Semester 8 & 9.9

At the middle of the previous semester I was feeling the impression that I needed to go back to the Life Drawing lab. I'd been feeling it for a while but was unable to for the last 2 semesters. Finally, the opportunity opened up. I had my doubts but I still felt that it was important. Because of my current school schedule I was able to leave my temp work assignment on Wednesdays early to go to school. However, I had night classes on Wednesday so I was able to take advantage of the Life Drawing lab, which I'd been trying to get back to for the past 2 semesters. I'd been missing the simple pleasures of just drawing - no computers or digital graphics. Plus, I'd kept up my figure drawing and had developed plenty of questions that only an instructor and real life experience could answer. I learned from these experiences that, like any talent, it is something that does need to be kept up or the talent cannot progress. And my projects have lots of figures that need help being created. There were plenty of new models that came in each week; not a lot of familiar faces that I could recognize from my Life Drawing class over 2 years earlier. Some were fantastic and some were not. Either way, I learned something from each. My goal was to build up my practice to the point where I felt I could break out the good paper and creat a completely finished piece that I could be proud of. That was last semester; we just hit midterm and I've officially now upgraded to the good paper. When midterm hit during this semester I was in Group Production Team Layout class and the instructor told us that he'd give us extra credit if we enrolled for the next semester on that day. He was part of the Graphics Department so it meant less paperwork for him. So I went in to see the Dean on a 15 minute break, hoping simply to get the extra credit. What I got, instead, was a whole lot more. Mr. Dean Murdock (no relation, although we'd been in close association in the past. He has a great open-door policy) threw a curve-ball surprise at me. The school (across the nation, not just the local branch) had a big policy to only allow so many part time students. According to their experience the longer a student remained in school, the more likely they will drop out without graduating. In order for them to retain their reputation of being some of the best they needed to keep the number of their graduating students high. As a result, they needed their students to be graduating as soon as possible. So, the dean was requiring me to increase my number of classes per semester by 1. Otherwise, he and the board of people-in-charge could not approve of my school schedule fot the upcoming semester. I was floored. I had already been spending every teeming waking moment that was not associated with work to either being in class, getting to class, or doing homework. My family was already being more neglected than I would have prefered and the guilt for that was pretty much a constant companion. In this last semester alone I took off 3 days from work just to work on homework and I missed a lot of church. Often times I would only go to sacrament meeting. Once, close to Finals, I didn't go at all. Not to mention the multiple martial arts classes I skipped for homework instead, too. How on earth could he expect me to take one more class?

Semester 8 & 9.8

We had a Christmas miracle, as well, when my day job assignment was willing and/or able to keep me on through that semester, as well. I was very worried, as they had previously said that our assignment would be ending. I was very much relieved to find out that they were able to keep me on through to the end of Christmas.

It has been a semester-by-semester thing. That has caused some certain amounts of stress, for sure.
During that time they announced, that for the first time ever, they were allowing temps to officially apply for permanent positions. I asked if they had a place for me, since all I am doing is catagorized as simple data entry. The positions the others have are customer service phone positions. I still have not regained the full use of my voice and it still taxes me to talk for too long face to face. On the phone a full conversation is painful and almost impossible for any length of time.
Unfortunately, they said they did not have any full time positions for someone just doing the data entry I was doing.

Again, the miracle of working here was extended through this last semester, and then again through this one. However, they did let us know that their company policy does not allow temps to work here any longer than a year and a half. So, at the end of this semester this assignment will end.
I've been very gratful for the chance to be there. It's a wonderful atmosphere, with great, professional people, with a very easy, no-stress work load. I will miss being here.

After talking it out with my wife, we've come to an agreement. For my degree I need to have an internship in order to graduate. Since we thought I'd be unemployed at the end of last semester we started talking about how we'd make things work. We based a lot of our decisions off of our situation 2 Decembers ago, where I didn't work at all for the whole semester. We came to the comclusion that with some help and taking advantages of programs available to us that we could make it. So, with this semester and assignment closing I'm applying for internship positions now. Our hope is that perhaps it can turn into something better and permanent later on.

That's our hope, anyway.

Semester 8 & 9.7

I gave it to my mom at Christmas during our family's big Christmas party. We had just gone through the whole tradition of making gingerbread houses, Christmas program, and opening presents. My parents have been giving us items for our Emergency Prepardness for the last several years. So, this year we have been working to add to the lists.

We were preparing to leave so I smuggled it downstairs and worked to take it out of it's concealing garbage bag. I quickly took some photos for my portfolio before I gave it her and never saw it again. I took it back upstairs and turned its back away from her. I then went and got her, bringing her into the back room. I picked it up with my back to her and turned it around to show it to her. Her eyes didn't blink at all as she tried to register what she was looking at. Once I handed it to her and did some quick simple explaining she ran off like a, well, a kid at Christmas with a new toy. In very fact, she way. I heard her calling to everyone in the front room, "Look what Kerry made for me!" I didn't see her again after that so I had to hunt her down and explain how the lights worked and show her the comparison between the original photo and the finished piece like I did in class.
I wish I had my camera just for the expression on her face. It was priceless.

When I painted a picture to commemorate of my dad for his seminary experiences he fought to supress some tears. My mom's reaction was sheer excitement. On a scale of emotional reaction, I'd consider that a Home Run. :-)

Semester 8 & 9.6

when I presented it to the class I brought it in a box to not only protect it, but so I could have that 'surprise' element. The messages that others had used had some serious 'doom-and-gloom' aspencts to them. As the school as drilled into their heads, one student's was barely decorated, afraid to add too much and clutter it up. However, the one critique was that it needed more.

I presented mine with all the theatricallity I could, complete with a built-in lighting system. We had previously talked about brainstorming everything that everyone could do for a project and then pulling back to avoid the clutter; finding what the project could do without. I confessed that with this particular project I insisted that I keep every idea. I further confessed that if I were to add anything to it, I would have had a mini-music option. I said I knew was possible but I didn't know where to find the mini-disc players. I felt bad because the other students did.
I further confessed that up to that point I had been trying to entertain with my projects instead of trying to communicate, as a Graphic Designer is supposed to. And I said that the stage was why; that was my upbringing, where I had come from. With my previous assignments, that was what I was trying to recreate.

The theme was intended to uplift, encouraging people to stand in the 'center stage' of life and not in the wings.
I got nothing but proud approval from the class. They said they could almost hear the kids singing from the stage and the colors pulled them in. They went on and on about the color, detail, and layout. I showed them the comparison with the original photo so they could see the extensive Photoshop work I had to do to recreate the missing figure's pieces, which they were impressed with.
When I showed them the lighting they ran to turn off the classroom's lights. The reaction envoked a surprised but excited "Ah..." from the group.
The one critique I received was in reference to the fonts I used, which I couldn't argue with. Over all, it was a very positive experience.

Now I just had to present it to my mom...

Semester 8 & 9.5

The second assignment was to do a diarama; a 3D box of something with a message or design that could be hung on a wall as a decoration.
My first thought was to make the arena of the Tournament but I didn't like what direction my mind was taking me. After talking to the instructor she said something to stimilate my creativity. I then came up with the idea of recreating one of my mom's stage production pieces from a photograph. I wanted the mini-3D stage to look exactly like the picture but have all of the people/characters pop out and overlap each other.
I then had the extra idea to give it my mom as a Christmas present.

The first step was to ask my mom for a large photograph of her favorite show. I was not surprised when she provided me with a photo from her own, "Beauty and the Price," which is her musical theater take on the story of "Sleeping Beauty."
I was hoping she would have something from "Beauty and the Beast," as it was her last big community theater show. I was hoping my diarama would be a trophy/reminder of all of her many years of doing such big, fantastic shows. I guess it only makes sense that the subject would be her favorite instead.

Semester 8 & 9.4

The other class was Environmental Design, which was taught by the influential teacher who taught the Copywriting class. I originally dreaded the stress of similar, previous classes with 3 super-tough assignments. But she might have been paying attention to what some of the students were saying and other teachers were doing because we only had 2. Although, thinking back now, that doesn't remotely compare with the dozen or so mini-projects that made up the one big project I had to do for both Corporate Identity and Media Design in the same semester.

Our first assignment was to rebrand an existing local company. I chose a local farm in the middle of a big city that is a tourist attraction. With my previous photography class, this was an excellent excuse to go to the location and take my own pictures. To this day, I am still amazed how each class builds on each other, even when last night my last class' instructor told me to my face that it's supposed to work that way. I guess it's still a relief.

That project wasn't so bad, comparing. I drew dozens of mini-icons/mascots for the updated map of the location. In the end the hardest part was the layout, which my instructor was kind enough to walk me through, step by step.

I got to do a big presentation at the end and once more she told me that I had a knack for it. As she did in the Copywriting class, she reiterated that if people could learn to do sales they could make a lot of money.
It wasn't until the end of this last semester I finally realized what she was saying: with my 25 years of theater I'm good at doing presentations. I also enjoy it.

The big thing about that class was I finally, after 2 years of schooling, got my displays mounted on the hallway's walls for the next semester.

Semester 8 & 9.3

I studied hard and in the end, I had a great final and a great presentation. I worked hard with my volenteer friend to get the last bunch of shots I was hoping for for my final presentation to no avail. I only learned in the very end what I had done wrong to not get the images I was looking for. Because of my other class I was given the tools I needed to prepare and have a great presentation. As always, I was the only one that dressed up for the presentation.

It was a hard semester but as I drove away from my camera class I found myself crying. It's then that I realized how much I really enjoyed that class and how much I would truly miss it. I saw it as the subtle, humble beginnings of what I REALLY want to do: direct films. It finally gave me a chance to be involved behind and with a camera in a performance-type setting.

One of the reasons I wanted to pursue the direction of my photo's final was my previous semester's web class. I was hoping that with some seriously cool photos of my wife's costumes I could use them to build her a website.
She still has a lot more costumes. So I guess that gives me a reason to keep right on shooting.

Semester 8 & 9.2

For extra credit our class took a Saturday field-trip as a way to make up for lost time, due to a holiday earlier in the semester. We went to an army-surplass store that ended up being more like a junk depot on the outside. Our little group was thus so due to the poor weather. However, by the time we got there we were all shedding layers. I ended up taking over 200 pics.
A lot of them was just trying to catch the right angle or timing of the subject, like the water dropping. I did have a hard time narrowing down the small handful of pics to show for class, though. I had a good handful that I was wanting to show off.

On the way back we got into a discussion regarding the majority of the school's attitude towards responsibility, homework, and due-dates. I was very relieved to hear that my own personal gripes were not just my own and that an official teacher of the school felt the same way regarding the lax behavior and "I-don't-care" attitude among many of them.

I really enjoyed that class and spent a lot of time after class to ask questions. She even let me borrow some of her own filters to play and experiment with. The presure came on when our instructor told me that she was looking forward to my final. I had some good ideas but I'm not sure if her excitement helped or hurt.

Semester 8 & 9.1

Wow... It's been two semesters and I'm only now getting back to here. I thought that if I'd have a 3 week break then I'd have plenty of time to catch up on stuff like this. No. It took me the 3 weeks to catch up from the previous semester alone... and that included rest. The end of the year is the busiest time of the year for us, starting in September, which is my wife's birthday. October is a big deal for us, especially with my wife's costume and sewing at-home mini-business. It's also the month of our anniversary. That leaves November to recover from Halloween and prepare for Christmas, including my school's finals.
Sometimes it seems like we'll never get a break. But we're always glad when we do.

This last set of finals had me running around, firing off final's shots for my photography class.
My theme was using shutter speed adjustments to create special effects for costume movie photos. I grabbed my wife's costumes and wore them, using what we learned in class to create special effects for them.

For the first set of pics I asked my photography friend to help. I had a handful of shots I wanted to get. With his help I was hoping we could nail down at least 3 different costumes. I had no idea how technical it was for real professional-grade pictures and that's what he brought to the table.
I only had so much time and he was not only feeling sick but had a performace to go to that night. He was feeling so ill he ended up not going. Fortunately, his cast was able to pull off the performance without him. It helped that it was a singing choir performance and not an acting-theater performance.

We met at our local church and used the stage's lights to get the color we needed for our lighting. It took us half an hour just to unload the stuff from his car. It took another 2 hours just to set everything up. His new wife spent the majority of the time steaming the backdrop I'd chosen to get the creases out.
Then, the actual work began.

I started with what I considered the lamest of the costumes; a hodge-podge of black clothing pieces with some of the weapons from my collection to create a type of ninja garb. At one point, for the picture to actually look good, I had to stick the back of the sheath in my pant to hold it in place. As a joke, I mentioned to the pair that was the reason why no one becomes ninjas anymore.

The first shot had me throwing sharp ninja shirken (stars) at the camera. I just lobbed them onto a small trampoline so that the camera would hopefully capture them as they fell. It scared my friend's poor wife to death, who was standing behind him, holding a mirror so that I could see what I was aiming at. She finally solved the problem by holding the trampoline in front of her for protection.

When my friend ran out of time I was paniced: we had only gotten through 2 costumes. Following inspiration, I ran around the building until I found a member of our ward who was willing to help with the last costume for the night.
He actually ended up helping me through all of the rest of my shoots and was a great help to me and my wife.

I thought I was mad at my friend for all of the technical mumbo-jumbo he made me wade through until I was able to compare my pictures with his. He then convinced me of the importance for the rest of the equipment he had. I hope that somehow I'll be able to acquire some of my own in time.