Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Sheridan college orientation

A new year of college is upon me. Tomorrow is the orientation for the international students at the Trafalgar campus residence at 8:30 am. I know I should get as much rest as possible because after the early morning orientation, I have to help out mickey with moving his stuff. I tried going to bed early but I couldn't sleep. And hence I'm here typing another blog entry, sitting on my bed in the dark, taking full benefit of my backlit keyboard.

I had dosas again for dinner today, and they were just as amazing as the last time. I think I could make this my staple diet here now. Its just that I haven't been grocery shopping in a while and I didn't want to eat the leftover bland pasta that I made yesterday. You should know how heavy dosas can be... and I would imagine going to bed on a full stomach must be easy, but right now, I don't know what's up. I guess I should have gone and taken a walk like the other night, but now I don't want to venture out.

I missed my orientation last year, and besides wanting to make up for that, I can't wait to go meet new people. I still remember how apprehensive and introvert I was on the first day of class in January. I definitely don't want to be the same kind of guy this time round. There is a chance that a lot of ppl I get to meet tomorrow are new, and they don't know the place or a lot of people here, so I feel it will be really nice to help them figure things out. Because in visual and creative arts, everybody will be a returning student from art fundies, and they'd already have their friend circle and will not be as open to making new friends I suppose. Dammit, I need to stop being so negative!

So just be confident yash, don't worry, drink more water to see if it helps u get some sleep, and have a awesome orientation.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Rose coloured glasses

I know lying is wrong but its a kind of 'bad' thing that's accepted by the society...okay, maybe not 'accepted' , but its really common. For example, like, umm... "I'm doing great, thank you." or maybe "we are working really hard to eradicate and we have been very successful". Blah! So I guess I shouldn't kill myself over a few lies that I - like the above people - have said, to paint a beautiful picture of my life here, to some people I don't really want to worry too much. But Its another one of those things that is eating me inside and so I guess I should come clean about it.

I have a hard time convincing myself to go out and eat at fancy restaurants, I don't happily keep going to movies every week without having to be persuaded into it by someone. I still don't feel happy about spending money on a cab, and I don't even use the vending machines in college unless I'm starving and there's no way out. I have accepted the fact that I am cheap and for that, my classmates can tease me all they want. I am not going to budge, because that's what a student's supposed to do, save money. But I still let my parents believe I'm happily living the good life, eating, drinking, partying, and that I don't worry at all, about finances, so that they're happy for me.

I don't have to not do anything and I don't get to just sit around all day. I do get breaks now and then, but otherwise, college is brutal. I still have to cook my own food, do the dishes, laundry and even clean the bathroom once every 3 weeks, and my room from now and then. I don't even get rest on weekends, as I go to portfolio workshop in toronto, and that basically takes up the whole day! Then I have to find time to go shopping or else I'll have no food! But no matter how much tougher I have it here, I keep telling my parents 'I am nicely rested and relaxed and I am really happy', so that they don't panic.

And don't even get me started on friends and company. I am lonely. Period. I just don't want to be called back to India to 'help in the family business' like Aniruddh bhaiya. Because tauji and taiji didn't like the condition aniruddh bhaiya was living in, they made him go back to India. They came, They saw, They freaked out. LOL, maybe they didn't freak out, but..... Ahem, anyways, in a nutshell, I keep sending them rose coloured glasses as gifts.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

My nightmare

Yeah, yet another bad dream. This one has got to do with my college. To put it in context, maybe I should tell you what happened yesterday. The whole 'getting my visual and creative arts schedule' incident. The time table was supposed to be up on the access sheridan page but for me, it didn't show up. I asked laura, and she said she got hers. So I started wondering why am I the one who's left out? I've had a similar experience earlier too. So I decided to Investigate! Nah, I just really wanted my new weekly schedule and that's all. So off to college I go.

At sheridan, I first go in and talk to the girl at the advisement center, she says that there are a lot of people who's schedules have not shown up yet because the people incharge are entering it manually into the database, and it might take time. I should go back, and wait till tomorrow to see what happens, and if it doesn't show up, I can come back to college. I leave and go to the International center. The nice lady there checks in, and says that my fees is paid for sure, and she can't get my timetable either, so I should go to admissions: D100 and talk to the program registration incharge. I went in, and found....someone I don't remember the name of....and told her my problem. She took my student ID number and logged into whatever administrative page they go to, and said that I had a conditional offer, and my grades from art fundamentals have not come yet, so I didn't get put into any class yet. But I assured her I was passing all the classes and she said she could manually enter me into one of the classes that have room and give me a schedule.

I'll let you know about the shitty college schedule later, not lets move to what I saw last night. I was dreaming that I find out that I didn't get into visual and creative arts because I failed in a subject. The subject? MARATHI! A language subject that I had in school from first to 10th grade. The ONE subject that I truly despised. I couldn't even put it into context when I was dreaming that its not a class administered at sheridan college. And I was so depressed because it was like the end of my schooling here in canada. If I didn't get into visual and creative arts, I won't be able to extend my visa and I will have to go back to India! Damn! But in all this panicking, I finally woke up, and I realized that it was a dream that can not be coming true.

well, it was 5 am, so I went back to sleep again! Got a big day ahead of me.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Victory speech

Well days 13 14 and 15 were the last important days for the 2nd sem of art fundamentals. Also, the last week in college for some. And even though its been almost a week, I can't seem to forget those days. The sense of accomplishment I felt when I finally finished my self portrait. I showed it to the kids from my class, even the teacher agreed there was a good likeness. I want to scan it and upload it too, but the lack of a bigger scanner is stopping me. I have also tried looking up large scanners to buy on the internet, but no luck finding a good resource. I would totally appreciate it if someone could give me some pointers.

Back home, I started working on my 3d assignments. I had to print out more copies of the painting 'Creation of man' by Michaelangelo. I pasted 'em on the hand and the laptop, and honestly, it was looking pretty neat! I wished I could have taken pictures of it. Then I started off sanding the sculpture to get rid of the fingerprints and unevenness. Nothing was left to be done for Imaging systems, we were just gonna have a presentation. I couldn't wait to get my mark for the concept bike that I designed and then scan it and color it using photoshop or corel painter x. I'd been downloading and watching videos from gnomon workshop on how to color environments and interiors and found the whole process very cool.

So on tuesday, we have a long crit on both our sculptures and hybrid projects. I really liked alex J.'s ninja/samurai fighter guy. Although he had some anatomy issues and his paint job was pretty sloppy. Also, Zimmer's sculpture was looking pretty neat, but it couldn't stand and wasn't mounted. My sculpture got an A and my hybrid assignment got a B+ as far as I can remember. I was really happy with the marks. And I was in for a surprise in the Imaging systems class too. Because bob ree had put up the final marks of the students who had handed in all their stuff so far. And I was on the third position in the class! I had a 82% score, for the first time, in over 5 years, my score went above 80% in some course/class/subject. It was like a huge breakthrough for me. And, I'd also like to let u know that I got an A in the final assignment. My concept bike. I was so happy, I was feeling truly triumphant.

Back home, I knew this was the last day I'll get to work on my 2d design assignment but we also had to go shopping so me and vironica went to the two indian grocery store I had looked up, and bought lots of cool indian food that I had been longing for so long. I bought some samosas, from both the places, I thought it would be fun to try them out. We heated them up, and I gave one to vironica to taste, and some to Ian, vandy and their friend to taste. They liked it I believe. So it was a huge success. I was totally stuffed with samosas. Between the 5 of us, the 8 samosas disappeared in no time. Then it was time to go upstairs and get busy with the assignments.

I figured I could add a few highlights on the circle of the phobia assignment (which I've also been calling the scratch ticket assignment.) and make it look like a glass ball. I took a few prints of my amychophobia assignment's starting stages, and the final, but it wasn't working particularly well until I figured out how to get a gradient from white to translucent in illustrator. I decided to start on the skier in the canada project, and I googled for images of speed sking for reference. I found particularly good reference images here, and because speed skiing poses are so typical, I got going on it, and I was so engrossed in it for hours that I feel I kinda overdid it. That was the only part of the illustration that didn't 'fit in' it seemed like it was taken from a clip art...according to some other students. But the teacher didn't say much except that I should have downplayed it a little. Anyways.

During the break, I talked to Vandy, and Ian, and some other kids from the other class about how Brian's marking the kids, and the picture they painted(pun intended) was rather grim. They said that a lot of kids from their class were either failing or had to talk to the program coordinator for final decision. That sounded pretty scary. Because I was not very confident about my paintings, and was afraid that I might get an awful grade too. But I guess it all worked out for the good, I went in the painting room, started to fix my painting from last week, (I had restarted on the painting last week so effectively, I had only worked for one week instead of two, on this piece...) I guess I kinda work better under pressure because in the end, I was pretty happy with the result. It might not have been that subtle at places, but as I put all my earlier paintings next to it for the crit, I could see how I had improved. And I guess the teacher felt the same way, he said he could see me making a genuine effort and he saw some of my work as a C+ and some as a B so I got a B!

Well, All was done. I was really happy everything was DONE, finally. And so is this blog post.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Delayed post

Yeah, so after going through almost all the entries on Mallika's blog in google reader, I decided to leave a comment on one of her posts the discussion on which intrigued me. And she was kind enough to click on my url, and visit my lil blog. She even left a comment, but her blogger profile doesn't have link to her blog which is quickindiancooking.com and I couldn't hyperlink it while I was posting using safari, so I decided to wait, and compose it in firefox when I can. So now that I'm done with my assignment that was due for tomorrow, I have the time to finish what I started.

Yesterday, I had made some mint chutney. I am not sure whether I mentioned this last time, but I remembered the ingredients as I had seen mom make it when I was back in India so I thought I would just wing it, but at the last moment, I happened to talk to mom on skype, so I just made sure whether my mom put onions in it or not. And that's how I saved it from being screwed up. This time was even better. little spicier, less minty and I had more of it in quantity too. I guess that was because of good quality cilantro. Last time I shopped at the ghetto store 'no frills' and by the time I got around to making it, a lot of coriander had gone bad. This time, I had bought it from the real Canadian superstore, and it was still fresh and smelled really good.

Then I decided to make bhurji for lunch. I guess most of you will notice that I didn't use any garam masala. But that's okay, I really wanted the kind that I used to eat in Pune, with just salt and pepper. I added some oil in a pan, cooked tomatoes and onions for a while, and then added the egg yolk into it. Sprinkled generous amount of salt and pepper(yeah, I love salt!) and minutes later, I was eating bhurji with bread and aam ka achaar. (Thanks mallika for the tip). Awesome! A perfect Meal. Definitely satisfied my hungry stomach and longing taste buds. I was really happy with what I just did. Then today, I get to my computer and read the comment from mallika, and I feel more determined to try and COOK food for myself. I also talked to vironica in the evening, and told her what I cooked, and she as always, took interest in it, and I felt really good.

Friday, August 10, 2007

I am so friggin hungry! and its 12:30 am !

What am I doing up so late? well, now, trying to put my growling stomach to sleep! You see, I just somehow wandered off into the territory of Indian food blogs. YEAH, I KNOW! I was just looking up chillies and peppers and jalapeƱos... I just wanted to know if there's a basic distinction between the not hot at all 'bell pepper'/capsicum and the long slim 'mirch' we had in India, and the mexican variety, which is unusually thick, the 'hal-ah-pen-yo' But the next thing I know, I had read through atleast 20 recipies, subscribed to a bunch of blog feeds and now I am really REALLY hungry.

I have a bag of chips to my left here, but its empty. I don't want to walk downstairs at this time, because the noise from the wooden flooring will wake everyone up! Specially with my 'enthusiastic' stride. I just tend to run down the stairs...LOL. Its just like I can't stand being there.. or maybe I just 'slip away'... Ahem, so I was saying, I did have dinner, and I was eating some chips while watching knocked up, and still, all that delicious food made me hungry. I don't even have anything downstairs that I feel like eating right now.

In the afternoon today, I made papad churmur and roasted bread in a pan with butter. Oh god! It really did feel amazing! I can't remember how long it had been since I ate that, I mean, it wasn't even on the list of 'the food I want to eat before I leave for canada'. Oh I really expect you to know what churmur is... if you're still scratching your head over what I meant, drop me a line or ping me and I'll be happy to send u an explanation, photo, recipe whatever. Okay, 'food I want to eat before I leave for canada' list had Okra on the top! I just love deep fried Okra that my mom makes. But something happened that day when mom made the deep fried okra for me in pune, and I am pretty sure it hurt my mom more than it upset me. Arjun and aniruddh bhaiya wanted me to eat some other garbage because its supposed to be more 'healthy' for me, and I kinda ended up filling myself up on it(because they wouldn't let up already) and I didn't eat a lot of okra....Now I better wrap up before I cry..

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Inocence

I was walking to school the other day, and I saw a cute little kid walking with him mom. He kept looking back, and I guess he looked back at me too... I thought that was so cute. I realized they were walking to the small house which had a really shabby backyard, and I figured they were a low income family... I then remembered that I had seen this kid back during the winter, playing in the snow in the same backyard. He was really happy, he obviously wasn't thinking why his backyard is so small and shabby, why he didn't have slides or trampoline or swimming pool there. And I thought to myself I regret the day I started to understand the rich and poor concept.

This might sound like the part two of my earlier post, but I assure u, its not. Even though I didn't get a lot of real comments(oh who am I kidding, there was only ONE) on the blog post 'If I had my life to live over again' I did get responses via emails and scraps and even got 10 click comments so far. And I think that's enough for me. I am actually thinking of doing the follow up of that post, just so that I can also mention the other people who matter in my life. But this is not it.


So, as I was saying, I really regret the day I figured out what being rich meant and what being poor meant. I wish that never happened. I don't want to get into the why's of poverty or the how's of reform, I'm just saying, I would have liked to be that innocent(or naive) all my life. I believe after I understood the rich and poor concept, I started noticing kids who were poorly dressed, who were working in pan pattis, chai stalls, and I felt so many different things I can't describe. Working, was shameful, the working class was looked down upon... but here, its not so. Lot of kids work and they don't necessarily have to be the poor people and it is not looked down upon. My outlook has changed drastically! And I hope the same kind of change happens in India too. Soon. But, getting back to my title, there is nothing like the innocent child, the naive,pure,honest mind of a kid.

Monday, August 06, 2007

full day of painting! allright!

So, I have been toiling to finish the enormous two by three feet painting all weekend, (well, not exactly... I just started on sunday. But I was GONNA start it on saturday, I swear! I was inspired by vandy, she's so far ahead of us in finishing the assignments! But unfortunately, the alarm failed to wake me up in the night. I should have known this painting in the night thing wasn't gonna work... Vironica suggested tht I paint from a photograph, but I wanted to try painting it from life. So on sunday night, I finally started on the painting.

First, I had trouble setting up my 'workstation' (I just wanted to use that word... LOL. It seems to be a magnet for some reason. my photo on flickr titled 'my workstation' has gotten much more hits than any other pic in its time frame! ) Well, I awkwardly used the canvas on my lap, on the floor leaning against the stool, or standing on the stool... but nothing seemed to work! Its like when you're painting that huge, you need more elbow room to wildly wave your hands in the air and pull your hair in angst when things don't seem to work. LOL. No, really, I found it impossible to paint without standing up in front of the canvas at my eye level. I ended up doing really shitty work. Even the colors I was using weren't on the money. So I finally quit and went back to sleep at i think 6 am.

I woke up at 10 am and got ready to go to college. Vironica made me some breakfast! SO SWEEEET! I also got a call from mickey saying that airport in his laptop was screwed up for some reason and he wanted to call him mom. He sounded really worried but I had to do my own painting stuff too, so I told him I was coming to the college anyways, and I am bringing my laptop with me, so he can use skype on my MBP to call his mommy. So I packed my stuff, and vironica drove me to college, she had some work to do too... Well, the painting room was closed so I asked a security guard to open it for me, because I wanted to paint. I made a sorry face and told him "I just got to finish this assignment or else I'll fail..." LOL and he radioed another security guard, who met me in the pit, and unlocked the door to the painting studio for me. I was finally in!

Here, I finally had the space, the right lighting condition and atmosphere and everything I needed to get going. It worked magic on my painting. I finally started doing things right. First the ceiling in my room, then the door and door frame, then the ceiling above the chandelier and the wall. It all started looking pretty neat. now I was getting to the tough part. The beautiful hard wood floors and railings and the lights. I kinda lost it here. but it was pretty late and I decided I wanted to go back home now. I called up vironica, and she came to pick me up. She even said that the painting is looking a lot better than in the morning. YAY!

But the job's not quite done yet. and I still have a lot of painting to go. So I will stop typing and start mixing. But wait, maybe I need a table lamp with white light to be able to judge colors correctly... lets ask vironica if she has one I could borrow. bye for now ya'll...