My Mom When She Was 25!!

So after about an hour or two of photoshopping and my mom's dictating of what color everything was supposed to be, I finished up with this. The original photo was taken in Thailand when my mom was 25, which is a rare picture because she hardly had any pictures from when she still lived in Thailand, let alone any of her from before she came to the U.S. Also, the original picture was in black and white because colored photos were really expensive in Thailand at the time.

My mom borrowed the original photo earlier this summer from my relatives in Thailand. She promised to send it back to them once she found a way to make a copy of it for herself, particularly a fully-recovered, colored copy (which is where I came into play). Now that my mom's off my back for the favor, we need to find a high-quality photo printer so we can send both an original and retouched copy of the photo back to Thailand. =)

I sooooo look more like my dad. XD

Posted 08.19.2008 @ 08:13PM PST [&]
♫ "Un De Toi" by anggun

Short Height AND Short Hair!

I never really wanted to have that short of hair, but I really needed all my split ends cut off so I would stop picking at them all the time and splitting each strand even more. XD I guess it really bugs me because I used to have naturally silky straight hair, and now I'm a dry frizz puff. For a long time I didn't really care about the unusual change from straight to frizzy hair but especially now that I have to look presentable to leave a good impression and get a job (I'm still bitter that I failed to find one this summer), I'm attempting to take care of my hair a little better.

So far I've got mixed opinions from the people who've already seen me in person. Jesse, the most recent to see me, said it looked nice but he preferred my longer hair. Richard said he actually likes my hair short because it makes me look 3 years younger (I guess I look 16 now? That makes Rich look more like a pedophile hahahahah). Jose went and told Isabelle that I had a mushroom cut. O_o When when Isabelle saw for herself she said it "wasn't bad" (so I guess it's not good either lol). Based on all that I'm a little scared of the comments I might get for the photo... ._.;;

I hope it grows back to its usual length soon.

Posted 08.18.2008 @ 08:39PM PST [&]
♫ "Sexy Girl" by 安室奈美恵

A Bad Hunch About Financial & Educational Securities...

"Nothing is given to man on earth - struggle is built into the nature of life, and conflict is possible - the hero is the man who lets no obstacle prevent him from pursuing the values he has chosen." - Andrew Bernstein

My housing search has come to a pretty stagnant situation. I completely threw the idea of living in an apartment out the window due to the poor servicing, low quality, and high crime rates coupled with slacking law enforcement in the more affordable areas of Long Beach (considering it's south of Compton, haha). I mean, the 1900 Ocean Apartments in Downtown Long Beach look gorgeous and are in a really nice location about 15 minutes from CSULB, but at around $1,400 a month, it's way out of my pocket. =( ... I could dream, right?

Now that I've given up the search for an apartment, I'm waiting to see how much further I'll rise on the waitlist for the dorms. I'm currently at #165 and it doesn't look like I'm rising any higher than that, seeing that it's been that same number for 3 days and honestly hasn't really changed much this past week. If I can't get into the dorms this fall, I guess it's just tough luck and I'll have to endure the 40-minute 1-way commute from my aunt's & uncle's house in the Torrance area to get to campus. It's not entirely a bad thing; the only thing bad is the commute, because my relatives seem to pretty much have it made with the house they live in; they...

• have a swimming pool
• live in a quiet neighborhood (no wild parties! I really like that)
• provide food, laundry machines, & Internet access
• are only a few minutes drive away from a couple coves, and
• have a view of Catalina Island atop the hill they live on.

And I wouldn't even be in this housing mess if the other half of my application concerning the fees was filed on time. I don't have $1,200 hanging out of my back pocket, so of course I have no ability to take care of it! I don't even have a job anymore! Which brings me to my next point...

Earlier today I was scrounging around for scholarships. Although I'm already covered by a scholarship that covers most of fees, there are still extra expenditures like class fees and study material expenses that the scholarship won't cover (sometimes amounting to $500... that is a lot of money to me!). So I have to throw money on the table for those. And well, the reason I'm not guaranteed housing like I should be with that scholarship is because of money issues that weren't taken care of when they were supposed to be. And in fact, another finance-related deadline was missed two weeks ago that was beyond my control (but not out of the control of someone else...). And because of both deadlines being missed, I feel like I need to start taking these matters into my own hands because I can't seem to trust other people to cover my ass when I need them to. (Yeah, I really can't cover my own ass. But at least I'm trying!)

That probably sounds harsh but honestly I don't think I ask for that much throughout the year besides mandatory expenses like gas, food, books, or housing fees (really, the only thing that I would have to pay for unless I lived off-campus). My youngest sister even complains about that too, because while she is given a musical instrument worth hundreds of dollars to last her the rest of grade school (5 years for her), and I typically spend about $2,000 per year for school and hobbies, my other sister Ali, who just left for Arizona Western College a few days ago, has over $1,000 per MONTH during the season spent on her to play softball! (Disclaimer: that's according to my youngest sister, who also formerly used to play softball at about $100 per month...) I don't hate the sport and it's good she's gained nationwide recognition for it, but I mean how unfair is that??? My parents even gave her the new family car to drive around in Arizona! I'm still stuck with a '92 Acura that's been out of alignment for a whole year! They give her a new car and they won't finance an approximately $70 realignment! I'm surprised they even gave her the car, because she lost the keys to it at a Wal-Mart store a few days before she left and was lucky she even found them again.

And I'm getting really tired of people telling me to shut up about talking about problems that even I know should be kept in the family. I know I'm not the nicest kid in the family but it's hard not to speak up about something I know is wrong or unfair, especially if that family problem is not being dealt with by that family. It's driving me insane! Then again, some say that those who endure the struggles the longest are those who are the most gratified in the end.

So, point being, I'm trying to win scholarships so I don't have to deal with financial hold-backs anymore. I've tried doing a lot to help minimize the price of higher education for my family and I really, really, really feel underappreciated for all the shit I had to bear with throughout high school and my first year of college to get this far, especially comparing my efforts with those of the other students of my generation. I get a "good job" and a pat on the head for an A in my GPA at a university. Some who get Bs and Cs while in a community college get a new car.

Posted 08.17.2008 @ 07:08PM PST [&]
♫ "SOUL ROOTS" by DAISHI DANCE

The Muse for the Vector

Only because I realized how much I've been slacking, I decided to force myself to throw something together last night. I've never really had to drag myself to my canvases, but lately I've either had too much going on at once or I'm too tired (or lazy) to stick to a project. Either no time or no energy. Fortunately, this afternoon I was able to finish a vector image of Rambu. And despite the time away from art, and from Adobe Illustrator in particular, I'm pretty proud of it.

Click for the full-scale picture. The image is more like a tracing than an original artwork, since it's a vector created directly from a tracing of the photo of Rambu in my last post. But part of me doesn't really want to look at it as a tracing considering that it took at least 6 hours to complete, at least 4 from last night and 2 hours from this afternoon. Sitting at my desk plotting anchor points and setting color gradients for that long is no fun at all, and I was actually about to give up on the entire project after the first hour or two because of how tedious it was. Finishing the first steps of the process were more challenging than I thought! It makes me appreciate how long it took to complete logos for companies like Jamba Juice or Starbucks, or for games such as Flash Flash Revolution. I hope that if I ever get a job as a graphic designer that I can work with a team. It would make things to much easier to complete if they could think at the same level as me, or better.

The Beijing Olympics start today! (Today is the 8th in the Eastern Hemisphere.) I feel bad for the Chinese who've lost homes or jobs due to this event. But maybe I'll save that for a later post.

Posted 08.07.2008 @ 02:55PM PST [&]
♫ "陽だまり" by 信近エリ

Another Fish Friend: Rambu

So yesterday morning Jose rushed both Isabelle and me out of our houses to go hang out and do some impulse shopping, since he was going to be leaving for Northern California either today or tomorrow... he never really confirmed it...

But since we were going to be in the vicinity of two pet stores I took the opportunity to find my pet Guava a new worst enemy! That's right, not a best friend- bettas aren't very good at making best friends. So just to give him something to do instead of swimming in a circle in his bowl all day, I brought home a crowntail betta to go flare his face at in a menacing manner. The crowntail betta's name is Rambu (pronounced rahm-boo), after the fruit known as rambutan, and looks almost exactly like Guava but smaller and with a more splitted shape to all his fins (hence, "crowntail").

Since male bettas are extremely territorial, keeping the two in the same bowl will result in either one dead and one victorious (but going to die), or both dead at once. I had already prepared almost 2 weeks in advance for the ownership of the second betta, which I intended to house separately from Guava to prevent having any soggy miniature fillets made out of either of them. Each was going to have their own territorial sphere.

But although they're separated in different bowls, when I introduced Rambu to Guava, Guava was extremely excited; I was scared he was going to jump out of his bowl at the rate he was swimming all of a sudden. He was apparently trying to attack Rambu through the bowl as though the two bowls were a shared environment. My mom and I got a kick out of it for a while because of how hopeless Guava's efforts were, until he stopped and retired to just idling next to the side of the bowl closest to Rambu's bowl... idling and watching Rambu's every move.

I actually started to feel a little bad for Rambu. He rarely comes out from behind the plants, probably because he's uncomfortable or intimidated by that imposing Guava right now. (I would hate to swim in circles in a bowl all day while another fish is staring at me 24/7.) Also, his body looks much smaller than Guava's, so he's probably younger too. He seems really shy. Hopefully he'll grow out of it and start flaring like crazy soon.

Posted 08.06.2008 @ 01:26AM PST [&]
♫ none