summer break

Well, the quarter went by as quickly, and as slowly, as I expected it to. This year was difficult, fun, long, short, and a whole other collection of opposites. I'm expecting good grades for this quarter: hopefully 2 A's and a B.

And with that, summer break begins... 3 and a half months to laze around, make the house cluttered with my junk, hang out with friends, volunteer, and make some money. I have no idea where I'll be working this summer, but most likely at Michael's or Hobby Lobby. I'm glad for the opportunity because it gives me something to do while earning money and possibly learning more about art stuffs (and get a discount, maybe!). The only downside is that it'll potentially take up a lot of time. Oh well, I'll just have to deal with it.

Provided anyone actually checks out this website... don't expect much in the form of updates until later in September.

Until then!

week two already

It's the end of week two already. 14 days... it sounds long but in the run of things, it's a pretty short time. In three more weeks, midterms will be upon us. Then week seven rolls along, then after that is finals -- and finally summer break. Honestly, it's scary to think about it. This summer will be a busy one for me, I think. Between juggling friends, work, family, downtown and (hopefully) some illustration work... there won't be any time left for anything else.

But that's not for another eight weeks. I'll have to start thinking about it at midterms, but until then, I'll content myself with dealing with the hows and whats and whens of now.

It turns out that I got an A in Drawing II, though I thought I'd end up with a B. (I got the best grade I'd gotten in that class, a 94, for my final, which was a big chunk of the grade. Funny that I didn't spend all that much effort on it.) And then I ended up with a B in Composition, instead of a C. I'm not quite sure how, though, considering it said I had a 75% on Blackboard. I don't know what happened... maybe everyone complained on the course evalutions and because of that we got higher grades -- who knows. All I care is that I ended up with two B's and an A, once again making my GPA 3.33 for the quarter and 3.33 culumative.

In other news, classes are kicking in right away. I have a speech on Monday, a gesture drawing project due Monday as well, and a collaborative bridge due Tuesday. Even though today was Friday, I feel like the weekend is basically already over. Who said getting Fridays off would make things easier?

Maya (the third roomie) officially moved out last week, three days into the quarter. Jazz and I didn't see her; a family friend and an RA on duty came in and took her stuff away. So, what, you might ask, did Jazz and I do with this newfound empty bed? We rearranged, though it's pointless since we're here for only 10 more weeks.

Next yeark will be good, I'm sure, as far as rooming goes. I'm set with who I'm rooming with in Boundary (Meghan and co.), but I'm torn. It'd be such a blast to live with the other three friends (Jazz, Cass and Kristen), but I made a commitment that I'd be with Meghan, Elizabeth and Jennifer (all upper classmen). Oh well. I'll end up visiting the others all the time anyway - and granted, it'll be nice to have a place to sleep where I know for sure that everyone will be quiet and that I won't have to wear earplugs every night to block out music/noise/etc. Not that I "mind", but it'd be nice to not have to do that, yah?

I feel suffocated. No, not suffocated... cramped. Like I'm in a space that's too small to move around a lot. Knowing that I have eight weeks until summer which, up until now, has been a time for relaxation and the like, will now mean money-making and what else... I don't know. I've never done much future planning -- and I'm beginning to understand that maybe it isn't because I'm "unorganized" or not "forward-thinking" enough. I can think ahead and plan ahead... I just choose not to. I like keeping my options open, leaving enough room for the spontaneous to happen. I don't want to be tied down - and I won't technically be tied down, but there's a similar feeling when you know, hour by hour, what you'll be doing the entire summer until school starts again, and then the process repeats itself. Spontenaeity allows me the opportunity to pretend that things aren't moving way too fast for comfort.

But, I suppose, I'll live. As long as I get some good, ole lazing in the living room doing nothing time, I'll be happier than, well, me sitting around doing absolutely nothing.

spring break is go

Finals are over - thank bob, finally!

I ended up with a 85% on my final essay so got a 75% in Composition -- not my best, obviously, but good considering my professor was horrible and gave me no advice. I'll get a high B in Drawing II and a B in Color Theory most likely -- hopefully an A on that final project, because a sleepless night and 10 hours of working on that story book was a bitch. I'll never do that again.. I hope.

Spring break is taking me to Sequim and Renton, WA, to my grandparents and my cousin. I'm glad to get the chance to see them again, and glad in general for being on break.

That's all for now though. Not that much else to report on!

finals week

Well. Finals week again. It's Friday morning: let's see the agenda for the rest of the weekend, shall we?

Friday 3/6: Go to a presentation at Trustee's Theatre for Color Theory. Research an Illustrator for Composition final; possibly write a few pages of Composition final by bed time. Possibly a) play in a Rock Band Tourney at 6 or b) see "Watchmen" for $4 at Trustee's at 6.

Saturday 3/7: Work on drawing final. Work on drawing final. Work on drawing final. At seven, Gina arrives. Continue work on drawing final. Hopefully finish.

Sunday 3/8: Take Gina around Savannah. Finish up essay and drawing final if not already completed. Possibly work on Color Theory final. If I'm lucky, I might get some sleep.

Monday 3/9: Turn in Composition essay. Eat lunch with Gina. Turn in drawing final. Eat dinner with Gina. Work on Color Theory.

Tuesday 3/10: Turn in Color Theory process book and take test. Spend the rest of the day with Gina and working on speech for Composition. Work on Color Theory.

Wednesday 3/11: Speech for Composition. Final test for Drawing. After lunch, Gina leaves. Work on Color Theory until my eyes bleed.

Thursday 3/12: Turn in Color Theory. DONE.

I'll be lucky if I'm not a zombie from lack of sleep by Thursday. I don't want it to be Final's week... Shit.

- - -

Well. I wrote an entry a few days ago, but Firefox, for whatever reason, ate everything that I'd written - which was a considerable amount. At the risk of it happening again, I'll keep things nice and simple.

Classes are going alright; this quarter, esepcially now, is getting to be a little more difficult -- but hopefully that'll clear up, since we've recieved final project info sheets in two of my classes. Composition is a bomb; my professor isn't a very good one, and though I enjoy that all we do is watch movies, for once I'd actually like to hear a lecture. Drawing II is/would be pretty easy if I kept on top of things, but for as much as I procrastinate, I'm still getting a good grade. ("Good" in the fact that a B+ is pretty good for the professor I have, since he grades a little hard.) Color theory is pretty good too - and getting more interesting every day. I'm fairly excited for the final projects in both Drawing and Color, as they're open ended, something that normally doesn't fit well with me... but I have some ideas and I'm willing to explore them.

My social life is pretty normal; still consists of a small group, but they're fun, so who am I to complain about it?

I'm falling behind on keeping my galleries updated, but I'll work on it today.

I'm sorely lacking the imagination and the opportunity to do some original stuff... I miss being creative with myself, detached from assignments. It's saddening. Buuut, things could be worse.

That's all for now.

PS. Cass, a friend of mine, and I have had plant babies. Unfortunately, the original three, Heath, Veronica and Wilbur, are dying/dead. Veronica's almost there. To curb my grief, I bought a lucky bamboo plant with three stems -- three for good luck. The shorter two we'ved named Ling Ling and Lucy Lui; the taller one is Bling Bling... and will eventually have fake rhinestones attached. For Valentine's day, Cass got me a cactus -- as we'd been discussing the different kinds of kids we could have and where they came from. So, now, Pablo the cactus, for whom we will get a sombrero, is part of the family.

Heartwarming, isn't it?

quarter two - week three

School and homework. Class for four days - and then playtime.

Sometimes it bugs me when we stay up until 3am on Friday and Saturday nights; I try to get up early (early as in noon) so I'm not completely thrown off and I still have time to do homework, but even when I wake up I'm completely uninspired to do work. Thus, Sunday became homework day: a bit of drawing, a dependably annoying one-page essay and the occasional color theory things. (Which reminds me: our recent assignment was a bit of colored paper; our proffessor told us to "love" this color, to get to know it throughout the quarter. To feel comfortable with it. I chose a vibrant but deep blue with a tint of purple - very faint, not quite royal blue and certainly not blue-violet. Enough to remind me of Mom's color and subtly different, like a reprise. I quite like it.)

I don't think I appreciate my Composition's teacher "teaching", if it can be called that; granted, I like having to only watch movies and write responses on them, but there's been no instruction yet. It's all, movie response movie response 4-page essay movie response. No discussions on what we should be writing about, how we should be writing, in what style -- absolutely nothing. We have discussions on the movies we watch and then write our responses as homework while getting into the next movie. No teaching, just interaction.

It irritates me, because I'm someone who loves to have a bit of structure with her freedom. Give me a class and I'll work with the details. Give me details and I'll work with it, but I'll be less happy. Give me a general idea, an unfirm hint of what could work and what could not work, and it's completely unappealing to me. We have a 4-page essay due on Wednesday that I haven't touched because he told us (he said reminded us) about it on Friday and expected that we should know what he wants from it - when he didn't explain it to us at all. It's supposed to be over themes or common elements between the movies, something recognizably similar, but that doesn't make it any easier to pinpoint. At best, it's frustrating for someone like me.

My other two professors are great. Drawing is demanding, Color Theory is time consuming. But I'll live.

Joe recommended this book to me when we went to Barnes & Noble two weeks back: The Black Jewels Trilogy. It's amazing - at least to me. And addicting. I suppose that's one the reasons why I don't read so much any more. I get distracted easily, drawn into the emotions and the fantasy world far too easily. I want to read but I have other things I need to do. Today, I think I read 5 hours worth.

I'm doing laundry right now. It's impossible to get a drier sometimes... half of them don't work and people leave their shit in the other half. Bugs the crap out of me. Anyway, when getting coins from the machine, apparently I received a counterfeit quarter. Funny.

That's all for now!

christmas 08: the epic voyage

Saturday, December 20th

I was woken up at 9:30am, or thereabout, to get the house ready for our almost week-long visit to Washington. Nothing was wrong at that point; all four of us are busy stuffying last minute items into our suitcases, checking things off the list on the refrigerator as we get them done, and making sure that we still get out of the house by 12pm, since our flight is in St. Louis and in the later afternoon. We left the house by noon with no problem, getting two minutes away before having to turn around and collect a birthday present for Grandma, then we were off again, but not before dropping by McDonald's first for brunch.

We arrived in St. Louis without a hassle and get through check-in with minimal issues. It's just Mom, Dad and I then; we dropped Chris off upon arriving at Lambert, as he had a flight that was an hour earlier than ours, to Denver. We were bound for Minneapolis. When we got to the gate and settled down, we were all wholly unaware of the massive storm making its way through Washington and the Pacific Northwestern states. Our plane is due to leave around 4; 4 comes and goes, and they said the plane was delayed until 5. 5 comes by; it changes to 6. Eventually, we found out the plane was cancelled - leaving us without a chance to fly out until tomorrow.

With mom at the phone and me at the computer trying to book a flight out of St. Louis to Seattle, the problem child of the whole ordeal, we ended up staying in Lambert for a good hour before momentarily giving up to get dinner, a hotel, and try again. Another half hour at the hotel and we deicded to call tech support for the NWA website -- I wasn't able to rebook my flight like the website said I could. Turns out, we should have done that earlier; we found out in no more than five minutes that we had another flight in the morning, flying us to Las Vegas and then to Seattle by Alaska Airlines. It's for 7 in the morning, but we don't mind - so long as we get through this time.

Sunday, December 21st

7am, we take off the next day; the flight is completely fine and on schedule to Las Vegas. We had an hour or so layover, so took our time ambling through Las Vegas's McCarran airport. Our flight was to Seattle was supposed to leave at 12; when it struck noon, we noticed that the time had changed to 1:30. 1:30 progressed on - and eventually, that flight was cancelled as well. Our choices were growing slimmer at this point, since Seattle's weather didn't leave many options. Again, we began braving the swamped phone lines while I checked out Alaska's website - but I couldn't access the reservations to rebook because the tech support I talked to the night before didn't give me a confirmation code. A good time passed as we sat in the airport, me on the computer, Mom on the phone, Dad in the monsterous help desk line. Figuring that NWA.com might have something I can work with, I checked it out again. To my surprise, I discovered that NWA had booked us a flight from Minneapolis to Los Angeles and LA to Seattle -- I figured that they thought we were stranded in Minneapolis. I guess I should give them kudos for reassigning us, though a phonecall or the like would have been nice to let us know of this change.

By the time I told Mom about this, we're all beginning to feel a little worn thin from the rebooking and cancelations. The good news was that LA was only four hours away - so, we decided to make the best of things and grab some In-n-Out to take down the strip of Las Vegas before driving to LA. An hour-long traffic jam on the interstate prolongued our arrival to LA, making it midnight - 2am our time - when we finally got there. Figuring that since our flight in the morning was fairly early and we didn't want to risk LA traffic, we set out to get a hotel close to the airport; the first two we visited were booked full for the kind of room we wanted. The third was fine... save that when we pulled in, four cop cars were arresting someone with a bag over his head. Great, right?

We were exhausted, and rightfully so, so we hit the hay pretty earlier, ready to get up the next day for our 1pm flight.

Monday, December 22nd

The first thing we saw when we got inside checkin was a man standing near the front; after an awkward question, he informed us that our flight had been canceled... Back to square one, now. Meanwhile, Chris has gotten through, as has his girlfriend - by some miracle. The planes have stacked up at this point, and regardless of the fact that SeaTac airport is completely clear, there are too many plantes to fly in at once; we got the short end of the stick.

Disheartened and travel-battered, we started finding alternatives again. I had no luck with the website this time around - Mom was put on hold eventually, but for a great time. Dad had gotten into the line here, over a 2 hour wait. The chances were looking slim now; a train could get us to Sacramento, but from Sacramento to Seattle, it was booked full. Buses claimed they could get us through, but Portland, Orgeon was completely shut down and required chains for tires, so that was unlikely. Aside from spending a ridiculous amount for a rental one-way to Seattle, the rental companies wouldn't allow chains so that wouldn't work either. The planes wouldn't get us to Seattle until 6pm Christmas day- and even then, it wasn't for sure that we'd actually get through.

Our resilience failed. With no where to go but home, we booked a flight back to St. Louis, forgetting that those who weren't able to make it to Seattle in the first place were staying home for Christmas. At least, we told ourselves, we had some time in LA - a mini vacation, if you will. So we rented a car and drove about, visiting the lights in Pasedena and seeing all the old places Mom and Dad grew up around, stopping at an old, familiar restuarant for dinner: Fu-Shings. (Delicious!) It'd been a long day, so we got a hotel and tuckered in for the night. Tomorrow, we'd be heading home.

Tuesday, December 23rd

Our flight, in early afternoon, gave us enough time to drive down and pick up empanadas at Tito's Market, a mexican place Mom loved (and still loves, granted). It was worth the drive, but not the messed up flight plans. The flight to St. Louis was no problem - but somewhere between, we remembered the folks who weren't in Seattle and made a phone call. In the least, we had somewhere to go and someone to be with on Christmas. Once we got to St. Louis, we got a hotel and slept, taking off early the next day to make it to Kansas and family, at last. We arrived there the next day, midday and spent until the day after Christmas with them. Christmas had been saved - just not had in the way we expected.

The most we could be grateful for were the relatives who couldn't make it. Without them, we'd have spent Christmas all by ourselves... and that's no fun.