// Finished Junior Year!//

Been simultaneously too lazy and busy to log into Tumblr, but I heard about the new dashboard and had to check it out. It’s not much different, so I don’t understand the hubbub.

Updates:

- I’m done with junior year, woot.
- I might be going up to Portland for a day again to celebrate my one-year anniversary with Chris on Saturday…before he flies out Sunday morning for the summer :’(
- I start my internship w/BookRenter next Tuesday! No break for me =/ I did finish finals on Sunday, though, so I’ve been relaxing between work and moving out.
- I now own an iPad 2, courtesy of BookRenter! It’s much more intuitive than I expected, but still many shortcomings in the availability of affordable, reliable apps and browser interfaces.
- I’m making a yearbook for Cinema Studies. (For those who don’t know, I was on my high school staff junior and senior year and co-editor during the latter.) It’s a huge challenge due to lack of photos, time, and design skills, but I’m enjoying it and am super proud. Can’t wait to release it in late June, hopefully! No print copies though.

And that’s pretty much it; life is boring haha. Hope everyone else is doing well :)

// Majors Blow//

Destiny’s post on majors inspired me to let out some thoughts. I’ve been wondering and rambling about my major for the past two-and-a-half years, but last weekend was the first time I really talked about it with a journalism major I’m just acquaintances with. I’m always scared to admit to people that I don’t really know what I’m doing. She actually understood and said that it’s hard going into a professional school since all you’re studying is, well, case studies.

Two winters ago, I decided that journalism was the most practical use of my interests, but GOD, can it be boring to study. I just can’t get past the agency favoritism/mentality at the school. It feels really confining to study for an environment I have no interest in. While the skills will still cross over to other places, it drives me nuts. Also, I want to learn how to do all these things in the field, not the classroom. I know you can’t strategize without learning why something works and why it doesn’t, but I guess I’m more a fan of seeing it all unfold in front of my eyes.

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// Yes, I did just pull an all-nighter for a project I don’t care about.//

But I cared enough about my stupid-sounding voice to make something more genuine, shoot some cool scenes that Chris helped act out, and spend four hours editing the damn thing into three minutes of an “autobiography.”

As my Gateway chapter closes and I finally enter the upper-ranks of the journalism school, I find tonight oddly funny. During fall quarter, I was so frustrated and worried over the work I produced, but this term, we had a lot more freedom and learned things more relevant to my interests. I somehow became more relaxed and tense at the same time. I put off every project until the last minute, assuming that I know enough to get it done on time. But I don’t. Duh.

This last project was especially challenging when I first assumed it’d be easy. The prompt was an autobiography. Talk about yourself. But I didn’t realize how difficult it’d be to boil down a certain topic about myself into two-three minutes and be able to show something along with my voiceover. I kept thinking, “It’ll work itself out.” But it didn’t. It wasn’t until I put myself in front of the camera when Chris left that I found all these words tumbling out of my mouth. He came back, and I realized that it was all too depressingly honest for the assignment, but he helped me find the good, and I redid it. After acting out some scenes for the photomotion element (my original idea), I spent about four hours putting it all together.

The ironic part is that I did NONE OF THIS using anything I learned in Gateway. Okay, I exaggerate, but the main tools we’d use for multimedia pieces would be a Zi-8 camera and/or Tascam audio recorder and Final Cut Pro. I used none of that. I used my own camera which has an HD video function (way nicer, but not mobile) and iMovie ‘09. THAT’S RIGHT. I discovered how useful it is last week when putting together a visual timeline on a deadline for Communication History and not having FCP on hand. It’s much more intuitive.

Anyway, </ramble> I’ll post the video tomorrow! Good luck on finals, everyone!

// Two Nights of Infographicing in a Row//

(…Okay, that’s not a word, but it’s 5 in the morning, and I don’t care.)

Can’t wait to show you guys my Twitter data visualization for Gateway! It’s more an infographic than a data vis, but it’s only worth 5%, and the experience of making it has been more worthwhile than any grade.

If I didn’t start two days before the deadline, I would totally fix it up…but it’ll do. The first page is so amateur though…I got carried away with icons, and two of them don’t even show up as transparent in PDF form BLAH. (I hate white boxes around images.)

I’m so proud. I mean, it’s really nothing impressive (REALLY), but it’s nothing I’ve ever done before, and that’s a feeling of accomplishment you can’t replicate. (The data is total crap though. I should’ve thought my collection through more, argh!) I really have a love/hate relationship with design. I think it’s gorgeous etc., but I suck at it. I don’t have the patience for it. It’s kind of embarrassing. But maybe I’m on my way. I just need practice. I’ll never be as good as other people, but if I can meet my standards, I’m golden.

</ramble>

// I totally messed up.//

I wanted to take Strategic Social Media so badly that I jumped for joy when a AHA-er offered to save me a spot, with only five remaining yesterday. I knew there was a waitlist. Why didn’t I think this through? I could’ve been first in line instead of another AHA-er. (My competitive registration tendencies remain from Lowell, I guess.) I’m so angry with myself (and for being so confident that I slept past my registration time)! Now I have to find something new to take when there isn’t ANYTHING :’( (The one class I’m signed up for is a pre-req for the rest of the ad sequence.)