I know I haven’t been posting as much lately but it’s been kinda busy in the studio. Take today for instance. Mike dressed up as a runner for Halloween and had a stopwatch and everything so we had to see how fast we could stop and start the stopwatch. Mike and I tied at 0.07s and Rob was able to get 0.06s (I get the impression that he plays videogames a lot). Then we tried to stop the time exactly on 1.00s and only Rob was able to achieve this impressive feat although I got 0.99 a couple times. Then we tried getting 1.00s without looking at the timer and surprisingly all three of us were able to do this. As you can see we’ve really had our nose to the grindstone these past couple weeks.

I just picked up my bike today from the shop which has a new gear thingy at the back. They said they lubed the brakes and, in addition, put on the chain some new grease so I’m looking forward to seeing it on my pants leg in the near future.

I just went to visit my layout/background/animation assisting teacher. Her name is Birgitta. She’s Finnish and built like a viking but she’s super sweet and says things like “yaaay!” and “wooohooo!” a lot. She lives right across the border so she can keep her American green card and it was fun to get away from the city a bit and be on native soil. We took the bus which dropped us off right before immigration, and had a fun four mile jaunt to her place. We passed lots of blackberry bushes and some donkeys. Brigitta’s house was super cool. It reminds me of a small IHOP restaurant with these steep angled roofs. It’s a small cozy place with two timid cats and a fireplace. Brigitta cooked up a storm since a lot of us were planning on going but there ended up being only four so we ate like kings and queens (deviled eggs, yams, some vegetarian curry and rice dishes …) and still had mounds of food to take home with us. She bought a turkey in case anyone ate meat. Since I was the only one who did I practically took home a whole turkey in my backpack. Which is good since the way I’ve been sleeping lately, I might be needing the tryptophan.

Ahhh. what a good night’s sleep. Not only did I almost get a whopping eight hours, I also woke up to this nice dream: I was at this big seminar and one of the speakers was in this weird contraption/costume thingy which opened up to reveal this really cute French girl with thick short hair and a really nice nose. She came up to me a spoke some french which I barely understood and in front of everybody started to ask me these questions like have I ever eaten a cucumber or have I ever watched CNN. I had trouble understanding the questions but she was patient with me. Anyway when she finished we sort of looked at each other and smiled and for a long moment I was smitten. Then she rolled away. Did I mention she was in a wheelchair? I remember using Google in my dream to look up her name and saw she was some researcher in the social sciences; had a PhD and everything. Man, I wish I could remember her name. Just for kicks, of course.

I didn’t feel much like drawing tonight so I decided to go on my usual bike ride around Stanley Park. It was pretty dark. I felt paranoid that some dude would pop out of the trees and scare me or that some stick on the path would trip up my bike and I’d go flying helplessly over the seawall. At some point I stopped and felt really vulnerable. The last time I felt so secluded from civilization was the time I spent laying down on the beach at night. I covered up my ears and staring up into space I could almost imagine that I was in space floating somewhere. Anyways afterward I had dinner at my usual spot: this Japanese noodle cafe. It’s almost a tradition for me to go there for Sunday dinners. I’ve pretty much settled to some favorite restaurants around town so the bulk of my meals consist of either Smile Diner omelettes, Subway sandwiches, Daikichi sushi special, or Shouyu noodle soups. I picked up twelve potatoes today during my regular Sunday Safeway shopping. I’m going to try to make mashed potatoes next week. We’re going to visit one of our teachers, Brigitta, over thanksgiving next Monday and I thought I’d try my hand at this cooking business. In case you’re wondering they celebrate Thanksgiving here in Canada in October. Brigitta thinks it’s because it’s colder here and the harvest is sooner. I can testify to the colder bit.

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).