Welcome

Chaac, the Mayan god of rain, has split the dam of the heavens over Los Angeles. It has been pouring on and off all day, since very early in the morning to now, evening. I love the rain, the sound and feeling of the earth washing clean are beautiful to me. But my heart also sickens to think of all the pollution that is swept into the ocean, the wastes of our urban civilization. This year has been unnatural in the amount of rain we have been receiving, but it is all for the best, since California has a water problem. How often does it rain where you live?
I cannot believe it is already the end of March. I think it has something to do with how busy I was this past week, but each day really did fly by. I know I write a lot about time and various sentiments I experience at specific moments, but it is what I like to write about the most—the quiet introspection. It calms me down and serves as a bookmark on a single page of my life. And when I say it here, it is helpful for me to see the post in the future and compare myself then.
To be honest, I am at a slight loss as to what I should discuss in these posts. I have never fancied calling this section of my website a “blog,” as much as “updates” (but I get shat upon by others if I say that ). I find many of the topics I could possibly talk about have already been blog fodder for others, not to mention topics I myself have commented on those very posts. I find no reason to repeat myself and when I do think of something (usually away from the computer, so I am not at liberty to immediately open up a page and start typing), by the time I get home, I change my mind because I dislike putting up half-formed thoughts that lead to a darkness I have yet to make out. Perhaps I shall come up with a list of things that interest me and see what I have to say about it, and what you may, too. Hmm…the environment, music,—ah! Right, for once, something I thought of earlier that is still valid.
I was taking a quiz on Blogthings, when I was given this question: Which would you rather live without—laughter or music? I mulled and mulled over that question and ultimately, it was the deciding factor in not completing that quiz and moving on to another. I would very much like to hear your answer or rambling thoughts. I still have not decided, because I think both objects are so delicately precious. One thing I thought of is, a deaf person cannot hear either, but they can see laughter and watch instruments playing. A mute person cannot laugh or sing but he or she can hear others’ laughter and music. A blind person can hear both but do not see the scene associated with them. I love laughing and I am a very humorous person, in the sense that I consider myself funny (not always, but I’ve got some funny bones under my skin) and I appreciate the humor of others. I am also a musician, bred since I was very young to enjoy, to play, and to sing music. I cannot imagine my life without music, but I also cannot imagine my life without the moments which made me cry tears of mirth and feel like my sides were going to split any second from laughing so hard. Of course, I would hope I never have to come to a point where I seriously have to make a decision between the two, but it is an interesting notion to entertain. Even the most bleak stories have a shred of one or the other and even the most tragic lives witness the presence of one or the other.
Regarding the title of this post, I was driving on the freeway last weekend and looked out the window and saw one of the many palm trees that dot the LA landscape. It was of the fat variety which look just like enormous pineapples. I now leave you with my latest art and new resources.

• Portfolio additions (not very new ): 2 colorizations, 7 photographs
• 4 new large icons, 5 regular icons (Femme, Gone With the Wind, Misc)
• 3 new textures

Wow, the crazy March has drawn to an epic close. Whew. I’m happy to say our color guard team did really well for our first year of competing in WGASC, and we have the option of going to championships in April! My SAT scores are supposed to come out tomorrow…oh wow, I just realized that. Holy shit, okay now I’m nervous. It’s my first one and I don’t want to have a bomb ass score. My spring break starts at 12:05pm on Friday. I know I won’t have much of a break—consumed by choir tech rehearsal week & concert—but just the fact I won’t have to get up early and go to school for 9 sweet days sounds beautiful. The rest of the school year dawns closer and closer, a huge blinding abyss I know I’m going to have to brave eventually, what with AP exams, finals, and the end-of-the-school-year shitpile. Hope.
Resources: I have ten (10) new icon textures. I reformatted the page so I no longer have to manually update each new icon’s code. It is automatic now. Teasers of them are below. I have also added some new stocks to the stock & scans page. There have been 25 downloads of the mannequin scans so far; they’re so cute and versatile to use—if you play around with color balance, you can match the outfit to any color you want.
Art: I have two new colorizations, the older one was a challenge entry at FLR Blends and lovely Angelina Jolie was done on my own for my own sake. Funking around on Photoshop produced a weird looking kind of conceptual design that I ended up labeling Naeolia on. It’s supposed to be an abstract old-fashioned cap (if you have no fucking clue what I’m getting at, I won’t blame you) haha. I put it under vectors because it was mostly done with the Pen tool, and the texturing was made from scratch. I love the camouflage colors I ended up with. Believe it or not, the scratchy looking texture stuff is actually a macro stock I have of the plush cushion things the little jewelry boxes come with. I know, weird & cool, right? I’ve decided to post the macro jewelry photos I took of some of my favorite daily bling. I also have two new retouches of Emily Deschanel and Drew Barrymore.

Confidence. When a person is young, it is especially hard to struggle with and balance the level of confidence and self-esteem. Some adults struggle to find their confidence all throughout their lives. The earlier you find out for yourself and become comfortable, the more you are able to grow as an individual, and most importantly, become an objective human being. As young as I am, I am glad to be able to happily say that given my circumstances, I have no issues with self-esteem. Confidence is a different matter. Confidence can almost span a lifetime to master. But, just because you are nervous, does not mean you lack confidence. I could have practiced as much as I could for a piano recital, and I would still be nervous, not because I lacked confidence to pull my repertoire off, but that’s just the way my nerves are at this point. Boldness is not a quality I wish I could always have in myself either. I don’t think being a bold person is necessarily the best thing. Bold, after all, does not always mean polite, kind, wise, intelligent, beautiful—it just means you’re bold. Which can be good sometimes and bad in other times. People like to fool themselves into thinking they have confidence, self-esteem, boldness. The latter is much more temporary than the others. Boldness is usually a fleeting attitude. Faking the first two aren’t bad; the only problem is that, as human beings, it’s usually the unpleasant that surfaces, and not breezy self-confidence. What do you think about yourself in terms of self-confidence? Do you put on a facade most of the time, or no?