jeffrey + upstairsloft

It was 1:17am and I walked downstairs to prepare my, somewhat, late dinner (Honey Bunches of Oats Strawberry). I scratched my neck and realized my nails are long again.

I guess the length of my nails serve as a mark of time to help distinguish between how long ago last week and last month were. I lost my sense of time with everything before, between and after cutting my nails. I remember cutting them at last minute before leaving the Sac house when my parents visited. It turns out that was almost a month ago. I remember cutting my nails at last minute before heading out to school. I think that was two weeks ago.

Sometime in between these nail-cutting intervals my parents visited Sac, Jun visited Sac, Paul visited Sac, my parents and Kate’s parents visited Sac together, we went home to Milpitas and reunited with Rich. Now my nails are long and this blog entry will glorify yet another mark in time of wanting to cut my nails–but I won’t. I’m tired and lazy and I just finally showered since Wednesday.

Everything feels like it was last week, last month or last week. Where have I been?

Having no windows at work, shoved in a corner, surrounded by silence, with a 6′ partial divider separating me and the “creative one” makes my 3.5 hour work shift mentally equivalent to an 8-hour shift. I’m a graphic designer at work, confined in a corner, with no creative outlet available for any work that I do, no windows, no music–the environment isn’t even sterile. It’s just a room with dividers, servers, printers, computers and carpet. But I am getting paid and it does add to my “experience” section in my resume.

Anyhow, stick it to the man. >>>CSUS Press Page

That’s right… I got a date on Saturday. I’m taking Kate out somewhere. Where? Some hot restaurant. What after… I’ll drive her back to her place, walk her to her door and we’ll go inside the house together. Awwwwwww yeah… (just ignore the fact that we live together so I can feel secure about myself). Hah.

My Ethnic Studies professor and I share a few common hobbies and occasionally we discuss them before or after class. Well, after a few e-mails he suggested that we hang out sometime and get a cup of mud and chat. My initial exterior reaction was like “O. Cool. Name a time and day.” But inside, I wasn’t weirded out but it did strike me as peculiar feeling. When did I become an adult? When did professors begin to ask to drink a cup of coffee with me so we can chat?

In fact, I’m even interacting with a 60 or 70-yr old man. Rob and I are helping him design his book he plans on publishing by September–a photographic series of Los Angeles; that’s business though. A few weeks ago I chilled at a bar/club with my 2D Composition teacher and watched my 36-yr old friend, Steve, perform with his band. I’m immature as hell. People who know, barely know me and just plain ol’ passerbys know this. Perhaps it’s my charm and my adult wit. Nahhhh. They’re just on crack. But I can’t complain; I’m surrounded by wonderful personalities.

On Friday, Apple OSX Liger comes out. But guess what?!?!
>>>I GOT IT!

Since I was introduced to acrylic painting, I’ve become a lot more relaxed during my pastime. It adds balance. Adobe Illustrator/painting & drawing. Digital photography/black&white development. thought process/just going at it. Articulate detail/every brushstroke’s uniqueness.

I’m not really in an art class and the only painting we do in my 2d composition class is painting color wheels and learning to tint, shade and tone but I decided to take that lesson at home and interact with that form. I admit, my color (skills) have improved since and though I probably don’t have the proper brushes, technique and knowledge to even speak on the matter, I’ve learned a lot by just getting my arms and hands in motion and putting my mind to a resting halt. There is always time to design (one word for such a long process don’t you think?).

Regarding Kate’s post… hahah that is so true. At least she’s being nice about describing it. Me and Vince…being the assholes that we are, we have a blast with the Kool-Aid man candidates. Ehh…who the hell am I to tell people what to wear? Well, just being existent holds me accountable to say that guts and back boobs hurt my eyes so please wear clothes that fit. And this is me being nice.

I was organizing some files on my laptop and I got up to stretch, peeked into Kate’s room. She was taking a nap and I saw… >>> this. I was reminded of why I love her so much… That’s the sad part.

Finally when she woke up, she explained to me that she was wearing my hulk hand since 4, while waiting for me to peek into her room and question what the heck she was doing. It turns out I missed it and she fell asleep. Funny thing is… I didn’t walk into her room until 4:45. She had that thing on that whole time. Goodness…

And I think it was a few weeks ago that Kate told me she’d be upstairs working out her arms. When I went upstairs she was curled up into a ball, asleep with a dumbell in her hand.

I’m a stupid learner. The fact is, I really did not learn to learn until my later junior college years; and there continues to me an overwhelming amount of learning to be learned. Typically, one may think that a graphic designer just has to worry about making things look good, worry about color, type, layout, composition, clients and such but before we get to that visual result, the end product, one must go through a vigorous process of creating/brainstorming/developing and refining ideas. But I’m not talking about graphic design. I’m talking about me; this is, in fact, my blog.

I am a stupid learner. There are so many things I have to feel in control of in order to learn. One difficult dynamic to control is getting in the mood to be academic. It’s a tough switch to toggle, unlike the creativity switch which is practically always on standby, ready to execute. I often place my self in little material scenarios that should not matter to jumpstart my academic process like go to a coffee shop, sip a cup of joe, read 10 pages out of a novel, then get crackin on work.

It feels so pretentious, poser-like and independent movie cliche but it gets the academic juices flowing. It just sucks how I have to feel in a certain mood to get something done like writing an essay or studying. I learn a lot of information that I can apply to my everyday life (in most cases) but it’s so hard to jumpstart myself to get moving on these kinds of things. It’s also tedious and I’m afraid that all the scenarios I cast myself in are more than limited. One day I’ll get tired of coffee, coffee shops, won’t dare to involve myself with any more novels and I’ll just stop being a good learner.

Motivating myself and “controlling” my mood to learn by shifting environments is an additional task. When other people can just sit down (without driving to a coffee shop or a bookstore) and start doing something academically productive, I’m left behind, delayed in the process, like an old man staring down at his crouch, delivering a motivational speech to erect his penis before sex. I know, I know, horrible analogy. They should make brain Viagra. O wait, they do. It’s called Straterra.

On a more current note, now that I have been sitting at Border’s for almost two hours while preparing for my term paper, finally in the mood, I have to pack up and leave soon to pick up Kate from the gym, when ideally, she could have driven herself 2 blocks away from the house to tone her buttocks. Detached from concentration–that’s a whole ‘nother story.

At least once a week I see about 5-7 people waiting at the crosswalk while I walk from my car to school. I wonder why they’re still standing there when I get there, after almost a minute of walking. I press the Walk button and the traffic lights turn yellow. The Walk Sign blinks. Sometimes if you press the walk button, the lights will flash “Walk” and bright red hand right after.

Hi. I am Jeffrey Tanhueco and I go to a California State University. Maybe I just like to press buttons.