These are pics of my first sculpture. Topic was a self portrait.




( Description and two more pics )

Jovian: Only con I've been to was this like shitty little anime convention with 300 people. I did witness something pretty hilarious there, though.

A guy dressed up like Luffy got called out by some jocky guy (there was a basketball tournament the same day). He was like, "YO, THIS ISN'T A CARTOON WORLD, FAGGOT"

Luffy guy walks up to him, grabs him by the collar, and he's like,"I may look like a faggot to you and your friends, but imagine how embarrassing it'd be to get your ass kicked by someone dressed up like me."

Guy's clearly shaken, he's like, "Uhh... yeah, uhh, whatever.", starts walking away briskly.

Proof that Luffy kicks ass in any form, cosplayers or otherwise.

shinkyomu showed this to me, thought I'd share some of my favorites. Some of the quotes I picked out are funny or eloquent ways of rephrasing what Marshall Vandruff talked about in his composition seminars-- "Originality is about taking existing things and presenting them in new ways."

( LJ Cut: The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot. (Salvador Dali) )

"Find the intersection of your interests, your skills, and the market.
If you have only interests and skills, you have a hobby.
If you have skills and a market, you have a job.
Only if you have all three do you have a career."

from What I Wish I Knew When I was Twenty (lecture given at Stanford U)
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1549&author=89

Had a fun talk with my sis today, here's a general overview of our chat over the birthday table, and my own thoughts as well, picked up from here and there. (Happy birthday, dad!)

Capitalism is a system and its engine is profit ; in order for capitalism to exist and function, it is inevitable that there are winners (a minority) and the rest of us are losers. Our whole American society is based on capitalism, from education to work, all aspects of our lives; if we dont have a job, we don't have a "life". The most extreme and efficient version of capitalism is slavery-- minimal costs with most production effort; in terms of capitalism, slavery was inevitable, and justified the OWNERSHIP of human beings during its era. Likewise, today we have an illusion of control over our lives, but in truth we are just the essential wheels of the system that serves a few; everything is all about OWNERSHIP-- rights, labor, workers, products, etc. ... we are working for companies, and as long as we do that, we are still under someone else's control.

How this affects education and vice versa. We are taught how to become the best pigs in the pen to be chosen for the market; we are to be molded into workers of the system (inevitably losers), not to be at the top of it. Since when did my high school ever encourage us to go beyond "laywer" "doctor" "engineer", etc? Older generations continue on this tradition; the tiny percentage of higher class is supported by the middle working class, who hope that with enough education and hard work to be one day elevated. But education only aims us for middle class jobs. Since when did high school teach us about being entreupeners, the next big Google or Facebook or so on? Because the only way to break out of the system is not to become another worker, but to work completely outside of the system, either by earning passive money (like building a website that pays you for hits even when youre not managing it) or by starting up something completely new, like Google-- you cant make a profit by working, because whatever money you "earned" is paid for (un)equally by your labor.

The ideal thing to do would be to form a market based not on profit, but rather on genius... on passion, creativity, vision. Or to find problems in society and find a solution for it (and to get your deserved share of the glory). Passion does make a difference in starting trends, and capitalism can be used to explain the downfalls of several lines of products. Let's take comic books for an example (credit to Marshall Vandruff's "How to get Hired in the Arts" seminar). Back in the day when comics were just starting out and not profitable at all, those who were passionate about comics kept making comics despite the lack of market for it. They did it because they loved it, and cared about its quality, and the quality showed through-- as such, popularity rises, and people really love the stuff, because it's genuinely good. Then, when capitalism realizes that there is a market for comics, the crap starts coming in-- comics churned out not for the sake of making good quality comics, but for the sake of selling it. Of course, then the quality drops, and the audience realizes they're getting crap, and start losing interest. The audience then looks to the next big thing (animation?). The trend goes on-- genuinely good stuff, market interest, then the flow of crap, then the downfall of the previous golden age in which the good stuff was genuinely good.

Anyone hear people complain about "how all the anime suck now" or "the video games lack story" or "that movie was all about the looks"? Yeah. Apply that to other areas of life, too. What about "education really sucks" now and "what the hell is high school/college preparing me for"?

For an inspiring and challenging lecture on Creativity--and how schools kill it--, go to http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/view/id/69 and click on his lecture in the upper right hand column. He is very engaging and thought-provoking.

So again, don't be a conformist. Feel free to share your thoughts though, I'm all ears and willing to listen and learn.

6:43pm
Andrew:
[link] that's my favorite group
it's called "Stop Involving Me With Your Facebook Applications. I Will Fucking End You."

tee:
imma join this group: "When I found out the Disney "D" WAS a "D", it blew my mind"
"I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head". That too.

(14 minutes of conversation later)

6:57
Andrew:
LOOOL IT'S A FUCKING D
I HAD NO CLUE WHAT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT
IT'S A D ON THE DISNEY LOGO THING

tee:
LMFAOOOOO
LMFAOOOO

Andrew:
*BANGS HEAD INTO DESK*

tee:
IT BLEW YOUR MIND TOO
HAHAHAHHA
AHHAHAHHAHA
AHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHA

So, there I was, miles deep in thought, working on a cure for procrastination when hrydziuszko came along and of course, just has to ruin my life in any way possible, this time by tagging me (as if getting me on WoW wasn't bad enough!), thus ruining any chance I ever had for being productive! And yeah I totally ripped this paragraph off of his LJ. So, for the next 8 days, each day, I have to post something that made me happy.

I tag shinkyomu if you haven't done it already. This is my revenge for you getting me on WoW too... seriously, you two are bad for my artistic health.
( Read more... )

Also: Did you know?



My favorite part: that we're being educated now for a future we can't even predict. To solve problems that we don't even know are problems yet. To be prepared for careers that don't even exist.

We're heading off into the unknown and all we have is what we're armed with in our heads today... so take your own education into your own hands, don't be a conformist, figure out your own path and do it your own way.

Why follow the road society's burned? After all, in the large scheme of things, all our trivial issues don't really matter!

So there goes this saying that you know you're a real artist when you slip up with your X-acto knife.

( Read more... )

And a pchat doodle just becuz, haha

at http://playauditorium.com/


It's really cool


One day I'll come up with something more interesting than a rock. meanwhile, fill out your own!


I found out about the Black Friday Wal Mart incident and I read part way through the LAT version of it. Then I had to stop. I can go on about it but all I'll say is this: I am furious and really disgusted. But I'd rather not get stuck in that loop of negative emotion.

So I'll worry about something else instead. I need Andrew to stop trying to persuade me to play WoW. I'M TERRIFIED OF GETTING STARTED!

Woww. It's been forever since I've "blogged" or posted anything here on LJ!

It just feels strange to be updating a journal that's been dead for what seems like a year, while knowing that this entry will find its way into people's friends page... but what the hell! Here goes!

Blogging feels really awkward to me. One reason is because I go on LJ only for communities, and I feel like I shouldn't be posting to my personal blog when I haven't been keeping up with anyone else's. The other is because blogging in general feels really strange--I think DA's made me too careful about what I post!

Yet I still get the urge from time to time, to use LJ; if not to talk about myself, then to share my fandoms and the fanart that results from it. That kind of stuff doesn't belong in my art blog or DA page, yet I get the urge to do it; it has a lot to do with nostalgia. Ah, good ol' middle school blogging/fandom days.

So that brings me to this. I haven't kept up with so long, that I don't know who is active anymore (both on their own blogs and who the heck randomly sees this journal entry). I doubt a friends list cleanup is necessary at all, but the anonymity of most of my friends list makes me hesitant to post-- I don't know a great deal of the people on my friends list, don't know who is still alive and reading, etc.

If you want, could you introduce yourself-- tell me a bit about yourself, how we met, why you're reading this journal, anything?

Thanks and nice to meet you!