So where were we?

OK so... it's been 4 months since my last post... well. Lots of stuff has happened where do I start? Actually I know how I'll post up stuff that I was suppose to put up ages ago and we'll go from there. So 2 posts back, here is what I was suppose to post and it was my living room with the new TV. So! Here they are!

So as you can see on the left (hopefully the template shows them that way) is the new living room upgraded to now official geek palace status. Huge ass TV and computer provided and funded by my buddy Dan Carter. This meaty thing is now our crazy ass setup. Most of the time we just watch stuff we download and it's damn good at doing that.

Anyway, luxury stuff aside here's as much of an abbreviated version of whats happened over the last couple of months has happened.

- My friend Jarrett moved out here and is now living on my couch, having a good time except when it comes to his job (don't talk to him about it)
- I finished Grossology finally and I am glad it's done
- Working on a new show called Gerald Mc Boing Boing and it is leagues better then Gross because it's on 2'S!!!! and if your an animator you can understand this.
- Things have cleared up at work with my supervisors so that's all good.
- Visited Ottawa for the first time in almost a year which was a relaxing and enjoyable trip home.
- Family issues came up but wont get into.
- My grandmother on my moms side celebrated her 80Th birthday which was fantastic to see the family all together.
- I got a new bike and it's fantastic as well.
- I acquired a car with the collaborative help of Dan once again.
- and my friend Dan has also acquired a Japanese girlfriend!

That basically sums up the time in between.

So to go over things, I'll go over a couple of things here and there:

So my friend Jarrett is out here and it's been great. While things on his job front have been keeping his mind preoccupied, he's enjoying himself and I'm really enjoying his company and catching up on old times. I went to High School with Jarrett and well the story of how we met is interesting. I'll keep it short. I met Jarrett because I liked his girlfriend allot (Risa Hiriyama) so me not liking him because he's the guy in my way, I got to know him for the sake of doing intel on him. (You know the quote, "Know thy enemy" well that's pretty much what I was doing) After I got to know him it turns out he wasn't a bad guy at all and the best part is that he's my artistic friend. What I mean by that is that I have my 2 friends, Justin and Dan. They are programmers and back in the day they used to bounce ideas off each other to improve each others programming skills. I never had that. But when I met Jarrett I found a friend who I can relate to, and we shared very similar views, humor, etc. So now that he's out here I have a chance to talk with him again after 5 years he went away for Sheridan now he's out here getting a job. Crazy how life works out. Anyway, Jarrett is living with me till his girlfriend Bianca comes out here and then their going to find a place to live (looking forward to Bianca coming out!) But either way it's nice to see that he's here and that he's here to stay for a while. And while we occasionally reminisce about old times, I can only think of all the good times ahead now that he and Bianca will be out on the west coast to roll in the good times!

As for work, it's going well. I still find that I have to stay late nights to get stuff done, but since we're working on a new show it'll take sometime before I get totally comfortable but already I feel that things have leveled out and that I'm making good progress. My supervisors aren't giving me any problems. And generally everything is very easy going so I couldn't ask for much more. (Maybe some more money, but then again that's dependent on my work habits heh heh)

Visiting home was a nice experience. the funny thing about it is that after arriving I realized that nothing really much had changed. and while I've only been gone for a year, the time between felt like forever. But when I got back it felt like I hadn't left. But seeing family and friends is what really made this trip. Cleaning up my house was a very gratifying thing to do as well. For those who don't know me, my house is... well it was a pack rat house and still sort of is. But going through things and cleaning it up was good feeling, my mom needed the push and I'm glad that I could help. And while I didn't fix everything that my mom had down on the list, I feel I got a good amount of stuff covered.

It's funny typing these out it doesn't seem like I have much of a purpose for it... or maybe it's just that there doesn't seem to be any points of conflict in my life and I'm not being as reflective as I was in my last posts. I guess maybe life has been going so well for me that I nothing provocative to say. Or maybe I just can't think of anything to say that I can reflect on deeply. So you know what... I think I'll stop this post here, and until I can think of something cool to reflect on I'll share it with everyone. Because so far it just seems like a long and sort of boring look at how life is peachy.

With that I'll finish it up with this. Life is good, too good right now. But as I know from experience, and not to be a pessimist. But something along this road, I will run into a construction zone, the thing I know I have is that I have family and friends who care for me and it'll make all the bumpy roads in the road ahead feel like I'm riding on a pillow. And for my family and friends, I truly am thankful.
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Spinning wheels while stuck in mud

OK, I realize I said I'd post up pictures for my last post, I will get around to it, but in the meantime I need to get this off of my chest.

My work, while rewarding in terms of how I feel about my work, doesn't seem to be viewed in the same way by my supervisors.

I work with 2 supervisors (they will remain anonymous) and we had a meeting today about my ability to focus, and while most people know me who visit my blog, focus... is not one of my strong points. But anyway, they talked to me about things that I did (like browse the net or watching a video) and things I don't do (like start a huge DS game of Tetris, and apparently distract EVERYONE at work) which I'm getting blamed for anyway.

I'll own up for stuff I'm doing, and thats fine, I do all that stuff in moderation though. The stuff I DON'T do and get blamed for.. wow that REALLY ticks me off!

Perfect example, today we got retakes to do of an old episode we had finished, I had about 30 scenes, but I only got 2 retakes to do. That of which I thought was pretty good. So I do my retakes, and a couple of guys around the office started a game of Tetris DS. So I decide to hop on for a game. So as we're playing, one of my supervisors comes over and says "OK guys get back to work" So I shut off my system and then began to turn around when I hear him say " What, you think this is a joke?" I think someone must have been laughing, but I had put my system down at this point and turned back to my work. about 30 minutes later, I get dragged into that meeting where he pins the blame on me for laughing and that I was responsible for all of that. and this isn't the first time it's happened where I've been singled out. It feels demeaning, to a point where it's almost discriminatory. And I've had just about as much as I can take.

On top of that, I have my other supervisor who knows me from school and I'm sure they've talked amongst each other (the other supervisors) about what I did in school which only works against me. I'm not the most concentrated guy, but everyone is different and it just seems almost like their weeding me out. The other supervisor also works as a teacher at an education institute here in Vancouver, and I can't help but feel like I've got this student teacher type association/ relation with him. and to top it off, since he knows about how I was in school that only means that he's more watchful to what I do during the work day making it feel even MORE like I'm in school, and no I'm not talking University or College, this is High School all over again.


This is kind of 1/2 way into the ice burg of the situation, but I understand that I can do better and will work hard to be better at my job and focus more so I can do better quality work. But what do you do when you think your doing good quality work, you ask all your co-workers how your work is and they say it looks good. You send your stuff in and of a majority of your scenes, none(or only 2 to be specific) come back for major retake work. Yet... your boss can talk your ear off about how my work sucks...

it makes it seem so futile to try harder, but I have to. Not for them but myself. Tomorrow I'm going to talk with one of them so I can get them out of my hair and off my back for a while, the other I'll just have to become a yes man. I am still new to this industry, and I understand I have a long way to go. But the last thing I want to have happen is become bitter in animation which will kill any motivation to want to pursue this field further. And while it seems like the world wants to conspire against me getting into this industry, I'll show myself, and I'll show them exactly why I've come to try so hard to work in this industry in the first place. But I'll do it my way and give it my all.

And now for something completely different!

(Note: pictures will be posted later of stuff.. but in the meantime, the post)

Well it's the 4Th of April and the first time in a while that I've posted something at the beginning of the month. Yup... that's a fact ladies and gentlemen reading this!

Spring is here! well sort of it's still cool outside but with less rain, thank god. I've gotten accustom to rain since I moved out here but man we had it raining and overcast for 3 weeks or something it was pretty miserable.

Any who, I always make it a habit of reading my last post before I post something new and looking back at last post... whoa it was heavy, but accurate to how I felt at the time. So as the title says, it's time for something... completely different.. (If you don't know the reference to Monty Pythons, I suggest you educate yourself on British comedy gold)

Anyway, news news news.. well I'm really busy at work, I've gone up from 1200 to 1800 frames this episode, next episode it'll be 2000 and I plan to see how high I can get with the 2 episodes remaining in Grossology (show I'm working on, it's on YTV and Discovery Channel... I think...)

So money and job are going well, since my last post I've gotten to know more people at the office so I feel that I've now settled in nicely and work life is great! I just need to draw more. recently I've been feeling a little self conscious of my artwork, but I'm sure it'll pass and I'll be back to regular Chan in no time.. wait that means procrastinating.. uh.. scratch that...

I also moved to a new station since last time and I've got a good window view of the city outside but more importantly.. the mountains! the mountains look just stunning when the sun rises every time I'm here at work over night... *cries*

This isn't to brag or anything but we just got a new TV at the house for our MOUNTAIN of CONSOLES (ECHO echo echo...) a nice big ol 50" HDTV and it's.. well fantastic. Plus one of my best friends picked up a computer for it so now we've got computer games and animu to watch on it, but since I work so often I don't get to enjoy it nearly as much, but not entirely a bad thing!

you know what... scratch that.. that TV is the sex.. and I'm pretty much bragging about it anyway... new Command and Conquer 3, full graphic settings.. 50" inches of RTS goodness

Also last week, my bike needed major fixing (I had busted a tire tube but it needed reworking, by brakes weren't braking, my gears weren't gearing, and my handle bar was off kilter, it made for a pretty funny site riding that thing. So I took it in and didn't have it for a weekend. so I had to make it on foot. (Oh noes, the horror your thinking) But it was nice, just walking thinking, listening to music on a nice spring day, afternoon, evening. It was refreshing, but on the flip side, man did it take allot longer to get home then if I had my bike. normally 5 minutes tops, but 15 minutes.. especially when you need to go to the can.. is an eternity, so needless to say I was quite happy to get it back.

Also I don't see why people drive in this city. Unless your going somewhere far or off route, the public transit system is amazingly efficient. And besides... driving in this city is crazy, drivers are either slow or way too aggressive.. (damn Chinese... wait...) and the gas prices on the west coast are.. staggering. we might be one of the countries with lower gas prices on a global scale but man, 4 years ago I was fearing it would hit 80 cents... and now... 1.10.. screw driving, the bike is the way to go when your on the west coast. And with summer around the corner, theres no excuse.

So yeah life is back to normal, feeling much better! but I still need a GF... well maybe not need a... well maybe... ....

But other then that things are on the up and up. I'm looking forward to July when I go back to Ottawa to see family and friends, get a good opportunity to soak it all in before I come back and do the daily grind once again. Also looking forward to my friend Jarrett coming out to the west coast for a job. should be good times, plus he gets to sleep with the TV next to him.. that is.. if he'll actually sleep hahaha!

Anyway, life is good, nothing deep this time, thats why the title of this post is "And now for something completely different!"

Long time coming

Hey everyone out there who is reading this, probably not, I've been spending alot of time on Facebook and it's occupied alot of time I've been spending instead of posting here, so I'm back and I'll try not to neglect my blog spot.

Originally, I didn't post because anything because I was thinking, " How do I follow up my years end/ beginning post? It was pretty epic stuff (at least I thought) but then again... it's my blog I can post whatever I want so here I am with an update on life. Although it's not going to be as uplifting as my new years post, but hey, this is life.

Well, I'm working into my 7th month here at MFW, and work is good and life in general is good. Maybe it's just today I feel I have the winter blues (even though it's not much of a winter here in Van) or I'm just depressed. Why should I be though? I'm in vancouver, I have a job, and my friends are out here. But something is lacking.. and thats the feeling of being completed.

At work, I have friends, but just friends from work. I want to get to know people better, but I feel a distance in the depth of how much I know everyone. Everyone here has gone to school together, so everyone knows each other well. I feel like I'm on the outside looking in. Thats why I try and go out every time the group goes out for dinner run to try and get to know everyone better, but I still can't help but feel distant.

Theres also a bit of office politics that I'm encountering. At least from the group I've moved into. Generally it's not all good, and I know where my place is in the group as the newbie, but this probably has something to do with the feeling left out part. where the rest of my group has been part of this for 8 months I've just come on board. And while I'm not going to get into it.. it's not exactly motivating to say the least...

Heh heh, maybe I'm in a state of depression... because I'm thinking as I'm writing this and it struck me that I might be depressed. I think the factors are a combination of lack of an intimate relationship, home sickness, the rain and low pressure system? Or all of the above.

When I see everyone at work talking with each other as I have my headphones on while plugging away at my work, while Chris my supervisor breathes down my neck... (with good intention) I can't help but feel home sick about my friends from animation and the fun we had. Not to say that it won't happen again, but theres that level of comfort I haven't reached yet with people at work, and it'll come in time I'm sure. But it's something I miss. I guess I was at a level of comfort I can talk to my friends at home about anything. And since I feel distant from people at work, I kinda miss the comfort of my friends from animation. And not just my friends from animation, my friend John and his family. I liked going over there spending time with the kids, talking with John about what new stuff he's going to buy, Misa preparing awesome food. Even being home, and my mom's home cooked meals. Wow... yeah I guess I'm home sick!

In terms of intimate relationship... yeah thats a toughie. I'm positive I'm just not assertive enough, I lack confidence, and my shyness. Just insecure in general. I really have no reason too be this way when I think about it logically. I have a good job, I love what I do, and I get paid pretty decently. However I choke alot or I miss chances. This past valentines day... wow.. I felt like the loneliest guy on the planet... I sort of half ass tried Lavalife but everytime I send a smiley no one replies. heh heh, It's like applying for jobs and not hearing anything back from anywhere, it gets quite disheartening after a while.

I see my friends who have girlfriends and I feel happy for them, yet at the sametime think. "Why can't I find someone that awesome?" I'm not even looking for the sex (at the moment... what... I'm a guy!) I'm looking for someone to talk to someone who I can share moments with and enjoy... haha sounds like I want to settle down hahaha! I don't know, but I do feel lonely in the relationship department... it's been a while since I've had a girl, and a LONG time since I've had a girlfriend..

I tend to also think that, " My work requires me for long hours of being there, so I wouldn't feel good if I couldn't give someone else the time and dedication that I feel they need and deserve" And that kind of thought also prevents me from getting into a relationship. Perhaps it's an excuse, but it's just who I am as a person, but maybe that aspect of me needs to change.

I dont know why it's bothering me so much these days.. Maybe since I'm working it's no longer something to think about, and I've moved on to areas of my life I feel are lacking... and these are what I think is affecting me right now.

maybe my next post will be alittle more positive, but in the meantime for the moment... I guess I'm depressed, but the best part is, these days will pass and so will these feelings. So I'm pretty sure my next post will be a positive one... or not, but hey.. thats life!

Resetting calender with a "new game +" called 2007

The title is a little video game pun, heh heh, (gad I'm a nerd)

Anyway, here we are, 2007. Do we feel any different from last year? Not really. But will it be as exciting as last year? probably not, but you never know?

Highlights from last year were, my sister getting married, and me moving out to Vancouver. Other highlights were cleaning up the pack rat house, and my mom closing her Chinese healing group she had created and FINALLY enjoying her retirement. I guess this year if you think about it. It's been a very family oriented year, something that hasn't happened in a while, and it's great.

I sit at my computer, thinking about all that has happened in the past year and reflect. (I'm also listening to BT (Brian Transeau) - Satellite, excellent song. If you want to listen to something as you read this, this is the song I'll have been listening to the entire time I wrote this post.)

What a wild year it's been. I mean every year has had something special, this year is just as nutty as the last.

It also had me wondering what will even happen this year. I have goals I'd like to accomplish this year, but really since this is the beginning, who knows what will happen. I sometimes envy the lives of people who can live it on the fly and by the moment, and every so often I try and do the same. But my tendency is to think it through well and plan things out accordingly, and well... it's gotten me this far so I have to be doing something right!


I decided to post that picture I did of *ahem* "myself"and I remember it well last year. At that point, I had failed animation. I knew it was something I wanted to pursuit, but I didn't want to go back again for another round. I had failed twice now, and with the new programs curriculum for the 3 year course (me and my class being the guinea pigs of the new 3 year) I decided that it was time I did it on my own. I had many friends fail out with me that were all going back, but that was it for me. Failing twice? I know when I'm beat.. on this field of play at least, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from reaching my goal.

At that time, I also had to consider looking for a job, I didn't want to bum it up and not make any money.

And well... like has happened before... I found myself at a turning point. A point where I had to choose.

After living out in Vancouver the previous summer, I knew that it would be the only place in Canada I'd consider moving too. So it then came down to a choice. Friends played a crucial role in my decision but also... it's Vancouver, a gorgeous departure from Ottawa's rather bland scenery and social scene.

I have expressed this before in previous posts. I have a love/hate relationship with Ottawa (city of origin) I like it in the retrospect that I regard it as a good city to live in... when you have a family. I have lots of friends there (2 to 1 degree's of separation, I swear) What I don't like about it was it's conservative nature, it's cold winters, abysmal night life (and even more abysmal was the attitude problem a majority of the women have in Ottawa), and it's primary industry... government. So it came time to choose.

That picture was sort of a representation of how I was feeling, and.. kinda what I was dressed like when I was thinking about it. (Winter, bumming it up at home) I tried to illustrate a "thinking" expression or lost in thought type idea. Again, I had reached a turning point.

I had a previous turning point back when I was in University. I was working and doing a university course I didn't like. It was a miserable time. I didn't know where my life was going or how I was going to lasso it down. I was working through a course that I slept through, wasting time and money. Working a job I was unsatisfied with. Until I finally broke free and went to College for animation, where I finally felt amongst the like minded, and ultimately, comfortable.

In fact, I don't really express this to everyone but, I'll share it to whoever reads this because who knows. Either you've been there, you haven't, or you'll call me a pussy or emo. To that I say " Your opinion" because these are my growing pains. My coming of age.

After about a year into animation the second time around, my friend Dave invited me out to the University bar which has pub night every Thursday. I decided to come out since my university card was still good for ID to get in. When I got there, and sort of had a chance to gaze around the crowd and take it all in, I realized I didn't fit in. And not that I didn't fit in, its like I had come back. Back to a time where life was guiding me. I lacked control and direction, I was lost. All these people seemed so confident in whatever major or pursuit they had in university. I never had that feeling ever when I was there. I suddenly thought back for a moment about college and how I had felt like I belonged, and how I was amongst people like me. And I suddenly broke down. I went out to the smoking section to a corner and was overcome with emotions. but not out loud or anything. Thinking about college made me reflect on the time I was at university and how completely lost and ambitionless my life was, and the feelings came in a tidal wave. It was like I had taken a step back in time, and it was to a time where my life was adrift. I was out there for a good 40 minutes until I went inside, told Dave I was leaving and then left. I haven't stepped back in that bar since then.

Perhaps when I look back at things now, maybe those tears were mixed with ones of happiness. Happiness in the fact that I had a place I could go back to and be amongst friends, classmates.. and the feeling of belonging.

To the people reading this right now.. if you have lived your life by the seat of the pants, maybe you can't relate to me. But for those who have been down this path, I share my experience with you. For those who haven't walked this path. If you can, avoid it. but if so, I hope that I would have been some help with this story of my life and my experience.

It's wild really... Reflecting on how things have worked out. Is there anything about the past year I would have changed? Nothing, and not for the world.

If there is one thing I can take from the people who live by the moment, it's that I have no regrets, no qualms. I seek to live today for today, and plan for tomorrow. So I say to you 2007, for whatever may happen in the year to ensue.. bring it on!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
- Family & Friends