Author: Teel

Author, artist, romantic, insomniac, exorcist, creative visionary, lover, and all-around-crazy-person.

Drawing Portfolio grades

So, we went over my portfolio tonight in Drawing class, and I got an A- on everything except my Mark-Making assignment, which I got a B+ on. This is good. The different things he didn’t like about each of the sections amounted mostly to my inability to do things I haven’t been taught yet (shading before he taught shading, or how to set up a composition without it ever being mentioned in class) or with differences of opinion (on the Mark-Making project I created a rigid border that intentionally boxed in all the other marks, in an attempt to show that even within such a tiny prison there could still be a lot of motion, energy, and differentiation. The teacher’s feedback was that the border made the whole thing feel boxed in, and although there was a lot of motion and energy in the piece, he wished it wouldn’t have been trapped and confined. I tried explaining that that trapping was the point when i turned it in the first time weeks ago, and I tried again tonight, but I’m still wrong and he’s still right), or worst of all with my inability to draw straight lines freehand on some of the perspective assignments. I have never in my life been able to make a straight line, for years even with the assistance of rulers. I have adapted my work outside of class around this, but am held accountable for it in class.

oh well. As long as I pass, as long as I do well enough that they let me keep taking classes, at least until I get into the painting classes i want to take, that’s fine. We’ll see how the rest of the class goes.

Getting along

I’ve been learning the ropes with Primerica these last few days, but that’s a gig that doesn’t pay penny one until I actually earn commissions, so for right now it’s not something I trust to be more than part-time. I’m trying to get a job with the After Market Company, but for some reason they only ever train people from 4-10PM, M-F. This is bad because I’m in class from 4-8PM, M-Th, and can’t miss class. Now, they’re glad to schedule me to come in early mornings with no conflict with my classes whatsoever, but not until after I do their training. Which I can’t do.

I have a friend working there who’s been there a while and is trying to influence them to offer the training at a different time, and the HR person I just spoke to thought that perhaps their Mesa facility (no idea if it would be feasible to work there, since Mesa is friggin’ huge, and I ride a bike to work) might be hiring; I guess that facility does morning trainings. So, now the job that I know I can do and I know will pay enough is not so much of a sure thing anymore. I still need a job. If I don’t start somewhere by the end of the month, I won’t start getting paid in time to stay current on all my bills.

No one seems to be hiring on technical help desks right now, and while I’m looking into other fields, it’s hard to find something that pays enough that I have appropriate skills for. Still, I’m getting along.

The Ring – movie review followup

Okay, so I’ll admit that when my room was flooded with direct sunlight in the middle of the day I was able to get several hours of restful sleep today. Still, in the last couple of hours I’ve been growing tired again and thought I’d be able to go to bed without thinking about The Ring or having to leave all the lights on just to not freak out.

Then a TV commercial for The Ring came on. Much of what is depicted, while it may seem creepy to someone who has not seen the movie, managed to remind me of everything that scared me about the movie. Fu*k.

Still, the commercial is right; the ring is one of the most frightening movies in a very long time. It tells you what the movie is about, portrays the fear and horror and weirdness of the movie. Oh yeah, and it’s driven me to drugs. I’m going to go take a sleeping pill and hope it can overcome The Ring.

Abandon – movie review

I’m sortof glad I watched The Ring first and Abandon second. I was so scared by The Ring that even just sitting in the darkened theater, waiting for Abandon to start, I started feeling a level of suspense and fear unrivaled by anything in the actual movie.

Abandon stars Katie Holmes, Benjamin Bratt, and Charlie Hunnam as the possibly dead ex-boyfriend who’s still hanging around harassing Katie. That’s right, Katie Holmes plays a character called Katie. Anyway, the basic story of Abandon is about Katie and her relationship with the 2-years-missing boyfriend and the cop just-outta-rehab-alcoholic who is investigating his disappearance. The flashbacks to the boyfriend don’t tell us why she fell for him or why she’s scared of his return, the “detective” doesn’t seem to actually do any detecting until after he quits his job, and my favorite plot was a sub-plot (Katie and her best friend competing for a job at the same presitigous firm) and my favorite character was a supporting character (Katie’s best friend, played by the ever-charming-and-wonderful Zooey Deschanel).

The missing boyfriend begins appearing, but he seems to be stalking Katie. He follows her around and only approaches her when alone, and when he does approach her it seems alternately passionate and threatening. Which would explain why she was scared, if there was any evidence he was threatening before his return; she was certainly scared of him before seeing him again. Okay, okay, enough about Katie’s emotional responses not making any sense and being mostly unbelievable. If I really wanted to go into that, I’d have to talk about her childhood abandonment issues, her bizarre relationship with a psychiatrist, the way she seemed alternately stressed out about being overdue on slash unable to complete her thesis and to have forgotten she’s a student at all, and maybe a few other failings between the writing and the acting to portray believable human emotions and reactions.

I don’t want to say that Abandon is not worth watching at all, but the scariest moment for me was when my mind started to wander and I started thinking about The Ring. A little later came the dreaded moment that ensures I won’t be adding this movie to my collection of DVDs, and will likely avoid re-watching it: I actually found myself saying out loud “well, I’m bored”. It wasn’t time to walk out. It turned out that some of the best of the movie was after that very moment so late in the movie, but only because of the not-entirely-impossible-to-figure-out twists, without which the movie would have been entirely unwatchable.

So, not scary. The possibility that her ex-boyfriend might come back after a couple of years and knock Katie around just doesn’t strike fear into me the way a deadly, unknowable, infectious evil for which there is no clear or direct defense does (ie: The Ring). Zooey was a delight. Benjamin Bratt sure is hot, and shows endearing vulnerability as a struggling alcoholic. Katie Holmes still looks like smooth skin stretched over dangerously fragile bones, a skeleton reminding us of the dangers of anorexia. If you want to see a semi-scary movie with enough mystery to keep you interested, but not so scary (The Ring) that it keeps you up at night, this might be it. Or it might be Below, another scary movie in theatres now, which I plan to see soon.