God's Been Good In My Life pt. 2

Hey, I'm not done praising God, and I'll continue 'til my last breath.

Yesterday was such a great day. I spent it with two very special people to me who have seen me grow throughout all these years.  One is my mother, of course, who's been there for me these past twenty years. And the other is my best friend who's been there for me for sixteen years, yeah that's a lot. I am glad that God has blessed me with such a great friend who I'm not worthy of. She's such a good friend and person. She's honest, humble and a much stronger person than I am. God is so good to me.

I spent most of my birthday with her; eating lunch, going to the mall, making a cake and watching a movie that reminded me of what God took me out of. I am so glad that I'm out of there and now have a new life. Later, my mom and I went to a really nice (and expensive) restaurant. I was already full before but I couldn't help but continue eating. It was really delicious and the waiter was so nice; I really hope I gave him a good tip (I'm not good at math). There was also this cute baby waving at us from across our table. My mother said, "I can't believe its been twenty years since you were like that". I hope the parents understand that time will fly by before they know it.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We made a Portal cake but the inside was a rainbow cake. Yeah, I'm weird like that. Problem is, now we have too much cake at home. One huge carrot from my mother's birthday, the big Portal cake, and the small (but delicious) cake from the fancy restaurant. Actually, I've made three birthday wishes: one at lunch, the other from the Portal cake, and one from the fancy restaurant. God is good.

As a twenty year old, I'll start off the week reading more of the Bible, playing DDR (hoping that'll help as exercise), and watching my favorite movies that are not animated. First, Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), the remake of Night of the Living Dead (1990), and I'll try to find Land of the Dead (2005). After that, Return of the Dragon starring my heroes: Bruce Lee and the awesome Chuck Norris. I'll continue with all three Matrix movies (also try to find the third one) and end with Behind Enemy Lines*. Yep, God is good to this lowly geek.

*yes I have more movies that I also like, but these are the ones that make me look particularly geeky.

God's Been Good In My Life

It's one of the songs that always makes me cry. And today is a special day, not joking this time. It's my birthday. But I'm not here to celebrate the day I was born, instead all the glory and honor goes to God.

He's more than my creator, He's also my Lord, Savior, Protector, Comforter, and Father. I thank God for being who He is, and showing mercy and grace to a dirty rotten sinner. Because that is what I am, and I know I don't deserve anything good. I know I deserve Hell, I've sinned and done wrong against Him and people around me. I've hurt others, myself and most of all, I've hurt God. But God's been good to me.

He took me from that dark, lonely place and gave me a new life. He has blessed me, and has and will always love me. I wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for Him, and I'm so thankful that He loves me so much to have given up His Son for my sins, so that I can be with Him. He took me from a life of pain, agony, sorrow, anger and hatred. And gave me a life of joy and peace where I won't be hurt again. He loves me and always takes care of me. He has always provided, one way or another and never left me or forsaken me. He hears my cries and always answers, never leaving my side. And He shows He loves me, even in the littlest of things.

I am just a college student from a small family that's gone through pain in the past, but we are now a happy family relying on God for every minute of our lives.

God's been good.

Banner Turned Movie

I was originally planning on making a banner, but unfortunately it turned into an unrelated composition of inspirations. It first started with listening to the main theme from L.A. Noire, which made me wanted to use 1940s women as my inspiration again. You might recognize the same three girls used in a previous project. But then I was listening to ELO's "Evil Woman" and it started tumbling downhill with an idea for a movie.

This took a lot longer to make than my recent projects, but not from actually making it. Instead my problem was how to execute my idea. The inspiration was there but I didn't know how it should look. I had to move the elements repeatedly to figure out if it looked good or not. After many attempts, tonight I was on a roll.

The font I used was named NiteClub and I know the title and rating are more risque than what I'm used to. My excuse was that I couldn't think up of another name and I was too lazy to thoroughly search for a PG-13 logo that I wouldn't have to change. Why not PG or G? Well look at it, it doesn't exactly scream kid-friendly. Oh well, overall I really like it but I really wish that I had made the banner like I had wanted to. Maybe I'll just change the text if I can't make a banner by my deadline.

Meh...

Meh, I won't explain how trying to make silhouettes turned into this.  I also did a shoddy job with the warp tool.  Oh well, my main concern now is to make a banner.  I kind of have an idea for it and some inspirations for other projects.  These next ones will turn up better.

Jumbled Inspirations

After finishing the project for my church earlier this weekend, I decided to do the norm. Sit in front of my computer 'til late or early morning. Yeah, I don't go out often. But I had inspiration hit me after listening to my favorite game's soundtrack.  This is the song that gave me an idea.

Yeah, I love DDR's dance/house, disco-style music. It's just so fun. I love how the cover art for the songs are bright and colorful with an awesome silhouette. Simple but effective.  And that's what I thought I should try to replicate.  However, it kind of got out of hand.

I also wanted to use pictures of 1940s women since I like how they used little makeup, and simple but beautiful hairstyles.  Too much of LA Noire this past month. I tried using the same colors that I thought about whenever I listened to the soundtrack. Unfortunately, I don't know how to make the same silhouettes without taking too much time.  This project was on a whim and I wanted to make it fast in fear of losing my inspiration.  Instead I opted for the same method I used with my roommate's picture. I didn't get the original feel of disco/dance/house music and instead I got a 1940s Charlie's Angels-esque perfume ad.

Oh well, I still like it. It's not perfect, and I should've corrected the outlines to be more curvy and less jagged. This took me about an hour to do, and I used a font named 'betty noir'. Honestly, would you buy a perfume like this?

Downhill While Going Uphill

Forget about the other weekend. This weekend was ruined.

Today started out great. Last night until nine in the morning I have been working non-stop on a project for my church. I was worried that I wouldn't finish by the deadline, but actually finished earlier than expected. Afterwards, I went to sleep (when others would be waking up) and woke up at three in the afternoon for a long drive to Chick-fil-A, which isn't very well-known where I live. After a fun time eating and talking with my family, we drove back home and that's where the horror began. While driving uphill on the freeway, the car made noises and beeps, and didn't pick up speed when shifting gears. And the fear spiked up when we saw smoke from the engine. It was night when we stopped and called 911 for someone to help us.

We got back home in time for me to write what happened and finally get a picture of what embodies me for my profile. While watching The Ricky Gervais Show before starting the project, I paused at the the frog about to go mental. Both my sister and I laughed for a long time just looking at the frog, which I described as "looking like a deranged hick". I decided to take a screenshot of it for later laughs. However, now the frog looks like how I feel now.

One Heck of a Weekend

Crashed a wedding, did someone a favor, attended a gathering for fellowship, asked for forgiveness, forgave a bunch of people, made new acquaintances, and got back my inspiration.  All in the span of this weekend.

Wow, and people think I don't go outside often.

At this certain gathering I met a person who reminded me of a joke my old roommate (not my previous model) made from an incident that happened in her biology class.  I'll get back on that later.  This of course reminded me of another joke she made while doing her famous impersonations.

She made a prank phone-call to one of her friends while acting like a Chinese woman taking an order from a restaurant.  This restaurant was named The Golden Chopstick Society.  So I, being silly, decided to quickly make this in honor of my old roommate.  It's not perfect, but I had fun making this.  Now this is only for fun, and I already know that there are restaurants named Golden Chopstick(s).  But this is a fake restaurant with no malice or offense intended.  This is just one of the many precious memories I have of my roommates, and I hope to continue making things like this.

Still Alive

To the dismay of many around me. Yes I'm not dead, just back from college.

Actually, I've been home since mid-May but a lot has happened since then. I was very depressed and had constant nightmares of going back to college. The thing is: my college is on the other side of the country. And I always feared that I would never do all the things I wanted to do before going back. Why is that important? Because my college is also VERY strict, and I'm scared of losing the freedom I have here. But a friend has helped calmed down those fears.

I also feel bad for never emailing my old teachers and acquaintances. The blame belongs to the very same college I'm fearful of. As said before, the school is strict and I have limited access to internet. Not being able to use my own email and not being able to update my blog. But wait there's more!

First semester was terrible, I've had to start all over with Graphic Design (learning just the basics), lose inspiration, and even lose the love I had for Graphic Design. I really want to bring that back into my life. This is something I have to pray about.

But all is not lost. Second semester was when I finally smiled during school. That may seem unimportant, but keep in mind: first semester was REALLY BAD. I won't give all the details except for the fact that I smiled more often.

Might as well show the only graphic design projects I've done in college (aside from class projects).

My mother sent me a picture of my younger self. My job was to get rid of the glue marks (evil popsicle-stick frame), pen scribbles, and marker... marks. Of course I covered my ugly mug with the Laughing Man logo to save everyone from the horror that is me. But my mom was very pleased from the restoration. Wish I could show you how bad the original was.

I can't believe how many years have gone by since this picture was taken. And now I'm no longer the happy-go-lucky kid I used to be. After watching over pre-schoolers in Bible Vacation School, I wish I could tell them to never take this time for granted. But they probably wouldn't understand, and it might be best that they don't know what's ahead of them.

Come on, don't start getting sentimental now.

This entry was for a contest all Graphic Design majors had to participate in. A lot of things went wrong during this project. Lack of inspiration, upcoming deadline, and an overexposed photograph. I took the picture of my lovely model the night before the deadline and worked on it the day of the actual deadline. Not my fault for a lack of inspiration.

Since the photo was over-exposed to the point where I couldn't fix it in time, I decided to just outline my model's face. By the way, that lovely outline belongs to my old roommate who took the time to put her hair up and have many pictures taken of her. I messed up the outline by trying to make the lines sharper and less blurry. But instead they became pixelated. It only took me twenty minutes in total to make the outline, the background, it's gradient, and the oval pearl necklace. Yeah, not much.