As you can possibly conclude by reading this, yes, I am indeed back in Canada. I'm not quite at that point where I'm sick of recounting the same stories of my travels to different people but I refrain from articulating the juicy details to you as a precaution to such an inevitable outcome. So instead, I'll talk about my timetable this year! (Er, rather, I hate printing junk like this so I'm copying and pasting it and putting it here for reference. Just flaunting the most basic of my html skills, you know how it goes.)

My first semester consists of the following courses. I'm really excited in a way but at the same time I'm thinking, "Great. I'm spending almost $20,000 to take the same crap I've had shoved down my throat for the past six years in fashions class. If you did more with my portfolio than flip through it, giving each page a recognition of over ten seconds, maybe it would become apparent to you that I'm pretty well acquainted with a sewing machine. kthxbibi4nao"

( Semester 1 )

Second semester sounds a bit more promising. If you've read this far, congratulations. I'll have to cast a medallion for you as I sit through yet another lecture about the history of the Spinning Jenny.

( Semester 2 )

And finally, we have Liberal Studies courses. I get to choose one for my second semester of this my narrowed down list. These sound way way cooler than say, Textiles I. I'm leaning toward either "Popular Culture" or "Problems in Philosophy" for the time being. Feel free to sway my boat how ever you like.

( Liberal Studies Courses )

Other than that, I've been busy lately. Every morning new, more ridiculous things come up. I have this huge pile of paper work and I have no idea what the hell any of it is for. If you asked me what was in it, I could tell you about two scholarships for my Union I still have to write for $2,000 a piece; only drawback is that they have to be between five and ten pages long. Call me crazy but I don't think I can rant on that long about "the advantages of Unions" and "why Wal-Mart is destroying the world" and beat every point to death to uber Liberal union big wigs who have not only seen and heard it all but have probably written the book.

Me being too tongue-in-cheek for my own good:
"Hello, Wal-Mart is very bad because they are a multi billion dollar corporation meaning that they have a lot of money. If they have all that money which makes them very very rich, than how come it is that their employees can not even afford to shop at Wal-Mart which as stated on their web page and every other piece of propaganda they perpetuate, is very very not expensive meaning poor people should be able to access it? Poor people such as those who work at Wal-Mart and do not make very much and do not get what you call raises (meaning more money) which the multi billion dollar corporation Wal-Mart should be able to afford just as they should be able to afford to hire more employees but don't because that is more expensive than hiring a few employees and then the prices would have to be raised and as studies have shown, that would decrease the amount of sales an-" Okay, I just felt my IQ drop. I think I should go to bed now.

Contrary to my last entry, I guess the "reflection" paper for PD in the arts needn't be about how the course "helped" us. In any case, I'm sharing it with you, mostly to get it off my hard drive.

The common denominator of my life up to present can easily be described as preparation for a flourishing career as a fashion designer. I was born as the daughter of a high-school art teacher, which has given to me a creative environment in which I have been free to experiment and hone my skills for the past seventeen years^*. At a very young age, I took to drawing as my craft of choice and practiced it at any given opportunity, regardless of the setting. My subject of choice just so happened to be people - as I have been endlessly fascinated by how one chooses to express themselves in the most literal way possible; what they wear and how they wear it.

I see myself as an innovator of something new and unseen before. To me, “art” isn’t limited to one medium, one subject or one credo (I say this coming from having an extensive background in both the visual and performing arts) but personally, I establish the worth of any piece of art on the basis of its innovation, gauging of a new genre or movement. From the age of five, you can be trained and spoon-fed musical knowledge to become a “brilliant” pianist. You can be an “artist” who never deviates from realism; painting what they know, what they see in front of themselves every day. But these people’s titles are by no means synonymous with “creator”. Those who infer themselves as artists but do not explore, create or stray beyond the unabstract thought process of comprehension, are no better than money traders or any other faceless, high ranking business executive who works by profit motivation alone, without bettering society. Regurgitation of familiar imagery is a pointless endeavor.

This being said, my critical goal as a fashion designer is to present imagery which the general population is unfamiliar with. Particularly with fashion design, this by no means a simple undertaking. Like any other art form, every trend eventually succumbs to obsolescence and if it’s lucky, it may resurface for a short while. Fashion is a catalyzed model of this certainty; trends are just as contagious as they are implosive. Yet, I see a particular irony with a disturbing tendency of how all new styles are adaptations of former styles- obsolete styles and maybe not so much based on their aesthetics but perhaps on the absence of inspiration among the ruling class of fashion.

Anyone can give mention that the new, the ahead of its time, the outright bizarre will not be accepted with open arms. One of my dissatisfactions with fashion is that too many people, devoid of creativity, enter the field in hopes of making a quick buck or two. The easiest way to accomplish this dismal goal is to ride the wave and produce a line of clothing exactly on par with every other collection at the time. However, a collection of something revolutionary could either be too threatening or the delicacy the people have been starving for all this time. Given the later is foreshadowing of my career, I will in a way have monopolized the market as I would be the only one capable of delivering a product until one of my fellow bourgeoisie beige designers formulated something of standing equivalent value.

At the same time, I feel as though this general unenthusiasm of clothing by the designers has steered fashion away from art. Slowly, fashion diverges from a vehicle of transmitting intellect and instead becomes yet another depository of recognizable, monotonous things-you-wear-because-you’re-expected-to. I say that this is a far cry from real art. Art should challenge and force people to define, if not challenge their ideologies (and if it’s aesthetically pleasing, all the better!). There is nothing groundbreaking about a pencil skirt and the more it is brought back, the chances diminish.

Art in itself is the one thing which is unquantifiable in society. Of course everything is subject to personal bias but it is ultimately the role of art to invoke response based on ones experiences and values. This is the one area which conventional fact holds no value, where there is no right, no wrong. The abandonment of logic, the trial of meaning. Only you and art.

To me, art has rapidly evolved into something very different than what it had initially meant to me. Art has always been about exploring the crevasse which one can not probe and formulate with logic alone. Up until taking Art 20 IB, I had always placed a particular importance on the visual quality of art alone. However as I was running on an artistic “stuck”, I soon found myself relying on a higher level of intellect invested in each piece to find success. In doing this, I found that my work could reach a greater audience by incorporating the introduction of critical questions to my work to gain more than a shallow acknowledgement from the viewer and invoke a real response.

Content aside, my career goals should become more available to me as I’ve been accepted into the Ryerson University school of Fashion. My decision was based just as much on their scholarly reputation as it is my desire to network. Toronto (being Canada’s fashion capital) is oozing with opportunities for prospective fashion designers to enter the field in an environment which is supporting of the industry. From the graduating fashion collection, I would hope for my work to catch the eye of a company where I could put my talent to work in a way which would give me a taste of the structure of a larger design label. This would however, not be a permanent career setting for me as ultimately, my goal is to be an entrepreneur and steer success for my own company. Another factor which will indisputably assist me on this prospect is my desire to pursue a minor in business. With luck, this will guide me in to turning my passion into something profitable.

Success will be evident to me as a designer when I have reached my artistic goal of reinventing the fashion industry and introducing to it a new leg to stand on, without which would falter. This is to say that I want to change the way that the jaded perceive fashion and to make it something exciting and new instead of reintroducing the same styles which have had the glamour beaten out of them time after time. Although beneficial to perpetuate a business and a luxurious lifestyle, I see capital as an extraneous matter to my impending legacy. Long after net worth, inspiration will not be forgotten. Success to me as an artist is when my ideas become a valid and respectable statement wherein fashion itself can not be forgotten without mention of my name.

^* - No, not really.

Everybody else my age can't be pulled away from their mental calendar as they count down the days until their education draws to a close. I on the other hand, wouldn't be able to give you an answer past "Ungh... Sometime this month?" This isn't because my legacy transcends nowhere past my Facebook page or because I have no plans for my future (Although I do on occasion partake in such carnival squander in the tongue-in-cheek way I approach 90% of the rest of my life's happenings) I've pretty much known my destiny to this point since I was in the eighth grade without any real road map to where I was well aware I'd land up. Pardon my flirting around the point. My point is, I'm shutting myself out to how much school is left for me because I don't want it to end. School ending would imply a deadline for assignments which I am slowly cranking out. I can't get out of this miserable pit fast enough and yet I hang around anyway.

On the topic of "Out of my graduating class of about 600, I'm probably one of about 50 who actually has their shit together and will probably achieve a comfortable and permanent life", Professional Development in the Arts 35: What a joke that has turned out to be! In short, I think the idea was that it would be a class to encourage students to pursue postsecondary education in the arts by crediting their lengthy, rigorous portfolio preparations. In reality, like most other classes I've had the misfortune of being in, it turns out that all that work I put into getting to University can be thrown right out the window in substitution for hour logs, research papers ("What influences your art?" Nothing. My art isn't reactionary. Its revolutionary. I am uninspired and happen to act on it. And don't dock me marks for being a smart ass), job shadowing (Remember how I was supposed to go work fashion retail for a day but that fell through because the teacher didn't want to have to organize it any further? Yeah, because thats why I'm going to University all the way across the country, to get a degree in fashion design so I can fold clothes in a sweatshop at the mall. I just happened to have an extra $70,000 kicking around my bedroom and a bizarre urge to waste four years of my life.) and a "What this course meant to me" paper (Which I'm sure, as you can see I will have no problem doing). Once again, I'm cramming my effort, my gift to the world into a metaphorical ice cube tray known as the curriculum, cutting around the edges and pouring leftover ham fat into the rest of the slots.

I should have come to expect this by now. I'm almost done and then I can at least attempt to piece myself together without my introspective conversation being interrupted by a normal curve yelling at me to find its derivative.

In other news, OtaFest happened a few weeks ago. I didn't win anything in the competition but I won 2^nd runner up, Ms. OtaFest which was nice to be recognized for all the effort I put into my Eternal Sailor Moon cosplay. I'd attempt to write a more conclusive synopsis to balance out the 60,000,000,000,000 photos taken of me that weekend but there really wasn't much to say about OtaFest this year. I think two photos will have to suffice:


Eternal Sailor Moon!


Eternal Sailor Moon lookin' up Audrey's skirt...

Far further down on the list of importance is that I graduated. Graduation is all pretty ridiculous. I think its more so a (now) customary passage of rights in combination of a celebration for all the kids who had doubts as to whether or not they would even graduate in the first place. Less long than the banquet for Benson's grad last year, but just as boring. What I liked about mine was how much everybody just blatantly talked through the banquet instead of making any efforts to conceal their dissatisfaction. Pictures ensued:


Princess Serenity and Tuxedo Kamen. Would you really expect any less of me?


Apart from me cheating the dress to look more interesting than it was and extreme impromptu back lighting, this isn't a very good photograph.

So I got my acceptance latter to Ryerson yesterday. Sure I'm excited but I'm not surprised. Then again I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't get in either though based on some dumb technicality- Seldom am I ever rejected when I try my best; I usually just miss part of the big picture is all.

No more Calgary. No more yuppies. No more mom. No more stupid "Western Pride". No more lame Calgary raves. No more kids who I've grown to hate over the past six years... It would seem that I've grown exponentially and everyone else is still a selfish little seventh grader looking for their next keg.

Ever still, I have a bunch of homework to get done with. I'm still not done what was due for Spring Break given I did my application portfolio and then had my Japanese exchange students. Yet I'm still applying more effort into finishing my dress for OtaFest. This acceptance couldn't have come at a worse time- I'm not really motivated to work but at the same time, I've been riuding a creative null for a couple months.

Living in the moment produces goals, ironically enough:
- Finish homework
- Apply for more scholarships
- Loose ten more pounds for OtaFest
- Start selling jib to have money to pay for $600 hair extensions next week...
- Meet up with friends and teach them our choreography for OtaFest
- GTFO LiveJournal

I finished everything up on Thursday morning and I mailed my portfolio out later that day to be couriered by Friday afternoon. There. Now I'll shut up about it and if I don't get in, I'll seriously puke. Now I'm cleaning up my house for my Japanese homestay girls that are coming this Friday. I'm fricken' PUMPED.

Kay, here is my portfolio and then you NEVER HAVE TO LOOK AT IT EVER AGAIN.



Eternal Sailor Moon Cosplay


Pants


Princess Sailor Moon Cosplay (Also Grad dress)


Ladie's Evening Wear (Pencil Crayon)


Swimwear (Watercolor)


Men's Casual Wear (Photoshop)


Children's Wear (Pencil Crayon)

So whatdaya think?

No, I don't talk about ANYTHING else if you haven't noticed.


Women's Formal Wear. All done except for coloring in the lips and eyes as well as cleaning up and trimming the background.


I'd like to consider the term "men's casual wear" relative. This is just the line art. I'm going to render it in Photoshop. I really don't like how this looks now because all the bits that I have meshed in are supposed to represent a lime mesh overlay on black, so in reality would be the lighter areas.

So, what do you think? :/

For the first time in as long as I can remember, when people have been asking me how I am, I've been answering something other than "Fine. How do you do?" and rather "really really super stressed because of University Portfolio crap". This is so emotionally tolling one me and I'm sure I'm bringing a lot of it on myself (I'm sure somebody has applied to Ryerson with pajama pants and has gotten accepted to their Fashion Design program) but the workload from Social Studies and Math kind of prevent me from making any substantial progress in Fashion Studies or Art. Also, my IB Office examination is April 14^th and as far as Ryerson has implicitly told me, I should know whether or not I got accepted by the specific date of "early May"... Uh, thanks?

On top of everything, I got my diploma marks back yesterday and I got 80% in Physics (Giving me a course mark of 78%; not bad considering I was just taking the course for the sake of it, not really ever needing to calculate the magnetic fields of solenoids anytime in the near future) and 69% in LA... Um, is it just me or is there a slight discrepancy between that and my course mark of 88%? And the kicker is that I got 78% on my multiple choice (I got 59% as my highest mark for that in class) and 60% on my written portion (I never got a grade lower than 98% in the course) I worked my ass off in that class and Cancilla sure as hell didn't give away free marks where they weren't due. Worst of all, this puts my mark at 79%- 1% off of meeting the Rutherford scholarship standards (bye bye $1600!) I think I'm going to pay $20 to get it remarked because I thought I kicked the snot out of the written. The marker probably didn't even read Hamlet.

But on the bright side, my Sailor Moon cosplay isn't giving me much hassle yet. It was somewhat euphoric holding up the skirt's layers today and being able to see how much it looked like Sailor Moon.

DEAR EVERYBODY ON MY FRIENDS LIST!
EVERYBODY!

I really don't give half a crap about grad but I do about my grad dress only because its going to be one of my garments for my Ryerson application. Anyway, since OtaFest is the weekend before and I'm cosplaying as Sailor Moon, I'll have my 50 inch hair extensions in so I thought I may as well do a princess Sailor Moon cosplay for grad as well. But, I'm stuck when it comes to which version I should do... So I ask of you, the collective people of LiveJournal that whether you know me like a father or only by my abbreviated first name, you give me some input between the dresses:

DRESS ONE

DRESS TWO

Regardless of which one I do, it wouldn't be made in white because that isn't allowed for my application. The second one would probably be light purple and if I did the first, it would be light purple, light pink or gold. What do you think for color as well?

????

I may possibly have to have my University portfolio done in less than a month. Even so, I only have until early April to finish all of this for the Art 31 IB examination. So basically, until then, if you're trying to carry on any kind of remotely intellectual conversation with me, expect an answer like "1.5 CENTIMETER SEAM ALLOWANCE!". I haven't been sleeping. Not only because I've caught my cat's infectious disease but because I'm thinking about bloody sewing ever waking moment I'm spending away from my projects. I didn't even know there was school yesterday and the day before. Thats how bloody in to this I've been.

Anyway, for my sake mostly, here is a list of all my projects for my portfolio:

GARMENTS
- Eternal Sailor Moon cosplay
- Plaid pants
- Grad dress (Princess Usagi dress)

FASHION ILLUSTRATIONS:
- Women's evening wear: Cyber-style kimono with Hiroshima bombing imagery.
- Men's casual top and pants: I'll think of something. It just won't be very casual...
- Swim wear: Strawberry bikini. Really cute (but mostly because I don't fancy swim wear to begin with)
- Children's wear: Sweet lolita-style dress.

Aurngh.

As anybody who has ever had the displeasure of going through this knows, university applications are such a mega bummer to have to fill out. Sure the information you're looking for is on the website two or three times but is never the same between the cases. Not something favorable when you're looking for something like, oh, I don't know- the date that everything is bloody due for! But my cousin is helping me though this and so is my aunt. My aunt knows how stressed out I am about this portfolio thing so she has even offered me that for however long it will take me, so long as I'm working on my portfolio or something to further my education, she will pay me what I would have made at work that day. Finally, somebody in my family is reasonable!

Also, I'm applying to the U of C too just in case. Because I already will have my first year of university art, I'm going to try to finish my second year there if I don't get into Ryerson or maybe I'll just take most of my liberal studies courses there to get them done and over with for when I move to Toronto.

In terms of where I am now, school is pretty good. Surprisingly enough, drawing on my L.A. teacher's white boards every day, reenacting all of West Side Story in five minutes and constantly mentioning the word "cooter" in and out of my assignments has yelided me a 90% in ELA 30-1 GATE. Nice contrast to last year when I coasted with about a 40% for most of the 20 level class.

Same kind of story with Physics. I had failed the course in epic proportions last year but since the only unit I really understood was all over the exam, I managed to pass that but my final mark was only 49% once the exam and course mark evened out so my Physics teacher passed me out of sympathy, basically. But in Physics 30 I've managed to get 77% in the course portion (which is good... for me) but I'm kind of worried for the exam because most of the concepts look close enough to each other to be each other and I could only identify to use a certain concept in a certain circumstance when we took those sub-unit quizes where if you can do one question, you can do them all. Emmjay babbles on. Case in point, I'm getting like 30% higher in this course too. Oh, and I think you should watch my Physics project I made over the break that wasn't due till last week:



And then there's art. Ah, yes... art. How is it that my art mark and my ELA marks are the EXACT SAME? For the firs time, I'm sure as hell not the best artist in my class so what do I do? I back up my art with philosophical B.S. much in the way that I've always backed up my LA with artistic B.S. For example, me teacher says that my "signature piece" of my collection is my project "REQUIUM": every day I draw on a sticky note. The subject matter is irrelevant and can be in an abstract or realistic style, possibly supported with text. So now I have this series of about seventy little 3.5 x 3.5 papers with things like a dolphin that says "I love preteen girls", or a collage of hams or a guy with polio laying smack down on the pavement with the quote "POLIownd". The idea is that randomosity is relative and biased. But the real meaning is that I honestly have no idea what I'm doing in art- I guess what ever it is, its working.

I think I might spend the $100 credit to Barbie's today that Benson gave me last year for my Birthday...

To all of you who are visiting my page from Newgrounds:

It's not letting me log in. I really would like to update TheMJ Dress up of Madness II but because I can't log in and frankly don't have the time, that will just have to wait.

To all of you who have noticed I haven't updated my page in a significantly long time:

Hey guys. I do school work ALL the time. I did all my post break homework last week but it turns out none of it was really due till next week. My director called me and said he wanted me to audition a part for Grease this summer but I can't because a)I'll be in Japan for most of the run of the show and b) I do too much homework to do anything like, oh I don't know, think of myself. Anyway, this being said, I'm working on art portfolio stuff now.

WHICH IS ANOTHER THING:
Ryerson posted their entrance requirements for their FD program. All the requirements are the same for this year as they were last year: 4 designs (one mens casual, one women's evening wear, one swimsuit, one children's) and 3 photographs of homemade garments (Front and back shot of each including fabric samples and one photo of a garment inside out) One change: garments can't be made out of black or white material.

Oh. Oh I see how it is.

So by about, hurm, APRIL, I have to have constructed three, professional caliber garments to submit to one of the top elite schools of fashion on the CONTINENT in two and a half months and as if that weren't bad enough, my cosplay is white (as is my grad dress which is supposed to be Princess Usagi's dress) and I'm not allowed to sew for ANYBODY ELSE even though they commission me and pay for the materials. So now I'm supposed to make three things I probably won't even wear (in fear of ruining them) and waste money on material (not black or white though- more ammunition as to why I wouldn't wear them because thats just good design) that I could have used towards the trip to Japan I'm going on (Not even $2000 for the trip there and back. Hurm, that other $1000 I'm paying presumably isn't going towards going to one or two of the tourist traps we're going to, I'm sure)

Ung, this is retarded. Yeah, you heard that. I said retarded and I sure as hell hope I've offended all your little cousins, friends, coworkers and the such who legitimately are.

Oh, but I am doing good in school. Especially English. Cooter is a funny word to write everywhere on everything in my LA class In a half dazed sleep in the middle of the night a while back, I was trying to determine the wavelength of the chai tea latte sitting on my night stand beside me because it smelled like vomit. Now thats what I call scholarly dedication.

I do apologize for not posting as much as I had promised [myself] to. In the fashion of Emmjay-ism, I hereby drop an excuse which is that I'm endlessly busy with Summerstock and when I'm not doing that, I'm watching Sailor Moon S. So this about that and that about all of this: Come see the show! Come scoop up the sweet, sweet guacamole of our labors and caress my ego with it, please and thank you!

And on the subject of Sailor Moon, cosplays for OtaFest '08 have been decided:
Emmjay - Eternal Sailor Moon
Sid (Ex Pudding) - Princess Kakyu
Bree (Ex Dance slave) - Black Lady
Benson - Prince Endymion

But of course, the higher power which inevitably dictates the course of my future (or rather enforces the most ridiculous rules in order to revoke me there of) has decided that no, there will not be any sewing for anybody next year so that I can get good grades so I can not pass on the desired post-secondary institution of my choice because of my cadaver of a portfolio which need be infused with the life which can only be derived from cosplay; what was once my one opportunity to create and WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. And it's not like this year in fashions where I was taken in as a special projects student who finished four out of a maximum five credits (one of which was half way finished and I still managed an 89% for) in half the amount of time as all the other Fashions 20 students and still managed to get a 97% for the whole course which if I am not mistaken is the highest mark achieved by anybody in the program next year. Next year I have a whole semester AND a spare and we all know where I will be spending that. That and Art I.B. 31 is all self directed studies and my field of study just so happens to be the culture of Japanese Fashion. But still, the woman who unfortunately breathes the same air as me insists that this is not what I want to do and that JUST LIKE HER (God knows I'm the SPINNING IMAGE of her) I'll change my mind (Because like her, I'm obviously going to university on Mommy and Daddy's budget taking a course just for the hell of it so that I can join a sorority- YIPPIE!)

But on the bright side, the portfolio requirements are quite stupid.

I think I may need a new LiveJournal layout. This one is depressing. Wave bye bye!