I've been doing a lot of thinking as of late.
Since Rob and I got back from Detroit, I've been having dreams about going to school for animation.
As you know, I've gone back and forth about school a lot. I've wanted to go. I mean, I liked my program at MATC even if the school sucked. But when I moved back to Chicago, going to Columbia felt like getting gang fucked up the ass without lubricant. Since then, I've been on the lookout for a school I can go to where I can really pursue my dream job without putting myself in debt for the next twenty years.
It's true what I've said: you don't have to go to school to be a brilliant animator. Most animation schools are an utter rip off, giving sub standard education for way too much money, more oriented for aimless rich kids than impassionated animators. And you don't have to go to school to do great animations.
But you know what? I want to go back.
I want to go back, to a school with good faculty, at an affordable price and a decent animation program.
I realized this when I got the new job that I lied through my teeth to get.
It's a decent company near as I can tell, and a liveable income. But I don't want to spend my life as a secretary, even at a good company. I had a better vision for myself, and the fact that I'm not doing enough toward it has been depressing me.
I'm dealing with this in many ways. I put my animation projects on the back burner, as I poured out my ideas for the comic and the paint series. Now, I'm going back to those. But I'm also thinking about the route toward doing that stuff. I'd like to be a professional animator. I really would like that. It sure beats the fuck out of filing and proofreading.
And as I said, I've been dreaming about Kalamazoo Valley. A lot. They've recurred, atleast a couple of times a week.
While I don't think I need to go to school to be an artist or an animator, I know that if it's what I want, and I go to the right place, that it certainly can't hurt.
 When I mustered up my doubts about moving it was based on feeling that it was for the wrong reasons. That I was too used to moving, that I was in a bad rut here financially. That I just might be running away. I told myself I would not leave unless it was for the right reasons.
Is going to a school where even people who hate the education system as much as I do sing the praises of how brilliant the faculty a good reason? Is the fact that schools in Michigan are some of the best in the country a good enough reason? Is having a school that offers a program in my dream job for only $1500 a year a good enough reason?
 All of these are very good reasons to move, I think.
They are damned tempting, in the very least.
Tomorrow I start my new job. I'll have ample time to assess how I feel about my job and my situation here before I make any real decision. I don't have to leave town until the New Orleans trip in early February, either, so I really will be here long enough to get a sense of how I feel about this town.
But that said, Kalamazoo isn't entirely out of the picture. And it might be just what I've been looking for...

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