Chit Chat 2018

[Suuper-san]

@ohgodhelpme we've all had it happen. hopefully there's no lost money involved otherwise it gets even more sour

I wonder who unofficially holds the record for the most posts made after returning from a hiatus?

I am probably somewhere up there, lego as well. If Hasith lets me have the API I can run a function to work it out one day :P it's going to be someone who makes a lot of posts normally, so one of the members on the first page no doubt. it would be pretty hard to measure exactly (suddenly gets enthusiastic about something unimportant), would it be proportional to the length of the hiatus? it also depends on the activity of the forum itself - there's nothing to post back on if no-one has said anything. I really want to know now :P

[Coryn]

It probably also depends on how we're gathering our figures. Are we talking the initial burst after returning? How long does the hiatus need to last? Are we talking total disappearance, or does lurking count? Is it me because I took a month off in 2010 for school? Too many variables.

[Suuper-san]

I think if lurking counted that would mess things up a lot, since that probably isn't recorded :P

I would say a count of single replies to topics that were made or commented on before your return, so a conversation on a thread would still only count once (as one theory)

a hiatus is probably about a month or more, but the longer you are away, the more you can post on, so a longer hiatus would be in favour of a higher reply count on return.

maybe the gradient on a running average of 2 months would work......but it's not very "cool"
yeahhhhh it's not calculable :P

[Manimal]

My people, Happy Thanksgiving to us, the real Thanksgiving of course. The day is little more than a day off and a table cloth on the kitchen table instead of the normal place mats, but eh.

[Coryn]

So, we've been through how Canada doesn't know how to to space their holidays, so I won't retread that road.

My question, since your Thanksgiving is in October, is do you ever just have spooky Thanksgiving? Because with America's it's like the kick-off for Christmas right? We've had like, 20 days to let our spookiness trail off. So Thanksgiving is always this warm fuzzy gateway to Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever. But I can't see having a warm and fuzzy Thanksgiving, only to delve right back in to spookiness.

[Manimal]

Well I guess it can be spooky, for my immediate fam it's just my Mom cooks something all day and we eat like normal. Thanksgiving isn't really a big deal for us it's just ya whatever. No turkey or anything, my Gma makes that pumpkin pie, also on Christmas Eve. So there is no spookiness or no non spookiness it's just ya whatever, I don't think many people find it to be a big deal here in general.

[Robin Rain]

I've been sorta lurking for a while, so I guess I should say what's been going on?

Well first off, I dunno if anyone remembers how my friends were nudging me and their friend together, but we started dating shortly after that. It's been almost 3 months now and we've been spending every chance we get together.

Second, I've got a bad mix of hard and uninteresting classes this semester so it's been sapping my energy. I'm taking an accounting class which couldn't be farther from my interests and my art professors don't seem to like any "art" unless it deals with politics or other social problems. What if I just want to draw a pretty picture!?

Third, I've been having a lot of trouble with my neighbors whom I know are druggies. I haven't felt safe to walk to or from my apartment since the summer where two guys were whispering threats through my door at 2am to whoever they thought lived at this apartment. Also in a few days this apartment complex will be auctioned, so the new owner could tear it down to build a McDonald's for all I know.

So I've been looking around for other apartments near the campus for the past couple months and finally found one. I'm moving there this coming weekend. It's a couple hundred dollars more expensive ($785 per month utilities included), but It's a lot nicer and the area looks on the less rundown part of the area.

Me and my boyfriend are planning on sharing the apartment once he finds a better paying job than his current one. The apartment technically has two bedrooms, but they lock one unless you want to pay an extra $400 a month or have a roommate. So once he moves in we'll pay $525 each which is less than my current rent.

Fourth... My cat Roo, who was 7 years old, passed away a couple weeks ago. I had planned to take her with me to the new apartment since they allow cats, but I guess that won't be happening.

So... Long story short, good and bad things have happened. My depression and anxiety are creeping back, but at the same time I smile and laugh more than I'm used to. Hoping things improve once I get settled into the new place.

[Coryn]

I'm glad to hear from you Robin. Sorry to hear about your cat and the apartment situation, but it sounds at least like things might be looking up! Strange set up with that locked door and everything though. I've never heard of anything like that.

Art professors can be dumb like that. I had a good one once who always defended the anime style because 'it's just fun to look at'. Need more like him.

Good luck! Keep fighting!

[Suuper-san]

sorry to hear about all the sad bits, but glad you're mostly keeping on top of it. creepy about the threats tho I would be so scared if that was happening to me @_@

so sad about your cat!! hope the move goes ok and the apartment is good.

What if I just want to draw a pretty picture!?

I had the same problem with my teachers, I had to have some sort of deep meaning behind my artworks. I got really good at doing what I wanted and bluffing the reasons behind it, finding hidden themes in my own work haha.
art teachers somehow think they are the law on "what is art", which is unbelievably stupid, especially when it's against a style that you love.
and while we're at it, art teachers DON'T EVER teach you to draw or even how to properly use the equipment sometimes......

[50 Words for Paipis]

Your teachers are probably considering how your art might work in a gallery, in which the work is not given narrative context by a story/dialogue like comics are (except in the case of depictions of historical/mythological events), and in which more attention is focused for a longer period of time on the piece, unlike wall art in your home. Meaning is often how works distinguish themselves and make an impression in that setting, most often because making something truly uniquely visually striking on its own to gallery viewers is the more formidable and sometimes unobtainable goal. But you may have no interest in the gallery.

It seems to be a similar case to how my jazz guitar teacher impressed upon me certain rules or guidelines which help when performing in a jazz setting, even if not necessary in every setting or hard rules even in their appropriate setting. That is to say that going along with it and learning to think in new ways can end up being helpful outside of that setting, even if the teachers are wrong about it being an imperative for all settings (if that's what they insist). Off the top of my head, it seems like being able to convey meaning through visual elements alone could prove very powerful and poetic in a particularly crucial or impactful comic frame. That said, I get that there's only so much time a person has in the day. Not all of one's time should be spent in a genre or sphere in which they don't want to specialize. And anyway, I don't really know the full extent of what your professors are asserting. There are some bothersome critical analysis frameworks in the art world which don't really help anybody.

[Suuper-san]

thats a fair point.
often though they don't give the reason behind what they are saying so it makes it seem worse perhaps.
my music teacher never told me why scales were so important they just said "you have to do these", so I felt very unmotivated to do them, but I found out later, its for coordination and finger strengthening etc, so now it's important to me because I see why.

[legomaestro]

Someone translate this because it's sort of amazing but I'm too dumb to understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-pyuaThp-c

[Suuper-san]

I tried and failed

[50 Words for Paipis]

You don't have to understand all of the terminology to know that there's not really a grand point other than "connecting dots make shapes."

[OhGodHelpMe]

Never again shall I underestimate the power of the 7b9 chord