Captain’s Log: Day 93. Okay, just kidding!! I don’t really know how many days I’ve spent on the revamp! I started working on a new design back in November when I had spare time. Since January, this has been one of my major priorities!

Well? What do you think?? :D

Reasoning

Over the years, I’ve tried different styles for my site. It’s been most recent that I began to (re)understand the importance being TRUE to yourself, and LOVING and EMBRACING who you are. I’ve tried more professional-esque designs in the past, but after a few months, they seem so bland and stale as a representation of ME.

Related to the idea of being true to yourself, I’ve also began to understand the importance of TRANSPARENCY, especially on the internet. Anyone can Google my name and find parts and bits about my life. But I want them to see me as a greater whole. THIS is the central location for your research on Estella Tse.

Thus, I decided to incorporate a LOT more content on my site, just like how I used to back in 2006 and earlier. A few new things you can explore:

• My Portfolio – includes my web designs and a lot of my latest artwork!
• Photos – directly imported from my Picasa account. (No commenting available via my site’s interface yet, but feel free to comment via Picasa’s interface!)
• Find out more about me

Please feel free to take a look around, and ENJOY! :D

Contine Reading More… »

I just watched WATCHMEN last night, IMAX at the SF Metreon 10:45PM showing.

Bottom line: READ the graphic novel before you watch the movie–you WILL appreciate what an incredible job they’ve done putting together the movie.

I read the Watchmen comics a couple of months ago in anticipation for the hype for this movie. I thought the comics were put together fantastically: amazing details and aesthetics, well thought out storyline, and I guess I loved it most for its social commentary about our world, its people, and how we behave.

The movie did the novel justice! You can tell that they put a TREMENDOUS amount of thought into every portion of the movie–there were no accidents for anything that they did in the movie. They summed up a lot of the information brilliantly (using the intro to the movie to summarize visually what had happened with the first generation Minutemen), and knew which portions did not need to be included in the main movie storyline. For example, they chose not to explain how Rorschach chose his costume, which is secondary information to the main conflict and purpose of the movie. And as much as I understand the brilliant parallel illustrated in the comics, I’m sooooo glad they didn’t have the “Tales of the Black Freighter” included!!!

The MUSIC for the movie was AWESOME! As my Thierry put it: “1st thought, wow, the music licensing bill for watchmen must have been huge.”

I’m glad that the movie writers decided to modify the original storyline to use something more uhhh modern and I guess believable (”believable” is in a relative sense) ending. Even so, they were able to capture the same effect, the same message in the movie. (Brent and I were saying that this might have been an ending that actually made more sense than the comics. But… it was the 80s–what can you expect? hahah)

I think without reading the graphic novel, there’s a chunk of respect for the movie that would go unnoticed. This was THE unfilmable graphic novel, after all. It’d also seem too long and probably confusing at parts.

Parents really shouldn’t bring their kids to this movie, lest to learn a lesson about checking movie synopses and ratings before going to the theater :x

<3 Roscherman (but… not in that way… you know what I mean.)

Wear a White Knot on Thursday wherever you are. whatever you are doing.

http://www.whiteknot.org/

The California Supreme Court will be hearing the arguments to invalidate Prop 8 which banned same-sex marriage. The result of this case will impact the fight for equal rights throughout the country. On Thursday, show the world how much support Marriage Equality has by wearing your White Knot and telling people why.

100,000 Person March

http://www.100000march.org/sfmarch.html
THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 8AM – 1PM WEAR WHITE IN SOLIDARITY
Please visit, join, and invite all your friends to the original facebook event page that started the 100,000 March by clicking here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=68292490618

The court case challenging Prop 8 will be heard on March 5th in San Francisco – and rather than watching from behind the media’s eye, I challenge you to be in front of the cameras.

Be present outside the court to show the judges how much we support overturning 8. Don’t wait and react to a decision, go out and show you will fight for equality. No matter what the courts decide, this will be a landmark case in determining if the rights of any minority are safe in our society, so now’s the time to take a stand. If you’re able please come stand outside the courts and wear white in solidarity.

And once you do don’t just settle for your own action, bring a friend, tell a coworker, bring all your allies. The more visual support we garner, the harder it is to silence the need for justice.

I’ve heard talk from various people about doing this, and not just getting a handful of supports or a few hundred, but 100,000 people. That is a very lofty goal and it will take all of us pooling our resources, calling our allies and giving our time to achieve that. But if we do – that sends a huge message. However because this is such a lofty aim, organizations are less likely to put their name on it because of the risk. So thus I’m just taking this into my own hands and trying to network the college kids and hoping that together our network can do this. We should be the ones standing up on our own without an organization telling us to, and this begins with you and me. Hope to see you in San Francisco!

*UPDATE*:
Thursday, March 5 is the ONLY day they will be arguing the case… There will only be one day of arguments and then the judges get 90 days to decide.
We have ONE shot and no second chances to make a statement outside the courthouse… so PLEASE COME! There will be press conferences by the lawyers afterwards – all on March 5 – and the opposition is going to be there in full force so we need to mobilize to make sure we’re the dominant voice!

———————–
You know I’LL be there to show my support! Hopefully see you there! I’ll be wearing my WHITE polar bear hoodie (if it’s not raining to hard)!!!!

A few months ago, I received word that my life-long friend Alex was getting married. (HO!) Alex is part of my Toronto crew, where my mom’s best friends live. We have a “kids” group, all eight of us numbered from 1-8, from eldest to youngest. Alex is our “yut-goh” (Older Brother #1). Two years ago, Sandy (Older Sister #2) was the first of the kids group to get married. This year, all of us went to Hong Kong for Alex’s wedding.

Taking advantage of this time off to go shopping and eat, my family and I decided to take 2 weeks off for this trip.

Below is a narration/summary of my trip in words.
If you prefer to skip the words and just SEE our pictures, you can go to these links for the HK trip photos: Pics of everything BEFORE the Wedding and Pics of Wedding and everything AFTER.

Contine Reading More… »

A LOT has happened since the beginning of 2009.

MOVING FROM THE PAST:
The first week of January, I spent prepping my team for my 2-week vacation off in Hong Kong. This week went pretty smoothly as I distributed my Lead tasks off to Will and Hanna, each to be the caretakers of the rest of the team. At the end of that week, my team was cut in half due to layoffs. My last day before Hong Kong was spent mostly adjusting to a huge slash in Operations, something which obviously was an emotional hit for me and the rest of the Leads.

Then, I went to Hong Kong for two weeks for Alex’s wedding, which was great to go back to HK for dedicated SHOPPING time!

NOTE: For those that are looking for an AWESOME place to go shopping in HK (for women’s clothes) I suggest a wholesale market called “Hong Kong Industrial Centre.” Get off at Lai Chi Kok, take the “C” exit, step out of the train station exit and turn around, walk along that side of the block and you’ll see on your left a big huge driveway that says “Hong Kong Industrial Centre”. winner! Clothes there are SUPER cheap because the boutiques buy them from these folks. Also, I didn’t have to bargain or anything since the prices were SO cheap due to the New Years sales. Only problem is that you generally can’t try anything on unless you pay for it; then you can try different sizes or colors–but be sure to ask them to confirm first!

I’m still collecting my bro/mom’s pics to blog about our trip, but to say the least, it was a long time to be spending 24/7 in extremely small quarters with family. We’re all very used to reverting back to our old ways, and I think so much time together makes us forget respect amongst other things. I’ve discovered that my parents are reaching an older age, and they’re not as sharp as they used to be, and that I am often unforgiving of these “flaws” that are uncovered. Embarrassed to admit, my old habits that sometimes resurface are to see these flaws, point them out, and maybe throw some salt on it too. Bad. I know.

I came back from HK and was laid off with the bulk of remaining employees at Embark. I’ve been telling people that I’m okay with it, and that this truly IS an opportunity for me.

INTO A BRAND NEW START:
I’ve started my 2 art classes, “Color Dynamics” and “Figure Sculpting”, which are keeping me busy since I’ve missed a couple of sessions. I absolutely SUX at color and don’t understand the technicalities of when to use what or how they even work. So far, the class has taught me a lot already about how to make some colors pop, or how colors drastically change once placed next to different colors.

Figure Sculpting is fun, being able to play with clay again! I noticed that I really like to keep my clay smooth, while other folks clump their figures together in order to get the mass. I’ve only attended one session so far but I’ll be sure to post pics from both these courses soon.

Also keeping me busy while not in class is working on the redesign for this site. I’ve gotten a lot done now that I have more time to dedicate to it. I’ll be using some hand-drawn illustrations to use as part of the design, but the more I incorporate it into a template, the more I want to just hand-draw the rest of it for consistency. Tempting, but I’m afraid this might take longer and might not be necessary. Right now, I’m just going with the flow to see how things go. One thing for sure: I’m glad I took all the time I needed to “ink” in the pencil sketch I had with the Wacom pad. This proved to save me a lot of time in cropping the pic for web use!

Today was a big milestone for me.

I went home and told my mom and dad that I’ll be moving in with Brent.
Freaking out, my mom’s first reaction was, “Are you planning to like… marry him?”
THANK YOU, TRADITIONAL CHINESE MENTALITY.
Of course, what she was concerned about was what others would think–what other people would say if they found out her daughter was UNMARRIED, living with a MAN. I mean that entails that we’re “DOING IT!!!!!” But to be honest, she was very understanding of it. And although I know that she purely 100% would prefer for me to live home, I appreciate that she was able to try to understand that I’m learning to “grow up” on my own.

The events and course of things that have happened within the last week, I hope that my parents will one day understand and know that I don’t just slack off and spend most of my time on the internet doing nothing, which can easily be their perception. They don’t really know what I do anymore, and I admit that I stopped letting them know. I guess this happened due to repeated dinners with my mom when I’d try to tell a little about my day and it would be overshadowed by her own issues and problems. I stopped being communicative with them when they reverted in treating me like I was still in high school.

Anyway, today, they were very respective and supportive of my decision. Yeah, it’s really not that big of a deal since I’ve mostly been living here most of the time anyway (I’m statistically Brent’s roommate!), but I know to them it is. I anticipate that this will allow me to be friends with my parents again, or at least be on better terms with them.

I feel like this last week was a reawakening of new ideas, putting the problems and challenges of the past behind me. I feel like this dude right now:

Liggghhhttt ouuurrr darrkkkkeeesssst hooouuurrrrrr!!!

Take THAT, Unicron swine!!!