1.6 OPM; or The Value of Creativity

State of mind: contemplative
Current soundtrack: The sound of crickets and nighttime traffic

So I DID manage to take a successful nap last night—woke up, and all—but it did result in some very strange (if very nice) dreams afterwards. My good friends Lu, Es and Prog, did we not discuss this issue very carefully? We do not want any repetitions of last year's Hikoboshi Incidents Mad Mood Swings of Doom. Settle down, give it a few years. We'll all get satisfaction eventually. I hope.

Some more buildup to the main topic of this post: I promised the readership of my old blog (soon to be locked completely, is my guess) that when I went through this term's Marketing and Creative Thinking class, I'd keep a tally of how many times the lecturer said 'okay'. Without giving too much detail away, said lecturer is known to be quite...'flouncy', and this is even more pronounced when he gets excited about something - hence the decision to make a finalised tally. In the space of almost two hours, he said the word over 100 times, and his final count is about 1.6 okays-per-minute. (Of course, I should talk. If I was relating this to you verbally, every third word would have been 'like'. :P)

Aaaanyway. Part of the lecture involved asking people what creativity was, and what the value/purpose of creativity was. As the lecturer put it, why do clients hire us? After much debate up and down and various oh-so-close(?) answers, he delivered his answer: it makes more money. And really, that's all there is to it.

Somehow, this doesn't sound right to me. I mean, sure, we're all going to end up creating commercial art of some sort; that's how we're going to earn our rice/bread/carbs. But that can't be the be-all and end-all of things. Even if you are creative, and you make piles of money, if you hate your work, hate what you do and have to drag yourself to the computer/easel/storyboard every morning...I hate to break it to you, but you probably shouldn't be doing this for the next 30 years. Call me a bit idealistic, but the last bit is common sense. If you're going to be slogging, it might as well be for something you really love. Then it won't even be a slog. To me, the greatest value of creativity is that it improves the quality of life. I figure that counts as making you happy, making things easier and serving as a coping mechanism. The world stops dead without its engine of imagination and thought.

There was supposed to be more to this, but 1) I figured I'd keep it short and 2) I don't trust myself to go on much longer without rambling and/or engaging in the sin of TMI. ;) And don't tell, but one thing I did want to define creativity as was 'eating dirt and shitting diamonds'. ;)

I snooze, I lose. ◎_◎

State of mind: slightly agitated
Current soundtrack: Return of Ultraman - Sortie Decision

I'm feeling a bit...well, daft today. Last night I was supposed to be working on my Motion Graphics research and digital thumbs, but I was so tired I needed a nap. Set my handphone alarm for 2 a.m. and went to bed. I slept straight through the alarm, and because it was an early alarm, I woke up about half an hour before I was supposed to head for college.

Not quite the best way to start off a term, I'd say. My track-record with napping is Not Good, but I never seem to learn. I went off to classes flailing, shrieking and cursing like a banshee (inwardly), and somehow managed to pull everything together to show the lecturer something. Sorry Joanne, won't happen again(-人-;;;) I got off lightly, considering how she chewed out some other people who came less prepared. Expecting to spend the next couple of nights churning out some thumbs and thinking over the concept.

I got home and found out I'd gone and left my mouse in the lab. The mouse as old as my laptop and faithful as all hell; the one I paintchat, Illustrate and Photoshop with (as well as, you know, shove cards into place while playing Solitaire). I hope it's still there in the morning. :/

*watches money fly out of her wallet and sighs deeply*

Aaaand we're back in business!

State of mind: constipated
Current soundtrack: A Mweeble Kind of Love Playlist - Itsumo Soba Ni (Kirii Daisuke)

Classes have started again for all us old TOA-ites (I'm a senior now. HOMAIGOD.) and the fresh meat newbies are starting classes this week. Good luck to all! May your pencils stay sharp, may your markers never dry, and may the gods of Macromedia and Adobe bless us all!

I have classes five days a week this term, which is a bit of a relief. So far, we've started learning Javascript and dabbling in Adobe After Effects. Also, the Dean of Studies has handed over(?) three of the college group's clients/sub-companies to we, the Batch 51 MMD majors, and we are to give them a multimedialicious makeover. My group (along with two others) has decided to handle Da Vinci, which is a place where kids can expand their creative horizons (read: we'll teach your kid how to draw like a 1337 thing. :3) Got the job brief on Friday and now all the groups need to bang heads a bit and put some Qs together. We know a lot of the lecturers from before, except Adeline our Cons. Behaviour lecturer (acerbic wit, high English proficiency (praise the GODS!) and nice handouts--all the same, I predict a certain amount of hate) and Fiona Poh, who's working for NetInfinium. MM Production and Online Media have combined projects, so will be seeing our old friend *cough* EU quite a bit this term.

Motion Graphics is being tutored by a senior whose 'Insomnia' video was one of those I saw during MY orientation. It was fairly Artsy and Confusing, and I swore right there and then I'd make stirring videos with perhaps more colours. Even if art is supposed to portray all emotions, I prefer the happy ones. The happy ones are going extinct, and I am a conservationist! ;)

Last Thursday also saw me going to acclimatise the fresh meat of TOA. It seems we have a fairly small intake this term, as they managed to fit the whole bunch into one orientation session instead of two. With the exception of some hapless few, they were so QUIET. I fear for these younglings. The force is not strong within them. *cough*

So what am I supposed to be doing now? Writing a schedule, actually. And getting together a product brief, a bunch of thumbs and a shitload of research for two/three subjects. Resolutions, M.Y.! Post-it notes! Typed schedules! HANDPHONE REMINDERS, DAMNXOR JOO!

I've also...started driving lessons. *BUMBUMBUMMMM* After four hours behind the wheel, we've established that I can't steer for peanuts. Just on Saturday I killed a cone and a metal rod while performing a three-point turn. I strongly maintain that my driver's ed teacher went grey-haired by the age of 15 because it ANTICIPATED the coming of students like me, and decided to just save itself some trouble. Other than that, I suppose Amin is a fairly nice guy, even if his vocab when he's teaching me tends to limit itself to things like "Where are you going?! You must decide where you want to go...Watch your steering...turn slowly...go straight...step on the gas...that's the brake, not the gas...press some more...now release the handbrake...don't press the clutch." *car rolls backwards*

At least my handling is improving, albeit incredibly slowly, my pedal work is pretty smooth and for someone who's not attempted a proper hill-climb before I appear to have done pretty well for myself. Even if I did kill an innocent traffic cone and metal rod, and rolled down one silly hill about three times. The public is going to love me when I hit the madness that is called 'Malaysia's roads'.

Oh, and the familial house is now a fetching shade of mint green (mostly).

Note to self:

State of mind: fascinated
Current soundtrack: SAMURAI 7 playlist

...Read foodie blogs before I go to bed more often. Came back from classes* last night and checked the Blogs of Note to find Passionate Eater and, through there, Chocablog. The result was rather a lot of time wasted, but some very nice dreams about Samurai 7 and Saiyuki. Katsu and Gojyo, in particular. I haven't had Saiyuki dreams for three years.

A quick note here - I am a huge sucker for the ancient East and its legends. Feudal Japan, Monkey/Journey To The West, element cycles, the four/five guardian beasts...mention them or pay tribute, and I'm hooked. The only exception is Fushigi Yuugi/Curious Play. You can only hear Miaka and Tamahome ping-pong each other's names back and forth so often, and without being too spoilerish...healing!sex?!

It seems a fair bit of my time is getting pimped out for my beloved college recently. Spent last weekend at the Star Education Fair giving out pamphlets and promoting the courses. Highlights of those two days included:

• The two lovebirds who took a pamphlet without letting go of each other's hands.
• Super Motivated Lassie who wanted to know about certification as an interior designer in Malaysia ("Um...tell you what, come down to campus, call this number and see if you can meet the ID head..."). It got me so curious I had to phone my buddy Lammy after the whole thing just to see if there WAS such an organisation that certified interior designers. (We now both think it's PAM.)
• The lovely spunky couple who wanted to come in with their kids, too. I say heck, you're never too old for art. :D
• The stern-looking gentleman who came asking about facilities catering for the deaf. He lives in Subang, just near our campus, but we couldn't really help him. LKW has lecturers who know ASL, but would you like to drive to Cyberjaya and back every day? I kind of felt for him.
• The dude who came to enquire about Multimedia Design with the T-shirt that said HTML stood for How To Meet Ladies. (This was a fun session, I managed to joke all the way through it with his group.)

Thursday sees me talking to the fresh meat—I mean, new students, coming in for orientation. I've been a bit hesitant about doing this the past few terms, since the juniors one term below us have a really good kit and presentation going. We were kind of just there to shake the new students up and be class clowns, which is only tolerable up to a point. This time they say they want to bring in the 'stars', so that would be me, Chrys and Steph. T.

...Stars, srsly? I don't feel that starrish. There are lots of people in class who are more kengchow (skilled) than I am, although I do fairly well for myself. I guess now it just means that my kengchowness has to spread from my presentation skills into my design sense, as well!

*Which brings me to another point. I'm looking for Consumer Behaviour. 10th edition (Blackwell R.D., Engel, J.F., Miniard P.W. 2006, Thomson South-Western). Does anyone know where I can get a copy in the P.J. area?

Pinch, punch, first post of the month

State of mind: grimy
Current soundtrack: Suki Suki Daisuki! Ultra Nyan (Horiuchi Kumiko)

This probably isn't The Way To Start A Blog. People are walking in and out of my room/workspace, discussing paints and hues and moldy spots. Don't expect a gripping expose of my deviant nosepicking habits any time soon, gentle reader.

Ah well. The point is, you're here. Hello! I'm M.Y. the Malaysian design student. Come, sit. Make yourself comfortable. Have some...no, get your own coffee. I'm fresh out. ;)

It's a new year, and 2007 brings a lot of changes on my end: one major thing is that I've been accepted as a scholarship student by my college, and they're going to absorb my second- and third-year fees in exchange for a three-year working contract. Now I just need to actually see the terms of said contract.

Third term classes start today...at 6 p.m. I am looking forward to seeing my old gang from foundation back together, though. Fun times, those were. In the meantime, I guess I'd better get off Blogger and back to doing research for Thursday's lectures. Stick around!