a few days back.

this blogging about friday and the weekend on a monday is becoming a habit. i m so sorry but you will have to bear with me since this is the ONLY time of the week i actually feel relaxed and on top of work. (then the school week starts again and i accumulate more work for the weekend…)

had 2D on friday and we were attempting to make expressive lines with all our barang barang (read: unwanted stuff dug from home) again. i was at least successful in coming up with two ideas this lesson. and then we all got brain-drained of ideas… jerome asked to buy some of our ideas and that’s when i realised that yes, i think everyone in class is having a creative juice drought! hahaha!
and i am not surprised seeing all the interesting postcards’ packaging of my friends. i think we set the bar a bit to high for ourselves to follow with all those funky packaging! woah, everyone’s one is so innovative and i would actually buy them in a shop! It just makes me so happy to be in the midst of this class of creative people where we are always awed and inspired by each other’s ideas.

then after the lesson went back to hall and then to adm for the awards ceremony. i get to see my dear Errai friends again! that always makes my day. and despite all the rehearsed parts, there were pleasant surprises. the speeches were all short and sweet (with an exception). the photo slide show just reminded me of how much fun we had during the camp and of course aravin’s long speech. a bit long-winded and definitely no where near politically-correct but entertaining! hahaha. we got a shock when he went up the stage!! hoho.

next, the weekend… homework. plus group meet-up for WAH presentation at NLB. and more money spent on art materials. oh and i made another etsy sale (or should i say sales)… it is so nice to have a ‘fan’ overseas. (actually just nice to have fans in general who appreciates your work)

and it has been raining and raining and raining….

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non-school day

today doesn’t feel any bit like there was school.

i did not have 3D due to union day so i woke up later, had breakfast later, lazed in the room updating momshoo flickr a bit, then decided to read the greek art book. was supposed to meet jiayin at adm to vote then discuss art history presentation but i was late. why? i stepped out of my room and just then it started to rain. or should i say.. POUR! the showers are getting earlier and earlier. so i reached late, with very wet feet and slightly damp everywhere else. hmmpf.

the good thing is that we managed to vote, eat and do the ppt before i rushed off for literature lecture. talk about lit lecture, i just do not know what to make of it. the concepts he talks about are really deep and cheem… and those which i can actually make sense of, i do not know how it relates back to the text. argh! anyway, i realised there is something about literature books and the fascination with the taboo topics. i feel that ‘Dream Story’ is very like ‘The Great Gatsby’ not so much in the storyline but more of the overall feel i get from reading the book. they are not enjoyable to read and i feel that i cannot connect with the books at all. they talk about obscure subjects. well, the main thing is that they are just not books which i like to read. the morals are warped.

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rain showers calms the mind.

so despite i was released early yesterday, i went down for the adm rally. it was boring and 3 hours long! who would have guessed that adm students are so serious??

anyways… today had 4D lesson. the lesson is interesting as usual but the assignment (aka homework) for the week is again another big inspiration search. plus we have to mount it, need to buy mounting boards! the assignment about alternate persona was so interesting to listen to! yes, all these unknown things you get to know about your classmates (haha!) and all the wacky guesswork. heh heh.

then visited yibo’s and lynette’s room in hall 6. (sudden THUNDER from outside.) and then went for adm library orientation. i think i am going to be finding a lot of creative brain juice from there! :))

back to the thunder… it is pouring here in ntu for the 3rd night in a row. i have learnt from the last two days not to bother doing laundry as they will eventually be soaked by the rain at night. today the rain started early. just when i thought ntu is like a greenhouse tuned to being hot and sunny all the time! there is something about rainy days which just gives me that calming feeling. especially the feeling of an imminent storm where there are overcast skies and that breeze which carries the smell of rain. the calm before a storm.

(watercolour painting by golly bard from etsy)

(illustration by caram batack from etsy)

(tomorrow is union election day, meaning no morning lessons! wow, so many surprises this week.)

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early :)

i am back in hostel already!

yes, this means that we did not have art history lecture today. BONUS! hahaha! but we still stayed back a while to discuss art history presentation, ok! going to meet on sat morning to do up the ppt slides. *see another sat being burnt…!* anyway, we had a male model in foundation drawing today. and this means drawing the human body aka nudes. it was a first time doing life drawing but i think i did ok. not as good as some other of my classmates, but ok. 😀 need to do self portrait for homework.. and another copy of Bridgman’s drawings.

early day! 😀

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BLOCKMAN animation

Quote

YouTube – BLOCKMAN

i love this animation by YOHEI MURAKOSHI

25th April 2012 update:

(funny that i went back to view this animation now that i am studying for animation history exam. typing the animation name into the google search and i found my own blog post written years ago… i wanted to find what people are saying about this yet i found my own blog post… so i thought, if someone wanted to do the same and came upon this useless blog post which said nothing! Well, i better come back and write a bit about how i feel about it. so here goes.)

I first watched this at the Art museum which was then exhibiting Japanese media arts festival and was immediately captivated by it! i didn’t understand why then but i think i better understand now that i know how to look at animations with a little keener eye and found how to express myself better. The zen-feel of this animation and it simplicity in using just blocks of white cubes building up into objects moving around in space. it is a simple, simple idea yet the film captures a certain beauty of dreamlike fantasy about it. it recalls the building blocks we have all played with as a child and expresses that imagination we used to have seeing that hey! it six blocks and wheels means a truck, another block construction makes it a cow! of course the music also suggest a more digital age like those images of vintage video games when all characters were made up of pixels blocks.

I also like that it starts in a telescope like circle looking into space. the viewer is placed into the situation of exploring space and the animator directs our eyes to focus on that planet, we zoom in and see life, it is like a surprise discovery of childlike play, we are intrigued (at least i am!). then the cube planet disintegrates and it ends with the telescope’s circle showing the view of a new cylindrical planet giving the idea that the film ends but there is more out there, another planet for us to explore and be wowed with (possibly with cylindrical inhabitants jumping around!).

 

nothing much of a story line going on but the tiny discovery of little blocks arranging, rearranging, building up, breaking down, moving just makes you want to sit there in the dark room and watch the entire animation for what is going to happen next… it is meditative and therapeutic in a way.

note: this is all just my own interpretations and opinions on the animation by just watching the film, i can’t read japanese so i have no idea the original intention of the animator.

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trying.

and so i did not blog on friday or the weekend after that.

i have been so busy trying to complete the assignments! keyword:’trying’. yes, i am not done with work yet but i am pretty contented with my progress. i m starting which i prefer more; school days with no time to do work (very good excuse to procrastinate) or weekends with time to work (no more excuse). it is a dilemma.
tomorrow will mark my third week as a uni student. ho hum, i can’t wait. right.

i actually feel like sketching more then doing all the 4D and 2D work. hmmpf. oh well, at least my saturday this weekend is not burnt yet.

on a lighter note… Happy Birthday mama! 🙂
(enjoy the rich rich chocolate cake :))

(lydia: waves* hello! are you struggling with work like me?)

what a depressing post. but not as depressing as ‘My Magic’ by Eric Khoo last night. so sad!

(that floaty, off-to-dreamland feeling)

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that HUMMING sound.

long day! and it hasn’t ended yet since i still have hall welcome dinner.

did not sleep well last night due to some nightmare which i knew was happening but just couldn’t get out from. (i will come back to this later). yeah, so had 3D lesson today about lines. it wasn’t something you could actually plan, just something intuitive which may be easier actually since you know there is really nothing you can do except trail and error. or maybe i was the only one going by trial and error. oh wells.

then during lunch (this is where things gets a little exciting/scary..), steve was going on about how he is not as High as usual. lydia asked if it was due to a bad night. and he said yes due to that HUMMING SOUND. and i realised… ok, that humming sound was so loud that even he heard it! yes, so background about the strange sound before we go into all the (whacky but possibly true) theories. The weird humming sound went on throughout the night (started about 2am) till 7am in the morning. (i know what time it ended because huihuan heard it when she went to the toilet at about 6 something and when she was back at 7am, i woke up and there wasn’t anymore humming.) And it was this irritating constant drone (huihuan says it is like a hairdryer. steve says it is nothing he ever heard of in his life.) which was annoyingly LOUD> and seemed as though it was direction-less. huihuan said when she went to the toilet, the humming was even louder when she opened the door and seemed to be coming from the ‘forest’. steve says that he heard an ‘announcement’-like noise before the sound started. i dunno what is true, you be the judge. one thing is for sure though… i was not the only one who heard the humming sound (it wasn’t from my nightmare though i thought it was. ) and it must have been really loud since steve’s room is so far from ours.

it is kinda scary thinking of it like that. like how we knew there was a noise but we all didn’t bother to wake up, just knew that it was there in the background somewhere subconsciously. yes, so comes the theories of military operations and UFOs fueled by steve’s expressive story-telling and my classmates creative imagination. i really dunno what to think. i am just curious to know what is the source of that noise and how loud it was (who else heard it). it is going to be a weird conversation-starter for this evening’s freshmen welcome dinner, but i will try to ask around. 😛

the only possible good thing that may come out of this whole nightmare cum humming sound is that i may already have some inspiration for my 4D assignment. (and i exchange this with my beauty sleep…)

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drained.

somehow Wednesdays just drain me of energy. it was like that last week and now this week. i hope it doesn’t become the norm!

had 4D in the morning where we went through our diff. advertisements. my classmates’ photoshop skills are amazing that i feel a bit small. but i really laughed at some of the ideas in their manipulation as they were so ingenious! strangely though, we got a lot of health promotion adverts and rival companies’ adverts. hahaha! i actually thought some of my classmate’s adverts were better then the original adverts. i am impressed. then we got another assignment for next week. no break? arghs… need more creative brain juice.

what is my alternate persona? (i dun even know what is the persona i portray with my friends… so i asked jiayin and lydia. i go praised that i felt like i was reading my testimonial all over again! saint-like. haha! but thank you for your compliments!:))

then finally got my matric card (now i can borrow books!) after waiting for half an hour?! yeps. and had western art history. the first group presented and seeing the teacher’s standards… ooh, now i am a bit worried. must, must prepare for ours!

on a lighter note, i happened to meet so many people today so i am happy! (hi wendy, shan, swathi, candice and xinying!)

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charcoal.

another week starts with foundation drawing… i actually drew with charcoal. twice. wow! i am quite impressed with myself even though they weren’t the best drawings. oh wells. 🙂 i realised that charcoal is very different from pencil. and so everyone else thought too. saw the teacher demo and i have no idea how he gets his perfect proportions just like that! erps… need to brush up on proportions.

then we were late for the art history lecture. Greek art. loads of Elgin marbles which i distinctly remember skipping during my trip to london (it was so… boring looking at sculpture after sculpture and not understanding all those greek mythology!) but, ok, the lecturer was entertaining with her attempts to become a Egyptian model (the eye!) and her lecture was interspersed with her weird whines, etc. ahahaha! And i wrote notes!

then went around for cca fair which did not have a lot of booths opened by that time. i still have no idea what to join! there is a wine club and food club and all sorts of strange clubs. some overlap. i should start a sewing club and make everyone in the club help me sew for momshoo products. little elves! but i don’t think anyone would join. 😛

okay, need to get back to 4D…

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ramble. ramble.

went back to nj today… partly due to jianhao’s sms and also because mr lee asked me to take my work back.

i have no idea where am i going to store my coursework and mr lee can still ask me if i wanted to take back the pedestal too?! haha! everytime i go back to the nj art block, it just brings back so much memories! and then there is zhiying, sitting at a computer working hard at coursework. it seems so familiar! and there is val who starts her whole long story about law school…. some things never change. 🙂 oh but jianhao’s hair changed. For someone who was always so concerned about his hair… haha! it was just so nice to be back! 😀

now i am back in the hostel, thinking about the week to come.
and surfing the net.

i think my eyesight is going to go at this rate.

ooh, more info about the rest of glutts. so many lawyers-to-be, two doctors-in-the-making, an accountant, a vet… we really make up a whole array of occupations! how fun. :))

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