Articles from: 2002

It feels like November. I started wearing sweaters already and although it’s been abnormally dry it’s starting to drizzle a lot. I don’t mind though. I like coming home from the cold to a heated apartment. We had a substitute teacher in Animation class today. His name was Moose Pagan. He was really interesting: kinda looked like a reserved computer IT guy but had a dash of wacky personality and eyes which seem held open (he doesn’t blink a whole lot). Anyway he showed us some animated shorts for fun which were all really amazing which included Craig McCracken’s original student pencil test film about these three girls who fight crime and are made from sugar and spice by a Professor Utonium. However instead of “Chemical X”, he used a can of “whoop-ass,” and instead of “The Powerpuff Girls”, they show was originally called “Whoopass Stew.” I think I saw an early version of the Gang Green Gang in there. Anyway Moose also showed three shorts from Peter Docter (Monsters Inc. guy) in their raw pencil test form which were simply amazing. The stories were really simple. The animation was really amazing. I think I could watch those few minutes of footage over and over and over again.

Someone stole my speedometer. Which was a shame because it saved my max speed high score (41mph!) as well as my Canadian miles traveled (approx. 340). This somehow reminds me of the time when I got really mad at my best friend in 7th grade when I beat his high score in Frogger on his Commodore and he erased the high score list to spite me. I wanted to go home so bad his mom drove me home early. It was sad but I think I’ve improved and my high scores don’t matter so much now. I really liked last Sunday’s sermon which was given by a retired Baptist pastor. It was about the parable of the foolish rich man who stored up stuff here on earth but in the end his life was demanded from him and he had to leave everything behind. But it was also about how we could have riches in our relationship with God which would last after we die. The pastor seemed to be preaching to both Christians and non Christians and I really wish my classmate Jed could have heard it, since he recently attended a seminar regarding money and karma and getting money through good karma. He’s into that new age stuff. Tomorrow is the last day of watching cartoons and calling it “History of Animation.” To celebrate we are watching Miyazaki’s Spirited Away in class (in its entirety and it its original Japanese). Hoyeah! There’s someone in my class named Rob who has a Japanese copy of the movie and just finished the 3D animation program here. He’s 19 and somewhat of a technical guru and is very helpful in technical thingys. He’s kinda funny, not in a way where he’s trying to be funny, but kind of in a way where he tries to be normal but ends up acting a bit goofy. I mean this in the best way possible way, not in a way that’s trying to be funny, but trying to be as complementary as possible.

I got four hours of sleep last night trying to put together a phone list for our class. Yes, a phone list. For some reason I felt the need to doctor it up with pictures, birthdays, and personality profiles at an attempt of mild humor, which I would gladly share with you all but the humor will probably be lost if you’re 5000 miles away and not related to these guys. Not that there was much in there to begin with anyway but all that’s a long way to say I’m tired and just wanted to get in my quota of weblogs this week. Back to the drawing board I go.

At the end of convergence week where we learned all about setting goals and working well with others we were asked to relax, close our eyes, and imagine our happy place. My happy place was a diner so it’s only fitting that there just happens to be a diner less than a block away from my place. It’s called Smile Diner (my classmates call it Smiley’s). It’s not the best food I’ve ever tasted but it’s cheap, their mashed potatoes are real (not from some flaky mix), and their denver omelet beats Denny’s by quantity if not by quality. It’s the kind of place which reminds me of a Philly food truck: a down to earth (as in green upholstery and fake wood paneling) gastronomic experience filled with large helpings of oil. And they have selection to boot – they serve both Chinese and Diner food which is like having a whole row of food trucks to pick from. That being said I just came back from a healthy (er, healthy as in plenty) serving of omelet, hashbrowns, toast, and mashed potatoes. I went to a different church today. It seemed a lot different from what I’m used to and reminded me of the services I would see on TV if that makes any sense. After the offering they had a person come up in a dog costume called Rover and he chatted with the pastor about how he had been working out at a gym and that he’ll show us a one armed push up next week. After a little while he went off with the kids for their sunday school and the sermon started but I left after the second point (out of seven). I felt that this wasn’t the right church for me although I did kinda want to see Rover do a one armed push up.

I had my first day of class today. My mornings for the first three days are called “convergence” when the new students from all the programs get together (in a movie theatre no less!) for a mini pep talk regarding goals, communication, working in a team, fostering creativity, and the like. So you might imagine it would be a little on the fluff and petty side but it was actually very interesting. The speaker, lets call him Mr. “Professional Facilitator”, has curly hair and talks with Richard Simmons-like enthusiasm with much more smarts (or at least articulate graduate school talk) to back it up. Come to think of it he kinda does look a little like Richard Simmons without the shorts and sneakers bit. Ok, maybe I’m stretching it but anyways it’s nice to listen to someone who has a passion for what they’re doing. Days are split into morning and afternoon classes (with evening ones on certain Wednesdays) and Monday afternoons happen to be assisting animation (inbetweening). Imagine key pose A moving into key pose B and having to draw all the little poses in between and that’s, well, inbetweening. Anyway, that’s all to say that even though we’re drawing simple cubes, spheres, and cones for the time being, it, well, just feels good. Just being at a drawing table with a pencil and paper in hand feels as good as a pair of chopsticks in the hands of a hungry Yujin (my friend).

So after dinner at Denny’s (an “Ultimate Omelette” which doesn’t quite live up to it’s name) I decided to go on a little bike stroll through the West End when I lost my footing and WHAM! The right pedal took a nice rectangular chunk out of my leg. Normally I would have pedaled it off but it seems so perfectly rectangular that I though it looked a little strange so I came home, bandaged it up, and succumbed to my daily internet binge. So before the whole rectangular divot fiasco I was having a pretty good biking day through the English Bay beaches stopping occasionally to draw where I could find some shade (all this biking has given me an mild, unfamiliar tan). It was a nice leisurely scenic day. I wrapped around UBC (University of a Billion Chinese, so I’ve heard). and headed back toward the city. Normally I’d be inclined to skip all the birthday stuff but I somehow felt the desire to at least do the candle thingy so I stopped by Safeway and bought a slice of apple pie, some vanilla ice cream, a pack of candles, and a lighter.

At orientation, they told us that we wouldn’t have much of a life outside class during the next year so we should try to “party” as much as we can this week, before classes start. If by “partying” they mean spending the last hour or so before bedtime at a web cafe surfing the web then I should be all ready for studies on Monday. Anyway the last few days have been filled with lots of drawing, some biking, some eating, some reading and not much else. And that’s pretty much it. Ok time to get this party started!

• No one seems to jaywalk here. Which totally goes against my pedestrian instincts and makes me feel like a punk. I suppose I’ll eventually conform to the ways of these street and start holding up those crazy L-shaped arms everytime I want to make a left hand turn on my bike.
• People are generally right about Vancouver: It is picturesque. There are a lot of asians. People say “eh” a lot. And the food is great. However if you have a taste for burritos, I suggest you make a run for the other border before heading for your local Canadian TacoTime Bleah!
• Hockey Sticks (reg. CAN$29.99) are 20% off at the local sports mart.
• My Everything Is On Sale At 33% Off theory has a few holes in it. Of course a lot of things here are cheaper than the states (food, for instance), but it seems like there are some people who actually figured out canadian money is not worth as much and have the nerve to charge more for the same items ($18 bucks for drugstore sunglasses! What’up with dat!), putting my economic model to sham.

Argh! So my mom and I were planning on heading up to Vancouver this morning at around 8 or so. At around 5 she comes into my room and tells me to wake up. I was pretty dozy so it took me a few minutes but I finally regained consciousness wondering why she woke me up so early. Can you believe it: it was a dream! The whole thing was a dream! Even my dreams are telling me to wake up! It’s a sad world when your dreams don’t even want you in them.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with friends recently trying to squeeze as much friendship out of them to last me a good while before I leave for Vancouver. So this weekend, I’ve managed to take in two buffet dinners a trip to the NJ shore with a group of church people, some time splashing around in the ocean with Ed, a few rounds of Halo with Kevin, Don, Ed, Sun, Doug, and Tim, and some time with Kevin surfing around on the internet looking up Indiana Jones trivia. It’s really been one great big fun tiring weekend and I felt really thankful for my friends. When I came home late yesterday I had this nagging feeling in my gut that I’m leaving something really valuable for something that may not be as valuable.