Travels to Den Haag!

Posted a little late, apologies.

2009-10-20T09:10:00.000+02:00

BLEEEEE! Guess where I am!? I’M IN THE UNITED FREAKIN’ STATES. That’s where I am! Where you ask!? IN CHICO. Come and find me if you want your present ( I got presents for EVERYONE I know almost, lol. So, if you are reading this…it’s likely I got you a giftey. ;D )

Wow, so Holland. One crazy crazy trip filled with a lot of learning, a TON of new experiences and just general newness. I had some crazy fun “last-minute” times, going out with the co-workers/friends as well as last minute shopping for you all. Honestly though, I’m super glad to be home. I loved Europe and all its little things but I’m so happy to be home that it hurts. ;w;

It’s also OFFICIAL that I will be FREE LANCING for Robin! Whooo! I know I won’t make my fortune of it, but it’s enough to help me buy a new computer and live a bit more comfortably than with no income what so ever. I’m super excited to work at home and watch movies and TV while I work like I used to. :: glees in joy :: But yeah, here’s the story of trip home. The last story for you guys! Le tear/sob!

So, It starts out with packing up last night, (crazy weird, it was like a dream. Packing? For what? Home? What’s that?) and “shopping” for what I wanted to take home and what I could re-purchase at home like mostly empty shampoos and conditioners and lotions. We go to sleep and then wake up at seven to drive to Schipol Airport. Peter takes us and scares me a little bit. What with accelerating into stopping cars and switching lanes four different times (in only two directions, so basically swerving) in less than two seconds. Scared me, but we made it to the airport in one piece. We get there and get to the desk to check in luggage. We stand in line for a good half our because the lady working the desk decideds every person that comes up to her is worthy of a good long conversation and catch up like they were good friends. That’s nice and all but I just want to get the gate and go HOME dammit. So, I’m already a little irritated and by the time we get to second in line, another woman comes over and is like “YOU GUYS WAITING!? COME OVER HERE LOL! WE HAVE SPACE!” so, we skip on over there, (after seeing some hairy butt crack of some dude bending over to check his luggage. Super unattractive thnxverehmuch.) and start luggage checking.

POOPS.

Looks like my big suitcase (which I’m no longer self conscious about. Anyone who picks on me for going to Europe and bringing *GASP* two suitcases can ::censored:: for all I care.) is too heavy. Damn you suitcase companies for making suitcases that are big enough to fit TOO much stuff into them! :: shakes a fist :: So, I stuff dirty laundry and random shoes into my other bag, which is filled with souvenirs by the way. Was fun. Turns out it’s only THREE KGs away from being normal weight. Damn you clothing for being heavy! So, I pay fifty US dollars (with a credit card, because come on. I’m in EUROPE still. I have Euros, not dollars!) and we are on our way. We get through the air port with little fuss, general passport handing out, forms to fill out and so on. We get on the plane and it turns out Lauren and I are about six rows away from each other. Bathrooms in-between us too. We are both in aisle seats as well. I’m not so sure about her trip from Schipol to Philly, but I do know that the girl who sat in the middle seat between me and her mom on the flight is TERRIFIED of flying. She was literally freak out like I’ve never seen anyone do. She would break out into cold sweats and grab onto me at some points ( a stranger danger grab, lol) and yeah. I felt bad for her, but it was still interesting to see someone so absolutely terrified sitting in the seat right next to me. She, her mom, and myself all talked about our various Europe trips, they were in Sweden visiting an exchange student and we all had a good time. At one point, another older European lady comes over to us, (her pinky finger was broken I noticed) and starts to tell us off for being too loud and she can hear us talking about ice cream and Fridays (…whut?) all the way from the back and she’s TRYING to SLEEP so can we keep it down? She then wobbles away and I’m all “Uhm..the hell?” And Susan (the girl’s mom) says “We’re not talking that loud…cultural difference?” and I say “Uhm. No. She looks a bit inebriated…it’s okay.” But for the rest of the trip I didn’t speak again really. I was really insulted by her because not only was she rude, she physically got into my face (Maybe she was off balance and I’m in the aisle, but still!) and yeah. I was just generally super uncomfortable.

We get off the plane with little happening except for me gleeing because I’m FINALLY back in the US and I immediately turn on my phone. GLEEE it turns on! I have only one message and no texts. I can tell you guys super missed me while I was gone. :: rolls eyes :: But anyways. So, we start going through US customs which is just a lot of lines and lot of waiting in hot airport but it gets over with. We actually have to take our bags from baggage claim, (mine being last to get there. LE SIGH.) and then recheck them in because we are from over seas. We get through security again and then we head to the right, where the big screens are for departures and arrivals. We find out what gate we’re at and we head of. We see a currency exchange booth and decide we have enough time to exchange. We have FIVE HOURS here anyways. So, I turn in my 285 Euros into 357 Dollars and we keep going! On our way, we see an Italian food shop thing. I ask to get something (only having plastic like toast at Peter’s, and bad Airplane food on the plane) and we stop. I order a Stromboli and it turns out my first experience back at the states with the public and the guy doesn’t speak English. Oh the irony! So, after the guy helps me out behind me (He seemed upset and in a hurry) I get my food and Lauren and I nom it down. We continue and turn a corner. We keep walking (The Philly airport is GIGANTIC. It’s a thirty min walk from end to end. They don’t have trams or anything, so that’s why it’s so big. ) and we suddenly reach a deadend. All the gates we can see are “A” and we realize…we’re in the wrong END of the airport. CURSES.

So, we turn around and start heading back. The signs (which we are NOW paying attention to.) tell us that gate C is in the direction we had just come from. We keep going, passing the Italian place, various shops we had looked at on our way down the wrong path, the currency booth, paintings we had “ooed and awed” at, and finally we arrive BACK at security. Seems we STARTED going the wrong way, even if the screens where in the direction we had gone. So, we started a new trek, (we wasted thirty min just walking in ANOTHER infamous Laura and Lauren circle.) and finally got to C. We settled in for the rest of our three hour something wait and I bought (delicious) cookie and some juice/tea for Lauren and I.
Now, here’s where it gets fun. We get on the plane after a super long wait and once we are on the plane there is a bit of a disturbance going on behind us. Turns out, three different people were booked for the same seat. That’s all well and good and ten minutes later it is sorted out. We are now on our way home! TO CHICO. So we start down the runway and all of a sudden, it gets dark and cloudy. The poop? We get in this HUGE long line for the run way and we wait for literally an hour and half on the run way. When we start going again the captain gets on the intercom and tells us “DARN WE HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE GATE FOR GAS LOLOL.” And I cry inside. Everyone on the plane is obviously frustrated and angry but I keep up my happy spirits. It means we get to go back inside the terminal WHOPPEE. So I try and make up for the retardation by getting a sammich for the flight. BAD IDEA. That sandwich was so filled with fail I almost cried. It was ALL gristle and nasty fat and no one thought to tell me. I paid 8 dollars to throw right into the garbage can. They took the one happy person on that flight and turned her into a raging mess. We finally got into the air after being on the runway for a combined four hours but whatever! GOING TO CHICO. As we fly, I find out that the lady sitting next to me (I’m in the aisle, she’s in the window) is a really nice person. She works with horses and mentally handicapped children so we start talking. Turns out she’s got a super interesting life what with having four children, was in Japan with the navy for a while, and so on. She and I talk the entire trip to Chico and we part ways. We finally get to the airport, get our bags and are met by the Kodais and Jeromy. We hug and shake hands and then get the HELL outta dodge.

I slept most of the ride back but woke up for goldfish and Dr. Pepper. OH SWEET. SWEET DR. PEPPER. I ended up spending the night at the Kodai’s because I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t know where my apartment was and I couldn’t call the guys at 4 in the morning. I couldn’t go to Amanda’s like planned because she didn’t have room so I just kicked it at Lauren’s. It was nice enough but we had to get up at 9. She took me to a lovely quiche place and we nommed it oh so good. Then we walked to her sister’s school, got her car and then she took me to my new home, haha.

I get up the stairs of my apartment (I had to find it myself, haha.) and I giggle incessantly. Rich and Derek aren’t expecting me for another week at least. I knock and Rich opens. The cold darkness of the apartment beckons me but I grin at Rich and I say “TADAH!” and he’s all “…LAURA!” and we hug. Haha, I surprised him so well. Derek tells me later that he heard me laughing from his room and he thought he was going insane because I COULDN’T be back so early!

Later, Amanda invites Rachel over and I surprise her as well and then the three of us go for tea and apartment supplies. That ends my Holland trip and return! Filled with surprise and love for the joyful return!
Alright! So, now you guys know! The grand adventure that was the trip of Jolly in Europe! This experience has taught me that I freakin’ LOVE to blog! So, I’m starting another! It’s got a lolzy name and everything. Sadly, this blogging experience has also taught me to give the URL out at personal risk and so I am NOT going to be linking my new blog here. I apologize all my lovely readers, but if you’d truly like to keep up with my new blog, you’re going to have to personally email me and ask me for the URL. I will give it out but I can’t link it here anymore. I don’t want to risk the stress.

Although, the new blog will basically be my daily life and art keep up. It will be where I post my progress on my projects, personal and school as well as my own thoughts on life and happenings. It’s going to be my personal diary of day to day happenings so that I can keep an eye on my crazy years and years from now.

So! Email me! I hope to hear from all of you and thank you SO MUCH for reading and staying up to date on my blogs! I love you guys and hope to see you all SUPERRRRRR SOOOOOOOOON!!!

Sorry,

2009-08-12T11:20:00.008+02:00

My apologies for not updating. Really. I feel bad.

I have a lot to update you guys on. But first, I'd like to say the reason I haven't been updating is because the internet at Peter's place is practically non-existant and I don't update at work because...ya know. I'm doing work. Anyways, left off last time with Admiral Ackbar. Well, he's done and history and now I've just completed the Brain Coral or better known as Diploria Strigosa.

This sucker has 101376 polygons, one 2K texture map, one 2K normal map (made with the incredibly lovely Crazy Bump) and a lot of ZBrush.

As I said earlier though, there was a lot that went wrong with it. Oddly enough, it worked out in the end to be one of the faster models. That, or I'm improving. Dunno. But, what basically happened is that I originally took my base mesh, a plain sphere from Silo, into Zbrush. I then slapped a quickly made texture onto the mesh so that I could basically copy the walls (the larger wiggles on the model) while sculpting it. This worked out fairly well but as I got to the point of having to create the ridges (the small lines you see in the walls) I started getting worried. I started to think about it and realized, this object is going to have a few things very very wrong with it.

Since I had to UV it as a regular sphere, to put a texture on it, when I export the higher poly model, it's going to have the same UV. Not good because there are more polygons and they are shaped way different than the original. I could just re-uv the thing but that would have taken weeks to re-UV and then texture because it would have caused for so many unsightly seams. This just seemed bad it all sorts of ways so I paused my production. I didn't want to start sculpting every single little ridge in the thing if I couldn't just make a map of it. I then realized, that if I had a map, I wouldn't be able to put it onto my exported higher polygon model because the polygon count wasn't the same nor would the walls be in the same place.

Upset, I waited for Robin to come back so I could explain the situation to him. I was guessing I was going to have to either just use the original sphere and put the normal map on, making both the ridges and walls, or use the exported higher polygon model and then just redo the entire texture, but spend weeks trying to match up walls and ridges.

As I was explaining and showing him this process, I take the model into maya, and he asks to see the "slap-on" texture on the model to see what I'm talking about. I do so and show him. I suddenly realize, while looking at, that the sphere's texture and uv are WORKING on the high poly model. Why? No freakin' clue! It just...worked! Even if it should have been all messed up and seam-y, it wasn't! It was a perfect fit! Ecstatic, I told Robin that I was just kidding and I'd start texturing and stuff right away. I then proceded to texture the object (using a tiling method I taught myself, because that's how the original walls where made, with a tiled texture.) and then used a normal map from zbrush to fix seams. Whoo! I was happy. It's now done but I'm being asked to create a few different variations of it so it can be copied and pasted around and not looking cloned.

I just remembered, you guys haven't seen the finished Table Coral! Well, let me enlighten you!

This has 111,362 polygons. The bumps that you can see are actually a procedural that Kees made for me and put on in 3DsMax while the only other map on there is the trunk and the underside (which you can't see anyways) to give it the look of actually being all rooty and coral like.

Enough about Table Coral.

Also! I finished the Anemone as well! I'm just a machine, pumping all these models and textures out. (Lol, sarcasm. Talk to Lauren if you REALLY want a machine to pump out amazing models and textures. I've done a grand total of five or six models this summer while she's done..uuhmm...like 25 or 30 I think.)

The Anemone, I really really did not want to copy paste polyps again. I really really didn't. It would have hurt too much. So, I decided to try it a different way. What I did was made the base mesh of the base of the anemone, and then created one polyp to show size difference. I then took that polyp, and the base and created a flat square. From there, I divided the square so many times until the smaller squares matched sizes with the base of my own polyp. I then copied the polyp numerous times until it covered every single smaller square. I then deleted the square and base mesh, and original one polyp. I took all the hoardes of polyps I made into lightwave where I merged points. now, since the base points were so close to each other to begin with, they were all merged with each other so then I when I exported a .obj, I came out with a ready polyp forest! HOORAH. No hand copying and pasteing and merging for me! It took less then ten minutes to do all that. Squeeee. No Table Coral flashbacks for me. ^ ^

So, now that I had this square polyp forest, I loaded the base mesh of the base into the scene. I deleted all the extra polyps on the corners and started to merge the base and the polyps. It included a lot more polygons to merge points with each other and it included some tweaking to make the square polyp bases look round to go with the original base, but it all worked out. After doing that, I began to UV it so I could texture it. Me, being lazy, UV'd two loops away from where I should have (Hey, that would have taken an extra 2 minutes to go hand select those loops! It was more near the polyps, so the loops wouldn't have been selected by doubleclicking. Thus, Laura = Lazy and pays for it later.) I UV'd it, had some blatant seams, (where else would they have gone? It's an anemone, no clever spots to hide seams.) and then textured it from a photo. It was fine, and I had to work some clever magic with the transform tool, clone brush and heal brush but it looked fine. I take model and texture over to Maya and look at it. I then decide to look at a picture of the actual anemone (ya know, to be realistic and all. OVERRATED.) and see that sadly, the texture starts at the wrong place. LE SIGH. So, I have to go back and re-UV the thing and then I realize since I'd done so much work on the texture already, re-texturing it would have been a super pain. So, I worked some clever magic with the UV and made it bend to my will. (Really, it was just me recreating only part of the UV and UVing it where it had been originally, only now with more polygons! ::Salesman smile:: ) So, new UV into photoshop, move some stuff around, flip some textures, and then clone brush over newly revealed blank space.

So, now I had a texture! Hoorah! I quickly threw it into Crazy Bump, got myself a normal map and then put it all together in Maya. Hooray! Finished in two days when I had been dreading it, and had thought it would take three weeks. Now, since the polyps were all the same length (size and everything, they were cloned from one, 8P ) I had to go soft select and move them a bit. I left them standing straight out though, so that the animator would have an easier time animating it. I mean, they're going to have clown fish swimming in that thing. I also didn't texture the polyps myself (nor UV them, thank god. I had forgotten to UV the one at the beginning, wich would have just copied and pasted like the actual models if I'd remembered.) because the anemone's polyps (the real one) have an incandescence that you can't really imitate with a regular texture map. It's better done with procedurals and since they are using Max to animate and make seems, they have to use max to make the procedurals since the maya ones don't translate over. I don't (can't) use Max, so the job of texturing the polyps has been left to someone else. That's totally fine by me though. I did seperate the base from the polyps so at least some of the work is done for them. ::laughs::

Here's a render.

It's official name is Heteractis Magnifica or Purple Anemone. There is not a lot of information on them, but meh. Whatever. AND YES. They really are that bright purple, but guess what? The polyps are a posionous neon green, so it looks pretty freakin' fantastic. XD

WHOO~. Done with work talks! Onto the personal stuff!

Life's been alright. I've just done a lot of work for DAVIS though, I did two weeks worth of work (Models, UVs, and textures) in about two or three days last week, so that was refreashing. I don't have to worry about DAVIS until I get home. But this last weekend, Lauren and I went to Amsterdam one last time. Our trip starts with us taking tram 12 to try and get to centraal. We didn't know, but apparently 12 doesn't go to Centraal. We got to a random intersection and just stopped dead and didn't move after that. Lauren and I get off the tram because obviously we can't go anywhere. We had a general knowledge of where Centraal was so we began our first (of many) trek to reach our destination. It was a good mile or so to Centraal but it was sunny and we were in good spirits (Or Lauren had been, I was still upset at the guy who had been making fun of my weight on tram 12.) and we were having anther Amsterdam Adventure!

We first decided we wanted to go to "NEMO" after taking the train, which is a science museum. We knew that it was sorta near centraal, so we set out on foot to go find it. We originally thought it was right next to the canal right in front of Centraal but I had remembered it was in the big Bay like Canal over to the left of Centraal when you leave it. So, we head out and start walking. As we walk, we start going farther and farther and farther. During this trek, we notice that there is a little bridge over the canal (which we are now on the wrong side of) and I point it out. We decide to keep going where we'd been going because we weren't sure that the path I pointed out actually connected with Nemo. It looked like it could possibley just lead to this interesting looking Chinese Resturaunt on the water and that was it. So we keep going and as we are walking over another bridge, still on the wrong side of the canal, we see NEMO. It's waaay far away, lol. We trek over there and our walk takes about an hour (I think?) but we finally get there. As we stop and reach there, it's obvious that if we had taken the original route we'd discarded, we would have made it to NEMO in a quarter of the time it took to get there. Fantastic.

We get in there, pay and then start to look around. Lauren tells me it's just like the exploritorium back in California but I've never been there, so I don't really know. All I know, is that this is not what I was expecting. It was not a "Science Museum" but really it was a "Science Playground". It was very cute but not at all what I was expecting. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed what I expected more, but whatever. The entire plae was basically just kids running around, playing with knobs, levers, watching movies, looking at basic robots and parents just looking tired and sitting in way too small chairs.

Lauren and I enjoy ourselves, and push some knobs, pull some levers but all the while dodging super rude children and super obnoxious couples. PS, if Lauren and I ever had a kid, the genetics make it so the kid looks like a clone of me, lol. Haha Lauren, haha. Lauren and I also got to play with pulleys and mirrors and it was awesome. XD

My favorite room was what I lovingly dubbed "The Dead Room" or "Dead Things! Lauren, come look!" It was basically a room filled with skeletons, and things/creatures pickled in jars. Also, fetus' were in the room, showing how big at what stages of pregnancy. HUMAN FETUS. Lol, it was awesome. I got a picture of literally every single thing in that room. It was the smallest room at NEMO and also the most poorly lit, but it was fun for me. I was by myself (yay, no rude children) for at least a good twenty minutes. After enjoying cut in half dogs (to see their brains) and two headed kitties (come on, who doesn't enjoy a good pickled meowmeow?) and the like, I went out and found Lauren. We both had wanted to see the robot show that everyone had been advertising so we went and found it.

It wasn't what we were expecting at all. It basically was my dad's workplace, so it was interesting but not new in the slightest. We got out of there ( one of their exhibits was a couple of out of commission roomba's and a robot with what looked like a vagina) and kept up on our journey. Next, was the sex/teen floor. I thought this museum was for kids (which is IS) but I've never been so uncomfortable in my life. I'm this larger girl in this child's museum watching this Dutch film (which was kind of insulting most of the time) about puberty. The style of animation for the film was interesting, so I watched it. By myself, I might add. Lauren threw gum at me to get my attention to let me know where she was, lol. The first thing the film said was this British guy says, while the girl is starting to go through puberty, "Oh look! There she goes now! The girls always go first, that's how it should be." Now, he said it in a way that made it very obvious he wasn't talking about puberty, but meh. I let it slide. What I was a bit (a lot) weirded out by was the fact that in the animation, they had the girl playing with her breasts at the end of video and near the end they had the guy playing with his penis. It was...so awkward. I mean, I'm all for freedoms and liberties and stuff but I like boundries too!

After this horribley awkward animation, I got out of there and noticed a booth called "SEX". I see people walking into it and just coming out laughing, so I made my way over. OH WOW.

It had mannikins in it, the ones you draw with, showing you different positions of the kama sutra. Wow, I didn't need to see any of that. It also had a continuous looped video of animals, AND PEOPLE, just...doing it! The animals was odd, but also. People. Next to the video, there were blocked off areas where a sign read "Video Booth, wont start without a token, to be bought at the front desk.". The booths were blocked off with velvet curtains and I didn't even want to know. I quickly exited and ignored the children playing "French Kiss" with a pair of fake tongues in a glass box next to the sex exhibit.

I quickly made my way to Lauren and wanted to try out another little exhibit, by talking to someone on this face device that let you speak and see them from across the room. It was cool soudning, but this couple in front of us couldn't figure it out. I waited and waitd and finally I tried pointing out a little of the instructions and they snapped at me rudely before storming off because they didn't see you had to press the start button and SIT on the CHAIR. :: sigh :: Then children would swarm the silly exhibit and I was fed up with it so Lauren and I continued our journey. After finishing with what we had wanted to do, we started to make our way down, but on our way down I pointed out an infrared camera to Lauren and we stared. Wow, I know how hot my body is now. Literally! Lolol, pricelss pun.

That camera made for some quite funny observations. Oh, the public. How I love and hate you. After we left the building of NEMO, we paid to get on the ship that was a life size replica of a Dutch trading ship. We got to see all the cabins, decks, insides and everything. I didn't take pictures though, it was too hot under the decks and too dark. It was quite an interesting experience though. After NEMO, we walked back to the Centraal. We took the short path this time, and so it was much shorter. Yay for another infamous circle! We stopped and bought water for me and fries for Lauren and nom'd for a while. After that, we hopped a tram and headed to the Flower Markt and walked down from there back to centraal, shopping along the way. After we were done with that for the day, we got on the train to go back home. While on the train, we got a little worried, thinking it was taking us the wrong way but we made it to schipol airport, so we breathed easy, thinking we were just being paranoid. We then rode back Lieden and the ticket guy came to check our tickets. We politely informed us we were accidentlly sitting in 1st class and we could stay there for now, we should just remember for next time. He also told us we should have switched trains at Lieden. Confused, Lauren and I just let it slide. We got into Den Haag and the train stopped. We looked out, and low and behold! It's not Den Haag Centraal but some other train stop in Den Haag. We have NO IDEA where this is, so walk around, look around and finally get on ANOTHER train to get to centraal. We make it and then get onto the RIGHT tram, (#9) and make our way home. As we are riding 9, we get to the OTHER Den Haag train stop and realize that this stop is almost next door to where we live and if we'd just taken the 9 from that stop, we could have made it home instead of wasting 45 min on taking ANOTHER huge circle. Le sigh. Then, we trudged in the door and thus ended our crazy day of excess and uneeded walking.

Sunday we just went to the office where I played Red Alert and found out my laptop doesn't want to get internet here either.

Monday passed with little to do.

Tuesday was Lauren's Birthday! So of course we go out! First, we have work. Then, we head home to drop off backpacks and take the tram to Spui, where the Pathe (Theater) is. We buy tickets FIRST this time, so as to not miss the show like we did with Ice Age 3 and have to wait two extra hours. We then walk a few blocks over to the Italian place. On the way, we bump into the Narnia-like coffee shop! This little place (yes, for coffee, not pot) had DISAPPEARED and we had no idea where it could have gone last time we had been looking for it, so it was a complete surprise to find it again. It was closed by the time we were out of work but it was still hella lolzy. It turns out, it's only ONE BLOCK from the Italian Place, which blew both Lauren and my mind's. We had a lovely dinner (observing pervy waiters, strangely familiar strangers and bad hostessing) and then made our way back to the Pathe. We watched "Public Enemies" and it was alright. The sad thing was the entire right half of the screen was out of focus (Not intentional filming, the Dutch subtitles were out of focus too) and the sound mixer must have been high when doing this movie. The first five lines were so quiet I couldn't hear them, and the music was way too loud. I guess they were trying to make it realistic because they muffled the audio a little when the camera was outside the car and they made it clearer with the camera was inside again.

What I really did like about this movie filming and sound wise, was that it felt like you were a part of it, because the filming had a more personal feel, what with the shots being more "myspace-y" and like the camera cared about the people and the actions of what was going on. It would duck to the floor when there was shooting and duck behind walls when the bad guys would shoot. Also the sound of the guns sounded like "pops" and "cracks" rather then huge explosions like in normal movies. I surmised this is how guns "really" sound since I've never actually heard a real one before, and I really liked the quality of it. The movie was incredibly long but yeah. Twas a birthday! I also got strawberry cheescake ice cream before we went it, so life was good lol.

The most interesting ( and frightening) thing of that night, was as we were taking the 9 home, we observed a very drunk, older Turkish man get on the tram right behind us. He apparently was staring at me and decided to sit right in front of Lauren and myself. I had been talking to her, so I hadn't noticed but when I did look at him, he was staring at me again. I stared back, with a slightly angered look (I do this when people stare at me here in Holland, I'm sick of the rude stares because I'm bigger and I don't need to act like a kicked puppy.) and to my surprise, he winks at me. Now, I'm super confused and look at Lauren and explain, and we both look back to see him staring and then wink AGAIN. Lol, we just start laughing and at the next stop, he stands (wobbling, and getting help from the pole at his hands) and then winks a third time before sorta leaning towards me. Lauren could have sworn he was going to try and flirt with me or touch me in some way, but thankfully he just wobbled out and we didn't see him again. Discounting the guy with a pink over shirt and a bedazzled man purse, the Turkish guy just made my evening super lols.

Now, it's Wednesday. Whoo! I've been working and then writing this. I hope people are a bit more caught up in what I'm doing! I have some pictures but I wont post them right now because I probably SHOULD be doing some sort of work doring the day here. XD

Problems

2009-07-31T14:24:00.007+02:00

Presenting the Pterois Volitans or more commonly known as the Red Lionfish! D'aw, isn't he cute? I've nicknamed him "Admiral Ackbar"

CAUSE IT'S A TRAP.

All textures, maps and so on are 5K by 5K each, he is a total of 17,494 polygons. Click the image to see it full sized.

Top Left is the normal map for the fish's body, top right is it's texture, bottom left is the fin texture and bottom right is the opacity map. Click picture to see full picture. Beware though, it's 5k by 5k. Each of the textures are originally 5k by 5k and so they were sized down so all four could fit into this one 5k by 5k square.

And this is the wireframe of said fish.

Anyways. Glad that got done. D8

On to the problems though. I am not being asked to create a brain coral and an anemone for a clown fish to live in. I started with the brain coral (because that's what I was assigned first. 8P) and I have gotten to the point of the coral where the base mesh is completed and the large "brain" parts of the coral have been successfully sculpted in Zbrush and it is now time for the tiny grooves in those large squiggles of the mesh. Unfortunately, I carved out some grooves for an example render to see if the normal map would look good and it looks like this model is to much for even the powerful computers of Mirage 3D to handle. ;-; What the crap am I going to do!?

I mean, I could make the entire thing a normal map but that would just look so crappy for a 4K sized animation, which it is! Blargh, I don't know what to do so I sent off all my questions to Robin and hope that he'll come up with something.

While I wait for Robin to reply though, I start on my sea anemone and it looks like it's going to be quite similar (almost exactly) like the table coral. I've tried sculpting all it's wiggly polyps because I don't want to copy paste polyps onto a model AGAIN after that freakin' table coral. I don't think I posted a completed picture of the coral. I'll upload it later. Anyway, I really really REALLy don't want to copy paste and move poly's around again because of how much I had to do for the very FIRST project I did here. ;-; So, I'm just staring blankly at Silo, trying to figure out SOME sort of short cut, SOME way to avoid copying and pasting, and I just...can't find anything. TT-TT

On a different note, I finished modeling five models for D.A.V.I.S. and I got them all sized, triangulated, resting on 0 and exported as .ase's on time and got them turned in. Hooray for no later work!

On a super SAD note, our free internet from the local marketplace cut out last night. It literally worked one minute (we were watching videos of the 10 dimensions of infinity or whatever you call it.) and then I took a shower, came back to my computer and found out that it had been locked. BLARGH.

Well, I'll figure it out later. Hopefully renders of fish will tide you all over for now. Enjoy the admiral!

PIPPIPPIPPIP

2009-07-28T18:19:00.002+02:00

First things first. If that damn bird outisde my window doesn't shut up, I'm going to flying leap tackle that thing and ROAST IT.

Onwards with post.

Today was frustrating as all hell. I was late with DAVIS homework and so I got it all finished and turned in today but just knowing that it was due Friday and I only got it in now is just really discouraging. I have a good reason and I got permission but it still sucks. D8 Raina is just nice to me and makes me feel better. I have five models to model, UV, texture and turn in by Friday, so I'll be working on that all night for the next few nights.

Other than DAVIS stuff, I started to work more on the Brain Coral. This, is very hard to do. Why? Because my computer that I work on at Mirage IIID Labs is not very good. Yes, it's fantastic in comparison to most computers but it wont let me divide my model in Zbrush more than a few times. NEED MORE DETAILS. I was trying to work with getting a normal map from CS4 and that didn't work so I was trying alpha brushes for Zbrush and it doesn't work either. Brain Coral is just complex like a jerk. So, I decided I'm going to have to texture every single little ridge on this braincoral, BY HAND. Haaaaaaate my life. ::cry::

I can't work on my Red Lionfish either because to do that quickly and in a manner that uses my time effectively, I would need to work with CS4 and Maya 2009 at the same time, switching back and forth. I can't do that! I dunno if it's because of the size of my texture or object but bleh, it's really getting annoying.

There was supposed to be a new computer coming in last week (Friday or Thursday) but it still hasn't come in TODAY. Blargh, I know I'm just complaining a lot on here. Sorry about that.

Tonight, we'll be making chicken Cesear pita's, so I'm excited. Whoo! I love pitas, hopefully it'll be good.

Laundreeee

2009-07-27T18:51:00.002+02:00

Soooo. I did laundry last night. I also took a bath. and a shower.

As interesting as that is, it gets MORE interesting.

I did said laundry by hand. I filled up the tub here at Peter's house and poured in some soup and twirled my arms like an egg beater. There is no washer or dryer here at Peter's place and we can't find a laundromat so we've been trying do laundry by hand and then hang it where ever we can in the house so it can dry. It currently smells like wet clothes in here.

Today was really nice in the morning but right as we are eating lunch outside, it starts to rain on us and it's been wet and cold ever since. I rather like it but I am a little put out by the lack of socks due to no laundry. I guess I should wash those tonight.

I have a lot of work to do on DAVIS so this post wont be very long. Unfortunately, I was trying to make collision meshes all morning and most of the afternoon to only find out that I had made 15 of the wrong ones and I have a different 18 more to do. :: sigh :: I'm getting so sick of this. D8>

Well, I'm off to work some more. I just wanted to tell you all I have successfully done laundry by hand.

Lauren's Parents

2009-07-24T23:30:00.003+02:00

I'm currently listening to Lauren and her parents talking. I just talked with my Dad, but I miss my mom now and I wish I could have gotten a hold of her earlier.

Anyways, we are going to a theme park thing tomorrow! I believe it is spelled "Efteling" and it looks like a lot of fun. 8P The website for it is http://www.efteling.nl/

Anywho. We have settled in rather nicely here at Peter's unfinished house. It's a bit scary on the floor but if you wear shoes it's absolutely heaven in comparison. We are making delicious dinners spaghetti and fried chicken (all "Typical American") for Peter to enjoy with us, a small "thanks for letting us crash your new place." kind of thing.

ANYWAYS. I started writing this blog last night but I'm finishing it now. After the Efteling! It was FANTASTIC. It's very similiar to Disney Land but all in Dutch! We had Peter and Mathijs translate for us the entire time but it was wonderful! I've not laughed so hard and so easily for this entire trip. We actually bought one of the pictures of us on a roller coast because it was so funny. I was giving this weird scared look, Peter looks so happy to just be alive, Mathijs has got his tongue out for some reason and Lauren is looking like a sort of smiling demon in the back. It was fantastic. I think my favorite ride would have to be the Roc ride where it's a large roller coaster in the dark with flashes of the big bird. I particularly enjoyed how we were never in line for longer than thirty min, most of the rides around ten or twenty min long. The guys seemed to be relaxed and had fun too.

Lauren drove us to the park in the morning (she likes to drive, CRAZY.) and then at five, Peter drove us back to Rotterdam because he had to go see his girl. Mathijs drove us back to Peter's where we (meaning Lauren) cooked calzones for him.

I feel kind of bad I'm not down with them right now but I've been fighting the meanest migrane since we left the park and I'm completely exhausted with people talking. I thought I could take it, so I went down for a minute but after a short two minute period I had to get up and leave again because their voices, as quite as they were, were grating so heavily on me I almost thought I was going to have my head explode.

Anywho! I have a good lot of pictures from the Efteling but I'll post them later when I'm not super in pain. I think tomorrow we're going to attempt to do our laundry by hand because we don't have a washer or dryer but ARGH, it'll be so nice to sleep in. We weren't able to today because of the theme park so tomorrow is going to be glorious. I believe tomorrow I am also going to work for DAVIS because stuff was due today and I wasn't able to get it in due to the sad "boot" we had from Angelica's. I am so glad we aren't there anymore though. It really makes me happy.

I think the best memory I will take from the Efteling was the crazy people dressed up as theme park welcomers and they were in giant bouncy stilts and there legs were just fascinating to look at. I also really enjoyed trying to read the Dutch fairy tales about the "kabouters" and absolutely mutilating the language. I learned a lot today about fairytales and pronunciation but we taught the boys the words "Mutilation", "hella" and oddly enough the term "breasticles" since I accidentally said that when I saw that the statues were fully anatomically correct and I pointed out to Lauren that "Those woman have breasticles! D8". Well, toodle pip for now! Love you all and we are surviving! Go go go!

Unfortunately Fortunate

2009-07-22T13:32:00.004+02:00

So, we’ve been kicked out.

Yes, kicked out.

The guys here at Mirage 3D are more than wonderful to help us with this super unfortunate situation but basically what has happened is that Angelica’s father has become very ill and she has been backed into a corner metaphorically. The story goes as such.

Angelica had been “mentioning” to both Lauren and I all summer (usually a bit inebriated) that she was so surprised that we were there. That we had come to her house so soon. She always made it a point to tell me that she had wanted to fix the ceiling in my room before I’d gotten there but Robin had neglected to tell her that we were arriving much sooner than she expected. The multiple times she mentioned both of these things made it seem like she did not want us around. I kept feeling more and more guilty, especially when she started crying to me and confiding in me when she would not confide in Lauren. She tells me that her father is very ill and that she needs to go home to Chile as soon as possible. I understand completely, my own family has had difficulties with things like this so I am more than sympathetic with her situation and I believe I did all in my power to show her I understood she was in a very bad spot. She started spending all of her evenings either talking to family back home or playing on the computer or watching TV in her room or in the living room. We stayed out of her way out of respect as well as attempting to not confront her on any matters that cause friction.

This all comes to a halt this last Thursday. Angelica comes into my room (when Lauren has just “conveniently” gone to bed) and she tells me that she needs to go to Chile in the next week or so because her father is very sick and she needs to be with him. I tell her I completely understand and she should go see him. She is glad I understand but they tells me that she is going to talk to Peter or Robin and ask one of them to take Lauren and myself.

What?

Angelica tells me she wants to take “all responsibility” on to her own shoulders. She wants to turn of the power and water and cable so that she doesn’t have anything to worry about (I suspect she doesn’t want to pay the bills while she is away) but in doing so she wants to get us out of there. She tells me that it’s not my fault and that she’s going to take care of it all. I ask her if we can just stay at her house, we’ll clean extra well and take wonderful care of her place and lock everything up when we leave and she becomes adamant that she’ll talk to Robin so that he’ll take care of us. I don’t know what to think of this so I go to bed. On Friday, we tell Robin her plan of kicking us out and he tells us that it is not possible for her to do that. She made a promise and a deal to take us in for the summer. She had shown so much want for us to live with her to Robin that he trusted her and she could not back out of this. Lauren and I were very relieved and so we spent the weekend trying to be scarce around the house and letting things mull over because we were hopefully going to stay there for the rest of our time there. Without Angelica even, for the last two weeks.

On Tuesday (yesterday), Angelica comes in and she and Robin talk. I find out later that apparently she had called Peter and told him she needed to go to the hospital and she needed us out. She basically begged him to take us by using the “I’m sick and need to go home” card and Peter, being the wonderfully nice and understanding person he is, said we could go to his (unfinished) house if it became an emergency. Angelica comes in on Tuesday and tells Robin that it’s all squared away that we are going to Peter’s (unfinished) house and “iss’okay”. Robin tells her flatly she cannot kick us out and that we are going to stay there for the rest of our time here in Europe and they get into a fight. Things were said and words were exchanged but I won’t get into that. Basically, it turns out that she is immobile on this subject and she is going to get rid of us.

Robin tells us later that day that she is not going to change her mind so we decide that if she really is going to kick us out, we’ll go to Peter’s but for the moment we’ll try and stay there. Lauren and I then go to the new Harry Potter movie to try and get our minds off of things. We accidently missed the first showing because it was sold out (We should have bought tickets before trying to go get dinner, lol) but we decided to wait an hour for the next showing. We played a few card games and then saw the movie! Dumbledore is a BADASS in this movie. It was fairly good, a lot more on character’s rather than magic, but I still enjoyed it for the most part. Lauren and I get home and we immediately go to our rooms and begin to undress for the night and Angelica finds us out (almost like she’d been waiting for us…) and tells us that is no longer her problem. She wants us out and she doesn’t care anymore. I can hear Lauren tell her from her room that they’ll talk in the morning and I believe this was a good move. It was already midnight and I didn’t want to fight right now. Angelica then comes to my room and tells me the same thing and I tell her to talk to Robin. She ignores me and then leaves after telling me again she wants us OUT.

Here’s where is gets ugly.

This morning (Wednesday) I get up early and I get ready early so we can leave without a confrontation with Angelica but alas, I am defeated. I am horrible at confrontations so I am thankful it wasn’t me that was ambushed in the kitchen this morning but I am so sorry for Lauren. I was in my room listening to them in the kitchen, the room next to mine. They get into an argument and basically what happens is that Angelica starts yelling, Lauren is crying and asking her why she would do this to us. She told us we were like her kids and would she really kick her own kids out on the street to sleep in the park? Angelica says she would and she doesn’t even like her kids. She says that kicking us out is okay with God so it is okay with her. Apparently, Angelica also tells Lauren that I am arrogant and that she hates me. Angelica tells Lauren she doesn’t care anymore, she is getting rid of us. She’s going to change the locks on the doors this upcoming Tuesday (the day she leaves) and she wants us out. It’s not longer her problem and she wants us out.

Lauren and I eventually leave for work, now about twenty minutes late. We get to the office and like the ninny I am, I start crying because the guys here are really nice and try to cheer us up. I don’t like crying in front of people and crying in front of coworkers and Robin (my boss) is quite mortifying. We discuss how we no longer want anything to do with Angelica and Robin offers to let us go pack up our bags right then and there to leave for Peter’s. We agree and take the car back to her place where we throw all of our stuff into our respective suitcases and take all of our own food that we bought. We throw everything into Peter’s car and we’re off. Apparently Angelica was still trying to lend us bedding for Peter’s house and she looked “sad” to him but I don’t really care. I have no respect for someone who tells us she likes us so much and we are just like her kids and then just kicks us out like trash. Ironically, it’s trash day today and that’s why she was up early.

So, we go to Peter’s place and do a quick tour which I will explain later and take new pictures for you all. We get back to the office and Lauren realizes she has lost her wallet somewhere on the trip from Angelica’s to the office. She rides back to Angelica’s and then to here to look for it but thankfully she found it when she got back. If she’d lost her wallet, all hell would have broken loose. All of her money, her ID’s, everything would have been lost. She would not have been able to go back to the US, they would not let her get back into the country without her ID.

SO. That is the story for today. And guess what!? It’s only noon! What else could this day bring to us?

The only thing I’m a bit worried about now is that there is only one bed with bedding at Peter’s place because he only sleeps there and only for about two nights a week. There is a mattress here at the office but we have nothing to put it on or anything to put on it. Robin said we could buy stuff and just put it on the office’s bill. It’s really sweet of them to do all of this for us. Also, Robin said he’d try and get a refund for us of our money from Angelica. The rent was 600 Euros a month, and we’ve already paid two months worth. So we’d be getting back 1200 Euros, or 600 each. That’s a TON of money.

All in all, what I’ve learned today is that I still really really really want to go home and I miss everyone in the States a bunch but also that the guys here at Mirage 3D are just too nice and that I appreciate them more than I can ever say for helping us with this. I have no respect left for Angelica. I could deal with the rude notes and the absolute lack of consideration for personal space, privacy, and general lack of common people skills but this has taken a new step.

I don’t apologize for seeming unforgivingly angry in this blog. (and if it doesn’t sound that way, it’s supposed to. I’m so freakin’ angry right now, I could punch out a window.) Thank you everyone for being so supportful and helpful. I love you all. More to come later probably. I’ve just lost initiative to write blogs for a bit because of all this.

PS: Here's the link to Lauren's blog if you want a second view on all this madness. I would suggest reading it because it gives a new perspective where I might be lacking. http://aredheadindenhaag.wordpress.com/

Bleh

2009-07-14T19:29:00.001+02:00

In a particularly bad mood today.

I'm currently hanging out in the office still after work (To avoid certain people.) but I have the airconditioner on and pointed right at me. It's nice and cool at least.

Melody

2009-07-13T19:34:00.003+02:00

So, I finally went and saw Transformers: Rise of the Fallen.

Eh, plot was lacking but 3D wise. Oh man. I am so freakin' happy I got to see that in theaters. It was fantastic. Apparently they had to use about 160 terrabytes of harddrive space to render some of the scenes in the movie! One of the characters, Devastator I believe, was so huge and so complex that when they tried to bring it all in to a scene at once, the computer itself would have such a hard time that it would start to smoke. XD Argh, I want to work at ILM so freakin' badly. ;-;

That was Friday night and we meant to go to Amsterdam on Saturday. We didn't make it due to circumstances we couldn't avoid. Said circumstances forced out of the house and we spent the day at the office just relaxing somewhere that wasn't the apartment. M is a super hero for bringing us the keys to the office so we could have somewhere to go.

On Sunday we made it to Amsterdam but it rained most of the day. Even so, we took a tram to the middle of the city and decided to go to a few museums. We got a look at both of the (HUGE) lines in front of the Van Gogh Musuem and the Rembrant Museum and we decided to go with Rembrandt. They have more carvings and statues than the Van Gogh, and that's what I enjoy. Lauren also likes the style of Rembrandt more than Van Gogh, so it was an easy choice. XD

After standing in drizzle for about forty five minutes, we made it into the museum and spent about two hours in there. It was amazing. The paintings were rather good but would blew me away was the first floor. The silver sculptures and carved statues just absolutely made my day. We spent a good lot of time looking around and seeing the fantastic art and history that the museum had to offer and then we went in search of other museums. We couldn't find the wax museum nor could we find the Torture Museum but we saw a map telling us it was near centraal. So we got back on a tram and headed near Centraal and got off at a flower market. As we passed, I purchased some Tulip bulbs for my mother. Not only were they incredibly cheap, they are something Holland is known well for. Holland is known Windmills and Tulips, or so I have been told. XD

We asked for directions and then headed off in the direction of said places. On the way, we stopped for food at the Soup Kitchen we visited last time and enjoyed it just as much once more.

After food times, we headed for the musuems but the torture one had closed early, due to it being Sunday, and the Wax Museum was so packed that we gave up on the idea. Instead, we went shopping and bought a few nice things. 8P I think we'll be going to Amsterdam at least one more time to visit a few more museums and shop around. Ah well. Not much has really happened other being typically stressed out and a bit homesick. Hope you guys enjoy the few pictures we took! ^ ^

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurajolly/sets/72157621395145766/

Emo Kid is Throwing Slo-Mo Dove at my Face

2009-07-07T18:49:00.004+02:00

Whoo! So, less sickness! Hooray!

I'm used to having a true to life cold, the kind where your nose stuffs up and you cough a ton and feel like your entire body is mush. This sickness was more being super lightheaded, high fever, sore sore throat, swollen glands in throat and the feeling that my tongue was burned or cracked. I don't know what causes that but bleh. I'm so glad it's over.

So, I'll start with Friday!

On Friday, I worked up the courage to ask Lauren to go and see Transformers 2 with me. I was really stoked to go see it because we didn't really have anything else on the agenda. Lauren and I made our way to Pathe (the local movie theater) and when we get there we find out that they have NO Transformers or Drag Me to Hell which was our back up movie! BLARGH. Crushed by disappointment. Ah well, we'd go some other time. We made our way around the city, looking for a place to eat and ended up back at the Italian place we ate at with the guys our first night out. We decided to eat outside and that's when the night became fantastic.

An elderly Italian gentleman asked us if we were old enough to drink and we told him we were. He then proceeded to ask what we'd like to drink. He spoke hardly any English and when I told him water, he made the sounds of bubbling water to ask if I would like sparkling. Argh, it was so amazing. I just wanted to wrap him up and take him home with me. I get my water, Lauren gets her Bier and then we are given our menus. It's the "English" menu as it says on the front but it really just has Dutch, English and French all one after another on the menu. We ordered and as we waited, the super nice Italian gentleman comes over and talks with us for a moment, being super kind and super attentive. He introduces us to his son who speaks a bit more English. While we were eating our meal, the gentleman asked if I was married. Smiling, cause I had no idea what was going on, I replied no. I was not. He makes a whole big hoo-ha of trying to take off his wedding band and we all laugh at his antics. He laughs with us and then points his son out to us again and told us that he was not married.

We laughed and talked some more and another kind Italian guy came over and reserved our beverages. A Dutch lady was trying to help us at one point but she seemed really upset and rather short with us. The new guy shooed her away and then apologized to us about her and served us for the rest of our meal and time after. We suspect that it really is an Italian family run restaurant, not like the "Italian" restuarants we have in Colorado ((Spaghetti and Pizza only)) but a real place owned by three different generations of the same family. It was the most fantastic evening we've had so far.

The three of those guys were so incredibly nice happy to talk with us, that Lauren and I have decided to make that our common eating ground just to see them again. We are fairly sure they will recognize us but it's not a big deal if they don't. Twas amazing.

After that, we got home and were generally interneting in my room when Angelica came in and talked at us for another hour and a half about a multitude of things. She was a bit drunk but she went on to talk to us about her son's graduation and about how they were talking about how American's where doing business. I'm not sure how they correlated, but that got her onto the topic of how we work too hard and we should take more time off to relax. On that subject, she also started to tell us how we were too lazy and how we never go any where. I was very insulted considering I came to this country to work and not to have a "holiday". If I want to go somewhere and have a little time off, I will do so. Just like how I have actually been doing. We HAVE been going out and HAVE been making time for ourselves, so being called lazy Californians was a bit much. She continued to talk to us about how we have so impressed Robin and how no one expected us to work as hard as we do, especially me. Apparently, I came off as the "Tag-along" American friend who no one expected to do very well. I'm thankful that I can disprove this because I absolutely abhor people who assume things about me.

Angelica left and Lauren and I went to sleep.

NEXT DAY! 8D

Saturday we hung out and did a grand total of nothing! We were planning our Amsterdam trip and I was trying to get rid of my slight sore throat with lazying about and enjoying my weekend.

Waking up Sunday, however proceeded to knock me completely onto my back. I woke up, found out I couldn't sit or stand for more than ten minutes without feeling so faint that I thought I would literally topple out of my chair. I was laying on my bed and tried to stand to get ready for the day trip to Amsterdam and I quickly found out how that was not going to happen. I tottered over to my computer and wrote to Lauren online that I wasn't up to it and how sorry I was. I hate being sick and I hate even more canceling trips because of said sickness. I hardly EVER get sick and when I do, it normally knocks me out for a week or two because my immune system just GIVES UP. Darn you!

I went back to sleep, thankful that Lauren understood. I woke up later that afternoon, hoping I'd feel better but when I got up, I realized it was even worse than before. I was hit with everything at once that I listed in the journal earlier. Angelica pushed a thermometer on me, and I took my temp. I had a fever of 101.6 degrees F. Now, my NORMAL temp is around 97.5 so I was 4.1 degrees higher than average. ABSOLUTELY HORRID. I sat around and watch Kim Possible and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory all day. It sucked hardcore.

Monday was pretty much the same. I got up with my alarm and tottered out the door to tell Lauren I wasn't going to work but she was already locking the door back up from the outside so I tottered back into my room and was fast asleep. Angelica did try and feed me a ton of fruit and a salad that day which was sweet but I was still sick. I had a headache ontop of that, so Ibuprofen was my super best friend all day. XD

Today, Tuesday, was just a normal work day. Filled with working. Still working on the Red Lionfish and I should be done with modeling it by tomorrow which just means that I have to UV and texture it next, but it'll be nice to have a two finished .obj's. This evening doesn't seem to be shaping up to anything other than the normal internetings and House later. Although, Lauren and I have decided that we are going to go see Transformers THIS Friday since it came out MONDAY randomly enough. So, we'll go see the movie Friday and then we'll go to Amsterdam on Saturday. Yay for planning ahead and hope that the sick will be completely gone! ::cheers::

2009-07-05T21:38:00.001+02:00

I have a fever of 100.6 degrees F.

D8>

Please, I don't want to be sick and the last time I ever had a real fever was when I was 13 and had strep throat. I hope I don't have that now but my throat is all swollen and it hurts so badly. I also feel super lightheaded.

Work Entry: 2 Red Lionfish & Gills

2009-07-01T18:16:00.004+02:00

Work Entry: 2

Ho-kay. So, I'm currently modeling a Red Lionfish. That thing is INCREDIBLY beautiful and quite fantastic. Not only is one of the most poisonous fish in the sea, it is one of the most beautiful. It is also able to be kept as a pet. Mom, can I have one? Haha, I wish. I have no time, even for pet fish. ;-;

I'm currently working on adding fins and bending them back to give it a more natural look and I have the whole process of adding planes planned out to make the "cloth" look that it has when it's swimming. By the way, my fish's name is General Ackbar because he looks like the fish alien from Star Wars. XD

I had NO IDEA how to make the gills of my pretty fish because the animators are going to have to somehow animate the fish's gills expanding and contracting and showing layers of gills underneath. I don't think adding planes and planes underneath each other are a very good idea because stacked planes in general are a fairly bad idea when it comes to smoothing and rendering.

I had to go use the Silo 3D forums quite a lot today because my main frustration was the fact that when I was in the perspective viewport, the monitor would run smoothly and turn quickly. But when I go to the right or front viewport, Silo would start to lag and slow down so much that I literally couldn't work. It was that bad. So I turned to the Silo 3D forums (Silo is the program I use to 3D model) to get some help and a man (who ironically was also from the Netherlands! XD ) responded. We talked about the size of my viewport images, since that's what seemed to cause problems. When the viewport backgrounds were there it lagged badly but we found out that if the images are removed, the lagging gets a ton better! I sent him my .jpgs as well as my model to see if his Silo also had the problems and in that case I would have to fret and worry because that means something would have been wrong with the model itself. He looked and found nothing wrong with it, the original viewport images zoomed and moved quickly with no lag on his Silo and so he asked for my computer specs.

He and another guy who joined the forum, looked at the specs I sent them and agreed that I needed to update the drivers for my computer. Apparently, the video card had never been updated since it was installed, which was forever ago. I go and download (a ton of) drivers for the card and restart my computer. It starts up but Silo is still lagging and being lame. I go and do updates for the ENTIRE computer and restart again. The internet isn't working suddenly! I can't ask the guys who are helping me what to do! So, what DO I do? I RESTART AGAIN.

This process of updating and restarting and finally getting back online takes about two hours. Horrible waste of my day. So, instead of the perspective view being fine, and the other viewports being laggy...all the viewports are laggy. Not as bad as before the driver update, but still enough to be noticeable. I go and tell the people on the forum, thank them for their help, joke that I should get Robin to buy me a new one and then I leave. As I'm playing around with the fish in Silo, trying to get things to work, I open up one of the window menus to try and change something. I leave it open to continue working, just in case I need it again and then something miraculous happens.

SILO GOES.

It doesn't just work, it FLIES. There is NO lag and NO processing time, it just GOES. That, of course, was only discovered FIFTEEN MINUTES before the work day ended.

LE SIGH.

Otherwise, the fish model is moving on nicely. I asked Johannas what to do for the modeling on the gills and he told me he didn't know. When I asked him about his internship being about the fish, he told me that he only animates them flocking, not the actual fish animation of being... a fish. So, we discuss how the other modelers have done fish (and he wouldn't let me look at the models myself, he told me it's because it's bad but I still want to see.) and then I realize I'm quite literally....A FISH OUT OF WATER. HAR HAR HAR. A knee slapper! 8D

Anywho. I'll just keep on trucking about this silly fish. Robin did tell me that he wants the fish membranes on the fins to be like a cloth flag and so I did need to model out the planes. It'll be a lot like the planes I did on the Table Coral, so I'm not worried about that. 8P

~*~

Onto personal day matters! Twas just a work day (see above. 8D ) but Lauren and I did end up making sandwiches for the guys here. Yesterday, I offered to make sandwiches (accidentally) and so they took that to heart and bought us the ingredients today. We made them California's (Avocado, Cucumber, Sprouts, Mozzarella Cheese, Tomato, Bread, Mayo, Mustard & Lettuce) and they helped out a bit. The one thing different than the stuff I'm used to in the US is that the Mozzarella cheese was wrapped in a bag filled with liquid. When it was taken out, the cheese itself was SOFT. I've never had soft Mozzarella before (EVER) but oh God it was DELICIOUS. I'll have to remember to look for that when I get home but ANYWAYS.

Sandwiches! They were a BIG hit! All the guys here usually eat bread with cheese and mustard or bread with meat or bread with meat sauce and that's all they eat for lunch. They'll have two or three of those sandwiches a day but with almost no filling. I believe Kees ate just some plain bread yesterday. XD I don't know if it's just these guys who eat their sandwiches like that or if it's the Dutch in general but I've only seen them eat sandwiches like that! Also, the meat they use isn't meat I've normally seen like beef or chicken but rather they have fish, a sort of "raw beef" (suspected to be some sort of tofu because Lauren tried it and got a stomach ache later that day. She's lactose intolerant.), some sort of sausage that comes in a huge sausage link, mutton and a type of meat salad that mixes a meat (usually chicken) a bit of vegetables and a type of spiced, flavored mayonnaise. I like the one called "Pittige Kip" the most. Pittige is spicy and kip is chicken.

All the guys seemed like our food, calling it "lekker" which I means "good" or "delicious" or "tasty". I did get mayo and mustard all over my good blue shirt though because I was clumsy. I smelled like sandwich for the rest of the day which was odd but thankfully no one complained. Sandwich smell was the least of my problems anyways. XD Robin tried to make Lauren and I feel more at home by bringing out an American flag. We laughed and asked him why he had it and he claimed that he'd bought it the first time he went to the US. I can see that, I plan on buying a Dutch flag while we're here. He took it and laid it over the first available flat surface to face us and since the table was covered in sandwich supplies, he lay it over the trashcan.

We laughed and pointed it out to him. We continued to eat and then Robin got up quietly and took the flag off the trashcan and put it on a pole. I know he didn't mean any offense by it, I was just amused by the fact that he bought something like an American flag as a souvenir. It seems odd to me because I see them quite often but it makes sense because I also want a flag souvenir. XDD

The rest of the day was a work day, see above for details but Lauren and I stopped by the local "Lidel" which we use as a "cheese and meat" place because cheese and meat are the cheapest there. We get some ice cream and orange drink and make our way back home. We enjoyed our carton of "premium iced desert" and about ten minutes after we finish, Angelica calls us into the kitchen. She presents us with a plate of pasta and sauce each and Lauren and accept a bit warily.

Yesterday, she asked if we wanted her to make us dinner and we declined. She means well but the food she makes is a bit strange and has some unpleasant surprises that we'd rather avoid if we can. So, we take the pasta and I look down to try a bite. I see something and I pick said piece up with my fork.

I don't want to be gross but it was part of a fish. To be specific, it was a fish's gill. The full membrane and ribs and everything. I put it down quietly and push it around so as to not look rude. I then excused myself back to my room to eat. We start looking through the pasta she gave us and find that not only does it contain fish gills but it has miniature squids and shrimp in it. Normally, I'd be all for seafood pasta but I just spent Monday, Tuesday and today (Wednesday! 8D) modeling a fish. I have NO WANT to eat seafood right now or any time in the near future.

We definitely found tentacles with suckers on them in our pasta. Angelica also brought in some chocolate pudding as a desert. I'm not really one for chocolate or pudding so I haven't had any. Nor do I plan to! No pictures today folks! Sorry! Shout to JENNY for being awesome and amazing! Thanks for being you darling! <3

~*~

Laura's Smiley Guide: For most of these, just look at the letters and numbers sideways to see the face. For example, an '8' is a pair of glasses covered eyes and a capital 'D' is a happy mouth.

8D = Happy open smile.
83 = Happy kitty smile.
8P = Sticking tongue out.
XD = Happy face with eyes closed.
D8 = Sad face.
D8> = Even sadder face with eyebrows.
;-; = Crying/Tearing face.
;w; = Happy crying/tearing face.
8\ = Unsure face.
8DDD = Happiest smile face EVER.
8) = Normal Smile.
8( = Normal frown.
>8D = Evil happy smile with eyebrows.
D8< = Angry sad face with eyebrows.

Remember! There are many variations of these faces! If you see a weird symbol or letters/numbers it's probably a smiley face! I'll be using these much more often so I can show you my emotions while talking rather than make you all guess if I'm happy about a situation or unhappy with it. I'm getting sick of saying "but I enjoyed it!" or "It wasn't my favorite."

ENJOY. I command you! >8D

A day (a WEEK) in the life.

2009-06-30T19:34:00.006+02:00

Soooooo...I've been getting super busy and to be honest I've been getting quite homesick as well. It's not that I don't like it here, it's just that I'm missing a lot of little things I used to take for granted back home. It's more hygienic to have laminate and hard wood floors so that's all that we have here. It's all that we have at the office and every where else we go as well. Normally, that wouldn't strike anyone as odd but I have found that I am quite partial to carpet. I never really knew that about myself until I came here lol.

But less about carpet!

Last time I updated was Thursday and so the next day would be....Friday! Friday was a normal work day but we went out again that night with the guys from work and we had a generally good time. We went from a nice outdoor cafe to go try and go "pooling" at another bar but it was broken somehow. I was more concerned about the band playing in the bar, due to the fact that they played rather off key. Haha, so we left and made our way back to the main square where I find we end up most of the times when we're in Den Haag. We spent the night hanging around, talking and laughing. I was curious about Kees' rolling his own cigarettes so I asked if I could roll one. It was quite pitiful but I liked it because it looked like a fish. XD

We stayed out later than usual and ended up missing the last tram home so we ended up calling a taxi and getting a ride home. It was 20 Euros which was horribly expensive but I find it's better than getting lost on the two or three mile walk back, lol.

On Saturday, Lauren and I generally relaxed and hang around to recoup from the night before and then slept! Twas a very productive day.

Sunday was the day that really is the highlight of the weekend. We went to the biggest free concert(s) in Europe. Many many bands will come and play and thousands of people just pour into Zuiderpark for it. Zuiderpark is the park literally across the street from Angelica's house so the moment Lauren and I wake up, we sit up and see the huge amount of people, bikes, trash and general chaos that is thousands of people converging on one huge park. We got ready and met up with Mathijs at the bungee jumping area. I have a couple of fantastic pictures of the huge amount of people, food stands, drink stands, and so much more.

I sadly did not know any of the bands that played nor did I know any of the songs but I was told by the people at work that most of the bands suck and are not worth hearing anyways. Apparently, if any one too popular at Parkpop is literally dangerous because so many people will show up and just crowd in. Potential disaster!

We left after a few hours of walking through the maze of people standing, sitting, drinking, smoking and just generally enjoying themselves. We came back to Angelica's and sat in the living room, enjoying the sunlight and relaxation while watching people continually pour into the park and then pour out to get on the huge amount of buses carting people back to their homes.

On Monday it was another quite normal work day and then the evening was filled with mending my clothes. I had a couple of holes in some shirts and stuff so I sewed them up quite nicely. XD I also was curious about what my keyboard looked like due to the fact I'd never cleaned it before so I took a peak. I pried off all the keys (which is FINE, they are meant to come off so you can clean it.) and set to painstakingly cleaning the absolutely DISGUSTING mess underneath. Darn you cat and getting your freakin' hair everywhere!

Today's work day was quite a bit more stressful than normal due to me basically promising to have a Red Lionfish modeled and textured by the end of the week. I also spent most of the day grinding my teeth (I believe it has to do with the stress of homesickness, the incredibly overheated office and various social situations) and so I had and still have a migraine of massive proportions. Fortunately, I have Lauren here to help me out. We swap models and projects sometimes so I can help her UV her model and she can help me with my edge loops on my fish mouth. It's quite a nice change of pace because I know I can trust her work. <3

Angelica also came back today, she left rather abruptly on Thursday claiming that she was late and had to be somewhere and then wasn't home all weekend. She had taken a large suitcase with her, so we assumed that she'd left to go visit her father in Chile but she came back yesterday and was telling us about her planned trip to Chile after we leave. I'm not sure where she was all weekend, but on her return home, she promptly unplugged the router and so we were once again without internet. So here we are, borrowing our beloved neighbors internetings! We appreciate him more than he'll ever know. XD

Sorry to blabber on, I am a bit out of it from the migraine. Enjoy the pictures! http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurajolly/sets/72157620786852006

Rough Day

2009-06-25T15:00:00.003+02:00

So, today's had its ups and downs but I think it's leveling out. A DEFENITE up though would have to be that yesterday, Robin was looking at my very close to complete model and he was really impressed. He told me that it was so nice and it was so detailed that it was indeed going to be the major part of the scene. He also told me that he liked it so much that he wants me to do ONE MORE coral that's that detailed and nice to make it into another major part of the scene (or maybe it's a second scene? He didn't say.) so that it'll look more put together. He told me he wished I was (or that I should be) an employee because I like to do lots of detail and I'm not afraid to spend the time doing it. I don't know if he was joking or serious, most likely joking, but it really encouraged me. :)

I am VERY proud that I can do so well but I'm kind of dreading doing another coral. Modeling for almost three weeks straight is taking it out of me, but I hope to keep doing my best.

Another interesting fact is that a branch of National Geographic called Mirage IIID the other day and asked Robin if they could work together on a full dome show. Holy crap! National freaking Geographic guys! That's huge!

But yeah, wont bore you any more! Not much else has happened other than work, hanging out and sleep. But I'm okay with that for most of the weekdays because I get to explore and soak in all the culture and life on the weekends where I can have a full night of rest and my own schedule. Hope you're all doing well!

CORALS

2009-06-24T21:11:00.004+02:00

Test render guys! I'll talk about it and what Robin said about it at some later point. I is tired today. D8

Flava Flave!

2009-06-20T22:07:00.006+02:00

Lauren and I decided to go out and explore the more heavily populated area of Den Haag today, which was fantastic, considering today was Roze Zaterdag, which is a large gay celebration! It was fantastic! So much Pink! But before I get ahead of myself...

I woke up and looked at the clock, it's still on California time (so I know when my friends and family are awake) and so I did the math to see what time it was here. I was surprised to see it was only 1 or so when Lauren and I had gone to bed at 5 or 5:30 but I decided to get up. I started to move around, checked the internet and as I was sitting their, Angelica came in and handed me a bowl of soup. I was a bit confused since I'd been smelling fish earlier but I tried it to be polite and she was waiting so I had a bite. It turned out to be delicious so I ate it with much gusto. :) But, as I got to the middle of it, Angelica brought me some bread for soup, which I thanked her for, and then continued my soup adventure. As I was near the bottom, I uncovered a very odd looking piece of meat. This soup had currently been rice, potato and what tasted like chicken broth, but this meat was not in any way chicken. I looked at it and was faintly scared but then realized. It was muscle! I ate that muscle and it was fantastic. Odd at first, but muscle soup is quite delicious. There are pictures in my blog for it. 8P

After the soup, Lauren and I got ready for our outing and we started out on our bikes for work. Once to the local 4 Tram stop we locked up the bikes (after I almost was run over by the girl tailing me. She was on my butt riding her bike and when Lauren stopped, I stopped and the girl didn't try to go around me but basically stopped so fast she almost crashed into me. It was a bit frightening, but there are no brake lights on bikes and I didn't know she was that close behind me. Blah, bikes are stressful somtimes) and realized we'd forgotten our Strippenkart. So, we walked to the Albertheijn and got another. Those things are super expensive, I believe Lauren and I are going to invest in monthly passes. So, armed with a strippenkart, we board the tram and make our way to Centraal. We start to walk randomly into the city, talking about stock and money trading. We explore around and finally start getting to some neat looking streets and we explore around. We notice signs for a China town and I really wanted to go look. I've never been to a real China town but I have been to China, so I guess I have it better. :) But I still have wanted to always see a real China town. We explore down to this alleged street area and find out it's not really touristy but really just a set of streets with Chinese shops or Chinese resturants. One of the stores I saw was called "Orientique" which made me laugh because it's politically incorrect to call any one from Asia "Oriental". So, Lauren and I head back, because we didn't really want a Chinese backrub. XD We take some turns and end up in a local looking city park and I hear music. We see a group of people looking intently at something so we join to see what's going on.

It's a guy and a trained dog! Oh, it was so freakin' adorable. This older guy would bumble around purposefully and 'accidentally' loose his top hat to his dog, and then would tug and tug and get it back. It was like from an old TV show with a bit of slapstick! The dog would bark and the guy would make a show of being all annoyed but what really made it an awesome experience is that the guy was wearing clothing very much like a "classic" Holland music. He was also wearing the infamous wooden shoes which you could tell where quite well used. He had his grown son standing at the van handing him props and he set up a course for the dog to jump and do tricks and it was adorable.

Lauren and I continue on our way and explore down through more of the city. We eventually find ourselves in an alleyway that is lined with pink balloons. Our original intent was to visit the Roze Zaterdag so yeah! As we got to the open air square, Lauren and I realized that it was the square we'd been near the other week when we'd gone out to the clubs with the guys! Most of the people here (if not 80 % of them) are in their 40's or older. Many many short haired women, pink wearing men with man bags, and a ton of them looking completely normal or flamingly gay! I've never seen someone older than 25 openly gay (being from Colorado) so it was quite an amazing experience. I am quite open to everthing so it was nice to see a celebration for acceptence and love. So, we hung around, laughed and giggled and gushed over the cute gay couples and then I was shocked. Oh so very shocked.

Right by me, walks this incredibly tattooed man, complete with nose plugs a ton of other peircings and sporting a set of cruches. He was about sixty years old if not older and I was so completely surprised I actually reacted by making a surprised face. I normally never make a face in surprise unless it is exaggurated but apparently this face was so epic that Lauren says it was "the best 4 frames of my life." because it was such a short time that my face was like that. 4 frames out of 24 frames per-second animation mind you. Yes. We're geeks.

We stayed and listened to the band playing, but I wasn't really that into it. The music was sort of general pop/rock and the singer sort of grated on me because she couldn't dance. She was pretty (a little older than normal pop singers. XD) but she had a great costume on. Very lime green 'n stuff. We listened for about 45 minutes or so.

Anyways, I have a ton of pictures of that event where we listened some music, looked for pink leighs to wear around and generally explored. I took some more shots of buildings but we eventually got hungry. We'd seen a "Sushi to go and to stay" place near the Chinatown so we decided to find it again. We wondered back to the place and went in. It was the normal Japenese-Chinese themed conglomerate but what really entertained Lauren and I was the fact that instead of playing some sort of cliche mandalin music, they were playinig soft blues jazz. Lauren and I were seated by an older Dutch gentleman and we found out in the process of ordering (Lauren had cucumber sushi and a California hand roll, and I had Yakitori, or Japenese Chicken sate) that he could only speak Dutch and Japenese. We both agreed that it was quite a fantastic combination and then eagerly dug into our food.

Twas most delicious.

Afterwards, we talked for about half an hour or so but he never came back to give us a check. Lauren and I started looking a bit antsy so he took away our dishes but still no check. We eventually left twenty Euro on the table (our meal was about 17 Euro, but we had no way to make sure, since there was no check) and we went on our way. It's apparently not common, or polite, to tip the people who serve you here because they make good money already and some such stuff. Lauren and I walked out (and the host went back inside, after he stood infront of the door so I think he went and got the money) and we made our way back to a tram stop. We accidently walked into an underground parking garage but it looked like a tram stop. It was quite steep and small but I have no idea how the cars got down there. We were in the middle of the city with no outlets or inlets for cars near us. It must have been a huge parking garage.

Anywho, we walked by a store we'd seen with the guys called "The American Bookstore" and I asked if we could go in, just to check. I am in need of a new book to read before bed, so I persuaded Lauren to attend with me. Neither of us were expecting any sort of good books or big store but it was quite big for the odd and small and faintly concerning exterior. It had a FANTASTIC collection of romance novels and fiction and science fiction. I couldn't decide on a book today, so I promised myself I'd come back at some later date to really enjoy the goodness of "The American Bookstore". As we walked through some more streets to get to a tram stop, we walk past one of the many many food/bar places and a lady in a white dress walks out. She's obviously a bit inebriate but she proceeds to pull up her dress and flash the street with her normal black undies. A bit odd, but Lauren and I laughed and kept walking.

After our adventure there, we decided it was time to head home. We got on the tram 17 and then traveled to Centraal, then got on 4 and came back to Dierenselaan which is the stop we use to get to our bikes. Lauren and I decided to do some quick shopping where I bought a couple of steaks to make tomorrow because Lauren and I are a bit low on Iron. We got some spices and then we also decided to treat ourselves to ice cream! We picked a random coffee flavor and rode home.

Getting home, we changed to relax and then started to post pictures and blogs of our days when we tried that ice cream.

Oh.

Lord.

So delicious. Don't know how to describe it and we forgot to take pictures of it but it was heavanly. It had whipped cream, chocolate syrup, ice cream, coffee, and super thick chocolate coated puffed rice to look like coffee beans. Wonderful, wonderful stuff. So, I'll leave you on that note. Holland = Delicious cookies and ice cream.

Here's some pictures! http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurajolly/sets/72157620017853770/

Render Times

2009-06-19T21:44:00.002+02:00

See those itty bitty inkwells? Those are two of the models I have modeled and textured for my internship. I did not render this, nor have I done the lighting or any of that stuff. Just the inkwells and their textures. The glass reflection 'n stuff isn't even mine. XDD

This is an example render from Mirage 3D for one of their full dome shows. It's fisheyed like that because when put on a planetarium screen, it looks normal and huge and WONDERFULLLY amazing. <33

WIP

2009-06-18T10:43:00.000+02:00

A WIP, progressing well!

A moment,

2009-06-15T21:07:00.002+02:00

Nothing of interest really happened today, other than the fact I woke up and felt like I had about a bucket of sand in my eyes and handful of glass in my throat.

Oh, on our way home from the local 'Meat 'n Cheese' store a older black gentleman made his way up to me and said "Hello, I'm new here in Holland. I wanted to come and say hi and make friends. I have to make friends with people I see from the street." I was quite shocked because he reached out to shake hands and of course I shake hands because it's...a conditioned response I'm afraid.

Lauren shook hands as well and we listened in shock as this gentleman explained to us that he was new here and all I could really notice is that he looked very high, smiling a lot and super blood shot eyes. Lauren quickly made an excuse about an appointment to get to, and then kicked my bike to get me going because I was still just super confused as to what was going on.

As we got away from him, Lauren and I laughed because it turns out that people like that constantly come up and talk to both of us. Apparently we are both very welcoming looking people that all the odd balls of the world want to talk to and make friends with!

AmsterDAMN

2009-06-13T21:33:00.002+02:00

Ho shit yo, Amsterdam was FANTASTIC.

We got up around 10:30 or 11 and started to get ready. We had some egg breakfast and got dressed. I made sure to get all nice and prepped with some make up and stuff, lolol.

We made our way on our bikes as if we were going to work once more and locked our bikes up in front of the local food market. We went in to get another Strippenkart (because I lost mine, sorry!) and then off on a tram adventure! We get to Centraal and ask the ticket people if there is a student priced month long ticket for trains and it turns out that there isn't. Sad day. So we purchase two round trip tickets (28,50 Euros) and go on our merry way. Got on train, read some book, got to Amsterdam, got off, walked out into the city.

It's just like before, wonderful old buildings, and some fantastic culture. We first decide to take a water cruise and so we head on over to the building advertising the cruises and we find out that the major cruises have already left for the day. We're alright with that, so we bought a few tickets to the cheapest and shortest cruise there. It is an hour long and does just a general route around the city. It was about 17 Euros and left ever 15 or 20 minutes. So, we go down to the docks and wait. Some people were a bit pushy but it was all good once we got on the boat. I took a ton of picture, learned a bit about the city and generally touristed it up. The coolest thing I learned was that Amsterdam first got to be a city in 1306 and was started around the 1200's.

Oh.

My.

God.

That is so freakin' cool. I love old things, old architecure, old cities, old people, old culture. Everything about old stuff is fantastic. I love antiques. I think it's my parents influence but I couldn't thank them more for it.

After the tour, we got off and started to explore the city. We generally explored, and walked through some amazing parts of the city. We somehow always ended back up at Centraal which was fairly nice. I have a ton of pictures, so I wont go into the spectacular buildings we saw but I will tell you...it was amazing.

Some of the buildings I took pictures of are older than the oldest cities of America. Older than even America was known! Ah god, it's so fantastic.

We searched around, I bought a sprite (for 2 Euros which was horrible. And while I was there, a group of people marched through the small area singing "hali Krishna, hali Krishna" and I was quite surprised. I have only seen people doing that to make fun of people, not people who are serious about it. I did see some of the people look extremely unhappy to be doing it, so I think they'd been marching for a quite a while) and then we walked down a new street.

On this street, there was a sex museum.

Yes.

A sex museum.

I'm going to censor that particular part of my day because yes, I did go to it. It was 3 Euros! How could we not experience this in Amsterdam!? So, those of you who want to know more, email or comment! I even have pictures! They allow cameras in this crazy place, 8P

After the museum (which blew my mind) we decided to go get some food. We explored and ended up going to a place called "Soup Kitchen" and we each got the meal deal of soup and a sandwhich. It was deliciousness. I got a chicken sandwhich and Tomato soup with couscous. It was fantastic.

After food, we explored the streets a bit and decided to visit a few shops. We decided to go into a few of the famous shops selling cannibis seeds, pot smoking equipment, lighters, and other various things. They were indeed 'pyscedelic'. We visited a few other highlight shops, also censored, but the nicest shop we visited was a nice little touristy shop where there was a ton of gorgeous earings that looked like they were made one hundred years old. They were fantastic, so I obviously had to buy a pair.

I am now the proud owner of a pair of earings showing the elegant head of an Egyption male. He's quite old looking and wonderful.

After that, we decided to stop by the Gelatto place and it was DELICIOUS. It was quite cheap at 1,50 Euros. I had some delicious yogurt and cherry so yeah. It was awesome. After that, it was about six, so we decided to head home.

Walked back through the streets and then to Centraal. My back had been giving me problems all day due to some unforseen problems with my outfit (all I'm going to say about that is I HAAAATE bras with plastic straps) so I was a bit glad to go. We went to Centraal, got on the train, read some book, got to Den Haag Centraal, went to the tram, read some more book, got to the stop back home, rode bikes home, and now I'm here. Angelica left for the evening so Lauren and I are relaxing a watching some Dutch television so that's nice.

I also finished my most recent book so I'm a bit sad about that, but all in all! Today was a roaring sucess! I only spent 60 Euros today, included train tickets, cruise tickets, food, and earings so in all I've only spent 110 Euros while I've been out here in Holland! It's been fantastic!

We defenitely plan on going back and I think I'm done for the day! Here's a link to ALL my lovely building photos! Hope you enjoy them as much as I did and still do!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurajolly/sets/72157619614736407/

Tot ziens!

My Lord,

2009-06-12T19:02:00.007+02:00

So, we had internet troubles so I lost a few days out of posting and ironically enough, it's been the busiest last few days EVER.

I'm just going to try and get through this so I don't bore you all but here's what's going on in life!

My last post was Tuesday and so I'll start with Tuesday night.

I spent most of my Tuesday night trying to explain to Angelica that her wireless wasn't working along with the fact that we needed to call someone to fix it because it wasn't working and we couldn't fix it. We tried everything from unplugging her computer and plugging ours in, messing with both router and modem, calling my dad, replugging hers in, setting up wireless accounts and back again. It was less about internet by the end of that two and a half hours and more about pride. I was defeated sadly, so I went to go try a shower. Bad plan.

Since our hot water went out the Friday before, I'd not gotten a shower in a while. It was starting to get horrible so I decided to go with a cold shower. Never in my life have I almost passed out before but I did almost this night. It was so cold on my scalp, that all the blood in my head got cold or rushed out of my head and my vision started going fuzzy. That was fun but what was really fun was having to live through that and shampoo, condition, soap and shave. Super good times!

After horrible shower I went to go shut my computer off for the night when I see a message from Lauren on there. That should be impossible considering that the INTERNET was supposed to be dead but lo and behold! There was wireless! I talk to Lauren for a moment and then I go to tell Angelica that she doesn't have to call her provider tomorrow. I happily tell her that it works and I was feeling faintly proud because I thought it was because I'd made my computer part of her wireless network manually and I had to figure this out with her computer in Dutch but she tells me that it was because she had done a "system restore" on her computer, and apparently that is what she'd been trying to tell us for a bit before I went to the shower that she wanted to do. So. It turns out that is all we needed to do. Hooray for language barriers once more!

After that, went to bed. Hoorah sleep!

Wednesday morning we had to get up early to go to the new office again for extra's filming so we got up at 7:30 instead of the normal 8:00. I know! I'm amazed too that I woke up all by myself! In fact, I've been waking up to my alarm clock all this trip and I'm super proud. I really love sleeping in, but I've been really good about staying on time.

So, we biked to the office as if we were going to the office but instead we parked near the tram station. There, we got on the tram and rode to Den Haag Centraal or the Center Station for Trams and Trains. From there, we walked about five blocks to the new office. Crazy huge commute! I stood around most of the few hours we were there just observing because I didn't fit into the costumes to be an extra in the shoot for the Galileo production. Everyone was really excited to dress up and have fun in front of the camera and green screen so it was fairly entertaining. We helped Jimmy pack up all this cameras and lights and then Matijes pronounced "Matt-eh-us" drove us back to the office. Confused, I sat around for half an hour and dinked around on the computer. I thought we were supposed to be going to Amsterdam to see the Full Dome production for Bob (one of the clients) and Robin. Turns out, they still needed to go over a ton of last minute things so we waited until about 3:30 until we headed out. Lauren and I went to Centraal to meet Robin there who had gone home to return his car. We were taking the Hi Speed Train to Amsterdam because 1) Rush hour is horrible and 2) I've never been on a train much less a Hi Speed Train!

Yeah, I've been on one touristy antique train that goes up and down one mountain but that's not meant for transportation. So this was really neat because I've always wanted to try traveling by train.

We waited around for Robin and when he showed up with Bob, he went and bought our tickets. Each ticket is about twenty Euros for a round trip ticket which is fantastic because that means Lauren and I can easily go there and back in a day if we want a day out. As we rode to Amsterdam (which was fantastic and fast and much nicer than any airplane, tram, or bus I've ever been in) we talked about parents, the show, and other such nicities. I was trying to stay quiet most of the time because I didn't want to make a bad impression on Robin's client. As we started getting closer to Amsterdam, I started noticing all the huge government buildings and antique like arctitecture. It was absolutely breath taking. I love culture and antiques and old things in general so this city was like eye candy. Robin told us that Amsterdam hadn't been bombed like Rotterdam, so some of the buildings here are older than most if not all the cities in America! It was absolutely amazing.

When we got of the train, we took a taxi to the Artis Zoo & Park where the Full Dome was and it was wonderful. We got to see so much of the wonderful statues and buildings. We got to the Full Dome and watched a few of the things. Everything was really amazing and I can't even begin to describe how awesome it was to see work of people I know personally on that huge dome. The dome only had Robin, myself, Bob, and Lauren in it. The people working there stayed overtime for us because we give them so much awesome stuff.

My favorite thing to see was the HMS Beagle that the my coworkers here at Mirage IIID spent a year on. The animation, the modeling....ah god, it was fantastic and so freakin' realistic.

But I shall go on. We got out of there and Bob decided he wanted to go out to dinner so we ended up going across the street from the Park to an Indonesion resturaunt. We had a dinner similar to Dim Sum called a Rice Table. It was fairly good but the seasonings were very unique. The waiter there was also very friendly and nice. I had my first ever "after dinner coffee" with the rest of the table. After the dinner, Lauren and I tried to help pay but Robin said he could cover it all which was extremely nice of him. We then started to make our way back to Centraal so that we could get home before ten but Bob wanted to stick around and walk the streets. Lauren and I were pretty tired and we knew we'd be coming back to the city so we asked to go home by ourselves. Robin handed us our tickets and told us to stay on the same tram all the way to Centraal.

After about five stops we started getting worried. No where did we see Centraal or a sign telling us Centraal was on the way. I looked at the map on the tram and lo and behold! We were on the wrong tram and about half of the city away from where we needed to be! Explaining to Lauren what was wrong, she and I got off at a stop that looked promising. We walked about half a block in the dark of this random part of the city (it was getting dark now, so it was about 10:30) and we decided it'd be better if we just went back to the stop. On our way there, another woman told us that the tram coming the way we were walking would take us to Centraal so we waited with her. We got on the next tram with her and then got to Centraal! Hoorah! It was a grand adventure!

We got on the train and then got home. We then got back on our bikes and rode back to Angelica's. By the time we were in the door, it was 11:30. I got into my night gown and was ready to go to sleep when Angelica came in and talked to me for a good fourty-five minutes about a couple of different things. She said she was going out of town this weekend and that I was lucky to know a guy like Robin. She also warned me against people who would take my passport and make me work for them. It was sweet of her but it frightened me a little considering I was tired, just back from the city, in my night gown, and had not glasses so I couldn't see. She also told me a little about her background and how she worked as a tour guide in the red light district in Amsterdam. Then I slept. Oh, how nice it was.

Thursday! It was a very bland day, not much happened until around the end of the work day. The guys decided to buy a big box of beers or 'bier' and start their weekend early in the backyard of the office. They call the backyard "The Nature Reserve" which is quite amusing since it is about as big as a living room. Although, it does have a lot of nice greenery.

I tried on the biers and found it bitter and altogether untasty. We sat around and talked for about half an hour after work and then the guys, Kees (pronounced Case), Johannas (pronounced Yo-han-awes) and Matijse (pronounced Matt-eh-us) decided to go out drinking. Lauren and I were invited and since it is legal here as well as a good opportunity to get to now the coworkers who we will be working with for the rest of the summer. These three guys are the employees beneath Robin and so it was nice to hang out with them and get to know them since the interns all left today (Friday) for the summer.

We were escorted onto the tram and to a more central area of Den Haag by the three gents and then to a bar called "Fiddlers". The guys insisted on buying the drinks and did not Lauren or myself help. It was very kind and gentlemanly of them, which is quite refreashing to the college stingieness I've been getting used to. The served us a bier called "Grolsch" which is okay to drink when cold but still rather unappealing when warm. We had a few drinks and made small talk about religion, music and culture barriers and sayings. It was incredibly nice to get to know them and I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk to them one on one without having to worry about work or 'fitting in' with the people at the office.

After that pub (apparently the bier glasses were downsized, so they felt it was to expensive) we decided to go find some food. We decided on Italian and Lauren and I got to experience a more true type of Italian. The guy who served us was even Italian! The food was delicious, even if a bit expensive. I'd heard from Angelica that the Dutch like to use silverware alot and don't eat with their hands and I'd not seen any truth to this statement until then. All of the guys purchased pizzas (which were HUGE and fairly cheap!) and they proceeded to cut them into small bites with a knife and fork and eat with a fork! It was really entertaining since I'm used to college friends who just inhale their food, especially pizza with just their hands.

Kees was kind enough to let me sample an anchovia (which I have never had) and I would like to say that it is indeed extremely salty and tastes extremely of fish. I do not have a fondness for it and he didn't either. Apparently he just wanted to try it as whim so that's why he ordered it. Matijse let me try his four cheese pizza as well and I like his quite a bit more. I'm a cheese or "kaas" fan. Interestingly enough, the menu was in Italian and Dutch so Lauren and I couldn't read a word. I understood a few words like "kaas" or cheese, "champignons" or muchrooms, "kip" or chicken, and so on, but really...I had to have Kees help me order something. I got the Tortelloni (not to be mistaken for tortellini, which is VERY different I was told) and it was absolutely delicous. I would defenitely go back there.

After dinner, the guys tried to once more pay for us but Lauren and I were able to slip in about thirty Euros between the two of us before they noticed. The bill was seventy five Euros after all!

After food, we decided to go to another bar. We walked through a fantastic courtyard and a magnificint parliment building (where they were filming for something, probably a documentary) and I defenitely have to go back to take pictures. We made it to the second club and this time we stood instead of sat and talked and had a good time and few biers for a couple of hours. When it was time to go home, they took us to the tram stop and told us just to wait for the right stop! It was about 12:30 when we got to the stop so we waited for a bit, hoping the tram hadn't stopped for the night and we were rewarded with tram! Hoorah!

We got to our bikes without problem but as we started to bike home we were talking when I suddenly heard a horrible screeching behind me. Ignoring it, I kept biking and this car raced out from behind us and sped up the street. As it went, it was jerking violently to the left and fish tailing wildly. Realizing it was a drunk driver, Lauren and I suddenly were glad to have surrvived a very close to death experience. It was probably the closest we've come to actual harm out here yet, considering we were on bikes, at night, on the left side of the road. It was good to get home and go to bed though.

On to today which yes, is Friday!

I worked on modeling inkwells from the Galileo shoot at the new office so we could put them on the dome as well as the real one in the shot and I was texturing them all today. It was tedious but they look really good and I have my first model and texture in an actual production that will be shown in the US even! Bob from Milwaukee will have "Galileo: The Legend of the Teliscope" and it will have two inkwells from Laura in it! Hooray!

I decided to go with the Peter, Matijes, Johannas, and Stein to see what they were getting for lunch and it turns out they went to a Turkish Bakery. They bought me a sandwhich as well (which I again tried to pay for but Peter turned me down.) and that wouldn't be so odd if it hadn't been from this huge stack of meat about two feet tall on a rotating spike thing. The vertical meat was turning in front of a vertical oven thing and when the meat on the outside was cooked, they shaved it off with odd saws and then put it in sandwiches and served it to you!

I was very interested in the process but when we got back, and we tried the sandwiches I sort of understood a little more. The meat was cooked but a lot more like meat and less like leather. It was unique in it's own way but I probably wont be eating it again. I tried it though! It was nice and spicy too. I'm sorry, I don't remember the name of it.

After lunch, we worked some more. Lauren and I were invited to go out drinking again with the guys but we decided against it. We'll be going to Amsterdam tomorrow, so we wanted to recoup since we've been so busy and not really had a break in the past few days. As we were riding home though, Matijes and Stein were walking back from the store and they asked us to drink with them again. We laughed but declined and came back here! Angelica went to Chile for the weekend to visit her father so now we are here and home alone but I sort of enjoy it. I like Angelica but it's nice to have the place to ourselves.

Now time for pictures! Visit the link for the few pictures I've taken and some that I've stolen from Lauren! Also, if you have any questions or concerns about what's going on with us here in Den Haag, please comment or email me and ask! Hope you all are staying beautiful!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurajolly/sets/72157619570953527/

End of the Day

2009-06-09T17:12:00.004+02:00

I end this Tuesday with the Table Coral model being at 24,157 polygons, and looking like this. Tell me. Does it look like a table coral?

If not, I just might cry. This model has taken so much time and will take so much more time. The flat planes are where I'll be adding more of the polyp stalk things. Thank you world, and...goodnight.

PS: Angelica's internet has stopped working as well as the hot water, so no long post tonight. I'm actually updating on the lab's computers. Toodle pip!

Three Way Calling

2009-06-08T10:57:00.005+02:00

Oh man, who knew copying and pasting polyp things would be so exhausting or so boring. Well, I knew it'd be boring but still...I really wish I had some Pandora. ;-;

Today, most of the office packed up and headed over to see the new office. It's still being totally redone but it's got the general shape of a building! XD What is really cool is that the green screen for the live action filming is set up and ready to go. Brian and Ricardo got all dressed up in their costumes (+ foot bows! Very cute,) and were playing around on the green screen so that people could get the lighting right as well as the camera angles. We talked a bunch, I learned how to make a espresso (all I did was bring the mug to the machine and someone else pressed the button for me. Haha, yay learning!), took some pictures and had a mini tour of the building. The third floor is the floor for modelers and animators so it's really nice up there. We have sun lights and lots of space! It's nice and cool in the Netherlands, so it was cool up there which is unusual since high up places in Colorado especially are boiling in the summer.

After sitting around and doing nothing for a couple hours, Kees helped us take the tram home. He walked us over to the main station (about a ten fifteen minute walk) and then brought us up to the trams, showed us the right one to get one and told us what stop to get off. It was really nice of him considering his initial reactions to Lauren and myself being around the office. We boarded the tram, which was much nicer than the other one. The other looked alot like a bus but this one was much more like a subway. We got to our stop and got off! Twas simple!

After shopping for a bit of food at the local store, we got our bikes and rode home.

One of the things I found very annoying today was the fact our hot water is broken at Angelica's house and we've not had hot water for the past three days. We can't get someone to look at it until Wednesday and that's not garunteed it's going to be fixed by then. So, I feel pretty grungy but I'll live.

I am also enjoying the use of Skype and getting in touch with my family back in Colorado. Especially my sister and parents. They fill me with joy and love. <3 Shout out guys! Keep being fasntastic and I love you all!

PS: Lauren fills me with joy by being so supportive and nice to me. She really keeps me level headed and calm about life. Thanks babe!

$$?

2009-06-06T23:58:00.001+02:00

So, Angelica just came in and handed Lauren and myself 100 Euro's each. I was confused and couldn't understand why she just handed us a ton of money but Lauren told me it was stressing her out for us to not have money. Angelica says she knows how it is to not have money and so she is forwarding us 100 Euros from our next paycheck which was very sweet of her.

Still confused me... But now I have two hundred Euros in my wallet, which comes out to about 280 dollars. Lauren thought I was wrong just now and we looked it up, and it turns out that the conversion of the Euro went from 1.50$ per Euro to 1.30$. Lol, the economy WOULD get better while we're here in Europe. XDD

Pie & Pizza

2009-06-06T21:30:00.000+02:00

Weekends are so wonderful. I love to sleep in...

After Lauren and I both got up, dressed, and interneted for the morning, we walked down to a local bookstore/cigarrette store. There, we asked the woman at counter to buy a strippenkart to ride the buses and she sold it to us. We were corrected on our pronunciation of the word and also found out that they do not have a student discount for the buses. The strippenkart costs about seven or eight Euros and will give both Lauren and I an estimated six bus rides too and from our destination. It seems a bit expensive to me, so I believe we will be buying a month long bus pass for our stay here since the bus and tram system are very reliable.

After walking back to our bus stop and boarding we stood for ten minutes on the bus and got to the Turkish Street Market once more! As it was before, it was PACKED with people! So much so, that at one point, Lauren was walking and a woman walked by her and basically pulled her little boy's head into Lauren's elbow accidently.

I was too afraid to take my camera out and take pictures because the place is so full of people and I don't want to stand out like that as the "touristy American" because our reputation as American's already seems to get us negative treatment. So, as soon as I work up the courage, I will show you all the glory of the biggest open air market in Europe. Ironically, we are also listening to the biggest European pop concert in the park next to our building. Den Haag is a happening place!

At the market, we purchased food and other little things we'll need for this week but Lauren and I were basically scraping the edges of the barrel for money because we STILL have not been paid and I am trying to keep from getting Euros from my bank as long as possible because the exchange rate is really bad. After leaving the market, we traveled home. Getting upstairs, we got into the door on the first try! It was a miracle!

Lauren and I dinked around a bit and then headed off to the other store to buy tortillas for breakfast burritos (we bought THIRTY eggs for this, there was no lesser amount available at the market). When we got to the area, there was another open air shopping thing, but it was nearly as big as the Turkish Market. Getting into the store, we proceeded to loose each other and scope around the store for tortillas. We found out that the store does not carry them, but we were able to meet up again near the breads. Lauren splurged and bought us some freshly made crossionts (which were fantastically delicious) and then we headed home. On the way, I decided I should get money, considerig I only had fifty one Eurocents left out of my original thirty six Euros I'd come here with. XDD The most expensive thing I have bought here yet was the five euro stamps that I didn't even use because I found out I could pay rent online!

After coming back home, Lauren and I proceeded to make popcorn and settle into a nice movie. In the middle of the movie, Angelica came back. We made it through the movie and then about a third of the way through the Fox and the Hound 2, Angelica had us make pizza with her. We have a picture compliation of that pizza making, so I shall skip it's excellence.

We also made Apple Pie from the extra crust from the pizza and a couple of apples that were laying around. Lauren and I watched the rest of our film, ate, and then Angelica brought us two glasses of red wine. Not particularly enjoying the scent of alcohol, I only sipped to get a taste and found it horrendous. Lauren tried it and told me that it had started to go vinegary. Bud luck on my part. After we finished, Lauren and I went to do dishes. So. Many. Dishes.

Angelica has a utensil, a dish, and a holder for everything to ever cook. EVER. So, after what seemed like a whole half hour of washing dishes in freezing cold water (The hot water is broken, something about the fire not working. So no shower for me tonight! I really would have liked one though. ;-; ) After dishes, the pie finished baking and so Lauren and I tried a slice of that. It was quite bland because Angelica, Lauren and I forgot the sugar in the pie, the cinamon, and the yeast in the crust. It was still good if a bit chewy and bland. We added sugar after words an the cinnamon was added just before we cooked so it was a bit spotty.

I made some tea, and here we are again! I believe we'll be watching another movie after our blog updates and drawing some. Toodle pip! Gunna drink my cold tea now. 8P

Pictures for the day! All provided by Lauren: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurajolly/sets/72157619261193403/

Work Entry: 1 Table Coral Polyp and Root System Problems

2009-06-05T11:22:00.000+02:00

I am required to keep a journal of my work and how I am doing in it so I will be keeping the journal as part of my blog since that was what it was originally intended for. The entries for my work journal will be labled "Work Entry" and then its number. So keep that in mind please when reading! 8D
~*~

Work Entry: 1

So, as you all know (or should lol) I am currently modeling Table Coral. It is the most intricate and difficult thing I've had to model in my short time of modeling. It's a wonderful challenge and I believe that most of the people in this office think I will fail. One guy, Brian, has already tried creating one of these corals and he had to give up and make something else because it was too difficult. I've been running into the same problems as him, things like how to make something with so many small details on such a big scale. The table coral and spread from inches up to ten feet out from the original stem. I have to create the polyps ontop of the coral as well as the intricate system of root like things on the underneath and middle. I have never spent this much time on one model, just modeling. The only one that comes close to this would actually be my Joan of Arc model or my model of Hugh Laurie.

I'm currently in the office while writing this, I'm giving myself a small break and a time where I have to type and get the blood running through my fingers because they are like icicles. I sit next to the door, as I said in earlier posts but since it's getting cool out because of the rain (around 50 degrees F) there are drafts that blow into here often. My arms get a little cold because they are on a glass desk being cooled by the breeze but my fingers just freeze into icicles because they are on the desk and on the mouse.

This is currently my main problem today with modeling is not being able to move the mouse or click it properly because my hands are getting all stiff.

On the Table Coral I am still getting through the problem of just so many small details that I have to model while still preserving polygon space. I don't know if I can slim down the count on the smaller branches of the model because of the triangle issue. Z-brush doesn't appreciate triangles and so I don't know if it would be a good idea. I guess I'll find out when I take the model into Zbrush. Alright, I'm going to get back to work. Update in a few hours!

~*~

I just checked my polygon count and realized that I had polygons that were over four sided and I fixed those up, but then looked back at my polygon count. I'm currently at 18,009 polygons and I am no where near done. I don't know if that's a lot of or too little but I'm trying to be thrifty where I can be, in fact I'm probably being too thrifty. I'm currently testing out the polyps on the mesh I made earilier today and let me tell you...this is a jerk and a half. I might be better just creating the polyps seperately and then cut and pasting them into the mesh itself. It's going to be too much to try and do that for every polyp and expect every one to look original like in the Table Coral's picture.

I think I've done extrodinarily well with keep all my polygons at quads and tris so kudos to me. What I would like to say is that I need need NEED to learn Maya and quick. Yeah, Silo is fast and quick and simple but Maya probably has a ton of tools that would have made this so much faster than what I've done now. At least Silo hasn't crashed on me eight+ times today like yesterday. It's probably because I kept trying to Ctrl+Z while using the soft select tool. Silo really hates trying to undo a change that's soft and smooth.

Alright, Keep on trucking.

~*~

Oh wow, I think this is actually going to work. <3

~*~

Alright, so the work day ended and now I'm back here at home. No pictures again today but Lauren and I did try to go fly a kite. It was really awesome for the two seconds we got alone together but then an older drunk gentleman tried to help us. After laughing at us and then sitting down, we saw someone else come up. Angelica came out and took us inside. She wanted us to go to Amsterdam with her but Lauren and I said we couldn't because we don't have the money right now. I was also greatly surprised that Angelica came right out to me and told me she wants me to run around the park so she can time it as well as also telling Lauren and I to go out and play in the sun more when it's up. Never mind that we were out in the park flying a kite when she brought us in but I believe that's because she wanted us to go to Amsterdam, that is after we pay her money for the gas she needs. I believe she said she needs to go to Amsterdam for a cable for a camera for the shoot on Monday at the new office on the green screen.

I did, however, just now get to talk to Jim and Steve for at least forty five minutes, so that was nice. I got to catch up a little with them and learn how they are doing. I haven't seen them or the rest of my family since January this year so I'm a bit homesick.

Shout out to my bros! Enjoy your summer and thanks for being you! Also, tell me what you want for your birthdays!

Sand Blasted!

2009-06-04T19:19:00.000+02:00

First things first, sand blasted doors are the most difficult thing to get into. The key will NOT turn and I swear that was the most difficult thing to do today. We sat outside the door for like five minutes and it wouldn't open. Both Lauren and I tried but jeez...

Anyway! I saw a snail today! I love snails, they be cute. XD

So today was just another day of working on table coral but we got to know a couple of the guys a bit better. Lauren and I conveyed our worry that Peter and Kees treat us like we're a bit slow but it turns out that happens to all of the guys in the office. At the end of the work day, we got to talk a lot more and learn a bit about the Dutch school system and how very different it is than American school systems. It also rained today which was very odd considering it's the middle of summer but I quite enjoyed it. There's not much to write about today, nor are there any new pictures! Sorry for the short post, enjoy your lives everyone!

Not Much

2009-06-03T19:14:00.000+02:00

Not much happened today, pretty much the same as yesterday. Here's a picture of what I'm working on. Pretty much all that happened is me being really stressed about this model because it's got a ton of polygons.
I'm trying to make some Table Coral, and it's incredibly difficult to do when you have no idea what you're supposed to be doing. Angelica made us some Chicken with Rice today and it was delicious. It reminded me, I've only used sixteen Euros on food this entire week and we have enough food for another week!

I don't have any pictures for today, nothing really interesting happened unless you count the marching band of highschoolers that just walked past our window. Instead of being 130 strong like Niwot Highschool, it was like 25 students. I love that, it makes the band so much more strong as a unit rather than just a class.

Also, sorry for not posting yesterday! I worked on that blog post for like...two and half hours and ended up only saving it and not posting it!

PS: Shout out to my parents, I love you guys! Thank you so much for the support monetarily, emotionally and for reading my blog and staying updated! I appreciate it more than you can know! Also, to leave a comment (Dad), you just click the link that says "comments" and then write stuff out!

Thanks everybody!

Appel Drank

2009-06-02T20:53:00.000+02:00

Hooo boy! We started our first day of work today!

And let me tell you...it was EXCELLENT. In all ways of the words. The guys at Mirage 3D were nice enough to hold their Monday morning scrub talk in English for Lauren and I. They went around and talked about what they'd been working on, what they were going to work on and more. When they got to Lauren and myself, we just introduced ourselves and it was fairly awkward at first. I think my favorite part of the introduction was the way Robin introduced us before we talked about ourselves. He told the interns and employees their that we had given up a Fox show internship (Crab Cove) for this while also giving up our vacations. I'm not sure he understood what a fantastic experience this is for us but I'm so glad he let us come and work for him. I would have been really unhappy to work on Crab Cove. I wouldn't have gotten to go to Europe or so many other things! We were given some tea (which was delicious, even if the office was roasting due to the render farm) and then we were pointed out to the two desks they cleared for us.

The first desk was near the door and the other was near the door that goes outside and Lauren gave me the choice of desks, so I took the one near the outside door. I got a lovely breeze from that door all day while I worked. After we got settled, we talked to Peter and Robin about what projects they wanted us to do, and we were then assigned our first internship projects! Hoorah!

I know it's odd to be so pumped for work but I was really excited to get out there and prove my self. Robin gave Lauren and I the choice doing modeling or animation and since we are both more comfortable (and had more experience in) modeling rather than animation, we asked for models. They seemed a bit worried because they either had really little models to do or huuu~uuuuge ones that are important for close up shots. I was excited none-the-less because modeling is the same everywhere, no matter what. It turns out, the modelers also do their own textures which will be at HUGE resolutions like, 4K huge! It's going to be beautiful!

So, the two models we were given choice over was the broccoli coral and the table coral. I chose the table coral and Lauren took the veggie coral. We started to work and I realized that they didn't have my favorite program on the computer I was working! Silo! Le gasp!

I remedied this as quickly as I could and started to work. Throughout the day, the interns, and employees (all who are male) would walk up to my desk, stare for a minute or two and then ask what I was working on. Not the model but the program. I would explain about the lightweight joyous package that is Silo and they all seemed to like it! I'm glad they accepted that I use it because I would really have disliked having to suddenly learn Maya in a week or two to do modeling for this internship. So, the entire eight hour work day, I worked on this peice of table coral. I never knew modeling something like coral could be such a pain! I had to start over and do it completely different at least four or five times. I finally started getting into a pretty good grove when one of the interns came over and stood behind me for like five minutes before another employee came over and stood behind me as well. The employee, Peter, asked what how I was doing and I responded that I was just...working on my table coral! I made some sort of comment about how people were standing around and Peter smiles and says "It's because they're jelous." Me: "Uhm...wha?" Peter: "They want to model like you!" I got really flustered and said something unintelligable and then went back to working.

Great first impression right!? It was really interesting to work there though, because they would talk and joke just like students in the APCG labs but it was all in Dutch rather than English! I really enjoyed it because the sound of a different language is really soothing and interesting to me. I also found out that English is a Germanic language! I thought it was Latin!? So, apparently it's easier to learn Dutch than it is Spanish...Or so I've heard.

Lauren and I went to another super market to get some lunch with the others at lunch time. They showed us another store where we can buy food that's not sandwich materials. We got back, laughed at some internet stuff and then had a learning moment. We bought a purple drink for lunch and tasted it. It was not the expected grape but turned out to be blue berry! I didn't see any grape soda there, just blue berry! I found it really awesome, it tasted good.

So we worked until 5:30 and said good bye to everyone and headed out! Lauren and I went back to the super market and got some more food because we're both getting sick of sandwiches and then went home. Turns out, we didn't need to buy food for tonight, Angelica made us some baked chicken! It was delicious and she talked with us for like half an hour. It was a very interesting conversation on the dynamics of the office and how the relationships effect the work there.

After that, Lauren and I were craving juice so we rode back to the small supermarket to buy some juice. We got there and were just generally having a good time. It's legal for us to buy alcohol here at our age but what I learned at the store today is that apple juice is appel drank in Dutch.

Now we are back home and enjoying life. Thanks for listening, and here are the few pictures I took today! They'll start dwindling down because we're going to be getting into a routine now.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurajolly/sets/72157619067745705/

PS: Last night, Angelica brought us some fries from across the street and they were delicious. The fries were fried but they weren't like...horribly destroyed like in America. They tasted like delicious potatoes! Apparently the Dutch enjoy a type of mayonnaise on their fries along with a super sweet ketchup. It was interesting and I really enjoyed the mayonnaise but the ketchup was too sweet for me. I am such a ranch fiend when it comes to condiments. Also, Frites is fries in Dutch. Yay for learning!

New Beach!

2009-06-01T18:03:00.001+02:00

Robin came over today and talked with Lauren and myself about our internship. He just made an appearance to tell us how he was grateful that we were giving up our vacation to come and work more and he also told us what we'll be doing. We will be modeling, animating, and doing things render wise like with cameras and lights. I'm really excited to start working because he also told us we might get to model DINOSAURS. Blargh, that's fantastic and I can't wait to get started.

After Robin left after promising us our own desks (Which wasn't a guarantee when we first got here) as well as promising to show us the new office where we will have an actual dome, a huuuu~uuuuge green screen for actors, planes and ever submarines, along with a garage and a really nice air conditioner. The current office is constantly overheated due to the huge render farm they have there but it's a wonderful set up. The old office is only three minutes away by bike where the new one is a bit farther.

Once Robin was gone, Lauren and I had some sandwiches and then Angelica took us to a new beach! We rode the tram system (which is incredibly reliable and fast!) but the only thing I didn't understand was the ticket system for riding. You use a "strippenkart" but you have to stamp one out of two or three or even four spots depending on how many zones you cross over. It is a little complicated to me but it turns out that the entire system is honor system. No one stamps the tickets for you, or watches you, you are expected to do it yourself and stay true. I really appreciate that sort of honesty but it was still a bit foreign to me. We got to the beach and it was incredibly crowded as all beaches usually are. Especially today, which is a Dutch holiday called "Pinksteren" which I believe is White Monday for the Dutch but I'm not entirely sure.

I took a ton of pictures (lots of the INCREDIBLE sandcastle we found, it was GIGANTIC and fantastically detailed. Apparently it's won awards too!) but I couldn't really convey the hugeness of this boardwalk and the tons of people. We walked around for a few hours but then headed home because it was getting late. We took the tram and then the bus home and now I'm here! Here's a link to the pictures I took for the day! http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurajolly/sets/72157619023890419/

PS: I'm putting up the pictures now at 9:30 or so PM and it's still light out! The sun rises extremely early ( I know because my first day here, I got up at 5 and the sun looked like it had been out a while already) and the sun goes down around ten or ten thirty PM at night. I know it's because of how much more North I am but it still is a crazy experience!

Apology

2009-05-31T18:27:00.000+02:00

Dear Blog Readers,

I apologize to any and all who have read this blog or its posts and have been offended by my words. I have deleted my last post in attempt to curb my ignorant behavior. Please forgive this error on my part, I was not thinking nor was I being respectful of the culture I am now a part of.

I would like to say for the future, that this blog is not only for recording what is happening through my days here in the Netherlands but it is also my diary where I can record my honest reactions to a different world and learn from it. I did not mean for this blog to become a place where I was allowed to be politically incorrect about certain situations because I want nothing more than to be a part of this new place and enjoy it to its fullest while also learning and over coming educational barriers.

Once more, I apologize for my rude and ignorant behavior.

Sincerely,
Laura Jolly

Shamlessly Stolen!

2009-05-30T20:31:00.000+02:00

Lauren and Angelica just seriously confused me. Haha, oh well! Here's some pictures I've shamelessly stolen from Lauren! Remember, to see mine, GO TO MY LINK. D8< This is part of the place we're staying, this is the living room. I don't spend any time here, it's stressful on my poor soul.

If you did a 180 from that first shot, this is what you would see. You can see the door to Lauren's room (The purple one) and the door that leads to another area that has the front door, the kitchen, my room, Angelica's room, the toilet, and the shower.

The Toliet! The laundry/kitchen place! 8D Introducing, Angelica Flores! She's quite short, so if I was standing next to the bike with her, I the top of my head would be cut off by this shot. Crazy bottom fish I was telling ya about. We cooked them up and ate them good! XDD

They look kinda frightening when cooked....

But it was quite delicious! XDD

Lauren's blog is http://aredheadindenhaag.wordpress.com/ and her flickr is http://www.flickr.com/photos/justaredhead/

Go visit and be merry!

May 29th & 30th

2009-05-30T18:09:00.000+02:00

Okaaaa~aaay. So, it’s currently 7:58 AM here in Den Haag! I got up about three hours ago after sleeping from four in the afternoon yesterday till now. Traveling for a combined total of about twenty hours really takes it out of you. Add about seven or eight hours more of traveling to our residence, taking a small tour around the town, meeting some people we’ll be working with, seeing an AMAZING canal, shopping for food, and visiting another small airport to exchange money. This all on top of not sleeping two nights in a row before this trip because of friends and a too hot apartment. I was simply exhausted. A bed has never felt so good in my LIFE.

So, beginning with getting up the morning before our flights. Rich drove me to Lauren’s place about 4:30 in the morning on Thursday the 28th and her parents took us to the airport. We were making jokes and generally being giddy with tiredness and the thought of leaving the country. Just us, no parents! We get there, say good bye’s and I realize how awful I feel for bringing two suitcases rather than one like Lauren. I fell all self conscious, but as I get them to the guy who takes them, I feel better. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Anyways, the guy who took my baggage never checked my ID either, I must be really nonlethal looking.

Lauren and I make our way through the airport and get to our gate and wait for an hour. We steal some internet, take some pictures and then board! Hoorah! First plane trip of the day. Then a HUGE long flight to Philly where I slept most of the way. Sadly, I slept with my mouth open quite a few times so I felt like the most retarded person ever. Lauren was a row ahead of me on the exact opposite side of the plane but we both had only one other person in our three person row so we got lots of space. The trip was pretty good considering I slept through most of it. We landed, and then walked what seemed like a mile long trip through the Philly airport to get to our other gate. Getting to the gate, I have a small panic attack when an announcement tells me we have to “check in” to get on the flight. We only have half an hour before boarding, so I go ask the attendant. She stamps my ticket and all is good apparently. Lauren and I meander over to an airport food place and get some sandwiches and let me tell you…the prosciutto, pesto, and cheese sandwich was food of the gods. I don’t normally love sandwiches (or airport food) that much, but let me tell you…it was amazing.

So, we get on the plane and then sit. I’m in the middle, and Lauren is in the window seat. She and I are PRAYING that no one comes and sits next to me so we can spread out. So we start pulling away from the gate and we cheer! I move over and we spread out. Thus begins the longest flight of my existence.
Literally all I did was sit, try and sleep (super unsuccessfully) read some, stare at the people in front of me, and play one card game with Lauren. The card game of War never ends by the way, it just keeps going lol. After what seems like an eternity of day, then night, and then day again, we hear the announcement in both Dutch and English that yes! Amsterdam is in sight! So we see the ocean some, and then land! Thank all the deities!

We get off, scramble over to where our luggage is supposed to be and we pull off our bags. Once more, I get all self conscious about having two bags. I know there is a good reason to have two but I still feel all weird. I wasn’t just packing for Europe but I was also moving out of my apartment so I had to take a few things with me that couldn’t go in my boxes like my extra lotions, little tech, and stuff like that. Lauren and I walk up to where they stamp our passports and we do so. Then, we get through to customs and there is literally no one. We just walk out! Lauren and I see the sign for us, being held by Peter and we make our way to him. He stares at me and my bags and the one of the first things he says to me is “I don’t know if we can fit all that in my car”. And I feel like a total ass. He said it in a joking, accent way but I still couldn’t speak for the entire ride from the airport to our place of residence because I was so embarrassed. The drive was fairly uneventful, except that I took a bunch of scenery shots to show what a beautifully green place it is. All the cars here are incredibly small and compact which I loved cause no huge obnoxious cars bothered us. Peter takes us to Angelica Flores’ house and warns us that she can’t really speak English but she speaks Dutch and Spanish.

I was a little worried about this, but it turns out she speaks more than most people back home do lol. So, she shows us our rooms and points me out to the room I’m in now. She’s very adamant about me being in this room which I later learn is because the bed is more sturdy. It was very nice of her to not make a big deal about how I’m larger than the average person, but she also made a joke at my two suitcases which made me all prickly again. She made the joke of me “moving in forever” but meh, she was more open spirited and way less awkward than Peter so I let it slide. She speaks in a fairly broken Spanish, English, Dutch way but it’s understandable when you listen and make sure to pay attention. She shows us her house but it feels like it takes hours. She was explaining about every little thing and how she was so surprised that we were here. Apparently, Robin, the guy who told us we could stay here, didn’t tell her we were going to be here today until two days ago. He also didn’t tell her how long we were going to be here lol. She was very surprised when we told her, which was a bit awkward . She makes some tea, telling me things I don’t really understand and we all sit in the living room to talk. Peter tries to translate some stuff for us but I really just couldn’t process any of it. I was simply exhausted.

Somehow, we all agree that she was going to take us to the super market, and then to the office. Still tired, I agreed to be polite but I really just wanted to say hello to my new bed with my face. She shows us how to do EVERYTHING, not like we’re just Americans, but like we’re three years old. It’s nice, but it’s a little grating. Anyways, we squeeze into her little car and go get gas. Super expensive, but I am shocked to see people riding their bikes. And not just once in a while, college students, but everyone on bikes. Old grannies, young children, business men, women in dresses, everyone! Angelica lends both Lauren and I fifty Euros each to start with. It was very sweet, so we head off to the super market. Angelica is chattering on constantly about how things cost this much, and don’t buy this, it’s too expensive, and all. We eventually get out of there with sandwich making materials and giggling about words and Dutch language mannerisms. After the super market, we then head off to the very small airport in Den Haag. Not to be confused with the huge one in Amsterdam where Lauren and I came from. We get there and Lauren and I exchange some money while Angelica talks to a representative about her flight to London sometime in the next month. The exchange rate in the airport sucks by the way. I gave the lady sixty dollars and got about thirty seven Euros back. Lauren and I promptly paid Angelica back for the money she kindly lent us.

Angelica comes back and tells us it’s too expensive for her to go to London which we awww about politely. We make our way back to her (gas smelling) car and make our way to a place where she tells us she has a “present” that is neither money nor goods. We get to an absolutely fantastic canal and I just die. We park literally right next to the water, no bump to keep cars from going in or anything, just right on the edge. We walk our way up and down this fantastic place, where I take a ton of pictures. I got to see Wooden shoes, Dutch ice skates, a weird falling tower thing, a beautiful bell tower, and a ton of weird doorways. Turns out, her reason to go here was to talk about the olive oil class she was going to teach at an olive oil shop. She and the manager talk for about fifteen minutes while Lauren and I talk and take in all of the culture. Tons of people, most on bikes and so much was happening.

We finally get out of there and head to the office where we’re going to work. We meet a whole bunch of people and shake hands and suddenly I feel so much more at home. I see programs I’m used to, messengers I know, 3D things, texturing, computers, and the people I see are exactly like APCG students back home. They look like people I would see in O’connell which made me happy. We get another emergency phone which was nice but we eventually left. We get back to Angelica’s house and she teaches us a few more million things like how to do dishes and dry them. I eventually get back to my room and read my book for about five minutes before I pass out completely in my new bed. Mind you, this was about three in the afternoon.
I wake up only once when Angelica comes in and asks I want dinner and I tell her I’m fine. I undress this time and get under the covers unlike before to sleep but then pass out again until five the next morning. Well, this morning really.

Waking up was fantastic and I realize that it’s very early. I unpack and get everything into place and fiddle with my stuff and then realize I could go out onto the balcony. I do so, and it’s fantastic. The most wonderful place to live. I go back to my room and get my computer out to start working on this here blog post lol, I start to hear people moving around. Angelica comes into my room and tells me we are going to go to the market this morning, so I start getting ready. I make a delicious sandwich and we fiddle with her wireless a bit. Angelica chats away and we set out to put some bags into her car. Instead of going to the market, we make our way out to this park right in front of Angelica’s house. It’s the most fantastic park I’ve ever seen, entirely green, lakes and ponds all in it, and on the other side of it is a bowling place, and a Chinese buffet oddly enough. We walk back and Angelica is constantly chattering away at us about stories she has or trying to teach us something. We learned that Angelica is actually from Chile and so she has a lot of stories from Latin America ‘n stuff.

We get back to her place and hop into her car. We then go to the market which was so amazing that I about died. A ton of people everywhere, a ton of stalls packed close together and the craziest assortment of fish, fruit, and vegetables I’ve ever seen. I’ll talk more about it when I can go there for longer than the ten minutes we were there. I unfortunately did not get any pictures of it either due to the massive amount of people there. I never knew there was such a huge amount of people from EVERYWHERE in The Netherlands. People from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Africa, England, Spain, France, England, everywhere. Everyone speaking at the same time and it was fantastic. After we bought some fruit and vegetables there for incredibly cheap, even by American standards, we make our way back to our car. We get in and make our way to the office again to grab the bike that is there for Lauren to ride. We both laugh because it is obviously disused, but it has wonderful “texture” as we were joking. She walks the bike home and I go with Angelica to carry her groceries up the stairs. It was a bit to heavy for her to do herself, and so then Lauren promptly arrives. Angelica goes to her small garage thing and pulls out the other bike for me to use. Lauren and I promptly leave on our experimental bike ride as soon as we get some air into the tires. We ride the entire length of the park and see a million things. Barbeques, deer pens, small farm things, more lakes, and a ton more people. Lauren and I discuss how it’s nice to be alone and just relax instead of worry about what Angelica is saying and where she is taking us. Since her speech is a little hard to decipher, we never know where we are going, what we are doing, or if we’ll get a chance to say anything. On our way home, we decide to go back to the market we were at yesterday where we got sandwich materials to get something to drink and more food. We get there, realize we have no bags and that the store has none. We bike back to her place, get some bags, and then bike back to the store. We get in and are lost in the cacophony of sounds and people. We get some stuff, mostly water and juice and go buy it. The woman who helps us spoke Dutch to us at first and Lauren said “sorry” in English and the lady in Dutch immediately brightens up and starts to speak to us in English. We make very short small talk and go back home.

My phone is horrible by the way, it doesn’t get signal ANYWHERE, (like, not once this entire trip) and it runs out of batteries in only five hours. D<

We put our food away and realize that Angelica is making fish. It’s the weird kind that has its eyes facing up on one side of its body because it’s constantly on its side on the bottom of the ocean. I had no idea this kind of fish was edible but she promptly puts two onto one plate and another two on another plate. These fish are about ¾ of a plate size each so it was a lot of food and she wants us to eat it. I poke fun at Lauren because she had told me only earlier this morning she doesn’t like fish in the slightest, and she hardly eats meat in general. We try the fish and realize it’s delicious. We both finish our plates and realize that most fish are buttered, fried, salted, and lemoned to make it edible and this fish was only cooked in some oil and then given to us. I don’t know why we don’t eat it more at home…

After the fish, I leave to work on this post and then am pulled into the other to see some of Angelica’s pictures of Amsterdam which were crazy. A couple thousand bikes in stands instead of cars and multiple fields of poppies she and her friends had been in. After that, I get back here and finish this incredibly too long blog. I doubt any of you, friends or family will read all this but if you do, kudos!

This blog is basically a diary for me, of day to day happenings while I am here and I will try to keep it as up to date as I can. If anyone wants to more exact things that happened like flight numbers, seat numbers on the flight, the exact speed of cars, or the color of the road, please ask because I just can’t fit that kind of detail into this blog. I hope you have enjoyed my first two days as much as I have! It’s currently 5:28 PM as I finally finish this and I’m about to go eat some “Delicatessen Ham” that I bought and then read some.

The weather here is cool and fantastic which is really funny because the Dutch people we have talked to so far have said it’s “hot” here right now. Blargh, Sorry to write so much but I hope you enjoyed it!

Here is the link for my first day’s pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurajolly/sets/72157618919192157/

Here is the link for my second day’s pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurajolly/sets/72157618922195625/

PS: This prosciutto is delicious. I wish there was some way I could send some to Rachel. It’s not thin and lame like in the US but delicious and thick and lovely. <3 We also bought some weird orange stuff that we thought would be like Orangina but it’s not and it’s fantastically delicious. <3 Food here is delicious and I don’t feel like I have to eat a ton which is nice. Possible weight loss this summer? Never know! A lot of bike riding plus delicious food which I only eat a little off makes for a good out look! The only problem is all the changes in things like temperatures, weights, currencies, and so much more. I’ll also be linking to Lauren’s pictures because it’s not necessary to copy all her pictures on my own camera when you can just see hers. XDD

PPS: If you have any questions about the pictures I’ve taken, like where we were, what we were doing when I took them, or what the heck is going on in them, make sure to ask me! Either comment or email me at laura.j.jolly@gmail.com

Have a wonderful day! I’m going to call my parents and speak with them for a while. I’m home sick, I’ve not seen them since January. ;-;

NEW PHONE!! ((PLEASE READ))

2009-05-28T01:31:00.000+02:00

Alright! So, I have RECIEVED my new phone that can work IN the United States as well as OUTSIDE of the United States i.e. The Netherlands!

If you want to reach me while I'm still here in the US on my new phone ((Just to try it out or what not)) the number you want to dial is 1-631-259-6693

I will only be in the US until 6:30 PM May 28th, 2009. You can also still call me on my normal phone until then where the number is 720-982-5661

PLEASE NOTE! That my new number while in the Netherlands is 44-792-447-4419

You can call and text me at that new number! It is for emergencies, so if you'd like to chat please email me, facebook me, or anything else! You can also skype me and my name for skype is Ashton.Gray

If you'd like to talk on MSN messenger, my email is rainingfire@comcast.net

My email to contact me to talk is laura.j.jolly@gmail.com

Once more! My number for the Netherlands is 44-792-447-4419

~*~

Today, I have also been wading through my twenty five gigs worth of music and weeding out the multiples so that I can put it all on my ipod. I got it down to seventeen gigs but my ipod only holds four! So, I've been putting music on there that I like and also charging up both of my phones for the trip as well as changing my actual phones answering machine.

All this planning is really starting to lay into me and it doesn't help that I only slept four hours last night due to all the nervousness. Keep a watch out for me guys!

Just Kidding About the Phone!

2009-05-24T03:55:00.000+02:00

So, I went to the Sprint store today and guess what! They wanted to rope me into another deal with an extra TWO YEARS of service with them and I had to say no. I just ordered the rent-a-phone online. I hope it gets here in time, but otherwise I'm searching for boxes and crates to start packing all my stuff into. The house is a mess here, people are leaving and everything is piled everywhere!

I also purchased a Nintendo DS Lite today. Yeah, I didn't get the new DSI, but I didn't need a camera or music playing capabilities so I went for the Lite! I have four games for it and I'm already getting aquainted with my Brain Age 2 so that I can have something to do on the air plane ride (12 hours!!) as well as read and draw. It's also to keep my fingers busy so I don't irritate my skin and chew on my nails. The doctors were getting on my case about that, so hello moisturizing cream and good bye dry skin!!

Just a few more days folks! Just a few more and I shall say good bye!

PS: Lauren, I need my Netherlands speech book back. I'd like to read it before I go! :)

Blergh, Phone Issues

2009-05-23T12:16:00.000+02:00

So, I'm having a bit of an issue deciding between renting a phone for about $120. It's the cheapest plan that I've found but I also could just upgrade my Sprint phone that I have now for about $100. True, it'll be $1.99 per minute for calls on my phone in different countries but I only want to use the phone for emergencies, so ideally, I would only use it once or twice and not for very long. So I'm stuck between renting a crappy phone for the same amount as upgrading to a new one permenently. The calls would only cost money on the new one and I'm getting basic free service for a few hours on the rented one. Argh! I don't know what to do!

I really want a new phone because the one I have now is very old and the place where it charges is starting to break so it only charges when it's wire is holding it at an angle. Blargh, I dunno what to do. I'm most likely going to upgrade my old phone because I would be more comfortable with it in a strange country, knowing what number is my own, having all the emergency contacts in the phone already, and being able to get calls from people and stuff. It's comfort versus money and I think I'll have to go with comfort because I want as little to worry about over the summer as possible. I guess I'm going to the Sprint store tomorrow! Leave me comments folks, to tell me what you think about my predicement! :)

PS: I'm watching an old movie right now from my childhood, it's called "The Secret of the Seal" and I am so glad to have it. I haven't seen it in years and it turns out it's a really old anime. I was an anime fan before I even know that anime and American cartoons were different! What a revelation! This is my third movie that I get to see after it haunted my childhood with it's vestiges of memories.

The countdown is 5 days now folks! Also, a HUGE thanks goes to Lauren's parents for wanting to drive us down to Sacremento on Thursday! We really really appreciate it! :)

Preparing for the Big Day!

2009-05-13T10:13:00.000+02:00

Lauren Kodai and myself will be traveling to Den Haague, Netherlands on the 28th of this month! (May)

We've been incredibly busy with preparing our trip. Everything from finding our Passports, Buying Tickets, Checking to see if our Insurances Cover Internationally in Emergencies (Which it does! Hooray!), Getting an International Student ID (doing it tomorrow!), Finding a Place to Live, Checking about Phones to use Internationally, Packing, Saving up Money (It's so hard to find!), and so much more.

Toodle pip, gotta do homework! 8P