It started off on the negative side due to me having to wake up an hour earlier than normal in order to go take some pictures. Which, usually, wouldn't theoretically be a problem if I went to bed an hour early. But any time my schedule gets thrown out of whack, even a little, some obsessive-compulsive part of my brain kicks in, like it's deathly afraid I'm going to be late or something. As a result I end up waking up every hour or so. With so little sleep I'm naturally testy for about an hour, but it'll wear off. I'm a professional, damn it, I must soldier the f&^% on.
I take pictures, talk a bit with my supervisor and head to the office. Everything is hunky-dory.
Now, I've got four deadlines due, two on Oct. 30 and two more on Nov. 2, plus a small slue of slide projects with no definite dates.
One due on the 30th is already done. Boom. Mark it off the list.
The other one for the 30th I'm still waiting on people to send me stuff. I've already started, but can't continue without the missing content. Shouldn't take too long to finish once I get it, but there's nothing more I can do until then. Move on to the next project.
One of the Nov. deadlines is a Christmas card. Super simple project. I'm waiting for a photo for the front and the innards to be sent to me. Even with editing the whole thing should take half a day
tops. But, can't start anything beyond setting up file dimensions. On to the last project.
Last project for Nov. 2. A brochure. Four panel, front and back. I made a nice design for it (which was met with praise) and put in all relevant content. The only qualm given (beyond a couple minor text edits which had nothing to do with me) was that the front had too much white space. Okay. Whatever
My supervisor is a former newspaper employee and has what my professors once called "The Fear of the White Space." She denies this, but that's fine. I'll do whatever you want.
I get to the office to work on it. Sketch out a couple new ideas that will flow with what I already have and go to implement them.... I don't like them. Doesn't look quite right. I try a couple more. Still no good.
Now, other creative types will tell you, that when you hit a mental block, often the best thing to do is step back and do something else. Clear your head a bit. So I move on to the simple task of editing some pictures I took this morning. It lets me be productive while I think. It gives me a couple more ideas, but I'm still not happy. Closer, maybe, but not happy. I continue to go back and forth between the two projects.
At about two in the afternoon, two hours before the office closes (and you better be OUT, ya hear) and an hour after my supervisor comes back to the office, she sends me an email about things I
should try for the cover. I know that she probably thought she was helping, but the way she worded it was just horribly insulting. Like, Design 101 bullet points you learn on the first day of class, insulting. Like, you've been working 20 years at the newspaper, turned in an article and the response was "Good job, but here are some pointers" and being handed a book on basic writing technique. If you want something, just tell me what you want, not how I should do it. I did not spend those years in school and countless hours of free time studying and
not learn the basics, for gods sakes. Not only that, but she wanted to see something by the end of the day. What? The deadline sheet you gave me said two weeks? It's one panel, WTH is with the sudden hurry?
Now I'm not only sleep deprived, but also marginally pissed. This does nothing to help my design block. I'm still moving things around and trying other options and switching out pictures, but I'm still not happy. So when she asks a hour later if it's ready, of course I say no. I'm not going to send her something I'm not happy with, especially what I know she's still not going to be happy and critique it to death. That's a waste of time on everyones part. Then she sends me this shitty little email about how she told me she wanted it by the end of the day and I shouldn't be working on anything else and
how would she even know that if she never bothered to walk the ten feet over here to talk to me about anything and wasn't that the freaking point you wanting me to come into the office in the first place 
In the end, I ended up staying late just so I could email her a 'work in progress' pdf. Not that she cared since
she left early anyway. The whole thing just turned into a sobbing, hair-pulling induced frustration, and all over a single panel of something that's not even set to go to the printers for two more weeks. After I got home and had a chance to cool down I sent a very diplomatic email in response to her last message, what I worked on that day (since she wasn't there for most of it) and how I would have liked for her to come and
speak to me about it. I guess I'll see if my efforts succeeded tomorrow.
The sad part is, she's usually not like this, but the whole thing just pissed me off to the point where I don't even want to go into the office anymore.
: Mom finally closed on her new Condo yesterday. So I spent the night yesterday and spent all day moving her boxes from her apartment for her and cleaning the new house while she worked. Still have furniture to move so I'll have to run back up tommorrow, but I got a fair amount of the smaller stuff moved over. Also managed to get most of the cleaning done so she will just have to vacuum again after we get done moving the bigger stuff in tomorrow and do some mopping. Sucks that she lives an hour and a half down the road or else I would move in with her till I can afford my own place. It's 3 bed and 3 bath so me and my brother have a place to stay if we ever need it which is nice since my Dad is still all over the place.
: Brother and his girlfriend seem to be doing better. Thankfully midterms are ending this week so hopefully their stress levels will drop quite a bit. My brother is also going to see the campus psychiatrist next week so hopefully he sticks with that and is able to get some help with his issues.
going through junk mail and junk mail and more junk mail until...
...I almost throwaway a promotional offer on internet that is SUPPOSEDLY 3x faster in download speed and 5x faster in upload speed at half the cost. Gonna research this. If this were true, then I can stream with no worries...cause seriously...streaming at a quality less than 480p stinks!
My laptop started beeping, which it usually does when the power adapter isn't plugged in, but rapidly like it was being plugged in and unplugged repeatedly. And then I saw that SMOKE was coming from where it was plugged into the laptop! So freaked out right now. Hopefully it's just the adapter. I'm gonna be pissed AF if it's a problem with my laptop.
