The sun can be really deceiving. I woke up this morning seeing massive rays of sunshine and said to myself that okay, today will be a warm day. Well of course I was wrong as it was a freezing cold day today (that wind gust sure helped a lot). Compounding the problem is me only having two layers on. Could have drove home after internship to get more layers but was too lazy and did not want to waste gas. I mean I am indoors most of the time. All I have to do is survive the trip to the car. A teacher just walked in saying its actually sprinkling outside as well. GREAT.
So I took a week off of blogging as last week was my last and final spring break and I just did not have time to write (it makes sense, trust me). Overall I had a wonderful time during the break, even though I spend three days of it at my internship. But those three days was not lost as I immodestly say I was a big contributor to the company ramping up for its Groupon launch, which occurred Wednesday of last week. I mean hey, pictures don't take and edit themselves (in the future perhaps).
During the three days I actually gain real world experience using photoshop for the first time. But you say wait, if I am a photographer, should I not be using photoshop already? The answer is not really. Photoshop is really for heavily image manipulating. For simple to semi intensive post processing on all my photos, I use Lightroom, also made by Adobe (lightroom - digital, darkroom - film. get it?). That being said, photoshop really is a wonderfully and powerful too - the point where some of the stuff you can do on it should be illegal (haha).
Rest of the week I slept the prerequisite 10 hours per day and the other time I watched baseball (its back!). Cannot wait to go to my first live game of the season next season (thank you $20 bucks tickets). Also managed to sneak in some spring cleaning to my room. Basically I threw out anything that I have no touch in a year - surprising ended up with a sizable bag of stuff. Nothing like a clean and tidy room to relax and be productive in.
End of spring break means only 7 weeks until I am absolutely done with academia (for now). So now when I post the "I'm done!!!!!!" status (well tweet, since I do that now), it does indeed actually mean I am done - with the whole thing. Sad? eh maybe not really? Looking forward to it actually. Finishing everything up and having a blast at the entrepreneurship graduation ceremony. After that it is straight to debt counseling and unemployment line.
But honestly I don't know what I am doing after graduation yet. Well I do for the most part. The clear choice is get a job (probably cannot avoid this...) and work for a company using my business degree to gain experience, and then a year later or so file for graduate school to get my MBA (Berkeley? Stanford? Harvard? you like my 3.65 GPA? eh probably not). That path seems the logical and safe (?) choice (and one that my parents would approve, and as long as I am staying under their roof still, well...).
However recently I have given thought to actually start doing photography seriously (meaning actual paying jobs), at least on a part time basis. This past year I have really grown to enjoy doing photography, even the tedious editing and publishing. It has actually become something I use to procrastinate with to avoid doing my actual school work. But what I am apprehensive about is that doing it for "real" will leave me burned out and actually turn hating the hobby which I really like. That is definitely not what I want.
Who knows really. I have been getting really positive feedback - but then again, they are my friends (haha). Digital photography is so incredibly assessable - with enough time and equipment you can practically emulate what any other photographer can do (and your wallet will suffer, believe me). So then what boils down to is each individual's style and eye for composition. Thankfully post process editing can tremendously differ between each photographer than finding your own style is not that hard. The reason I can blow through processing pictures at a reasonable pace is because I already have a set of "rules" that I know my photos will need to have and the rest is just finer tinkering to each individual shot.
Anyways, this is not my photography blog, so I shall stop. Speaking of blogs though, recently I actually bought domain names for them! Of course I went with GoDaddy, because their overtly sexualized commercials did an absolutely fantastic job in enticing the key demographic that I am proudly a part of. Anyways if you look up at the URL instead of chenhealy.tumblr.com, it is now healychen.com (perhaps proving once and for all my name is incredibly unique?).
Why did I buy a url? because it is cool (duh!), and only cost me like 50 bucks per year for two domains. Besides if you are going to brand something and is sticking to it, you better lock up the .com url before someone steals it first. This exactly what happened with my photography blog - junctioncreative.COM was taken, so instead i had to settle for junctioncreative.CO (it was cheaper though). I'm not in the mood nor have the pocket books to contact and buy out whoever owns the .COM (turns out to be a flash engineer of some sort, the website is very minimalist). As for now is still just a hobby.
My computer of 5 years of age have been crapping out again. I think the hard drive is on its last legs (which makes sense, because hard drive are generally only warrantied for 5 years). The machine still works fine, and can rip through all my high definition files just fine. I would like to relieve it and buy a new Mac, but I just don't have the funds to swing it right now. But then you ask don't I already have a Macbook Pro? Well yes, I am typing on it right now. The thing is, once you have owned two computers simultaneous, you can never go back to just one, especially if one is a desktop and the other one is a notebook. The amount of multitasking is just tremendous for productivity. Not to mention when you are away from home the one that stays home can continue to do whatever you schedule it for (because video ripping and converting takes quite a long time). This phenomenon also applied when you starting adding multiple monitors. I maybe a converted minimalist, but sometimes you just need multiple machines to get the job done more efficiently.
That 5 year old PC that is crapping out, I actually built myself. Back then I was very big into the whole build your own pc thing. It was not that hard to be honest, accept for all the tinkering afterwards. And it can be quite a mess with boxes, cables, and sleeves all over the place. Ultimately it was quite satisfying to having built something so relatively complete with your bare hands (nothing like pushing power and booting it up for the first time).
But I am getting old, and I grew out of that phase. Nowadays I just want to buy a computer and turn it on without all the hassle (its why I buy Macs). Sure it is less satisfying then making something of your own, but as you find out time disappear faster as you age and there are some things that are just not worth the time to do when other people can do it perfectly (because time is money). Honestly I can see myself pretty soon even off loading the washing of my car to the machines (or someone else) because I just don't have the time to take out 4 hours of my day to do a full detail anymore (hence my car has not been washed since September - thank you rain!)
Anyways, the weekend is going to be a nice one.