Results tagged “ILM” from Rendered Speechless

I actually got an email from recruiting at Pixar today. It was a rejection email. That sucks. But in a way it's ok. I respect them for even contacting me at all, which is something that ILM doesn't seem to want to do. I have heard rumors that ILM is having union problems but I still think complete silence is inexcusable. Anyway, another door closed. This looks like the year of closed doors. Still looking for the windows though. I know they're there, somewhere. They have to be.

I always believe that when something doesn't work out, it's because there's something better waiting for me, somewhere. Something that would make me happier, that would be closer to what I really need to be doing. If that's really the case, then that means there's something better out there for me than Pixar. And that has to be pretty freakin' big. Boggles the mind, doesn't it.

It's after 1am and I'm in bed with Nick at Nite on mute. The cat is under the covers curled up at my feet. It must be a kitty sauna in there since I'm running a fever close to 100. Oh well, I'm glad someone in this house is warm, because I'm freezing.

This is the second time in as many months that I've been sick. I know where I got this one (thanks Ardra!) but it's really frustrating that it hits me NOW of all times. I just started working out again two weeks ago. My boyfriend and I broke up last Tuesday. I've had to cut back on my hours so that I've basically taken a 25% pay cut, and now I might be missing work if I don't get rid of this fever. I'm on the verge of starting a new life and I don't even feel like living it--that's not a suicidal post-breakup thought mind you, it's a sick thought. My mind has energy my body finds repulsive. I HATE BEING SICK.

I understand that there is a process to life, just like there is a process to art. I don't understand speedbumps like illness--maybe it's the universe forcing me to rest--but for the most part I understand the process. The process is what it's all about. A weird thing happened after I sent off my reel to Pixar... instead of getting excited about a possible phone call, I just sort of thought, "eh." Really. After all that work, turning my back bedroom into a photo studio, freezing to death taking pictures in a car graveyard, staying up all night drawing, all I had to say at the end was "eh." It wasn't about the goal. Looking back, I don't think it ever was about the goal. It was about the process. The process itself is what made me feel alive, what got me out of bed every day and almost stopped me from going back to bed every night. And now I'm just fine if I never hear from Pixar. Sure, if they call I'll be out there on the first flight for an interview, but if they don't, it's really ok. Obviously I won't ever hear from ILM again, and that's ok too. First I thought, if they're going to treat their applicants this way, I don't want to work for them anyway (true), but again it's about the process. I would get there, get my tiny little studio apartment, and I would be working my way up to doing just one thing. I would get to Pixar and be doing just one thing. Just one thing. I've never been happy doing just one thing over and over, day after day after day. Never.

It's obvious to me now, I have to do this on my own terms. I have to be an artist. Not a lighter or a shader or a compositor. An artist. My own work, in my own time, on my own terms. My own stories. The entire process. This is what 2008 had to tell me about myself, and that's fine. I went in with a goal but also an open mind, knowing that the outcome could be completely different from what I thought I was going for. This is what I came out with, and I'm actually very happy with it. Now I can do whatever I want, however I want, from beginning to end.

But that changes the job game quite a bit. I'm done at Collin County in February. I have a freelance gig starting right after that, and it should take me through another couple of months. Still web. Do you know how much I hate web, how much I wanted Collin County to be the last web job I ever had? Well, it will keep me eating and paying rent so I won't complain. But I had to say that just once. I hate web. Ok more than once. I'm done now.

"Trust the process," I remind myself. The process of life does involve eating on a regular basis. I do know how lucky I am, really I do. And I like my boss. Heck, it's a lot of programming and very little design so I'll probably end up enjoying it before it's all over. I do like a challenge after all. And BWC pretty much cured me of wanting to be a designer. Not their fault, I'm just not good at putting so much effort into something to only have someone else's design picked, which they spent like five minutes on because they pretty much stole it from a bunch of other people's designs. Or to have 42 different logos rejected by the same client because they think they know our job better than we do. I can't deal with that. But with programming, either it works or it doesn't. I get it to work and I've accomplished something. I get it to work fast and I've accomplished a little more. Nothing subjective about it. And nothing personal. You always know when you've done it right, and it's not whenever some idiot with no concept of what you really do tells you so.

So the job situation changes. I do still need one, a permanent one. One with health benefits. I've been on Cobra since I quit BWC, but they renew their insurance in June and considering how things are going over there, there's no telling what kind of hillbilly scheme they'll come up with this year. But I digress. My goals are not about getting into entertainment now, they're about living a truly artistic life. And I have found North Texas to be probably the worst place to be an artist, at least the kind who needs the support of other artists. Not that there's anything wrong with old ladies painting watercolor bluebonnets, they just wouldn't get my creepy doll theme. Few people do, actually.

Denver, however, is a great place for an artist. They have classes, they have groups, and there's my mom, who as a painter herself, knows where to find all of them. There's scenery. What good is a plein air paint set if all you have is a view of 75? And there's also a job, with a medical simulation company. It's a programming job. I love programming. I left MultiGen because I hated the military stuff. But medical? Could be very, very cool.

And imagine having enough money, and perhaps even enough time (no mandatory Saturdays getting a film out the door) to own my own house and produce my own work. With the support of other artists, this could be exactly what I'm looking for. But I'm keeping my mind open, "trusting the process" as they say.

It's true though. If you focus only on the goal, getting it or not getting it, being there now or not being there yet, things fall apart. When I get on the treadmill at the gym I have to look at it as a process or I won't get on it again. When I create a piece of art, the enjoyment is in the creation of it or else I wouldn't do it. And as far as life goes, that's the process you have to trust most of all. Part of that process, unfortunatey, is seeing doors close. The end of a job, the end of a relationship, it's all part of a process to teach you what you need to learn, to get you where you need to go. We have what we need when we need it and when we don't need it anymore, it disappears. If you don't trust that you don't need it anymore, and you keep trying to hang on, you get stuck and you never go anywhere. You limit how happy you can ever be. You wake up one day and realize you've settled for less than what you can really have because you were afraid to see what else was out there. You have to let the doors close and the windows open.

So that being said, I'm looking for the windows right now. I'll still need a goal, I can't create art without one. But there are festivals, competitions, and there's always SIGGRAPH. There are plenty of deadlines to go around. I just need a stable job to support it all. And an idea of course, but I'm already working on that one. Look for that in a future post.

I wasn't even this exhausted when I went to SIGGRAPH.

Over Thanksgiving I gave up on painting and went back to photography. No regrets. I made a ton of shots of creepy antique dolls and came out with five good ones, one or two in particular were probably the best shots I've ever done of anything. I also already had three good shots of abandoned building interiors that I made a few years ago with some great light patterns. So that gave me eight photos. But that wasn't enough.

I was limited to moody studio shots against black in my little extra bedroom, so I needed some variety. I had this great idea to go to the CTC Auto Ranch just north of Denton on I-35 and take pictures of their cars. I've seen this place a million times going to and from Oklahoma, and I always wanted to stop. So I called them and asked if they ever let people take pictures and they said sure--a little reluctantly I thought, but maybe I was imagining it. It's $5 a person to walk through the yard and you can bring your camera. The hitch? They're closed on weekends. I had this brilliant idea on a Thursday night with a beautiful weekend coming up and a rainy Monday and Tuesday right after. So finally Wednesday of the next week I went out there and spent the afternoon. I did almost 200 shots, and again picked five of the best. And the people who work there are great. But being the overachiever I am, I still didn't feel like it was enough.

I had studio shots, some old interior shots and now outdoor shots with some really interesting light patterns. What I didn't have was created light, or even light that was taken from a reference but improved through art. So I sailed up 75 one day looking for fireworks stands. The first one I found was a white one with blue stars sitting against a spectacular sunset. This was a great opportunity because I knew that photography would give me either a great exposure on the sunset or a great exposure on the building, but not both at the same time. So I took multiple exposures and did a digital painting using multiple references. That picture is currently on my home page.

So... one more outdoor shot, although a little more creative than the others. I decided I needed two more fireworks stands because I needed it to be a series with different lighting in each. So I found another on a cloudy, cold afternoon and then one on an even cloudier, colder evening with headlights as the sole light source. I did digital paintings from both, again from multiple exposures (except for the afternoon shot, where one exposure was enough). Now I had a series.

In fact, I had four series: cars, fireworks stands, abandoned buildings and dolls. But it still wasn't enough. I had nothing purely conceptual, and no interiors with artificial light, which is pretty common in the world. And time was running out. Pixar had already taken their job posting off CreativeHeads.net, but before I went into a full-blown panic and subsequent severe depression I decided to check the career postings on their own site and see if the job might still be listed there. Not only was it listed, but the date of the listing was just the day before I looked for it. I was good for probably another week. So I went for it, and that's when it really started to get difficult.

I did a drawing in college that I've always been proud of, and I've even done an animation based on part of this drawing (see Bumps in the Night). So I decided to redo this drawing digitally. After finishing my fireworks stands late last Sunday night (I hope I never have to draw grass again), I took the afternoon off this past Monday, thinking I could start and finish the drawing in about 8 hours. I was way off. Luckily I had already taken Tuesday off in the hopes that I could get the reel edited together and sent to Pixar that day, but it turned out that I needed it to sleep, among other things. I worked on that drawing non-stop until 10am Tuesday morning. The weather was icy and the office was closed, so I would have been home anyway; I went to bed hoping I could get up at 2:30 and the roads would be drivable and I still could go to Richardson, get my new printed resumes and samples, and maybe get the reel edited and out the door. But when I woke up that afternoon things had not improved. In fact, everything was white. For a moment I had to wonder just how long I was out. And then I realized I wasn't leaving the house that day whether I liked it or not, so I might as well do one more drawing.

By about 3:45 Wednesday morning I had a digital drawing of my bathroom with the lights on and light coming through the window and hitting the wall (taken from some earlier photographic references). Not completely realistic but still interesting and a good interior study. I took a shower and got to bed at 4:30, thinking I'd take off Wednesday afternoon to finish everything up (go to Richardson, finish the last edits on the reel, put a book together and go to FedEx). I left work at noon and made it to Richardson but didn't make it back home until 3. I had bought an 8"x8" blank board book at Michael's that I could spray mount a cover, my resume, shot list and some samples into. It took two hours to cut the prints and spray mount them into the book. But it looked great when I was done. I put one of those adhesive CD sleeves on the inside cover and put the DVD inside, and then wrapped the whole thing in Christmas lights wrapping paper with a tag that said, "To: Pixar, From: Your Next Lighting TD." I attached a small keychain flashlight to the package and by this time, it was too late to go to FedEx. In fact, after I had spent 3 hours at my neighbors' Christmas party and then came back to perfect the DVD and wrap the package, it was about 2:30 Thursday morning.

I got it to FedEx on Thursday during my lunch hour. It cost me $50 to ship it overnight; since I had one more day in the week before Christmas, I didn't take any chances. So with the exception of going to work and doing my Christmas shopping in a record 30 minutes on Friday afternoon, I've been sleeping ever since. And I've been generally angry at the world, which I think is a reaction to the abrupt end of extreme stress, sleep deprivation and starting to drink Cokes again after I had quit. I'll tackle that last one in the list tomorrow and see if anything improves.

So now I wait, again. ILM has gone dark on me, I've pretty much given up on getting a response from anyone over there. But that just tells me that there's something better waiting in the wings. I'm out of a job at the end of February, and I've taken an $800/month pay cut just to ensure it lasts that long. So whatever is out there for me better show up pretty soon. But if it's always darkest before the dawn, I guess it's only fitting that it happens on the shortest day of the year. Look for the reel on my site to be updated in the next few days. Merry Christmas!

So the still life has been put off due to illness. The day after I set it up, I caught a cold. I spent this past weekend making up sick time that I took during the week. I've just gotten over it and now I'm faced with the holidays and a desperate need to clean my house. The good news though is that I'll have Thanksgiving to myself (eating turkey with Dad a week early), which gives me four solid days to crank out some new work. My mom is sending me some creepy dolls she picked up while antiquing in Kansas and that should give me more than four days of painting (and lighting) material. Apparently one is a dummy that looks like Chucky. I also picked up a book last night on lighting for photography, just to refresh myself on the basics and maybe pick up one or two new ideas.

So I've covered the suffering part. What does the silence refer to? ILM, that's what. And frankly it also refers to some of the suffering. I'm not even hearing crickets from them right now. I sent two messages last week and no response to either. I really hope if I'm no longer in the running that they'll just say so. Until they say anything, however, they will continue to hear from me.

On another note, apparently I'm not completely unemployable... I was offered a job by Sony last week. I ended up turning it down. And it wasn't because I was confident I'd get an offer from ILM; quite the contrary. Given how I felt about my interview performance, and the deafening silence from them since, I have yet to be confident about that. It was mainly because they only hire for the length of the production and I just can't see selling 2/3 of my stuff and moving all the way out there to be out of a low-paying job in a year. Now chances are I could successfully campaign to get on the next production, but who wants that kind of stress? I would much rather spend my energy doing my job to the best of my abilities rather than worrying about how long I'll be able to keep it.

I used the situation to nudge ILM to at least let me know if I was still in the running. Not a word. I wrote them again after I turned down the job, and explained that I am also in a better position to wait for the ideal job now because my contract at Collin County will likely be extended another couple of months (true--I found out the day after I got the offer). Still no response. I really hope they're just busy and that they're not the type of people to hold your future in their hands, make a decision to drop it and then just walk away without a word. I've dealt with that before. It's extremely disrespectful. And it goes against every fiber of my being to not communicate, to not even say, "I got your message, I'm really busy but I'll get back to you soon." I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for now though. If they're really recruiting like crazy, then they're busy like crazy. I'll send them a nice Happy Thanksgiving message on Monday and hope for the best, at least until I find out that all hope is lost.

Seriously, I'm a big girl. I can take "no" for an answer. What I can't take is no answer for an answer.

It's been about a month since my last post, but not a lot has happened. I've had two phone interviews with ILM. I believe I did better on the first one, which was with one person, than I did on the second one, which was with three people. But these things are never perfect. I've decided I don't like phone interviews as much as the in-person kind. I feel a lot of pressure to fill dead space. They can't see me thinking. So I come off as a rambling idiot because I start answering their questions too quickly, before I've really thought it through. Bummer. Certainly not my best interview work, although I'm not calling it a disaster.

My last phone interview was last Thursday. I don't know why it seems like such an eternity since then, but it does. Probably because I want it. And because I'm out of a job at the end of December.

I was asked a question in this interview that I've never been asked before. "What kind of classes did you take for your minor in Computer Science?" Wow, do you know how long ago that was? (I didn't really want to make an issue of that either. Not that it's relevant to what I'm capable of--that's the point. It's not.) Not that it was a bad question, actually it was a good one. But once you get in the field and start using what you know, you don't think of it in terms of classes anymore. I don't feel like I answered that question well. I answered truthfully, but I was trying to access an area of my brain that's been dormant for many years. I remembered what I still use in a general sense: languages and math. After I hung up I thought, OH YEAH Assembly Language, Data Structures, Calculus... shoot me. Just shoot me.

At least I remembered that graduate level computer graphics class I took my senior year.

Obviously the Viz Lab thought I was well prepared. They gave me a fellowship to attend. Interesting how sometimes I have less confidence in myself than others do. That is, until I'm given a problem to solve. Then WATCH OUT. There's no such thing as a problem that can't be solved. Not in my hands.

Another question was more specifically related to what I did at Multigen, which was about how I approached improving the speed of our radar module. It's amazing what you can forget when you don't see the code for two years. I might have pulled that one out in the end, but in the beginning I was struggling to make sense without giving away export controlled (i.e. federal prison-getting), proprietary information, some of which I couldn't even remember that well. I can say though that I started taking calculations out of the software and moved them one by one into the hardware shaders until we achieved an acceptable balance of speed vs. accuracy. And not only that, but I rewrote the IR Sensor module--and created its sibling, vpCamera--all using object oriented design patterns. That's something I didn't learn in school, but I thank my boss at Multigen (Scott) for encouraging me to learn it and use it. Now, I can't imagine life without it. Although often I have to because of the limitations of Actionscript.

Not feeling very confident after all that, I decided to post a code sample so they could see how I solve problems. First I asked a friend back at Multigen (Presagis) if I could use an excerpt of the code I wrote there. No go. Proprietary, legal would freak, all that. I wasn't even asking for the export controlled stuff, but still I wasn't surprised. So then I started digging in my old programs I wrote for my 2d image processing class at the lab. They were so elementary (and frankly my style left a bit to be desired at the time) that I just didn't feel like it would be putting my best foot forward. So finally I opted for a recent Flash project that not only used some 2d graphics concepts but also a few different custom classes. The artwork sucked but it wasn't mine, and unfortunately I wasn't allowed to mess with it. But the code was sound. My Multigen work was absolutely the most complex and relevant work I've done, but sometimes you just have to make the best of what you have. So I built a page explaining the project, posted the files and sent a link. And now I wait, hoping I didn't just step in it by doing that.

One thing that's really been on my mind though, even more than these other rambling idiot moments, was a tangent I managed to get off on about my work history. My mom thinks I have the most intimidating (in a good way) resume she's ever seen (she was a manager for many years so that's not your basic mom compliment). I, however, am a bit concerned over how many jobs I've had. I do want a place where I can settle down and contribute long term, and by "long term" I mean at least four years, hopefully longer. I have had that a couple of times. I've also found myself in situations I didn't bargain for and couldn't find a way to solve without taking myself out of the picture entirely. When a problem arises, my first instinct is to try to solve it, not look for the door. But sometimes finding the door is really the best thing for all involved. My experience at BWC is the perfect example of that. The needs of the interactive team grew beyond my skill set, and I could not for the life of me find a way to train myself adequately while still providing the service our customers deserved. That also made it very hard for me to try to grow the department where I thought it needed to grow, because I only had a vague sense of what that meant; I did not have the experience at that time to make the right decisions to grow it properly. So what do you do in that situation? You do what I did. You exit gracefully and bring in your own replacement, who ideally is the vision of what you believe you should have been to really succeed in that position. I was very lucky that my friend Melinda was looking for a job at that time. She had the experience and the drive to make it work, and she's doing it. She's running into the same brick walls I did, but she has the tools to plow through them. I did not. So everyone involved is better off, especially BWC. And they were without a body at my desk for all of three days. No harm done.

I never wanted to move around as much as I have. I think that happens more often to those who either don't know what they want, or are avoiding what they want by doing everything BUT that. I fall into the latter category, for many reasons I would rather not get into here. And as of this year, I am actively LEAVING that category.

Frankly I'm pretty proud of how all that worked out for me, Melinda and BWC. But you can't put all that on a resume--especially one that's too long already. You hope you can get all the words out in an interview if it comes up. I wasn't able to. But I did say that when all that happened, I had to sit down and take a hard look at where I really wanted my career to go. And now I am finally in a position to no longer be a member of the "doing everything but what I really want to" group. Once I get out of that group, and I hope that's very soon, I do plan to stay out. For good.

Tomorrow it will be a week since I had my last interview. That's really not that long. Sure feels like it though.

It sounds like I'm talking about programming but I'm not. "Code share" is when two different airlines share a flight code, so that while your Travelocity printout might say you're leaving Vegas on US Airways flight 7054, you're really leaving on United flight 1553. Now how do you, as a passenger, know this? You don't. That's my point. My luggage knew it, but the US Airways agent didn't. She had never heard of flight 7054, but when she typed it into her computer, it came up as United 1553. I never saw anyone look so surprised as she did when she typed that in and actually got something back. But I still had to go all the way out to the ticket counter and get a boarding pass from a United agent, then go back through security to a totally different terminal than where I had come from. I got there just in time to board. And the irony is that according to my baggage claim ticket, my luggage knew where it was going all along. I should have just ridden in the suitcase.

In retrospect, I probably could have just gone to the United gate and gotten a boarding pass there. But no one could tell me where that gate was except the ticket agent. Not sure why. Even the monitors didn't show the United flight, and that's because it was in another terminal. So I took the long way but at least I got here.

So I think my interview today went well. It was a group situation where you sit at a conference table and your future peers throw interview-like questions at you. I haven't had one like that before but I've certainly heard of them. Intimidating? Yes. But it also gave me a chance to give some really good answers that show the breadth of my experience and what I've learned from it all. It wasn't perfect, but no interview is. You always come out of there thinking, why did I say that? Or, why didn't I say this? But it was good practice even if nothing else comes out of it. And I got to see a real studio.

Speaking of practice, I seem to have gotten two interviews for the price of one. Before I closed up the laptop yesterday and packed it, I checked my email. There was a note from a recruiter at ILM who wanted to schedule a time to talk. So I chatted with her this morning about a position very similar to what I interviewed for at Sony. I like her approach: She told me what it paid and what the shift was right up front. I always thought it was way better to know that stuff in the beginning because it sucks to go through a long, drawn out interview process, especially where travel's involved, only to find out at the end that you can't afford to do it. It's not a perfect salary but it's about what I expected and tomorrow I'll be contacted by someone who will schedule me for a phone interview with the render support department head. That will probably happen sometime next week.

Despite how broke I am nowadays, I hope I get to go to San Francisco for an interview. I would really like to compare cities and have a real choice before I have to make a decision. And besides, someone has to be holding Citibank up, so it might as well be me. How else do you think they could afford to take over Wachovia last week?

I know it's been a long time since I've posted anything. The biggest reason is because of a missing module on my web server and an annoying licensing issue with Adobe. Movable Type will set up your image thumbnails for you if you have a certain module installed on your web server, which I don't. That means every time I do a post, I have to download the newly-updated html, add the thumbnail links by hand, and then reupload it so you can see the neat little images on the right side of the page. Well, I own one copy of CS3 and the activated license is on the desktop computer where I use it the most. I use Dreamweaver to update the links quickly with a code snippet. I want to do that on my laptop as well. But when I get in bed at night and decide I want to post something, I don't want to get back out of bed, boot up the desktop, deactivate the software, power it down, get back in bed, power up the laptop, activate the software and then do the post. And then remember to deactivate it again in case the next computer I use just happens to be the desktop. Lazy? Perhaps. But I'm more inclined to call Adobe greedy. Adobe used to let you install in two places--provided that you don't use them at the same time--without jumping through hoops to get it to work. This weekend I reread the licensing agreement and found that I'm technically still allowed to do this, but I have to actually contact Adobe to get it to work. Needless to say I haven't blocked out half a day for that phone call yet. So tonight I'll do the post and if I'm feeling particularly ambitious I'll add the links back in by hand, but if you see broken image links tomorrow, at least you'll know why.

So despite my shell scripting class being cancelled (apparently I was the only one who signed up for it), I tackled the Sony test and passed. I have an interview on October 2. I'm flying to LA on the first and back on the third... I wanted to come back on the second but I couldn't get a flight late enough to ensure I wouldn't be cutting the interview short. Sony informed me that they don't have an actual position open right now but they interview constantly for when one comes up, which usually happens rather quickly. That's fine with me. Really, it is. I look forward to finally seeing a real studio in action without having to worry about making a quick, life-altering decision in just under two weeks from now. It really takes the pressure off. Of course after I see the place and meet the people I might feel more relaxed anyway. I'll know when I find the right thing.

And yet with the pressure of that interview off, there's still plenty of pressure to be had. On Friday I agreed to do a freelance web project in my spare time. Spare??? I really like the people I'll be working for, but as usually happens when I take on a freelance job, I became immediately paralyzed with stress and was completely unproductive and resentful for the entire weekend. Sometimes it only takes one more thing and I freeze under the weight of it all. I am at an age where my free time is important to me, but I also owe a ton of money from my trip to LA and will continue to owe money as long as I keep flying to California for interviews. And then there's the whole possibility of actually moving there, which will take the most money by far. It makes sense for me to do this, and I know it's something I can do and do well. And yet it pisses me off that I need to. There are other things I want to do, like paint, write another novel in November like I did last year (check out NANOWRIMO), plan out my next festival piece, work on some images showing a creative use of light. It's all running around in my head at all times, dying to get out and become real. But I guess I had already written that stuff off anyway until the rest of my life gets settled. I still have a lot of learning left to do (Python) and this year is disappearing fast. And now I have a second job on top of it all.

So I put Python on hold for the Sony test and now I'm back on it, or at least I'm trying to be. I finally had the brilliant idea today to assign myself an actual project that would throw me in head first and really teach me something. So I contacted a (new) friend at ILM who used to have the position I would like to get, and asked him what kind of project would be relevant to the job and get me going in the language. He gave me a doozy, two in fact. Perfect. I like it when I have no idea how to start. Because by the time I'm done I can usually do just about anything. Wish I had thought of this last week, I could have worked on it all weekend. But I guess I wasn't in the right frame of mind anyway. Sometimes I guess you just need to power down for a while and get some perspective. And sleep.

Now that I have my assignment, I want it done already. Because it showed me just how far I have to go and how little time I have left to do it. It's the Sony test all over again, except no one will be grading this. I just want to be able to talk about the language like I actually know something, should I get the chance. And I think I will. In fact, I think it will be soon, which is freaking me out.

I need a week off.