The Constant Struggle

If it’s one thing I’ve learned since I picked up drawing as a hobby, it was that the creative process, be it in writing or illustration and design, is almost always an internal warzone for the creator. 

Something can always be improved. It’s never enough. And I would spend hours in front of my laptop and tablet, trying to push myself to spot the mistakes and correct them. I would keep spamming the undo button, tracing and retracing my steps over and over again just to get the perfect outline. I would close it and look at the work again, thinking to myself ‘how the hell did I manage to not see that mistake?!’ and redo the whole entire piece again. I’d get frustrated at myself sometimes when I cannot visualise the scene out perfectly.

And still, I do it because seeing the end result is always cathartic. It’s an addiction. When you look at the final product, and you look at past works that you’ve made and you’ve realised you’ve come so far and improved so much, the feeling of gratification you get is just all too satisfying. But this feeling fades after a while and pretty soon, you’ll get the itch again. But in order to feel that way, you need to fight a fierce battle against yourself and do it all over again. It’s a never ending cycle… but most of the time, it’s worth the struggle. 

The Story of the Black Sheep and the Golden Child

Do you know how the conversation of the black sheep and the golden child went?

The black sheep said to the golden child, “You’re lucky you have me for everyone to compare with. That’s why they love you, you know.” The golden child smiled softly at the black sheep, her eyes faint and tired. “You’re lucky you don’t have to live up to people’s high expectations of you, you know. I’m doing that in your place so you can be free.”

Winter reflections

It’s been a long while since I last opened my wordpress to blog.

Close friends would know by now that I’m prone to disappearing and not hearing from me every once in a while. And they would know that this isn’t because I hate them or anything. Sometimes, there’s just so much clutter in my life that I need time to reorganise and restructure my life again. A timeout, that’s what most people would call it, I guess, to get my life back on track again.

So what have I been up to?

I got myself a one-month internship stint. I won’t say where because I know they have some pretty awesome media monitoring shit in place. Not that I have anything bad to say about the place though, since I was there for the ‘honeymoon’. People are generally nice to the newbie just as long as the newbie don’t get in their way. And well, for the most part, I stayed clear out of anyone’s way and helped out as much as I can while I was there.

Christmas was surprisingly good to me this year.

They had this Christmas party and employees (including the interns) had to form groups and perform an item. The interns were mostly reluctant to perform and had asked me to do it. So I thought, oh what the heck. Much to their surprise (and mine), I agreed to it. But it was one of those spur of the moment decisions you make where you regret seconds after you agreed to it. I started worrying if I would embarrass myself and all. Thankfully, one other person whom I’ve gotten fairly close to offered to perform alongside with me and play the guitar. But we kept procrastinating and ended up practicing only on the day of the party itself. And on top of that, I had some last-minute revisions to make to a video, and I had to finish editing before the party. Cinderella had to return by 12 midnight, whereas I had to finish a job by 12 noon.

Seeing that I might not have enough time, my supervisor told me that I had to skip the performance if I have to. I knew that I had to finish the job but at the same time I couldn’t just back out from the performance. So I did the best I could to edit the video out in record speed, in between practicing and rehearsing, for the entire morning. Somehow, I managed to pull it off and my supervisor was actually pleased with my work. On top of that, the performance was quite a success, although they said my part of the performance was too soft (well I was nervous singing in front of so many people!) . Well, if that wasn’t good enough, I also won some $300 worth of vouchers in a lucky draw at the end of the Christmas party.

It was really funny because I was a newbie who’s only around for a month, and I lucked out $300 from the lucky draw. When my name was called, everyone went: “Gina? Who’s Gina?? *looking left and right* Do you know who Gina is? Where’s she from? Wait, what? SHE’S AN INTERN? How long has she been with us? WAIT, WHAT? 1 MONTH?!”

Well, in the spirit of giving, I decided to give it back and spent more than half of it giving out christmas gifts to my supervisors and the other interns in the department. The rest went to my parents who bought new clothes for themselves. What the hell, right?

Overall, I had tons of fun there, partly because of the interns, some of them whom I still keep in contact with on Twitter from time to time. And well, that’s that. After an eventful stint, I went back to school. 13 weeks of invisibility, once again. It’s week 7 now and I have tons of projects and essays due. I’m starting to get the Senior Syndrome, where I’m starting to learn not to sweat the small stuff and just do my best. Of course, sometimes my neurotism kicks in and I start worrying whether I’ll do well enough, or start blaming myself for not working harder to get the results I want. But at least, right now, I’m trying not to be too hard on myself. It’s funny because I dish the “take it easy” advice all too often and yet I almost never seem to be able to follow them when it comes to myself.

Well, a good start to 2012, wouldn’t you say?

A short post

Once upon a time,

there lived a girl who lived her life constantly trying to please others.

And when others were happy, so was she.

As days went by, she felt pieces of her fading away

And though her eyes went cold,

she kept her smile for everyone to see.

One day, she fell into a little hole in the ground,

where she met a fairy who felt sorry for her and so she asked,

‘Dear child, if I could grant you one wish to make yourself happy, what will it be?’

The girl, surprised by this question, blinked once, twice and bit on her lips.

But slowly, she opened her mouth and began to speak.

With bated breath, the fairy waited to hear her wish.

… Her wish, what could it be?

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Work in progress: Tired

-sigh-

Still a long way to go before I actually meet my own expectations. But meanwhile, I’d say I’m seeing signs of progress!

Back to the Drawing Board.

With a face like that,
It’s no wonder where she goes,
Trouble always follows.

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A simple reminder

 

Always Remember Your Passion

To the Future Me:

Do you still remember how much you love media and communication?

The first day you started school at the polytechnic, you told yourself to just do your best and never looked back ever since.

Do you remember how you would sit in front of your computer trying to do your best at design…
And hours will just fly by without you feeling tired at all?

….The euphoria you got when something in the group just clicks and ideas started to snowball one after another?

… That exhilaration and rush of self-satisfaction you got when you finished writing or designing?

… That flash of illumination when you thought of something big?

… That feeling like you’re in control when you were managing a campaign?

Sure, it hasn’t been entirely good to you. But it makes you happy most of the time. You always relish a challenge and it was always giving you new ones to achieve greater heights. You change things and it changes you too. That excites you, doesn’t it? I hope you never forget these feelings.

And if you were reading this to yourself, and all of the above feels remote to you… I hope you will be able to recall how much you love doing this… How much you lived and breathe this during your youth. And through this, I hope you gather strength and courage to keep going. To keep believing in yourself no matter what obstacles you may face. Don’t let anyone diminish your flame of passion and hope.

Yours Sincerely,

22-year-old You.

 

 

 

 

Food for thought #1230184

But what if pleasure and displeasure were so tied together that whoever wanted to have as much as possible of one must have as much as possible of the other ? – Nietzsche