Today is dead. Yesterday was dead. Tomorrow is finals.

And yesterday I got to experience snow! Or, more accurately, a "wintery mix."

I'm studying at my kitchen table with Elise. Here is a picture of my view that I took on my phone.


I took it like two seconds ago and sent it to my laptop via bluetooth. Amazing! We are living in the future!
Elise doesn't like this picture. Sorry Elise. Life is tough and hard to understand sometimes.

So yes. Dead days. They are making me a bit stir crazy. I have a test at 9 am tomorrow and am pretty tired of studying for it. Maybe I just won't study for it anymore. We'll see.

I have made a decisive step towards my future (I went to Pei Wei tonight and a fortune cookie told me to do something like that . . . something about making decisions and being assertive. . .). I have applied for the Art Education Masters program at UNT. I sent in the application, fee, letter of intent, writing sample, transcript and all I have left is letters of recommendation and GRE scores. Phew. Applying for things isn't so bad. You just have to do it. And I did. I feel I have some momentum now and should research other grad options. That sounds like a wonderful way to procrastinate . . .

I'm at the library and have been for a couple hours. I don't usually study at the library, usually I'm at my apartment or at a coffee shop. The library is kind of nice though. Everyone is studying. We're all in this together--that is the feeling I get when studying here.

There is one more day of classes. That's madness! Kind of. Time goes fast, but we always seem to forget that. Very rarely do we reach the end of a semester and say "Man. That semester was so slow!" Nope. It's always really fast. So if it's always fast, then it's not fast, it's just normal. Fast is the quickening of a normal pace of things. I think we just don't understand time.

Let's see . . . something else interesting.

Went to Austin yesterday. Checked out some sweet contemporary art with my art history peeps. We met Patrick:


He was made in 2004 by Oliver Herring and is a collage of hundreds of photographs taken of a guy named Patrick and then glued together as a collage image of his body. Crazy! And it's a sculpture. Didn't know if that was clear or not.

I have this song in my head


It's Joanna Newsom's "Sprout and Bean."

Thanksgiving week is over and I'm back in Waco. It was a really fabulous week. It's good to be back in Waco because of my wonderful family of friends and roommates, but I have lots of school work to do. For that reason I wasn't super stoked about coming back.

But it'll get done. I always have lots of school work to do. That's life right now.
So I'm drinking black tea and eating cereal at my kitchen table. The sun just rose
And now I have to get ready and go work.

Happy Thanksgiving!
I'm sitting on my couch in watching the Thanksgiving Day parade.
A high school band from California is playing a song from West Side Story, which is pretty awesome.
It's good being home.

That's all I got.

Hello friends, family, and stalkers. The last time I posted I included a picture of me cutting Ryan's hair, and now it is almost time to cut it again! Oh dear.

His birthday was last week and we went to the Nasher Sculpture Center . . .

We did other exciting things, but that is all that I have pictures of. I took lots of pictures there. I like art. I also like feminism. Both are often times misunderstood and I find myself having to explain my interests to my friends a lot. I like it though. Today I presented in my Philosophy and the Arts class over Feminism and Postmodernism. It went pretty well; you should have been there. I'm thinking of going on a lecture circuit. People should pay to see me talk about Feminism and Postmodernism. People need to know.

Just kidding.

Kind of.

This past weekend was Steppin' Out, which is a Baylor tradition which involves students' participation in service projects around Waco. Me and six of my friends did lawn work at a home for mentally impaired people (I don't know the PC term-mentally challenged? mentally handicapped? crazy people?). It was enjoyable, being outside and working. And doing it with people I enjoy to be around.

I trimmed hedges.

And now it is the week of Thanksgiving. Tomorrow I'll go back to Colleyville, where there will be food and love waiting for me. It'll be nice, but won't be without some studying. There is still a final hurdle before finals.

It's been awhile. But I'm not going to apologize. I feel like every time I write I need to apologize for how long it has been since I've written. Well, this blog is a luxury, not an obligation, so I will not apologize.

I was in poverty this weekend. For my Family: A Global Perspective class I had to do a poverty simulation through Mission Waco. So from Friday night to Sunday afternoon I lived like I was in poverty. That's all I can tell you about it. Part of the learning comes from not knowing what is going to happen, so I can't tell you what happened for fear that someone out there reading this will someday go through it and know all about it. Maybe I'll tell you if you ask me in person.

People keep asking me how it made me "feel" and I still just don't know. Last night Rachael asked me how I felt and I told her I had a headache. I don't think that's what she was looking for. I just didn't know what else to say. I'm debriefing still. I have a reflection paper about it due on Friday so hopefully I will know by then. I'll let you know.

I also took out my nose ring. We had to remove all jewelry for the poverty sim and so I took it out for the first time since last October. I had some trouble getting it back in yesterday, so i just decided to leave it out. I had it for over a year. It ran its course. No one has really even noticed, not even my roommates, so it obviously wasn't that big of a deal.

And then a nice boy came down from Dallas and made me a yummy pasta/lasagna dish for dinner.

I have a test tonight and one tomorrow morning, and as I was poor all weekend, I couldn't study for them. So I skipped my classes this morning to study. Now I'm just going to chill until my 5:45 test. I feel okay about it and just want to get it over with.

So those are some quick updates. I'm kind of tired right now and it's kind of dreary outside and I feel like that is showing up in how I'm writing today.

Here is a picture of me cutting the aforementioned boy's hair a few weekends ago. You can see my nose ring (may she rest in peace).

And now I will heat up some of his leftover pasta/lasagna dish.

I have been eating a lot healthier since I've been in college. My veggie-loving roommates have been a good influence on me. Before, I didn't even like lettuce, let alone things like tomatoes and mushrooms, but now I love most vegetables. And thanks to the World Hunger Farm I now know and love all sorts of veggies that I'd never heard of before--like swiss chard, liana beans, and kale.

All that to say that my stomach has gotten used to healthy foods. Today for lunch I went to Vitex with Rob and John and I got their famous "gut pack." My stomach is kind of mad it me for that now. It is not used such large quantities of barbecue sauce and fritos. I appreciated the Waco experience, but it's nothing something I will be eating everyday.

Vitex also has Dublin Dr. Pepper, which is amazing.

Performing at Common Grounds last night was really fun. Elise and I had good rapport on stage and charmed the audience with our banter and musical prowess. Be looking for our names on a marquee near you!

I have a headache :/ Maybe because too much Dublin DP and not enough water.

Tonight I and my roommate Elise will be performing at Common Ground's open mic night. She has a djembe and I have a guitar and tonight they will make sweet music together. Or sad music. Or angry music. Or funny music. Depending on the song. We are going to leave in like seven minutes.

The funny thing is that my voice is still not all the way back (see last post) so I'm all sexy and raspy (which reminds me of an episode of Friends. Anyone?).

It'll be good. I've done open mic there before (we get thirty whole minutes all to ourselves!) and it'll be nice to have someone else up there with me. Next time, Linh will hopefully join us, who plays piano.

Ok, gonna pack up.

I'm cold. And my lungs hurt. But here's another picture from Long Island. It's our shadows at the beach. I'm the one with my leg sticking out.

Questions? Comments? How ya feelin?

Long Island was a good time. Lots of museums and driving and gravesites and art and autumn. For example.

(a detail of a painting by Lee Krasner)

(a mustache cup in the Whaling Museum of the town of Sag Harbor)

(and we got to dip our toes in the sand a.k.a. my only picture of the whole group)




Interesting things were learned and I'm glad I went. I was ready to come back though, because it wasn't exactly restful.

Now I have a paper due next week and one this week and I'm off running.

Ok, here are some hair cutting picks, most taken by Rachael [see last post for the story]:

Now for the hair . . .





Not a bad job, huh?

Today is Canada's Thanksgiving, according to my Mom's blog. Good for them. Way to be, Canada.

My hair is now about three inches shorter, falling to about my chin or a little lower than my chin (depending on the humidity). I cut it yesterday afternoon, and by that I mean that I myself cut my hair in my bathroom with my scissors. It was very exciting and spontaneous. Ryan helped, and I have some pictures that I'll post later ( I'm in the library right now). I like it though. I'm pretty proud of myself. I saved about twenty dollars and had fun doing it. I was encouraged by both India Arie and Regina Spektor. India says, "I am not my hair, I am not this skin, I am not your expectations-no. I am not my hair. I am not this skin. I am the soul that lives within," and Regina tells me "Maybe you should cut your own hair, cause that can be so funny. It doesn't cost any money and it always grows back (hair grows even after you're dead . . ." Thanks ladies. And thanks Ryan.

And so it is Monday.
And so I didn't go to my first class and studied instead for a test tomorrow (and wrote in my blog).
And so I need to leave now to go to my Philosophy class.

And I leave Wednesday for Long Island.

I'm at work right now and I have nothing to do. It's a pretty frustrating situation. I'm here, I showed up, there's nothing on my desk to do, and my professor isn't around to tell me anything to do. The professor I TA for is probably at lunch and the only thing I can do now is wait around for him to come back to see if he has anything for me to do. Until then here I am, writing on my blog. Thankfully I work in a cubicle so no on can see me doing this. To everyone else in the Audio Visual Resource Center in which I work, I just sound like I'm working, typing away on the computer.

I also take attendance for another professor's class. Her TA is in class, so I took her attendance taking job. The class has almost 200 students, and I walk up and down the rows, marking on my paper who is absent. It is quite a fun place of power, walking with my clipboard. When I walk by students hide their cell phones on which they are sending text messages and click out of the window on their computer on which they are playing Solitaire or looking at pictures on Facebook. I couldn't care less what they are doing, but it's fun that they think that I do care

My Mom came and surprised me in Waco today. We sat on campus and chatted and are going to get dinner together this evening. That's a fun surprise.

I'm writing a paper on Thomas Moran. He is a 19th century American landscape painter. It is largely because of his sketches and watercolors of Yellowstone that the area was set aside as our first national park. Such as

I think that's pretty interesting.

I know that's kind of belated, but I haven't written since it has been October. I feel a well wishing should be said
I haven't written much in my paper journal either, so don't feel too neglected. Instead I've been writing papers for class, journals for philosophy, notes for American Art. That sort of thing.
I've found that the first half of my week is usually pretty stressful and I frantically fly about, trying to accomplish everything. But by Wednesday, I either stop caring or I have less to do and then the rest of my week is pretty chill. That is how it has been pretty much every week.
It's so nice right now to write something I'm not going to be graded on. Not in a quantitative sense anyway. I'm sure you're still all grading and judging what I'm writing, deciding how and if you want to respond
My first round of tests is still not over. I have Contemporary Art and Philosophy and the Arts next week.

I'm wearing a ring today that I forgot I owned. It's a glass ring that I bought in Venice. Venice is famous for its glass products, and I chose a blue ring to remind me of the waters of Venice. There are also slight waves in the surface of the ring and gold flecks amidst the blue to signify waves.

Thar she is. The gold rings next to it are birthday gifts from Allison.
I should write blurbs for jewelry catalogs or something, huh?

Enough about rings; how are you?

I'll take a brief break from studying to share with you for a sec. A tombstone we studied in my American Art class had a poem on it that I like. I don't mean this to be morbid, I'm just studying for that class at this moment and . .I don't know . . I just like it. Deal with it. Sometimes I'm morbid.

"Adieu, my friend forever ever gone,
Her happy soul has put full glory on.
The tendrest ties could never her detain
But O our loss is her most happy gain.
Gentle her manners were, her tastes refined
Her speech sincere and open as her heart
Her conversation did delight impart.
Though young she listened to the voice of truth
And trod a savior’s steps in early youth.
Calm and serene she yielded up her breath
And even triumphed at the approach of death.

Sacred to the memory of Miss Mercy Jones
Who died April 7, 1805
Aged 20 years & 6 months"

And one more thing--Friday I went to an Ani Difranco concert with two of my favorite males in my life (Will and Ryan, brother and boyfriend, respectively). I have never smiled so much at a concert in my life. It is so fun to watch Ani rock out.

Rock on.

Okay. I guess I'll make another blog post. I haven't really felt like doing these lately. I think it's just because I've been busy doing other things. Like reading for my Philosophy class, which is really what I should be doing now. I'm at Common Grounds and I just can't concentrate on it. I couldn't at home either. I guess it's not my environment. I guess it's just me.

That sounds depressing but it's really not. I really just can't concentrate.

There are a bunch of high school girls here and they are ridiculous. They are leaving now. They wrote all over themselves with sharpies. Typical.

22 is a long way away from high school.

Ok, let's say something new and interesting. I've gotten a lot better at talking on the phone. That's not really interesting, but it's new. And I don't think I want to go to Thailand anymore. I just wanted a plan, any sort of plan, and so I latched on to that one for a week or so. But I don't want to be in Thailand for a year. I refuse to freak out about post-grad plans though. I don't want to waste my senior freaking out. I keep waiting for something to just fall out of the sky and knock me in the head and feel like the exact right thing to do. Oh yeah, I forgot I had an epiphany today. My epiphany was--of course I don't know what I want to do. Outside of school, I haven't really experienced much. How can I know what I want to do if I haven't done anything? So in my epiphany I told myself to just do something. Just try something. Unless the prefect thing happens to fall out of the sky, I'll just try other things until it feels right.

Back to Philosophy

Yes, this is my second post in one day.

My good friend Bailey once alerted me to the fact that I frequently have typos in my blog posts. I acted offended at the time, but I'm sure she is right. I even re-read my posts about three times but typos continue to sneak through. The reason I'm saying this now is I just re-read an email I sent to my Philosophy teacher earlier today:

"I have changed my mind concerning my paper topic. I was reading an article in Art News about "shock art" and now would like my paper to be trying to answer whether or now a specific piece of "shock art" is actually art, and use one more of the theories we talk about in class to define it. How does that sounds? And would the work of art I choose be the primary source?"

There are three blaring typos! And perhaps more. That's frustrating.

So I apologize for future mishaps.

I really enjoy wearing hats, but don't always have the guts to wear them. I decided today to get over it. And I'm wearing a hat. A bright red hat that I bought in Florence and wore frequently throughout Europe. I'm wearing it and you can't stop me. I'm wearing it instead of washing my hair.

I'm at the SUB, moments away from my first class of the week. I didn't read for it, which isn't a big deal, and I didn't read for the class after that, which is kind of a big deal, and I'm pretty ok with that. I had a mini freak out yesterday over everything I had to do and so decided just not to do some of it. It wouldn't be the end of the world. I felt instantly better. School isn't who I am. It's an important part of my life right now, but it doesn't have to make or break it. You know?

I've been looking more into this Thailand thing. I've gotten Elise and Claire intrigued too. That would be so fun to have one or both of them there with me, if I were to go there.

I was really excited about my Philosophy and the Arts class, but now I feel more ambivalent towards the subject. Even throughout one class, I go back and forth from thinking that what we are discussing (namely, the question of how to define art) is really interesting and valuable, to thinking it is a pretentious waste of time. There is no answer. What is art? is a question that can't be successfully answered. And we talk on and on about it just to hear ourselves talk.

It is important to know what is art though, I think, so that we can know how to respond to an object. If you know you are looking at an artwork, you scrutinize it, search for its meaning, measure its beauty, which is different then say, if you were merely look at a chair. You just sit in the chair.

And I'm tired of reading about this.

Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. Duchamp bought a urinal, signed it "R.Mutt" and then put in a gallery, calling it art. It's valuable in that it forced everyone to rethink their definition of art. Is art art because the artist intends it to be? It is so because of its context within the "art world"? (Don't even get me started on the so-called "art world." I think the art world should be the whole world . . .) So it's interesting, it's just talked about a lot so I'm tired of it.

I really do enjoy the class, I'm just venting. I think mainly I'm frustrated with Philosophy students who like to hear themselves talk and who throw around names like Nietzche and Aristotle like they're candy. And then I have no idea what they are talking about.

It also feels good to complain, because then you get to feel above all the people you complain about. Which is probably why Jesus tells us to "Do everything without complaining or arguing . . ."

Speaking of me wanting the whole world to be the art world, recently I've been throwing the idea around in my mind of maybe someday teaching art in a high school setting. You know, spreading the good news of art. Art therapy is also intriguing, though I know nothing about it. Maybe that could be before or after teaching English in a Thai setting . . .?