Career choices

That's me. Eternally unique. And for many reasons too. I had quite an evolution of career choices in my life. Pretty odd.

When I was a little tyke, I used to think I was phenomenally good at pretending to sleep. I took great pride in it. I bragged about it to my family. I also, wouldn't you know it, to brag about my artistic talent. I was 7 and had every confidence in both abilities. I had won a lot of awards for my art (though my biggest award hadn't been achieved yet) and seemed to be able to trick my parents and siblings into carrying me to bed after a movie. So, why shouldn't I have believed I was a good "drawer and fake-sleeper"? In fact, why wouldn't I make a career out of them! It made lots of sense! I would be famous for it! World famous drawer and fake-sleeper. Oh yeah, that would totally work.

I dropped the fake-sleeper part later though, once I realized my family mocked me for it. Gordon's the better fake-sleeper now, though I still try my hand at it occasionally. But I couldn't let them mock me for my art. No way. I'd won awards! I must be good! So, I kept drawing. I realize now they didn't mock my skill, just my choice of words.

How lucky for me I didn't take it personally and stop drawing altogether. I mean, I might be in college to be a Veterinarian. I wanted to be one for most of my childhood, really. I have loved animals my whole life and it was a dream to save their lives. Then one day I realized that I couldn't save them all and that, in fact, a lot of them would die. And I wouldn't be able to bear watching them die or even putting them to sleep. I'd break down, and it'd be bad for me. So I scrapped that idea.

I went back to the idea of art. I had no idea what I could do with art. I was 13 and clueless. I could make paintings for the rest of my life but I wasn't good at painting, at the time. That wouldn't do. I could illustrate children's books but I always ended up drawing too much on the page. No good. I could work for Pixar or Dreamworks and draw cells for cartoons but I hated copying others works. Not quite what I was looking for, but getting closer. Well, I had always loved reading comic books. They were an awesome story and lovely artwork. They were interesting and fun. By my freshmen year, I had branches away from poetry and music writing and started writing stories. I spent most of high school thinking I'd do character design for video game companies or Pixar. That would have been fine for me. But during senior year a friend read one of my stories and saw my artwork and commented on how they'd be good together. After that, it was magic.

Nothing else would do. No other career will suit. I couldn't do it and be proud of myself or happy. But how does one go about learning to draw comic books? I'd tried many times before and there was always a few things wrong. I didn't know how to do it at all. It had all been guess work before. College was a dream come true. There were schools that had cartooning degrees, page composition classes, and things that hadn't occured to me. And I could get all of that in New York. At one school. Unlike community colleges and non-art schools, all those classes I need end up totaling up into a degree. A pretty piece of paper that says I am officially professional at something. It sounds nice and it would certainly help me get published. But I can't get to the school. I can't live on my own so drastically yet, because I'm too young. Completely understandable and when I think about, I wouldn't want to yet. I want a bit more experience in the world. Maybe when I'm 20 or 21, I'll go there.

But what to do with myself until then... Well, I'll work on my writing and art skills. I'll hone them. And that's what I'm doing. Art and writing classes at De Anza to make me be better. Everything makes a difference.