! Well, I suppose a lot has changed in the past week or so. If nothing else, it’s been eventful. Firstly, my birthday came and went Monday (the 13th) with much fanfare (okay, the standard fanfare). 25 is a strange age to be, as it truly is one of those years where you feel torn – you’re still young, but you feel yourself being slowly pulled into the vortex that is the big 3-0. I suppose pressures, or maybe expectations is a better word, begin to mount now to “make something of myself” and to “grow up”. A lot of that may be self induced, but it’s real nonetheless.

In spite of all of this, however, I am still not in a hurry to get the whole maturity thing going full steam. Maybe I can hold off for another 5-10 years. Today is the last day of classes for this month, which means a couple of things.

Firstly, sleep will once again be one of my friends for the next 2.5 weeks. Also, Christmas time is flying up – I’m yet to being shopping! I’ll be heading back to Atlanta this weekend, and plan on doing most, if not all, of it in a day.

I hate shopping, but something about shopping during the holidays excites me. I suppose it’s the music and the atmosphere. Also, the older you get, the more …. excited … you get about getting a gift for someone, not just what you’re going to receive. This realization has nothing to do with my landmark birthday, however.

I’ve felt this way for some time now. I finished up my latest After Effects project last night (or this morning … whatever time you consider 5am), and while I think it looks pretty good, it is not up to snuff in my opinion. I’ll be working on it over the holidays and re-submitting it, but feel free to check it out (requires Quicktime for all you non-quicktime weirdos out there) and all of the work I’ve done in CG class over in my artwork section.

I’m frustrated I didn’t have more time to learn the ins and outs of After Effects, but this shortened month kind of screwed things up for myself and my entire class. Everyone was rather demoralized by the end, with myself especially being burnt out from the hectic schedule and lack of real instruction in the last week or so. Oh well, I did learn a ton, and plan on applying a lot of that to a few ideas I have in the very near future. Also, I’m sure we’ll get lots more work with AFX later on this year.

I could ramble on about other things that have been going on – the sudden cold snap down here (what the hell is that about It was 40 degrees here last night! ), my recent purchase of a Nintendo DS (which will consume my every waking moment for the next few months), but I’ll spare you. I’m going to prepare myself for my final tonight, and then the freedom that comes after it.