Mewsings on a slow day. 10/06/04
I really like this, found it on the internet somewhere:
"Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no trouble, anger, or sadness. It means to be in the center of all these things and remain calm in your heart."
Today's one of those lazy, nothing-urgent sort of days, where being at work is comfortable and it is hard to think of leaving this pleasant environment. I have to remind myself of the near-intolerable conditions that I also get stuck in around here -- Like Monday, that was horrible.
Trying to do about 40 tasks on Monday afternoon before deadline. No time to do things with proper care and consideration and double-checking. Just hoping that everything will come out okay in spite of throwing most of the newspaper layout together at the last minute in slapdash fashion, boring default-mode graphics and text layout, use whatever picture you can dig up in five minutes, who cares... but I do. I hate feeling rushed and negligent. My name on the masthead of the paper, as Graphics Director, and I am so embarrassed by the look of the damn tabloid. Except it isn't even as exciting as a tabloid, it just looks like one. The articles in the paper are more dry and boring than the discussion of possible landfill sites. Oh, wait. That is what one of the articles is about.
But today, looks like I can do maybe 5-10 tasks a day this week, getting things done at a reasonable pace. Not 40 things in 3 hours like on Monday, and on many other Mondays during the past year. Should be a good week. Er, until Jabba the Hutt is back in the country. Her office is such a mess right now, her dog tore it up while she was gone. The boss's mother says, "Aww! he misses her so much. He is lonely and frustrated." But I think it more likely the dog is just indulging in some long-stifled shredding vengeance.
I have designed a beautiful front cover for our next publication, since the boss tends to take my classy layout designs and put huge orange text (and blue, green, red all at once, urgh) all over the cover photo, I have started out with using orange text in anticipation of her odd tastes. I have used a lovely sunset shot of a boat on the bay as the background, which is eye-catching and appropriate. Also this is one of few images that can incorporate both peacock blue and bright orange in the color scheme without looking hideous. Looks great, but my design concept is likely to get shot down completely, in favor of a photo of a construction site or of some homely politicians. But I think I will save a copy of what I've created here for my portfolio. If nothing else, this job has given my portfolio a lot of new material, I must have designed 200 ads working here and put together the layout of 50 issues. I have a huge stack of samples of my work... I shall need a pack mule to accompany me on my job interviews.
