The future is here and I'm terrified of it.

So.

It's been two months since I last burdened everyone else with understanding how mussed the inside of my head is.

In the meantime, I managed to finish the novel from November (It's like 60k long or something now.), went on a three-day hike that I did not take enough photos for, went home, went to Queensland for Christmas, volunteered for a week-long kids club for my church and am now back in Newie, looking madly for a job before the meagre savings buffer I'd built up last year disintegrates.

In that time, I've been to two weddings, travelled 1000k in cars over 24 hours, done doorknocking, and had some wonderful late-night conversations with friends.

But the future's here, and it's sitting on my floor like my lunchbox that I know has a chinese container with off curry in it, and I'm terrified to open it, because I don't know what to do with it anyway. It's sitting here and looking at me and the longer it looks at me the more terrified I get, because I feel like this was supposed to be easier, but I'm in the In Between space again and am scrabbling about worse than a rabbit on tiles.

And the similes are easier to write, and I constructed a monologue describing my skills in my Oddspeak, but that doesn't change where I am.

Oddspeak is the word I've coined just now. I once wrote a blog post in Oddspeak, last year, I think. It's here if you want to read it.
I can't think of another word for it now. If you read the previous post, you'll notice that it's super lyrical and super involved. It's laborious to speak, because of the double statements and constant comparisons, but the way it weaves back and forth is designed to conjure an image in the mind, layered and built on with every line, every syllable, until the image appears alive and strong, and very, very real and now...

...and I'm doing it now, aren't I?

I think the first instances of me using this kind of language was when I got mad in school. The use of big words weights your statements, and the time it takes for the other person to get what you're yabbering on about usually buys enough time to solidify the argument in your own head.

But that's not the purpose of me trying to write now, to get the thoughts out of my head because I'm stuck in my house at the moment, too freaked out to go look for more jobs.

Last night was Skype night - Wednesday always is. And I got to catch up with my folks, and gave them the lowdown on how I'd thrown my resume at eight different places yesterday, and I was actually really pleased with it, considering that I'd been nearly paralyzed with anxiety for most of it.

Dude, I do not like this job hunting business.

And the response to 'I gave out eight resumes at local places looking for work' was 'are you looking in career-oriented places'?

I'm not at the moment. I'm stuck in this boggery right now, because I just need a brainless job, and I don't want to leave Newcastle this year, but the kind of job I need to go get to be doing what I want to do will pretty much without fail require me to move.

Dad suggested one he'd found right away, and the title and description made it sound exactly where I wanted to be.

But it's in Melbourne.

Why is everything in my industry in Melbourne I don't even want to go there it's too cold and I've only just established my life here and it's too far away and moving and stress and friends....

*Flips table*

There's other jobs out there like this. I'm reading through things now and they're exciting to look at, but so far away. The stress of even considering these is making my palms sweat.

I was kind of hoping that I could just stay in Newcastle for a little longer. Find out if there's anything here I should be staying for - there's stacks going on with my church in either case - and then perhaps entertain the idea of leaving if it didn't mean leaving so many people behind.

I feel like I'm waiting around for other things, too, or waiting to see how those things unfold, but I'm running out of time, and I've picked an industry you need like five years experience to be in entry level anyway, and I have my cosplay, but it's still not amazing compared to the professionals I see at cons, and...

...and I'm sorry I'm babbling. And not sorry.

Look, the next blog post I'm writing is going to be on the hike I did in December. Much less intrusive, more about my stupid hat.

There's a lot going on but I'm a long way from having the momentum to get at any of it. And I feel like I should have gotten onto this earlier.

So, pretty much exactly how things were just after I finished High School.

At least I didn't bom out with uni.

On the bright side, I found an incredibly complex recipe for Turkish Delight on Tuesday. Some of you will know this, and some won't, but I've picked up a habit of baking to decrease stress levels. And I don't have an oven.

But that's okay here, because I don't need an oven for Turkish Delight. I just need a buttload of sugar and four days to work on it.

Whoever knew this stuff was so laborious?

Retrospective: Breaking Down The Fourth Wall

Did I use that word correctly?
*googles*
...Okay. Yes. Good.

Now, with Mumford and Sons in my ears, and the rap from The Fresh Prince of Belair stuck in my head, lemme tell you about how my world got flipped, turned upside down...

Gah. Get a life, Will Smith.

This is kind of the wrap-up post for Directed Studies. It's due tomorrow, so there's that. There's probably going to be a post-script for the unit next week, because this weekend is Supanova and I think I should review how that goes for various reasons.

Okay.

At the beginning of semsester, when I kind of started wrapping my head around what Directed Studies was going to look like, I basically went "I would like to make costumes"

Subsequently, I planned out this sweeping grandeur of outfits, and had in my head that I was going to get four high-caliber costume out, in spite of the fact that on average I only have enough time and sanity and money to create on average one per year. And I was going to do all of this in a semester, plus some work experience.

Never let it be said that I don't have ambition at the start of a project.

Now, the thing that I didn't check or understand fully at the start of the project was the concept of time. See, I finished the first costume in good time, and then I had some delays getting the pattern sorted for the Halo armour. And the website that I was consulting about all of this had mentioned that it would take me about 300 hours to complete, but that didn't register in my head as a comprehensible amount of time when I first read it. I kind of just looked at it, and broke 300 hours down as 'two and a half weeks, working every day for eight hours'

You can't understand what kind of time that takes until you are in the middle of it. To my folly. The armour took so much longer than initially expected, that it effectively swallowed up my other two projects, and about fifty percent of the time I would have spent on another course. Probably more.

But. It's finished, and at least ready for marking tomorrow. I finished it yesterday morning, and immediately went out and got photos. Props to Micah for that. They look Spectacular.

I feel a little odd about it, because...well, because every time I go to make a cosplay, I hop on DeviantArt and check out what other people have done. They end up posting these absolutely radical, professional looking things, and when the photos were done, I was looking at something which had a caliber equal to those outfits. I was a little weirded out and chuffed at the same time.

So there's that.

Now you know what I planned to do, and what I actually did. Now lemme tell you about what I want to do next.

Supanova is this weekend. I'm planning to, after Tuesday, make a rifle for the outfit so I have somewhere to store my things while I'm walking around (No pockets for Tex. I'll just make the stock and cartridge hollow in the rifle and put my things in there). I also entered into the cosplay competition at Nova, because it's kind of worth seeing how my thing stacks up against everything else. I mean, I'm still expecting the mad freakout because everyone else in the advanced category will have radical stuff too. And I can't enter the novice category because I've been making costumes a while. I've just got to step up my game.

Also, I can't enter Tex in any Animania competition for cosplay, because she's not from an anime, manga or video game. Which is a pity but hey.

But there wasn't such stipulations for Nova. So I may as well see what I can do.

Now. Future stuff.

I'm still keen for an internship bout in the film industry. I just ran out of time for it in Directed Studies. I'm currently looking at options for taking some next semester. And by that I mean 'incredibly flat out, will start looking as soon as I can start working at normal times again'

Can I talk about that for a moment? Since Semester classes ended, I've pretty much been working until 2 or 3 in the morning, and then packing up and sleeping in. It's a weird method, but it works. Until your dad needs you to go and get an ignition coil from somewhere in Newie, and you've gotta get there at 8. Or you have an assessment date to meet on Monday at 10am. And you find it difficult waking up before 10.
Then you're in trouble.

*sighs*

I still want to get to make costumes for (probably) film. If I had the choice, I'd probably stick with the idea that The Beta Experiment was kind of looking at: That essentially, all of my projects are prototypes and they don't usually get past the Beta phase because I only make one-offs. I can think of next or exciting ways to make the things easier next time (So, I now have patterns for the armour if I ever want to make them again, and if I could, I would probably make them in fibreglass. Which would be easier to mass-produce, because I could just make one mould and cast from that.)
I love creating things, and I love designing things, and I can do either of those, but I have stacks of fun when I get to do both. So designing and prototyping my stuff is probably the best outlet at this point in time. I guess in a way I tend more towards the manufacture side of things though, because the cosplays are already determined in their aesthetic appearance. I just have to figure out how to make the ruddy things work. It's brilliant.

If I was better at maths, and had enough time to keep studying, I'd go do engineering or something.

*laughs manically*

So, how do I feel at the end of this shebangabang?

I think, in spite of the time-consuming-ness of the armour, I'm happy with it. I'm satisfied with everything that went in to the project, and I'm satisfied with how it turned out. I've got plans on tuning up both of the costumes that I made anyway, and will probably get onto them sometime in the near future.

(Invest in a morphsuit for the Hollow, so I never have to worry about paint flaking off)
(See if I can improve the mobility of the armour. Once everything is on, I no longer have the option of scratching my nose currently.)

I'm also really tired, because this course demanded a lot, and I gave a lot. But it was a good a lot.

In first year, I visited some friends who at the time lived out in the glasshouse mountain country in southern Queensland. One of the days we were out there (there was a few of us) we climbed one of the mountains; Mount Tibrogargan (best. name. ever.)
And it toasted me. I was so worn out by the time we got to the top. And then we saw the view.

And that made it completely worth it. Even if all we'd brought to eat were peanuts.

That's kind of what it's been like doing Directed Studies. I've had fun. I hope that everyone following the blog has had fun too.

...

This blog will, probably in the near future, go back to being my standard blog. I'll still end up writing heaps about making cosplays and stuff, but Directed Studies is just about finished, and so am I.

There's still a bit for me to get done before things are ready for tomorrow. I'll hop to it.

Brooke out.