the last stretch
okay. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. How do I manage to waste so much time? ERG.
In an attempt to increase my productivity these last few and vital weeks of the quarter I’ve decided to go on a fast of sorts. Until the quarter is over: No blogging. No Flickr. No bloglines. No Craigslist ( I can seriously waste hours reading listings, its weird). I rarely watch TV anymore anyways, but that’s nixed too. Maybe this will help. Maybe it will drive me crazy, but we’ll see.
Of course everything has to happen this comming weekend…IMAX, Andrew Bird, Malice in Wonderland, Tango, the Drawing Jam. Le Sigh. I don’t like having to pick and choose between so many awesome things.. But I am pretty certain I’ll be going to the drawing jam just cause I haven’t done any figure drawing in a while.
Anyways…. this should be the last post till december 14th. If you really wanna know what I’m up to… email me or something.
thanks and stuff
I guess a lot of people make these lists for thanksgiving, or not. I don’t really know…although I’m a day late I feel like making one anyways… if only to put off doing real work for yet another night, which I will surely be kicking myself for very soon… but also cause I just want to.
Horray for:
The Parents that raise, support, feed, spoil, love, and fund me. The Older Siblings that inspire and encourage me. The Multitude of Cousins that have told me all their stories: the silly, the sad, the scandalous. The Multitude of Little Relatives (nephiews and such) that are just bursting full of potential greatness. Family Friends & Friends’ Families that welcome me. The Boy that puts up with my weirdness and is awesome, generous, and relatively adventurous. The Flatmate & Neighbor that are always there, offering absurd humor and support. The classmates that amaze and inspire me. The Teachers that make me want to do improve. All The New People I’ve met this year that have helped me grow in all sorts of ways.
Okay… time for Top Secret Procrastination Project #2!
said joy
Sometimes I say my sister is crazy… But in a good way. I think maybe it’s in that Catch-22 sort of way where only the “crazy” people really know what’s going on. And in that sense I wish I was half as crazy as her.
I don’t know how to really introduce this huge quote, but I felt the need to share her words, cause they made me think about stuff:
“One of the projects Common Ground is working on is rebuilding a community center…It’s all very exciting-it’s anarchy at its best. I have always said that i have seen the future and was terrified but this is also the future- the good the hopeful. I think the volunteers down here are so thrilled to be here because it gives us a break from our normal bullshit lives in the system. This is a way to escape it and to be almost free. I finally understand the idea of live free or die-i really get it. A life worth living is so much. I think the volunteers are thankful that they can be a part of this rebuilding, this part of feeling significant when everyday we have to live our lives out in a normal 9-5 fashion where we don’t contribute one single bit of significance to society. It sucks that a hurricane has to bring this out in us but it makes you wonder what things could really be like if we could break free of this system or
machine. What if we didn’t have to be drones for the hive? Where could we be today?
…We can’t abandon our way of life just yet but we can certainly start paring down. I am thankful that I am not held down my material items (with the one bad exception of U2 items) that I can’t carry around with me. Nothing seems that important- maybe it really is time to get rid of even more stuff. Clothes, books, etc.
Why do i do this? because it feels good-it feels rewarding to help other people, to help other people get their own voice back, power to the powerless, to be an advocate for others in whatever way makes sense. I pity those who don’t have the compassion or empathy to feel tragedy and injustice. It dehumanizes them and reduces them to mindless automatons to be so wrapped up in their ridiculous lives- a life worth living or being a robot. I don’t know what the answer is but i know i won’t be a robot any longer.”
Looking around my room just makes me feel… lucky but guilty. The more things I accumulate the worse I feel about it. I need to do a massive cleaning out and revamp. I need to recenter and reorganize.
talent crush.
I wish there was a word for that feeling… I guess it’s like… a talent crush. The feeling you get when you feel like you could fall in love with someone just based on their work (even though you know it would never really work out). Work being any sort of product of creativity, like writing, or design, or illustration, or printmaking, or painting, or sculpture, or photography, or music, or whatever else people make.
For a while there I don’t think I knew the difference between a talent crush and a regular one. But when I think about it, most of the art kids I’ve ever crushed on were people who just created things that impressed me. I mean, it helps if they’re cute too (although I think most people have grown up to be pretty attractive anyways) but generally few other things are taken into consideration.
There are a few people in my art classes that I’m consistently impressed by. People who don’t have to even say anything yet I almost want to hold hands with just in hopes that I will magicly catch some of their genius. I wish my work spoke for me like that.
I was flipping through Never Eat Alone at work today cause it was just laying around. I was drawn to the bright orange color and the title, which I thought was kinda interesting cause I think a book by me would be titled “Eat Alone Occasionally.”
I tend to think what a lot of people could use is some independence and not NEED other people in order to enjoy themselves. Not to say that relationships (not just the romantic kind) aren’t important, cause I know they what make life interesting and awesome and all that. Maybe it’s just cause it took me so long to figure out how to enjoy myself and be the least bit interesting. At least to myself, for a while it seemed that I found myself to be so boring I couldn’t stand being alone for very long, so I filled my time with temporary people to fill in the gaps in my day. But that’s pretty unfulfilling.
Flipping through the book got me thinking a bit. Even though it’s target audience is obviously a much more business oriented bunch ( it’s sort of a book about networking ) there was some interesting stuff in it. It’s all about building connections through generosity and genuine relationships. And I guess now that I’ve sort of figured myself out, I feel like i’ve hit the point in time where I can turn my attention outward to other people more.
And while there is no way to really be a good designer/artist/whatever through just talking to people, I don’t think there’s any way to be a sucessful one without being able to talk to people either. So as much as I wish my work alone would make people want to fall in love with me, I realize this won’t always/ever be the case.
So… after that 5 paragraph introduction, I suppose I have three main issues right now: learning how to make things that are awesome, learning how to create and maintain connections (at a sort of professional level i guess), and learning how to build and maintain significant relationships with others by helping them. The last two are pretty similar but seperated by the level of closeness I suppose. I’m hoping my Interpersonal Communication class next quarter will help with both.
Geez. That got way too long. I should have been sketching and working on that “making things that are awesome.” But it’s helpful to write all this out. It gets it out of my head and sort of organizes it. And it makes it easier to fall asleep… so.. g’nighty.
calm before the storm
This weekend has been remarkably unproductive, but ( or because ) it’s been lots of fun. We had a ton of people over on Friday. I think there were like 10 people in this place, which doesn’t sound like a lot but it breaks our previous record of like.. 6 or something. We don’t have groups of people over very often. It was breakfast and boardgames. It’s nice being in a relatively large group of people and not feeling intimidated at all. And Saturday mornings are like my favorite part of the week. We also went to Pilobolus last night which was pretty cool.
I keep rationalizing my procrastination, but it’s really just cause I’m super unorganized.
Geez. The quarter is going so fast..less than a month to go. and I have SO MUCH to do between now and then. Why am I working on any of it now? AHHH! *freaking out*
I think I need some sourdough bread to fuel my productivity.
Eat Breakfast
I just made myself a tasty breakfast burrito. Sometimes I forget how much I like a good breakfast. It is quite possibly my favorite meal of the entire day, when I actually get to have it. Usually I’m just running out the door to get to class, maybe picking up a bagel at Paranassus.
Maybe that’s why it’s so great. It’s like a special treat. And there are just so many things to eat for breakfast. And it seems like we almost always have the ingredients to make a fairly decent breakfast here (eggs, veggie “sausage” patties, cheese, some form of bread) and sometimes there’s fruit! and tasty yogurt! Oh and orange juice ( of which we have none at the moment, which makes me very sad )! and.. oh I might as well make a list… (because I woke up early to work on design, which obviously isn’t happening right now anyways)
Awesomest things to eat for breakfast:
• Cereal! current favs: Life, Kix, Basic 4
• soupy rice stuff! Something I don’t get much anymore not living with my parents, but it’s warm and tasty, and you can put like whatever in it. I suppose I could make my own, but it’s never as good.
• Breakfast sandwiches! especially on english muffins or croissants.
• Breakfast burritos! I still need to ask Zach’s mom what she puts on those potatoes.
• Crumpets! with stuff on top or not.
• Good bagels & cream cheese! the ones on campus are pretty shitty but I haven’t found a really good bagel place yet. Maybe I should check out Noah’s.
• Fruit! Cantaloup, Bananas, Avacados, Grapes, Apples, Strawberries!!
• Waffles! Particularly of the Riley variety.
• Pancakes! Particularly of the Zach variety.
• Omlets! Oh eggs that want to be tortillas… so tasty.
• Eggs Bennidict! Oh so unhealthy, but oh so good.
• Smoothies! the liquid fruit treat!
• Quiche! The Allegro Cafe has a particularly tasty one.
• Lots of other stuff!
So yeah, I like breakfast. It makes me happy.
irrational.
I hate when The Monthly Special messes me up right before it comes along. I suppose that’s just called pms. It’s not even the physical stuff, like cramps and things. It’s the mental things that drive me crazy.
It’s knowing that my reasoning is out of whack because of hormonal things going on inside my head, but still allowing this messed up reasoning affect me. It’s like when you know you’re dreaming but you can’t really do anything.
I know that most of my decisions are based on intuition and feeling, rather than hard logic, to begin with. But it seems like the Pre-Special makes me throw all logic out of the window and I come to some pretty ridiculous conclusions and solutions.
But it’s kinda interesting being able to sort of step back from myself and sort of just observe it. I’ve pretty much learned to never really trust my decision making durring the Pre-Special. Cause if I did, I don’t even know where I’d be by now.
I probably would have dropped out of college, left everything behind, run off with a lover, hopped a train to Mexico, joined the circus, and maybe live in an old van drawing comics. And I’d live with a rugged black lab named Banjo, and call him Jo for short.
That actually doesn’t sound too bad.
Anyways, it’s been a screenprintastic weekend. Its weird how I’d really rather be spending hours in the studio than doing anything else. If only I didn’t have to eat or sleep.
And “ebullient” is just a really fantastic word, and the word of the day.
honestly
For the most part, I’m fine left on my own. I have plenty to do and plenty of ways to amuse myself. Usually, I prefer a relatively high percentage of time alone to do my thing.
But sometimes I feel neglected. And feeling that at all makes me feel needy, which makes me feel lame.
I’m not saying I want everyone to come hang out with me all the time, cause I really wouldn’t be able to handle that much. I’m not even sure what I’m really saying. It’s not like a real consistent feeling or anything. Like I said, generally I’m happier on my own. It’s mostly fleeting and occasional. But now is one of those times and I can’t sleep.
It’s the little things.
1.monday 2.knock yourself out…
The I Heart Huckabees soundtrack is pretty cool. I think watching the movie again over the weekend helped inspire me to jumpstart my textbook cover designs.
I’ve been having fun with a projector:
I think I’m done with being sick finally! At least for the most part. I feel really good lately and eat voraciously again, which makes me even happier. Horray for my immune system!
Woke up early to register for classes this morning and finally got into the Interpersonal Com class! I’ve been trying to get into it for about 3 years. Despite my earlier excitement about the interaction design stuff, I feel like getting out of the art building a bit, cause I’m feeling a bit mentally cramped or something. And this has always seemed like an intersting class to me. Apparently other people think so to cause it always fills ridiculously fast… and no one else really cares…. but yeah, I’m excited cause I’m weird like that. Also a wildlife seminar! Fun!
gerbil tower of power
The Gerbil Tower of Power* is quite possibly the awesomest gerbil habitat add on ever invented. It totally turns any measly 10 gallon aquarium into a multi-level gerbil “building”. It’s what I’ve wanted to invent all year, but apparently has already been done for me.
The gerbils seem to enjoy the add on. It more than doubles their living space. and since the add on is all wire there’s lots of circulation and open air for them now.
I think I’ve finally figured out the appeal of having gerbils. It’s sort of like playing The Sims. You get to re arrange things and pick their furniture and build their home and pick treats and food and then you get to see how they react. It’s nice having two cause they interact in such curious ways. It’s like having a mini reality show in my living room.
And they’re so damn cute. Okay, I guess that’s enough rambling from the crazy gerbil lady now.
*this is the name Riley gave it, and I like it. I’m going to make a huge sign to put up over it.
