muzzle

i've just completed day one of week 2 of my second year in the viz lab.  i was expecting to be in the lab late tonight and working through tomorrow to complete my first digital image programming assignment, but i successfully compiled the completed code about an hour and a half ago and came home feeling pretty awesome about myself, especially since i did it with very little assistance from my classmates.  so i got that going for me.

a few notes about my new year:

• the department is beginning to offer an m.f.a.  being that pursuing a "masters of science" always sounded a little funny to me, i think this is a better fit.  so far, the first class in the track requires a whole hecka lotta reading (of really wordy art criticism and theory; you know the stuff i'm talking about)
• i successfully gave my first keynote presentation today (apple's version of "powerpoint.")
• i have three viz classes: 
• the mfa course, which is new for us and for the teacher.  confusion may or may abound. 
• digital image, which is essentially learning the 1's and 0's of what goes on inside photoshop and other graphics processing.  yeah, me and code aren't the best combo, but i'm going to take my early success tonight as a harbinger of promise for the semester.
• advanced animation. this is an interesting case: the night before the semester started, a friend texted me and asked if i wanted to be the director of photography for the project he and his friend were doing for this class that i wasn't signed up for.  i had been hoping to do an independent study of composition and lighting this semester, provided i could find someone who had some models they wanted lit.  so this was literally an answer plopped right in front of me.  cool.  but the professor didn't want anyone working on class projects who wasn't officially in the class (so that you don't bail when your schedule gets busy.)  the catch was that this class meets at exactly the same time as my digital image class, and that one's kind of required.  but he let me sign up for it anyway; i'll just never actually go to class....
• speaking of my teacher for the course i don't go to: check this video out.  the one guy is now the ceo of pixar.  the other guy is my teacher (he also taught my facial animation course last spring, which was cool, since he was the first person to make a computer-animated face.)
• the new first years all look so young.  i try remind myself that they are mostly 8-9 years younger than me, but still...?
• to keep myself sane, i'm also taking rock climbing and beginning country dancing.  yes, i still decry country music, but my sister astutely noted that, i'm living in texas, i may as well learn to country dance.
• the avalanches are my current favorite band of the week.  the whole album is even better than i imagined.
• i also go to the gym three times a week.  i'm afraid that i might not have time to keep swimming, though.  that may be on a case by case basis.
• between finding out where to park and my trips to the rec center, i spend a lot of time walking.  now, one weekly episode of "this american life" is enough.  i'm trying to give "wait, wait, don't tell me" a shot but i haven't quite warmed up to it yet, but i love "radiolab." (thanks for the recommendations, former 786!)  
• "this american life" will always be my favorite, though.
• since i am a second-year, maybe i should change my title from "the king of pop" to "the heir of slytherin"?
• i'm also working 20 hours a week.  more on that later.
• i think today was the first day in 30-40 days that it wasn't over 100 degrees outside.  high-80s have never felt so cool....
• an inside source told me that they will be sustaining a new sunday school teacher next week.  i suspect that, when i said how disappointed i was that amidst all of the calling announced on sunday, a new sunday school teacher wasn't one of them, the bishop may have gotten the hint.  or maybe it was because i said that during my testimony.  who knows.
• for wednesday in my mfa class, we have to show our first visual studies, which makes it sound as if we're all wildly passionate artists who are throwing paint in our studios late into the night, not students who are trying to figure out computer code.  but i learned just enough about the digi-bits behind digital photography today to do some real damage.  i'm thinking of aggressively attacking the code in some of my photographs and seeing what comes out....
• lastly, i'm perplexed why my blog formatting has gone out of whack.  still trying to figure that out.