Intuos 3, My Love...

Just went shopping with a friend for tablets, and I swear, I'd sell my old relatives for an Intuos 3 9x12... Such sleek beauty, perfect curves, pen tilt, large active area, high pressure sensitivity... It's the perfect tablet. It's the Ferrari of tablets! Anyone want to buy my grandmother?

Sadly, I don't think that's going to be a viable way to get that tablet. My friend was doing her tech shopping today and spent about $900. I wish I had $900 to just spend on tech toys. I suppose she saved her money, where I blew mine. I'm in debt and she's happily comfortable till her next pay cheque. It really really sucks being in my position, now that I think about it.

A friend once told me that your lifestyle shouldn't match your income, but your income should cater to your lifestyle. So if you have a high lifestyle, earn more money. And for some reason I don't think he was talking about getting a second job, but rather making your money grow. Which is what I'm trying to do. I've taken up some insurance plans, an investment plan, and hope to take up an endowment plan next month. With all this money going out to grow, paying my bills and debts to my loving father at home, my cash doesn't seem to be supporting the sort of lifestyle I want. I don't even have anything left to just save for stuff like buying tablets. Or at least, I don't think it will untill some of these investments of mine start paying off in the far future.

Still, maybe I will hit that $3 million mark by retirement, who knows. All I know now is that it just sucks to be in debt, especially to your own family. The vicious cycle is you pay off your debt, run out of money, get more debt, pay off your debt. Rinse and repeat. I think I need to pay my stupid debts off in small amounts over a few months, avoid taking the cab as often as I do and stop my payday splurge-fests. That way I can manage to get by and hopefully, be able to set aside about $100 each month for the purchase of the sexiest tablet in all of history.

The Pictures Speak

evilfr0g: The first thing I do when I look at paintings is notice the color schemes and normally the ones you use are very soothing, almost repressed colors. Like they could be bold but the way they are put onto the pallet, it's almost like they are hiding. Then I look at the figures and in all of your paintings, the figure is almost always looking away. The face shows more expression than any other part of the body and the eyes show more of the soul, but in your paintings, you hide this from the viewer because they're always looking away, or to the side. The one exception being bart's first portrait. He's looking directly into the viewer
evilfr0g: saying "look at me, this is who I am! Love me". And if I remember correctly, this was about the time you and aly started getting affectionate.

But bart's next picture... much more subdued, same hiding colors. Last but not least, after looking at the figures, I look at what the figures are doing and all of them ALWAYS have something powerful with them but they are never doing anything with it. Aly has a fireball but it's not going anywhere, that one drg had a polearm and a wyvern but they were both downtrodden at his side. All this power, but for some reason or another, they never use it and when you match it up with the colors, you realize it's because they're hiding and because they are scared of what will happen if they do. They want to use it...a pent up fireball of explosive rage, yet it still stays quietly by their side and now you realize why I say that all this emotion gets put into your paintings and not enough into your life which can possibly make others see you as shy, timid, maybe even lacking emotion. But if they saw the same zest for life that you put into your paintings, I don't see how they couldn't be infatuated by you cause people love strong personalities.

evilfr0g: but what hurts more?
evilfr0g: dealing with someone who may eventually reject you
evilfr0g: or
evilfr0g: never letting people see who you are, and always keeping your emotions locked into a portrait?
evilfr0g: I think in some ways, you paint because you hurt
evilfr0g: and in other ways
evilfr0g: you paint because you love life
evilfr0g: stuff hurts you, stuff bothers you, so you paint your emotions into a portrait
evilfr0g: but
evilfr0g: if it hurt you that much, you would have ended it a while ago
evilfr0g: maybe kept it all inside so no one could see
evilfr0g: but instead, you choose to paint
evilfr0g: you love life enough to express yourself
evilfr0g: in the hopes that one day, someone will understand
evilfr0g: and not be afraid of the force of nature inside you
evilfr0g: you haven't given up on yourself, so you paint
evilfr0g: but you paint, because you hurt
evilfr0g: get it?

Of course I get it. Sometimes people speak the exact words that run through your head, and it's uncanny. I also never knew I gave this much away in what I painted. Quite an eye-opener. He's not the first to tell me I'm not open with people or come across as shy or emotionless, but he is the first to point all this out just from how I paint.

Hear Hear for Boredom

God I feel terrible. My throat is sore and it's agony to speak, my leg muscles ache from too much dancing after the gym yesterday at Cheeky Monkeys. My head feels like it's stuffed full of straw, and I don't care how many of you say you think it was to begin with, this feeling is not nice. No, I'm not trying to fish for sympathy (although a little sympathy would be welcome), I just can't think why I feel so terrible.

I wasn't drunk last night, I drank lots and lots of water before bed, had a good meal. I didn't throw up or anything, in fact, I was the one trying to keep a few of my friends upright and out of the way of passing cars as we waited for those not upright to finish throwing up. Maybe it's the hot ramen I had this afternoon, the chilli melting a hole in my tonsils. But oddly, Wan has a bad sore throat too. I'm suspecting the air in the club must have been a little more polluted than I thought.

Then again, perhaps this is just what I get from trying to get through a day with only two hours of sleep the night before. I think I've had enough of having the happening party lifestyle for a while. It's too expensive and gets stale after the first few weeks. And if feeling the way I am now is the price to pay for a club with RnB music to dance to, I think I'll take a chance with my boring old lifestyle.

Cabbages and Condoms

It must be a good thing I'm blogging so much these days, mustn't it? Well aside from the fact that I doubt anyone here actually reads my blog, I suppose blogging is much needed in my average holiday day. There are 'no-no' activities that I cannot engage in. These are: Playing the sims, playing FFXI. If I do either, my time will whittle away to mere nothingness as hours pass by like seeds in the wind - so much potential gone forever. In my need to fill up my day, I've doubled my painting time, posted on numerous forums, watched more tv and yes, you guessed it, blogged.

Today was not a wasted day, however. I attended a praise and worship rehearsal session which I thoroughly enjoyed. I love singing for the shiok-sendiri (translated: self-gratification). In a strange way, I felt that this rehearsal did something good for me. It made me do an about-face and look back to God. He and I haven't been all that close of late and it's time I do something about that. So after about a month of skipping mass, it's time for me to head back to church this weekend. The rehearsal also made me realize I probably should have kept up with my vocal exercises. They said I was a good soprano and asked me to join their ministry but still, I counted more nails-on-chalkboard moments then I'd care to have. I'd like to keep this up. It's a very enjoyable thing to do on a thursday night.

And as the witching hour approaches, I sit here and ponder of my life and myself. People have always called me cold-hearted - I was even nicknamed Ice when I was in polytechnic. That's not true. Being cold-hearted means you have no emotions. I have emotions, lots of them. What I lack is the means to express them. I was always brought up with the principle that it's alright to feel emotions, but you shouldn't express them in a way that was detrimental to yourself of others. So I've always appeared very rational and seemingly unfeeling. I really need to learn how to express what I feel with maturity and honesty. Age 22 and still so far to grow.

This is getting melancholy. Time for bed before I ruin my mood. Oh the title? Link? What link? There has to be a link?? No one told ME!

Humility By The Bucketfull

I came to realize today that humility in the art world is surprisingly easy to come by. No matter how good you get, there's always going to be someone who will be so much better that your painting looks like Kindergarten Art Class spawn in comparison. Some people are just born with more talent, and that's fine by me. I'll claw my way to new standards as I always have, although I'll probably be sixty before I'm even half as good as some of these artists.

It is sometimes very frustrating, to be working on a piece for hours only to sit back and realize how ghastly it looks. It's even worse when you thought it looked awesome to begin with. It was like that with this picture I've been working on for quite a while now. The project for a printed poster has finally gotten off the ground. It's my first such comission and I want to make sure I put my very best into this. If the painting turns out not up to my satisfaction, I'd be too embarassed to mail it off to my client. As it is, I want to send it off to him, see it on his wall and shed tears of joy for a job well done.

So, I tried a few new techniques, keeping him well posted on the progress of the picture. He liked it. Almost everyone I showed it to liked it. Then I posted the partially painted image on these art forums and asked
for feedback. Humility came by the bucketfull. I'm glad for it though. After a few moments of anguish, I deleted the layers of the background and began again from scratch, this time working with new tips from the artists on the forums, my artsy hunky dominican Ari and my best buddy Wan.

It's turning out much better. Lessons learnt:

• You'll never get better unless you get feedback,
  
• don't overwork a painting and most importantly
  
• if it looks like shit, nothing can save it, start over.

Updated ZOMG

Wow finally, this blog has been edited to the point where it's marginally personal to me. The old template was so bland and absolutely not me (aside from the pink). Those of you who know me will know that I do keep a blog on MSN Spaces. However, due to the fact that spaces sometimes acts up, and the fact that you have to login to MSN to view it makes it inaccesable to the happy non-microsoft cronies of the world.

And so here it is, the universal blog of mine, for all and sundry to peruse and laugh at. And I promise, I'll try not to complain too much here either.

The horror! Omg you care!!

This semester has been surprisingly stressful. Not only because I've been screwing around with my attendance a bit too much, but because of the surprising quality of tutors. I remember in the previous semester I had complained extensively about the 'made in china' lecturers who hadn't give two licks about us. This semester I learnt that you really have to watch what you wish for. The tutors actually care about us. Ugh.

Don't get me wrong, they're good teachers, just... plain weird. It surprises me how people can laugh at their jokes and apparantly enjoy their classes yet turn around and call them 'bitches' and 'bastards' for being so overbearing when they happen to care about us. It makes me wonder if my cathecism class students actually did that to me when I was teaching them. Fair enough that you can't expect everyone to like you, but I suppose it just kinda hurts to think of the fronts that people will put up for you.

In response to this, I do try to honestly see the good points of each teacher but some of them are just bloody overbearing eventhough they teach well. Don't talk to me like I'm 10 years old. I wish students would be honest with their teachers, but in Singapore, students-teacher raport isn't particularly emphasized or valued. It's somewhat of a rarity in schools, where your grades come before everything else and students are treated like fodder.

The presentation today bombed, though. I can honestly say I wasn't prepared as much as I should have been. I thought I could think on my feet, I thought that I could wing it. Hey, I had done so back in debates. I forgot the amount of effort I had put into developing that ability to think on my feet, and years since my last debate, it's all gone out the window.

I really have to stop coasting from the top of the hill.

Zippedy-doo-dah~

Today was a surprisingly awesome day. And for some reason, telling people that seems to silence them. "Kristen having a good day? Seriously? Damn!" Indeed, for once I am not angry at being single, not angry at myself, not angry at my diet, not angry... at all.

I find myself walking down the street coming home, remembering some old jokes shared between friends and laughing loudly as the drivers give me funny looks. It's incredible. I haven't felt this light and bouyant inside for a long while.

Like most students at NIE these days, I'm swarmed with assignments. Yet I feel in control to a certain degree. I'm getting them done, I'm doing my best. The more I work, the more I feel like I'm in control, and the happier become. While that sounded mildly obsessive compulsive, I have to admit that I rarely feel in control.

I suppose the good day started when Kirk told me he had finally gotten his hands on a copy of Imagine FX, which had published a picture of mine in its gallery. I saw the screen shots and felt incredible yet humbled. The other pictures in the gallery look like they really deserve to be there, and I kind of wondered what on earth mine was doing there beside them. I have a long way to go yet.

Well the good day continued into the afternoon, as I did homework (wow!) till around two pm. Stopped a while to watch some strange and bizare japanese horror film called Marebito with my dad. It was made by the same guy who directed Juon, and it was a disappointment. Still, the way the story twisted, this guy has to seriously stop snacking on paintchips. Then went out for dinner with my family and finally came home.

I suppose the gastric-induced two days of rest seems to have paid off for me, I seriously needed it after my 'Recess' week of work, work, work. Have so much goodness to look forward to in the week aswell - Picnic with Wan and Mary Ann at East Coast on Sat, Oxtail lunch with Bren next Wednesday. Alot of worrisome events in the cards too, such as the submission of my lesson plans and presentations. But still - I will survive!