46 & 2

I'm alone.

Here are some photos I took yesterday. They're among the first I've taken since the beginning of summer. Hot months suck.

I typed this up for a thread on SomethingAwful, and I felt like I could probably share it here, as well.


To begin, both of my parents are deaf, however my sister and I are not. My father became deaf through illness as an infant, and its genetic on my mom's side (her family and some extended family are also deaf). So while I'm classified as part of CODA, I haven't interacted with anyone else who is part of the CODA organization. So my experience with other people in my same situation is extremely limited.

As a child growing up in a 1950s small Texas town, my father's disability was widely ignored. My grandparents shipped him off to different schools around the country to be properly "taught" and/or "dealt with", as they felt that they were unable to cope with his needs. He was forced to wear hearing aids (similar to this one) and forced to learn how to speak. Due to this, his education and social development didn't go beyond that of a middle-school student at best. Over the years he hasn't had a job any better than a clerk or secretary at random companies, and so now he lives off my grandmother and a monthly social security check. A few years ago at the ripe age of 53, he had a CI done on his left ear. Its not changed him much from what I've noticed. He can't pronounce alot of words correctly, and his voice almost sounds permanently hoarse. Earlier in the year, a person yelled at him for being foreign and ruining the USA.

On the other hand, my mother was raised by deaf parents. She attended and graduated from Texas School for the Deaf here in Austin(fun fact: TSD is used as a location for dozens of Hollywood films), and attended Gallaudet University for one year before meeting my father on a trip back home, which resulted in her dropping out to start a family.

Since my dad is the "special" child out of four others in his family, my grandparents have always made sure that all of his finances were covered, extending to my sister's and my own. This meant that they controlled where we lived, which just so happen to mean away from any city with a significant or even known deaf culture. My mother lived largely without deaf interaction for about fifteen years, until she divorced my father (he's gay and coincidentally my mother is gay too, but that's another story) and moved back to Austin.

Over the years, she and my father were the only two people I would communicate in sign with, and even then I would usually speak vocally to my father, so my ability of ASL has not developed very well. Its something I didn't realize until recently, after my mom moved back to Austin and became re-immersed in the vast deaf community that I realized how "dumb" my ASL ability was. I can read alot of signs if it isn't at high-speed, but I can't communicate back comfortably with efficiency without resorting to finger-spelling. My older sister was born while my parents were still living in Austin, so her early childhood was spent being immersed in deaf culture. I feel that because of this, her knowledge of ASL stuck much better than it has for me. In fact, she is a certified ASL interpreter and does it part-time when she is out of class.

Unfortunately as both a hearing adult and an individual with a low ASL ability, the typically near-xenophobic deaf community treats me as a lower-class individual, as someone who doesn't and can't fit into their social group. This also extends to my mother's family, but they generally treat me the same as I was when I was a kid. Its embarrassing to everyone including myself that I can't easily communicate my thoughts and opinions or even basic gossip to my family and their friends.

Alot of people don't know that my parents are deaf, mainly because I'm ashamed that I can't embrace their culture as well as I can.

But since my parents are deaf, I think I've had quite a unique childhood (including teenage years), as I've had to discover music completely on my own, learn to communicate with strangers at an early age, and become more aware of myself and my surroundings by watching how my parents interact in the spaces around them.  I really can't imagine how different I would be had I been born of hearing adults.

It was desperation.



Moving on.

I feel like what I have are withdrawal symptoms. But from what? I don't know. I've been taking my 100mg daily.

I've also had to cancel my trip to the valley. No vacation, no beach, no friends.


I also can't sleep until I'm absolutely ready to pass out. I don't like this.

This.

Some of this is happening again. It hit me like a ton of bricks on Sunday night and the feeling hasn't gone away. Its gone up and down, but its still here. At first it was nausea, but now my head feels heavy, and I can't sit up or stand without wanting to lay down or at least rest my head on something. I'm going to the doctor on Thursday, but only with my mom to drive me to and from the appointment. I don't want to drive.

Its ruining my vacation and this happens every goddamn time I have a vacation. Last summer it was a hardcore throat infection, during Christmas it was my anxiety, and now its...something else.

I just completed the Spring Quarter at the Art Institute of Austin. I had a few shake-ups mid-way due to my grandfather's death at the end of April, but I was fortunately able to get back on my feet and should make some decent grades. I won't find out what they are specifically for probably another month, though.


Anyway, with the quarter having ended this week, final projects for my classes were due. Two of them (out of my three classes) had me involved in such an amount I've never experienced, and I think the quality of my projects reflects that. The two I'm referring to are for my Digital Photography and Form & Space classes.

For Digital Photography, we were given free reign for our final project, choosing our own theme and subjects to photograph. I chose to take photos of the different areas around my neighborhood that I've frequented since purchasing my camera back in March. The twist was that instead of photographing parts of the environment (such as a tree or a macro shot of rocks, etc.), I would photograph a wide-angle shot of each different area, with the sentence "Hi." sprawled out on the ground using giant foam padding.

To set up the shots, I had to carry around a standard-sized ladder as well as eleven 2' by 2' square foam pads, from location to location. For each shot, I would actually require the use of my Jeep to transport everything around. It took roughly about five to ten minutes to actually set up each shot, so that combined with the extreme heat we've been encountering, I wouldn't spend too long on the project at once. I spread the assignment out over the course of a week and a half.

Once I was done with each photograph session, I would upload the RAW files into Lightroom and then heavily process them to bring out the colors (or in a few cases, compensate for the major brightness outside). The result was a very strong, unified piece (works better when all ten images are side by side) with rich colors. I got some generally good responses from it, but there were a couple of images that I thought were a bit drab in comparison to others. Namely, the night-time shots.

Here's a work-in-progress shot for the first image on the second row.



And here is the final group of photos, not arranged in the horizontal order originally meant for the project.




For Form & Space, I had to create a saleable package. By saleable, I mean that I need to be able to leave it at a store and someone would seriously consider it for purchasing as if it were a real product to purchase. I decided to not overdo the project for myself and just stick to a standard package, but focus on the inclusion of content and a "whole" image.

Last summer, I created three theater posters for the first project in my Digital Imaging I class, to promote a completely made-up film of my own creation. I was really into transcendence then, having listened to Rosetta's The Galilean Satellites as much as I could, so my movie revolved around the concept of a person attaining a point where he gains knowledge that a normal human normally would not be able to gain, due to physical boundaries and limitations of the body. I was extremely proud of the resulting posters I designed for the project and have proudly submitted them for my personal demo and any other display that allows me to promote my work.

I chose to round-off that project by designing the DVD, Bonus Features, Motion Picture Soundtrack, as well as a Special Collector's Box to contain them all in. Since the original project in Digital Imaging I, I've gone through a few hard drives, so it was some task to locate the original .PSDs to work with, but with luck, I was able to. The specific designs of each product to be included in the set was not hard in itself to create, but doing so to fit the specific size sets for a DVD cover slip, or disc art, was a bit challenging. I had to do a lot of Google Searching to make sure everything was right. When it came to the box, however, I had to completely make that from scratch. I laid out the two DVDs and the CD case on a 12" by 18" sheet of paper, folded the paper around the items, marked and measured, then folded everything as if it was the final product. I then transferred the box template into Photoshop, hand-creating the specific box template, flaps and all.

After going to the 24/7 Kinko's and printing the box design, I cut it out, folded, glued, and taped everything together for a very awesome first-time result.

When I took the project to school, it was very frequently mistaken for a real product, to which my correction then granted me quite a few compliments. It great to see such a great finish for a project I had done a year ago. It will also be on display in the student show this August, for which I will even give a short talk about, too. I would have taken pictures of the entire box set, but I didn't have a chance to before turning in my work.

Here is the entirety of the Xtal project, in their flattened layer forms. Except for the theater lobby poster, which I chose not to include since it was a simple extra credit grade, for which I didn't put serious effort into.



Additionally, I just got a haircut the other day and I'm really fond of it. I think I need to actually keep it maintained like this instead of just waiting four months or so to get it shortened.

Neato speedo.

I made this for my Design History class and I really liked the way it turned out.

Here's a project I did for my Form and Space class. Its an abstract serial plane and it turned out very well. I took the photos with my phone so it isn't a good representation of its detail (nor does viewing it on a 2D plane do it any justice; its truly a 3D piece).

To kind of make up for just having static images, I took a video as well. I also took this with my phone so forgive the quality.

Are these terrible?

Favorite song by Massive Attack. The drawn-out outro is heavy and sexy.

I got a Canon Rebel XS earlier today and I'm loving it so much.

I started up a Flickr account so I can post photos I take (I reckon I'll be doing it quite often). Here are a few from earlier today:








Here's the link. If you're on Flickr, add me as your friend!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjnye

I feel like a fucking god. It was my power supply. All I have to do is swap out my old one for this then get to setting everything up.

My computer parts came in this morning before class. When I got home at around 8:30PM, I worked on setting it up for about three hours.


And the computer won't start up. The motherboard's power LED lights up but nothing more happens. I'm going to try debugging it tomorrow.



Not a good way to start my spring break.

Here's an eight-minute clip of some of the filming process for a rotoscoping project at school. I'm going to post more once I sort through the rest.

Here's my poster for August.




I printed it but I forgot to convert to CMYK so the print came out much darker than I wanted. It looks gross.

I'm really happy with this composition, it turned out nicely.



And for fun.