Harlot of nations; abominations
First thing I did after waking up the day after the last entry was check my mail to make sure I didn't dream the admittance message, or hallucinate it or accidentally turn it down instead of accepting or something else incredibly daft. Hah, well... I get a bit paranoid sometimes, is all.
WTF That Was All About Anyway:
For those who weren't previously informed about my foolish schooling dreams -- I guess that may be most of you, since I haven't really been very optimistic about my chances, and have a superstitious tendency avoid talking about things that are still that uncertain and out of my hands. Maybe it's for fear of jinx, or of false hope, or whatever.
But anyway, yeah, I'm in. Uh. That was unexpected. As far as I know, it's the only university level propmaking school in all of Sweden -- there's scenography and stuff in more places, of course, but nothing with a focus on props as far as I've been able to find out -- and they accept eight people every year. (I still don't even know if that's eight for only the propmaking line or if it's for that and scenography combined. Hum.) And, well, I don't know how many people apply each year -- granted, it is a bit out of the way in the north of the country, and I suppose many people think of scenography and costuming before they think of props if they dream of theatrical design and the like -- but. I did hear that, while most of the applications aren't really up to scratch, they usually have some thirty good applications or so fighting over the spots, so yeah, I was Not Confident At All. Was pretty resigned to try to move down to Stockholm or thereabout next year and spend my next year trying to beat the perpetual unemployment there instead, and try again next year with some more alternatives. But well. Here we go.
I think I did alright with the box-and-book prop work samples (yeah, that was what these things were made for), but had much less confidence in the other ones, especially the concept sketches. They were way rushed, and I usually seem to think better in three dimensions than in two anyway. I mean, with a three-dimensional object, when something is off, you can feel how it can be fixed so much better, yes? But sketches and paintings don't tell you what they need that naturally.
[/ramble.] Anyway, I am quite elated and very baffled that I got in, even though the disaster awareness center in my brain is gibbering incessantly, but then again, doesn't it usually about anything new and unknown? Sure, I'm nervous as hell about not being good enough and not living up to my own or anyone elses expectations. Yeah, I was like that before I went to Edelvik too, and that turned out to be two of my favourite years ever even if I wasn't quite good enough. Almost, maybe, but not quite. Never good enough for my standards, anyway. Sure, I'm still suffering a sub-polar climate that would honestly benefit from some global warming, as gross as the idea is on a larger scale, and with the kind of daylight deficiency in the winters that'll beat you up pretty good. I can deal with that as long as I have a decent reason to stick around, something meaningful to work toward. (This last year... well, I'm lucky I'm not that prone to get depressed, but the apathy... well, it has been a bit rough. No matter now.) Sure, it's quite a frivolous degree to get while the world economy is crashing and burning, not one that ever promises steady employment, and I'll get deeper into debt while pursuing it. Well. This is the thing I'm really interested in doing and think (in my rare but occurring moments of confidence) that I might be able to do decently well, but while I have some good ideas, I just don't have the material knowledge to make anything as professional as I would need to in order to sell my work. Hell, I'd've been up for the get-halftime-crap-job-to-support-self-while-trying-to-edumacate-self-privately route if this didn't pan out, but it seems that I'm not able to get even that in this economy. Had one week of proper work this last year; not unofficial favours and online sales, which counts for nothing in the context. One week. Bit tricky to educate yourself if, despite harsh budgeting, you can't buy any materials to experiment with, yanno? And if I may have to educate myself further anyway, to get out of the 'too much schooling and too little experience for J. Random McFastfoodjoint Bossperson' trap, well, might as well be something that I'm unlikely to abandon halfway over disinterest or disgust for The Man1.
And. I'd rather be in monetary debt than in the kind of mental debt I'd have if I decided to trade away everything I feel truly excited about doing. Besides, after the Babylon tree starts truly collapsing from the inside-out rotting of its trunk, and it's time to cut off those branches that still bear good flowers and fruit to try to find a healthier host to splice them onto2, the collage degrees of most people will be pretty useless, unless they majored in agriculture or zombie husbandry or idk what. Who knows, if I can avoid the styrofoam hurricanes and the giant rampaging platypi3, maybe I can find a niche building scrap metal totem poles. Maybe I will do that even if the platypi are reined in and interred underground for another century or two, and some vestige of old Babylon still stands tall. I could be Dean. I could work with that... I think. Only one way to find out.
1 Ah... Well, you know what they say. You can take the punk out of the scene, but you can't bloody well take off your left shoe and proceed to beat the passers-by with it while quoting Jean-Jacques Rousseau, I mean seriously, what the hell man4!? >:|
2 Wait, that was a reference to a visual I've not previously used outside the safe confines of my skull, wasn't it? No matter, I reckon it is obvious enough.
3 I'd like to state in advance that I had nothing to do with their creation, not even as a concept designer. All evidence clearly points toward Your Mum.
4 Everyone knows that Voltaire was the fun one, come on.
-----
In case anyone wonders -- no, I don't actually assume that there will be semi- or fully apocalyptic scale upheaval of some kind in my lifetime, however much I am drawn to those visuals. I don't really assume there won't be either, but it may very well happen that whatever changes happen will happen gradually enough to give some time for things to adjust. What I do more or less assume is that society and the world will change drastically enough that it is a very precarious gamble to assume that you can predict what kind of system you will live under in a few decades, or that it will resemble this one to a significant degree, or that any of your plans will still be viable. When this economic craziness surfaced, a lot of people seemed shocked and surprised - I wasn't, really. A bit worried, for sure, but I still kinda went 'oh, about that time, eh?' And people say that it all happened because a bunch of people in the States were imprudent with their real estate affairs or whatever, and no, I don't really think that's why. It may have triggered it, sure, but it happened because the world economy is completely unsustainable and built to a large degree on lies and vapour. Obviously, a lot of people are suffering from this, what with salary cuts and unemployment and whatnot. (I may be among them -- can't say that I would have gotten work even without free-falling market economy, obviously, but it can't have helped my case much.) I'm not saying that any of those people deserved their problems, absolutely not. But. I do rather think that the current economic system does deserve to fail, unless it can remodel itself into something that doesn't casually and routinely fuck over a large part of the world (people and planet alike). Will it do so? The magical eightball says, 'sure it will, dear, and these piggies are going to get the hang of how to maneuver their jetpacks any day now!'
-----
Uh, well. I was just going to write something about the school I got into, and how I'm happy and nervous and happy about it. (And nervous.) Seems it got quite long and rambly and pseudo-philosophical and a little bit silly NOT THE LEAST BIT SILLY, y'alls, giant platypi are SRS BSNS. >:|
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In almost completely unrelated news, pirate_moo, being the awesome that she is ♥, sent me a package wot arrived yesterday. Containing a comb. A fine-toothed steel comb. Hah. Ahaha. Mwa-hahahahaha.
Ahem. Yes.
WTF That Was All About Anyway:
For those who weren't previously informed about my foolish schooling dreams -- I guess that may be most of you, since I haven't really been very optimistic about my chances, and have a superstitious tendency avoid talking about things that are still that uncertain and out of my hands. Maybe it's for fear of jinx, or of false hope, or whatever.
But anyway, yeah, I'm in. Uh. That was unexpected. As far as I know, it's the only university level propmaking school in all of Sweden -- there's scenography and stuff in more places, of course, but nothing with a focus on props as far as I've been able to find out -- and they accept eight people every year. (I still don't even know if that's eight for only the propmaking line or if it's for that and scenography combined. Hum.) And, well, I don't know how many people apply each year -- granted, it is a bit out of the way in the north of the country, and I suppose many people think of scenography and costuming before they think of props if they dream of theatrical design and the like -- but. I did hear that, while most of the applications aren't really up to scratch, they usually have some thirty good applications or so fighting over the spots, so yeah, I was Not Confident At All. Was pretty resigned to try to move down to Stockholm or thereabout next year and spend my next year trying to beat the perpetual unemployment there instead, and try again next year with some more alternatives. But well. Here we go.
I think I did alright with the box-and-book prop work samples (yeah, that was what these things were made for), but had much less confidence in the other ones, especially the concept sketches. They were way rushed, and I usually seem to think better in three dimensions than in two anyway. I mean, with a three-dimensional object, when something is off, you can feel how it can be fixed so much better, yes? But sketches and paintings don't tell you what they need that naturally.
[/ramble.] Anyway, I am quite elated and very baffled that I got in, even though the disaster awareness center in my brain is gibbering incessantly, but then again, doesn't it usually about anything new and unknown? Sure, I'm nervous as hell about not being good enough and not living up to my own or anyone elses expectations. Yeah, I was like that before I went to Edelvik too, and that turned out to be two of my favourite years ever even if I wasn't quite good enough. Almost, maybe, but not quite. Never good enough for my standards, anyway. Sure, I'm still suffering a sub-polar climate that would honestly benefit from some global warming, as gross as the idea is on a larger scale, and with the kind of daylight deficiency in the winters that'll beat you up pretty good. I can deal with that as long as I have a decent reason to stick around, something meaningful to work toward. (This last year... well, I'm lucky I'm not that prone to get depressed, but the apathy... well, it has been a bit rough. No matter now.) Sure, it's quite a frivolous degree to get while the world economy is crashing and burning, not one that ever promises steady employment, and I'll get deeper into debt while pursuing it. Well. This is the thing I'm really interested in doing and think (in my rare but occurring moments of confidence) that I might be able to do decently well, but while I have some good ideas, I just don't have the material knowledge to make anything as professional as I would need to in order to sell my work. Hell, I'd've been up for the get-halftime-crap-job-to-support-self-while-trying-to-edumacate-self-privately route if this didn't pan out, but it seems that I'm not able to get even that in this economy. Had one week of proper work this last year; not unofficial favours and online sales, which counts for nothing in the context. One week. Bit tricky to educate yourself if, despite harsh budgeting, you can't buy any materials to experiment with, yanno? And if I may have to educate myself further anyway, to get out of the 'too much schooling and too little experience for J. Random McFastfoodjoint Bossperson' trap, well, might as well be something that I'm unlikely to abandon halfway over disinterest or disgust for The Man1.
And. I'd rather be in monetary debt than in the kind of mental debt I'd have if I decided to trade away everything I feel truly excited about doing. Besides, after the Babylon tree starts truly collapsing from the inside-out rotting of its trunk, and it's time to cut off those branches that still bear good flowers and fruit to try to find a healthier host to splice them onto2, the collage degrees of most people will be pretty useless, unless they majored in agriculture or zombie husbandry or idk what. Who knows, if I can avoid the styrofoam hurricanes and the giant rampaging platypi3, maybe I can find a niche building scrap metal totem poles. Maybe I will do that even if the platypi are reined in and interred underground for another century or two, and some vestige of old Babylon still stands tall. I could be Dean. I could work with that... I think. Only one way to find out.
1 Ah... Well, you know what they say. You can take the punk out of the scene, but you can't bloody well take off your left shoe and proceed to beat the passers-by with it while quoting Jean-Jacques Rousseau, I mean seriously, what the hell man4!? >:|
2 Wait, that was a reference to a visual I've not previously used outside the safe confines of my skull, wasn't it? No matter, I reckon it is obvious enough.
3 I'd like to state in advance that I had nothing to do with their creation, not even as a concept designer. All evidence clearly points toward Your Mum.
4 Everyone knows that Voltaire was the fun one, come on.
-----
In case anyone wonders -- no, I don't actually assume that there will be semi- or fully apocalyptic scale upheaval of some kind in my lifetime, however much I am drawn to those visuals. I don't really assume there won't be either, but it may very well happen that whatever changes happen will happen gradually enough to give some time for things to adjust. What I do more or less assume is that society and the world will change drastically enough that it is a very precarious gamble to assume that you can predict what kind of system you will live under in a few decades, or that it will resemble this one to a significant degree, or that any of your plans will still be viable. When this economic craziness surfaced, a lot of people seemed shocked and surprised - I wasn't, really. A bit worried, for sure, but I still kinda went 'oh, about that time, eh?' And people say that it all happened because a bunch of people in the States were imprudent with their real estate affairs or whatever, and no, I don't really think that's why. It may have triggered it, sure, but it happened because the world economy is completely unsustainable and built to a large degree on lies and vapour. Obviously, a lot of people are suffering from this, what with salary cuts and unemployment and whatnot. (I may be among them -- can't say that I would have gotten work even without free-falling market economy, obviously, but it can't have helped my case much.) I'm not saying that any of those people deserved their problems, absolutely not. But. I do rather think that the current economic system does deserve to fail, unless it can remodel itself into something that doesn't casually and routinely fuck over a large part of the world (people and planet alike). Will it do so? The magical eightball says, 'sure it will, dear, and these piggies are going to get the hang of how to maneuver their jetpacks any day now!'
-----
Uh, well. I was just going to write something about the school I got into, and how I'm happy and nervous and happy about it. (And nervous.) Seems it got quite long and rambly and pseudo-philosophical and a little bit silly NOT THE LEAST BIT SILLY, y'alls, giant platypi are SRS BSNS. >:|
-----
In almost completely unrelated news, pirate_moo, being the awesome that she is ♥, sent me a package wot arrived yesterday. Containing a comb. A fine-toothed steel comb. Hah. Ahaha. Mwa-hahahahaha.
Ahem. Yes.