Mon/Wed

• 12-3pm: Intro to Graphic Design

Tue/Thu

• 9:30-11am: English 1
• 1:45-3:15pm: Intro to the Arts
• 4-7pm: Drawing 1

Fri

• 10am-4pm: 4D Visual Dynamics

All in all, I’m pretty happy with all my classes, despite 4D being a bit of a bore, and Intro to the Arts being pretty challenging. History classes has never been my forte. My favorite class by far is Intro to GD, which makes sense considering it’s what I’m here to do. The intro class is pretty basic though, and I’m excited to be done with the core year so I get started with actual GD classes.

Our first graphic design project was to create a monogram using six predefined typefaces, without changing the letterforms. The second was to style a word using typography, while still limited to the six typefaces and black/white. Next we were allowed to use both shapes and color, but no images, to design an album cover for a song. For our most recent project, we had to design a book cover, and this time around we could use images as well.

For the final project, we’ll be choosing a well-known designer or artist, and creating a poster for their (fictional) exhibition at the SF MOMA. I’m not yet totally certain which artist I’ll be going with, but I’m leaning towards David LaChapelle.

I haven’t registered for next semester yet, but unless some of the classes fill up before I do, my schedule should look like this. It’s 18 units, but I figured it’s better to sign up for one extra class and then drop it if it turns out to be too much. Chances are pretty high that I’ll end up dropping that 8am screenprinting elective, as I’m not exactly a morning person, but it’s worth a shot. And at least I don’t have any Friday classes this time around.

Mon/Wed

• 9:30-11am: Intro to Modern Arts
• 12-3pm: 2D Visual Dynamics
• 7:15-8:45pm: English 2

Tue/Thu

• 8-11am: Screenprinting 1
• 12-3pm: 3D Visual Dynamics
• 3:45-5:30pm: Science: Basic Electronics

I see the header up there needs a little update, too – I’m almost nineteen years old now, unlike when this blog was created (and last updated). I’m not going to go much into what has happened the last year, because even though it represented huge steps for me personally, it is nothing particularly out of the ordinary. I wanted to write a little about what I’ll be doing in the future, though.

15 days from now, I’m moving 5,100 miles from Oslo to San Francisco, to attend California College of the Arts. I’m majoring in graphic design, and I’m nervous, excited, scared, and absolutely thrilled.

I was accepted into three schools total, out of the four I applied to; my application to School of Visual Arts in NYC fell through because I didn’t include enough observational drawings. Of California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CCA, and Savannah College of Art and Design, the hardest choice to make was between the two former.

Fuck, I pondered the pros and cons for a month and a half, before I finally decided on CCA. The decision was based mostly on money and location. I’m still not sure I’ve made the right choice. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

I’m hoping to get more use out of this blog over the next few months (years?) as I adjust to life on the other side of the pond. More to come.

So something is using a lot of my bandwidth! I can’t find anything in particular though, and it’s freaking me out. I suspected that I could be the Sparkle Generator, which has seen it’s heavy share of use at ONTD, but it consists solely of like a couple 5kb gif animations. I just can’t imagine that eating 14gb.

In other news, I’m finally working on a new layout for my portfolio. I’m so fucking sick of the one I have at the moment.

P.S.: Hi!

Post-script: Yes, I really do kick ass at this updating-blog-frequently thing. Lets do a 5 minute catch up: I got a new job. I aced my exams. I have summer vacation and am leaving for Greece on Wednesday. Seeya in mid-July!

Love you too, babe. ;)

See, I went on Easter vacation to the mountains, what, 3 weeks ago? And snowboarding full speed down the hills – a fantastic feeling by the way, I love snowboarding – I fished my camera out of my pocket and recorded a tiny clip. Somehow, I then got the idea that the moment I got home, I’d add some music to the clip, change the hues and contrast a bit, upload it to youtube, and then post it here with the subject “this is life”.

Now, this never happened, as you might be able to tell. When I got home, I discovered that Premiere Pro hates me. At least, I was unable to successfully import that clip while keeping the right frame rate, resolution, etc – apparently, it turns out that PP wasn’t exactly made for editing home videos recorded with the Olympus Mju’s film function, haha.

And since then, I’ve just been really really busy. I’ve got a bunch of emails in my inbox marked “REPLY TO THIS”, as well as a fantastically long list of things to do. So if you’ve sent me and email during March or April, and not received any reply – please stay patient, I’m getting to it! Eventually! I promise. :)

Right now I’m working a series of three posters for a school project, where the task’s to create an advertising campaign for Ikea’s series of Billy bookshelves. It’s surprisingly difficult. :( (and I’ve come to realize that my concept isn’t nearly as original as I thought it was, so because of that I’m not going to be posting it online, boo.)

A week ago in Social Studies, we were discussing the reason for differences between avg. salary for men and women. I’m arguing that this is mostly a result of women choosing jobs that pay less, such as ones within health care, in addition to that more women are less careerdriven, and rather family-focused, than men are. I end it with asking whether there’s examples of a woman holding the same position as a man, but being paid less – something I state would be extremely unfair and discriminatory.

The girl sitting next to me turns and looks at me, and says I need to stop being such a feminist.

fem·i·nism   (fěm’ə-nĭz’əm)     noun
1. Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.

Shit, I’m not even close to identifying as a feminist, and I’m far from advocating the issue, but by dictionary definition – why would being a feminist bring negative connotations? Do anyone really want to go back to living in a time where women stayed in the kitchen making sammiches? I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I’m quite enjoying my right to vote and my right to equal education. If you agree with me on that particular issue, you are per definition a feminist. I don’t think that’s something one should be ashamed of.

The stereotype of butch, man-hating feminists seem to have originated from the radical feminists, a movement which to me appears to be less about equalization and more about revenge against men. Hell, I’m as feminine as they come, if you judge by vanity, attraction to babies/puppies/baby pandas, fondness of the color pink, etcetera. However, this doesn’t stop me from being extremely ambitious, someone who’s dream is getting a good degree and a better job. If that makes me a feminist, then let be it. I would happen to find it extremely unfair if someone could earn more than me only because that someone has a cock, but apparently that viewpoint makes me unique among my classmates.

On a related topic, this reminds me of the BitingBeaver and the whole “my son looks at porn, I should have aborted him” drama. The link goes to Encyclopedia Dramatica, is NSFW, and should be taken with a grain of salt, but the topic is definitely fascinating and worth a read. Both for the amusement and the intrigue.

I’m female and I can’t comprehend this kind of hate. Sure men can be assholes some of the time, but for the most part I think guys are awesome. Plus women can be far meaner and nastier in their own ways. What drives someone to such unthinking animosity towards the opposite gender that they’d despise their own son for jerking it to porn? –A user at SA forums

^ Quoted for truth. (and slightly because I had to create a blockquote style just for this entry, so I want to show it off some more. ;D )

Update on last post: The guy called again today, and my dad answered the phone, threatening to report him to the police if he didn’t stop calling. Jeez dad, way to overreact – poor guy. I’m glad to have the matter off my hands, though.

I’ve been looking at several universities lately. All American ones, actually. And all art schools that offer a program in graphic design. The schools that look most interesting are California College of the Arts, California Institute of the Arts, and School of Visual Arts. If anyone know of schools with similar programs, or have any experiences with the schools listed, I’d adore it if you could tell me about it. :)

The only issue is really the extreme cost of going to university in the states. I get a lot covered by the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund, but only for the last 3 years of a Bachelor. Freshmen students aren’t eligible as European Bachelors only go over 3 years, not 4, so the first year is considered superfluous.

And even with the financial aid, I’ll still be knee deep in student loans when I finish. Yeah, I’m looking forward to that.

Again – if you’ve got any tips related to college application in the States, experience with being an international student, a story about that one international student in your class who was a freak, or a friend of a friend who almost got into an art school – I want to hear it!

In completely unrelated news, here’s my Super Mario ringtone for iPhone. It’s cropped to loop perfectly, hurrah. To use it for non-iPhone purposes, rename the file to mp4. That should make it act like a normal audiofile :) For the more quiet kind, I also found the Kim Possible beeper tone, which is great for text message notification as well as a short ringtone.

• Super Mario Bros. ringtone
• Kim Possible beeper tone