Back in the Saddle... Again.

Ah.

How nice to have technology back in my hands. Literally.

Last night I got my brand-spankin'-new G4 powerbook, and this time it has a few perks.

Like a backlit keyboard (y'know, in case I need to type in the dark... For some unknown reason. Shaddup, perverts.) and a gig of ram, which should make rendering stuff in After Effects a little less time consuming and on the whole a little less painful.

I'll admit. I appreciated the reprieve from technology. More than I thought. I also felt like a total fucking retard, struggling to do such things as check my email, and having to use the instructors computer at school to type out assignments.

I'd like to be grateful to MacStation, for giving me a replacement. But I'm not. I was informed the day I picked it up that the theft wasn't actually covered by the stores insurance policy (Which is Bullocks, in my opinion) and they were replacing it out of the kindness of their hearts, knowing I was a student, and technically, it should have been covered under MY insurance.

Wait, wait, wait. Before I grovel and kiss your ring in gratitude, Mister MacStation, I have a couple of points to bring up.

1.) *I* did all of the work required to fix the problem (that shouldn't have been a problem in the first place) regarding my warranty, including phoning down to California, and repeatedly phoning your store back, talking to a myriad of employees, ensuring that work was being done, as quickly and smoothly as possible. I came down there, when it could have been cleared over the phone, I did all the virtual "legwork" to ensure that you guys, had it easy. You're welcome.

2.) I left my laptop in the care of certified Mac technicians, under the assumption that the locale I was leaving it in was a secured area. It's not MY fault that someone broke in through the ceiling of your store, and decided to rip off whatever the fuck they could grab on a Sunday night. I was not the one remiss in assuring that my store was secure, I was not the one that decided to situate my store in that location. You guys have insurance for that, and though I do have my computer covered through my house insurance, I'm pretty fucking sure that when I signed that order form for repairs, I was placing my technology into your custody. That's like blaming the parents for allowing their children to get injured on a field trip. In short, that's just fucking ridiculous.

Blah. Whatever. Like I said, this benefited me, in ways I never would have thought. I got two weeks rest, and actually did a lot of design on PAPER, as opposed to digital, and I think that was an aspect that was lacking from my repetoire. Actually... I know it was. This just forced me to leave my comfort zone and actually get smudges of pen, charcoal, conte, pencil, paint and eraser bits all over the side of my left hand. (I'm left-handed... I dunno if some of you knew that.)

I rearranged ALL of the artwork in my two rooms in the dungeon, and noticed that I have a fetish for women of the 1940s, and monochromatic imagery. Black and whites. Rarely colour, which is surprising. My artwork is a mixture of sparse, and eclectic.

It also gave me a respite from the writers block I'd been suffering. I'm guessing you guys noticed, what with my lack of decent posts, that I was having trouble writing ANYTHING. I think that's done with now, even with the heaps of homework that I have to catch up on... Or at least anything that was computer related. Luckily for me, a great deal of work thus far has been writing. Which probably got me over my writers block as well. Not just typical goals etcetera, but I was REALLY digging deep in myself. I was exposing my soul, and it was terrifying. I was interviewed, and then I had classmates review ME, as a person. I had the six people I've spent the majority of the year with, telling me what they thought of me, and presenting ME as a person, to the rest of the class.

I was worried. I was scared that all of the faults I can see in myself, which get overlooked by people that don't know me that well, would be exposed, to the people that see me everyday, 5 days a week, for 8 hours a day. They see my creative side, they see my passions... And by far, I'd like to thank Nick, but more than anyone else, Michel, the dazzling, brilliant woman I spend most of my time chatting to on a personal basis, for telling me the things I needed to hear, and was too afraid to admit.

I read. Tons of books. I read the entire Harry Potter series again, my favourite author Jaqueline Carey, and everything she's written so far, a shiteload of Anne Rice smutty vampire novels, some Terry Pratchett, (courtesy of Damien letting me raid his bookshelf). I slept. Which I needed. I spent more time with my friends outside of chatting, (though I *did* miss quite a few chat buddies.)

But I'm back.

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Didja miss me?