when will the hurting stop?

So here it is the end of October... can anyone tell me where it went? I swear last Friday was September... jumpin' jesus on a pogo stick. Last night I slept in my bed for the first time in at lease 3 days... maybe more, not sure. I moved my studio space at school from the first floor with everyone else down to an empty room in the basement with one other guy. It's blissful. No one bothers coming down there to see me so I get alot done. It's made me a bit anti-social and I lose track of 12-hour stretches of time but hey, gotta make sacrifices, right? I don't like people that much anyway.

Speaking of not liking people, it looks like I'm not going to Switzerland because of one man's staggering incompetence combined with his glaring ego and self-concern. The prof putting the trip together was either too lazy or too unintelligent (I have my opinion which) to put together a system of admission for the program. By way of explanation, every study abroad program in the world requires you to at least show your portfolio. This time he took the first 16 names on the list (we put our names and email addresses on a list so he could get ahold of us... this magically turned into the actual "list") and my name was #18. I want to make that man bleed. Or at least some serious bruising. So no Switzerland for me. Instead I think I'm going to take the money I would have spent there and go to Europe for a month at the end of the summer. I'm going to try to get grant funding and make it a research trip for my Masters thesis (don't ask what it is... I have no idea yet).

We got our first snow a couple days ago. It didn't stick, of course, but it was coming down pretty steady for at least a couple of hours. Once it hit the ground it might as well have been rain but it was 32 degrees and snowing two days ago. Here it comes... winter's back!

Ok, I've got to go cram for a mid-term. I'm way overloaded and don't have internet in my new downstairs studio (another reason I get so much done). Also my internet is out at home so I can't make phone calls still. I will get it fixed soon but I am so caught up in school I can't waste the time. Ok, off to study. Hope everyone is doing well. Drop me a line and say hello...

What day is it? Where am I?

I came home from school at 8:00 last night after a 30-hour workday and turned on the shower to get cleaned up. I woke up at about 2 in the morning on my couch with the shower still running in the other room. My apartment is so humid right now. Anyway, hi everyone. If you aren't used to it by now, I've hit that point at school where I disappear for a little while. I need badly to take a personal day but haven't had time in a few weeks. Yesterday I built a concept model for many, many hours and ended up not going to sleep. Then yesterday afternoon I made a pretty nice airbrushed drawing, wrote a paper for Theory and then called it quits. I slept through the first half of class and skipped the second. I thought I was going to come home and have something to eat but that didn't exactly pan out. Now it's 2am and I'm too awake. Grr. I was going to put a couple pictures of my work up but I left my card reader at school so that will have to wait. There's really not a lot to write about... sorry to be so anticlimactic but I have no time to make stories anymore. I can't believe it's the 16th already... geez. I swear it was September a couple days ago. Tomorrow ought to be filled with essay reading, drawings and model making as usual. Hope everyone is doing well. Please drop me a line and say hello... just don't get too antsy for a quick response. I'll post work online as soon as I can get to it. Goodnight all...

A grown man and his blanket[s]

I was getting ready for bed and thought I'd write something I often think about. I have several blankets on or around my bed and every one of them (with one... now two exceptions) are quilts or afghans made by one grandmother or another. I get alot of scowls and finger-shaking for using some of these old quilts, but they're the most comfortable blankets! Besides, I get a real kick out of keeping warm under something one of my granparents made 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Their labor in creating those blankets still keeps one of their family comfortable at night. I know I should hang them on the wall or store them, but what good would they do anyone then? I think any one of the women who sewed these blankets would be glad I'm still keeping warm under them. Thanks Grandma. Thanks Great Grandma. Thanks Nannaw. Sorry if I left anyone out... mom, did I?

I know mom taught me not to draw on walls but...

Hi everyone... thought I'd take a second to check in and say hi. Studio has been crazy busy so I've not had time to write lately. I've been working daily until 12:45am (last bus) and getting sleep every night. This past week I've slept at school twice because I was still getting alot of work done at 12;45. It's paying off though. I have a good project and alot of work done... not enough still but much more than anyone else. My profs like the way I work, design and draw. I've been told I have alot of potential and talent but my hand is heavy and clumsy. Tom Dubacanek (prof) is working on fixing that. I've also been told my designs are clever. Really nice to hear. Another student in studio said the other day that he admired my work ethic. That was also a nice compliment. In all, my work is progressing well but far from done. I am working on my 10th or 11th drawing. I have to design a building today so I can start a model tomorrow. This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving so we've got Monday off... that means an extra day in studio. Yay. So it goes...

Okay, so every semester I take off on some random act of creativity so that I can get all the excess out of my system and sit down to draw lines more effectively. Last year I made the fish. This year I'm doing a mural. Here's my latest scribbling. The people are life-sized... the larger one in grey and blue is my director, Marco, and the one next to him with the shotgun and bottle of wine is Tom. The other collection of random people/squirrels is an evil robot army. It sits on the wall opposite Marco and Tom. It's not done... soon. The mural is in a pit next to the front door of the architecture building. The pit houses stairs that go down to the tunnels. Ok, here are the pictures... gotta get to work.

The original "evil robot army"



This is the current state of the "evil robot army"

Tom (left) and Marco (right)

Jerry Bears marching up the stairs

Jerry Bears as seen from above - that is an older version of Marco at the bottom corner