EmotiSocial

 I woke up pretty late Wednesday and rushed to screenwriting class in a Lyft. On the way, we got a BruinAlert about a shooting that had happened on campus. We ended up driving right by where it had happened, and when I got to class, UCLA was on lockdown. A lot of rumours followed and people in my class started to get scared. 3 hours later the lockdown was lifted, and we all went to eat our fear away.

When I got back home, I immediately fell asleep. And I did a colourful make-up to cheer myself up when I woke from my nap.

 Some of the animators got together to celebrating finishing our films. It felt so nostalgic drinking Calpico again.

I then headed to the DKA formal in the old Kerkchoff building. Three course dinner, speeches...

 ... and a lot of laughs and tears. The seniors were saying goodbye and everyone was shaken after the day's events.

I got a Sunshine gift from Carlos and Mira, a letter from Taylor, and a few DKA awards. It was a fun time and we all stayed and talked out front after we got kicked out of the building.

No one wanted to go home, so we decided to go to James' and hang out. We listened to Ghibli's 25th anniversary concert and talked for hours, comforting each other. I was feeling very happy to not have been alone.

I didn't get a lot of sleep, as I had to get up and shoot my 2D film and turn that in. But I felt all right. I even went to Westwood to eat asian with a few people.

After class I headed over to Natasha's to brainstorm my graduation cap's design. And Friday I went back to do the actual painting. We watched Hairspray while crafting, and then Lizzie came over too.

Creative products!

I then went to Barneys' with the animation people. A LOT showed up, so we almost didn't have enough room. But it was nice to just relax together without the deadline looming over our heads.

Saturday I watched some television for once, got a care-package from the parents, and made a mask for the Cinematographer's China Ball. It was nice being creative with my hands again.

Julia came over and made a quick one too. When we got to the party, James Franco was leaving and smiled broadly at us. Surreal.

We danced, talked, and just had a good time. I talked to some people from other classes too, and it was a good feeling - recognizing faces around me. Including the Disney twins haha (so random).

Sunday morning, the pledges had a gathering at Eve's. We ate delicious cinnamon rolls and talked future. The US summer vacation is so long! So people don't see each other for four months.
Mira came over Sunday night to wrap up this rolle-rcoaster of a week. We relaxed in the jacuzzi, participated in the midnight yell, and just had a good time.

Hip Deadline

 The end of Spring quarter drew nearer and I spent a long time finishing up the rough animation for my 2D project. Mira and I matched. And I even squeezed in a rigged green screen run for compositing week of stop motion class!

The plegde class got our berets. Lovely.

And Thursday I hung out with Sam for some quality anime time. We watched the first Digimon film, Summer Wars, and Wolf Children. It was fun to watch the same director like that.

Later that Thursday, the DeKAs picked me up from class to go Downtown. We were headed for Battle Royale - what Arianna had describes as "as close to Step Up as it gets". A hip hop dance competition. The groups were so impressive! They rehears every day at 5 in the morning, gosh... It was a good time!

I spent the whole weekend at the animation workshop with the other animators, finishing our films. We got a lot of food Saturday evening, so at least we didn't starve. We tried to make it fun with a few drinks and Hailey and I even listened to Harry Potter audiobooks.

And we did Taiso as per Mira's idea. And the animators using Mira's skateboard too much when animation became too much, haha.

 I tried getting some sun time too. It proved difficult.

I finished my clean-up and then transferred the first shot's drawings over to cels. It was fun to work a little differently with the project!

And then it was time for "finishing touches" on MagiCake. I did some more stuff in After Effects, looked through the entire UCLA audio library, and dealt with Premiere crashing on me for 5 hours. And before I knew it, we had been at campus for over 30 hours. We all submitted our films though, and went home. Sleep was bliss.