Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Christmas Break

So, I'm on Christmas Break. I know that I haven't posted any lately and that the last two posts might have sounded a bit scatterbrained as unfinished. Hopefully, that won't be the case forever as I'm not like that normally.

Right now I'm on break from what had to be the most brutal Term I've experienced to date. November was the most brutal with days spanning from Monday to Friday where I would have to be up for 8:30am and not be able to leave the school grounds until 4:10pm. On top of that, I would have up to three assignments on the go at the time and that often left me to push at least one assignment to the very last minute – which was usually my After Effects assignments.

After Effects is an Adobe program where you're able to apply special effects to video footage. Most of the special effects you see – like the information you see on news channels and the names and occupations that'll pop up on documentaries. There're other things,  I haven't learned how to do. Like the ghosting effect featured in Doctor Strange (which I haven't watched).

Anyway, because of the way I had to juggle things, my After Effects assignments turned out to be horrible, and I got a C as my final mark.

But I'm so relieved it's all over. Of course, I'm still working on my Advanced Photography's Assignment 5 and Final Assignment. They're interesting, but they're due tomorrow... at midnight. I have 12 things I have to get done:

  • Three Panoramas
  • Two HDR Images
  • One HD Timelapse
  • Two Images Illustrating 2 different Kingdom Concepts/Virtues (I chose Faith as one)
  • Two Images Illustrating 2 different anti-Kingdom Concepts/Virtues (I chose Destruction and Death).
  • One Image with a jet black background.
  • One Image of Food.

I've already got the three panos, one of the HDRs, the timelapse, one of the Kingdom Concepts (the Faith one), one of the anti-Kingdom Concepts (the Destruction one), the jet black background, and the food one done. I'm about to go and do the second HDR. I'm going to do it one of the LED lights on my garage since we don't have Christmas lights on yet. And since I missed the sunset.

And HDR is when you take a picture of something that is too dark, one that's just right, and one that's too bright, and then merge it all together so it looks more 3D.

I thought I had both HDRs already, but I looked at my first one today and found it too blurry for my liking.

I'm also afraid that my timelapse is too grainy because I accidentally saved all the JPEGs I used in it at a lower quality than I should have. My teacher wants me it to be HD, as in 1920 x 1080 pixels. It is those dimensions, but it looks grainy to me. I really don't want to have to go about sticking it together again, because it was a struggle the first time since I hadn't taken enough pictures for a ten second timelapse with 30 frames per second. I set it for 29.97 frames per second and still had to use some of the pictures I wasn't happy about in order to kick it off and have enough for ten seconds.

Just how bad would it look on a huge HD plasma TV? I think I'm going to watch it on the big TV in the living room in order to be sure it doesn't look too bad. I pray it won't.

I've recently begun to read The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks, the first in The Night Angel Trilogy, and it'll be the next book I'll review on my blog. It isn't a Christian novel, and there is some profanity, though not much thank goodness. Some of the stuff that goes on in the background isn't pleasant but seems to resonate since I just finished a course at college that addressed issues like what is mentioned in the book. Poverty is rampant in the city the main character finds himself trapped in, something he's trying to escape.

I'll have a lot to talk about when the review comes out.

With that book, I'm thinking of starting to rate my reviews like video games are rated (like ESRB rating). I'm thinking of rating it as a solid PG-13 or a 'T', though I don't know if that rating will go up because I haven't finished it yet. I haven't even gotten quarter of the way through it yet.

It's an intriguing story.

There's a lot of stuff going on in my life, good things, stressful things. I'm working on a short story I haven't planned out, and a novella I'm still planning out. I'm planning on publishing them on Smashwords, since it's a platform that publishes on ever conceivable ebook platform. I'm so excited!

I've really seen myself grow over these last two terms and that makes me extremely excited for my future. Like the trip to Tibet I'll be taking for my practicum after I graduate.

I believe I'll have a lot to write about in the future :D

Ranger's Apprentice: The Battle for Skandia, a review

The Battle for Skandia . John Flanagan. 2006. Puffin Books. Pages: 294. Price: USD $8.99/$11.99 CAN. Setting: Skandia. ISBN 0142413402. [S...