Transitions and Tribulations

Happy July -whatever-day-it-is-today,

I have one more week.

In that time I will tape up the remains of my life here at Yale inside of dusty, used cardboard boxes addressed to other people for other purposes. I will take my earthly possessions and toss them haphazardly into the back of a van that has seen untold locations and carried an untold number of unknown people. Then I will pile these things against the walls I remember so well and hours later, I will step back into this setting that I've grown accustomed to for the past 14 months, as a visitor as opposed to an inhabitant.

I will say some of the hardest goodbyes I've said in a great while. It will not be easy. Life has a funny way of making things beautifully fucked up sometimes. I won't get into it, but suffice it to say, I'll be doing the one thing I never imagined doing when I got here - I'll be leaving something behind when I turn my back on Yale.

This all means that in 6 weeks, I'll be starting up a brand new leg of the race, namely graduate school. I'll be back home where things make sense and people I care about surround me. It should be good.

This means that during those 6 weeks, I can take a bit of time away from the stresses I've become acclimated to over the past year-and-then-some to boost my productivity, and in the process try to ignore or work through the things that have made the past two months so difficult for me on the personal side of things.

I have no idea how things will turn out, but I'm confident that when I know, you will too.

Excess, Recess, Loss, and Gain.

I have been away from Flash for far too long.
I have been working far too hard.
I have been drinking far too much.
I have been taking far too many pills.
I have been eating far too little.
I have been thinking far too frequently.

The reality of this morning hasn't hit me yet. I don't know when it will. But I know that it will at some point, and I'm just hoping I don't fly off the deep end as a result.

Just when I thought all this wasn't enough, next week at Yale is going to be an absolute shit show. Ridiculous commutes and undoubtedly stressful days at work. Entertaining visitors from across the pond. Trying to maintain a balance between productivity and insanity, all while doing my best Lucille Ball impression, so to speak.

So what have I gained as a result?

Other than a few new pieces of art and the opportunity to work on a few more... nothing. No site updates. No follow through. Nothing.

What's left?

That, I have yet to see.

Whirlwinds.

Hi, hey, ho,

What's good.

I'm updating people on the status of shit in "Heretik Land", AKA my life. So basically here's the scenario... I haven't had chances to work on Gun consistently, and that does suck. But it's with very good reason. I'm gonna explain to you now what's been happening and what's about to happen (sort of).

In early April I started a new job with Yale. I'm a survey administrator, based in New York City. This means that I've been going around to countless elementary schools in Brooklyn and Queens and administering surveys to students and teachers. It's a pretty cool gig. I get to hit up so many different parts of New York that I've never explored before and I'm never in the same place twice, which I like. I enjoy working with students and teachers are usually cool and have interesting things to say, and they and their principals have valuable insights into American education.

However, this job entails that I generally wake up every data collection day sometime between 4:30AM and 5:30AM. Then I have to take very long, very irksome, very early subway journeys to various neighborhoods in the outer boroughs of New York. Then I have to go to sleep around 10PM. This is not normal for me at all. Usually, I work on Gun during the wee hours, since this is my only real quiet time. But now that quiet time is dedicated to sleep. And what little other time there is, I devote to my social life, because I am NOT giving that up.

So that's the current sitch. This gig lasts until the end of this month. THEN, the people at Yale have offered me another research position, to begin in June. This one might actually require that I move. It's a summer position, from June through August. I still don't know if I'll take it, but it's very tempting, and I am leaning towards saying yes to it. The work is really interesting, and is largely related to what I'm working on now. Additionally, this could turn into an even further development beginning in September, depending on the work I do and the choices I make in the next two weeks. Suffice it to say, my brain is like a cauldron right now. Not to mention there's lots of personal shit at stake that I won't even get into right now.

So you see where I've been and why it's been difficult to really move forward on this final scene of my pride and joy of a cartoon. I'm devoting as much of that downtime as I can to finishing it.

These weeks have been a fucking storm of epic proportions, and I'm taking it one day at a time. Thanks for bearing with me. I'm the suckiest animator ever for making people wait so long to see my shit. I apologize again and again.

I'm trying my best. Just stay with me.

- Fred