*gasp*

I keep hearing my sisters voice nagging in my head to post, so I'm using one of the small opportunities of time to myself today to do so.

School is nothing but stress and greatness.

No homework so far been assigned in my figure drawing (Visual Translation III) class, which gives me mixed feelings. Right now I consider myself "average" when it comes to figure drawing. I'd like to be better, which takes practice of course, but the extra time I have from not having figure drawing homework ups the quality of work in my other four courses.
whatever. now that I've openly complained/commented, even though the instructor doesn't read my blog, I'm sure next week he'll start assigning homework.

Having a blast in Maya class, we're learning about animation. woot. Within a few weeks, I'll be animating my dragon character. YEAH!

Cosmology is good and blah at the same time. It's primarily a lecture class, with a paragraph or two of response on some sort of scientific/cosmos article a week. If you happen to read any interesting articles, please send them my way (looks at sister and her fiance)
I do learn something about the cosmos in general every class, but only if I pay strict attention. This can be trying if dragon doodles keep crawling out of my pencil.

Comics is also a mixed feeling class.
She primarily teaches gag comics. No Marvel, DC, anime or manga style whatsoever. "Alternative" would be another word for what she teaches. This doesn't stop students from rendering in these other genres though.
This instructor is also a very famous comic artist. She has a few weekly strips in The Stranger. I remember reading them avidly when I first moved to Seattle, and was pleasantly shocked when I learned that this artist and my comics instructor were one in the same.

Now my criticisms.
I adore what I'm learning in this course, and I've produced a couple funny comics, but the structure of in-time class is bordering on rediculous. Basic rules are as follows:

No food in class.
No cell phones.
No headphones.
No computers.
No leaving unless it is for the restroom, and you must ask permission from instructor before doing so.
No coming in late or leaving early.

I agree with no cellphones and not coming in late. Otherwise, I'm back in high school again.
In-class studio time is irking me more and more. First she'll explain and tell us to do such and such drawing exercise. We must sit there quietly and scribble it out quickly, for randomly she'll get up from her chair and say "OK, Stop."
I don't know how define it, but it just takes me back to grade school when it was "drawing time" and we got a limited amount of time to draw whatever we wanted until the teacher said "stop."
As a kid, this of course didn't bother me. But this is college, and my courses are supposed to emulate professional environments. The way she structures class time is suffocating. I can't even pee without asking her.

I'm not asking for all of the above "No"s to be abolished so that I may have them, I'm asking that the students be treated like adults. Of course I'm not going to use my bloody cell phone in class. I turn it off and do not use it in any of my classes, period. This is not written anywhere in my other course handouts, instead it is a recognized courtesy. We're not in high school.
Don't even get me started on food. This class starts at five in the evening, and ends at seven twenty. Dinner time. Again, I'm not asking to be able to eat a full course meal during class, but jeez lemme eat some nuts or something so I don't get dizzy spells when I get too hungry.
My way of being defiant thus far is that I do have little snacks during studio time, and I use the restroom when I want to. She hasn't said anything so far, which is good cause that means I can get away with......eating and using the restroom when I need to. What a rebel I am.
*whew*

And my final class, Illustration Studio, must be my favorite. It is also the one that demands most of my time. It is THE core class for all illustrators at Cornish, and I love it.
We're still on our first project, which is creating an illustration to a song. I'm doing a scratch board drawing to Calexico's "Woven Birds" song.
We then take this illustration and create three "spin-off" products. For me, I'm making a t-shirt, logo/sticker, and a tessellation. It's all due Monday the 17th, so when they're complete I'll either post my stuff here or email them out to family and friends.

Despite my disagreements with certain aspects of school, I love it. I'm also making enough workstudy to just make rent. Which means the folks don't have to help me as much as they have to, which makes me feel better. Speaking of which, my parents were in town last weekend, and it was wonderful to see them again. I hadn't realized how much I missed those times when the three of us would laugh together at dinner. Tears rolling down our faces from cracking up, these moments I will always hold.

One last note.
OUTSIDE of school I have four projects that I really need to work on. This info is for my agent as well (aka my sister)
I currently have two "clients" that I'm doing illustration/graphic design work for.
One, a musician, I need to work on finding the right paper for her business cards and print them out for her.
The other client, a performance production major at Cornish, wants a nice prisma pencil drawing of his truck.
I also need to do a couple things for my sister and fiance. Layout the design/image I will be painting on their ceiling, and make that website banner for them.
My final project is to make a website for myself. I made some of it just before school started, but it's been put on the back burner while I...do everything else.

Spare time you say? What is this....spare....time you talk of?