my schemes continue

oct 23 2024, /diary

and they are as dastardly as ever

it isn't something i think about very often because it tends to just kind of happen to me, but i love to be busy with projects. i'm not really one to enjoy back to back social outings on the weekends or taking a lot of classes in school, but the one thing you can count on is that i will always be involved with/accomplishing something, somewhere, most times. this ranges from internships (i've done a lot of internships), to volunteer positions, to art projects, to events, etc, whatever. you get the idea. as long as it's for the most part self directed and something i'm interested in, i'm there. (on the flip side, i've also quit/dropped an equal number of activities because my standards for any given thing that i'm going to dedicate multiple months of my life to are pretty high.)

my friends tease me because i'm always just a little bit in over my head with projects. i'm not sure who i would be if i weren't always a little bit in over my head with my projects. i tend to bite off more than i can chew, and then end up chewing it anyway, somehow, to everyone's collective surprise. now that shortbox has almost concluded and i've finished all my other major summer projects and events, i've been pondering my next move that will absolutely catapult me directly into the deep end of whatever activity i've chosen. and i want to use my site as a place to catalogue my goals and keep myself accountable. i've probably said that before but i'm saying it again, because it's good to remember. i like that there's a degree of follow through i have to have because a billion strangers on the internet can judge me if i flake.

field notes

since my last blog was on pretty specific subjects and shortbox-heavy, here are fieldnotes for oct ^_^

lit/tv

i have read so much in the last two months it's almost unbelievable. that one post that's like it's crazy how much you can read if you read. yeah. that's me. i have to read ~14 books/month to catch up in time for my goal, which sounds crazy but since i'm not in school it's not so difficult to power through 50-70 pages/day. i have high hopes, but at the very least (barring some horrifying, unforeseen life even that sets me back) i'm on track to beat last year's book count, which is nice. reading really is a muscle and it's also incredibly enjoyable once you get past the initial barrier of making a habit of picking up your book instead of your phone.

the phone/book thing is really entertaining to be because now that my phone doesn't work and i carry a flip phone around (when i carry a phone at all, let's be real), i don't have anything to look at when i'm waiting for something to get done. i am typically pretty good about carrying a book with me when i'm out and about but i really learned my lesson around 2 weeks ago when i went to the bike store for a flat (phoneless and bookless) and spent 15 minutes pretending to browse the one wall of bike accessories, and then staring at the guy fixing my bike when that got boring. #NEVERAGAIN.1

in any case, i've read a few really wonderful books this year i think i'll espouse in my end of the year blog (which i'm quite excited to write), so get psyched for that, beloved bookworms in my computer.

because i've been reading so much, i have not been watching as much *new* tv. don't worry, i still watch a ridiculous amount of tv, it's just all stuff i've seen already. it's interesting to notice my tendency to only really introduce new pieces of art one medium at a time. when i'm watching new tv, i'm typically not reading as much or listening to any music at all. fascinating stuff happening over here in the bonbrain

music

to now completely contradict the last paragraph, i have been listening to new music (although in my logic's defense, it's just black country, new road and i started listening to them in august and september). they are driving me crazyy; truly what an absurdly talented group of people. they might rank 4th place in my most favorite bands ever (after cage the elephant, alabama shakes, alt-j, & grizzly bear). just astounding. i will probably have to make a shrine for them at some point if this little rabbit hole i'm in right now keeps up. ACK! bcnr so wonderful i might spontaneously combust.

art

still trying to recuperate from my like 3 months straight of drawing comics so drawing has been at a standstill but i have started playing with my toys (tochinperegrine) again and i love them dearly. hopefully more of them coming soon (as you will see below). ok that's all for field notes, onto my projects & goals.

my ponieeees

bonwinter

i LOVE the winter. i'm always at my most lively in the cold and the dark, and i don't want to hear it from the people who complain about how the sun goes to sleep at 6pm. i don't care. i love it. please get yourself a UV lamp like you are a reptile and leave me out of it. i love the angle of winter light and i love not getting heat rashes in the middle of standing around out of doors. the winter is the best time of the year and the even better part about this winter in particular is that i'm not in school, which means all of the best time for me to being doing things is going to to be free for me to actually do things for the first time in years. how lovely!

first things first, i must make a concerted effort to finish at least 5 large oil paintings for my body of work. i've almost completed one so far (i'm on the fence if i'm going to do anything else to it), and i'm halfway through my second. i have been offered a space to exhibit my works in as long as i get them done within a year and i think i can swing it but it might be close. i have a few different projects in mind for the exhibit in question, oil paintings being just one aspect of it, but those are generally the most time consuming and therefore highest on the priority list.

i need to publish a magazine with a friend, desperately, because it would be fun and awesome and i love graphic design. i've been collecting different magazines for inspiration over the last couple of months and i think i'm at a point where i could definitely pull one off. this is more of a personal project that probably won't go up onto this site so i'm just going to leave it at that. but it WILL happen.

very rough 12fps tochinperegrine animation in the works ^_^ this took me 4 hours and i'm very proud.

i am going to learn to animate before the end of the year, i've already gotten substantially further in the last couple of days than i have in like 10 years. animating is one of those things where my brain needed to develop enough to be able to metabolize the process conceptually; i've always struggled with the very nebulous concept of timing in animation and that really put me off for a long time. but now that i've cleared that hurdle and understand that i can put frames wherever i want as long as it makes sense and looks nice, i'm on my way. i would like to be proficient in animation for a couple of reasons: 1) it's fun and i want to make tochinperegrine videos and 2) (the real reason) i have one-sided beef with an animation student and also with the art-school pipeline at large and i want to prove to myself that i don't need to go through academic art hell to be good at something that intimidates me. this is a question of scholarship and follow through.

speaking of scholarship and follow through, i found an old calc textbook in a little library which i intend to finish. i flipped through it and found a word problem to do with a peregrine falcon and now i'm contractually obligated by my obsession with my ocs & birds to learn enough calc to be able to complete that question. i'm assuming i'm not going to finish the entire book but i think that my peregrine falcon question completion metric is pretty good. i've already done 30-odd questions from the first unit which is mostly just review of inequalities and quadratics (isn't in interesting how the concepts you spent entire semesters trying to understand can suddenly be compressed into a single chapter and still be understood?). i'm not really what you would call a math person but i enjoy understanding things and the practice problems are little puzzles that bring a sense of concrete satisfaction and joy when completed.

some more nebulous concepts of projects i've been noodling with include: 3d printing figurines at the library, starting work on a new graphic novel for fun, sewing and crocheting and doing embroidery, making mask chains, writing more essays, writing more fiction and writing it in spanish.

and of course, my spillover goals from the summer: practice my piano more, read my hort textbooks, catch up on my reading goal (only 13 books behind now!), maintain my site and finish some pages i've had on the backburner for ages now, and watch star trek!

roundup

1^ i've had to go back to the same bikestore like 4 times since that day and i have been well prepared every time since.

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