Laaaaast Daaaaaaaaay!
Things I’ve learned to hate working at the t-shirt kiosk:
- Excalibur Logotype (I swear, it’s worse than Comic Sans…)
- Corel Draw
- The phrase, “I’d just like a black shirt…”
- Scavenger hunts
- People who bring their children in public(children who obviously need naps, but the parent spends several hours in the mall)
- Peoples’ definitions of copyright(they are ALLL WROOOONG)
- Twilight fans
AHHH
Phew. I have made some good friends working there, and I am glad to have a bit of “design” experience under my belt. Plus, they let me listen to whatever music I wanted, which was fantastic. Being in the middle of the mall, though, ugh. My distaste for kids has turned into an all-out abhorrence. They’re not even cute. I’d rather have a cat.
NO more mall! I never have to answer the question, “So, if I just take this image and take the © off, can you print it? No one will know! It can be our secret!” It’s frustrating trying to explain,
“It is illegal for me to sell this image which belongs to someone else, to you.”
“It belongs to me, because I found it on the internet!”
Plus people sometimes argue up and down that a word is spelled a certain way (like the wrong form of “you’re” or “your”) and force us to print it on the shirt that way. It makes me sad inside.
And yesterday, this guy came to the kiosk and told me I lied to him because I said, “I guarantee your shirts will not shrink,” and then they did shrink. Nobody ever guarantees anything, he was just putting words into my mouth, plus I don’t even remember when he was there, probably at least 2 months ago. He said his shirts were unwearably small and he wouldn’t go away. I said they were preshrunk, but he said, “I’d remember if you said that, because I don’t even know what preshrunk means.” He obviously just wasn’t listening(we get a lot of people like that, where you’re happy if they heard you at all). Plus if it’s the guy I am thinking it was, him and his friend were extremely rude to me, wanted me to copy their design from their business card(logo in Papyrus), and when I got annoyed and suggested they bring it on a cd instead, since they were so picky, they said “We don’t have time for that.” They were jerks. Don’t expect help if you are a jerk. Anyway, it’s not my fault you incinerate your clothes in the dryer when the label clearly says Tumble Dry Low.
</rant>
stitching
I’m taking a break on my embroideries for my grandmother to work on this – an image from a large “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep” embroidery pattern I found in a box of books. It’s at least 50 years old, so I was pleasantly surprised when it still ironed on. I’ve been trying to figure out things to put with my rusted material. This one is a long strip that I dyed, and next to the girl I will put part of a conversation I had with an annoying job-applicant at the t-shirt stand.
He asked if I was in graphic design, and I told him about fibre. He asked what it was about, and I used my telephone pin as an example.
“This is the kind of stuff I make.”
“Wow, you must have been really bored.”
That was when I made a note for the manager not to hire that guy.
Relief of sorts, hooray hooray hooray
Monday I put in my (one month) notice at my work. I was soooooo nervous, but I made a fancy letter of resignation on my computer to give to the manager so I didn’t have to try and remember what to say. I’ve just been so stressed out lately. The mall has just been grating and grating, with all the douchebags who come by, and it’s driving me crazy. I’ve decided not to work during fourth year to get the most out of it, because I was torn between working and going to school part time, or just doing a full course load anyway and quitting my job, because last year was pretty crazy, especially because during finals/midterms, I would randomly suddenly have extra shifts. I didn’t even get a winter break, because I had to work all the way up to December 24 and didn’t get to see any family. I’m excited to focus my attention on school, instead of 50 different things. That way I can also do some volunteer things for the school/department and get some good stuff on my CV while I have the chance.
Another relief was telling Brad we’ll be moving out September 1st, which I was pretty nervous about. We’d been thinking about it for awhile, but were waiting to see if Nelson got the job he’d applied for, because of some training stuff he might have to go do. It turns out he doesn’t have to go anywhere to train, so we’re looking for an apartment of our own, which I am really looking forward to. I really need time alone, especially lately, and that is absolutely impossible where we are now. Any new place will be closer to school, as well! Hoo-ray! Our last move was pretty hasty, so before we start packing we have to unpack things that stayed packed and get rid of everything we haven’t been using. Then we can actually get started.
painting a chair, eh?
This kid kept asking us questions at the kiosk while his parents took half an hour to look at wigs they weren’t planning on purchasing. “Whatcha doin?” Etc. We tried to ignore him. Every so often there’d be an awful squeak when he’d sing along to the music we had playing.
I wanted to ask if his name was Gavin.
mall people
One thing that kind of makes up for working at the mall, is all the weird looking people who walk past our kiosk. The other day a lady with a super long saggy boobs walked by, but for some reason one of them was sagging at a 45º angle, defying gravity. At the same time, on the other side, this other guy with a stupid goatee walked by with this weirdly strained puckered expression, then walked by again 20 minutes later with the exact same puckering/soured expression. So strange. Jen claims I didn’t need to tell her about the boob lady, but I think that it was necessary. Maybe I will draw them.
Glorp.
This is going to take some getting used to. I have had the same livejournal since I was 14… 2002. Huh.
What I would really like for this site/blog is to have a place to store my updated C.V. (Hopefully I’ll have some actual content to put there, eventually – it’s frusterating to be told that none of my work experience counts because it isn’t art-related.) and portfolio. The hardest thing has been trying to find a way to make an online portfolio. It seems easy enough, doesn’t it? Apparently, though, the web knowledge I learned 10 years ago doesn’t count anymore. Most of the tags I know are completely obsolete, and what is this CSS thing, anyway? I feel like some grumpy old woman who let technology pass her by. Geez, I’m only 21. Thankfully, I have taken some decent pictures of my work in the photo documentation suite at ACAD, and they (almost) even look professional. It would probably help if the work had been better in the first place, but what are you going to do? Maybe having professionalism will help anyway, because a lot of artists who are “good” at what they do, are still inept with that aspect of their lives and work.
I should probably go read my English textbook now. It’s called Beyond Wilderness, it’s about how The Group of Seven used these ideals of an imaginary Canadian landscape, and how that really isn’t what Canada is about. There is one painting in the book of a forest with clouds above it – apparently the clouds were painted from the roof of a bank in downtown Toronto. Ah, contradictions. I’m becoming a lot more interested in this issue of Canadian identity. The first things that come to mind are so trivial: Bunny hugs, buttertart squares, toques, toboggans. It’s funny that most of those are winter objects. It’s silly that even Canadians become caught in the stereotypes and perpetuate them.