Blog

I think I might’ve mentioned in a previous post that this is something that I’m really excited for! If not, I’m still very excited. I’m even more excited now since I got the logo (mostly) done and I’m working on perfecting my poster.

When brainstorming for the logo, I wanted it to mostly be type-based. My reasoning for this is because I don’t want to have a super complicated logo that makes it harder to produce a design around it. I chose a bold and blocky font and messed around with the stroke and placement of each individual letter to make it unique, without making it too intricate. The Os are in front of all of the other letters, which kind of reminds me of CDs or vinyl records, but I feel like that’s just me. I’d be surprised if someone else notices it.

I also am making a maze-like background to add a little bit of texture. I originally had all of it go to the edge of the poster, but I feel like it’ll look better if it’s all inside of the margins, which I’m working on fixing as of right now. I wanted to add something geometric into the background after taking some inspiration from the 2022 campaign. I loved that the had the type outlines and effects in the background!

The campaign project feels very overwhelming, but I feel like it’ll only get easier after I finish the poster. Once one project is finished, it’ll act as a good jumping-off point for everything else, so I feel like I’ll get everything else done a little quicker.

I’m looking forward to continue my work on the campaign and to see everyone else’s! I’ve seen bits and pieces of what some of my classmates are working on and they’re all incredible!

I got my cat, Pumpkin, almost a year ago. Once the year started, I knew it was time to check her records because I knew she was due for her shots pretty soon. Her appointment was today and she did a very good job at the vet!

She did a lot of exploring, too. 🙂

She needed her rabies and feline distemper shot. She did a very good job while being handled by the vet (she doesn’t behave as well at home).

The only downside was that I had to wake up pretty early to take her and drive 20 minutes to the vet. I go to the clinic in Hartford; it’s not too bad of a drive, but I consider anything more than 10 minutes a long trip.

I’ve also made some progress on my CD cover! I still don’t know what songs I want to put on the CD, and I can’t make the track list until I know what songs to use.

I wanted to go with a bold + high contrast aesthetic. I had a lot of fun using a photo of Pumpkin for the cover, too! I masked out her face and added a black and white halftone effect to match the rest of the cover. I also wanted to add a maze on the back cover to make it a little more interactive. For the inner front cover, I’ll have the track list displayed. I don’t know if I want to add anything on the inner back cover, since it’ll be covered by the CD. I’m also debating whether I should add a texture overlay. I think it’ll add a little extra “oomph” and create a distressed/alternative look, which is what I’m going for. I’m really excited to keep working on it!

Last night at work, one of my coworkers and I were running a few returns and putting them back on the shelves. Him and I passed the toy aisle with the Nee Doh fidgets were at. I was absolutely enthralled by them. I’ve always wanted to buy one, but I never thought it was necessary. I always fidget with my hands or my clothes, especially when I’m bored at work. Every once in a while, someone leaves a toy they don’t want anymore in the wrong spot, or they give it to me, and I end up messing with it for a good portion of my shift. There’s been a few times where I hide it so I can mess with it the next time I’m supposed to work!

I was deciding between buying the Nee Doh cube or the gumdrop, and I eventually got the cube. It’s really fun to mess around with, but it gets dirty easily because of the material it’s made out of. Besides that, I’ll be carrying it around almost everywhere I go!

Sometime last semester, I was informed of some of the projects for spring semester. The personal branding projects are something I’m really excited for! I’ve been thinking of ideas for an aesthetic/theme I want for a really long time, and I think I have some pretty good ones! I’m also really excited to get back into After Effects to make my promotional video.

I’m also looking forward to start using the laser engraver. I still have no idea what I’d want to engrave on, but I’ll think of something! I’ve also been thinking about what I’d want my physical portfolio to look like for the show. I saw a lot of people last year have little dishes of candy, and I think I’d like to do the same. I also want to buy a button maker and design some of my own pins for people to take. It’d also be a great way to make myself a little more memorable!

If I have enough free time this semester, I’d also really like to design some CD covers. I like burning little playlists onto CDs, and I think personalizing the case would be a good way to be creative and learn sone new skills while I’m at it!

My break was far from productive, especially during the two weeks spent at home in Iowa. All I did was play Animal Crossing and Tomodachi Life and crochet two hats. The first hat was part of my boyfriend’s Christmas Present, and the other hat was for me so we could match (that was his idea, surprisingly).

The week before going home and the week after consisted of working and taking a lot of naps. I woke up at 11:30 almost every day and slept for over ten hours a night. It was absolutely fantastic, I might add. I also started making a blanket a few days before break ended, and I’m really excited! Making a blanket is a big goal of mine, and I really hope I can stick with it.

My family’s very small, so our Christmas celebrations weren’t too eventful, but it was really nice to see everyone again! I haven’t seen anyone on my dad’s side of the family since my high school graduation party! I was supposed to see them last Christmas, but a few family members got COVID, and we never rescheduled it.

My favorite gift this year was probably my new CD player! My boyfriend got it for me because he noticed that the sound quality on my old CD player wasn’t that great. My new CD player can also play cassettes, too! I briefly mentioned wanting to collect cassettes, so I’m really excited to expand my music collection! I collected 20+ CDs over break, and I needed to buy a standing shelf to store all of them. I think I’m currently at over 60 CDs!

I had to change my work schedule a little bit, which meant I had to work more morning shifts. I’m not a morning person by any means, but it’s nice to have a routine again! I’m really excited to start doing more projects this semester!

It gets dark at 5:30, and I’m tired all the time and have no spare time to take a nap, and Walmart is making me upset, but at least I get to go home for two weeks and not do anything at all (except crochet Christmas gifts for people)! Since the end of September, I’ve felt like I’ve been in panic mode all the time. I’ve recently stopped drinking caffeine and trying to drink more water, and I feel like that’s definitely helped. Now without the added stress of schoolwork, it’s smooth sailing from here!

I downloaded a couple of new games onto my DS as well! I’ve started playing Tomadachi life, and I’ve been making little characters of all my friends!

I’ve also been playing lots of Cooking Mama recently, too. I’ve been trying to get a perfect score on all of the recipes and it’s taking FOREVER because the rating system is super picky.

I want to start playing Animal Crossing New Leaf again, too, but I’ll probably keep playing with the same town I started with instead of creating a new one from scratch. I want to download Animal Crossing Wild World onto my DS again, but I feel like I won’t like it as much as New Leaf since I’m not used to the game’s progression speed.

Hopefully over Christmas break I’ll have a lot more time to play!

Two-ish years ago when I babysat over the summer, I found this game on Roblox called Laundry Simulator. I thought it was really fun, and I started to play it by myself. Recently, I started playing again and I made my boyfriend start playing it with me. The only problem with this, however, is that he has more coins and better washers than me because he also started to play it by himself, and he’s told a few of his friends to start playing it.

Now, whenever we play it, we’re competing to see who can get more coins and better washing machines. I’ve started to play more to catch up to him, and I think if I play enough over Christmas break, I’ll get better washers!

I also haven’t read my book in forever (oops). It’s around 400 pages, and I feel like I never have enough time to read it. I wanted to start reading it to get out of a reading slump, but it didn’t work. I feel like it would’ve been better if I started to read a book under 250 pages because it would take me less time to finish it.

The book was still really good, and I’ll probably read it again (and actually finish it this time) if given the chance!

In addition to competitive laundry, the Wordle challenge is still on. He’s currently up 7-5 (and that’s after he gave me a few pity points), so I need to up my game!

For my New Media Development class, the final project we’re working on is building a website, which I’m having a pretty good time with so far! My computer was acting up for the last 30 minutes of class, though, so I was a little frustrated

For my navbar, I wanted to have my logo in the middle overlapping it, and I was able to do it! (thanks Rick!) Making the glyphicons in my mockup was probably the hardest part, mostly because I didn’t like making clipart, but I think I’ll manage. I also feel like I have a lot to get done before the end of next week. I’ll have to set aside a lot of time on Sunday to work on some of my assignments because I’m busy all day tomorrow and Saturday.

Photography class was really fun today! My classmates and I got some of our portrait photos done. My favorite part was the “awkward JCPenny” photoshoot I took with Jess. I showed it to a few of my friends and they all thought it was really funny.

I’ve also still been doing the Wordle everyday. My boyfriend and I both do it and we see who gets it in the least amount of turns. So far he’s up 4-0. We both got it in 5 turns today, though! Both of us got yesterday’s in 4 turns, but he gave the point to himself because I used a hint. He says I cheated, but I say I used my resources!

Last week was a fun, but busy, week! I got most of my work done when I was home for Thanksgiving on Thursday before coming home on Friday (I had a mandatory Black Friday shift).

When I was home, I asked my parents if I could get an eyebrow piercing (I know I’m an adult and can do it myself, but I still wanted to ask them what they thought of it first) and they said I could! After coming back to Sioux Falls Friday afternoon, I went and got my eyebrow pierced! It hurt more than I thought it would, and my eyebrow stung for a few hours afterword, but it’s mostly fine now. There’s a little bruising around the piercing, and the long bar they put in makes me look silly. After a few weeks I can get it switched to shorter jewelry after everything heals and the swelling goes down!

After my Black Friday shift, I drove down to Sioux City to visit someone and him and I went to this really cool store that had a ton of vintage trinkets. They also had a TON of CDs. I think I bought at least 10 of them, and a whole bunch of other stuff, too. I’ve been trying to listen to one or two new albums a day to see if I like them, and I’ve listened to two of them so far. I’ve listened to “Grateful” by DFL, and “Short Bus” by Filter.

That week was also spent doing a lot of Layout work for Tony’s class. I had my lead in spread due, and I started working on the spreads for the actual feature article.

The lead in spread is done, but I still have some work to do on the article. When I was working on it yesterday, I got a lot done! I’m looking forward to working on it more and seeing how it looks when it’s finished!

Yesterday, instead of going to my marketing class, I went with my friend to a CNA skills practice lab he wanted to do. He failed his skills portion of the exam the first time, so before he retakes it, he wanted to get some review time in. It was at 9:00 in the morning, and it took a little less than an hour, and I had a lot of fun!

The first thing that he did was put some special floor-grip hospital socks on my feet. After that, he grabbed this belt thing (I cant remember what it was called) and used that to raise me from the bed to a chair (for all of these demonstrations, let’s pretend I’m an actual resident). The bed was surprisingly comfy, and I could’ve fallen asleep!

The second thing that he reviewed over was nail care. For that, all I had to do was dip my hands into some water and have my friends dry my hands for me. We also went over hair care and I got to wear a towel around over my shoulders.

Later in the lab, I got a partial bed bath, and I got to wear one of the gowns! I think wearing the gown was my favorite part of the lab in addition to laying on the bed. The bath was also really nice because the water was warmer than the water my friend used for the nail care review.

My friend also did some mobility reviews on my left arm and leg (which consisted of him moving them at the joints), and I also got to get dressed.

After the lab, both of us had some extra time before our next classes, so we went to Caribou and got some breakfast and I had the best bagel sandwich I’ve ever had in my life!

Overall, I had a really fun time, and I’m glad I was able to help my friend out!