Yesterday I went to LA Otis Open House! I got my portfolio reviewed, twice. Once by a guy I had to wait in a 30ish minute line for, and the second time by an animation/digital art/concept design teacher up on the digital media floor. They both said I had some really strong conceptual and character design pieces. The teacher dude (he was wearing a Bleach t-shirt, which made me lol inside) said that I should have no problem getting accepted to Otis. He did say I should make my portfolio shorter, which is true, because I brought a crap-load of work in to be looked at. Teehee.

I can't believe it's time for me to apply for colleges. I figured out I wanted to work in the art field only about 3 years ago. I've been really arty since then. I only hope my hard work and dedication serve me well, now that I need to prove myself.

Otis is in my top three art schools, but my first choice is still CalArts!!

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I know I said I'd get better with my communication , like a month ago in my last journal. I'm sorry. I haven't really improved much. Those of you who really know me might recognize a pattern where sometimes I withdrawl and don't communicate too much. It's not because I don't care, I do very much so, but sometimes I really need to sort out my life before I can extend myself to others. I'm so sorry.

Things have still been hectic. There was an incident on Halloween involving my mom, she's fine, don't worry, but the police had to get into it. Her job isn't going so well and neither is my school. I won't go into details, 'cause it's actually really unfortunate. But don't worry. I get through things, as always. Optimism, yeah!

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I've been on-and-off Neopets the past two weeks. I got into the Art Gallery! (I used an old picture from 2 or 3 years ago though, shhh.) I made a SS comic and sent it in a week ago, but still haven't gotten a yes or no neomail from TNT. I tied for third place in Ogrin division this past Friday. We both had exactly 63 votes. The other person got the trophy. Oh well.

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I've been submitting to scraps a lot lately. Well, not lately, I'm actually a very scraps-oriented person. Please, if you haven't already, go check it out! I submit a lot of character designs and doodles and stuff there. It's fun stuff, really.

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<sub>I'm going to make myself a list here...don't mind me...

college applications ---working on it
job applications ---still need work permit
homework ---I need to catch up a bit
art
...cartooning ---no problems here
...life drawing ---done a couple small sketch/doodles
...sketchbook ---got something in the works
...conceptual ---mann I wish photoshop was working..
...storybook ---very very very slow progress
letter/email-writing ---fail.
box-unpacking ---wow, progress is happening!</sub>