Wednesday, January 30, 2019

This morning, someone asked a question I had never been asked before. They asked what is my favorite memory of my dog. It's such an interesting and wonderful question. The first experience to come to mind was of my dog Zita who passed away over a year ago. I remembered how during the last year of her life, she had lost her hearing and was sleeping most of the day since she was a senior pupper. But, she would still have the energy to go on walks even to the very end, literally up to the day before her passing. I was reminded of how she couldn't hear me when I approached her but she could still feel my presence and would wake up from her sleep whenever I would go wait near her. I would sit near her and within a few seconds, her eyes would slowly open and her tail would start wiggling.

During our walks, she would move slowly since she was old and was no longer able to walk fast. It taught me to take things slowly and not be in such a rush all the time.

Damn.

I miss my dog.





Wednesday, January 23, 2019

I have recently been struggling with creating art and having the motivation to keep going. One of the central issues that has been on my mind deals with the nature of my drawings. I can't help but consider my work as a "mere copy" of the "real thing" since I always use a reference photo whenever I am drawing anything. If I am drawing someone's dog, I look at a photo and draw from the photo. If I am painting a landscape, I look at a scenery photograph as my reference. It's been difficult to consider my work as good as the real thing and recently, I came upon a passage in a book I am reading that stuck with me and helped me view the situation in a more positive way.

"You may be somewhat critical of your painting, suspecting perhaps that it is less beautiful than the real thing it's depicting. In this feeling, you join thousands of artists over thousands of years. But remember, your painting is important and beautiful because it is your unique and personal response to nature's beauty, something handmade by a human being enchanted by nature's colors." 

I tend to be overly critical in nearly everything I do and this is an important reminder that the motivation for creating something is important because it can be due to being inspired by beauty. Acting upon inspiration like this is a worthwhile and meaningful goal and it shouldn't be portrayed as "merely copying nature."

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

A funny little find in the most unexpected of places



Of all the places I would expect to randomly find puns and double meanings, I did not expect it to be on the federal trade commission's website. I stumbled upon this page while doing research for a project at work.


The play-on-words/puns/etc I found:
  • Wedding Gown Labels: Unveiling the Requirements
  • Threading Your Way Through the Labeling Requirements Under the Textile and Wool Acts
  • How to Avoid Bamboozling Your Customers
    • Do you make or sell bamboo-based textiles..
  • Down...But Not Out: Advertising and Labeling of Feather Down
  •   Clothes Captioning: Complying with the Care Labeling Rule

I don’t know how the intern or junior staff member managed to get this past the managers but bravo. He did it somehow.

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Friday, January 11, 2019

Shallow - Cello and Piano

I am usually not a fan of cello covers of pop songs but I am going to make an exception for this one. This sounds beautiful.


Thursday, January 10, 2019

"We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt."

- Jonathan Nolan

Thoughts about work


I have been at my new job for about 7 months now. This seems like a good time to share some of my impressions. I currently work in government as a Policy Analyst in Los Angeles at the county level. My job involves doing research about many different issues and providing clear and easily-understandable recommendations. I hadn’t appreciated the diverse nature of my job until I took some time to truly think about it. If I describe the kinds of projects I have worked on during the past few days, it will provide a decent idea of what I mean.

Three days ago, I was researching massage establishments. Before starting this job, I had no idea that Los Angeles has a serious sexual trafficking problem. Young women are brought over from other countries and they are essentially coerced into sexual slavery. They work primarily at massage establishments that have “un-advertised services” for clients who are interested in such sexual services. My main research task in this area has been to look into various ways that current regulations can be updated to help fight against sexual trafficking.

Two days ago, I was looking into electronic scooters since they have been popping up all over the place around Los Angeles seemingly overnight. As useful as these things are for transportation and fighting against traffic, they come with all kinds of issues dealing with safety and riders dumping their scooters all over sidewalks and other locations. I’ve been asked to look into ways that other cities are handling the influx of e-scooters and what can be learned from them when it comes to crafting our own approach.

Yesterday, I was researching car wash facilities and how these businesses are often rife with violations dealing with wage theft and other kinds of abuses. The employees at these businesses are taken advantage of and I have been asked to research strategies that can help fight against such abuses.

Today, I have been looking into ways to update auto repair shop regulations in ways that can help protect consumers from being taken advantage of.

This position is not my “dream job” and it’s not a job I would consider myself passionate about. However, I think it’s important to stop and explicitly think about the ways we DO enjoy our work. We spend so much of our lives working and it’s a shame that hating one’s job is such an accepted part of life for a lot of people. It’s a society-wide cliché at this point.  Most people automatically assume that you likely don’t enjoy your job and you work because you need to, not because you want to.

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Missing in action: Motivation


It's difficult to find yourself staying consistently motivated when working on a long-term complex task. I am currently working on a detailed drawing that is likely going to take over 50 hours of work to complete. On some evenings, I find myself lacking the motivation and energy to work on it. Recently, I stumbled upon a strategy that might be useful for other artists.

When I felt I didn't have the energy to draw, I looked at the uncompleted drawing and mentally mapped out which area within the drawing I would be working on during my next drawing session. Being specific like this and picking a goal for the night allowed me to not feel as overwhelmed.  It created a manageable and less daunting goal and this caused an uptick in much-needed motivation. I no longer dreaded sitting down and beginning the work because I had a clear goal with boundaries in sight.

This strategy can be applied to any sufficiently complex task that can be broken down into smaller and more specific pieces. It doesn't only apply in the context of making art. I am sure most people are familiar with the general idea of breaking down a large task into smaller chunks and working from there.  I suppose this advice had never truly clicked for me until very recently. I was aware of the strategy at an intellectual level but it had never resonated at an emotional level until now.

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The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right. -Vincent van Gogh