As much as I have time to tell

I had a beautiful day- it was sunshiny and warm and I didn't have class and I went to the gym and hung out with friends and it even rained for me. And we're working out housing for next year, and I'm uber excited because I pretty much get to live with the BEST people I could possibly ask for, because I'm lucky and special and loved! yay. I thought I was gunna be room-mate-less, so I asked two people just thinking it was a slim chance and they both said yes and there are no two people I'd rather live with! My friend PK who is the sweetest silliest guy I've ever met, and Cliff who I know through a friend who is transferring here next year. I warned them that baking is my love, and now I'll have a kitchen, so I'll be make deliciousness whenever I need to wind down and de-stress, or even just for fun. They have no problem with that haha. And getting ready to register, I was reminded that next year is gunna rock because I get to take about a million photo classes, which I know you already know. Things are looking up. This semester is a million times better than last, and next year will be even better.

My classes this week went great, I think my LCD teacher finally realized that she was giving us insane amounts of homework, so it almost feels like she gave us too little, but in reality, we're just used to too much and it's a very nice amount. My epic drawing that I did over spring break (major homework assignment) ended up being the best in the class, and I was pleased with that, my teacher loved it and I was very proud of myself. And then we drew from the figure ALL DAY when usually we do general drawing in the morning, and the figure in the afternoon. Though I am better at general drawing, it was both refreshing and helpful to do the figure all day, I quite enjoyed myself. Sometimes I get sick of general drawing. We were focusing on the skeleton inside the figure, it was neat! But I was reminded once again that I never learned anatomy, and that I need to if I'm going to continue with drawing. English was annoying, it always is because that's what my teacher makes it. I have to come up with a proposal for my final film project and that's exciting because I love film! So much better than digital! It's really great. I have no idea what to do, though.

Only six more weeks until summer! And spring is finding it's way here and I'm excited. This weekend will be a homework filled weekend, but isn't it always? The difference is that this time I'm more excited about my assignments. It should be good. And I'm going to the synagogue again tomorrow, after going to both the Frick and the Met for art history, so tomorrow shall be awesome as well, who can beat photography, art history trips to museums, and good Jewish fun? I'll get to print, it's been quite a while since I've been able to, and I've never been to the Frick, so that should be really fun, and the Met is ALWAYS fun. I love the Met. I had no idea how awesome museums were until they placed them in context for me because now all the paintings and stuff make sense and seem so beautiful to me because when I was a kid I just didn't get it.

Random: Hella got a 97% on my art history midterm LIKE WHAT! And right before break, I went to a poetry slam and it was beautiful, I forgot how amazing those were. I hope to eventually get into slam poetry, I’ve always wanted to. There’s bunches more I could tell you about, but it is past my bed time, so I shall be going now. I hope everything is awesome on toast for you guys!

Jewish Weekend

This is an exerpt from a letter to a friend, and i had been meaning to write about this a bit, so this can at least give you a taste. It's all good times, and I'd be better at explaining it on the phone or soemthing if you're more curious. I actually did my next film project on this, but unfortunatly I don't think it's going to come out very well. I hope I hope.


What’s up with me… well this week is hella chill because we have break next week. My LCD teacher understands a break should be a break, and it is BEAUTIFUL. My drawing teacher, however, does not understand this simple idea, and gave me probably the most massive assignment I’ll have all semester other than my final project. It’s terrifying, actually. It’ll probably take me a full two days, if I do it all at once. Lame for my break, cause I’ll be home. But he wasn’t here today, so instead we had an assignment to go to the Met, and I went with my friend Taryn who is awesome and we had a lot of fun. We were supposed to do sketches, but instead we just took pictures of the pieces and we’re gunna do them later, and spent 5 hours wandering around the museum. It was awesome.

Other than that, last Friday I FINALLY made it to Shabbat dinner at the Rabbi’s house, and it was tons of fun! I knew it would be, but either Michele was gone, the Rabbi was gone, or I was gone every Friday for two months, so last week was the first week it worked out so I could go. We of course, went to the Synagogue first, and that was really interesting. It’s very orthodox, so the men and women are separated, which of course, is the source of some controversy for onlookers, but at the same time, Michele explained to me that the idea is that women are already holy, they’re already close to God simply because they are women, they just get it, whereas everything written is directed towards men, telling them what they need to do because they just don’t know, so the men and women are separated so that the men wont get distracted, because they are easily distracted. And that’s the same idea on the dress restrictions for women- always a skirt below the knees and a shirt covering the elbows, so men don’t get distracted. And Hasidic Jews don’t touch women other than their wives. Ever. It’s all really really interesting because without knowing what it’s all about, it seems like it’s bad for women, but when you find out the meaning behind things, it’s actually a pretty cool ideology.

So at Rabbi Simcha’s house, I met some cool new people and they were very confused that I was not Jewish. But I get that all the time, what, considering I’m in JSU and go to all the Jewish things and what not but I’m not even Jewish. Anywhere. Not a trace. So I just have to explain myself quite often. But yea, so Ariela, Simcha’s wife, made so much good food! And their older kid, Mendel, is a little rascal, going through that screaming stage. But they’re both such loving parents, it’s awesome to watch. And Simcha is mostly just ridiculous. No. He IS ridiculous. He, I think majored in film, and he’s from Manchester so he has a silly accent and basically, he had an epiphany and that’s why he became a Rabbi. But he is one of the silliest people I’ve ever met, oh my goodness. Definitely not what you’d expect from a Rabbi! But there isn’t a thing wrong with it. So Simcha likes to drink, haha, and he likes to offer other people drinks and make them say “Lachime” which I don’t know how to spell properly, which is just something like “to life” and take a shot. Oh he’s so silly. And they had amazing wine, it was so tasty. But that is not nearly the most important thing about him, just part of his silliness. He knows so much and is just very uplifting.. I mean, he could cheer you up any time anywhere out of any funk without even trying or knowing or anything. He just has that kind of awesome happy presence in a room. So silly, so silly!

And this weekend was Purim, which I wont delve into beyond that it’s like Halloween, and I went to two parties and randomly began to learn sign language and discovered that my friend plays in an awesome band with an awesome CD which me and Michele made sure to pick up, and I hung out with some really cool new friends of mine this weekend and all around I’m having a good time. I mean, I could keep talking forever as always, but I think that should satisfy you for now. It seems that right now, Judism is really interesting me and is a happy part of my life, thanks to Michele and the fact that you’ll learn about it from her whether you want to or not. I think I’m going to try to learn some Hebrew, what a beautiful language.

Fauvism

I don't know why these are sideways and I can't fix it and it's really annoying, so sorry about that.

I can't really explain to you what Fauvism is, except that I LIKE IT! It was an era like impressionism or mannerism or something like that, you know? I'm sure I'll learn about it in Art History next year. But we've been doing a series of projects based on it, which are posted below, and then we did a self-portrait which my teacher has, so I'll post it later. We started with a copy of a fauvist painting, and then we had to paint it as closely as possible color wise and such to help us see that yes, there were a lot of high-chroma colors (bright or intense, less grey) but there were also low-chroma colors (more grey) and that there actually was a ryhme and reason to the color choices (for example, blue from shadow, not for sunlight). While we were painting it we had to make a color grid of the colors we used. Then we made a rythm collage of only horizontals and verticals that represented the paiting. Then we did a self-portrait using the same color scheme in a fauvist style.










This last peice is completely different, and is actually almost all my own. We had to do a project that really had no guidelines based on the trip we took to the Brooklyn Museum, and this is what I came up with based on Monet's "Houses of Parliament, Effects of Sunlight" and on split-compliment ideas from class. I thought it came out neat, and then it turned out we really didn't have to do it, so we got extra credit. Whoot. Mine is the first one and Monet's is the second. Haha.






I went to another Purim party today! That's where I was last night. Maybe I'll have time to write about all that later. Purim is a Jewish holiday. I went and did my film project on it.

Now I'm gunna get back to the homework I am procrastinating... yea!

Yay!

Good weekend. Went to Shabbat last night with Michele. Good times. Went to central park with Katy today, met up with Hanna who's visiting. Good times. Going to a party tonight, good times. Hanging out with people, good times. Not doing homework, good times.

Until tomorrow.

Haha. I'm enjoying myself and in a good mood =) AND GOING HOME IN A WEEK!!!

mmm Thursdays...

So I nice and slept in, feeling well and rested, and I actually have time to write something, yea? But it this point, I've neglected this so much that I have no idea what even to write, because I want to write the important stuff, but who's to say what's important?

I think the first most important things is that I've only done laundry once since I've been here, and on three other occasions I've just washed the essentials. Yup, I have enough shirts to do that and pants are pants, you can wear them more than once. Haha, no I'm not dirty or gross, just time-pressed and with enough clothing to do that. Neat, huh? Haha anyway

So... Drawing yesterday we did an all day drawing and it was INSANE and I asked him where I stood in the class and I'm still at a B like last semester with no hopes of getting higher but plenty of hope of screwing it up possibly... I shouldn't have asked. I mean, that's not what he said, but that's what it amounts to. So he's not going to be here next week, so we have a three-week assignment due to him after the break! YIKES I'm really scared about it! I'm going to do it when I go home for break because that's the most logical time... Unfortunately... because that will screw up a lot of my free time to hang out with people, but I really don't have a choice. I need to spend somewhere from 12-18 hours on it, so you get what I mean. And instead of having a class with out him, we have to go to the Metropolitan Museum at some point and do some sketches of some paintings. Me and my friend are gunna go Wednesday as if we had class because why would we go any other time? That's the only time we have free and we have it free because we don't have drawing class so wouldn't it only make sense to go do our drawing work then? That's what I thought. I'm a little worried about that assignment too. You know what, I'm always worried about every assignment until I get started, you know?

Film, I have to do a portrait project this weekend. It's not due until after break, but in order to drop it off in the lab here and school and have them take it to get it developed, I have to do it this weekend because I don't want to take it to get it processed myself. My last project was on Illumination, and it turned out well for my first roll! So this one should be fun too, but I don't know what I'm going to do yet. Blah.

I won over my LCD teacher FINALLY! She wasn't sure about me switching in at first, but now she can see that I'm a hard worker and really care and produce pretty good stuff. I have sumore to post, but I have to get my friend's camera first.

English is still a PAIN. Or, I dunno if I'd said that on here yet, but it is. My teacher is really scattered and doesn't have her stuff together and it's REALLY ANNOYING because I have a hard time figuring out what to do or what her goal is because she's not bringing it together or making sense. It's really frustrating especially since I really don't think I need to be taking English at all. I understand why they have it at art school for all the kids who don't really know how to do English, but man, I think I out place it, what with all the AP classes I took? But anyway

Art History Midterm tomorrow... we gotta STUDY HARDCORE tonight! We've pushed it off a little to the last minute, but we should be fine I hope.

And tomorrow in photography we're printing POSTER SIZED! IT'S GUNNA BE AWESOME! Yup. It is. I'm really excited.

So that it's on the school-front. What else? Well, last weekend I had a really good time hanging out with all of my friends and I've really made some fun ones and it's nice. That pretty much sums that up hehe.

I'm going home in a week! This semester is FLYING by but I'm glad it is and I'm so excited to go home and see everyone! Even if it means doing my drawing homework at home...

So I guess that's all... I can't really think of anything else...