(Very) Temporarily Employed.

Yeah I’m pretty bad at this, I know. What can I say, my life is dreadfully uneventful.

Today I went to a staffing agency about a temp job. It will only last a week, but to be honest, if it was longer I think I probably wouldn’t have taken it. It has to do with jewelry distribution so there’s metal detectors and uniforms and ridiculous security, and the more I think about it, the more I suspect it will grate on me, but I think I can handle it for five days. Hopefully if they find me another thing after that it will be something closer to what I’d like. And something that starts a little later because having to be at work at 7 in the morning sounds awful.

I have also been doing some freelance work for a company. They seemed to be happy with the first set of things I designed for them, and now I’ve got another thing to do, so if I can do well with that it could lead to a more regular part time job. So I guess yay for doing something I actually went to school for? Other than that there’s another guy who wants me to do illustration for him, and I was supposed to meet him yesterday but something came up and that has been postponed. He seemed pretty nice and he really liked my manga resume, so hopefully he’ll get back to me soon.

That’s about all I have to report on my life at the moment. Other than I put a couple of my screenprints in a convention art show last weekend. They did not sell. I’m starting to wonder if I should keep bothering with that, honestly. :\

About how I suck at christmas

So there’s some holidays coming up I guess? I’m sure they will be here ridiculously soon, considering that time seems to pass depressingly fast now that I have a job despite the fact that my individual days at work move an an excruciating pace. I don’t know if I have any holiday plans. I mean, clearly I don’t personally, but maybe I do and just don’t know it yet. That happens more often than you’d think, actually. I wish I could go somewhere interesting, but a variety of reasons prevent that from happening ever, so I’m pretty sure I will spend my holidays sitting around the house playing video games and watching netflix. Tis the season to be a boring loser with no life. Oh wait, that’s year round! :D

Anyway, I have a confession to make. I am really bad at christmas. Especially the gift giving part. Before I had the dubious excuse of always being broke, but now I have money that I could presumably use to buy gifts and I don’t have a clue what to do. I don’t want to just sprinkle gift cards around, because that would make me feel really lame, but I’m not very good at figuring out what people would like. I really never have been, I don’t know what it is. I like to think I’m fairly easy to shop for, as my wishlist usually consists of any number of video games, maybe some manga, and if that doesn’t pan out you can’t go wrong with fun socks (unless they’re toe socks. Just thinking about wearing those makes me cringe a little.) but maybe that’s just because I’m me and I know what I want. Maybe those other people I’m totally failing at thinking of gifts for feel the same way. I even have trouble thinking of what would be good for people I do see regularly, it’s pretty much impossible for people I don’t.

Another thing that makes me suck at christmas is the fact that I never go anywhere where gifts could possibly be purchased. I’m pretty much stuck at work all through the week and then on the weekends I feel like I should get out of the house and go to all sorts of places but I don’t, because wandering around town by myself is severely boring, and feels like a waste of time, and everybody who could go with me either feels they’re too poor to go or plain doesn’t want to bother. So I don’t get out until well into the afternoon, I go do one or two things I meant to, and then I go home before I accomplish much of anything because I feel it’s too late even though it’s not like anything will be closing for a few hours, and there’s no point in staying out because I’m by myself and I really don’t want to be. Then I end up doing pretty much nothing for the rest of the day while everybody in the house ignores eachother, and then Monday comes again and I’m stuck at work for another long week, having pretty much completely wasted my one chance to get out and do things for another five days. Rinse, repeat, whoops there went another completely wasted month. It’s quite pathetic, really.

So yeah. I have a feeling I’m going to end up completely dropping the ball on this whole christmas thing and feeling really bad about it, but having no idea just what I can do about it. I’m already being sadly slow with the christmas cards I send out every year. Right now I’m trying to work on those so maybe they actually get to where they’re going on time, but I’m not sure if I can pull it off, especially since I seem to have gone temporarily insane with the illustration. And I’m apparently still considering making an alternate one for some people just because a few probably won’t know the characters on this one? This does not need to happen.

Some feelings towards work

So yesterday there was a long conversation (sort of, mostly I just kind of stood there and listened, like I always do because I fail at conversation) that spanned quite a few topics with one of my coworkers. Included in the rambling were some reassurances that I work here for a reason and I’m adding to this company, which I haven’t really been feeling so far since so far I’ve done very little actual company work, and quite a bit of time killing because I just don’t know what else to do. But right now I’m working on some illustrations for slides for a speech the boss is giving in Japan this week. This is probably something that should be done already, but it took a while for him to communicate just what he wanted, and I don’t think he started working on the speech until he was actualy on the plane last week. So yay for rush jobs, I guess. I’m told this is pretty normal. Anyway, my coworker was so kind as to remind me that my work will be international marketing materials and that people from big name electronics companies will see them. Which is kind of intimidating, to say the least. This is really bizarre, honestly. I was so sure I was going to end up doing something that had nothing to do with my degree, but here I am trying to be a professional illustrator, and eventually an actual mangaka? Even if it is going to be training materials, what the hell, man. I still don’t feel all that confident in my abilities (and please go look at the work of some of the amazing illustrators out there just on deviantArt and stuff before you try to tell me how great I am just because I’m probably related to you—there really is no comparison at all, and I think the only people who are really impressed with me are those who don’t usually spend time looking at the REALLY great art) but maybe this will give me an opportunity and motivation to work more on my skills and improve them, even though I know I’ll never reach the levels I’d like to.

Anyway. I don’t want to be doing this forever, because I do have something else I want to do with my life someday that I don’t think I’ve talked about here yet, but until I can build up what I need for that, I guess this is a pretty good place to be at. Maybe as soon as I get some finished projects done I’ll feel more like I’m accomplishing something here and less like I’m just an overpaid receptionist and they’ll start wondering why they hired me any day now.

So yeah, that’s how it is at work. As it turns out, having a paycheck is really pretty nice. I’ve already ended up buying some things that aren’t strictly necessary, have plans for some more, and I think I’m getting over a lot of my guilt of spending money ever really quickly. Not all of it though, and I’m guessing a lot will come back when I actually start sending money to those student loans, ugh. Maybe it’s a good thing I only get paid every other week, that makes the “holy crap I have some money let’s go spend some” rush happen less often. It also kind of makes it feel better because the paycheck’s twice as big, too. Just the wait is a little agonizing even if I don’t really have an immediate need for the money, and am well used to not having any at all. I am putting a bit into savings as I go, too, so that should be nice to have.

First workish report

Now that I’ve been at this for almost two weeks I guess I should write about how it is so far. And the answer is, it’s exhausting. The actual work isn’t exhausting, but the hours and commute are. Even when I have to get up ridiculously early (at 6) in order to sit in a car for an hour to get to work on time, I just can’t bring myself to go to bed at what most would call a reasonable hour. I am an incurable night owl, probably. I thought I might have time to go and see what’s around this area, maybe sometimes go over to the Chinatown strip mall for lunch, but in order to be able to leave at 5 I have to cut my lunch break down to half an hour, which isn’t really enough time to do anything at all. Sigh. I think I’d really like to move closer, (not out of the house, since it would be good for mom as well since her work is also near here) but of course that would require money, time, and energy. Mostly money, but the thought of packing up our messy house and relocating is also pretty exhausting. It would be a good excuse to trim some stuff down though, I suppose. We’re kind of packrats.

Anyway, as for the actual work…well there isn’t any yet. I haven’t been given much direction, and when I tried to take initiative and design some logos I was pretty much shot down because apparently they’re thinking they need to change the name of the company, and the name it has was accidental in the first place. I don’t even know, but it was very off-putting. It’s really frustrating to me to be expected to create some branding, but not have anything to work with. I’m really terrible at abstract logos, and I don’t want to have to do one just to have something there since the name might change. I’ve kind of put together some website designs too, but they’re also pretty generic because again, no direction. I don’t even really talk to anyone here, because everyone else is in offices, and I’m sitting at the front desk, and I’m still socially awkward and boring. I feel like they just kind of forget about me and go on with whatever real work they’re doing.

So basically I’ve been spending almost all my time here at work studying Japanese. I don’t really feel bad about it, since they have said they do want me to be able to practice it, and it sure feels a lot more productive than sitting around unsure of what I should be doing. Time definitely goes faster if I have that to do, too. I’ve started a blog on the subject also on wordpress, and there’s a link to it on the sidebar of this one as well. It went really well at first, but I’ve been kind of slowing down because I never did learn any effective study habits, and a couple of the sites I’d like to use to study won’t work in IE, which is what I’m stuck with, ugh. But I hope to someday be able to have some solid practical knowledge of Japanese, that I will use to…uh, probably watch anime and read manga, since the cost and hassle of travel have dampened my hopes of ever actually visiting.  But yeah, I guess we’ll see.

Anyway, yeah, work. Right now I’m basically an overpaid receptionist. The phone doesn’t even ring very often, like maaaaybe five times on a busy day. But if the plans they’re talking about go on, eventually I will be an underpaid illustrator, so I guess it evens out.  I’m not really sure when/how I get my first paycheck, but I know I’m going to be entirely too tempted to go off and spend some of it on things I shouldn’t, because I’ve been holding myself back for a really really long time. I already have a dvd and a book or three in mind, haha. Maybe if I just go ahead with it, I’ll get it out of my system and be able to start saving up.

So I’m not sure how this happened.

Yeah, I really suck at this thing. I’m a terrible But um. I guess that this would be a good time to report that I seem to have gotten a job finally. Like, a real one. It’s in Richardson, so I have to drive like an hour to get there, but I’m getting $15 an hour to be the designer/illustrator/front desk person/whatever else for a consulting company. So, basically an actual full-time permanent job, with impending benefits and everything. I don’t even know.

I’m really kind of terrified, honestly. I never thought I’d be able to get anything more than maybe a part time retail thing, and I was almost certain I wouldn’t end up with a job that had anything to do with my major. I definitely didn’t think I’d ever get to actually use my minor as well, but apparently the company does a lot of business with Japanese clients, and there are three people there who speak Japanese, two of which who are native Japanese. So I’m encouraged to work on my Japanese and practice it at work. Of course, that would require me to remember enough of it to be able to use it at all, and my conversation skills have always been absolutely terrible.

Some of the things I should be doing for the company include possibly designing a new logo and webpage, keeping up with the stuff on the webpage so it’s always current, and drawing manga for training materials and such. Strangely enough, the part I’m most worried about is the front desk stuff. I’m terrible with phones. It seriously takes me like ten minutes to work up the courage to call people. I can’t even call people I know without feeling awkward about it. (This is why I never call, by the way.) As far as I know I’ll mostly be answering the phone and redirecting people, possibly sometimes in Japanese, so maybe if I have a script it won’t be so bad. But I’ll also have to keep track of things, maybe make travel arrangements, and I don’t even know what else.

So yeah, I guess I should be excited about this, but I’m pretty much overwhelmed and intimidated and terrified instead. I start work tomorrow, so I guess we’ll see if I choke and shut down due to overwhelming anxiety. :D Maybe I won’t fail at keeping up with this thing and letting people know how it’s going.

You got a what?

So, yeah, I’ve been totally falling behind with the whole blog thing. Again. It’s just so hard to come up with anything to say when nothing ever happens, and when stuff does happen I tend to forget about it. But I guess I should probably put up an update or two here.

I’m finally almost done with school. I just have two assignments to finish up this week, and then I don’t have to deal with it any more. To be perfectly honest, I hated every minute of this class. Maybe it was mostly the fact that it was my third time going over the most boring parts of art history, but I’m pretty sure there was a good deal of despising the assignments. I am of the firm opinion that a history class should never require you to make up history in an assignment. There were several times I was asked to find real artifacts and then make up stories involving them. And don’t even get me started on the highly cumbersome Google Maps research project. I could rant about that for a while.

In other news, I seem to have somehow acquired a job. It’s only part time contract work, so I’m not technically an employee. I do have to drive to Irving three days a week though. Basically I’m working on creating images in Illustrator for use in Flash animations from someone else’s artwork. It’s a really relaxed environment, so I can pretty much wear whatever I want to work and not worry too much about being super professional, which is really a huge plus for me, since I fail miserably at being professional. That doesn’t stop me from being intimidated since I’m not really sure how this whole “real job” thing works yet, and I continue to be socially awkward, but I guess I might have a little money eventually? Not that I will feel like I can use it at all, what with all those ridiculous debts I’ll never be able to pay off, but it’s something…I just hope I have a chance to save it at all and not have to use every paycheck up on bills and such as soon as I get it. This does basically make me the only employed person living in this house at the moment, which is really kind of messed up. But whatever, I’m just a little amazed I’m doing something that actually has something to do with what I went to school for and not some crappy holiday retail stuff. Which I uh…kept failing to actually apply for, though I really meant to. But it all works out! I might continue to look for more freelance work on the side as well. What I’m doing now might be good for the resumé, but it doesn’t look like it’ll do anything for my portfolio, at least not for a while. Also, more money would be great.

Anyway. That’s about it. We’ll see if I have anything else to post about any time soon, though I kind of doubt it. For now, I will get back to sitting here trying not to freeze while I think about being productive. (SPOILER: I’m not going to do anything productive tonight!)

I still exist

So!  I didn’t ENTIRELY forget there was a blog here, but I did forget about it for a while, then forget my password for a long time, then forget about it some more.  You guys didn’t miss much: mostly shuffling around from house to house; putting my miniscule frame to work in moving heavy boxes, furniture, and banana plants; and coming to the slightly depressing realization that finishing my degree at UNT is probably the most reasonable course of action at this point.  I don’t regret coming here, though; taking some time off to assess my options and know what I’m doing and experience a different small fraction of the world actually does make me feel a lot better about going back to North Texas.  In retrospect, I really wish I’d done this before starting college, rather than choosing my university based entirely on a faculty/staff discount, but what’s done is done.

My original plan was to take Van’s car and drive back to Texas, but that fell through since we can’t afford critical maintenance and repairs (which aren’t worth it anyway if we’re not keeping the car).  Instead I’ll be flying back, which places unpleasant limits on what I can bring with me.  I’ll have to do without my broken in transit nice desk, and I’m choosing to do without a desktop.  My PC has been repeatedly frying itself for almost as long as I’ve had it, and I’m going to need to upgrade to something that doesn’t.  As soon as my financial aid goes through (or a computer loan, if such things are available), I think I’ll start shopping around for a laptop, since I find portability is becoming increasingly important to me.

Oh, financial aid.  This year marks the first time I actually filled out my FAFSA ahead of time, like a good and responsible student!  But unfortunately I forgot to have it sent to UNT, which means I still have to get a short term loan just like every year.  I have no idea when that’s finally going to get processed.  I hope I don’t get a dozen different refund checks for as little as 78 cents again this time.

Uhh, that’s all for now I guess.  I’ll try to neglect this thing less in the future!

I’m working! Sort of?

So yeah, I’m pretty bad at keeping up with this thing…but the fact is my life is terribly boring, so there’s not much to update a blog with usually. And when something happens I inevitably forget it exists. So, sorry about that.

Let’s see…a week or so ago I had an interview at a design group in Southlake. I am fairly certain I did really badly at it, as I do at all interviews. I never feel as though I really know what I’m talking about, and I’m pretty sure it shows. I’m hesitant, and end up saying things I possibly shouldn’t, and afterwards everything I think I should have said comes at me in a rush, and I beat myself up over acting like an idiot. Long story short, a week later I got the “Yeah we hired someone else” e-mail, and that was that. Honestly, it probably wasn’t a good match for me. The company mostly did packaging, which is definitely not one of my strong points.

This week, however, I met with someone who found an ad I put up on craigslist and wanted me to do illustrations for the children’s book she’s writing. She really liked my portfolio, and now I’m working on sketches for character designs for her. I’m probably not charging as much as I should be for this, because I just started with no idea what I’m doing and little confidence that anyone would be willing to pay even that much, but I don’t think I can really back out now after telling her, especially with my complete lack of assertiveness and pushover tendencies, but I guess I can count it as a grand opening special or something. Though I’m not sure I’m confident I’ll find another opportunity where I can remedy my pricing easily. But I guess I’ll worry about that when I’m not busy with this project.

So I guess now is the point where I flail around trying to figure out how to run this business. I need to draw up a contract, which I’ll probably just pretty much steal from someone else, since I don’t get all that legalese or really understand why it’s necessary, though I do know it is. We’ll see how it goes.

In other news, I’ve got another con to go to in about a month. I keep forgetting about it. For some reason it doesn’t feel real that it’s there. I almost don’t want to deal with it, but I already signed up and paid for it at the last one with my tablemate, so I’m pretty much stuck. Oh well, I really do need to get out of the house, but I’m a little afraid I won’t be able to break even, especially if I have to get a hotel room. I tried to do the driving back and forth every day thing once and gave up after the first day. I considered finding a park and ride somewhere so I don’t have to deal with parking in Dallas, but I’m afraid I’d have to leave a lot earlier than I’d want to…I don’t know, I haven’t really looked it up…and that’s not really something I want to deal with alone. But anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to put together some new merchandise in time, because I don’t think leftovers are going to cut it. I kind of wish I had somebody to invite over who also had things to work on so we could keep eachother motivated or something…but that’s too bad. I, as usual, am on my own. But yeah…we’ll see how that goes.

For now, it’s back to work finishing up my samples so I can e-mail them to my client.

I went to a con…two and a half weeks ago.

I really meant to come up with a post right after my friend went back to California, but it’s been a while since then and somehow I just now got around to it. But anyway.

At the end of may/beginning of june I had a friend visit me from California, as that first sentence implies. The main thing that happened was going to an anime convention in Dallas, mostly because I was a little afraid I wouldn’t be able to come up with a lot of interesting things to do around here…which ultimately I did not, since other than that con we only went out to Fort Worth for one day, to visit the Japanese garden and a couple museums there. Otherwise we kind of sat around playing video games, which was fun, but I couldn’t help but feel lame about it. I guess if she for some reason wants to visit again we’ll go for a week that doesn’t have a convention in it, and hopefully find some fun stuff to do. That way we won’t be too worn out to do much, too, since we kept some pretty ridiculous hours at that con.

The convention was pretty fun, though I think I only barely broke even there, what with paying for the hotel and table and all. I envy all the amazing artists who I’m sure do much better at these things due to either just being plain better than me or having stuff people are more willing to spend money for. We were surrounded by artists with big walls of their artwork up, and it was all so much better than mine, and also involved characters from all those ridiculously popular series that I just don’t care that much about. I guess it’s my own fault for not being a complete sellout? But still, it kind of amazes me that some people get so many commissions that they’re busy the whole time, while I’m sitting over at my table with nothing to do but watch people walk by and flip disinterestedly through my work. It’s a little off-putting.

Anyway, that was pretty much the big thing about that week. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m really terrible when it comes to activities. I have no idea what sort of attractions are around here, and most of the ones I do know of just don’t sound that interesting to me. I don’t really go see movies because the majority of them sound stupid, and I’m too cheap to go shopping. I guess I also don’t really have a lot of opportunity to go out and find out what’s there, due to not having anyone to go with. Going out on the town by yourself just feels really pathetic, you know?

Since then I haven’t really been doing much. Trying to figure out how the heck I’m going to get a job, something I am less than confident about. I don’t really understand how I’m supposed to even start looking for one that has anything to do with what I went to school for, and the usual filling out applications for retail just feels like a collossal waste of time. Everybody is sure to already have all their summer help, and they hired a bunch of high school kids. I really feel like my almost-degree counts for nothing. But I’m going to let that topic go because it doesn’t do anything but make me severely depressed.

Speaking of my almost-degree, it seems that since I’m taking my last class from another school, I won’t be able to officially graduate until after the winter semester, since I’ll have to have transcripts sent and whatnot, which I cannot do until after the class is over. Which is a little irksome, but after this long, I’ve kind of stopped caring so much. I’ve got my portfolio, as much good as that’s doing me, and it doesn’t feel like anybody really cares whether you went to school or not, only that you know important people. Which I do not. Sigh.

Okay. I keep slipping into my special ultra-pessimism mode, so I’m gonna go find something else to do for a while. Man, I’m pretty sure this whole post ended up a lot more depressing than I meant it to be, even the parts about when I was doing not-depressing things. Huh.

Alumni thing, and also links.

As predicted, that thing in Dallas tonight was full of me being awkward and not knowing what to do. Social anxiety is fun, guys, I came close to having panic attacks at least twice. I did meet the creative director at Funimation since Eric dragged me over to him, which was pretty cool, but naturally they’re not hiring, so it still feels a little useless. I’m just really bad at this whole networking thing. I just don’t understand how to do it, and it’s not like there’s any work available these days anyway.

I really ought to have gone to the Tutankhamen exhibit afterwards, since I ended up sticking around until almost 11, but with the whole needing to buy tickets ahead of time thing, as well as the there is nowhere to park in Dallas thing, it looks like I have completely missed the exhibit. I seem to be okay with that, and am apparently planning on using it as an excuse to follow the exhibit to San Francisco within the year that it will be there. (Okay I kind of just love San Francisco.)

In other news, I’ve recently come across a couple sites to put artwork up for more professional purposes…I’m not quite comfortable with directing potential employers to deviantArt for some reason.

Carbonmade and Artician

The Artician one is still in progress…I’ll be uploading more to it periodically, probably in bursts. These links will be added to the sidebar of this blog. Feel free to spread them around, I guess. They’ll have to serve as my professional portfolios online until I get my own website, which seems like it’ll be a long ways off. My webdesign skills are extremely rusty, and I think I’d rather find someone to help me put one together in the first place.