*update* last night my house was broken into and my PS3, xbox 360 and a load of other stuff (a few games, mp3 players, I'm gonna have to cancel my xbox account and ps3 account, unfortunately my xbox is set to automatically log into messenger... I was happy yesterday cuz i got ratchet and clank future: tools of destruction...

Today's journal title is provided by 'Welcome to the North' by The Music

I'm about half-way through my first term, and currently working on various things, weighting, rigging and animating a walk for my 3D character animation, character creation in drawing and composition, writing a treatment in concept design, various random tutorials in 3D animation production, Scene layout in 2D animation production and finishing off a 'weight lift' in 2D character animation.

I like the fact I got a nice bit of stuff to keep me busy, I just get annoyed with myself if I'm sat around doing nothing to be honest... though not having a PC in full working order really doesn't help.

Start computer junk
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My PC was really messed in the summer holidays and to right the problem I did a full re-install of windows, which I attempted several times, each time it would have massive problems with drivers and the cards were out of whack, plus it corrupted my hard drive during a format so i had to get a new one. So rather than pouring money into this computer getting new parts and trying to get people to fix it, it will be used more for parts and with my dyslexia funding I'm getting a new one.
As long as I get the funding from my local council I will be getting a new PC and a few other things to help me with stuff, like a dicta-phone and some fancy software. Plus I'm putting some of my own money (about £450 from my Japan fund ) towards the PC on top of what the normal specs would have been to get:
2.6 quad core Intel processor
GeForce 8800 (320MB model)
2GB of ram
400gb hard drive

The reasoning being that I want it to be long lasting and effective with the software I'm using on my course.

End computer junk
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Onto the not so fun bit of being back at uni;

Within the space of a week I managed to have my PS3 nicked and a couple of guys tried to mug me - on a side note in a recent channel 4 programme Middlesbrough was declared worst place to live in Britain

The PS3 was stolen as well as my mates wallet, but luckily nothing else, especially not the CD/DVD cases, the HDTV, xbox360 and Wii that reside in the living room. Whoever it was got in by the fact that only the chain was across the door, everyone thought it was locked and the door was forced, somehow without anyone waking up - it was all down to bad judgement and bad luck really. But I got the insurance sorted out pretty quickly and bought a new PS3 within a couple of days, so no big loss to be honest, if you don't count the save games and stuff bought on the playstation store.

As for the mugging I was feeling to nice that I decided that 'yes i will give you 50p to catch a bus' lesion learnt quickly, never give anyone in the street money. The two guys grabbed my wallet, I was knocked to the floor, still clutching the wallet, kicked out with both legs got up and legged it.

I got away with nothing lost from my wallet and gave the police a call later on to report it, granted I was told that I should have called 999, but with no credit on my phone I waited till later till I could borrow my mates phone to call the local police station, then gave a statement. Seems like the same guy had gone on a little crime spree and I'm hoping he got locked up, even the police said I should of kicked the crap out of them.

Granted I'm a bit more paranoid when out on my own in Teesside, but I got confidence in my self-defence thanks to my sei-ken-do lessions.


Well I think I've gone on for long enough, at the moment I'm just cleaning up my gallery. I've started the process of getting a work placement, and until I can get a new PC a make a website and get it uploaded on my web space that I got a while ago this is my link for my CV.

Peace out

Today's journal title is provided by Asian Kung-fu Generation - Mayonaka to Mahiru Yume (midnight and daydreams)
The actual lyric translates as 'Is all that I wish for'

Again its been a while since I did this here journal.

Well I'm thoroughly back home now and I've also been at my portering job for 2 weeks now (£5.35 (about $10) an hour) and its had its ups and downs.

The downs partially being an 11 hour shift last Friday.

Basically it's my job to take a sample here, drop a patient off there, move this and that, which gets complicated when you have 5+ jobs on at the same time which urgent this and that popping up. Though I'm getting to know my way around the big Wycombe general hospital fairly well now.

The first week and a half were great because I was just following a porter around with the other new guy Ian. I didn't have to do much, this was because I couldn't be sent out on my own because of the recent security step up in hospitals due to one of the terrorists in the recent (failed partially due to one of them being too stupid) attack being a doctor at a hospital. Generally, when there isn't work to be doing its a good laugh.

I've had to deal with some very poorly patients, and its not nice to see them hooked up to all sorts of machines, drips and oxygen, looking scared or in pain. I've also had to deal with what is referred to a "rose cottage" (porters carry radios which can be easily heard by people around us) or a trip to the mortuary. It's just so strange dealing with it, admittedly they are wrapped up in their bed sheets which helps, but it's strange that they're here one minuet and gone the next.


Anyways onto something more cheerful.

I've gotten down to learning Japanese, and I now know how to say:

"Watashi wa rampu ga daisuki desu"
Which basically translates to "I love lamp"

Meaning the conversation topic (watashi, with topic defined by wa) is myself, and the object of the conversation "lamp" (defined by "ga"), I'll leave it there for the lesion today kids.

I am actually quite enjoying learning Japanese, when I get a chance at work I go over my book (Japanese for Dummies).

The reason for both learning Japanese and my shigoto (job), well I want to go to Japan after university (about 2 years time). Ever since I started watching anime when I was about 18 (right at the time of my A-level exams). And then I got interested in the Japanese culture through anime, the music, the scenery, the culture, all that kinda jazz. I really like the Japanese Kenson (modesty), for what I've learnt so far it seems like the language and culture is based on respect, giving people praise and modesty.

I think the western world could really do with more of this attitude, there are far too many people who are just too big for their boots and place value in the more unimportant things in life (sorry, I do like the music but a good example of this is rappers, no offence intended)

I want to go to Japan for about a month, and I think I'm going to need at least £3000 ($6000) to do so. It seems like a lot of money, but the world is a beautiful place, and I want to see it. I would love to go many more places other than Japan ( should be going to America after his course, as much a I really would love to join him, I'm just not sure it would be possible considering Japan).

When I go I want be able to speak Japanese to a good degree, but I'll have to see how it goes considering it is a whole new language and work and my course, unfortunately my creative outputs are being hindered by my job since all I wanna do when I get home is rest and not do anything.

I hope to be able to get a good job in animation and see many places in the world, I do worry that I'm not gonna be a good enough animator to do so, but as long as I can put in the time and effort I should be able to do so.

Peace out

I'll be gone when the morning comes....

Today's journal title is provided by Meat Loaf's epic - bat out of hell

Hell i'm in a good mood, the academic year is over and after strugling with the renderfarm at university my first 3D animated movie is done, it's been an awesome learning experiance, it seems like after getting this done i've just learnt so much. I've really enjoyed working my assesments (minus history of moving pictures and professional studies).

Now I've not really got anything to do so after handing in my animation, I actually just lay in bed watching scrubs and southpark and playing pokemon, though I plan to go to the gym now there isn't any work getting in the way and over the summer I want to learn how to rig and animate charecters in preperation for my charecter animation modules as well as work on drawing and photoshop skills.

Also a job would be good, I need the money, cuz next on my shopping list in an HD monitor so i can go dual screen with XSI (which, incidentaly, is being used on fable 2, I'm presuming for animation purposes, I'm really glad to be learning it since more and more projects are being animated with XSI)

I'm feeling good about doing animation as a career, I feel like I've learnt a lot this year and I know I'm only just starting out into a world of complications, which I'm gonna be re-learning my whole life, so it should keep my brain in check.

Still I'm thinking where the hell I'm gonna work or maybe I'm gonna do contract (which does pay more) but thats all a few years ahead of me.

For the meantime I'm gonna relax a bit.

I hope everyone out there is doing well and :hexit: I'm gonna give modeling and animating terry a go.

Peace out

Today's journal title is provided by Jamiroquai - If I like It I do it
I'm feeling the funk right about now

So now I've got most of my work done, now all thats left is my write up for history of moving pictures (in for thursday) and compiling my animation (which currently has 25 CPUs dedicated to rendering it, thankyou renderfarm) and writing a 1000 word report on it.

I've got a lot of work done over the past few days which will be coming up on deviant art including my concept art and drawing and composition.

When I took my sketchbook D&C to herb wiersma (the course leader), he said i seemed to work best with a kind of quick, flowing, rough sketch work. Over the summer he suggested i start using a biro and try a kind of giacometti ( [link] ) style of drawing

I feel great for having done so much work, and I think I've improved a lot since I started my first year, and I'm determined to be a skilled 3D animator and improve my drawing and photoshop skill. Over the summer (as well as getting a job) I want to draw, animate and photoshop and be well prepared for next academic year.

I'm gonna be back home in about 3 weeks, so I can catch up with al my mates down south, though I'm gonna miss the days of dayroom G

Next year its on to wellsley.....

Peace Out

Today's journal title is provided by Lazlo Blane's Superman (the intro to scrubs if ya didn't know)

I haven't journaled for a while now i believe, i think i might as well now at coming up to 3am.

I bin in the dayroom watching 's goldlike skills on guitar hero II which arrived earlier this week after being back ordered, totally awesome game, and freebird is awesome, if a bit of a mission. Also I got pokemon diamond from america which is awesome

As well as God of war II as well, and a load of other games and things here and there, DS a 320GB external hard drive... yyyyea, i kiiiinda spent about £460 in the first week back at uni :S

All this provides an adequate distraction from the looming amounts of work -_-

I've been working fairly hard on my animation over the past 2 weeks (seriously i swear i clocked up over 20 hours or something on my 10 second animation, yes 10 seconds of which i think i have done about 6-8 seconds of).

My professional studies is done and dusted and i'm very happy with that as it was a massive bore.

Still standing... and needing a lot of my time is drawing and composition (two detailed drawings based on 'manhunt' and 'waiting room' as well as 12 pages of sketchbook which needs work), i just need to hand in the written part of my history of moving pictures presentation, and then its concept and 3D animation which I expect will bring a lot of grief due to the time they will take.


I need to work lots, I'm going into the animation labs tomorrow to *hopefully* finnish my animation principals which would make me very happy, then I can get drawing and all the rest done from halls (exept for the animation for my 3D labs which i have to do at uni as they are using XSI 5.11 and i'm 5.1)

It seems manageable, but I'm expecting much worry on my part.

Although there's also my physical state which is making me anooyed, with myself. When i was going to the gym 3+ times a week I was in good shape and happy with myself, but now i'm kinda getting a bit of a belly and i don't like it, i really need to get in the gym, which i was gonna do tomorrow until i thought my time would be better spent on my ICAs.

I've been improving my diet at least (well now i've got some propper food in stock again) i'm getting fruit and salad and tryin to cut down on my snacking, but i really need to get back into shape.

on a sidenote this saturday in sei-ken do we're doing a wall drill, one where 3 people take it in turns to attack you full force (headguards will be worn as well as gloves, but that sure as hell don't mean it won't hurt). It's gonna be awesome in a way... a way that most non-SKD people look at and say 'i like you man, but you're craazy!'

but sei-ken do is the best martial arts club i've ever know, totally kick ass i tell ya, best martial art culb ever - FACT

Good luck to all those who have exams or assesments, to my G and particularly as i have not actually been in contact with him all that much as of late, sorry about that.

anyways sleep time

Peace out