info exchanged. S’all good!)

So digital animation… in career prep class we watched a video on how to do well during an interview. It was pretty helpful. Tomorrow, I’ve got a full day. I’m staying at school all day from 9-10 (because I have a ton of assignments to complete). I’ve got animation class in the morning, then design class in the evening. Saturday… OH CRUD. I forgot I have a matte painting due for texturing. Tuesday, I’ve got my storyboarding assignment due… and Wednesday… I’ve got my cover letter and research assignment due. Crazy, baby! Mmm. So we’re doing patch head modeling for design class. It took me one hell of a long time to find reference pictures. I don’t even know who the person is I’m modeling… but hey, as long as I have a front shot and a side shot, I’m alright. So… I know now, for a fact, that I like modeling environments… more than characters. I really don’t like modeling characters. I don’t like drawing characters either. I love painting and drawing environments though… I still don’t know what type of environment I should do for my demo reel. I was thinking of something by the beach (I loveee beaches. Everything I drew and painted in high school… was beach related. HAHA. Too attached, I guess!) …I really don’t know. Ahh! I need to know soon! …Bah.

Anyway, I’m still hoping that my day will get better. I don’t want it to end on a bad note.

I’m sick. I hate being sick. I have no energy to do anything at all. I was making fun of my cousin for being sick a few weeks ago though. Mean, I know.  Anyway, I guess that’s karma for you.

So, I somehow managed to keep my sanity this week with all my assignments due. This week, it’s a little bit better…actually…not really. I keep thinking about my texturing project …. my mind won’t rest until I hand it in. I can’t wait, really, until texturing is over. It’s not because I don’t like the course, but just because it’ll really take away so much stress off my back and I’ll stop worrying about it. I’m really good at worrying (about everything), I’ve been told.

So in design class today, we had to model a face. …Uh. I need a lot of practice on that.

All my classes, everything is being assigned at the same time and everything is due in two weeks! Week… 6, I believe. AGH. I wouldn’t mind having assignments assigned every class, but when they’re all due at the same time… it drives me crazy!  That’s okay, I have awesome time management skills. Not really.

So… I tend to laugh when I’m screwed, because… I just do. So… HAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I need to stop procrastinating/make life hell for myself. Really.

So tomorrow…before production class, I’m going to do my proj/port and career prep homework (and I’m doing it now too!) …and then from Saturday to Monday, I’ll work on my junkyard and character’s face. Hopefully, I stick to my plan. Busy, busy, busy.

My friend is visiting, like I mentioned before, from out of town. I’m supposed to meet up with her and a few other friends tomorrow night. It totally sucks though, because I have a class from 7-10 tomorrow. What a buzzkill. I think I’m going to be too tired to go out after too. I’ll see, whatever happens happens. Oh! I’m finally 19. Hooray. But… I haven’t had the time to go out with my friends to celebrate it yet. Bummer. I’m swamped with assignments and so are they.

Anyway, back to talking about animation… next week, we’re modeling ears? Our teacher says it’s hard. I’m not going to doubt him. So far, character modeling is alright for me, I guess. I still prefer environment modeling though.

I’m tired. I’m going to go to bed now.

My sister’s wedding is, a little less than, four months away. Crazy. I’m happy for her. Her fiance is a really sweet, funny, and nice guy. He stayed for a month at our house, while he was on vacation, in February. I have to make them a wedding video. I don’t have the time to! I don’t even have time to see my friends! But… I’ll make time, for my sister, even though she can be a bit mean to me sometimes! Maybe I’ll do it during my break in April. Good timing. My relatives –literally, all my aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, and nieces on my dad’s side — from the Philippines are visiting in May. My dad has a huge family. Time to stay at school 24/7. Don’t get me wrong, I really want to meet and see them again… but I have a feeling I’m going to be busy with school.

My birthday is next week! March 12. I’m turning 19. Hooray! I’m pretty excited about that. I’m going to go out for dinner with my close friends.

One of my close high school friends is coming to Vancouver for a week. She’s coming from Atlanta. I’m excited, really, I haven’t seen her or spoken to her in ages.

So I finally have my model sheet -I chose to do Elmyra from Tiny Toons. I’m kind of bummed I didn’t find a Lilo model sheet. The hands look somewhat tricky though. I was actually thinking of changing my character, but I think it’s too late for that. Way too late. So… I’m gonna stick through it. We can re-do our assignments, anyway. Maybe I’ll improve my character modeling skills by the end of the term.

Ugh. I have so many things due for school next week! It’s crazy! Let’s see, I have my 3D character, junkyard, proj/portfolio, and resume all due next week! I can’t wait for the break in April.

A few weeks ago, our 3D design teacher showed us a trailer of the new Dr. Seuss movie (Horton Hears a Who). I kinda wanna see it. I think it’s cute.

What else can I say? Hm… Oh. I think my lighting skills suck. Yeah, I definitely need a lot of work with that. I like texturing though, it’s cool. I like modeling too. I don’t really like character rigging though. It gets too blaaah for my liking, sometimes.

I still have to look for a character model sheet. I will do that later, after my shower and nap. I just got home about an hour ago from school. We learned how to make better resumes. Awesome! It’s about time I updated my resume, it is pretty outdated and it has so much useless information.

Anyway, for my character, I was thinking of modeling Lilo from Lilo and Stitch. I just can’t seem to find a model sheet yet, but maybe I just wasn’t looking hard enough last night.

I’m exhausted. I woke up relatively early (6:45 a.m.) and got to school at around 8:00. I planned to work on my XSI character rigging. I finished, but I had no idea how to mirror weights. It was so frustrating because I went to school early to do just that. Anyway, I just weighted both sides of my character. Time consuming, very, I know. I’ll ask around for my next character, I suppose.

I’ve been thinking about my demo reel a lot lately and every time I think about it, I change my mind and new ideas keep popping into my head. I know, for sure, I want to create a modeling and texturing demo reel –I would model interior and exterior environments. Maybe I’ll change my mind later on in the term, I’ll see how character modeling goes.  

School work’s starting to build up again. Agh. I’m going to start working after my nap, I swear! The stress gets to me! I become slightly irritable. Term one just ended a few weeks ago and thats when all my projects and assignments were due. Now there’s new ones! Bah.

By blogging right now, I feel slightly better (I have one assignment out of the way!) This is a great way for me to de-stress… just let it all out (and it’s saving me money. Usually, when I’m super stressed, I spend a lot of money. A lot. …then I go for a run.)

I really, really miss my car. I can’t wait until I get it back! It’s getting fixed. Again. For the … third time? (To be honest with you, I’ve lost count. All I know is, it has been almost three months since my car has been going back and forth to the body shop and with me.) Ugh. There’s something wrong with the engine! Or so they say. I don’t know. I don’t really know much about cars. They said I’d get my car back in a couple of days. Hopefully, this time when it comes back to me, it’s problem free.

Okay, time for my nap! I get cranky without it. Hah. What a baby.

So I was planning to  work on my character (I have yet to look for a model sheet) for my 3D Design class, but I wasn’t motivated enough to start on it. Yet. I’m very good at procrastinating and wasting time. By blogging right now, I don’t feel that guilty, seeing as this is an assignment I have to do for class anyway. Yay!

I went to work on Sunday (I work at a coffee shop). Oh man, a girl came in. She was young, really friendly, and she had crazy hair. She was looking for my coworker. My coworker wasn’t working at the time. So the girl started asking questions about her while I was ringing her order in like –Is she going to work today? Is she in town? I answered them, seeing as she was a nice girl. She eventually asked, “Can I have her phone number? I’m a really close friend of hers, I just don’t have her number.” I had no idea what to do. I was about to get her number from the address book when, thankfully, my coworker (the one that I was currently working with) knocked some sense into me. Anyway, I had to tell the nice girl that is my coworker’s “friend” that we weren’t allowed to give out information like that. She was fine with it. She left without her drink. She didn’t even wait for it to finish. Weird. She didn’t come back for it either. My coworker called me today and was totally creeped out. She had no idea who it was. She said that it might have been her “stalker.” Wow. I’m so glad I didn’t feed that girl any information.

Anyway, I’m loving digital animation. I’m not that great at it, but I love it. It’s a lot of work. Honestly, it’s stressful and I never would have thought that this much stress would come out of this course! One of the reasons why I took this course was because I thought it would be a walk in the park… I was so wrong! Don’t worry, I didn’t just take this course because I thought it was going to be easy, I love 3D animated movies –my favourite one would have to be Finding Nemo (Ratatouille comes close!). Hmm, I remember the first 3D animated movie that I saw…I believe it was Jimmy Neutron. I think that was back in… 2001? 2002? Woah. That was a long time ago! Anyway, term two started last week! I made a goal to push myself harder! I will follow through! I am determined to, at least. I won’t be so “whatever” this term! Anyway, that’s it for today!