So it begins...

I'm not quite sure how to begin this. Actually, I'm not entirely sure what this is. I think I need a way to chronicle my thoughts as a chapter of my life comes to a close, and posting those thoughts via a blog seems like a somewhat productive way of doing so. It has been almost 2 years since I jumped ship of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and moved back to Houston with my parents, for which I have very little to show. The good news, is that the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is finally in sight. The bad news, is that 22 months of my life have seemingly vanished. I can vaguely recall the first 6 as being a time of relentless optimism and artistic fervor, but I think in order to render my story as cohesively as possible, I will begin just before that.

I had been attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for 3 quarters, and had just gotten to a point where I was disappointed with my first real college experience (having attended community college doesn't count) and I knew I needed a change. The coursework was simple, and undemanding, the faculty was very hit or miss, and the students were apathetic pricks, with only a handful of exceptions. I felt that with such a draining environment, I was not getting the sort of education I would require to make it in my field, and certainly not for the price I was paying; the Art Institutes have an exceptional ability to make you feel more like a customer than a prospective artist. I dropped out, spent a month in Cleveland, Ohio living with some good friends, and then in July of 2008 I moved back home to Houston to begin working on a portfolio that would get me into Ringling College of Art and Design, or a similarly good school.

I started gathering information on a few colleges of interest. October rolled around, and I gathered up some of my old works, as well as a couple of newer sketches, and headed to Austin for Portfolio Day. I spoke with representatives from various colleges, and got a chance to learn about the programmes offered at them, and showed them my portfolio. Most colleges liked my work, and some even accepted my portfolio that same day. Ringling did not. I remember having received solid criticism from the school, and I consequently redoubled my efforts to be accepted to Ringling's prestigious Computer Animation department.

Over the next 3 months, I tried my hand in new media, perfected old works, and improved my technique with trusty graphite as the deadline of 15 January crept closer. On the day my portfolio was due, I was fixing up the resolutions for the images I was going to submit when my computer suffered a motherboard failure. When I went to work on our crappy old desktop, I found that my scans from the previous night at Kinko's had all been corrupted. This was clearly an example of Murphy's Law in effect, but I am no stranger to such shenanigans as a result of my chronic procrastination, so I scrambled to photograph my works and send them in. The next few weeks of waiting were the worst. I remember trekking out to the mailbox every afternoon for a month and a half, watching the seasons change with my mail key in hand. On the first week of March, I saw some people posting on Ringling's Facebook page for applicants that people were getting responses. People were receiving packages with pins, calendars, enrollment forms, letters of acceptance, and a welcoming pair of arms. I received a simple, professional letter, telling me that maybe we should just be friends. On the bright side, the letter did mention that I would be accepted into any other department at Ringling, including the closely related Game Art and Design major (my previous major at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh). I figured there was no point in letting myself be inundated with feelings of inadequacy again, so I decided to pursue this new (old) major; after all, the two were very closely related with lots of overlapping courses, but Game Art has a slightly broader skill set, but is ultimately much more industry specific. This would be where I built my future.