Being a photographer (again)

This monday i started working as a photographer, which lets me gain even more and more confidence in the path of life i've chosen for myself. Trying to become a photographer...

I guess, i should mention the details about this job, which kinda spoils the whole thing. I'm working in the shopping mall as a X-mas photographer, so i'm taking pictures of kids on santa's lap. Not really the best job you can find, but i guess i have to start somewhere, huh..? It's interesting actually and i can practice photography (and have to!) every day, even though it's not really what i would wanna do in the future - taking pictures of kids on someone's lap. Anyway, i'm not the complaining type, so i'm just happy to have this kinda opportunity. Of course, i do have a boss, but there, where i'm working, i'm the boss so to say, which is also nice i suppose. Besides, i fortunately manage to make good shots and people's comments are a big help for me to believe in myself. Comments like it's hard to pick a picture, because there's so many great ones or something like: "One is better than the previous one... and the next one's gonna be better than this one...". That actually IS nice to hear.

I'm happy i can have this experience though, because right now i can truly say, i would wanna work as a photographer on daily basis, and now i know what it would be like. It's not going too well at the moment though, because the part of the city that shopping mall is, isn't the best one, and also we're at the end of the month, which makes it even trickier, when you have to decide where you wanna spend your money. I am looking forward to December, we'll see how many customers will come. 

Made My Day!

Resizing multiple pictures with Automator

I work with pictures a lot, since that's what i do and so i have to resize them often when uploading to internet or sharing via mail, skype and so on. My biggest problem was the time i have to put into, so lately lots of pictures are just left to be without being processed, even though everyone's asking me to upload this or that shot, but i shiver from the thought of resizing 100 or 200 pictures and just promise myself to do it tomorrow and tomorrow i promise to do that the day after and i never really do a thing. So today i finally decided to google it up... And right now, i'm siting with a huge smile, relieved and a little bit angry with myself for not doing it earlier. 

I am a Mac user, so there's not gonna be any useful information for Windows users in this post, but those, who are using Mac and still don't know how to resize a batch of pictures at once, gonna love it!

I found an article about how to do it using Automator (i know, lots of people are somehow afraid of this program, but believe me - it's good!), and wanna share it with you... There's one mistake though in the article, or if it's not a mistake, then at least difference if you're using the newest OS. When you're choosing an application the article tells you to go for PREVIEW, which in my case was PHOTOS. So don't panic if you cannot find the Preview thingy. Anyway, have fun with it:

http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/index_files/access-extra-preview-features-through-automator.html#unique-entry-id-148 

Your Milly

Pumpkin cupcakes!

Yesterday i made pumpkin cupcakes and the recipe was all mine (came up with that while doing homework)... Just combined what i think had to be combined, and you know what? It turned out just beautifully! I was happy about the texture, about the form and, of course, about the taste. Baking wasn't my strong point a while ago, but i tried and tried over and over again and lately my baking's getting better. Finally! In the past weeks i made really delicious cookies and a nice tender apple pie... This week i'm up to bread pudding with custard cream and cinnamon pound cake. We'll see how that goes... I do have some more ideas which are a little bit more complicated, but since i wanna get in better shape before winter sets in, i should get easy on sweets, right? 

Practice makes perfect after all...!

Knowledge after good lunch.

Today i understood one thing completely after eating nice warm kebab for lunch. 

You know, if you want something and it's not getting out of your mind - JUST DO IT. That's the easiest way... Couple of days back i went into this junk-food mode, when i wanted pizza or kebab soo badly (the rest of junk food i don't eat...), but i told myself that it's not a good idea and tried to forget about it. The result was pretty bad... Yesterday i ended up in overeating - i ate basically everything i had at home and i didn't feel full but at some point i did feel sick! Despite that, i still was thinking about pizza. 

I guess my calorie intake was outrageous and if there would be a record of overeating on totally random food it would have to go to me. The last thing i ate was dry instant cocoa powder used for drinks - how pathetic. 

So today when i again started making plans of what i could eat INSTEAD of what i actually wanna eat i felt the urge rushing back to eat pizza or kebab, and so i just got my jacket, shoes, money and went across the street to grab myself a kebab. I did want to skip all the meals today, since i sinned yesterday, but then again i decided it's not a good way and i should just forgive myself for yesterday. After all, that kebab did make me feel full - finally!!!  There's not that much bad food when it comes to common sense (except mcdonalds, "dead" food, modified one and so on...), there's just bad amounts of it. And i know i'm not one of those who tend to overeat and i'm not obese, so why not cut a slack every once in a while and enjoy? 

Too fast.

Things are literally slipping out of my hands. It's been just over a week - not even two! - that i'm back at home, but so many things happened, that i just cannot realize where i am, what i'm doing and what for. My agenda is filled with to do lists but i cannot manage them anymore, i just postpone basically everything... I've never had it so extreme. And the faster it goes, the more i panick, the more i panic, the less i'm able to do and then the circle closes, because the less i do, the more i panic.

I should pull myself together and just do everything i have to, but above all, i just wanna run away for a while, even though i cannot afford that right now. 

My head's filled with plans, decisions that have to be made as soon as possible, tasks, requests, homework... I cannot stop thinking bout certain things that are buzzing in my mind, i cannot get a hold of my routine, i lost my regular sleeping rhythm and i'm feeling the autumn creeping into me - it's almost as if i'm going crazy!!! 

Right now, i would like to go for a walk with someone, just talk about nothing and forget what's happening. Maybe eat melon flavor ice cream and make some hot chocolate afterwards. I want that buzzing to calm down, because right now i'm in a bee hive that doesn't rest, bee hive of buzzing thoughts around me. 

I don't know if i can allow myself to push everything for a second without feeling guilty about it.

And i do need a good massage.

Me on internet page again!

And yet again, i'm on internet page :) this time cause of an official occasion, so i'm pretty happy about this one.

It's in lithuanian (sorry for all the non-lithuanian speakers) and it's about my exhibition in Lithuania, take a look: http://www.manorajonas.lt/naujienos/gyvenimas/1959-kvadratiniais-kelias-atgal-grytant-japonijon 

Natural break.

When i can't stop life gives me a natural break. 

It's so sunny and nice outside right now, but i'm here - indoors, trying to fight my flu that i got from my grandmother. That's what i get for coming back home. My nose and so the whole face feels clogged badly, headache and throat pain are here to make my days less boring as well.

I always run and make new goals, new dreams, new plans, i always forget to rest, take a break, a deep breath. As i've mentioned before i'm gonna try making my morning routine more relaxed, take the rushing out of the list, which is supposed to give me more balance. 

As for now, i have to fight off my flu and come back home safely - today's the last day in Lithuania and then i'm off to Germany, where my home, my cats, rest of the friends and university awaits. Also, practical life which i highly dislike, but well, there's no running away from that - at least not now. 

As i'm gonna enter the last year of my university it's time for me to make new future plans, which is giving me a headache. There's three of them and of course, there's always the fourth one - the unexpected one, which can be basically anything. But i will have to make my decision sooner or later and the sooner it's gonna come, the better it's gonna be. 

This blog is my little anchor of coming back to my real world, always when i travel i tend to forget about it, but when i'm back at home i always find time to sit down and write, so it became almost somewhat of a symbol of my every day life. It's slowly becoming like a diary, which i don't like too much, but as long as i don't know what to write about for big period of time in great amounts, diary will do. 

Yesterday i opened my first big exhibition and it went so much better than i've expected! I got lots of flowers and many people gathered of which quite a few offered spontaneous speeches and praised me. Everything was so new for me! I messed up my opening speech, forgot lots of things that i wanted to say and also, it's difficult for me to talk in lithuanian that fluently as i could maybe 4 years back, but well... I have some space for improvements! I came to like my pictures more and more as the exhibition went on, there were other photographers all around me who kept on taking pictures - it was really unusual, but also really nice, i cannot lie. There's gonna be an article in the paper and things like that - i just officially entered the path i wanna be on. As much as my flu is bothering me right now, i cannot forget about yesterday and that still is giving me a huge boost! My mother's birthday was just a couple days ago and i had to turn modest about the fact, that i got more flowers, than she did on her birthday... 

One woman said: "I'm sure you're gonna be famous one day and we'll be proud that your first exhibition was here.". I really REALLY hope this is gonna come true...