Updating the site has been a big task of mine since January and it’s a huge relief to me that it’s launched. But I’ve put off a lot of work since then!

What have I been up to since being laid off?

The week I came back from Hong Kong, I was laid off. When I got to my art classes, I was 2 weeks behind. It took me about a month to catch up on my assignments.

The classes I’m taking are Color Dynamics, where we learn about the technical aspects of color and their interactions with each other. I LOVE this class, though it requires a lot of work and time to complete all the experiments!

The other class I’m taking is called Figure Sculpting. This class is from 6PM-10PM on Wednesdays, which is a little draining for me. But, I learn an incredible amount every week! It’s great to form, shape, and work with my hands again. This was a great follow-up to the figure drawing classes I’ve taken the last few semesters.

Then, after catching up, I needed to get my web design portfolio and up. So I worked every extra minute on this site’s revamp!

Additionally, I’ve been helping out with a few projects:

• Volunteering for Youth Build Immigrant Power (YBIP)
  YBIP is a local group of Chinese immigrant youth that have been empowering themselves with knowledge of the Oakland Public School System. They have recently been trying to ensure that the A-G Requirements (the requirements for admission to UCs and most colleges) become the high school graduation requirements. (Believe it or not, a lot of students aren’t told that these requirements are different!)

  I’ve been volunteering with a portion of their group called “Art Circle,” where I guided them in forming a Wordpress blog and keeping it up to date. You can check out YBIP’s blog here: http://ybip.wordpress.com/

• Laney College
  The school has been working on a large website revamp–moving into an OpenSource environment (WordPress MU). I’ve been helping with some of their documentation and tutorials for staff and faculty on how to use Wordpress.

So in short, I’ve been keeping myself rather busy!

What I want to do from here

I’m really excited about the future and how I’m in total control of what I want to do. It’s a very relieving and very empowering feeling! A burst of “I’m in charge of my own destiny!!” feeling!

I’m excited to meet new people. I’m excited to reconnect with old friends. I’m excited to build and develop my own designing and art skill sets!!

Here’s some things I have on my list of to-dos!

In the web-world…

• Look for web design jobs!
  That’s right, I’m here to help for any web designing needs that you might have. Just contact me and let me know the scope of your project, and what you’d like me to do. :)
• Create business cards.
  I’ve been collecting and researching business card designs. When meeting folks, I felt so empty handed without something to give them. I need this as part of my personal branding! :)
  Btw, this is an AWESOME collection of business card designs for graphic designers: The Design Cubicle – 50 Creative Business Cards of 50 Graphic Designers
• I will network more on the social web.
  If you’re reading this, I’d love to meet you! Meet me on Twitter! Send me an @craisin reply or a quick message to say hello! :)
• I will begin reviewing on Yelp!
  I currently have 0 reviews, but you can check out my blank site here if you’d like! http://craisin.yelp.com/ Reviewing restaurants has been an important to-do for me. I eat a LOT, and I looovvvee trying new restaurants, so I think I really need to get more into this community.
• Learn more about SEO
• A couple of Craisin.com tasks:
  • Catch up on some posts
    I’ve put off for the sake of getting the redesign out! Including: recap of LaidOff Camp SF, recap of the Super Secret Nintendo Event I attended a few weeks ago!
  • Blog regularly again!
    Goal: post at least once a week!
  • Make my site iphone/mobile phone compatible
    I’ve heard it’s currently all kinds of slow right now! I think this will be a fun design/development project, too.
  • Keep Picasa pics Updated
    Update Picasa photos with some more recent photos, and get back into the habit of doing this often!

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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

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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!

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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.

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