kalany

I'm not a professional artist.

My name is Teresa, and I'm a master's student in statistics and stochastic modeling at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  My money comes from being a teaching assistant to undergraduate classes there; I usually have anywhere between 60 and 80 undergraduates a quarter who are "mine".

I don't do art for money.  I'm delighted if folks want to buy prints, but that's not why I make art.  I make art because I want to make things I think are beautiful.  

Probably the closest I've ever come to being a professional artist was in 2006-2007, when I was the semi-official photographer for the Department of Mathematics & Statistics and for Phi Kappa Phi at CSU Chico.  Photography is perhaps my "best" medium in general, in that I come closest to producing the kind of things I want to produce in that medium.

The fact that I don't make money off my art doesn't keep me from trying to improve.  I regularly attend live painting tutorials with le-mec, I hang out in #DigitalMedia and #DigiBrush and listen to the wisdom there, and I take technical criticism on my work very seriously.  

It's just not my primary or even secondary activity in life.  During a busy quarter, I may produce absolutely no paintings.  I may not even pick up a pencil for any purpose other than statistical derivations.  So sometimes it feels like my art creeps ahead at a snail's pace.  That's okay---I've accepted that.

One result of being completely aprofessional in my art is that I don't really have any need to do "saleable" things.  I can produce fanart and fanfiction without feeling at all bad about it---because I have no desire to ever use those skills professionally.  As a result, a lot of my art and writing is in at least some way connected to a fandom or a game or something similar---especially my writing.

Yup.  Especially my writing.  What probably most of my watchers here on deviantART don't know is that I have three epic-length fanfics in progress, each from a different fandom.  As of last count, I think I've written over 400,000 words in the last two years, the vast majority by hand.  I have no intention of posting those on deviantART, mostly because I dislike the format for writing here; I prefer to only post short stories/poems on here.  Feel free to drop me a comment if you're curious and want the link(s), though

There's a lot of other things I could write about---I'm Lutheran, I'm a vegetarian, I like cats, I dislike snails---but I think that's enough for now.

May the Force be with you---always.

One of the amazing photographers I watch just posted this journal.

iamidaho.deviantart.com/journa…

The short version is, people are holding a coyote killing contest, with prizes for youngest killed, oldest killed, et cetera.  I'm astonished and appalled that things like this exist.

This community is dependent on tourism dollars.  Please help tell them how much the rest of the world objects to this kind of cruelty to wild animals.  There's an email address there in the journal that you can write to.

Thank you.

So, me and my friend went to see Twilight at the Sunday morning showing today.

We had loads of fun, although it's a bit of a story.

You see, I'd seen on the news that there were insane lines for the Friday showings, and I knew a bunch of younger folk who were planning to see it Sunday morning as well.  I'd bought tickets for us online, so I wasn't too worried about that part... but I distinctly remember queueing for two hours for a showing of The Phantom Menace, like, a week after it opened.  Also, the last time I bought tickets online, I actually had to wait in the same line as the people who were buying tickets at the door (grr).  So I thought we'd best get there early.

This being me, I went a little overboard on what "early" meant.  This is partially because I have a history of getting lost in San Jose (ask my friend Teddy how often we've driven by the county jail...) and partially because I'm just paranoid like that.

So I got up at 6am, showed up at Teddy's house at 7:45 am, and we pulled into the movie theatre parking lot at about 8:25am.  Went in, saw there were automated ticket-pick-up kiosks, got our tickets.  Went back out, checked the door, and saw that the mall (in which the theatre was located)... didn't open until 11.  At which point we were like "uhm... wtfbbq?"

So anyway, we left, and got McDonalds for breakfast.  Then we read the tickets and realized "Uh.  Wait.  The movie starts at 10:45.  They must be planning to open at least the area around the theatre before 11am."  So we drove back over, went and stuck our heads in the door (still unlocked) and discovered that there were some other people sitting around, so we went ahead and got our stuff and went in.

Now, I'd planned ahead for possibly having this sort of wait, so I brought my laptop, and DVDs.  So we got to curl up on some surprisingly-comfy benches in the foot court and watch Torchwood.  Mmm, Jack.  Mmm, Ianto.

Anyway, eventually it got to be nearly time for the movie (where by nearly I mean, like, 10:10), so we put the stuff away and went into the movie theatre.  Got really good seats.  Bought some popcorn.  Sat around and made snarky remarks about the ads---which didn't have sound, so it wasn't like we were really competing with anything by adding our own soundtrack.

Anyway, eventually the movie started, and it was... special.  The dialogue was bad enough in the book (if you've read it, you know what I mean) and they made a really good attempt to make it better for the screen.  But... still fail.  Also, there were clearly some points where Robert (Edward) wasn't... er... thinking with the head on his shoulders, if you catch my drift.

Charlie stole the show, in my opinion.  He was absolutely spot-on as the dad who is just a little lost by what to do with this daughter who's suddenly showed up.  I was a little unhappy with how Bella's actor played out the scene where she storms out of Forks, but... he was there, man.  And the actor who played Bella's mum was great, too, for the few bits of her we saw.  Jacob was also good, as was Billy.  The folks playing the rest of the high school students were... painfully high school.  Which I guess is a good thing.

And now, the vampires.

First off, I have to say, if I was a vampire (at least, Meyer's kind of vampires) I would totally drift every curve.  At least, when there weren't cops around.  I mean, seriously, nearly-invincible, super-strong, super-fast reflexes.  Dude.

One problem they had with the vampires was that Meyer... clearly must have failed physics, or something, because her characters all act (at least when the vampires around) like they have no mass, or at least no inertia (Dear Ms Meyer: If Edward actually did that with Bella, she'd have more broken bones than just a leg.  Kthxbai) and of course they're trying to film this with actors who have real mass.  So a lot of the special-effects scenes were a little bit of fail.  Although, the early scenes with the three bad vamps were really really cool.  I thought the early hunting scene with one of the Cullens was a little over the top, though.  Or possibly just way too long for my tastes.

Anyway, we made the whole thing better by providing our own commentary, MST3K style.  It was hilarious.  Now I want to see it again just to laugh at it all over again.

In that vein, I have two comments.

1.  Edward's makeup.  Oh, my god.  I understand the whiteface (vamps = pale) but DEAR GOD THE EYELINER.  AND THE LIPSTICK.  Please, someone put GothEmoBoy out of his misery now.  (I suppose Carlisle tried.  Props to him.)

2.  The sparkly.  The first scene where Edward sparkles was handled quite well, I thought.  Of course, we made snarky comments, but what do you expect?  HE'S BLINKING SPARKLING AT US.  But.  Then.

He went back in the sun.

AND THEY STARTED SPARKLY SOUND EFFECTS!!!

My friend and I just about died laughing.  Seriously.

Also, James is hawt.

Graduate school is turning out to be very tiring.  There isn't all that much work, but it's all so inconveniently scheduled, and none of it is very interesting (yet.  I keep hoping it improves).

Santa Cruz is wet and rainy.  Luckily it hasn't been rainy during the day very much yet, but today it poured all day.  I stayed indoors.

The bright point of my week, though, was having the Doctor run in front of my car on Friday.  I think she was on her way to class.

I think possibly this says something about my life that that was the high point of my week.

Kiriban at 15,000! Send me a screen-cap if you get it!

So, about a month ago, I went looking at the presidential candidates' policy proposals.  As I expected, I preferred Obama's over McCain's.

But there was a bit of a hole in Obama's education proposals.  I found the link to send in a suggestion, spent some time to write something up neatly, and sent it in.  I tried to explain why it would be beneficial to society and to the economy in the long run.  A few days later, I got a response saying basically "thank you for your time, we appreciate your suggestion and are considering it".  Didn't think much about it, figuring it was standard boilerplate.

Tonight I was watching the debate, chatting with a friend on Skype, when they started talking about education.  Sat back to listen.

and then I jump out of my chair, because HOLY FUCKING CRAP, OBAMA'S PROPOSING (a version of) MY IDEA.

I am now totally stoked.  Maybe I wasn't the only one who sent in a similar suggestion, but HOLY CRAP.  A candidate for the President of the United States actually listened to me (and possibly others) and then used my/our ideas.

That... just totally sold me on voting for him.  I'm sorry, but someone who(se campaign) actually listens when some nobody grad student writes in a comment....

Yeah.

Totally stoked.

Also, having flashbacks to that West Wing episode where Josh and Toby meet the dude in the bar who has the daughter visiting Notre Dame.  Because, I really thought candidates who actually listened to real people were , y'know, fictional.

Still totally stoked.

Kiriban at 15,000! Send me a screen-cap if you get it!