A coupla things I forgot to mention:

I got a raise at work (yay!) of eleven cents an hour (boo!). Woo-hoo, I'm rolling in the money now. If I got it in pennies and spread it very thinly on the floor.

At work the other day, a girl's car stopped in the parking lot while I was taking out the trash. She looked distressed and I asked her if she needed help. Only when I started pushing her car (though at first I couldn't cuz she didn't put it in neutral, and I'm wondering why it's so hard) did someone else join in. I did wait a few minutes before I asked if she wanted help cuz I wanted to finish taking out the trash. However, since her hazards were on and she had that panicked stare in her eyes, I figured she was in distress.

It reminded me of the time my car overheated and stalled on the freeway. I tried to pull over, but my car stopped halfway so that the butt-end was in the lane. I tried pushing it myself but there's only so much you can do my yourself, especially if you're trying to push and steer at the same time. It was early afternoon rush hour and there were plenty of cars on the road, moving rather slowly. I called my mom to help but meanwhile, people drove by and no one offered to help. BUT, a lot of people did roll their windows down and told me that the butt-end of my car was in the lane. I think it was nearly fifteen minutes before somebody pulled over and asked me if I needed help.

I kept thinking of that while I was pushing this girl's car. I mean, how dense are people that if they see a lone girl in distress with a car half-way pulled over with hazard light and steam coming out of the front, that they'd think I'm just stupid and decided to park randomly in the middle of the freeway?

Okay, gotta go. SIGGRAPH awaits. Tonight, people from Shrek 2! And they're screening the entire movie!

So I'm guessing all my legions of fans have been watching Colonial House with me. It's not quite the same as many of the other "House" series because this is less about the lack of technology and more about the strict lifestyle of the colonial times. I think the series is focusing less on whether or not they can do the tasks set before them but more on whether they can adopt the attitude of the times and live by those rules. It's kind of painful to see the negative portrayal of Christians (from both non-Christian and Christian point of view, I think), but it's also tough to compare our modern views of evangelism through love and encouragement with the societal brute force as was the case back then. Last two episodes of the season tomorrow (er... tonight?)!

I'm trying to think what they can go to next, and in terms of American history, colonial times is as far back as you can go, I think, without resorting to pre-written-history. I think England's doing more society-related series. I remember reading about a project related to the Regency era and the various society laws and games that everyone played back then. I'm thinking it'd be cool to do a "Native American House" project where halfway through the project the US Army will ride in and herd everyone into reservations.

Okay, more later on other goings on in my life, but my schedule for this week:

Tue -- school, then SIGGRAPH
Wed -- 11:45 am to 3-ish, I'm not quite sure
Thu -- school
Fri -- 8 am to 1 pm, then drive to San Jose
Sat & Sun -- San Jose!

Yay, comments!

Crunch time here. The end of the semester's mere weeks away. I'm chipping away at my projects, but I feel like I'm using a toothpick to pick at the Hoover Dam. Slow but steady? I think not. More like panicked and hurried.

I'm trying to figure out how to support myself if I were to move out right now. Perhaps I should actually try to be a lead at work. The minimum pay is at least $9/hr. Erg. Or maybe I'll just do both Starbucks and Kaplan. I would still be working for Kaplan if their hours were better.

Gnomon, this really great and really expensive private school for visual effects has evening and weekend classes so that people can have a real job while studying, but I'm not sure how they factor in internships there. Hmmmm....

Well, the policeman's looking to close up the student center. Tootaloo.

Back by popular demand... my weekly schedule!

Mon -- work from 3 to 4 pm that got cancelled
Tue -- School all day, hopefully get there earlier to talk to a teacher
Wed -- 9 am to 3:30 pm
Thu -- afternoon class cancelled, evening class still goes on
Fri -- no work, perhaps trip to hair salon w/ Mom
Sat -- 7:30 pm to 12:45 pm
Sun -- church, then 5 to 10 pm

So yeah, my review today got cancelled. I was sort of dreading it, but I can't avoid it forever. It got cancelled, though, when the Manager-Trainee didn't show up (and won't for the whole week) and my manager spent the day tracking her down as well as taking her kid to the doctor. Her kids get sick a lot. Well, perhaps cuz it's where she works, or with three kids (and one more on the way) one kid is bound to get get every other week. Her kids are 5, 3, and 1. BTW, did I mention that she's only turning 24 this year?

I've been procrastinating as usual, and it doesn't help that I'm sick today. I'm not sure what it is, but I woke up this morning nauseous and threw up. I haven't thrown up in a long time. Ugh, it's awful. Your throat burns from the stomach acid, and there wasn't much food I threw up since it had been digesting overnight. Well, my hunger's back, sort of, but I can't eat just anything, and now I'm dealing with body aches and chills, and possibly a slight fever. I'm wondering if this is food poisoning, though I can't think of what might have been tainted. Even the milks I used in the drinks at work were first steamed to 150+ degrees.

I'm wary of taking tylenol or something just cuz I don't want my symtoms to last longer than they have to. But enough about my innards....

One comment I want to make about the movie A Wrinkle in Time which was shown last Monday on ABC. A Wrinkle in Time is one of my favorite books, and I've read most of the sequels. But I wasn't too happy with the movie, mainly cuz they tried to add too much modern psychology into it. The book was written in the 60's, and they tried to update it too much, I think. But for the most part, it is pretty faithful to the book. They probably could have made the bad guy a lot more ominous if they had just invested in bigger special effects and didn't deal so much with Meg's emotional problems. And I guess it was tough to cast a 6-yr-old genius since so few child actors can pull that off. Anybody else see this movie?

Okay, feeling crappy still. I'm going to take a nap. Remember folks, watch Colonial House tonight on PBS! (Oprah had a good show today, too, when she and Gayle visited the colony for two days.)

So Blogger has some new templates, so I thought I'd change it. I like it, though it's not as "cute" as the dog one. It reminds me of the PBS website for Frontier House. Speaking of which, the new series, Colonial House is going to start next Monday. I invite everyone to watch it so when I make comments on it, you guys can respond accordingly. It is a good series. (For those of you that don't know, they got volunteers to live like colonists of the 1700s for five months and taped them. An educational reality series, if you must.) It'll be on May 17, 18, 24, 25 from 8 to 10 pm.

I should be sleeping right now, but I can't. Too wired. I've got four final projects due in four weeks. Yikes. I barely eked out a sound project for the midterm this week. How am I going to eke out a final project? I'm excited about my 2d and 3d animation projects, but if I want to make them good, then I'm going to have to spend a lot of time on them. As the case goes, I haven't improved my model for 3d yet when my next week I should have the whole scene textured and lit, and I need to thumbnail for 2d as well as draw my keys but first I need to buy more paper! Sigh. Don't even get me started on the Illustrator project. At least I have my image I'm going to copy. Basically, it's creating a photorealistic image using Illustrator. How is that possible, you ask? Well, let's just say, it takes a lotta work.

I had a good shift tonight, though I let myself get goaded by the other guys. There's the lead who I usually close with, and this other barista who he's friends with, and every little thing turns into something to rib me about. Sometimes it's annoying, but on the other hand, it does make the shift more fun. Less stressful. Though I do get tired of, "Hey, what I meant to say was..."

Work in 4.75 hours. What am I doing up?

Ooh, Blogger has a new interface. It tells me that my last post was my 200th post. Woo-hoo!

Y'know how I have a tendency to obsess over little things? (Now, it's not every little thing, just some little things. Usually weird. Like, I can obsess over how to save up for retirement, but not over keeping my room clean.) Well, I've been obsessing, but more on that later.

Crunch time, sound project due in five hours....

BTW, I nearly crashed a gazillion times today cuz of a funeral procession. Now it was sad cuz the deceased was an 18-yr-old kid, but the procession was huuuge, and the people in the tail-end didn't know squat about funeral etiquette and took up several lanes. Now, that wouldn't be bad except that the procession on average was driving slower and had their hazard lights on, so they couldn't really signal lane changes. So all the other cars were forced to weave in and out of this "procession" (more like a blob). I mean, I couldn't help but get mad. Dead kid or not, they nearly got us all killed.

Datzit fer nauw.

Tough week. Anybody know how to learn rotoscoping or match-moving?

8.5 hr shift yesterday, though with the 30 min lunch, I think I missed out on any over-time. My feelings over this job is a conundrum. On one hand, I wanna get out. On the other, that may not be the best move. I gotta get myself an internship, but I'm not sure what to do about the money situation. I doubt any regular job will let me take off a few days a week for an internship. Perhaps I'll go the route of actors and become a waitress. If it's at a fancy enough restaurant, there'll be plenty of tips. But one the other hand... I'd have to be full-time at most places to get benefits. Sigh. I wonder if seeing a doctor is all that important.

I keep wavering between wanting to get out of Chino, too. I don't want to be here, yet if it's possible for me to commute from there even for an internship, then I would, just cuz rent's so expensive. I guess I ought to cross that bridge when I come to it.

I've been meaning to put together my reel for some time now. Perhaps it will be deferred yet again to another vacation. Oh well, gotta go. I'm currently butting head with ProTools to try to put together something that sounds original and good at the same time. Oh, did I mention I have no idea what I'm doing?

In response to my last entry's single comment, yes, it does seem like I have bad luck with parking. I mean, I did get that parking ticket last semester (to save a quarter and it ended up costing me $35), then the towing, and last Thursday, they were re-paving the streets and I had to park far away and about twice what I normally pay cuz I got to school early and I wasn't sure how anal the metermaids were on that street (normally, I can ignore the last hour of the usual parking spots). Only to find out that the school was letting everyone park in the school lot even if they didn't have a pass that day. Argh.

Last Sunday we had our church's inaugural service. It was pretty good. The speaker, Pastor Alex Montoya, talked about seven rewards for serving Christ:

1. Satisfaction of Fulfillment of our Purpose
2. Blessed Joy of Helping Other People
3. Serving Others is the Way You Serve Christ
4. Opportunity to Experience the Power of God
5. Joy of Knowing as You Serve You are Going to Grow Spiritually
6. Recognize that Serving Glorifies God
7. “Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant”

That last one.... Pastor Montoya talked about how he slacked off in high school and barely managed to graduate. However, after the graduation ceremony, his father looked at him with tears in his eyes and said, "I'm proud of you." And he thought, for what? And he vowed that the next graduation his father attends, he will have something worthy to be proud of.

Anyway, it got me thinking, when the final day comes and I stand before God, will there be a reason for Him to say to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant"?

On a different note, I worked at a store in Claremont today. Cra-a-azy. They ran out of ice. ICE! I mean, that cuts the menu by 2/3, and 90% of their sales on a hot day like today. Sooo busy. Manual labor for little pay sucks.