Brenda Yap

Today I started my work placement, as part of my studio. Some of you may know that I've had really few credit hours -- all other studios have 9 credit hours a week, whilst I had 6 in the first half of the sem, and now I only have 3. Well, sometimes 6 when the lecturers feel we're not doing work. :P But less credit hours or not, the workload is still the same. :/

But anyway. The reason my credit hours are so little is because I had 4 Saturday classes -- visits to 4 different design offices; and now I have to work for a week. And work, as I found today, is basically them giving me a computer and me doing my own work on AutoCad/Photoshop. Hah. I could do that at home, but being around people working does make me feel like doing work I guess. No videos to distract me; no bed to lie on. No MSN to chat with Wazir. :(

The flipside is that the office is rather far from my place though. I think it's like 7-8 blocks? Not too sure, but it takes me about 35-40 minutes to walk there. I took a super long lunch break today because it took me 35 minutes to get home, then an hour and a half to cook and eat, then another 35 minutes to walk back. Damn stupid right? All because I want to save money on tram and food. But the people at the office don't mind. When asked if I could leave for lunch, they said sure, I'm my own boss.

My poor feet are aching now.

Today I went to Eckersly's, this stationery shop selling materials to buy foamcore. It's more expensive than the shop I usually go to, but hell, its a Sunday and it was the only shop open. $5 more expensive is a lot but when you're desperate, you're desperate.

Anyway. So I bought this A0 sheet of foamcore board, and just as I stepped out of the shop, the wind blows. Really strongly. The board almost immediately bends nearly into half. At that point, I'm so shocked I didn't even know what to do. I could barely walk and hold the board down, so I just pushed the board against the wall and leaned against it. Then the wind died down and I walked along, for a few metres, before I had to do it again.

And that was how I got the foamcore home. People were staring, it was sooo not funny. The worst part was crossing the roads, because the wind is so much stronger at the intersections.

I'm so damn traumatised. I'm not going out to buy materials alone again.

Dad and Ah Yi have gone back -- everytime anyone visits then leaves I always get sad and emo. It sucks having 10 whole days of being busy and having familiar people to talk to and go out with, then back to being alone again. But it's for the better; I have so much work to do these few weeks. When people visit me I tend to put aside work. Final presentation is on the 15th of June!! :( Wish me luck!

Dad and Ah Yi are here in Melbourne to visit -- everything's been so rushed. We went to Sydney last weekend and it was a huge whirlwind. My cousin drove us around and I managed to meet up with Shen, Jun and Mae so it was great. :) It's been really nice having dad and Ah Yi here -- I don't feel so lonely. I missed them a lot.. And Brandon too! I looked at some recent photos and videos and he's really grown! He'll be walking soon enough, and I regret that I can't be there for these precious moments. I'll put up pictures soon.

I just watched the last ever episode of Gilmore Girls... :( Sad. I didn't think I was that attached to this show.. But I've been watching it for 7 years now, and it feels like I'm losing a friend. No more Lorelai and Rory on Tuesdays (well, Wednesdays; Tuesdays is USA time). :( Downloading the show was a part of my weekly routine. I didn't feel much when the OC was cancelled, but GG meant so much more to me. :'( Sad sad sad.

Speaking of GG, it was Mother's Day over the weekend. I phoned my mum and she was surprised. :) Happy Mother's Day, mum. :) I love my mum. I'm not going to go all sentimental and stuff here, but you guys should know how much she means to me.

Yesterday I sort of had a meltdown. It was pretty bad -- I'd been working on this idea for slightly more than a week, for my studio; but when I took it to class the lecturer said she prefered my original idea and told me to work on something else. And it made sense -- I'd gone off track and the new design was pretty boring anyway.

But when I got home and tried sketching and making models, I just couldn't envision what I wanted, because the model I had made was in a weird shape and had slanted planes and whatnot. I just couldn't think, and the more I tried to think, the worse I felt. I tried taking time off and doing other things, but my mind just kept going back to the model and it just felt like shit, lol. I thought about it for so long until I just burst into tears.

I don't know if this is something to do with it being that time of the month, or me being away from home, or whatever, but it was awful. I cried and phoned Wazir and my mum and cried even more. I finally got fed up with myself and forced myself to sleep early, at 12.30am! [I've been sleeping at like 5am everyday lately.]

But anyway. I woke up this morning feeling better and I talked my design over with Wazir, and I've started making a new model and it looks alright so far. I just.. I felt so weak yesterday; it was weird. I just couldn't control my emotions and I felt so alone. I guess I still have to get used to me being on my own here in Melbourne, and frankly, I finished my coursework at Cenfad a year ago, so I need to get my rhythm back after being on holiday for quite a while.

Man, this is bad. I haven't been blogging in ages and when I come back all I can do is whine and feel depressed. :P Anyway... Hope you all have a great weekend. :)

Oh my god.

I had such a light and easy first half of the semester that I became so lazy. And the workload is getting heavier. I know, I know, most of you would say I don't have much to complain about, seeing as I originally had 12 contact hours a week for the first half, and now I have 9 contact hours a week! But really, the work is getting more, time is passing quickly, and deadlines are getting nearer. And I'm just out of ideas. Plus, I have to do a week of work experience.

I don't know. Sometimes its not that I don't have ideas -- I do, but I don't have the confidence in myself to just sit down and sketch, make models, or whatever. I miss having Wazir or my classmates, next to me, to discuss things, ask for opinions, and share ideas. I sit here in my dining room, trying to make my model, but no one in the house understands what I'm doing so I obviously can't ask for opinions.

I know I complain about my course all the time, but I really do miss having an actual syllabus. Having some guide to follow; some textbook to pluck answers out of. But I certainly don't miss exams. Presentations are incredibly nerve-wrecking but 30 minutes of that is better than 3 hours sitting in an exam hall or whatnot.

I currently have 3 classes: Studio, History/Theory (which is a first year class that I have to take. And it's an extreme bore, with site visits, and lots and lots of readings and essays.), and Modelling (which can be fun but too time consuming). I'm currently stuck on my studio work and have had a couple of sleepless nights just thinking about it.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that it's already the ninth week into my course. I've been in Melbourne for 3 months now. I suppose you could say it hasn't been that bad. I'm getting used to it, but I wouldn't say I love it, because it will never be home. Sometimes life gets boring here -- cooking the same things week after week, going to the same places... I know that back in KL I did the same ol' things too, but I was surrounded by people and places I love and it just made a whole big difference.

Just 6 and a half months before I go home! I can't wait.

It feels weird posting in Blogger after nearly a year away. I miss having previews in its proper layout.

On the bright side... Dad and Ah Yi are coming in exactly a week!

Wow. It's been a nearly a year since I lost this blog. Well, Yen informed me that this site was open and by chance, I tried to get it back and I did! No more spammers on http://chooiwen.blogspot.com. Finally.

To those of you who do check back on my blog rather regularly, I'm sorry for taking you guys on this wild goose chase -- the hosting on Seng Yip's site, http://www.xen0s.org expired and we will be moving to a new domain soon. I'll keep you updated and linked, promise.

There is so much to say, but I don't know where to start. I'm still fixing my template at the moment so I guess I'll continue blogging here for now, until the new domain is up.. :)