Desktop Publishing Hiccups
You mean to tell me that my comeback post was nearly a month and a half ago? I suck.
I've been wanting to document the past few weeks for well.. the past few weeks. Crap... I'm trying to break my 2-space after period habit because since I'm in week 4 of my Desktop Publishing Course here at the Webster University, I've learned that it's just as grammatically acceptable as the 2 spaces we all were taught in high school typewriting class. Plus, it's a space saver.
I'm learning InDesign which is the program formerly known as Quark (right?). That's what I hear anyway. It has been going pretty well as I've mastered turning text into numerical columns and creating text blocks in reverse colored type. All is going rather smoothly. Aside from one or two hiccups that keep us in class the full four hours.
Hiccup #1:
If I recall his name correctly, it's Kwan. He's a very enthusiastic and pleasant-enough Asian gentleman who sits across from me in the Mac lab on campus. He is completely lost in this course, bless him. After our instructor (who bears an uncanny to the non-animated version of Peter Griffin -- I just know he's gonna show up to class one night with a white shirt, green pants, and sucking a frankfurter through his nostril any given day) gives simple instructions which I complete. Kwan needs the process explained again at his station.
His English is quite broken which takes me on an empathy trip. I immediately picture myself in China (that's my best guess as his homeland) trying to learn this in Chinese whilst all the other students in class wanna take me out after class like planes surrounding Godzilla downtown.
I can forgive Kwan because he is truly working his hardest on this class. Here's proof.
This past Tuesday afternoon, I visited the Mac lab because I'm too cheap to shell out 500 quid to have the program at home. I walked in to find Kwan in the corner of the lab by the window. Of course, the 2 seats next to him was open. He greeted me and patted his hand on the chair next to him with a smile. "Prepare to play tutor," I said to myself and I forced a smile and sat two chairs over instead. I didn't see a time clock...
It was callas and I'm not proud of it. But, I had my own homework to complete for class the following night which was a tri-panel duplex brochure and the notion of kerning versus scaling was still a little green to me. I also had Principal Blackman (my 30 gig iPod) with me for concentration assistance. It was 3 minutes later when I had to pause Bloc Party - "Helicopter (Weird Science featuring Peaches mix)" for the first of a number of questions from Kwan.
"Um hi. How big is Heading supposed be?"
10 seconds later
"Ah sorry, Leading instead?"
4 minutes later
"Um hi. What are you doing your homework on?"
"Mine's on chocolate."
10 minutes later
"Um hi. Where does the text come from?"
"Where do I get that? Write it? How do I save as .txt?"
"Where is MS Word on here?"
8 minutes later
"Um hi. Where did you get your photos from?"
"Internet?"
"How do I save to flash drive?"
This went on for 3 and a half hours. My homework should have taken half the amount of time. Again, I didn't mind helping but if Kwan is lost simply downloading a photo from the internet, you could see where my hands were full.
I considered migrating to the other Mac lab to get on with it and say "eh, good luck Kwan!" Because I have the bad luck and paranoia of mid-90's Margot Kidder, I'm sure he would see me as he walked by. Who would be a schmuck? Let me find a mirror.
I hope he passes the class. Despite his struggles, he's really trying his best unlike Hiccup #2.
Hiccup #2
In my mind, I've called this guy so many names that I just can't seem to decide on which one reference here. Perhaps, I'll go through them all. His real name may be Adam or something like that. Let's start with "Sockcap."
Sockcap walked into week one with an aura of self-assurance. He was a typical metrosexual-wannabe with the sockcap, flared jeans, biking boots, stripy scarf, BLT and mayonnaise wrap and 32 ounce wax cup of soda in tote to a computer lab, and a slightly bewildered expression.
Who brings a full dinner to a computer lab only to eat it directly in front of the giant Mac machine and in front of the instructor?
Sockcap became Hot Dumbass.
As Hot Dumbass chose the station also across from me next to Kwan, I observed that he had a secret. A secret so horrible that it's covered at all times by his sockcap. He removed his sockcap to scratch his head and it was revealed.
His forehead is covered in acne. These are not piddly whiteheads but his forehead resembled a candy apple cobblestone muffin. Hence the sockcap - hence the source, allegedly. The blemish landscape travels not south of the brow otherwise, he would come to Webster in a ski mask or as a member of Daft Punk or The Knife.
Hot Dumbass then became Cobblestone Head.
I would be a total heel if I chose this reason to dislike the Cobbie. As I said before, I can forgive and understand why Kwan needs additional assistance in class. I have a great deal of trouble forgiving Cobbie because he's has less of a clue than Kwan. What PusBubbles has is a failure to communicate because during Peter Griffin's lectures, he's constantly text messaging someone on his phone.
PusBubbles: I like that.
When the time come to apply what was taught to us, PusBubbles is completely lost and asks stupid questions (yes, stupid questions exist to some persons) which were clear to the rest of the class. I became irritated at this during week 2 when I realized that we, the students wouldn't have a chance to escape until around 9:15 when we could leave by 8:30 if we didn't have to keep PusBubbles' pace of applied ignorance.
Last week, he enjoyed a Snickers Bar during our classwork. Brilliant. I'll bet the stick of butter he devoured upon walking in the door of his apartment was tasty too.
The saddest thing of all is Kwan's only helpful reference is the GooeyFountainHead initially. Lately, Kwan has figured out that it's best to ask the instructor or the cute (but engaged) guy next to him. I really hope Kwan passes the class and does okay.
GooeyFountainHead has now replaced Bubbles.
Four weeks have passed with another four to go. I'm pretty confident that I'll do well. I'm not as confident that I'm going to keep my mouth shut when SplAdam is texting again when he should be learning.
Cool! LiveJournal automatically formats one space after periods. So much for my subtleties in this post.
I've been wanting to document the past few weeks for well.. the past few weeks. Crap... I'm trying to break my 2-space after period habit because since I'm in week 4 of my Desktop Publishing Course here at the Webster University, I've learned that it's just as grammatically acceptable as the 2 spaces we all were taught in high school typewriting class. Plus, it's a space saver.
I'm learning InDesign which is the program formerly known as Quark (right?). That's what I hear anyway. It has been going pretty well as I've mastered turning text into numerical columns and creating text blocks in reverse colored type. All is going rather smoothly. Aside from one or two hiccups that keep us in class the full four hours.
Hiccup #1:
If I recall his name correctly, it's Kwan. He's a very enthusiastic and pleasant-enough Asian gentleman who sits across from me in the Mac lab on campus. He is completely lost in this course, bless him. After our instructor (who bears an uncanny to the non-animated version of Peter Griffin -- I just know he's gonna show up to class one night with a white shirt, green pants, and sucking a frankfurter through his nostril any given day) gives simple instructions which I complete. Kwan needs the process explained again at his station.
His English is quite broken which takes me on an empathy trip. I immediately picture myself in China (that's my best guess as his homeland) trying to learn this in Chinese whilst all the other students in class wanna take me out after class like planes surrounding Godzilla downtown.
I can forgive Kwan because he is truly working his hardest on this class. Here's proof.
This past Tuesday afternoon, I visited the Mac lab because I'm too cheap to shell out 500 quid to have the program at home. I walked in to find Kwan in the corner of the lab by the window. Of course, the 2 seats next to him was open. He greeted me and patted his hand on the chair next to him with a smile. "Prepare to play tutor," I said to myself and I forced a smile and sat two chairs over instead. I didn't see a time clock...
It was callas and I'm not proud of it. But, I had my own homework to complete for class the following night which was a tri-panel duplex brochure and the notion of kerning versus scaling was still a little green to me. I also had Principal Blackman (my 30 gig iPod) with me for concentration assistance. It was 3 minutes later when I had to pause Bloc Party - "Helicopter (Weird Science featuring Peaches mix)" for the first of a number of questions from Kwan.
"Um hi. How big is Heading supposed be?"
10 seconds later
"Ah sorry, Leading instead?"
4 minutes later
"Um hi. What are you doing your homework on?"
"Mine's on chocolate."
10 minutes later
"Um hi. Where does the text come from?"
"Where do I get that? Write it? How do I save as .txt?"
"Where is MS Word on here?"
8 minutes later
"Um hi. Where did you get your photos from?"
"Internet?"
"How do I save to flash drive?"
This went on for 3 and a half hours. My homework should have taken half the amount of time. Again, I didn't mind helping but if Kwan is lost simply downloading a photo from the internet, you could see where my hands were full.
I considered migrating to the other Mac lab to get on with it and say "eh, good luck Kwan!" Because I have the bad luck and paranoia of mid-90's Margot Kidder, I'm sure he would see me as he walked by. Who would be a schmuck? Let me find a mirror.
I hope he passes the class. Despite his struggles, he's really trying his best unlike Hiccup #2.
Hiccup #2
In my mind, I've called this guy so many names that I just can't seem to decide on which one reference here. Perhaps, I'll go through them all. His real name may be Adam or something like that. Let's start with "Sockcap."
Sockcap walked into week one with an aura of self-assurance. He was a typical metrosexual-wannabe with the sockcap, flared jeans, biking boots, stripy scarf, BLT and mayonnaise wrap and 32 ounce wax cup of soda in tote to a computer lab, and a slightly bewildered expression.
Who brings a full dinner to a computer lab only to eat it directly in front of the giant Mac machine and in front of the instructor?
Sockcap became Hot Dumbass.
As Hot Dumbass chose the station also across from me next to Kwan, I observed that he had a secret. A secret so horrible that it's covered at all times by his sockcap. He removed his sockcap to scratch his head and it was revealed.
His forehead is covered in acne. These are not piddly whiteheads but his forehead resembled a candy apple cobblestone muffin. Hence the sockcap - hence the source, allegedly. The blemish landscape travels not south of the brow otherwise, he would come to Webster in a ski mask or as a member of Daft Punk or The Knife.
Hot Dumbass then became Cobblestone Head.
I would be a total heel if I chose this reason to dislike the Cobbie. As I said before, I can forgive and understand why Kwan needs additional assistance in class. I have a great deal of trouble forgiving Cobbie because he's has less of a clue than Kwan. What PusBubbles has is a failure to communicate because during Peter Griffin's lectures, he's constantly text messaging someone on his phone.
PusBubbles: I like that.
When the time come to apply what was taught to us, PusBubbles is completely lost and asks stupid questions (yes, stupid questions exist to some persons) which were clear to the rest of the class. I became irritated at this during week 2 when I realized that we, the students wouldn't have a chance to escape until around 9:15 when we could leave by 8:30 if we didn't have to keep PusBubbles' pace of applied ignorance.
Last week, he enjoyed a Snickers Bar during our classwork. Brilliant. I'll bet the stick of butter he devoured upon walking in the door of his apartment was tasty too.
The saddest thing of all is Kwan's only helpful reference is the GooeyFountainHead initially. Lately, Kwan has figured out that it's best to ask the instructor or the cute (but engaged) guy next to him. I really hope Kwan passes the class and does okay.
GooeyFountainHead has now replaced Bubbles.
Four weeks have passed with another four to go. I'm pretty confident that I'll do well. I'm not as confident that I'm going to keep my mouth shut when SplAdam is texting again when he should be learning.
Cool! LiveJournal automatically formats one space after periods. So much for my subtleties in this post.