Hidden Desires

The Quest Continues…

Lady Kaze — Wed, 04 May 2011 01:15:12 +0000

As of April 26th, 2011 my mother passed away from lung cancer which had metastasized into her bones and brain… it was a sad and depressing to watch her go but I’m happy she’s no longer in pain. Now she can rest peacefully with God and be with her parents once more. It was nice to see my grandmother and aunt from Florida and my other aunt from Georgia (who came up for the funeral) for the first time in about two and a half years. A few of my friends came out to the service too which was nice, I feel like they game me strength. Especially my longest, closest friend Maria who lives right up the road from me. I was thankful I had her to walk to the grave site with while my brother, father, uncle and other male relatives were being the pole bearers. It’s amazing how someone close to you can give you strength to stand in hard times.

On a lighter note I may finally have a job soon. I had an interview today for a graphic design position. I’m supposed to have a follow up interview in the next day or two. Then on next Wednesday I have a Skype interview with a woman from my sorority’s International Headquarters for a position within IHQ. I’d like to have the graphic design job cause I’d get experience but it’s only part time where the IHQ job is full time, salary, and with benefits. I’m torn… But at least it looks like my never ending quest may finally come to an end soon. I can’t wait.

The Never Ending Quest

Lady Kaze — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 22:14:03 +0000

For the past few months I’ve been on what seems to be a never ending quest to find a job. Sure I could work as a cashier somewhere if I really need to but I mean, a REAL job. A big girl job. A graphic designer position, or something close to it. I’ve rewritten my resume about 20 times and tried really hard to write cover letters (these suck btw, I hate writing them) but it seems like I’ll never get hired! I did have a opportunity come up where a guy from The Creative Group (TCG) called me and asked if I’d like to work for some company as a Web Support Specialist a few weeks back. I said yes of course because the job sounded perfect for what I wanted to do. But I have a feeling I wasn’t what these people were looking for. =/ What am I supposed to do? I know I don’t have any professional experience but I’ve been doing it all freelance for almost 10 years! And when I say freelance I mean free, freelance. I’ve never charged anyone a single cent. Well, except for my one friend, who paid me with CDs…but still! I need income! What am I supposed to do to make myself more appealing to employers? I’m a hard worker and a fast learner…please, just give me a chance!! =(

New Layout and Other Things

Lady Kaze — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:01:24 +0000

So, I was a little bit frustrated with the last layout because it was coded poorly and didn’t work properly on Windows OS. Thus, Hidden Desires 3.0 is born! This features some of my own photography and a new tag line for the blog. I also chose black and green as a change of colors because the last two layouts have been blue of some kind. I hope nothing is broken, I tried to make sure it all works but some how something always slips through. At some point I plan to start making new blog avatars for myself but I think that will have to wait till I get my Mac back.

Oh yes, I don’t think I posted about this, this is a new development in my life. Actually there’s two new developments, but I’ll talk about the Mac first. So on March 28th I took my Mac Book Pro (2006 model) to the Apple Store to get the computer fixed or at least find out what was wrong with it. For awhile now it’s been freezing or just plain shutting off all on it’s own while I’m in the middle of doing something and even when I’m not. After leaving the computer with the Genius Bar people I get a call on March 30th saying that there’s something wrong with a hard drive component (or something) and the people at the store can’t fix it because it’s out of warranty. They tell me that they can send it out to a depot who will fix it for about $300. So I say fine do it. I come in that day, back up all my stuff and it gets sent out. Now, over two weeks later I call to check in (I’ve done this multiple times already, about every 3 days) and ask what’s taking so long and I’m now told that because I have such an old model they are having a hard time finding the part they need. So then I ask the guy how much longer he thinks it will it be to find the part and get it fixed and he says he can’t say. Oh joy. So I tell him thanks and hang up. Then I call again today, cause I’m sick of this crap. The computer works fine 95% of the time so I want it back until they can find the part if they can even find the part at all. So I call. “I can put the computer on ‘Escalation’ for you. This means if the part doesn’t come in within the next day or two the computer will be sent back to the store. Once we have the computer again we can go from there.” I think I sighed a really big sigh after I hung up and then screamed. If they can’t find this part I’ll be forced to buy a new computer and I can’t afford $2000+ for a new Mac. Ugh.

As for development two, I’m really out of it, can’t sleep, don’t eat right and can’t stop crying. I don’t want to go into too much detail because I just don’t want to, but my mom is really sick. Lung cancer spread to her head or something and she’s not doing well. Now she’s on home hospice care and I just want to scream at how my whole world is falling apart. And as if my mom dying isn’t enough stress, I can’t get hired anywhere. I’m so tired of applying to places with no response back. True, I have been getting offers for “File Clerk” positions and such but really, I didn’t go to college for four and a half years and built up $20,000 some debt in loans to do a job I could have done without a college degree. I appreciate the offer but please, no more…

“Money can’t buy us happiness, just forget about the price tag, I wanna make the world dance.”

Praying For a Miracle

Lady Kaze — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:09:38 +0000

I wish I could turn back time, to the days when the sun would shine, and we would laugh and play, and never worry about how easy our world could fray, back to when yesterday was just a word and tomorrow was something unheard, living each day for what it was and never caring for what would be, please oh God, won’t you give those days back to me?

News Flash

Lady Kaze — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:07:03 +0000

I’m still getting heavily spammed with spam comments. Thank god for a plugin I have that filters out that stuff. Had 6 comments today that were all spam. Yay. But you know, there’s some good news today too! I was looking through a lot of old files, trying to find an older version of Starlight Designs so that I could take a new preview shot of Version 1. But you know what I found? Lots and lots of stuff.

Let me explain, Starlight Designs started waaaaaaay back when as a website called Senshi Ginga’s Kawaii Layouts. Yes, I was one of those silly fangirls who tried to use as much Japanese as I could. Looking back now, it was really silly. Anyway, After SGKL grew larger it evolved into Kaze Kikotsu Productions, KKP. I think I got rid of this name pretty soon after my brother pointed out it was much to close to KKK which is just evil. But before that happened, KKP shutdown for who knows how long because, and I quote, “My graphics sucked and I could never get a final layout done.” I think I was probably a little harsh considering I never had any real training at the point and everything I was doing I learned by failing then fixing… Anyway, before Starlight Designs came around I had at some point been given a domain by my father and mixed in my graphics with that site. At some point it broke free again and become Starlight Designs. As the site grew larger and larger I invested another domain, starlightdesigns.org. Yay me.

Anyway, when I was looking through all these old files I came across ZIP files titled SGKL, KKP, and StarlightDesigns. I stared at them for a few minutes in awe. I didn’t realize I still had all this junk on my computer. So I unziped all the folders and starting looking through them. Well, I kept all the old layouts in ZIP files inside those ZIP files. So I started to take a crazy ride down memory lane looking at how my website evolved. I gotta tell you, I didn’t remember a good chunk of those layouts…how crazy is that?! The first thing I opened was Version 1 of SGKL. We are talking, this is the beginning of the beginning. I mean, this was the very first layout I’d ever made and my first attempt at any of this web graphic stuff. I heard music playing…and I laughed. Embedded music? Really? Geeze I was a n00b lol. After opening it I also realized, wow, this site was born Feb 17, 2002…that was 9 years ago…holy crap.

But you know, I came into this adventure looking to come out of it with that stupid layout, with no luck. I must have deleted somewhere a long the line or something like that. I’m super pissed not only cuz I no longer have it but because it was a layout that a friend of mine made for me. Ahhh…what to do…I guess I’ll keep hunting. See you…

Making Progress!

Lady Kaze — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 08:11:39 +0000

Yes! I’m finally getting somewhere with all these crazy goals I set for myself! As of 3am this morning Starlight Designs has a new layout and has started rolling towards awesomeness again. I changed some pages around, made the layout history pictures bigger, except for version 1 because I don’t seem to have a copy of that version anymore…weird. I also fixed all the forms so now they work and added lots of info on how to become a staff (JOIN TODAY!) and and and….oh, I discovered that my tutorials aren’t working right so they are available right now. Gotta figure out what happened there… But, YAY! Now my next step is to get some affiliates, some staff, and add info on Starlight Designs on the about page. Woohoo!