I’m a Caribbean Girl.

This year I decided to do j’ouvert for labour day celebration. I had never been, not even in my country. J’ouvert “is a large street party during Carnival in the eastern Caribbean region. J’ouvert is a contraction of the French jour ouvert, or dawn/day break. J’ouvert is celebrated on many islands, including Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Aruba, Barbados, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, Sint Maarten, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands. It is also a feature of New York City’s West Indian Day Parade held on Labor Day, in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn and Notting Hill Carnival in London, both areas that have a large Caribbean ex-pat communities.” (source)

My friend Kim and I started the night off by picking up a friend at a nearby party where I was introduced to a cousin who I hadn’t seen in over 15 years. We brought him along and his cousin.

We started walking to the general direction of the bands but they were steel bands not the actual j’ouvert party. We didn’t know this. We had walked over 20 blocks. Frustrated we decided to call it off. One of us got on the train and the rest of us started walking back to my apartment. Lucky for the rest of us remaining: we met the actual band coming up the street — so we got in.

We started dancing in the street to the music (also trying to avoid the folks wearing oil and paint). One of my friends showed up with some friends and danced with us.

We went all the way to the end ( it was probably 7am) and headed back to my place to shower and sleep (by 9am).

We got up at 12:30 to head to the parade. The best part of the parade is the food (to me).

Unfortunately the parade wasn’t great and we west Indians say that we won’t ever go again but we end up there anyway.

It was 10 years ago that John purchased Jadersworld.com for me. I had been working with him for a year.

Right now, it’s only parked but the tutorials that I wrote still exists. Here’s the very first one.

I added a quick splash on jadersworld.com to celebrate a decade of my very first domain (not my first site). I’m also giving some things away! You would have to follow @jerlyn on twitter and join designladynyc on facebook. The winner is completely random but it doesn’t hurt to comment to increase your luck!

Yup that’s me 10 years younger .

I had my very first hike today (in american standard). In the Caribbean, our “hiking” is more of a requirement and way of life so it definitely baffles me that people do this for recreation. We used to carry water on our head from the rivers and walk distances when we shopped for groceries, when we headed to the beach and when we went to school.

However it was certainly amazing. I went with Steph (who is the most experienced out of all of us), Yvonne and Mark. We hiked the trails near Sloatsburg. The trains got me there an hour and a half later than we anticipated but we must have covered over 7 miles to get to this beautiful lake (which was worth it) from 3pm to 7:30.

I am so proud of us. We went over boulders, went downhill and climbed uphill. I was psyched mostly because I was out of NY for the afternoon.

Yesterday I had a bootcamp course so the trail was challenging for me since my muscles are still sore. I also had very little sleep (that I can blame on the neighborhood party that took place a block from me). So I took 5 hour energy and “sucked it up!”

I certainly hope to do it again! This time, hopefully the subway will be running on schedule… And I get my much needed sleep! Good night friends!

I’ve been really into Graphic Novels lately because I discussed a project with some of my close friends and they thought it was brilliant. I decided to work on a graphic novel (to add to my other millions of projects — I intend to complete something before I’m 30 so have patience with me) because I love to draw and I might consider having a gallery show out of it. This also means that I also get to write – Joy! The novel will have 14-15 short stories, the great part is that they are quite humorous to tell (I just hope they translate well with drawings).

I really enjoy drawing (the following image is a pen drawing from the Design Lady NYC fan page ) and I enjoy telling stories so I’m pretty excited. The only thing I will dread is writing everything — it’s difficult enough to blog.
By the way, don’t you just love the internet? I searched for How to make a graphic novel and these two links came up:

1. How to Make a Graphic Novel on EHow

2. How to Create a Graphic Novel on WikiHow

However, books aren’t a bad idea either.
——————–
I found a document by Ruth McNally Barshaw, author of the Ellie McDoodle books – www.ruthexpress.com

How to create a Graphic Novel

1. Write a story. For best results it should be a really good story, revised and honed until it’s great. Script form is best. Pretend you’re writing a movie. Think about stage directions and character movements.

2. Create character sheets so you know what the characters look like from all sides. Keep them consistent from page to page (a sure sign of professionalism).

3. Decide on the look of your graphic novel. This is entirely up to you. Realistic – cartoony – abstract – superhero – manga – there are a million styles. Do what you love, and what’s easy for you to do, since a GN is a huge undertaking and you want to still be interested in it when you’re in the middle of it.

4. The lettering: Use a nice font on the computer or learn to hand letter. Legibility is what matters most. Decorative fonts are hard to read.

5. The layouts: Use variety to your advantage (if the tone is supposed to be boring, then it’s ok to use boring art). Dynamic camera angles keep the reader wanting to see more.

6. Drawing skills: Even the pros still take art lessons sometimes. Push yourself to do your best. Push yourself to always improve, even if you’re already great. Draw from life. Draw people, animals, plants, everyday things. Draw scenery. Try to take things down to their essence using the fewest number of lines possible.

7. Roughs: Draw in pencil to start. Don’t ink until your book is completely done and you’ve thought about revisions.

8. Intended audience: Your audience is your first concern. Make sure they understand what you’re saying.

9. The hook: The thing that reaches out and grabs the audience. Hook them early and give the audience a reason to read beyond the first page – and a reason to keep turning the pages.

10. Pacing: Give the appropriate amount of time to what needs to be said or accomplished. Example: Person is running to the store. Do you show every frame in a series of panels? Do you show him running in one panel? Do you just use narration and no picture? It depends on how important the action is to the story.

11. Action: If you can show it in pictures, don’t say it in the words.

Keep your characters moving, keep the plot moving forward.
Once you have all that mastered, try this:
Spice it up with quirky stuff.
Use fun words and lots of expression in the characters’ faces.
Use metaphors and similies and symbolism.
Be yourself. Do what only you can do.
Play with contrast. On a white field, the eye is drawn first to black, and vice versa.
Repeated motifs or themes or callbacks are fun for the audience to notice and remember.

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I’m currently reading AYA of Yop City by Marguerite Abouet illustrated by Clement Oubrerie. I read the first volume and decided to check out the other two.

(images from Amazon.com)

This is the first one that I read.

This is the final version.

What Graphic Novels are you into?

Have you ever created a graphic novel?

“Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth.” – Martin H. Fischer

Super random post.

As my domain makes 10, I am reflecting on the years past. Not longingly, but in absolute content as I get older — and hopefully wiser.

I remember John Boyd telling me that I would become even more conservative as I grow up. I thought that wouldn’t happen, I was a total liberal “blogger” — the term wasn’t coined back then when I installed greymatter to my server. Noah Grey wrote greymatter back then and it was in PERL – here’s an interview back in 2001. I’m reminiscing because my domain makes 10 years in a couple weeks. It was purchased by John when I was 15 (Yup, I’m 25).  I had began working for him when I was 14 years old and I really didn’t know where the internet would have taken me. I had learned HTML and CSS after being bored of yahoo JAVA chat rooms. John introduced me to PERL and PHP (which I wish I had started with first).

My domain’s a decade old!

(Layout before the domain — so embarassing) I used Paint Shop Pro, DHTML, pop up window.

Layout in College.

It has been more than 10 years since I wrote my first line of code (I didn’t celebrate that). I wasn’t sure of where the internet was going. I had opened my life to everyone who would read it. I am a tinsy bit more conservative now that’s for sure. I’m not sure why. My designs have improved thankfully (even if I am failing at my own blog redesigned — working on it).

In high school, I wrote about my family. My parents had gotten divorced, we hadn’t even known about it. They still lived together. I wrote about my feelings. I connected with a great deal of kids who used the internet as an outlet (they could have been pedophiles — who knows). I lived in the Virgin Islands and I dealt with the regular teenage angst… I wasn’t influenced by the world. I was known as Jader (when people call me this now, it takes awhile to process).

I wrote a tutorial on vectoring.

I used to be addicted to Half Project… I’m still hoping that they remove their hiatus:

In college, I wrote about parties I attended, guys dated. Heart break was completely new to me since I was simply a  good student and saved (yup completely Christian).

Now I live in New York City (this has nothing to do with my beliefs by the way).

I wrote about my life with my ex when we first moved in together in Queens, NY. I felt there wasn’t much to write about except corporate life and responsibilities.

After I moved to Brooklyn, I wrote my adventures on my blog now that I can see New York in a different light — sans the dating life of course. I realized that some things need to be kept private but I don’t ditch the opportunity to write about bad people (bad clients, people who threaten lives or racist people). I prefer writing about things that inspire or motivates. Life’s short, you should continue to be happy and avoid bitter or exclusively opportunistic people.

Welcome to my  celebration of 10 + years living on the internet. Look forward to something new in the next few weeks. I’m not a millionaire yet though.

As soon as I realized that I could escape into tiny printed words and create any fantasy that I desired, I became absolutely addicted. It began when my mother taught me how to read.

I remembered my first book without pictures. I can’t remember how old I was but I remembered when my mom handed it to me, I asked her, “Mummy*, where are the pictures?” I remembered that I frowned. My mother sat down and explained how to visualize the words and imagine the scenes from the book. I sat with her, closed my eyes as she read a few sentences and imagined the characters being me and anyone else that I chose. I created them, sometimes not specific — tall or short, genderless, fat, skinny — I controlled the characters. I don’t remember reading many books with images after that. The first book without photos that I ever read was the Education of Little Tree which I found out later has a great deal of controversy now that I’m an adult. I found it again while passing by Strands Book Store in NYC.

Photo credit: Propeller Books.

It was probably 75 cents, a steal really. I’m a tiny bit appalled when books are that inexpensive but I bought it again to remind me of my childhood. I don’t remember what the story was about now since it’s been many years. However, I hope to reread it and for 75 cents, it’s not that bad.

This was my childhood in Wesley, Dominica:

For much of my childhood, I lived in Wesley ( a small village in the island of Dominica — Wesley, was named after the methodist, John Wesley) with my grandparents. It was a simple community with mostly farmers. Next to our house was a garden that led to a drop into a valley — it was very beautiful. Whenever I got a new book to read, I would sit next to that area overlooking the valley and imagine myself in new worlds, countries, and cities that I’d never been to.  I’d have careers dreamed up, lifetimes imagined, families created etc. My grandparents had no electricity (or running water) so most of my time spent reading was during the day before twilight. I was warned by my grandparents that the Kerosene lamps would make us blind or “strain our eyes” — oddly enough, I still have 20/20 vision *knock on wood.*

By the time I was 9, I had read most of the books in the small library in our village. I had also read many of the books and encyclopedias that my parents sent us from St. Croix. I was into Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, James Joyce, etc. Then a friend of mine introduced me to a woman from the U. S. who had moved into our village. She had a huge collection of Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, V. C. Andrews and Goosebumps (some of my favorites back then). She would distribute the books much like the library (writing our names down and the books we took).

Childhood in the Virgin Islands:

When I moved to St. Croix, I was exposed to the rest of the series that I missed out on: more R. L. Stine, V. C. Andrews… and I was exposed to Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, etc. I continued reading. My mom had a great collection of romance novels that I absolutely abhorred so she purchased books that I was into also and our apartment ended up looking like a library (still sort of does).

Now:

With the digital age and my own reasons for not getting the iPad or Kindle (well that, and financial reasons), I still read books. The best year that I have had in NYC was actually reading 86 books while riding back and forth to work for a year. I’ve been more into podcasts than books lately but I’m writing a few myself. I have two book cases filled with books currently.

I love reading science fiction however, my love of history and people allows me to enjoy non-fiction and biographies. For a period of my life I read self-help books but realized that, according to the subject, many of the “help” isn’t applicable to your experiences. I certainly adore a great mystery novel on my downtime. Here’s list of my books that I’ve read here on Visual BookShelf.

Which genres are your favorites? What got you into  books?

*We spell Mommy as Mummy in Dominica since it’s British influenced. I’ve only started writing mom instead of mum when I attended Junior High.

Does it have to all the time?

Or can it be told
Possibly in a haiku
I will let you know…

This past Friday, I decided to check out a live poetry reading/open mic/poetry slam in my neighbourhood, since I’m sick. To be honest, I wasn’t really into reading poetry. Although I have favorites like Langston Hughes, James Joyce, Maya Angelou that I grew up with, I tend to stay away when people ask me to read their poetry. I have, however, written so many of them that I hope to publish them soon (they are being edited).

It might be because I assumed it was just angst or frivolous things that I wouldn’t be bothered with or just me not being amused. I used to prefer reading short stories.

However, this Friday changed all that. I had prior plans that got canceled and I walked around the neighborhood with someone and we went to a gallery with many people gathered. They asked us whether we would be interested, all they ask was for a $5 donation (fair).

We sat and I enjoyed it!

I recognized one guy from the reading. His name is Brad Bathgate aka Blue. I encountered him on the train last year January 2009. He was selling his book “Pretty Ugly,” I purchased it with the last $10 I had in cash. This time around, he was carrying a book that I also wanted that day but couldn’t afford called, “Don’t beat your kids or they will turn out like me” — I bought it this time around.

Some impressive recitals were also done by Yung Remix (an impressive 16 year old kid who rapped and it’s on his youtube page), Mike, Nikki Dee, Blue, Soulful John, etc. (I hope I spelled their names right).

Most of the deliveries had me close to tears. I look forward to attending more of them.

I know that this is late but I went to see The Last Airbender which came out a little over a month ago. That was the last 3D movie that I saw (besides The Inception screening). I liked The Last Airbender graphically. I didn’t know the original cartoons so I didn’t have the disappointment that many people had. I anticipated a followup movie because of the duration of the movie so while everyone shouted vulgarities while exiting the theatre, I thought: What brilliance! What visual delight! I want more! I can’t wait to see the other!

Anyway, that was M. Night Shyamalan’s version. I went online and decided to see the cartoons when someone asked me whether it was similar to the cartoons. I can answer now: No, it wasn’t. However, I do expect movies to be different from the original of anything. That’s why they hire new writers to make it sort of the same, but not quite (Don’t get lost).

I watched the entire 3 seasons/books of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I got really addicted. I saw the final episode of season 3 yesterday after a month long obsession, much like I saw LOST and felt like I wasted my life away. However, these seasons was worth it. I do love cartoons and comic books so that helped but now I know what happens to the Firelord (Go watch/rent it yourself).

I saw all the “streamable” seasons on Netflix (you have to be logged in as a Netflix Member to see these results).

Book 1

In the first book of the Avatar saga, two siblings discover a boy named Aang who’s been frozen in a block of ice. But the minute they thaw him out — and the world learns he’s the Avatar they’ve been waiting for — his destiny takes a dizzying turn. With a crop of new friends, instant celebrity status and the ruthless Fire Nation on his tail, can a 12-year-old boy stay the course on saving the world?

Book 2

Can a mischievous 12-year-old boy overcome youthful and carefree ways and master his special powers over the four elements? Join unlikely Avatar Aang as he and friends Katara and Sokka leave the Northern Water Tribe and continue their journey so that Aang may master the element of Earth. In a future world torn between the elements, the Avatar is the only hope for the citizens of the warring Air, Water, Earth and Fire nations.

Book 3

As the third season of this Emmy-winning animated series unfolds, Aang wakes up to two significant surprises: The first is that he’s trapped aboard an enemy ship of the Fire Nation, and the second is that he has a full head of thick, black hair. Meanwhile, as Aang’s fellow prisoners Katara, Sokka and Hakoda explain the series of events that brought them to their current circumstances, Prince Zuko journeys home to face his father.

Honestly, I don’t care if I’m judged by this. Those were pretty good shows.

I’m still processing the thought that my cell phone is an extension of myself. It’s quite sad actually. However, I use it to always be connected to social media, emails from work and my friends.

Anyway, I bought a case a few months ago and it’s sadly broken now.  My phone stopped charging correctly and I had to get it replaced. The Sprint Store decided to replace it for free (well, it’s insurance not quite free) I decided to get a few new cases to match certain outfits or if it gets broken again.

This was the old one.

The new ones were relatively cheap.

I really love this one.

However, I’m using something similar to my first.

What vanity cases have you purchased?

A great deal of friends love the profile photo that I have up on facebook right now. It was also in a previous post (I had faux glasses on and I was pouting). It was taken by Jerome “newsy,” who I am only familiar with through the podcast: Keith and the Girl (I also wrote about them in an entry here).

I think newsy is a pretty talented Photographer (his website is here and I really loved what he did with Patrice’s pictures in the past) and I decided to post some of the other photos that he took in Black and White (with me in them).

This is Cole from Bama to Brooklyn. She actually introduced me to Patrice (who runs one of my favourite sites Hell and Heartaches) and Newsy.

Cole and I used to work together at a previous Agency. She’s really an awesome person to know and believe it or not she’s really good at singing “Gin and Juice” by Snoop Dogg at Karaoke. I always have a good time when I hang around her and her friends!

Haha! Who gave me a mic?

I think this is a favourite of mine because of the “motion”.

These women are just amazing! Be sure to check them out (Cole and Patrice) and Jerome’s work (click the pic below to go to his site!)