The University Support Group

[Kat]

[shadow=purple,left,300]Wow.

Nothing like watching pairs of snakes, lions, monkeys, giraffes, rhinos, and seals do it, if you know what I mean.

Biology class. *nods* Our current topic is sex and reproduction. And to think, I also have another subject that tackles "Gender and Sexuality" a.k.a. Social Science 3.

And, I'm loving Psychology 101. I love my teacher, my classmates, the lessons, and the fact that I aced the first two quizzes. I hope we get to see a real human brain tomorrow like all the other people from the other Psych101 classes have been telling me.[/shadow]

[Komori]

Classes started up again today.

Gary Goldman is awesome.

That is all.

[Speck]

You could put me down as a Theatre Bum, I suppose. (But with all the paperwork I do during my job as a stage manager, I'm not so sure I can be classified as "bum" anymore.)

Technically, I'm in community college right now. I'm saving money on my general education so I can eventually transfer to SFSU. I hear their theatre program is awesome... and they're in my budget because it's a state school! Joy of joys!

My classes this quarter are... Intro to Costume Design, Elementary Statistics, and Art History (2B). I took Art History (2A) last quarter, loved it, and unfortunately failed it. I'm taking 2B now primarily because I love how the prof. teaches it.

[Psycho]

My classes don't start for another two weeks.

I really hate it because my friends got out two-three weeks before I did, and then once I return home we have but a brief week or two before everyone disappears again, and I am as lonely as I was before in the remaining two weeks before I myself return.

And while I am home, my mother tries to get as much work out of me as she can. I am my mother's secretary and I can't wait to get back to school!

Edit:

The good news is, I made Dean's List my first semester in college. Yay

[Crystal]

*high fives Lynne* Me too! Dean's, I mean. :3

[Deleted]

Well, I'm not at a university yet (community college) but my classes started on Monday and they were awesome. I only have Written Communications II and American gov, but I think we have a couple of awesome groups. ^^

Kat ~ Ooh, I loved Psych as well.

[Komori]

Second day of classes, so I had my Conceptual Maquette class today. Seems like it'll be loads and loads of fun and hard work. First assignment? Sculpting a full-figure celebrity. I don't know who I want to do yet, but I'm kinda' leaning towards Angela Lansbury's version of Mrs Lovett, or maybe Stephen Colbert. <3

[Psycho]

*silently mouths to Komori* STE-PHEN COL-BERT! *waves frantically*

[Komori]

Hmmmm, Maquette class is going well, I think. I managed to do a pretty bang-up job on my Mrs Lovett maquette (sorry Psycho. I didn't think I could capture Colbert's face perfectly, and then he'd just be a guy in a suit.) even though her face was a little wide and she got an uneven browning in my friend's oven. Next we have to make a superhero/villain version of ourselves. :3 That's going to be pretty cool. I think I'm going to make myself into a master thief or something. You know, stealing priceless jewels or works of art. ;D Because honestly, I don't have the leadership skills to be a hero, and I don't much like the idea of world domination. X3 Whatever I do, it's gonna be so much fun!


And Gary Goldman's classes are equally awesome! :3 He's a really nice guy, he knows what he's doing, and he's really patient with us. Hopefully we don't get on his nerves by midterm. I've got two classes with him, and in both, we're animating some of the Don Bluth characters. In my Classical Animation class, we're animating Banjo the woodpile cat jumping and swinging from a tire axel. X3 And in Animation Production we have to have Dirk the Daring (from Dragons Lair) draw his sword and swing it. The only problem I have with his class is that he's too lax, and gives us far too much time to get these things finished. I could get both scenes completely inbetweened by Monday, yet he only wants us to get the poses on 8's and not go any farther. Come on, that'd take me an hour tops. For the whole weekend! :/ Ah well, gives me more time for my own stuff, I guess.

Oh, and also, he's shown us so much cool stuff. He showed us a training video from his studio of one of the animators animating Ichy from All Dogs Go to Heaven. This sort of stuff isn't available anywhere, it's just his and Bluth's personal or company training videos! So cool!

[Deleted]

So...Clinton came to my university today...he's a really great speaker, and I even got to shake his hand! img222.imageshack.us/img222/7240/photobb6.jpg

Political-ness aside, I'm doing pretty well in my courses, even though I'm falling asleep in them often...I manage to grasp most of the material. Switching to an accounting major has made me happy in so many ways.

[Speck]

Right. So.

I love Art History, but I hate research papers. This week is going to be crazy because I will be spending most of my time sleeping, studying, going to class, and working in the theatre. My second midterm for Art History is this Thursday, and I'm not entirely prepared for it.

I do like the costuming class, but my project partner does not. In fact, she despises the class, and is sometimes a bit hard to work with. Work on the corset continues... yet I keep getting the feeling that my friend does not like me anymore.

Statistics is... frustrating. I get all the concepts and stuff in class, but when it comes down to the tests and quizzes, I do pretty poorly. Hopefully, the exam on binomial distributions we took last week has better results than the previous exam.

[Komori]

Mmmm, I love learning. Hehe.

So, taking Gary Goldman's classes, and I am continually reminded how much more experience he has. I've been animating for three years, he's been doing this for over forty. He told us at the beginning of class that he hadn't done any animation since the 80s, but when I show him my work, he takes it, draws on it, and makes it a million times better. He hasn't animated anything since before I'd been born, yet he can still whip this stuff up like it's nothing! It's a real inspiration, I feel like I've grown so much in such a small amount of time. <3 I'll be so sad when this quarter's over and he goes back to his work with Don Bluth.

Ohhh, and today there was a workshop hosted by the animation club, and Troy Gufstavson (I think that's how you spell his name) was giving a workshop on animating fire. He's an fx pro, working at Disney for almost 15 years, and animating some of the great effects in Disney history. For example, he did the smoke and effects in Mulan when Mushu the dragon transforms from being the incense burner, and he also did the smoke and fire when Mushu first meets Mulan and pretends to be that big dragon. He also did the eagle-into-human transformation in Brother Bear. Gaaah! So cool. So he did his fire animation demo, and it's like he can do this stuff in his sleep, man! He just whips up this awesome fire, and it's enough to try and keep up with him. Man, it was very inspiring, and I'm not even that interested in being an effects animator. :<


Anyway, things have been going well, and I'll be soooo sad to graduate in the spring. T^T

[Fraze]

Komori, I can barely draw a recognizable stick figure, but that still sounds amazing! I'd love to see how they do some of those effects, even though I don't have the proverbial snowball's chance of doing them myself. Granted, I'm sure it would all be way over my head, but it'd still be fascinating.

[Komori]

frazeocity said:

Komori, I can barely draw a recognizable stick figure, but that still sounds amazing! I'd love to see how they do some of those effects, even though I don't have the proverbial snowball's chance of doing them myself. Granted, I'm sure it would all be way over my head, but it'd still be fascinating.

Well, he gave us a little packet of info, so I scanned one of the more informative pages:

SPOILER: Click to show

And here are also the notes I took at the workshop:

SPOILER: Click to show

[Ginz ❤]

I'm no animator, but wow, those are so cool. ^_^