I often wonder if I have it in me. How much is this real–how much of this am I not willing to commit to? I’ll tell myself its not the time or the client/company/employer, but when is it ever? When will it all be good enough? Probably never.

Always in waves.

This quarter has been particularly rough, had to art direct a school distributed magazine on a virtually non-existent budget, a team of three people, where all content needed to be provided by the team. We started slow, but I was fortunate enough to find a very talented photographer who is graduating this same quarter. Although there would’ve been a slight possibility of him declining due to his graduation status, I believe we both found a common vision with the magazine as a whole. Writing and content was slow to come in and finally in these last weeks the magazine’s pages are finished. It’s just a matter of combing through it all and editing as much as we can until it goes off to the printer.

We wrapped up our final photo shoot just today, for the team photo. As difficult as it was up until this point, I’m glad we were still able to put on a smile for the magazine. The pain and struggles thus far seem well worth it–as I am infinitely proud of the work committed to this magazine. One particular hurdle is actually my instructor. Not the most suitable teacher for the class, as he is automatically given the title of “Creative Director” for the project, but in reality, does nothing of the sort. Most of my difficulties stemmed from his unspecific, subjective, comments–calling me argumentative when I asked for more specifics and detail. Eventually, I realized he would not be able to see what my vision was in pieces, and I would have to complete the magazine and show him to have him understand. In the end, I’d get my way and even if this thing doesn’t get printed, I’m proud of that.

Two more quarters to go and I’m out of here. You have no idea how little I can wait.

Watched Vanilla Sky again, boy does that movie kill me good. Not so much the Tom Cruise part–I could do without that. Penelope Cruz though, phew. This particular song thats only in the movie for a few seconds, does me up real good too. Reminds me of the “sad bastard” days. Every now and then something like this reminds me but I’ve too much to do to get all sad. It’ll have to wait.

I don’t think of her much these days, only once in awhile hearing tidbits down the grapevine. It’s odd to realize you never really got to know someone and yet, you tore yourself up into pieces over them. Either way it’s sad to hear such news and I hope things pick up for her.

What I’ve been doing in the past two and a half years has basically become apart of my lifestyle and I don’t mind it but like health and fitness – this too is very much apart of my process and keeping lively. I can’t choose to ignore it forever because eventually my work and the context its in will mean absolutely nothing.

Almost there.

Also today is my birthday. Goodnight.