The Art of Language

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving. I definitely did! I actually needed to get on and vent about a couple of things so that's why instead of taking a break until Monday I've decided to get on real quick and post.

This challenge I am planning on taking on in January is, in reality, ridiculous. To believe that I, a teenager who barely knows how to conjure up basic words, am believing myself able to create entire pages worth of french is, I know, ludicrous. I can barely write legible English! Therefore, in preparation for this challenge I have been perusing website upon website upon website searching for everything and anything that could possibly help me and I was realizing how absolutely and unbelievably difficult it truly is to understand a language. Let alone that just as a basis you have to learn thousands of words that put together any language, you then have to conjugate most of them because whether or not they are verbs there are always all these exceptions and rules that you have to follow or you will hold no chance of being understood! It is so hard to wrap the mind around and really think about it. I think we just take advantage of the fact that because we have been born surrounded by people who obviously, could talk, we therefore can speak and put together these incredibly complex, when you think about it, sentences and paragraphs of words that as soon as you try to translate into another language become a jumbled mess as you try to figure out, now, how in the Hell to communicate. I always wanted to be one of those people who were fluent in twenty languages but I'm finding I can barely speak my own! Reading about verb conjugation, specifically, since that seems to be my weakest point with French, presents issues simply because I don't even know the English words they are using to describe how to do it in French. It is maddening! This may sound, I don't know, egotistical, but I have often not had a hard time understanding concepts. Unfortunately that meant that all through elementary and middle school and even last year I could breeze through my subjects without really trying and now between Algebra 2 (for some reason I just don't get it!) and French, my brain can't figure out why the Hell I'm not just processing and understanding the content immediately. I'm trying to figure out how I need to organize all this information (I'm kind of an organizational freak when it comes to things like this) and I just can't even begin to condense it in order to get it how I want it and that is driving me insane.

On top of that the proscout event I was hoping to attend in January is now pretty much a bust. While, yes, I received an invitation, the fee to go, a whopping $800 plus getting a proper haircut/ manicure/ pedicure/ outfit/ gas for transportation/ and the additional $65 fee for a parent to come, has discouraged us kind of a lot! One of the cardinal rules of modeling is never ever pay upfront to a modeling agency because the way agencies work they are only supposed to make money when you make money. That is what encourages them to find you work, therefore keeping the system going. While, yes, I understand them asking for the money because they use it to fly out all the agencies that are coming to look for fresh talent, we simply don't have an extra thousand lying around to pay toward this thing and then have four different, rather disappointing, outcomes. First, I don't get signed. This event is not a for sure thing so I could pay all this money to not even come close to getting a contract. Second, I could get signed and then my agent never find me work. These agencies have hundreds to thousands of models signed for them and might not get every one of them jobs especially if they are not already established. Three, I get an agent and then can't work with them because I would have to move in order to have good contact with the agency. Or four, get the agent and get a job and then have to pay for my chaperon (since the job your modeling for often doesn't cover that additional cost) to get us to wherever the job is and end up putting more money out then I would be bringing in. Therefore we have decided to save a lot of money and go get whatever I need to look polished, i.e. the haircut, an outfit, mani/pedi, etc. and then visit local agencies, which would therefore supply mostly local work when starting out, and hopefully move on from there. Frankly it just makes more sense for us to do it this way and on top of that we have been hearing some pretty sketchy reviews about proscout. While some say it's the best thing since peanut butter others are saying that while it is not a scam, it is not worth the money and the odds are not great. Therefore I will be looking locally for now. In a couple of months when they return, if I have the money I will go to another open call, and if invited again, may perhaps look into going should I not have an agent by then. This is kind of off-putting simply because I finally had a set date to look forward to in which all of my modeling dreams could have come true. I'm putting my faith in though, that my local agencies like what they see and will hire me, hopefully jump-starting a career that will lead to bigger things.

Speaking of modeling I found a website that lists the different types of modeling in case you're interested. Not all modeling requires 5 ft. 10'' girls like yours truly. There is all kinds of work available for every size, shape, and height and you can read about it by clicking on the link:

The link!

By the way the picture above I actually found in another blog I was perusing and they listed a website that offers fashion templates for those interested in fashion design. I am personally aspiring to be a fashion designer and I thought that it looked incredibly helpful!

Fashion Templates

Speaking of which I have also found the following two books, one of which I own, and the other I'm pining after since it costs almost a hundred dollars and I can't bring myself to buy it just yet. The first, that I own, is called Contemporary Fashion Illustration Techniques by Naoki Watanabe and the second is called Fashion Illustration for Designers by Kathryn Hagen. The later comes complete with a disc that actually shows you how to recreate the characteristics of fabric on your designs. Here is a sample from youtube.

I'm utterly exhausted now and really need to catch a bubble bath and then some sleep.

French word of the day: fatigue which means tired. ( By the way I can't get the accent thing to work on my computer so some of these words are not exactly right).

Au Revoir!

"A love of fashion makes the economy go round." - Liz Tilberis