back when I was a kid I used to spend summers reading, curled up either in the basement or outside in the hammock. tv watching and computer usage also took place. one summer I spent the entire summer entirely on the internet from 8 am to 7 pm. To think I did that back in the age of dial-up. lol. It also was not unusual for me to be enrolled in some sort of class or summer camp. First one I think was a summer at HCC, day camp with a variety of classes which took advantage of the facilities. You could pick and choose what you wanted to take, drawing or clowning, bug collecting or math. That was a nice program, it re-united me with a freind who'd moved in elementary school. Though I think I was in elementary school when I did the program.

Then came cty. to many it seems a waste of money, and if it is, it was in my case since I did it only one session one year and of all things (computer sciences, existentialism, writing, foreign languages, the collegiate list goes on...) I took a math sequence course which NHHS wouldn't even give me credit for. It was a good experience, though, taught me to look forward to college, taught me a little about NYC, and taught me that maybe their program was lacking something, art. I never enrolled in another cty session.

MICA rounds out this list, summer post sophomore year in high school I took their portfolio preparation course, so that the following year I'd have a portfolio to submit for the summer residency program. Looking back now at my classmates in the residency program, I really didn't need to take that measure, but I learned so much from that four-week course. Oil painting mostly, but also how to use charcoal (vine, compressed, and pencils), had my first crack at gestural drawing, and really started to learn about composition (something I am still learning about to this day). Oh yes, and as a result of that class I went to my first art opening. lol.

The residency program is really what relates to where I've ended up this summer. I enrolled in the graphic design/illustration course. Unfortunately or fortunately the instructor really only taught us design related things. She gave us a short survey of design history, introduced us to some firms we might be interested in, and tried to give us a taste of the design process. She also taught us how to use adobe illustrator in a ridiculously short period of time, on top of adobe after effects. I was introduced to the concept of motion graphics for the first time. I made something that I enjoyed as much as others enjoyed. I felt I had a grasp of what design was conceptually and found it on that level to be the ultimate level of art. I found that it was what I wanted to do. This teacher also suggested I look into the Corcoran. At the time I shot her down, I was in love with mica, and even she was working on her masters at mica. but look where I am now.

This summer I have spent between DC and Jarrettsville. I just got back from a trip to Chicago and am planning a visit to Providence RI. I work for the IT department, the Admissions office, and a design firm in the city, and am involved in a small magazine startup. I walk, ride my bike, and take the bus around town. I visit with friends and watch movies and bands play or just sit and shoot the breeze. and I have a chinchilla. but all I do with him is feed him. haha, simple man. Summer is already half over and if the rest of it goes the way this half has, well, I'll be in my grave before I can catch my breath.

goin ta chicago tomorrow!

realizing at this point, that it's probably not the best idea since I'll spend a lot on food, and I'm missing two days of work for it. but maybe after the trip I'll be okay with just nose-to-the-grindstone for the remaining weeks of summer.

amy kettenburg's website is coming along...eh...staggeringly but who knows, I may finish by the end of next week.

the artcade party went off without a hitch, we had around 600 people in attendance and really only 50 or so of them were corcoranites, so we really got across to the community at large. we also raised over $1000 for future costs (printing, lawyer, future parties and events).

nothing's gonna take my love!

who's gonna celebrate nana day with me? 7/7/07 is next weekend! maybe I'll make danni have a party at her place :P

why is this summer filled with so much awesome? probably because last summer sucked so badly! thank goodness for extremes!

hell week is over and the only thing on my mind is going home next week. luckily I can make it home wednesday night, awesome hannah tak said she'd give me a lift since she's going to Bel Air anyway. :)

Reviews were uneventful and relatively disappointing so the plan from here is to just forget about the whole deal. they basically said, hey, good job, you work really hard and you're doing good, just you need to work on the details and make everything a little less default. and don't fall into the senior slump next year. it took all I had no to yell out ganbatte, ne! do your best! I told them I would do my best. Trying to figure out how to salvage screenprinting, and the paper for modernism is the farthest thing from my mind. A change of pace is in order and I do intend to enjoy being alive for a bit. time to plan all the fun things I want to do this summer.

so emotional right now.

( Digestion of recent anime viewing: Last Exile )

It took me three months, but I finally finished torrenting the first Nana movie. WOW, I love live-evil. SO friggin high quality, and the AC3 thing was a pain for like 10 minutes until I found a kickass codec for quicktime. SURROUND SOUND (which I can sorta appreciate, even on little Ren). I had all tonight to work on my flash thing for friday, but of course, this finished downloading, so no work will be accomplished.

plus, 0.0 they put up the three mounted pages of my calendar from studio methodology AS WELL AS the first four pages of my brand palette for havoc snowboards in Gtown. Come by the second and third floors to be wowed. :)

new hair. inspired by "Caroline" from ParaKiss.

( if it looks bad, blame amanda feete for not telling me not to do it. :) )

Things Al has chewed on:

the TV remote (not the DVD remote, and only the grey buttons, not the red ones)
drawing of rachel and I
Cara's boot (while she was wearing it)
random cardboard in the recycling bin
shreds of the papasan chair
the carpet (also tried sharpening what non-existent claws he has on it)
my dresser
my desk
large chipboards left over from holly's bookshelf
unused cable cord
random bit of paper on the floor
my foot (in sock knitted by my mother)
his poop
a dirty plate
Ren's powercord (on 5 separate occasions, stupid me)

I think I'm going to just bring him home with me on wednesday. I have a feeling my parents want to see him. :)

never trust a scientist girl

heh heh. had core this morning. Francheska seems excited that I'm in her class, Neal hates me just as much as ever. He bought julia a christmas present >.> hmm....

but this semester is shaping up to be the best semester ever. I've cut back my hours in admissions, picked up evenings in gtown as IT lab tech mondays and tuesdays (stop by, ne?). I have several hours in the middle of the day on wednesdays at school which I can use to nap. I'm planning to get a locker downtown to keep a little blankie in. Children of Men is one of the required readings in humanities, so I guess I better go watch the movie now too. Actually the whole semester is going to be like a sci-fi fest, and I'm ready to eat it all up. We're going to watch metropolis over 3 weeks, and our class is in the auditorium, so you know what that means...sweeeet projection. Modernism meets in crummy 14-C, which didn't even have a slide projector for Donna to use. We're all wondering why they moved the slides and crap into nice 14-B instead of moving it the extra 30 feet to stash it all in the classroom noone wants to use (which I now get to have class in. merph). The good side to 14-C is that it has an outlet every 5 feet....Ren'll be happy about that if I decide to drag him down for academics. But I'm going to try not to, he'll just be a hassle in the auditorium.

kristen philbin has prodded me into getting serious about study abroad, and is also all over AIGA Denver '07. EHHHHH....I'd love to do AIGA, but, funding....ummmm...and I'd rather do study abroad in the fall so that I won't miss the senior shows in the spring. Heck, I moved sections this semester and made a point not to work on thursdays so that I could have no excuse to miss the openings.

I'm thinking about trying to study german again somehow.

14 sai no haha has consumed my life. even though all I've seen are eps subbed in chinese (NOT ENGLISH) on youtube, I can't walk away from it. and here, at 1:30 am, I am tempted to cry. sure, it's saccarine lifetime-esque plot would be too much to take on american TV, but somehow being set in Japan, I can't resist it.

Today in the admissions office, Anna came to visit and brought her baby, Molly. marissa mentioned bits and pieces of her own recent birthing experience, and low and behold!: Liz is pregnant. Couple that with the pregnancy of Hachi in Nana episode 31, and my random find of a japanese mini-series about a 14 year old mother and you get me super, super, super blown over and lost. roommate junk, and financial things seem to have landed finally, classes don't start for another week, so really this is that magic hour when terrible things can take over my mind. Once I am immersed again in content hierarchy and inDesign commands I'll come back to reality, but for now I can almost believe when marissa says that the admissions office is filled with pregnant water. (only she could ever get away with saying something like that.)

Holly is gone.


wierd.