Capstone Project Hours

Tuesday January 22, 2013:
First day of portrait drawing at skyline, class was fairly easy since it was mostly just an explanation of what was to be expected. we went home early because the instructor was sick.

Tuesday January 29, 2013:
second day of portrait drawing was cool, we had a model come in and we spent the entire time drawing her. I tried shading but I need improvement

Tuesday February 5, 2013
today at skyline was pretty much the same as last class, just a different model. it took me forever to finish my drawing but i'm happy with the way it came out. drawing for 3+ hours really takes more out of me than I expected it to.

Tuesday February 12, 2013
Today in class I got some advice from my mentor on how to make my drawings more realistic by improving my perspective, and also she gave me some tips to keep in mind. we had a cool model who I enjoyed drawing.

Tuesday February 19, 2013
Today was ok, I was tired so I didn't really put 110% into my drawing but I think it came out ok. and I also learned new ways to draw from looking around class at the drawings of my peers. Again drawing for 3+ hours is more exhausting than you would think.

Tuesday February 26, 2013
We had an amazing model today, he was funny and his features were very enjoyable to draw. I can see myself getting better and it's allot easier to work on their faces compared to the first few classes. my mentor gave me some more advice, but she also drew on my picture so that was a little irritating.

Tuesday March 5, 2013
Today felt like it would never end. our model was cool but I just wasn't in the zone today and couldn't seem to really focus. I tried to draw the best I could but I honestly think looking back that I could have done better.

Tuesday March 12, 2013
Class today was one of the best if not the best, our model, Crow, came dressed as a pirate and played music while we drew him. I think it was effective to have music playing while we were drawing because it made me feel more in tune with myself. someone also brought some snacks, yum.

Tuesday March 19, 2013
today was interesting, we had another pirate come in. apparently she was a friend of crow and he told her about the positive review he got back from us so she decided to join in on the fun. she was a good model but crow was my favorite.

Tuesday March 26, 2013
Wasn't feeling good today so I didn't go to class

Tuesday April 2, 2013
Spring Break, no class

Tuesday April 9, 2013
today class was good. I was tired and hungry the whole time but I drew the model made it through the class and came home to pass out.

Tuesday April 16, 2013
class was different today, our model was very interesting. she was great at striking poses and you could tell she had years of experience. she played music and it was very relaxing. once the music stopped however she continued the entertainment by singing some type of vocal mermaid song. it was a nice class.

Tuesday April 23, 2013
I had trouble drawing the model today. I don't know why but I just couldn't get my drawing to look the way I wanted it to. but someone brought snacks so it wasn't all bad.

Tuesday April 30, 2013
today was a good day considering I've been having a bad week. I wasn't very into my drawing but it came out nice. I just have so much going on I couldn't really enjoy class today

Tuesday May 7, 2013
today was an awesome day. for the first time ever we had a young sexy female model. and she chose to wear something risky. I enjoyed the art class today.

Tuesday May 14, 2013
today was another great day. we had another young female model to draw. someone brought these very delicious and juicy strawberries. I had fun drawing our model. the most fun I've had drawing in a long time.

Life Lesson

It wasn’t until recently in fact, that I came to understand the world I live in more clearly and discover myself. All the way up until my senior year in high school, I just never seemed to think past tomorrow. My grades in school were below average and definitely below my capability, but I just simply did not care. I couldn’t see how I was affecting my chances of graduating, or going to college, or getting a well paying job, I ultimately couldn’t see my future. I had no goals set for myself and I didn’t see myself doing anything important or of much interest to anybody. For a while I contemplated joining the military and becoming a marine, but that passed as I slowly became lazier and less motivated. It seemed like I was on the right track to nowhere, and that’s just how I wanted it too.

            However, it would seem that God and my destiny wouldn’t have it that way. Even though I had nothing going for me and I didn’t have the integrity to pull myself out of the hole I had created for myself, all hope wasn’t lost. My parents and teachers even my friends all saw potential in me and kept pushing me forward and supporting me. To this day I still don’t know how they managed to keep their faith in me considering all of the times I had let them down. But once senior year came, and graduation was closing in, only one school year left between me and the real-world. It was like I subconsciously woke up from a long slumber. I remember my counselor calling me in constantly and discussing my grades and performance in class. I wasn’t a disruptive or disrespectful student, it’s just that I sat there doing nothing in class, spacing out all day and never did any of my homework. I was always too obsessed with what I was going to do after school. All I valued at that time was my friends, my junk food, and my electronics. Television, video games, and music were all such a huge part of my life. But as my counselor talked to me more and more, the more I started realizing what I was doing. I kept telling him that I didn’t care about school, that it was all stupid and pointless. How I knew that I’m smart and that even if I don’t graduate it wouldn’t matter because that’s not going to define me or stop me from living my life and becoming whatever I wanted to be. I thought I had the system, my life, and the world all figured out. I thought.

            It slowly became more apparent to me that I was stabbing myself in the back. My grades were horrible, my friends were just people I knew and only spent time with at school, and I didn’t have any satisfaction in my materialistic possessions or in my life. It was beginning to look like I wasn’t going to graduate on stage either, I was credit deficient and there was almost no way for me to make them up. On top of all that I just wasn’t enjoying my life anymore and I figured that it wasn’t going to get better anytime soon. It was because I realized all this however, that I started the first step in changing myself and my life without even noticing. I realized that all this negativity was dragging me down and my life was becoming a sinkhole, and I did not like it one bit. So I began to take more interest in how to change it, how to turn my grades around, change my perspective and attitude, stop making the same mistakes, and overall turn my life around. My counselor saw I wanted to get serious and he decided to help make a plan for me. I would have to make sure to pass every single one of my classes second semester, and start going to something called the Hermanos & Hermanas Program every Monday and Wednesday after school. On top of that I would have to enroll in two college courses at Skyline College, one for Tuesday and one for Thursday, both in the evening around 6:30-10. I started this new schedule and the transition for me was quite hectic and very stressful. I went from being a lazy bum, always focused on my own needs, to being extremely busy during the week and having to go to classes on what used to be my downtime. After a few short weeks I was slowly making the transition and it wasn’t that bad. I thought it was a bit annoying and it was making me tired, but that was my own fault. I also came to the conclusion that in order to make it easier on my parents and more convenient for myself, I would need to get a license. I already had a car that was just sitting there waiting for me to use it, I was just too lazy before to try and get my license. So I started taking online driver’s Ed and it was a royal pain. So much reading, all of which I thought was pointless. Also at this point in time I was working on my senior project, and desperately trying not to fall behind on that. I knew that if I messed up on anything I was doing it would mean no graduation for me. In the midst of all this chaos and trying to juggle my social life as well as my love life, God still didn’t think I was suffering enough to learn my lesson. So my counselor called me in again one day and told me that even with everything I was doing, I was still going to fall four credits short of graduating. He said the only thing I could do is to take night classes to make them up. So it was decided that Monday right after Hermanos Program I would go to night school. Now I was officially paying for my poor choices during my previous high school years.

            Now even though I was stressed and tired and just feeling overwhelmed by all this, I was happy. I was enjoying the Hermanos Program, turned out I had a lot of other friends who were taking it too. Night school wasn’t that bad, a bit tedious but that’s about it. Skyline classes were fun and not that difficult, challenging, but I liked them. And my life was now on track, I was going to graduate high school if I kept all this up and now I was satisfied knowing that I was doing everything for a reason and that I was going to have a better future. I was even looking at colleges to go to now, a day that I thought I would never see. Me and my girlfriend were falling more and more in love as she was my rock, supporting me through it all and helping me however she could. I dropped allot of my old so-called friends after a series of events showed me their true colors and that they didn’t value me as much as I had valued them. I made new friends and got even closer to my existing friends that I didn’t lose. My relationship with my parents had changed dramatically, they no longer saw me as there little boy who was lost and immature. Me and them had begun to see each other as equals, they treated me with more respect and I treated them with more honor and respect than before. We understood each other better, I could talk to them easier and vice versa. My life was now full of satisfaction and happiness, I was maturing and becoming a young adult. Coincidentally enough this all began right after I turned eighteen. It was as if I had been goofing off all my childhood enjoying whatever freedom I had, valuing the fact that I had no real responsibility. But as soon as that clock struck midnight and I entered adulthood, I was ready and I knew exactly what I had to do. I started my life and it was a great life indeed. I even renewed my walk with God, a walk that I had forsaken at the age of thirteen when I stopped caring about the word of God and started caring more about materialistic possessions and money. More about girls and my friends and being popular. Now that I was changing my life and accepting all this new responsibility, I had realized just how small I really was. I was only a man, and a young man at that, how could I manage to control and run my life all on my own with all these unexpected life situations constantly happening and throwing me into a panic. I was soon given the answer by God, and without realizing it at first too. I was talking to my girlfriend one day and we were just having a very deep conversation. It wasn’t until we were far into our conversation that I started to understand that I don’t have the answers to all life’s problems, and I don’t know what to do with my life in order to follow my dreams. God my father in heaven however, was always watching over me and always ready to help me whenever I asked for him, or if I just needed him. I understood that he was giving me the answers all the time, and that i was just simply too ignorant to notice. That opportunities to improve my life and get ahead were all around me and i just had to accept them, easy as that. I couldn’t explain how such amazing things could be happening to me. There was no way that I was just that lucky, especially with all the bad karma that I had created for myself. And then it hit me, God was the one who kept pushing my counselor and parents to push me. He was the one who created the situations that happened in which I saw that I wasn’t close to my so-called friends, and he was the one who helped put together the plan that was going to guarantee my graduation. My father in heaven was looking out for me even though I had forsaken him. I felt a new wave of understanding wash over me and I started to open up my mind more, be more responsible and mature, and definitely learn all the new wisdom that I could.

            Now the next phase that I entered is way too dificult to try and explain simply, but to try and put it in a nutshell I learned about the bubble I had fooled myself into believing was my comfort zone. I learned all about the corruption of the system and how the rich abuse the poor. I learned how I couldn’t even trust the government and how this country, as well as many other countries world-wide, were deceiving there people and controlling the population from behind the scenes. I finally saw all of the subliminal messages that television feeds its viewers. But worst of all, I saw how sinful and ignorant mankind, consequently the world was becoming. Murder, stealing, rape, lying, cheating, genocide, war, starvation, confusion, chaos, panic, ignorance, drug dealing, and plenty more horrific things are constantly happening all around us. Almost to the point where it’s flat out unbelievable that it would even be possible to continue without mankind realizing what’s happening. Everyone is too absorbed in their own lives and only focused on their own ambition, most of which are just out of greed or lust for power and recognition, too even notice. Nobody wants to hear reality or accept that we live in a corrupted world. It breaks my heart to see people who are human just like me, bone and flesh just like me, who feel and hope just like me, who dream and love just like me, suffer through so much pain and confusion. People who starve to death and nobody helps them and increasingly no one seems to even care anymore. People lost in a corrupted world who join gangs just because they don’t believe that they can be successful or happy any other way. Drug addicts who were once brilliant people who lost everything because of the convenience of such drugs. Drugs that the government lets flow into our streets in order to keep the population distracted and busy, they want us to be self-defeating so that they can control and manipulate us easier. So that we're easier to opress. propaganda feeding lies to you and your children, technology ruling and dictating our lives, making our youth lazy and spoiled. It was because God had shown me all of this and so much more, that I finally understood who I was and what I was going to do with my life. There are many who are like me, who strive for a better world and fight until they are beaten and bruised just to make the lives of others better. People who are activists, revolutionaries, kind-hearted individuals who even lose their life fighting for what they believe in. They do so much good all around the world and we never really hear about any of it. This is because the media is run by the people who don’t want you to follow their lead, that don’t want you to be enlightened and make the world better. Because they know that would mean that everyone would have equality, and everyone wouldn’t be dictated or fall victim to the traps they lay out for us. They would all lose their status and power, possibly even their billions of dollars, so in order to keep all that, they make sure that those who stand in the way of all that they do will die before his or hers mission was accomplished. And all out of greed and selfishness, it’s really quite sad and heart breaking when you can see it all so clearly. This was the world I came to know and understand, a world that God saved me from, I thank him so much that I’m no longer the same ignorant self-absorbed sinner that I used to be. My life was saved and my mind was opened, my life’s goal was realized as well as my enemy. And all of this happened at the age of eighteen, this gift of wisdom and understanding gave meaning to my life, in fact, it made me feel alive. This is more than most people can say throughout their entire lives, but God gave me this now for a reason, so I will spend the rest of my life fighting to make sure that that reason becomes a reality, even if it means I have to go up against the government, even if it means going against the world. A life changing experience and all just because I wanted to get better grades in highschool, man... God is truly amazing.