Monday, January 22, 2007
1:22 p.m.

I am completely drained, and I’ve spent the last few days trying to bulk up my portfolio: a) for my former teacher to write me a recommendation letter for UCSC; b) for the actual portfolio in general.

While I was shamelessly (and frantically) abusing company resources on Thursday to fabricate an entire design portfolio in an hour or less, a near-total mental breakdown was caused by this message:

Slightly better than this bullshit:

but it still makes me want to tear my hair out and force feed it to someone. My only recourse was to purchase my own software and continue the mania from the comfort of my laptop and couch. $1,200 software, Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium Edition, would solve all my problems. One would think. The relief I felt in acknowledging that it was finally time to take the financial plunge was short-lived. Every store I called was happy to report “We don’t carry it in our store, but you can buy it online!” Online can suck my asshole. They carried Photoshop and Acrobat, separately, for like $600 each…Yeah, I really want to drop over a grand on something I don’t even want. What the fuck? Suddenly this software became the Holy Grail. Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot, and COMPUSA are now and forever on my shit list until they redeem themselves. Fry’s is also on the list, because they carry it, but it’s out of stock. And the customer service rep was rude. I hate rude.

Finally, after an hour of panicking and complaining to coworkers, a solution was found: CSUS bookstore offered it at a discount. However, you must be staff, faculty, or an enrolled student to purchase software. So I brought my student mule (because she is carrying contraband, not because she is a docile and obedient creature) and gave her enough for the full amount, because I don’t believe in things that sound too good to be true. Another hour later and the software was mine. The panic and frustration quickly transformed into relief and glee. Not only was the software discounted, but it included an upgrade and extra programs that I needed as well, but wasn’t planning to buy.

Over the course of my weekend, the panic and frustration quickly resurfaced when I realized that time, as always, was my nemesis. What little sleep I got was restless and worrisome. I had bad dreams and felt guilty for sleeping. I should mention here that in addition to my Adobe stuff, I was also working on a Flash presentation about murder. (My former teacher is in digital media, so it helps that I show him something relating to that.) So late at night, every night, amidst old South Park episodes and “Girls Gone Wild” commercials EVERY FUCKING MINUTE, I was searching for images of various murderers and serial killers. I accidentally opened a photo of one of Jeffrey Dahmer’s dismembered victims. At 2am. I’m enough of a chicken in daylight hours; I don’t need to see that shit when I’m alone in the dark. When all the channels switched to infomercials, I knew I was done for the night. I had to make the trail-of-light walk to bed. You know, where you leave every light on behind you until you turn on the next one. I’m scared of the dark, especially with mirrors and staring at pictures of killers for hours at a time. I know way more about John Wayne Gacy than I ever wanted to.

At 5:30 this morning I was almost done, so I slept till 8:30 and resumed working. I went to work around 10:30 to burn my portfolio CD (and include the projects that I worked on at my company). Barring any major catastrophe, my teacher will get the CD and write me a letter. I really hope the PC-to-Apple variable won’t be an issue.

That’s all I have today. I need to sleep.