The cartooning class I was taking ended a couple weeks ago, and the feeling I have about it ending is largely one of ovarwhelming relief. You’d think a class in cartooning would be a joy for me, but I found myself experiencing some of the same problems I had when I was actually in school, like not working on my assignments until the last minute, etc.

I liked the class way more at the beginning when there was more discussion and stuff, but in the last month, we just came in once a week to sit and draw, which I didn’t need to drive half an hour to do. I guess I was looking for a stronger sense of direction. I didn’t want to complain, though, since Max, the instructor, had to put up with at least a couple combative jerks or clueless idiots the first few weeks, and I didn’t want to seem like another malcontent.

The first night, one of my fellow students seemed to grow practically enraged because he had preconceived notions about it being more of a straightforward drawing class in order to discover his artistic style, and I wondered why the hell he didn’t just take a regular art class instead. In the end, it seemed like I might have been better off in a creative writing calss. Or therapy. Because it’s extemely discouraging to stare at a blank sketch pad for three hours straight. It makes me feel like maybe I’m just no longer cut out to do anything that requires creativity and intelligence, if I ever was in the first place.

I was surprised that angry guy from the first week came back few more times after that, although he did eventually stop showing up, along with around half the other students, for one reason or another. There was one guy in particular who initially struck me as pretty intelligent and thoughtful, but he wrote a couple essays on his own initiative that he passed out to the class, which we were all a little baffled by, but I just thought it meant he was really caught up in his enthusiasm. But I guess he was actually just being a douche by essentially saying, “This is how I would teach the class,” and then he announced he wasn’t coming back.

I didn’t think there was necessarily anything wrong with the way the class was run, except in the last half, where we were basically cast adrift and told to come up with our own stories with no real guidance or anything, although I seemed to be the only one of the remaining people who really struggled with that. At least I stayed with it to the end. Iroincally, now that the class is over, I’ve thought of a couple ideas for comics that might be worth pursuing if I don’t lose interest.

Incidentally, this is what Max had to say about how the class went: [link]

Well, I've got a fully functioning keyboard again at least, so I might as well write a less headache-inducing journal entry.

My sister has been kind of trying to convince me to move to Iowa or Ohio or wherever it is she's living now. I just moved into this place, so I'm not crazy about packing everything up again and moving to another state so soon. I think she mainly thinks I'd be happier in Iowa City because it's not like I've got anything going on for me here.

I am trying a little bit to maybe get out more and meet more people. I've signed up for a class in cartooning, and I'm not sure how much I'll get out of it, but it might be interesting, plus my hope is it might give me more direction. I also keep thinking of attending one of the meetings of this local anime group I'm aware of, just to see what that's like.

Maybe if I followed the world of anime more, I would have learned much sooner that Geneon was going out of business, making many anime titles unavailable for the foreseeable future. It might be an overreaction, but I could see myself going broke buying a lot of DVDs before certain series become super hard to find, or super expensive, because there's a lot of anime I haven't seen yet.

So now might be an appropriate time to mention again that I do accept commissions, although I might question the wisdom of commissioning me unless you don't mind waiting a potentially long time for your stuff to get done. I already have like five commissions I'm supposed to be working on now, and I do tend to procrastinate.

I'm such a terrible procrastinator, I suspected my arm was fractured or something for nearly a week before I finally saw a doctor the other day. Turns out it's tendonitis instead, which is not the greatest news, but it could be worse, and I feel better just knowing what it is and isn't. It'll go away eventually, and at least I'm still able to draw.

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I think my journal is really way past due for another update, as my last one is in the middle of summer and now Christmas is coming up way too fast. Maybe if I'd never used the journal feature here in the first place, I wouldn't feel obligated to keep thinking of new stuff to write about so that my main page doesn't start to feel too stale.

I still need to go Christmas shopping, mainly for my brother and sister. I'm just not sure what they like, which leads me to believe I don't know them as well as I should. Although a lot of the time, I don't even know what I like any more, I'm probably easy to shop for.
I don't know if I should bother trying to get my dad anything. He's selling the house I grew up in and callously threw out a lot of my childhood belongings, and I'm still peeved about that. It doesn't matter that it's probably a lot of stuff I haven't properly looked at in nearly two decades, like my old colorforms or Smurf fan club newsletters; it's just an incredibly inconsiderate and heartless thing to have no regard for the past like that.

My dad and his girlfriend bought a new house, and my siblings and I were invited to spend xmas there, but none of us are too keen to them up on that offer. I've been up there once, and if you can ignore the fact that the previous owner was murdered by her son with an axe, it's actually quite a nice house, but I'd personally prefer to have a Christmas free of awkwardness. "Oh, hi, Grandma. Sorry I can't be there for Christmas, but we're spending it with dad and the lady who has replaced your late daughter in his heart." Yeah, so there's not an icicle's chance in Hades of that happening.

I really need to learn to lighten up and maybe just write about more random, meaningless stuff so that every journal entry I attempt doesn't descend into this rambling, self-pitying thing. I don’t mean to sound so depressed all the time. I think I’m actually doing okay, although my "okay" would probably be most people's "black pit of despair" or whatever. Happy holidays!

Clubs I'm in:

!LFATs-Of-Bee-Bryant

Independence Day always seems like the beginning of the end of summer to me. Immediately afterwards they start with the “Back to School” ads. Although it’s been ages since I dropped out, seeing commercials with big yellow busses and fall colors still give me a queasy feeling

I barely noticed summer had even started, apart from the heat. The holiday might have passed me by unnoticed as well, except it's kinda hard to ignore when the parade goes right past my new apartment and the fireworks go off across the street. Not that I had anywhere to go, but I felt somewhat trapped here, forced to guard my parking spot from slack-jawed gawkers who apparently believe "tenant parking only" and "violators will be towed" signs don't apply if it's a holiday.

July 4th also turns out to be Nathaniel Hawthorne's birthday. I'm not gonna pretend I’m an expert in literature, since after just having spent half the weekend with a trio of English majors, I feel exceedingly dumb. But whenever I feel my persecution complex going into overdrive, I often think of this one story of Hawthorne’s, "The Artist of the Beautiful." It's about a watchmaker who spends 5 years working on a mechanical butterfly, much to the disdain of the people around him, who place more importance on practical matters. I understand Hawthorne had a habit of hammering you over the head with allegory, but something about this story kinda hit home for me.

One line I have memorized goes, "The leaden thoughts and the despondency that you fling upon me are my clogs, else I should long ago have achieved the task I was created for." In other words, it's everyone else's fault that I haven't reached the artistic potential I showed from an early age.

On the other hand, maybe my own laziness has something to do with it. Even though I don’t think it’s a great story, and it would be pretentious to compare myself to the main character, I guess I find that story somewhat comforting when I feel nobody appreciates my "gift." I don’t always feel very gifted, though. What the hell task did I think I was created for anyway?

The most recent reason I’m feeling discouraged is because *mallaard is starting this club, *SatAmRevival, in in which the intent is for people to contribute a comic once a week, which sounds very cool, and like the sort of thing I would love to participate in. The problem is, I can’t seem to come up with an idea for a comic I’d want to do on a weekly basis. I’m never lacking in ideas for art, but when it comes to doing something on a broader scale, I can’t think of anything that I feel passionately enough to hold my interest. Maybe I just don’t have a story inside me that’s dying to be told. I mean, since everything’s been done already, what’s the point? My lack of creativity in this area is making me somewhat depressed.

On another note, I’m thinking of changing my avatar. I highly doubt this is likely to cause confusion on a massive scale, but if anyone has any strong feelings about that, they can let me know.

Clubs I'm in: