YAY!

Okay, let me just say that I had the most AWESOME DAY!!! But I don't have time to write about it because I really need to get going on this film project, so I hope hope hope that I can write about it soon. I have SO MUCH going on right now though!

I just wanted to say that I'm super happy and I had a really good day. =)

My Life In a Nut Shell:

Help! I'm in a nut shell!

Teehe. That's a joke Jessica told me once. I love it. Get it? =)

I don't have time to write, so I thought this comic that Dad amd Mom told me about would be fiting to describe my life right now.



I guess it's pretty hard to read, but it's the Doonesbury comic from today. You can find it online or enlarge mine or something.

Alright, so I finished my drawing. I spent about 2 hours on it. It decent. Too small. Whatever. It’s done. I’m over it. Now I’m going to try to write my essay with no internet, make it up as I go along from what I already know, and then fill in the details later I guess. I don’t even feel like writing, but then again, I don’t feel like doing anything, and mom told me to just do it because there was no point not to. I don’t even have anything to procrastinate with, so I guess I gotta because I’m not even tired yet. Lame. I called Tudor because he left me a really nice message saying he’d help me with my project, so I’m going to meet up with him tomorrow. He’s a savior. You don’t even know how much more relieved I feel knowing he’s going to help me. We ended up talking for like 40 minuets while I was doing that drawing, and it just made me feel a lot better an happier because he’s a really good guy and nice to talk to. So…. I still don’t know what the hell my LCD homework is, or I might be doing that instead of my essay. I don’t know when I’m going to do it because I’d do it tomorrow morning before I go meet Tudor, but I still wont know what it is! Gar. I might end up having to do it Monday. Oh well.

I just wanted to mention that Annie sent me a letter out of the blue! It made me super happy and I wrote her back one of my classic 5 pagers, front and back. I like to write and I like to write tons, hehe. So I’ll get that sent out on Monday. I’m still waiting on a letter from Jessica, she said she sent it maybe 2 weeks ago now! What the hell? She probably thinks I’m just being slow to respond and that makes me feel bad because I want to respond now but I don’t even have it yet! It’d better be here Monday or I’m gunna flip. If it’s not, something probably happened to it. I’ll betcha it’s sitting in the mailroom and has been for like a week. Lame =( But oh yea, I think I touched on this, but I got Jessica, Naomi, and Alix late birthday presents that I’m having Molly give to them for me, hopefully on Monday so just incase they even read this they wont know! Plus, who knows when I’ll be able to post this. But yea, I got them little 4 piece boxes of GODIVA! Yup. Best present EVER! I really hope they like them and get all warm and fuzzy and happy inside because that’s what I intend presents to do, that’s what presents are for! Yay. I get all warm and fuzzy and happy giving presents, of course! You all should know that by now. I always start my Christmas list in November and think of the super best presents I can, or sometimes I find them randomly without having thought of them first, and my record is of being done in the beginning of December, but this year it’ll be last minute. I can’t WAIT to give you guys your presents! Man. Christmas is the best… But enough procrastination. I can always write more if I want to. Life is so much more than the tiny bit of time spent recording it. There’s always more to say because if you actually wrote everything, you’d spend the whole lifetime re-reading it. You get me? Haha. I suppose if I can type so much this quickly on my essay, it’ll be done in no time…

Oh yea, and my fever blister? Vitamin E works like a charm (not that I ever doubted you, Grama. I just didn’t have any!) Blistex? Nope. It no worky. Vitamin E, for all of your future references. Okay, now I’m leaving for real.

Thanksgiving Break

Alrighty, so I guess last I wrote was Sunday during the day, and this is perfect, because I really feel like procrastinating right now, and I want to keep up with this thing because the whole idea is to have a record of what I’m up to for me. And for all of you to be able to keep up with what’s going on, if you so wish. So… Last weekend I decided not to do any homework because I figured I needed a break. Bad idea. I should have just gotten it DONE because now the fact that I still have to do it is making me really sad. But my weekend was good because of it. At least I got that much out of it.

My internet is down, of course, so I can’t post this until later. I really need to figure out a way to make sure it’s p all the time because this just isn’t working. Sometimes I really need to do research and man, what a pain to have to go out somewhere else when I have a computer right here and SHOULD have internet. But anyways…

Monday I skipped Film and English because I wanted to hang out with my family. We went to 5th Ave and walked around to a bunch of stores and it was fun. It was so great to see them! It made me super happy. But these past 3 and a half months have gone by so quickly that it didn’t even seem like I hadn’t seen them in a while, you know? Uber fast, that’s how fast the time has gone. It’s like it wasn’t even there. But yea, of course, we had to go to the bagel shop so that everyone else could try it. We went a few times during their stay. Then on Tuesday I went to the morning of LCD but then packed up and we left around 2, so I didn’t go to the afternoon. As of right now, I still don’t know what the homework is. That’s partially because I can’t get online to ask people. Annoying, yes. I hope hope hope it’s just to finish what we were already doing, because that would make my like so much simpler! I wonder how many people actually went back for the afternoon, and I hope that it was only a few and that would mean that he didn’t really assign any homework. Please? But anyway, I just need to figure it out by tomorrow so I can get it done tomorrow. That’s all.

I also have drawing homework and an essay on propaganda for English class and my film project that’s barely started but due in a week, all along side LCD to get done this weekend. And it’s not a weekend any more. It’s a Sunday. And my drawing teacher is making us all go to an open model session this week, so I have to go on Tuesday, which is LAME because that could be homeworking time, and I really don’t want to go. I haven’t been in a while. But I’ve been about 7 times, so technically, I’m ok. Gar. I’m so fed up with all this.

Moving on to happy things… We drove for 6 hours to get to Ithaca. It was a good thing we left when we did. we were planning for me to go to the afternoon and then leave, but then we wouldn’t have made it until midnight or later! We got in at around 8:30 and ate dinner at the Moosewood Restaurant, which was right by our hotel! It was pretty good, but they have daily menus so you don’t really have much of a choice. It was slightly disappointing, to be honest, but I know it’s still an awesome place, the choices they had that night just weren’t the most awesome they could be. Then we slept.

Wednesday I slept while my family went to visit Ithaca College. I think Tommy liked it, he just doesn’t have an accurate realization of just how good he is with the theater and lighting stuff. The college has a theater and lighting program that apparently only accepts about 20 students, which of course he’d get into with all his experience and knowledge! How many schools have a program like Skyline’s? Very few. And how many people would actually be applying to the college? Same deal. He’d get in no problem with how good he is! He’s a good student and very driven. He’s like me though, he just doesn’t realized how good he actually is.

Then what did we do? We drove up to Uncle Joe’s cabin that he built. It was really nice I liked it a lot! And then we drove to see the summer house he and Elizabeth were going to buy which was right by Lake Catayuga (sp?) and going to fix up and stuff. And we visited bunches of waterfalls because they all drain down into the lake. Then we ate dinner at Joe’s Restaurant, which is where Dad ate every Friday forever with his advisor and the other people in the group. It was essentially an Olive Garden, so it wasn’t super classy, but it was tasty none the less. We ate the leftovers for breakfast, there was TONS of food!

Thursday we went to visit Cornell, where mom and dad went to graduate school. It was HUGE oh man it had so much space! If we had thought about it sooner, we could have stayed in the hotel school’s hotel there, that would have been fun! It was cool to see. More waterfalls, too. Hehe. Then, what did we do? We went back to the hotel because people were hungry at around 5, and we ate Thanksgiving dinner in this restaurant attached to the hotel. It was actually really good. Tommy will attest, the apple pie was the best apple pie I’ve ever had. Mom didn’t want to admit it because she thinks ours is the best, but nope, this was better =) it was really tasty as was all the food. And we were trying to figure out what as win it. We think it was honey, maple syrup, or nutmeg. Or something… That made it so good. Again, we ate the leftovers for breakfast. Then we played 5 crowns with everyone, which is a fun game. I lost by far. I’d lost by far the night before too. I don’t know why! =)

Also, me and Molly watch season 1 of Project Runway like crazy! It was good fun. That’s our show, we like to watch it together. I bought her it for her birthday. We’re going to finish season 1 and watch season 3 when I get home for winter break. We also went in the hot tub a few times. Well, I went once, and they went twice. Yay for hot tubs!

There was also the NEATEST little gift shop in Ithaca Commons, which as just this area of little stores. I bought 5 people’s Christmas presents there, and would have gotten EVERYONE’S there, but it was a tad expensive and I had to convince mom and dad that the presents I was getting would be from a couple of people, You get me? Like, if we all bought cheaper things, it would add up to one big thing from everyone. I can’t say what I got because then people would be able to read what I bought them! I also bought some belated birthday presents for my friends at another little store. And some cute cards. I love Christmas! It’s my favorite time of year, it really is. I love having everyone get together and getting people presents! I LOVE getting people presents! Man, it’s so much fun! I really wanted to get Molly this one thing, but me and mom knew that it was just too expensive. I thought maybe Grama could go in on it with us, but I don’t know if I could have convinced mom of that, so I just didn’t bother. It was really cute though! I can’t wait to come home and finish up my shopping! I’m going to have to do it all in the last few days before Christmas and super rush! But that’s okay. So far I have 6 presents down, around at least 12 to go. It shouldn’t be a problem, especially since I love getting them!

So Friday we drove home. It was faster getting home because there wasn’t the traffic we hit leaving New York City. We left at 12 and got home at 5. Home. Blah. Re-phrase. We got back to my jail cell. Haha. Just kidding. Somewhere in between… we got back to my school. There. Anyway, so mom helped me clean my room up and then they gave me my birthday presents! Yea, it’s a bit early, but obviously I can’t celebrate it at home. It’s in about 10 days. When I get home, I want to throw a birthday party really badly =) that should be tons of fun and then I can get everyone I want to see together in my house! Yay. So they gave me FOUR awesome things! Molly gave me a cd I wanted. The group is called the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It’s their new cd, and I really really like it! It’s good. And she also convinced mom to buy me an advent calendar from the starbucks that was right in to hotel we were staying in that I told her I really wanted. Advent calendars are my favorite! We had a few when I was a kid and I remember that I always really loved them! But they weren’t as much fun without candy inside of them. So this one is little drawers shaped to look like a Christmas tree and there are 24 boxes, of course, counting up to Christmas day. You pull out a drawer each day, they’re labeled, and eat the little chocolate inside, and then you reverse the drawer and there’s part of a picture on the back and once you’ve reversed all of the drawers it makes a really pretty Christmas scene on the other side! It’s really neat, not to mention a good way to only allow me one chocolate a day. Haha. =) But I can’t start until Friday on the first! Tommy with his awesome self got me a set of colored Christmas lights to put up in my window and he put them up for me and they look awesome! Speaking of which, I need to turn them on. Yay! I loves them. They wanted to get me blinking ones and looked all over but couldn’t find any. But I don’t mind =) they make me happy no matter what because it reminds me of home and all of our awesome lights at Christmas time =) And the last present was this beautiful bracelet that mom and dad got me. I pointed it out like 4 months ago when I was still home. It’s silver… or maybe actually gold, and it’s a cuff bracelet that looks like 4 film negatives! It’s so neat! I’ll take a picture of it when I get a chance. But I know how expensive it was and I’m afraid to wear it because I don’t want to mess it up or break it or anything =( But it’s really nice. I feel spoiled.

We had Bagels for dinner YAY and then Dad helped me try and get moving on my film project. I have this awful anxiety about it and just really don’t want to do it at this point, and that’s why it’s not getting done. Tudor said he’d help me with it, but I haven’t even called him yet, and I really really should. Of course, I should be doing all sorts of homework right now, but that’s just it, I ALWAYS should be doing homework, and that’s just not okay with me because I’m not even really that interested. I don’t really want to write about it right now, but I don’t really want to be here any more. I just want to go home. And I don’t know if I want to come back. I just don’t see the point or what sort of progress is supposed to be happening. Everyone’s telling me that Freshman year is just bad, but really, it shouldn’t be! I should be having a really good time. I came here so positive and with an open mind ready to do anything and I’ve been working my damn ass off and I’m just not interested in what I’m doing and I really think it’s BS the whole Freshman year is bad thing, it should be good, there’s no excuse. And I’m not enjoying myself here. The problem is that, if I transfer, where too? How do I know it wont just be the same crap? And how do I know it wont get better next year? Grama thinks that I shouldn’t wait around because it’s just not a risk I should take, seeing if it gets better. I know what she means. But everyone seems to say it’ll get better later… but everyone also seems to hate this year, which just doesn’t seem right to me. So… I need to talk to mom more about it, but I don’t really see myself staying here, not if I have a choice, and not for this amount of money. It’s just not right that I’m so excited to go home and get away from here and that I’m dreading all of my work and coming back here after break. I shouldn’t be dreading it. That’s just not right. And I don’t see the point in taking a semester off. That’s not the issue. I’ll still be dreading starting up again. Something needs to change. This just isn’t working. They’re weeding out the wrong person with their bullshit.

So today I was really upset because I just want to go home. But, I gotta do my homework. Yup. So I’ve gotten one drawing done, and this was the procrastination for the other one. It’s supposed to be bigger than 18x24, but it’s not going to be because that’s a pain in my butt. Oh well if he’s rude to me about it. Gawd. And then mom or dad is going to help me with my propaganda essay because I don’t have internet. So goal for tonight: other drawing and essay. Tomorrow: Film and LCD. Blah. I need to call Tudor and I need to figure out what the hell my LCD homework is, anyway.

And now I leave you, not too happy. Remember how excited I was when I first got here? They drained it away from me. Leave me your thoughts. I wont be able to post this until hopefully, tomorrow. Akk, I hope I don’t forget about my SDS meeting tomorrow! And I want to practice piano soon, too. I even got a fever blister, most likely because of all this stupid stress. And I’m over sleeping because I just feel tired all the time. And I tried to go to the gym today but it was closed, which is discouraging. I don’t know how I’m going to get through these next 3 weeks. I don’t know how I’ve ever gotten all this stuff done.

SDS

Alright, so I don't really feel like writing right now, But I want to at least write a little bit about what happened at SDS last week. And a few other random tangents, I'm sure.

So it was only the second meeting I've been to because honestly, it just didn't feel worth going to. Which is actually going to be the point of this entry. We watched the Weather Underground which was a Documentary about this group called the Weather Underground who were around in the 70's along with the Black Panthers and the Vietnam war and all that jazz. They were uber radicals who broke off from SDS back in the day and eventually went underground. SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) was originally a peace non-violent type movement who turned into being radical and violent because of the people like those who became the Weather Underground. A lot of being still in SDS were really upset because they didn't like what these people were doing, and the fact that they were running away with the organization. But anyways, eventually the Weather Underground formed from 20-30 of these violent radicals, and it went underground. Through out the years they bombed tons of places and it was craziness. But they avoided killing people in these bombings as much as they could. Anyways, there's much more to the story, but it was a really excellent film that I recommend you all seeing. A neat peice of history, and of course, with the almost complete parallel of Iraq and Vietnam, maybe soon to be the present again. Which is rather terrifying, actually.

But before we watched the movie, our student advisor was there, and we were talking with him about the lack of presence of SDS on campus. He said he was really concerned that really, we weren't known and nothing was getting done. Correction, we are not known and nothing is getting done. I mean, I'm the prime example of the lack of interest in the group because me, of all people, didn't think the meetings were worth it, and you all know that's a bad sign! I'm uber interested in the idea, but nothing was happening, so frankly, I was shrugging my shoulders at why I didn't bother going. But it was really great last week because we were talking about what we could do to work this all out. We need to find a cause and get the word out. So we brain stormed and I'm really excited. We came up with a bunch of good ideas, and if everyone can follow through, it's an excellent start. We're making our cause the war and we're all doing research on it so that we can all know tons about it and give each other in info we've found and then be able to tell people about it and show that we really know what we're talking about when we're trying to get the word out. That's it, in a nutshell, and it's good. =) I'm excited to get something going! That's all I really want to do, be a crazy liberal.

On a different topic, I ran for 30 mins straight today, which I've done before... I've even done longer, but it's been a while, and it felt nice. I don't know exactly what my weight is, but keeping this up should do me wonderfully. It was National Portfolio day today, and it was surreal seeing all of those kids in the downstairs part of the gym hoping to get into art school like I was last year. It brought back all those feelings of nervousness and apprehension I had. And then Courtney asked me to go get Thai with her tonight, and who knew we had an awesome Thai place right down the street?! Not me, but now I'm excited because I'ma get it all the time! I'll take the family there and also to the bagel shop that me and Dad fell in love with. And Tommy's bringing me Zachary's Pizza! Yay =) They're probably at the airport right now.

The last thing is that I watched the Dead Poets Society today because Caitlyn owns it and Dad's been telling me to see it for years! It was SO GOOD but it was so sad! One of my favorite movies ever! It was amazing. =) That's all for now. Hanna just called me YAY!

I have PHOTOS!

Alright, so these are the pictures, mostly from the trip to Long Island. I didn’t use all of them in my critique because they’re not all particularly interesting, but I figured you’d like to see them anyways. Some of the are great, though. It’s just unfortunate how blurry they are! You miss so much, but there’s not a whole lot I can do about that, I just don’t have access to another camera.

The first six here are from Rocky Point, on the beach, and the neighbor’s house, which was awesome! I’d like to go back when I’m doing color printing and take more of it. The first one was one that a lot of people liked a lot, so it'll be in my final portfolio. My friend Courtney printed took the neatest picture of the hanging balloons a few eeks back and I asked her to print me a cop and I reminder he that I wanted it and she was like sure, but you have to print me the chiars in return. I was like DEAL! It's pretty awsome. Actually, I'll just put a little star by the ones that will be. Of course, there are previous pictures and pictures that have yet to be taken that will be in it as well, but for now, you can know which out of these.

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These next six are from Grampa’s garden, the one he was volunteering at, helping the little kids garden. I really really liked the garden, and two of my best pictures that will be going in my final portfolio came from it. =)



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And then this one is random, not from Long Island at all. Actually, it’s from right around the corner. These are really hard to see, I’m sorry.



And this one is from Port Jefferson. It has potential, but didn’t turn out so great.



And these two are from one of the church graveyards somewhere on Long Island, the center of… where ever the first people to come from Europe lived.





And this is that LCD project I was telling you about, the one that I had so much fun doing but I couldn’t post it because it wasn’t done yet. Of course, he was negative about it, but screw him, I thought I did an awesome job and I’m really fed up with all his damn negativity for all the live in the present moment crap he preaches. Sorry, little rant there. I’m just sick of out stuff never being good enough for him. But pretty neat, huh?

I'm trying out that lack of title thing.

Hello all. Today is Thursday, pretty much the best day of my week because I have no classes and because I still have Saturday and Sunday to do my homework, so I don't really have to do homework either. I just spilled tea on my newly washed sheets, so that was something to celebrate about. I just hope it dries by the time I want to sleep.

Okay, now it's Friday, and I am bored bored bored. I don't have much homework to do because I have 2 weeks to do it all because of the break, so I don't even really have that nagging at the back of my head telling me I should be doing it because I have nothing else to do. Lets see... what happened this week? When was the last day I wrote? I don't even remember. Well, I printed about 20 pictures on Tuesday and Wednesday. I know that sounds like a hell of a lot, but only a few more than usual because I print a ton and then edit them down. A lot of times what you think looks good on a contact sheet is actually pretty lame. Vise versa too, but vise versa is harder to discover because you don't bother printing the what-you-think-is-lame picture. So I got some pretty good ones. But I think my teacher didn't really like one of my favorites. Whatever, it's an aesthetic opinion. Sometimes, yea, pictures are just bland, and everyone can agree on that, but this one was awesome. I think maybe I miss read what he said though because he said he though I saw more than everyone else did because I knew where it was, and I said no, I was simply trying to explain where it came from as a separate story because I was excited about the trip to Long Island on it's own! We further will have to edit down our entire semester's collection of prints down to 12 that we have to print on 11x14 paper for the Final Critique. So that shouldn’t be too hard, I’m pretty good at editing my prints. Actually, it’s a hell of a lot easier to edit down to the super best out of 70 pictures than edit down half of that because there are a lot of yea, these are pretty good, but not outstanding. When there are 10 that just catch your eye automatically, you’re set, choose those 10. It’s the only critique we have left though, so we wont be having a critique on all the new pictures we take. He doesn’t even expect us to have new ones for it, yet he still wants us to be taking pictures, so that’s kinda confusing. I’ve been waiting to explore Ithaca for a long while now =)

Speaking of which, I want to try out Infrared film and a medium format camera. Just a side note. And also, everyone’s coming on Sunday! Whoo hoo! I’m JUICED! We’re going to go to the Moosewood restaurant and to this place called Joe’s that Dad went to every Friday for 5 years with his advisor. I’m excited! And see Cornell and Ithaca College and the cute little town and the rivers and coldness and it’s just going to be so great. Actually, I really kinda want to skip Monday and Tuesday classes because I really really don’t need to go to them. I just want to get out of here and up to Ithaca.

Because in reality, I am going to class, I have to do some film editing this weekend with the footage I have and my LCD. Yay. Except not. Stupid LCD. And I’m checking out a camera over the break to finish getting my footage. And I know I should get my drawing done now, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to do it considering than I have so much time.

Uh… LCD was a waste this week. I worked the whole time, but nothing got done. I worked on figuring out the problems, but they just didn’t figure themselves out. That was lame because those projects are now my homework. Film was also a waste because no one but 3 people (including myself, of course) had what was due. It was dumb. I don’t like that it’s supposed to be a class full of film majors and they just don’t seem to care. It doesn’t make sense! I mean, for some kids, the class is like my photo class: I already know how to do everything. But that doesn’t mean I don’t work really hard in it because I love doing it so much! You get me? Drawing wasn’t too bad. My portrait was awful, but so were most peoples, to be blunt, so I guess he just wanted to see what we were attempting to do, the ways we were trying to solve the problem, to see that we were thinking about it. We have to redo that fore ground middle ground back ground drawing, which is lame, but it’s with a different medium, conte crayon to be exact, and we use both red and black so that way you can use the black to make things come forward at you out of the drawing and the red to make things recede into it instead of darkening of lightening your lines.

My Thursday consisted of going to a gallery with Courtney, piano, laundry, and yoga. It wasn’t bad at all! We went to this little obscure gallery that our teacher told us about (but aren’t they all obscure like that, where you have to know about it to find it?) It had some pictures by Morrell, an artist who does something called camera-obscura. If you’re super curious, I can explain it, however, you have to know something about photography to understand. It was really neat because Kristyn and Sean (my photography teachers two summers ago) introduced his work to us along with people like Joel Sternfeld, when they were showing us neat stuff! So I knew who he was and some about what he did. There were some really really cool pictures. Once my internet is working again, I’ll go to the gallery’s website and post some of the pictures to show you.

Today wasn’t much of anything. I turned in an excellent Art History paper that I re-wrote last night to make it awesome. I think it deserves an A of some sort, so I hope that’s what I get. It’s on of those things that I think it’s super good, and if it’s not an A, I have absolutely no idea how to improve it or how I could make it better, yea? So that was cool. Our photo critiques are always boring, though, which is disappointing, because they could be really fun like the ones I had at CCA pre-college. I love Paul, though. He’s my teacher. Courtney describes it so well, he’s like a cute old grandfather. He’s just really sweet and gives you that grandfather feeling. I know you all know exactly what I mean and they type person he is. He’s a really fun teacher. The reason I felt like I wasn’t learning anything from him is because I already knew so much, but now I’m realizing that I’m learning subtle things that I didn’t even notice, and I have a lot to learn from him. I’m really glad I have him for the entire year. He also teaches a Junior class, so I might have him again later, or maybe not, but I wouldn’t mind. Ah, but speaking in Art History, I’m going to have to cram for my final big time because it’s going to be on a bout a million pieces of art: every single one we went over this semester. Yipe! Not looking forward to that. The smart thing to do would be to start studying now, but who wants to do that?

I went to the gym and lifted weights and ran for 15 minuets and stretched a little but. Tomorrow I’m just going to run for 30 minuets and stretch because it’s not go to do weights 2 days in a row because your muscles need a chance to repair themselves. Mom said she’d come to yoga with me on Tuesday so I really hope they have a session! They should, because really, break isn’t until Wednesday so they shouldn’t be starting it early! I’ve been trying really super hard to eat better, but it’s just so hard! By better I mean two things: one, healthier, and two, a bit less. On the first note, I’m doing excellently. In fact, some days it’s hard to do better because I get all of the nutrients I need as I plan what I eat very carefully. On the second note, it’s frustrating. I use a points system to count what I eat which exploits foods high in fiber and kills you on things high in fat, so if you’re not strategic, you’ve used up you points but barely eaten anything in quantity. And sometimes I really just eat more than I need. I have a problem, I guess, of having to finish what’s on my plate. I can’t throw things out and if it’s only a tiny bit, I can’t save it, so I eat more than I need sometimes. But I’ve done yoga, weights, stretching, and running almost every day for the past two weeks, and I do believe I lost a pound, but I’m not positive. My goal right now is to loose 8 pounds because I’m trying to start small and be triumphant in that. Like when I go to the gym, usually I push myself extra super hard, but lately, I’ve been taking it easy so that I don’t over work myself and not want to continue going. A little bit every day is better than a lot and then nothing at all. Yes? So mini goal of gym almost every day and of course I’ll keep with my healthy eating, I’ve been eating healthy for a while now so it’s gotten super easy and is just simply a part of my day now, and the mini goal to loose 8 pounds, which might take 2-4 months. I just need patience and a healthy lifestyle that I can stick to an keep up with, and I’ll slowly return to my more natural weight.

Anyways, what got me started on all that is that I made nokedles today! Yup. It was pretty awesome. I didn’t have butter, but that was probably for the better anyways! And I ate almost the entire batch myself, it was delicious. And then I practiced piano for about an hour which was fun. I still get a kick out of those scales, who knew? And this evening I’ve really been pretty bored because I don’t have much to do. And now I’m getting sleepy. I have no idea what’s on the agenda for tomorrow other than the gym and Butternut Squash Apple soup that Adah gave me just because (how awesome is that girl?! My most favoritist soup EVER! I need to get her a present for sure. Maybe in Ithaca…) and I know LCD should be on the agenda… so… maybe…

Random: I got my Blood Donor card the other day, which was exciting! My blood type is A positive, but I don’t really know what that means because my internet is down, so I can’t look it up. Which is also why I’ll have to post this tomorrow. Lame. But yay blood donating! I was waiting for that card for a while!

Well, good night everyone. I could find more to say, I’m sure, but my eyes are a closing. I’m extra super looking forward to sleeping in. Sleeping in is the best thing every. Yup. =)

Oh yea, and tomorrow I need to write about the SDS meeting last Sunday, because I just realized that’s where I left off, but I started this entry with Monday.

No Title

So I'm back from my movie, The Science of Sleep. It was a trip, one of those abstract movies that you think make sense but they really don't. I liked movies like that. Like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Donnie Darko or Fight club or Great Expectations. They're refreshing because they're new ideas, it's good. So I enjoyed it. But everyone seems jaded lately, which probably makes sense. Everyone's itching to get out of here for a little while and take a break. I still need to do my Self-Portrait... Blah. I'm totally procrastinating. I don't even know when I'm going to do it.

I also forgot to write about film. We're working on our final project right now, which is essentially anything we want, no longer than 4 minutes. I'm doing an abstract piece without a story, really, about blood, sorta... to be honest, I can't really explain it because I don't really know what I'm doing myself, I'm just winging it. It sucks to wing it, but I'm a tad lost in that class because it's all new to me. So I'm just not worrying about it. Morgan helped me film yesterday, which was awesome and I'm so glad she did. I hope I don't forget to return the camera tomorrow. I almost forgot to pick it up on Friday and I had to run as fast as I could before they closed and I just made it. Whatever. Blah. Mostly.

In about 20 minutes I'm off to SDS to watch The Weather Underground. And not do my self-portrait... But at least that's all I have left, and he said we should spend about 3 hours on it. I just have to DO it. Sheesh.

I forgot to drink today. I just drank all 6 glasses of water in one sitting. I suppose I was thirsty. But now I’m going to have to pee during the movie. Hehe.

Leave me your thoughts and start writing me those letters! Or call me! All of you! I want contact! I love you all so much =) really.

Continuing…

So in other schoolwork, I had to visit the Met for Art History and write a comparison paper on 2 things from a list of 4 sets that he gave us. We went around and visited all of them and he talked about them briefly, but I was still confused. So I stayed after with him and we went back to four of them and he sorta guided me into the answers, if you know what I mean, without outright telling me them. So I chose two statues and wrote my paper last weekend because he said if we had it in by the next class on Friday, he’d correct it for us and put it in his box on Monday where we could pick it up and write the final draft, and I wasn’t going to pass that offer up. So I wrote it right away.

I spent all of last weekend doing homework. All of it. I wrote the Art History paper, I researched candidates for English, and I worked on my Story Board and Treatment from video on Saturday, and then I painted my illuminations painting for LCD and drew a picture for drawing (which didn’t come out well, which is why I didn’t show it or tell you about it. One of the un-liked assignment’s I’ve had). So my weekend was so boring, so boring… but yea, I got all my work done! I always do. (This is sarcasm, though yes, I always do, I’m not excited about that.) I decided that this weekend it wouldn’t happen again, which is why I got my LCD and one of my drawings done so quickly. But now I have my Self-Portrait to do still, and boy, am I putting it off. I’m scared to do it and I just don’t really feel like it. I feel like coming home.

But the candidate research! That was awesome. I wrote like 6 pages of notes, I’m sure by far the most because I always go over the top for things like that. I researched Tennessee with Harold Ford Jr. (Dem, though not much of one being that he’s from Tennessee) and Bob Corker (Rep). I looked all through their websites and searched for commercials they had done and watched them online and found out all about how they were campaigning and what they stood for and it was really fun to do. I chose that race because it was a mainstream weird one, with that whole racist commercial and all (Harold Ford Jr. potentially could have been the first Black senator from the south since Reconstruction) but in all honestly, Bob Corker had more appeal just in term of personality, considering they were both quite conservative, and I’m not surprised he won, though it was by a small margin.

I particularly liked doing the research because it got me thinking about politics again and how interested I am in them. I was pretty annoyed with everyone I know, because I don’t know any one here that voted. They though I was being a hypocrite until I reminded them that I still have 23 days (from today) to go until my birthday, and yes, I would have voted! But whatever, it’s too late now and it’s just so hard to change voter apathy. We’ll just hope they vote in the next presidential election, please. I didn’t research California because I already knew who was going to win everything, it wouldn’t have been as interesting as finding out about another state. I also watched stuff from Missouri with that whole Michael J. Fox thing. How awful! What a decent, good man, and how awful of that evil creep to say he was faking it somehow. I love Michael J Fox. Me and Dad were talking about how the only person who would even stop and think that he’d be faking it as a tactic to win would be someone who would do that himself, because we didn’t even consider that he might be, let alone accusing him of that! You get me? Sheesh. But how AWESOME is it that we wont BOTH the Senate AND the House and we also won more Governorships! SWEET! I have very high hopes for the Next Presidential election, in which I get to vote! And of course we all know how Nancy Pelosi is the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE! THIRD IN LINE TO THE PRESIDENT! FIRST WOMAN EVER! Sweetness. I hate not having very much time, because I would be doing all sorts of research and reading all sorts of newspapers and magazines about all this. I find it fascinating.

On a completely different note, Great Expectations was a crazy good movie. Both crazy, and good, and crazy good! We all know it came from the book by Charles Dickens? What a weird story, but a genius to come up with something like it, it was so different and refreshing. I want to read the book now, not that I have time. I’m still trying to get through another book, Everything is Illuminated, which might not happen until much later, and then I want to read the Biography of Malcom X. Today me and Morgan and Tudor are supposed to go see The Science of Sleep, and I hope that happens because my attempt at making this weekend better than last in sorta failing. I wish I had more time to read! I love reading SO MUCH! Send me good books! Buy me good books! I love books! Books are one of the best things in the world! Bonnie’s Birthday, anyone? Speaking of birthday’s, I have FOUR to catch up on and I don’t know How I’m gunna do it! Annie, Naomi, Alix, and Jessica’s. I love all of you so much! I’m so sorry I’m a bad friend and didn’t manage to get you presents! I will. I’ll make it up to you!

So… Yoga. It’s pretty great. It calms you down. It’s sorta meditation. You think about your breathing, being in this moment, and all the stretches are de-toxins, so you feel great. I take it twice a week now, at lunch between LCD segments on Tuesday, and at 6:30 on Thursdays. All the other days, starting this past week, I’ve gone to the gym and gone on the weight machines. One day I ran for 15 minuets too, and a few days I stretched a bunch. I’ve always wanted to get down into the splits, so maybe this time it’ll finally happen. I don’t know if I’ll be getting to the gym today though, which is okay because I think my muscles need a rest and a chance to repair themselves. I don’t know when we’re going to the movie, but soon I would think. I guess if that falls through I will be going to the gym. And doing my self-portrait. Ugh. I don’t know when I’m going to get that done. Tonight I’m going to SDS, for the second time ever… I haven’t been going because it just seems really immature to me. But Morgan pointed out that well, it is, naturally. We’re college kids. Which is fair. But it’s hard to go to a meeting where nothing productive seems to get done and we’re fighting for things like chalk (though I know I got agitated about that). But tonight we’re supposedly watching a documentary called the Weather Underground, which I’m sure all of you know about. They were from the 70’s. I’ve watched part of it, it’s really really interesting! If any of you want me to explain what it’s all about, I can. So… but if that falls through, again, I guess I’m going to the gym and doing my self-portrait. Apparently, Caitlyn is my gym buddy now, because I haven’t hung out with her in forever, and it’s a good way to “hang out” without really hanging out all gung-ho, meaning, when you’re at the gym, you don’t talk much because you’re working out. It’s fine with me. We’ll keep each other on track with going. That’s the plan, anyways. I’m trying to be healthier, I have been for forever. And I do a really decent job with the eating aspect, but not so much with the exercise aspect. I wish they had dance here. But yea, that’s why I’m trying to stick to this gym and yoga thing.

So then, Piano. What fun! I started playing a song last week. Bach. That one that everyone knows, but I can never remember when I try to tell people which one it is. It’s a good one, though. And he’s still complementing me on my progress. The scales are going good, I’m enjoying them, My fingering is getting better, putting both hands together and stuff. It’s all great! The only problem is that the piano is located in the lounge which is below the main entry to the dorm, and stupid people who really much have a crappy life have nothing better to do than make fun of people who practice piano as the walk by. It really gets on my nerves because it makes me embarrassed and puts a damper on my excitement when I’m playing. There’s no reason to make fun of me! They’ll be on the elevator in TWO SECONDS they can deal with my scales for that long! Serious. Sheesh.

So then, friends, I guess was the last thing I wrote the other day to remember what I needed to talk about. I don’t have too many friends here, really. I mean, I have Morgan, and had Adah but I haven’t seen her in a while and she doesn’t seem to be making an effort to see me, really. I have other friends which are just class time friends, and that’s about it. And I really really miss all my friends from home. I’ve been here for 12 weeks, I have 5 more until I get to come home. I kinda want to go home now.

Luckily, my family is coming in a week! I know that will brighten my spirit and get me through the last 3 weeks of horrible Finals until I get to go home. 5 weeks. I’m counting down. I have 3 weeks until my birthday! But 18 really doesn’t mean much. At least it doesn’t feel like it really. But anyway, I can’t wait for a week from now for Thanksgiving break. I wish I had Monday and Tuesday off, too. I haven’t missed any classes yet, really, so I could always miss them if I wanted and it wouldn’t make a difference. I’m going to be furious with any teacher that gives me work over Thanksgiving. We all KNOW they wont have any. They can give me work I can get done on any day besides the days I have off. I will be so angry…

So in response to Grama and Dad’s comments, I’m excited about the Long Island Pictures too! Can you tell?! And the gestures, glad you enjoy them. And the Illumination, haha, it’s decent, Grama, but I suppose you’d have to be in my class to try and decipher what my crazy teacher wanted. It’s tough going being in the class, I can’t imagine figuring it out outside the class. But it looks neat though, yea? It’s decent, like I said. Hehe. Norma, glad you liked the Pratt cup! Hehe. I just remembered how you had all those glasses and mugs with all sorts of different stuff on them, and I thought it would be appropriate =) Norma, you know what’s really funny though? In your comment you said how Port Jefferson really was just like Olympia, and that’s EXACTLY what I said when we very first drove into town! Did anyone already tell you that? I said to Dad “I’m not surprised Norma lives where she does now, it looks just like here!” How funny that I was right on! Yea, it is sad we wont get to see you for Christmas =( but hopefully soon after, right?

What else? I know there was something else. Probably just that I’ve been doing so well here, it seems, for so long, but then last week I was so… bored, jaded, homesick, etc. I mean, not severely, but it was the first week that I was like, BLAH I’m sick of this! I want to come home! I want to see everyone I know and love, I’m sick of these people I barely know at all!

Tommy, Molly, Mom and Dad, I can’t WAIT to see you in a week! Grama, Laura, Peter, AJ, and Heather, I can’t WAIT to see you at Christmas time! Norma and Tony, I’d better be able to see you for Spring Break or something! Mine in the second week of March, I believe. Naomi, Hanna, Sophie, Anna, Jessica, Alix, Annie, Allison…. I can’t wait to see you all when I get home. I miss every one so much. My winter break is going to be so AWESOME.

Well, folks, I think that’s it. Keep calling and writing me if you are, or start to if you aren’t, because keeping in touch with my home base grounds me and keeps me sane, along with usually making my day or making my week. Serious. Dad, do you still have a copy of that NY Times you told me to pick up? I didn’t manage to, but if you do, bring it when you come next weekend! I can’t wait to see you and the rest of the family!

So, I guess it's about time, huh?

First of all, I received a cry for more pictures of my work, so I’ll start with that. Uh… Drawing I guess. My gestures are getting better because I’m using a technique we used in something else to help them. I switched back to using my right hand, and on Wednesday I felt like I was doing something better, and my teacher agreed that I was a bit. So, for those of you that didn’t understand what the gestures were all about before, maybe showing you some better ones will help? These three examples are pretty good and show the gesture of the figure a bit better. They look more three dimensional, and parts of the body look like they’re going into the page or coming out towards you. Let me know if they help you understand. But yea, I’m getting a bit better. It’s pretty neat.







Then… there have been some Drawing assignments that I really didn’t care for much, so I wont bother with those. But this week we were assigned Hands and a Self-Portrait. I haven’t done the self-portrait yet because I couldn’t bring myself to do it tonight. It is Friday, after all. I wish I could have just gotten it done, though. I spent all of last weekend doing homework. All of it. So I decided I didn’t want to do that again this weekend, so I did my LCD Wednesday night, and my hand drawings yesterday, and I planned on doing my self-portrait tonight, but I just can’t. I need to chill. But anyway, so my hand drawing was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed doing it. I’ll post my self-portrait once I do it. Oh, and I never got to post my major 16 hour midterm 2-point perspective thingy because my teacher kept it, so I couldn’t take a picture of it! So I have no idea when I’ll be able to post that. He’d better give it back…



Then… LCD. Well, there isn’t much to show, but I have one assignment I can post now and then the one I worked on for this week is done, but not finished because we’re finishing in class, so I’ll post that later when it’s completed. But this one is a painting. The project is called illumination. I did okay with it, but there are definitely some things I could fix (but I don’t have to, so I wont. Hehe). The assignment was to create and abstract grid and an abstract illumination of a light that all worked together as a composition etc. which I don’t want to get into because its like all the other assignments we ever have and it’s a lot to explain… It’s just that composition is always important. So that’s that.



Oh, and I forgot! We also had to draw a gourd. We’ve had to do apples and stuff, and on the same token, we had to do a gourd. My apples have all pretty much sucked, but my gourd rocks! We had to think about simultaneous contrast (do we all know what that means? Contrasting colors… is the best I can explain…) So here it is, my beautiful gourd!



Alright, what else? Ah yes, photography. My last critique didn’t produce as many pictures as the first, but I have three decent ones for yah, and my next critique is this Friday, for which I hope to have millions of good ones because I have tons of good pictures from Long Island! I’m pretty juiced! So here those are. But sit tight for next week’s, they’re gunna be really good =) Unfortunately, Caitlyn’s camera is pretty crappy, so these pictures are pretty blurry.







Okay, so in the middle of that I got a call from my good friend Naomi Bee and we talked for 2 hours, so now’s time that I’m going to go watch a movie with Morgan, Great Expectations, to be exact, so I’ll have to finish this later. But that should satisfy you for now. =) I’ll have to finish up talking about school work, though the pictures I have are through, and then talk about yoga and piano and the gym and eating and the ELECTIONS WHOO HOO!!! And friends both here and at home and thanksgiving and everything else! Sheesh. =)

Awesomeness!

Piano is going SO GREAT! My teacher thinks I'm a super good learner because I understand all this crazy scale stuff he's telling me and I can't on SUPER quick and play him the next step before he even tells me! He said if I took the time to practice, I could be really really good! It's super neat and it's SO EXCITING and it's one of the most fun parts of me week! I'm SO GLAD I decided to start! The other most fun part of my week would be Dance, if I could find an effind studio! I love Piano. I know I'm learning quick, but I wanna learn even quicker because I'm figuring out there's SO MUCH to learn, and my teacher seems to know it all!

Yoga was frickin amazing! I'm so sleep now because of it, so relaxed... =) Turns out the other day it's on it Tuesday at lunch, so I can go! It'll be a good break between LCD, calm me down and bring me back to my center so I'll be ready for the afternoon.

Family game night! Awesome! A bunch of us just playing games! I love games. I need to go to bed thought, so I'll have to explain these things in more detail tomorrow.

Joel Sternfeld

These are some of Joel Sternfeld's photographs. Take a moment to look him up on the web for more, though I've put up most of the ones I found simply by doing google images. He's got some really nice stuff. At Christmas time, those of you who will be with me can look through the book I got! =)

Great-Granpa's store

So I forgot to tell you guys about the store Grama grew up in! We went over there before we went to Union Square on Sunday. You just hop on the G and it takes you straight from here to there! We weren't sure which one it was once we got to the corner of Kent and Frankin (were those the streets? something like that) but we were pretty sure and turns out we got it right. I don't know about it being closed really, it looked kinda shady because I saw someone come out and it said to knock and they'd let you in or something and if you didn't know better, it DID look all boarded up. You get me? So that was fun. The area was pretty weird these days, though.

So I got my rest YAY and now I'm going to take a shower, develop some negatives from the weekend with Dad, take my piano lesson, do my laundry, and go to yoga. It turns out they have a yoga class! So I'm going to try it out. I'll let you know how it goes. I've never done yoga before, but Morgan and her friend are going. =)

I HATE COMING UP WITH TITLES FOR THESE!!! Next time I’m just going to leave it blank and see what happens.

So, I have a whole week and a half to catch you up on. Or, rather, Dad’s visit! Because that’s the important part.

He got here Friday morning, but I didn’t see him until lunch. We went to this place that everyone raves about called Bergen Bagels, and really, I don’t know where it’s been all my life or why I didn’t know about it sooner! It’s the best bagel place I’ve ever been to. I mean, sure, it could be matched, but I don’t know how you could make it any better. Their bagels are so good! And Dad really enjoyed them, too. So we pretty much had a bagel for either breakfast or lunch every day he was here. Hehe. Then I had more class, but afterwards we went out to dinner to this place called Jolie on Atlantic Ave getting into the Brooklyn Heights area, if that means anything to you. It was upper scale French food, and it was tasty! He got fish or some sort and I got Risotto which was pretty much the beast Risotto ever (my guess? Butter!) And he had cheeses and I had a good salad for an “appetizer.” The concept of an appetizer these days is so funny to me. It should just be the first course. =) So that was fun.

Saturday I took him to Tillie’s for breakfast and then we set off for Long Island. It was about and hour and a half drive. It was really really nice to get out of the city. I was so sleepy though. In fact, I haven’t slept in since last Monday. I’m pooped. Hehe. So we visited EVERYTHING! I can’t tell you the day in as much detail as if it was today, but I can say we went to the Botanical Garden (slash really neat forest) that Grandpa worked in and saw his plaque and we went to the house everyone lived in and some neat church graveyards (for pictures) and Port Jefferson and drove by Dad’s high school and Norma’s high school and the School Grama taught at and the school she helped at after she retired and we ate lunch and I took bunches of pictures! (4 rolls of black and white which I will be developing tomorrow, and a role of color which wont get developed for a while.) Oh and Rocky Point! OF COURSE!

So the garden grandpa worked at was awesome! It was so pretty and we really didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked there because we had so much else to see! I wanted to wander around it for a while. There was a neat lake and everything good for pictures! That was a lot of fun, really pretty. The old graveyards were just neat in terms of being something new for me to photograph. All the schools looked super nice, but we just passed them on the road. Of course, Rocky Point! We saw the property the old summerhouse used to be on, and boy, it had the most hideous house built on it that I’ve ever seen in my life. Really. It was horribly ugly. The house to the left of it was so neat though! It was super cute and blue and quirky. I liked it and too pictures of it. We drove around and found out way down to the beach, which was neat, too. Except for the lack of beach. That was a little weird. There was hardly anything to walk on, and Dad said there used to be more beach, even if it was high tide. Pictures, pictures. Port Jefferson was really fun, but I would have really liked to see it how everyone remembers it. Actually, that goes for everywhere we visited. I wish I could have seen it all back in the day. We got lunch there. I got butternut squash soup and it was the best butternut squash soup I’ve ever had, which makes it monstrously delicious because butternut soup is my most favorite kind of soup on top of being one of my most favorite foods period. To put it simply, it was damn good =).

On the drive home I slept. I was so sleepy… We didn’t go out to dinner that night because we ate a late lunch and weren’t even too hungry for lunch, so instead we played some cards with Morgan for a bit. Saturday was a really fun day. Oh yea, I forgot. When we visited the old house, we ran into the new family’s parents and they knew who Dad was, or rather, that he was a Hodul, and he talked to the mom for a bit and they invited him in, but he declined. It was neat to see the neighborhood. =)

Sunday… what did we do Sunday? Ah yes, bagel for breakfast, of course! Then we went into Union Square to Strand bookstore. I’ve written so little lately that I can’t even remember if I mentioned the first time I went there. Ah yes, I did. With Adah and Cliff and Morgan. Dad bought me a super cool photo book by Joel Sternfeld. His photographs are really neat! He even has one at the MOMA. He’s pretty famous. My old photography teacher is inspired by him among others, that’s how I learned about him. Then we walked around for a while and ended up in a little café for lunch. And I got pancakes against my better judgment, as breakfast food always is for me, but they were delicious! Breakfast food is just so rich for me, I always feel a bit nauseous after I eat it, which is why as a kid I never touched it. It’s all cakey and rich and buttery and greasy. Yup. Anyway, so that was a nice little café. And we looked around for boots because I need some, but I didn’t settle on any. I found one really nice pair but decided to wait considering it was my first day looking. Turns out my arches are so damn high that I can’t get into boots the go way up your calf unless they have zippers! Which sucks! Then we came home and I can’t even remember what we did, to be honest. Hehe. Maybe it’ll come back to me as I continue to write.

Monday I got up early to finish homework, because though I didn’t have much, I had to fit it in all over random places so I could hang out with Dad as much as possible. We got lunch, a bagel, perhaps? And then I had Video. We had to decide our final projects by then, but I didn’t even know what I was doing! So I had to kinda come up with something on the spot, but it worked out fine because my ideas bounced around the class and we came up with something based on what I was looking for that is an awesome idea that I really want to explore! So I hope it comes out okay. Idea projected into concrete is tricky, especially as a beginner. Then I had to nap because I was soooo sleepy! And we went out to dinner. Where did we go…? Oh yea. Italian. It was pretty good, but not above average. Actually, the polenta and mushrooms were great! But the rest was average, unlike some of the other off the charts food I’ve been having lately. Tuseday we got a bagel of lunch (shocker, no?) and went to a really local restaurant. Right down the street a few blocks. I suppes it was French. Sorta. We didn’t know what to expect, but it was pretty good! I really liked the salad, and I got Risotto again, which was average. But average means tasty to me! Off the charts is up scale and stuff. Then we came back and played some cards. I really enjoy cards.

We got lunch today because I had class in the morning, and where did we go? Bagels, for a change. But boy, that place wont get old, you can always get something different! They have so many choices! But then we had to say bye because I had to go back to class and by the time I was out, he was at the airport. I had an excellent time, and my whole family will be back in about 3 weeks for Thanksgiving! I’m super excited to see Ithaca and see them and hang out with them! Okay, that’s all for this entry. Unfortunately my finicky internet isn’t working, So I wont be able to post this until tomorrow. =( I have more to write about I’m sure, but I’ll write tomorrow because it’s my day off and I will be sleeping, laundrying, pianoing, hanging, and developing. Heehe. Hey! The internet’s working! Sweet.