Enough is Enough

If you only want to read the part about animation, skip down to the happy ending under Luckily, AM Class 5 is going well.

Yeah, I know. One of the key things of becoming a great animator is having a positive attitude. I've been through a lot and I'm doing my best to stay positive...or at least pleasant when inerracting with people.

This morning I was told I will not get paid for most of the IHSS hours I worked in March! I was expecting my check to be smaller because my mom has been in the hospital and I'm not allowed to report hours if she's not specifically at home. Nevermind that I might have spent 18 hours with my mom in ER on the 19th, or at least 6 hours some days visiting her and consulting various health care professionals. The rules are set up in ways that deny fair compensation in certain circumstances like I'm in now. My mom was authorized for 24-hour care last November. Even though I frantically worked day and night to take care of her in the days leading up to her two recent trips to ER, the max IHSS will let me report in one day is 9 hours. I worked 80 hours over 4 days--I'm not exaggerating--and they'll only pay me for 36. I was on the phone all morning, looking for someone who will cut me some slack. My union rep was no help at all, which is normal, and I'm waiting to hear back from two other people. Since my mom came home for only 4 days last week then went right back to the hospital, I'll have a similar pay scenario this month. Enough is enough! Cross your fingers for me, please! :) I have tuition to pay.

I had to take my mom to ER again last Saturday and over the weekend I made the extremely difficult decision to place my mom in a nursing facility instead of returning home. She had been fine at the place she stayed at last month, and I'm hoping she'll adapt quickly at the new place. I'm still not sure how I feel about it myself. By the time I was at the age and had the income to consider venturing out on my own, my parents began needing support. Their needs slowly increased over the years until eventually I had to take care of them full time. So this is weird. I'm no mama's boy, but other than short stays with girlfriends over the years, I've never lived without either of my parents! Not having to take care of my mom 24 hours a day will allow me a long overdue chance to rest. My dad doesn't require nearly the amount of care she does, not to mention I'm only taking care of 1 person now instead of 2. Makes a big difference. Still weird.

Luckily, AM Class 5 is going well. The group I'm with under mentorage of Jason Schleifer is a lively bunch. We all seem to be having a great time and Jason is indescribably stoked about all our story ideas and the whole dynamic of our class. I was fortunate enough to come up with 2 story ideas, and everyone seemed to enjoy them in the Q&A Tuesday night, especialy the one about the cans. Even though I'll be doing the other idea for the assignment, it seemed unanimous that I do the cans one as a side project. Having nearly zero sleep in the past 3 weeks+ and using my voice so much I'd kinda got laryngitis. It was tough to present my stories in class with my scratchy voice, but I got through it. I'm waiting to descirbe the stories here until I can record my story pitch video, which is the upcoming assignment. Written text just doesn't convey the characters as well. By the time my voice clears up home stuff will have also settled down and I'll post my pitch here as soon as I can.

Sometimes when I'm frustrated with my assignments I take a break by messing around with Plastic Animation Paper. I like it because it's simple and a free download. This twirly finger test is one I did last November. It's nothing great, but before Animation Mentor I never would have thought I could even do something like this. Notice how much help the thumb needs, for example. Ick. QT Sorensen, 160k

Blocked on All Sides

The new quarter at AM has started and so far Class 5 is great. A schedule problem and last-second mentor switch (my new mentor is Jason Schleifer) meant I missed the first "mandatory" Q&A from week 1. I barely made the one last night. It was great hearing everyone's story ideas and bouncing them around. The ideas presented were good ones, with lots of potential to become great shorts. I finally found out in the Q&A that I'm in group two, which will present ideas next week. Good thing, 'cuz until just a few days ago I didn't have any clue what I would do for a story. Even now the two options I have are OK but not great. One of them is too long. The other needs a better ending. Classmates and mentor can help with that, so I'm not too worried about it. What I'm worried about is school itself. I don't know if I should continue under the circumstances. Let me explain.

Every new session, my life outside AnimationMentor.com has become increasingly complicated. Many of my options designed to aleviate complications have created further complications! Most of them are connected to my full time job as a caregiver, they have seriously affected my experience with AM, and are things I have little or no control over. I feel like I'm in one of those multi-sided D&D dice, each side with it's own exit door, but each door totally blocked by something. There are a lot of exciting things happening or in store for Class 5, I'm already missing some of them and it's only the second week! As I look down the road, it doesn't get any clearer, so I could miss even more. I am definitely not getting the full value of the course, and it's come to a point where I have to question if I'm wasting a lot of money. Out of my 15-second scene assignment in class 4 I was only able to "final" a shot or two. I just don't have the time to devote to AM because of other life stuff.

After 16 days in the hospital, my mom returned home Tuesday. She is doing "better", though physical therapy was only able to get her to a certain level while at the hospital. It is expected she will improve further and faster at home. I sure hope so. While it's good to have my mom home where she's much more comfortable, she has to be assisted every time she gets up. On top of that she's a bit disoriented, which is common, and the combination of things has kept me on high alert for the past 36 hours. We have a respite caregiver who is supposed to be able to take over for me so I can get a break (4 hours per week), but I had to just let her leave today because complications in laws and liability prevent her from doing any task related to my mom! Even though my mom is the parent who needs the most care! Because of the way it works, it is my dad who the respite worker is contracted for, because my mom is already on another program funded by the same California State agency. Even though it is a program that is supposed to provide relief for the caregiver (me), since they can only help my dad, I really don't get a break after all!