There's a lot of great things to being in TOA. The experience of being abroad is already a good thing on it's own, of course. Then there's the fun of living alone. And school is generally great too-- I've improved more in the last two semesters than I have in the last two years. It's rather shocking (and depressing, because it makes one think about how much I could have improved during said years).
Hell, even doing the insane workload is fun. What I'm happy about though is the effect. It leaves you consantly tired and feeling wasted, the result of too many nights spent awake til the wee hours of the morning. It's not just length either: trying to stay creative and keeping your work up to par makes it worse beyond the hours.
It leaves me with a constant weight in my head. Sits right up there, just behind the eyes. It's like sensing the world from the other side of a milk-glass plate. It makes you slow and sluggish, slow to think, and interferes with my sunny disposition.
It's pretty weird too. I used to be able to pull all-nighters no problem. Now I'm sleeping 13 hours a day and still feeling tired after waking up. Needless to say when you're sleeping schedule looks more feline than human, you don't get much time for extra practice in. It's frustrating, I can see the people around me advancing faster and man it makes me want to work.
Why on Earth am I so plastered all the time? Ugh. Maybe Malaysia has a Tse-tse fly infestation I'm not aware of.
This blog's been silent for a few months now. I lost my drive to keep it updated a while back since "I went to campus, had class, ate food, came home" everyday isn't exactly compelling content.
And of course, I also got lazy.
Although, people have been bugging me to get this place up and running again, and I really should. There is some use of a place to bitch, afterall.
It's been 6 weeks now since class started, aaaand as I figured, I'm not updating this blog half as often as I should. Though, really, there's no point in posting the day-to-day class drama unless telenovelas are your thing. I am, however, being more grateful for redoing D1 since I'm getting an easy out from the class-chaos that seems to be driving so many of my buddies to the brink.
So, how are things right now...? With only four subjects my load is a lot easier than last semester. Although managing my time is still a bit of a challenge. (That's a fancy way of saying I'm easily distracted by shiny objects). I'm pulling decent grades though. 10, 9.5, 8.5, 6 for D1 so far. Aaaand... Lord knows what for the other 3 since they're not telling us the gradescore, but aside from Letterforms the lecturers have been giving me good comments-- but that's probably because Letterforms is an unholy beast risen from the depths of hell to feast upon the living and their assignments, all hopes you have for salvation are but dust in the wind. So, I'm feeling pretty good about reaching my target gradescore for this semester; at the very least, I should get a much better average if I can keep it up. Yaaay. I'm feeling pretty charged for the rest of this semester.
In contrast, there's a cloud over class. Some classmates say they're demotivated, and even don't care anymore. Now granted, TOA has a reputation for student-killing; still, it's always a bit jarring to hear it, especially from people who spent last semester full of fluff and sparkles. I can't say I feel the same, I'm feeling pretty charged for the rest of this semester. In fact, I made one of my favorite works so far:
I get a self-portrait project and I make a fascist propaganda poster. Oooh yeah. I wonder what that says about me?
It's been a while since my last entry. Class has fully underway and assignments have reared there ugly head. When I start getting them back, I'll have more shiny pics to post : )
I was off to a rocky start, since my head was still in vacation mode for the first two weeks. I think I flubbed an assignment or two there. Heh. But now it's steady as she goes. I've got a light schedule this semester, so I've got plenty of time to do work properly. Handed in a Design 1 assignment today, I'm hoping for a decent mark, although 3 of the 4 pieces were sadly rush jobs. Ugh, I'm hoping I can still get that A.
In other news, I went to a con last week. ACGCsomethingorother. In a stark contrast that shows the quality of cons I'm used to, and the cons people here are used to, I actually thought it was a pretty lively event with lots of things to look at. On the other hand, everyone ELSE thought it was pretty lame and boring. Huh, goes to show. I can't help but wonder what they'd think of Animevaganza or Animonster Sound. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.
Personally I woul have liked to hang around a bit longer, but alas, the natives were restless. Maybe the next con, since the natives will be cosplaying.
Got my grades and new schedule from campus today. As predicted, flunked Design 1. A few bad surprises in the other subjects as well. (D in [i]Figures[/i]? Oh, maaan...). But also some good ones (2 As and a B+, whee). In the end, it balanced out... maybe even slightly to the positive side.
But I'm disappointed with myself. I'd still write this up as a failure.
I think of this last semester like that mostly because I know I could have done better. I handed-in work I know wasn't the best I could do a few times, and on occasion, just aped the entire assignment.
I have a few legitimate excuses -- there was that apartment fiasco in the beginning of the semester which effects lasted a lot longer than they deserved to, and the unfortunate adjusting to living on your own in an entirely new fucking country where everyone speaks 7 shades of the magical moonlanguage of the fairy people (I kid, I kid...)-- but mostly, I just came in unprepared. After doing mostly nothing for two years, suddenly jumping into serious college work is a pretty jarring change. My time management and mindset was completely messed up and after the whole Palmville bit, I was pretty much racing to catch up. And that's no way to get good work done. Especially because now you're just cranking out crap "to get by" rather than exploring the assignments to learn and sharpen your art-fu. That some of the lecturers said it's a common problem for international students really doesn't make me feel better.
And, in the end, that's why I decided to default on the chance to pass Design 1. Despite the vicious grade-cut waiting for me, it's possible I could have managed to to crawl by. That's no way to grow, though. Passing for the sake of passing is what I used to do in High School. The measure of your success in higher education would be how much you actually learn. So will I'll regret losing some of the time that I get to spend in class with friends, this is a better choice in the long run. (Heck, I almost wish I failed finished art too, because motherfuck, that pop-up could have been so much better, Goddammit... and now no one will know ;__; !!!).
Ah well, at least I'm all set for this next semester: computer, place to stay, work station, bank account, etc-- it's all ready from the get-go this time.
I'll chalk up last semster to getting my bearings, and let it go. The next semester starts on Monday.
Bring it on \o/ !
Looks like I'll actually pass Figure Studies. By the skin of my teeth.
It seems SRA actually sent the OTP offers out late, after the deadline. Because of that, students who offered OTP get a deadline extension to reply to the offer. So I hunted down Lip Wei today and I can go pass up my figs tomorrow. It's a good thing I decided to spend this vacation working, I have pics ready to go hand in already. I just need to hand in the portraits I've been working on for solo practice.
It makes tomorrow awfully hectic. Because I now need to go hand my crap in, get my immigration card, then get to Sentral to meet Sandra and Pee Chien to head down to Melaka. And I haven't packed yet. But it's better than failing :D
I'm sure I'll have more interesting stuff to post soon.
So it looks like I've bombed two subjects now for this past semester. Design 1, which I already knew about, and Figure Studies... whiiich, I have no idea how I missed that. I either miscounted my abscences, or just missed the passing mark.
Actually, I managed to qualify to take OTP for Figs, but I didn't know about that until after the deadline to reply had passed. The letter wasn't there when I checked SRA on the last day of class, and campus doesn't tell you if you get an OTP offer. Aaand unlike some other students, the lecturer didn't tell me either for some reason. If it wasn't for my housemate that happened to coincidentally peek into the OTP box when he went to pay tuition a few days ago.
Unlike the [admittedly] shitty job I did for Design 1, I'd be pretty confident in going with the OTP despite not passing outright. It feels kinda like it got pulled out from under me for this one. Aargh and blah.
Feh. Getting back into school has been harder than I thought it would be, I was a lot rustier than I realized. I did a lot of subpar work and it was kind of frustrating to know you can do better... but uh... can't... do better. (For my next trick, I will switch places with myself! *poof*).
So I'm taking an optimistic view of things. Sure on one hand you want to get everything over and done with, but on the other... you don't want to just get by without having grown as much as you could have. I didn't get anywhere as much as I could out of Design 1, which is why I wouldn't OTP that even if I could. I have the chance to do those subjects properly now, last sem was shaking all the dirt and verdigris off the half-buried corpse of my artistic self. Next semester is war :V
