Thoughts from January 8 and 11, 2002

January 8, 2002

Well, I start my new class, Visual Development, this Thursday. This schedule should be easier than the last one on Monday nights. I have every other Friday off and I don’t have to get to work as early on the Fridays I work. We also recently got Annual Passes to Disneyland and California Adventure. Kind of for Christmas, we bought ourselves a treadmill. I have used it almost every day so far. I’m up to about 30 minutes of walking/jogging. We stopped our 24-Hour Fitness memberships because we hadn’t gone in months. There’s just too much hassle involved in getting dressed for the gym, going to the gym, dealing with the people who hog the machines at the gym, coming home and showering, and having to eat late at night because we didn’t want to eat before we went to the gym. I don’t work out with weights, but I don’t need that as much these days, anyway.

What I really need is to lose weight. I am the heaviest I’ve ever been in my entire life. I used to eat and eat and gain nothing. Now I eat and eat and watch my penis disappear behind my stomach. It’s still there, but I used to look down and always see it whereas now I have to bend down to see things under my belly. I don’t like being fat. I’m no longer included in conversations about skinny people. We walked around Disneyland and California Adventure the other day and I felt the pain of the trip for days afterward. Have I mentioned my hair is thinning!? This whole general trend of getting older is not putting a smile on my face.

Today, Karen and I conducted an orientation class. It seemed to go along smoothly at first, but then Karen just about completely took over. She interrupted during my section for minutes at a time, explained everything to the thousandth degree, and just kept going and going. The whole orientation was about 45 minutes longer than normal. One part of me wants to say something, but the other half doesn’t want to piss her off. I’m just going to leave it alone and hope for a new job soon.

January 11, 2002

I had my first Visual Development class last night. Charles Z., the founder of the school, conducted the class. He makes me nervous because he’s hugely intense. He very rarely says anything for a joke. His main concern in most conversations is to bore his point directly into your heart through his eyes. He often points out the power of the medium – whatever medium of art we choose to work in. Most of the time, he doesn’t know what to make of me. As in the last class, I was reminded of Harry Potter. I’m reading the second book in the series now. Last night, Charles introduced several celebrity classmates (like having Harry Potter in class). They were people who worked in the animation industry, some at Disney, one at King of the Hill, and Snakebite.

Snakebite is the instructor for the Photoshop classes and, I guess, is taking this class to better his non-computer visual development of his work. He’s also one of those individuals who lives his own life, makes his own rules, and walks the earth not carrying what others think of him. He showed up about 20 minutes late to the class and was the last to be introduced among the celebrities. Even I had heard of his pure genius at Photoshop in the last class. He wore a ski cap on his head, large black boots on his feet, and looked like the conventions of showering were too much societal pressure to give in to. One would look at him and either declare him insane or a genius without hearing him speak.

The class should be interesting. I knew one person in the class, Tim, from the last class. Because I showed up late to the class, I was forced to sit right up front (my least favorite position in a classroom). I didn’t talk to anyone except Charles. He had to yank the words out of my mouth because … well, I mentioned earlier my fears of the man. As with the last class, my fear will turn to determination. The class is actually going to be taught by Richard Chavez. He worked on the Prince of Egypt and is working at Disney now on a project called Brother Bear. He wasn’t at the first class and will miss every other class. I’m hoping he’s not as intense as Charles. Jose, the instructor from the last class, was also in the class. I don’t think he’s actually in the class. He’s just going to help Charles and Richard out with instructing. I wish I had the time and money to take more than one class at a time, but anything is better than nothing.

I started working on the Whatever Walter Concept in the class. As with the last class, Charles kept trying to force me into a design for Walter I didn’t really want. I came up with a unibody design for Walter Charles really liked, but I hated. I’m thinking I should be able to work on the ideas individually, creating each scene, without having to mess with the design I want for Walter. Right now, I just need to develop good concepts and block them out. Speaking of which, I’m out of here.