Dump 9.2.07

Just posting a few things that I've done lately or things that I didn't post before.

Alright, first off, I managed to scan in one of my final assignments from school. We were suppose to draw a model, then abstract it.







Here are some charcoal drawings I did in a class I took at the Stundent's Art League with Nelson Shanks.

















and finally some sketches I've done recently

Update + Event Info

I don't have much time to write today so I'm going to write this in English first.

Anyway, today's updates serves two purposes.

The first is to update everyone on what I've been up to the past few weeks, i.e. a
photo dump.

The second is to make note of an event that I will taking part in this weekend.

Alright, on with the photos.

First, after I graduated, I had a small exhibition with my graduating class. I was able to get my first Illustration job through that, which was nice.



Then, I went to Miami with my girlfriend around the weekend of my birthday. It was a pretty short vacation, because I started my new part time job the following Tuesday. Regardless, it was fun. I was most happy to see that my girlfriend had a good time and that my mom liked her.

While down there we went to Key West and took a sunset cruise and ate excellent sea food and key lime pie.









After that, I had a small little get together for my birthday. My girlfriend got to see my house and see some of my friends.





Did I mention that while I was down there, through a mistake on the part of the rental car company, I got to drive a mustang around for the price of a sedan. Yup.



When that was over, I took my girlfriend to the airport because she had to leave earlier than I did. Finally, for my last day, I celebrated the engagement of two of my Miami friends and got to finally do my own "Last Supper" birthday picture.



The second version is the "bizarro" version. Everyone is supposed to act like me, except me.



Sice then, I've been in New York working part time and trying to get my Illustration career started. So far not much has happened, but I did get one Illustration published...sorta. There was a mixup and the wrong version of my piece was published, but i was told by the client that for their online magazine, they will fix the error. I'll update the blog when that happens, but until then I'm putting what would've have been in print here and on my website.



I'm running out of time, so I'll edit later. But here are some things I've worked on/sketched lately.













Finally, I would like to make mention of an event that I will be performing at this coming Saturday. I'll be doing live painting for the Multihop event at Galapagos Art Space. The headliner for this event is Scratch of the Roots, and in addition to this there are many other things going on, body art, nail art, a fashion show, etc.

Here are the details...



Galapagos Art Space
70 North 6th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
United States

Also, anyone on my guest list gets in for $8, so please RSVP with you name if you will be coming.

Anyway, I could use your support! If you do come, it really does mean a lot to me.

To end, I have some extra pics on my flickr if you would like to see.
http://www.flickr.com/samurabi
enjoy.

さあ、今日の日記は前二つの日記とは違う。
最近やった事について詳しくはあまり書いてなかった。
だから今日の日記は二つの事について書こうと思う。

一つ目は最近やった事をみんなに知らせたい。
二つ目は僕の最新イベントについて詳細を載せたい

じゃ、はじめましょう。

卒業した後で同級生と一緒にエキシビションをやった。意外にいろいろな人が集まってくれて驚いてしまった。そのときになんとはじめての仕事の依頼を受けた。うれしかった。

それから誕生日の週末の時に彼女と一緒にマイアミに旅行した。次の火曜日に新しいのパートタイムが始まる予定だから旅行はちょっと短かかった。でも楽しかった。彼女はとても楽しんでくれたし母が彼女を好きだと言ってくれたのでうれしかった。

マイアミにいる時にキーウェストという島に行った。サンセットクルーズに乗ったり美味しいシーフードとキーライムパイを食べた。

パイはすごくおいしかった。おすすめ。

翌日、小さな誕生日パーティをした。彼女が僕のうちにきて友達に会ったからよかった。

ところでマイアミいた時にレンタカー会社の手違いでセダンを借りる値段でマスタングを借りれた。楽勝！

今はパートタイムやってそれ以外の時間は自分のアート活動をしている。今のところそんなに大きい仕事はないけど一つ雑誌のイラストレーションの仕事をやった。

やったけど依頼人の手違いで僕のイラストは間違って出版されてしまった。

とてもがっかりした。

じゃ、二つ目はイベントだ。

今週末はじめてのライブパインティングをする！

詳細は

Galapagos Art Space
70 North 6th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
United States

Saturday Jun 30, 2007
at 10:00 PM

僕に言って予約してくれれば入場料は８ドルだけだ。

よければみんな見に来て下さい。

他の写真を僕のフリッカに載せた。　
ぜひ見て下さい。

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samurabi/

Recipe for Disaster

They somehow managaed to put everything I hate into one video on Youtube.

Furries, Escalades, and modern day rap.




As a side note, I was really afraid of having to explain this video if someone walked into my office and saw me watching this.

-found on BoingBoing

Black Images in Korea

ええ、なんとなく今日は疲れ切った。
こんな日々が日本語というのは頭の中には浮かばないから今日の日記はちょっと。。。

しかし書かなかったら上達しないと思うからとにかく書いてる。

今日、面白いブログの記事を読んだ。
http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2006/02/blast_from_my_p.html

ちょっと過去のことだけど前の数年間以内には韓国でいくつもの人類差別みたいの事件があった。
多分その事件はアメリカの差別主義者に比べてそんなにイムパクトがなくてそれに韓国人に何か意味が伝えられなかったかもしれない。

まだ、それを見たら、妙の気持ちが湧き上がった。

黒人の僕にとってちょっと気になる。それで記事とコメントによると韓国人でもその行動の意味がよく理解された。

じゃ、韓国と言えばあまり知識がないけどなんとなくその記事のタイトル「黒人のカルチャー、黒人ではない」の感じがよく分てる。
僕の経験では「黒人が駄目」と言った韓国人があったけどアメリカ人の強烈な例に従わなかった。
むしろ、記事で他の書かれたのことでアメリカの一般的の白人のイメージがあこがれのものだ。
一方で黒人はマスコミの影響から悪いイメージが存在して黒人は劣等の物だ。

読んで続いたと意外に韓国のような塾でほとんどは黒人雇わなくて驚いた。
実は中国に関してそのことも聞いたけど韓国にめぐってそれは初耳だ。
なんとなくその記事の前にもその感じがしてたからあまり韓国に旅行することがあまり興味ない。

でも今は韓国が嫌いとか決して行きたくないとかのことには限らないけど行ったら僕に対して快適な状況が想像できない。
実は韓国に行きたい。うまい韓国料理食べたくていい景色を見たいだけど今、行けば不安心という事だ。

まあ、とにかく、ぜひ読んでください。

I'm pretty worn out today for seemingly no reason. In any case, when I feel like this it's pretty hard to organize my thoughts enough to write something, not to mention in Japanese. My brain simply doesn't function.

But I'm writing anyway, and I'm not going to improve if I don't write.

Anyway, i read an interesting article.


From what I've read there's been some "incidents" concerning Korean's perceptions/interpretation of Black people. This article specifically is a response to the "Bubble Girls" incident where a Korean pop group performed in black face. As the article says, even though they said it was harmless and had no intention of offending anyone, considering how close it is to actual black face it's hard to think that they couldn't know about the meaning and history behind it.

This article is shocking in my opinion, but it might not carry as much of an impact as reading about true American racism.

Regardless, something is stirred up inside me when I read this. I feel worried as a person of color.

It also seems that from the comments, they knew about the meaning of their actions and did it anyway.

Speaking on Korea, I've felt that the title of the article, "Black Culture, Not Black People" is something that I've felt about the country. In my experience I have met Koreans who have said "Black people are bad" but it doesn't really follow the fierce racism that I've seen from many of my fellow Americans.

Or rather, I've seen many Koreans that seem to revere Americans, specifically the typical "white guy" image that many foreigners see in the media. On the other hand, the media also creates a very negative image of Black people throughout the world and because of that Koreans have bought into the hype so to speak, and probably see us as inferior.

Anyway, upon reading I was also surprised to see that most Korean juku's don't hire Black people. I had actually heard about this in China, where many places looking for teachers will not hire black people and specifically say so in their ads. Somehow that wasn't particularly surprising.
But this is the first time I heard of this, and it's pretty surprising for me.

Though, I've felt this way about Korea before and because of that haven't had a pressing urge or interest to go to Korea anytime soon. Of course, because of the media's portrayal of black people around the world, their a lot of countries that make me feel this way. But on hearing this it kind of reinforces my feeling a bit.

But don't get me wrong. I actually do want to go to Korea, and I do like Korea. Just thinking about eating all kinds of Korean food makes my mouth water. But I feel that if I went...it would be a bit unsettling.

Well, please read the article.

And I just wanted to say that I was trying to kind of write about this without stepping on any "landmines" so to speak. So if you feel offended or think something is off, I apologize. I would like to think I'm a fair person and am always open to discussion.

Blog Revival

あ、久し振り。ごぶさたして書かなかってごめんね。
実は久し振りっていうかその台詞がちょっと飽きた。一年間以上頼りないように更新しなかった。
でも、実際、学校のせいですごい忙しかった。

しかし！今は自由だ！
まあ、本当は自由というわけじゃないけど前より状況がよくなった。

長い間に書かなかって色んなことが起こったのにちょっと粗筋を提示しよう。

Pratt Instituteから卒業しました。すっきりした。
ーはじめての依頼をゲットしました。雑誌のイラストして今月に出版するはずでわくわくです。
ー彼女と一緒にマイアミに旅行しました。２ー３日だけで過ごしたけど非常に楽しんだ。
ーパートの仕事はじまった。詳細は卒業ばっかり大学の事務補助だ。今は楽でいい仕事だと思う。

他は今からミクの友と日本語を話す友に誤り謝りたい。
日本語の能力を上達するのはまだ気になってなにかもっといい方法をしないといけない。
一つは日本の活動などに巻込んだらいいと思う。
だから前にミクに登録したけど前の言う通りで学校のせいで忙しくなってきてミク使かった時間がけっこうなかった。
しかしひまがあればよく使えばいいだろう。

僕にとってみくの基本分はブログと思って前は時に書いてよかった。
でも数月前、Bloggerという英語向けブログをミクに統合した。
悪いことに日本語でも書いてミクに統合して一方で日本の友達等を区別してしまったと思う。
bloggerでコメントするのはめんどうくさいかも
とにかく、コメントは大事だと思う。
っていうか、bloggerにコメントが少ないどころか日本のともからのはない。

だからミクに含まれたブログに戻ろうとする。
もちろん今のブログをつづけて、実際に内容はほとんど同じだけど日本の友のためにブログを区別する。

最後のことでミクの友と日本語を話す友に誤り謝りたい。
よく連絡しなくてごめんなさい。
前は大変で何か失礼なことがあったら許してください　

まあ、以上。
できれば毎周一回更新する。


Long time, right? I'm sorry that I haven't written in so long.
To tell you the truth, I'm pretty tired of saying that. It seems that phrase has been used quite often within my entries. But I was extremely busy with school.
It was ridiculous, I seriously has no life outside of school and was lucky to have somehow balanced my school life with everything else going on in my life.

But now I'm free.
Well, not exactly free, but I would say that things have gotten better. A little less stressful.

Of course, having not written for a while, a lot of things have happened. Unfortunately I don't really have time to write about them, or rather, I would like to space out my writings a bit. This would be too long an entry to write about everything that's happened to me lately.

I will present an outline of what has happened as of late though.

- I graduated from Pratt Institue. I am relieved.
- I completed a job for my first client. It's a magazine Illustration and should be published some time this month.
- I went to Miami with my girlfriend. We only spent about 2-3 days there, but it was enjoyable.
- I started a part time job. It's an adminstrative assistant job at the school I just graduated from. It's nice.

Other than that, I've decided to change my blog.
I'm still worried about my Japanese skills, and feel that I have to find a better method to improve.
One way to accomplish this is to get involved in Japanese activities and the like.
For this reason, I had registered with Mixi before but because of school I negliected to use much at all. Pretty much I had no time to use it, especially since my Japanese isn't that great, and it takes double if not more time to do things in comparison to english.

Well, I have time now, so I should use Mixi, right?

One of the main elements of mixi, I feel, is the blog. I would update it once in a while but a few months back I intergrated my blogger with the mixi blog so that it would link directly here. It was done in an effort to condense things and to give people on mixi access to my pictures since mixi only allows three small pictures to be posted but unfortunately it didn't prove effective. Even if I wrote in Japanese, in intergrating blogger with mixi, I seem to have separated my Japanese speaking friends unintentionally.
Possibly because commenting on blogger was a pain, or took too much time compared to mixi.

That said, I think that comments are important, particularly in keeping communication/relationships with my Japanese speaking friends on mixi.
I already had very few comments on my blog, but I had absolutely no comments from my Japanese friends since this intergration.

So I feel that I should be opening this blog up.
It could well be that no one will comment still, but my feeling says that I should do this regardless, less I alienate someone who may want to comment.

So, I'm going back to the blog included with mixi.
Of course, the contents will be pretty much the same, but for the sake of my Japanese friends I'll be separating the blogs.

To end, I would like to apologize to all my Japanese speaking friends.
I'm sorry that I was negligent in my correspondence/keeping in contact.
I was extremely busy before, please forgive my rudeness.

That is all.
If all goes well, I'll update once a week.

ストレス/Stress

ごめんなさい。今はこの小さい文章を書いてあげられる。
卒業まで一ヶ月ぐらいが残る。
ああ、大変になちゃった。
僕の日本語はまだ良くないと思って特に今はいい練習できない。
でもその困難の期間を乗り越えったら僕の能力は必ず上達する。

学校の終わりを楽しみに待ってるよ

I'm sorry. Right now I can only give you the short blurb.
I have around a month left until I graduate...
Things are a bit hectic now.
My Japanese still isn't good、especially now, it's hard get any good practice done.
But when I get over this time of hardship I will definitely improve.

I can't wait for school to end.

色の問題

数日後、ホワイトデーのプレゼントで僕の顔を描いたけど実は描くの結果はあまり好きじゃない。
なぜだろうか？顔の割合がちょっと変だと思ったけど他の部分がおかしいかも。
なんだろうか？

その考えが今日までこころの奥底に置いた。

今日バイトでなにもしなかった。天気が悪かって誰もがいなかった。退屈を倒すためにネットの力を使っていろいろのイラスト向けサイトを探検して見た。見てながらいつの間にか頭に閃いた。

「ああ、そこだ。」

っていうか、前に考えた絵の問題をやっと分かった。僕の絵は複雑すぎる。詳しく言って色が複雑でメチャクチャだ。
僕のテクニックは絵描きのとおりで「暗いから明るい」という方法を使ってさらに色の順番を使った。
例えば、色を見たら青は一番遠く見える色で一方で黄色は一番近いの。そうして影は普通に黒か青の色に近づいて一番近いのところは黄色か白いが混ぜった色が描かれた。

それはいいけど僕の絵には色が多いどころがその描いた色が混ぜりすぎて汚くなってきた。
だからその問題の答えもっとシンプルにならないといけない。

その上に書いたことよりシンプルになったら僕の絵は僕のスケッチに会える。みんなが言った、「スケッチはすばらしい」とか新鮮か自然的が言われた。僕でもスケッチは絵よりすごいと思う。もし僕の絵はもっとスケッチの法見たいなら大丈夫だと思う。

ジャ、シンプルって言うのは赤顔を描いたら影は赤ムラサキに近い色だ。ちょっと説明にくい。。。な。

ま、とにかく、上に置いた絵はバイトで会と練習だ。マウスしか使わなかったけど練習だけならいいよ。
だから、今からもっと練習しなきゃ。
すぐに卒業することになるけどイラストレータとして僕の教育は学校の限界を超える。

はあ、その小さいの文章でもすごい時間かかった。。。

ま、いっか、もっと書かないといけない。。。もっと上手になりたい。

So, a few days ago I did a self portrait as a white day present for my girlfriend. It came out ok, but in all honesty I didn't really like it. Something about it was off, but I couldn't exactly put my finger on it.
There were some obvious things, like the proportions of some the facial features were off, but that's wasn't what was bothering me.

Anyway, this has been in the back of my mind until today. But today I finally figured it out while at work.

Today I did almost nothing at work. The weather was terrible today and no one was in the building today because of that. To defeat my boredom I used the awesome power of the internet and searched through a multitude of illustration sites.

Then it hit me.

"That's it!"

It turns out that my painting are overly complicated. Specifically, the colors are too complicated and bordering on muddy.

My technique usually follows the basic methods of painting. Dark to light, shadows to highlights and in that line of thought, using colors to set the space of things. Blue appears the furtherst to eye and yellow appears the closest. So as an example, a shadow with a dark blue (blue and black) tint sits back more, and a highlight with light yellow (yellow and white)well appear closest, and it makes things "pop" as my former teacher and acclaimed Illustrator Jim Burke would often say.
I'm doing all this, but in my paintings I seem to be overdoing it...

So, the answer to all this is to just make things more simple. A lot of the illustrations I looked at seemed to have this to them and mine was missing that.
It could be said that this is the way that I work, but I don't think it is. By going simple I not only improve but I would create unity between my paintings and sketches.

Many people have been impressed by my sketches and often using words such as "fresh" and "natural." ...well, I agree with them and I even think that my sketches are in some ways better looking than my paintings. Actually, not even that, my sketches are more stylistic and represent me to a better degree than my paintings I feel.
With that said, I believe core property of my sketches are that they are simple. They more than often have to be that way since most of them are subway sketches. I have only a few moments at times to capture a likeness. Somehow this seems to create something beautiful to me.

So, I have to somehow make my paintings closer to this. I have to evoke that simplicity.

Anyway, during work I tried to do a little color practice to kinda of try someting closer to what I was talking about. It's going to take a while, but I have to improve my paintings.

...not to say that I don't think my portfolio is good, but it could be better, I'm here to be a professional.
I'll be graduating soon, but my education isn't limited to the confines of school itself.

Ah...well, other than that, I'm still continuing with the Japanese writing. I'm surprised that such a small passage took so much time to do. But if I keep it up, hopefully the process will continue to get more streamlined.

久しぶりの日本語/僕の新しいウェブサイト

まあ．．．またタイトルが「久しぶり」何だ．．．
さいきんいろんなことがおこったけど長い間に書かなかったからただ重大で最近のことについて書いてる。
まずは僕の日本語．．．

さあ、日本語はね．実は六年間以上日本語が勉強したりいろんな日本に関してことを興味になったけどまだ日本語が上手じゃない。
言わずに僕は恥ずかしくてがっかりしてる。高校一年生から今まで日本語の勉強したら今の日本語能力はぺらぺらのはずだろう？でもそうじゃなくてがっかりしてる。

サカールみたい、この状況は。最初は日本語が下手で全然覚えないししゃべられない。それから、その下手な状況を見たらがんばれのモードにしていっぱい勉強する。でも、結局、なんとなく全部忘れてまたがっかりする。
あ、じゃちょっと大げさに言った。まだ。。。僕の能力は不安定と言える。その理由は多いかもしれないけど一番のは確かに日本の長い間に言ったことがない。

ま、そういってももっと上達したいと思う。六年間の勉強はそれまでじゃない．
じゃ、そういって、悪いことに十二月二受けた日本語能力試験が失敗した。二級だった。最大の理由は聴解の部分で最後の答えを書き込んだら質問が飛んだと気付いた。。。「Crap!」と自分に言った。さらに消しゴムが悪いから答えを書き直したけどテストがグラファイトでこすってまっくろになった。

それは困った。
でもほかの部分は合格って言う訳じゃないからどう見ても失敗だった。

状態を見てもっと頑張らなきゃ。はじめの一歩はブログでできるだけ日本語で書かないといけない。
じゃ、ここでがんばるしかない。本当に日本語上達したい。

つぎは最近やっとにウェブサイトを作って載せる。わくわくしてる、僕は．僕のイラスト／就職活動が今から始まる。
サイトを見たら自慢が高めてイラストレータとして今自信がある。前はいろんな心配があって失敗かどうかわからないけど今は大丈夫だと思う。

http://www.ajanioloye.com

じゃ、今日の書くもの終了。またな。

Now for the english.

I realize that my english is going to be lot more in depth than Japanese above, so bear with me. Also, I've now decided to write in Japanese first. The reason for this is because I'm trying to improve my Japanese, and I think that it doesn't help me to write in english first and then to essentially translate my english to Japanese. A key to learning a language is to think naturally in that language. So if I can form my writing in Japanese first then write as I please in english after I think I my Japanese comprehension and ability will be more...fluid.


Anyway, it's been a long time. I haven't written in quite a while, so again my title features that sentiment. But I'm really going to try and update more often for myself and just for anybody that may actually read this.
Between the last time I wrote and now, a lot has happened. I guess that's a natural thing since I've come to New York.
Anyway, I won't bore you with the everything. I'm just going to talk about the bigger things that have happened.

The first thing concerns my Japanese. Ah, Japanese... I have studied you for more than six years and I am nowhere near mastering you. You would think after all this time I would be a little better at it. Yes, I can understand it fairly well. I can watch Japanese TV and movies and understand enough to figure out what's going on, I play Japanese text based games and quiz games on my DS, and I'm a veritable wealth of useless Japanese knowledge.

But somehow my Japanese abilities are lacking. Writing the above was a chore, and I tried to communicate my feelings as I would like to, but even I can see that it's somewhat of a clunky mess. It even took me a while to write, mostly trying to remember how to say this and that. Speaking is the worst. Though lately I've been making more of an effort with this and I would like to thank my language partner Shiori and my girlfriend Junko for this...it still kind of sucks. When confronted with a Japanese speaker I usually shy away from using any Japanese. Partly because I'm a perfectionist in a way and if I say one thing in Japanese from that point on I want everything to be perfect. When I do try my Japanese is broken and stilted, and I feel kind of stupid.

I don't think most people really care, but I don't want to　be on the same level as any regular guy or american otaku who took japanese for a year.

アメリカ人ヲタク：オハヨウゴザイマス！ワタシノ名前ハハリーデス。
一般の日本人：ええ！？日本語は上手ですね。

I do not want to be that guy.

Anyway, it's left me a bit embarrassed and disappointed. The thing is that it seems to work in a circular fashion.
My japanese starts of terrible, and noticing it I try to improve by furiously studying. After becoming decent I tend to forget a lot of stuff and study less because I get busy or because of a multitude of reasons. Thus the cycle begins again.
I've probably exaggerated, but the point is that I don't have a stable of level of Japanese facility. Most likely this can be attributed to the fact that I've never spent a long period of time in Japan, but I digress...

I brought this up because last year I took the Japanese Proficiency Exam (2nd level) and I got the results a few weeks ago. I failed. The main reason being that on the listening comprehension part I realized on the last question that I had skipped one answer bubble. To further things, I had a bad eraser. The end result was an answer sheet that was a cloudy black mess.
But honestly, the scores for the other parts weren't exactly perfect either. So no matter what, it seems like I failed.

Looking at the condition of things, I just have to try harder it seems and I think the first step to this is to write in Japanese as much as possible using this blog.

Well, I guess at this point there's nothing I really can do except try my best...I really do want to improve my Japanese.

Next, I would like to say that I have finally created and posted my website. I'm pretty excited to have it up. I've been saying I was going to do it forever and now that it's up it's a relief. It's my first step into the world of Illustration/employment.
I also feel relieved that it came out nicely in my opinion. Looking at it my pride has risen and I have a bit of confidence that I can at least get a job or two in Illustration. Before I was really worried about whether or not I would fail and have to end up in a really bad job.

But now everything is ok.

Well that's all for now. Until next time.

http://www.ajanioloye.com

Update/久しぶりの日記

It's been a long time since I've written anything and that seems weird to me. In the past few years I've gone through cycles of writing a lot, then slowing down, and whatnot, but the past 6 months or so have been a totally different thing.

What happened was that I was swamped by school, having one of the most stressful experiences that I have ever had. Granted, it's not the worse that it could have been, but it was significant enough to get me to a point where I didn't really communicate to anyone. The number of my friends have dwindled, I wrote less, I withdrew more and just have really gotten into a quiet mode. I remember when I was smaller I was always that quiet kid, so to some it might seem strange. But honestly, back then, I was quiet not because I didn't want to say anything but because I was shy or I just found it more enjoyable to listen.

Now it's gotten so that I don't talk or write, because of the time it might take up and in turn since I haven't been communicating as much my communication skills have suffered and I feel that I can't adequetley express myself as I used to before.

But I've made the effort to get back on my saddle and ride my horse back to a more true self. It can just be a little hard to do that, but you know, a journey of 1,000 miles starts with one step...

At the moment I'm in Miami and as always it can be an eye opening experience. Miami and New York are both two big cities but have totally different atmospheres. Besides the obvious things like weather (Miami has been on average 70 degrees since I've been here) I notice things that make Miami standout from New York in both good and bad ways.

What's good about Miami, is the natural beauty. It's not natural in the way that their are jungles and things growing wildly, because everything around me is landscaped and starts looking the same. Regardless of that, there is a lot of green and a lot of native exotic plants and animals. You can take a drive to some off beaten path and find some really amazing and beautiful things as I did on Christmas day.

On that day I decided to just do something. I needed to draw and paint since I hadn't done much since being here. Also though, I needed to exercise because I had been gaining weight (which in all honesty is something totally new to me). So I decided on taking a bike ride down old cutler (which I believe was an old trail way for the seminole tribes that inhabited Miami back in the day).

I rode and rode until I found something interesting. The first thing was just some logs...it just caught my attention and I had to stop and draw. I drew for about 30min and in that time some guy saw me and asked me if I could do some painting for me. I happily agreed and am waiting on his response (though it doesn't seem likely he will get back to me now).

After that, I rode around until I found and interesting tree that I decided to paint. Unfortunately I didn't finish cause my mom wanted to go to the movies with my family and I had to rush back home.

Getting back to the differences between New York in Miami, there are in contrast, an overwhelming amount of bad that I can attribute to Miami. I'm probably biast, because I lived here so long and am tired of it, but somethings just keep getting reinforced even after looking at things from a new perspective.

For instance, it is without a doubt that Miami has significantly more obese people than New York. Everytime I go out I can not deny that fact. I emphasize the word obese too, it's not just a little overweight, or fat, which can be a bit subjective but truly obese, meaning that it is so bad as to be detrimental to that person's health. I've written about it before, but I have to say it again I guess.

Another thing about Miami, is, this might be my personal opinion, but...there are a lot of pure stupid people. It's probably better to say uneducated, because I believe that Miami-Dade, or maybe Florida in general doesn't have a very good education system. It may also be that it just isn't that necessary for people to be as "on the ball" as would be required in New York. As a side, I do feel a bit of disgust at this, but it's necessarily at the people, but for the people. Why is this still happening? Why do we have so many uneducated people? How does one let that exist?
We all have our moments of stupidity as I know I have had one too many, but I would like to believe that despite all that I am a person who appreciated knowledge and wants to continue to partake in knowledge to better myself and those around me. I can't understand people who are satisfied to stop at an early part of their education (informal or formal) and decide that this is enough, which I believe is what happens often.

Anyway, those are two things that do bother me about Miami, and make it a place that I would not want to live in. Granted New York has a lot of bad parts and in no way perfect, but I do prefer it over Miami.

I know I went on a bit of a rant there but I besides bringing up the differences in Miami, I wanted to say that coming here really is something that brings about perspective. I can come here and be a fuller person by experiencing these two similar but different cities. It could be better, because my girlfriend can't be here with me and I feel sad about that...but it was good to come down here. I can take this experience and make my New York experience better.

Well, here's hoping that this coming new year in New York is one with less stress and more success. This will be a big year for me, and unfortunately it's one of those years that can be great or be one of the most defeating that I can have. I have a lot in balance here, if I can't get a decent job after I graduate, I feel like my whole life in New York, my relationship, everything that I have managed to hold dear to me can crumble and leave me broken...

Here's hoping...but hope is never enough. I have to make this happen.

Oh, almost forgot...pictures. You can enlarge all of them by clicking.



A Christmas party in my apartment building.　アパートのビルのクリスマスパーティ。ライブでいたくさん踊ることがあってよかった。

pictures I took of plants in my backyard, it just seemed interesting to me.裏庭で撮った植物。マイアミはNYに比べて緑色がいっぱいから面白い。



My brother's new dog　弟の新しい犬（年齢は六月ぐらい）。

She has 6 toes on each foot...足はそれぞれ六つ足指がある。ミュータントじゃないか？

She sleeps weirdly sometimes.　寝るときは変な体位よくしてる。

A hawk I saw on my bikeride that day, the picture is not great because I had to zoom in so much.　自転車で旅に行ったら鷹を見て撮った。

An illustration I did in school...a portrait of Mr.T. I liked it, but my teacher did not...I felt very dissapointed by this.　ミスター・ティのイラスト。

My unfinished tree painting from that bike ride.

My final projects for editorial Illustration. A spread and spot on "The New Athesim" for Wired magazine. It came out well I think. Watercolor and gouache on watercolor paper.　Editorial Illustrationの最後プロジェクト。Wired Magazineの無視論について記事に基づいた。


and finally, a portrait I did not too long ago of my girlfriend Junko. Acrylic on gessoed hardboard. I need to take a better picture of it, but since I'm in Miami and my resources are limited it will have to do. This is actually part of a bigger project which I will explain later...　最近に出来た絵。それは僕の彼女、じゅんこ。