Joyeux Noel!

Merry Christmas world! I hope you had a wonderful day full of family and cheer and the good news of Jesus! :) That's what I had here in Arizona! 

It's been raining most of the week and I've been sleeping in and surfing the 100+ channels on my parents new and rather large TV......playing games with siblings....baking cookies....ahhh whatalife!

finals day reflections

In a little over twenty-four hours I will be at my new home, snuggled into my old bed, being kissed on the cheeks by my two parents and sighing and forgetting all about this dreary week I've been through. 

But I'm not quite there yet.

I have two finals remaining, the packing, and the 6 hour car ride to survive. 

Strangely I am not too worried about my finals this year. I am resigned I suppose, or just numbed because of my Sudafed? 

haha whatever the reason of my calm, I am ok! I am not freaking! I am studying and packing and acting like I should for once. 

FINALANIF

The end is here! Finals week is upon us!
I don't know what it is about the end of the school semester, but I always get sick on whatever week is lands on. I remember last year...I was so sick during my french final...I looked like death warmed over. My professor asked me, "WHAT iz wrong with youuuu?"
Well this year it is not nearly so bad. I have been courageously battling the cold and fevers off! I refuse to go down without a fight. I've had about 10 airbornes in the last few days and I remain pumped full of vitamin goodness.
I have three finals remaining. May the not-so-healthy remain standing.

Christmas decorations

 The girls on my hall have nearly finished decorating the outside of their doors for Christmas! We are going to vote on them tomorrow at our little Christmas party. One has a snowman, one a santa, one has a giant candy cane, another a window looking into a cheery parlor, one a mountain scene with elves. Mine was put up solely and  gloriously by my roommate and is of a fireplace, stockings and a tree with 3-D presents! It is too creative! I can't believe how much effort the girls have gone to----way more than I would have put forth! Does that mean my Christmas cheer is lacking this year? No......just my creative spirit. 

I hope that finals week comes swiftly and ends even faster.

As school is whirling down to a close (only four days of classes left before finals!) I am now in a state of reflection. My mind continually winds back over the past four months of my life: digging into the cranies of my memories and discovering some regrets along with forgotten joys.

I remember eating tacos in Mexico with my Other family, attending plays with Melissa, discussing life while running with Erin, first-time-voting with Josh, awkward hot-tubing with K n B, watching highschool football in a downpour, swimming in the ocean during winter and reading poems with Laurie, doing all my projects the night-or-hour-before, fasting sugar, breaking-up, having a photo-shoot in a foggy cemetery, numerous movie nights, eating doll-cakes, sleeping afternoons away, spending too much on Itunes, almost losing my best friend in a car accident, feeling Phoenix heat for the first time, new, easy job with Pub-Safe, trips to L.A. for art/cousins, scrap-booking it with my hall-girls, breakfast club trio, calling home happyandsad, three thanksgivings, being the only student in a room with a crazy french prof, seeing Russia through Dostoyevsky, consuming wheat thins, experiencing life and wisdom through the testimonies of others, awkward live-models in Illustration, skipping every school event, PIZOOKIE, spending hours with my MAC!, christmas lights, Balboa, and more.......

I keep thinking off all the things that didn't happen and all that I had planned and wished for but then I realize----I did experience life! My days were full and I have memories that add to the person I am becoming.

break conclusions!

 I have made it! I survived my own laziness and shrinking from responsibility and arrived at Thanksgiving BREAK! How did I get through unscathed? Well, to be truthful, I am not. I have a few not-so-stellar grades on tests and a few absences blotting my attendance sheet. This morning I was reflecting on the past semester from the coziness of "break-mentality" and I realized that slothfulness is never worth more than its few moments of instant gratification. After the sweetness dissolves all I am left with is a lingering, stale and foul taste coating everything!

Today I am overcome by the beauty on the sunshine dappled water. 

I see the blue horizon stretching out before me and I amazed by my smallness.

I feel a yearning deep inside me to LIVE.

I need to experience life. I need to taste the hot ocean air! 

The sparkling silver strands of sunlight on the water dazzle my eyes and my mind.

So much blue oppresses me.

HOME sweet desert HOME

ARIZONA
it is a great place!
I went for the first time this weekend to visit my parents there.
It is sunny and full of blue-BLUE skies! The heat is dry and makes you feel like your brain is shrinking! haha And apparently there are lots of ghost towns to visit, but I had to abstain.
Plus, there are saguaros! Ancient trees of the desert. For a person with no previous saguaro experience, I must say that is was enthralling to see their giant prickley bodies dotting the landscape.

Along with the joys of the crispy desert, I got the joys of experiencing my parent's love and closeness {awwww} I only see them for a few weeks each year and I miss the two people who still know me best. I can be any version of myself and they are not shocked or startled (but they may choose to ignore me!). I miss teasing my dad and listening to my mom. They are amazing people and I know that for a child to say that nowadays (and really mean it) is pretty rare.

new ART

I've definitely gotten more into art this last week...more creative juices are flowing...and it's great! Good to know that I'm still in the right major; sad to know I've wasted so much time not making things!

Future Projections

I've just spent the last three hours figuring out my entire school schedule for next semester through graduation with courses, professors, units, and electives all planned out. It was pretty exhausting mentally. Plus just thinking about all the exhausting work I'll be doing for the next two years- WOW, doubly tiring.
I might graduate a year late so I can study abroad next fall. It's strange thinking I will be here for another two years. I will graduate spring of 2011! That's unbelievable! SO far away! It makes me feel like a little freshman just thinking of it. And here I was happy to be almost done.....

figure drawing

This evening in my illustration class we did figure drawing with a live model. It was definitely not my first experience, but it was new in one aspect: I've never drawn a male figure. Always females. 

So when our subject took off his shirt and shorts it was a little unsettling. I wondered, "Should I avert my eyes for this part? When is it ok to look?" And he wasn't even in the nude! He still had on his boxers the whole time.

So from this experience it made me realize how powerful the human body is. It can create such feelings inside of people! It can create awe! And unease! Disgust or appreciation....

The most unnerving part was when the model would look into my eyes while I was drawing! I would be thinking completely abstractly about proportion and muscle alignment when BAM! Eyes connect. Minds connect. I would realize this is a real person and he knows that I am examining him personally...I seem to be engaging into something intimate with him by just watching him stand still, by just drawing the lines of his physique. It was, as I already said, unnerving...just a little disturbing. I wonder if that is because he was a male and I'm a female. Or maybe it is always that way with models. Or maybe I am just so naïve and sheltered from the physical bodies of others.......?

Inspiration for the artist

I am in a studio class this semester.....it's an artist's dream: make art, think about art, look at art. No assignments, just create.


& I have not made one piece!

I've decided that my inspiration is not being harvested........(its not being sown either, but that is something else entirely)

Inspiration is stifled by facebook. I am serious. For all its glory...facebook can destroy single handedly GPAs, full night's sleep, and also my inspiration. It seems to suck it right out of me....like an eager vacuum. Here is an example for your benefit: I return from class, skip down the hall, elated by my afternoon freedom and enter my room. I begin to prepare my "work area" for the master painting I've been dreaming of when, suddenly, a little, sniggley idea foists itself upon me.....2 minutes: facebook. We all know how I behave from here. Two minutes turns into five hours later. I awake abruptly from the stupor where I've lulled clicking robotically. I find that the world continued on while I breaked. My hallmates finished their work and their dinners. My roommate is turning out the light. How did this happen? When did my inspiration dissolve? Definitely during those clicks through past profile pictures, friends of friends blogs and super-pokes.
But I know that facebook is not the only culprit to inhibit inspiration from manifesting itself tangibly. There is also the atmosphere of my dorm room, my four walls can make a stifling climate. The worst of all inspiration-theives is the box of my own mind. I'm not trying to sound Matrix here....but I can totally limit my own creativity by fear and laziness...by curtailing those wondrous and bizarre possibilities with the mundane and safe options.
I need freedom! I need air! I need to make art already!

I find inspiration in:

• scripture
  
• poetry
  
• ocean and sky
  
• other art
• good books

Where does one start? How can I carry over my ideas into reality?

waxing poetic

I wish there were infinite fonts and colors to describe the feelings floating about in my chest. I would use vermillion in fine etches on a serene soft satin or maybe a defiant plum font to scribble my squawky ideas. But here I am, instead, with the generic Georgia to write out my day. I suppose this will have to pass. I need to use the writer's means of emotive communication...instead of italics, use an unusual synonym or a well defined phrase. I'll have to provide my flash in the written way of concept instead of visually.....

Blogs are foreign to me. How can I be honest and thoughtful without the fear of judgment? Can I get past the need to appear deep and just be geniune and state in plain english, "Today was ok. I didn't study or do much...."

Where can I begin? Where can I be myself and still be interesting?