15 days?!

i can't believe that it's already been that long since i last posted. good thing i already hit my quota for the year some time ago.

christmas was excellent. lots of family. lots of cookies. and TONS of card games (old maid, hearts, euchre, trash, etc). i'll have to dig up some pictures eventually. i tend to stop blogging when i come home because let's face it.. a good chunk of my daily readers are right here with me! ;) as for now, i've got some homework and admissions stuff to get working on. school seems pretty far away, it's a wonder i even remembered what homework i have.

sarah's getting her wisdom chompers out tomorrow morning so it looks like we'll be watching movies and making smoothies (ha! that kind of rhymes) for the next few days. no big plans for new years.

heading back to school on sunday night (late flight around 9 but tons cheaper than the earlier one) still have some friends to catch up with. things to do, people to see, sims lives to mess up (the sims is a computer game in case you didn't catch that).

check out [this] to read a cool hockey story

and [this] to see pictures of our 23 inches of snow!!

enhanced

dear snow,

as beautiful as you are tumbling downward and blanketing the ground with white powdery goodness, you pose quite a problem for anyone traveling. so while i'm currently enjoying the whole an inch an hour thing, think you could let up on wednesday and thursday? that would be much appreciated. also, i am liking the fact that weather underground is referring to you as "lake enhanced snow" as if you needed any help around here.

and while you're at it, tell your good friend mr. wind that i enjoyed his absence today. he should consider taking a break more often.

sincerely,

me

in other news.. one project, one critique, 2 tests and one paper away from winter break :)

adventures

Life has been rather eventful lately (both good and bad). So much so that this blog post has been postponed a few days.

Last Thursday Rochester, like much of the rest of the country, got slammed with snow and wintery weather. It wasn't so much deep snow drifts but the ice that was created on top of the snow. Walking to class on Thursday proved to be quite the challenge... involving not one but two times when I totally wiped out. Luckily the first time no one was around to experience my awkward tumble as it was 7:30 in the morning. The second however was in a more populated space in the middle of the day. I felt a little better when I found out that I was not the only person this happened to. Both times were not particularly bad falls although my leg is still sore days later, but they did make me feel a little nervous for my tour Thursday afternoon! Which ended up going just fine and I didn't fall once walking backwards.. go figure! It was kind of fun to give a tour in the snow, it adds a level of excitement and I got to take some back routes to avoid the outdoors. Hopefully my tour group wasn't too cold!

Life event number two... Thursday after classes I was hanging around working on homework or something of the sort when all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off. Now ordinarily, not a problem. However, as mentioned above, it was snowing bucketloads and also about 25 degrees out so I was slightly less than excited to be standing outside. I had the sense to first put on sweatpants, a winter coat and grab a blanket before heading outdoors. Public Safety came after some time to figure out the problem (no actual fire or anything as far as I know). After about 45 minutes of cold we were allowed back in except the catch was the fire alarm had not yet been disabled so we stuffed a bunch of hats and sweatshirts on to mask the noise. Ironically when it finally turned off an hour and a half later I didn't even realize it because I had become so accustom to the obnoxious noise.

Moving on, Friday morning my roommate and I decided it would be a good idea to go out to lunch and do some Christmas shopping because we had some extra time on our hands. Ashley wanted to stop by Tim Horton's for a quick cup of coffee. That quickly turned into an hour and a half cup of coffee when we realized that she had left the keys in the ignition and the car was locked. Not to worry, my handy internet searching phone found us a locksmith and we were soon on our way.

Last night was the only RIT hockey game in the WHOLE month of December. I've been rather hockey deprived lately and I've had to resort to watching tons of NHL games. Anyway, after a long winning streak, the Tigers lost to Niagara. Our shots on goal were nearly double but their goalie was on all night and their shots looked a little stronger. Definitely a good game, just wished the Tigers could have pulled out another win! Now we'll have to wait until January for another game.

And the final event was our christmas party today! Last night after the hockey game we got back and immediately set to work decorating our entire apartment with those old school paper chains and snowflakes! It looked very festive along with all of our holiday lights and live christmas tree. This morning we woke up and got to work baking lots and lots of cookies! Chocolate chip, cranberry white chocolate, peanut butter with hershey kisses, and puppy chow. A bunch of people came over for dinner and a movie. We had spaghetti (minus the syrup) all inspired by Buddy the Elf, which was of course the movie choice of tonight.










All in all, a pretty decent weekend. The nice thing about these three weeks is that while there is still work to do, there is a good amount of time for hanging out before we all leave for the holidays. The good thing about blogging is that no matter how unfortunate the situation, the first thing I think about is what a good post it would make :)

Let's Say Thanks

winter snow advisory

Houston, we have snow.

and we're not talking about any puny-melt-in-one-hour kind of snow. REAL powdery white stuff that just so happens to be falling in a HORIZONTAL fashion.

of course, it had to pick the one day of the week when i have an 8 am class on the complete opposite side of campus AND i'm giving a tour for a special group today.

looks like today would be a good day to bust out the 'ol winter coat.

it also looks like we're supposed to get around an inch an hour until tonight which means that if i stand in one place for too long i could potentially be buried. note to self, move quickly.

it might help if i could see WHERE the roads are as the plows are seemingly useless.

oh the weather outside is frightful

[Post from my RIT Blog this morning]

For some reason the weather this year has just not been the same. Last year the snow started coming down around early November and let up around March or April (I could totally be making that up that ending date I honestly don't remember). This year it's December 9th and we're just now getting snow. We've had a few fake flakes here in then but nothing substantial. Even now its only a few inches. It is however incredibly windy right now.

Why am I bringing this up? Because normally I would be in class not still sitting at home in my pj's and watching it from the comfort of my own bed (all while listening to Christmas music)! I was supposed to have a class at 10 am this morning which was all fine and dandy but I woke up to roll over and check my phone and got an email saying it was cancelled. Now, this is not exactly the time I need a break, but extra sleep is welcomed whenever I can get it because I've been lacking in that category lately. 13 days ago I was home and in just under 9 more days I will be back home for winter break. This is probably RITs most awkward quarter. Fall quarter works out quite well, we're here for the entire time, parent's weekend is in the middle for a little relief and then we're back at it until Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving we come back and have the first 3 weeks of winter quarter followed by a full 18 days of break time then 8 more weeks of classes and finals. Thanksgiving break is fantastic because there is no homework attached so it's a full week of freedom. Winter quarter, while you'll have work the amount depends on what classes you're taking. So far, mine doesn't look like it will be that bad. This is also an awesome time to catch up (if you've managed to get behind already during the 3 weeks) or get ahead for the remaining weeks. It works out great for some of my classes that have 3 tests (1 before and 2 after break) and for my design classes which involve projects or photoshoots. The weirdest thing going on right now is the length of some of these days. I feel like last week was the longest week of my life! Not necessarily a bad thing, it's just totally throwing off my sense of time. Looking back, I sure packed a lot into that first week which might have been part of the problem (or solution?).

Anyway, time to actually consider doing something today! I have some design projects that I'm working on already. I've also heard that the snow is rather hard so that sounds good for some snowman building!! Next post I promise to talk about my classes, as I'm taking some rather unique ones this quarter.

=====

edit/additions:: it's no longer snowing :( or windy for that matter. my 1 pm class is still on. and university of wisconsin cancelled all classes because it snowed 17 inches. SO JEALOUS. i want the snow, ill still go to class.

lack of sleep + naptimes + fun = week one

lots of stuff going on lately. this has felt like the LONGEST week ever. seriously. a week ago i was in the car on the way back to Rochester. the days instead of feeling 24 hours long have been about 48 each. good for packing lots of stuff in, i guess.

classes started back on monday morning. i switched out of the 8-10 am class on MW and moved it to TR and then added another 4 credit class on MW from 10-12 so i'm back up to 18 credits. shouldn't be too bad. Monday was super long. i have class from 10-12, went ice skating from 12-1, class from 1-2, 2-5, 6-8 and then small group from 8-10:30. tuesday i start at 8 am, so there isn't much hanging around time on monday nights. tuesday i have class and then work the rest of the day until 4. good homeworking and laundry days. wednesdays are the same as mondays minus the small group so that freed up a little more time.

then came thursday. woke up around 6am for an 8 am class. its a super far walk on the complete opposite side of campus so i have to leave around 7:30. apparently the professor cancelled class at 7:34 when i was on my way and i didnt find out until my friend texted me. oh well. ended up going into work at 7:55 a good 35 minutes before it actually opens. worked until 2 and then came back, watched glee and took a nap! yay naptimes

thursday night ash and i went over to our friends house. they live about 15 minutes away in chili, it was definitely nice to get off campus. i like changing things up a bit every once in a while. we all went to Wegmans to get pizza makings and then made dinner. during dinner we decided that we wanted to watch a movie so we went back out to Walmart and bought Elf! after the movie we just hung around and ended up watching planet earth. until 3 am. drove back home and ashley and i ended up staying awake until a little after 4.

did i mention that friday morning was open house and i had to wake up at 6? apparently i banked a lot of hours over thanksgiving break because this was no problem. after working from 7;30 until 11:30 we all went ice skating and explored the new campus building! its SO cool. the four of us went out to lunch at dibellas off campus before ash and i went grocery shopping. came back and took a NAP because let's just say the energy level after only 2 hours of sleep declines rapidly. after naptime we headed back over to hang out. we came fully prepared this time with rice krispie makings. after eating those a few other people came over and we played the worlds longest game of apples to apples... seriously 749 cards & 3.5 hours later... we finally finished. and then moved on to Jenga.

woke up this morning around 9:30 and did some nonsense before going out on a photoshoot around campus. needed 70 images... got 304. seems successful. did some art history homework and asl. watched the proposal.

tomorrow i'm taking pictures all day for a project (from 10 am until 4:30 pm) and then at 5 we have an admissions meeting. after that i'm going over to my friends for a little for homework shenanigans.

busy busy busy. 12 days until winter break. that seems ridiculous.

happiest season of all

what a nice surprise this morning before my 8 am class. i woke up this morning and was NOT expecting to see snow! it felt rather christmasy with it being december 1st and all while i trudged through the slush to class with my soy hot chocolate in hand :)

River Hill State VB Championship

Click here to view these pictures larger

states & chicago

leaving on a jet plane

i decided at 11:30 last night that redoing two of my projects from the quarter would be a good idea. a few emails back and forth with my professor and a couple hours later, i finished! well sort of anyway. studied my butt off for art history yesterday.

couldn't really sleep much last night. finally gave up and got up a little before 7. got ready, backed up my harddrive (for the first time in about 3 months, i know i'm stupid) and then headed to the printers for what should have been a very short session. ended up taking over 45 minutes to print out 2 pieces of paper. apparently everytime i walk in there i cause "fatal errors". plus my print came out rasterized when its clearly a vector design. ah well, got a free print out of it. second time that's happened this week. got a smoothie to use up my extra debit and then walked over to building 7 to do some more studying before the exam. the actual test didnt take as long as i thought. didnt start until 10:20 or so and i was done by 10:45 i think. 60 questions. now i get to wait around in the lab until 12 when i can go over to java wallys and turn in my graphic novel final.

then i'm FLYING HOME!!! going to the airport at 1. flight leaves at 2:52 and i'm home by 4. i can't wait. in serious need of a break or i'm gonna crack.

leaving on a jet plane

stressed? maybe.

two finals in the morning. then flying home.

too much stuff going on right now, i'd really like a nap.

leonids

these days are getting longer and longer. luckily tomorrow is wednesday.

today looked a little like this...

3am: alarm goes off for the meteor shower

3:02am: alarm gets rejected.

7:00am: wake up

8:30am-1:00pm work

1:00-6pm lab working non stop on projects

6:00-6:30 printing

6:30-7:30 laundry

i have yet to stop moving today. tad exhausted. 8 am final tomorrow morning and then the rest of the day will be spent in the lab studying and finishing up projects. luckily i now have clean clothes to bring home.

after tomorrow morning with my crit i will be officially done with typography and political science. 3 classes left.

listened to the caps game on the radio tonight while i was working on stuff. they beat the devils 4-2 :) there was apparently lots of blood involved so i'm semi glad i was just listening and not watching.

watching the river hill volleyball game by text messages... 25-16, 25-27, 19-25 and they won the fourth. one more to go. maybe ill never watch sports again, just find out through text messages and the radio. keeps things more exciting :P

40 hours according to alison.

it's like my ipod's stuck on replay

monday is over. well, not technically. but close enough.

ashley and i decided this was the longest day ever.

i woke up around 7:30 (it was supposed to be 7 but i pushed snooze for that long). still made it to work by 8:30 which was earlier than planned. worked until 1:45. walked back with ash and then we decided to go to pickle nicks for lunch (this cute local sub place). we've been letting our food supply slowly deplete in preparation for break. did have to go buy more milk today, apparently we consume mass loads of dairy products around here. brought the subs back and watched some tv. worked on art history studying for a few hours and then we watched hockey! devils lost but it's alright brodeur was flopping around like a fish. been hanging around tonight. working tomorrow from 8 until 12:30 and then i'm working in the lab for the rest of tomorrow to finish imagery, art history essay and typography projects. wednesday morning i have a final critique at 8:30 and then i'm studying art history for the rest of eternity. thursday morning my art history final is from 10-12:15, running to Javas to turn in my graphic novel final and then hopefully making it to the airport in time for my 3pm flight home!

perhaps i should consider doing laundry and packing... maybe.

finally figured out my schedule for next quarter. unless something happens between now and then to switch it yet again. looks do-able. it'll be a lighter quarter than this one but i'll find enough to do.

caps & rangers tomorrow night, in case you're interested :) as well as river hill volleyball but i don't think they televise that in rochester. river hill better win though so i can go watch the game on saturday! i'm missing two hockey games this weekend, aren't you impressed that i'm not staying around for them?

adventures

Adventure Number 1

Classes were over on Thursday for me. I spent the majority of Friday in the lab working on various projects and what not. Around 3 Ashley asked if I would want to go adventuring. So we quick grabbed a few supplies and headed off.

The only deciding that we do is which way to turn out of RIT. Since most of our adventures so far have taken us North or West we decided to head East.

The thing about adventuring is that it involves no destination and NO maps what so ever. Not even pre trip map looking.

We ended up driving through Pittsford to Victor and almost Canadiagua Lake.

Drove through Honeoye Falls.Oops this next picture is out of order. Its actually right outside of the mall near Pittsford.

After all of our driving we ended up back in a circle in downtown Pittsford. We got out and walked around exploring the main street but didn't really find dinner. It was funny because we thought we saw a food place so we walked inside.. turns out it was a library :)

Got back in the car and drove to downtown Rochester in search of food. Everything was either sketchy or closed so we ended up at the Highland Park Diner. So good!
It was this super cute diner with surprisingly good food <--- Mom and Dad next time you come, we're going here... Ash and I played some uno while waiting for our food.

Adventure Number 2

Ashley and I decided a while back that we wanted to go to Erie PA to see RIT play mercyhurst. Turns out we convinced a lot of other people to come with us :)

Left around 3 pm on Saturday and made the mandatory stop at Mighty Taco for some food along the way.

There were 5 of us in Ashley's car and then another car was following us. The backseat was a tad smooshy with three of us but we played with dolls and were quite entertained the entire way. Especially with frequent "hot hot hot" calls and then the guys would quick roll down the windows so we wouldnt over heat. Im not sure why i look so uninterested in this picture. I didn't know Cory was taking it.

The game was pretty good, there were more RIT fans than mercyhurst fans. They started off playing not so well but came back and won 3 2

The campus was nice but the rink... not so much. we both decided that if we went there we probably would not have been so into hockey.

to be continued....

View Larger Map

details later :)

week ten

dear week 10,

i win.

sincerely, me.

=======================

week 10 is officially over. no more classes.

passed the heck out last night. ashley and i went to watch greys anatomy around 9. i'd be surprised if i saw 5 minutes of it. woke up on the couch at midnight. walked over to bed, fell immediately asleep and didn't wake up this morning until 9:30. how's that for a good night of sleep? woke up this morning and i've been in the lab since 10:30ish working on stuff.

i just FINISHED everything for my political science class. i also emailed my typography professor my poster design and got the thumbs up so that is DONE. need to print it out, but that takes like 5 minutes and i can do that tomorrow.

still have a calligraphy project, redo for an imagery project, 4 chapters of art history and an essay to write. i should have a good chunk of this done this weekend. tomorrow is a review session so that will take care of some of that. i love lab time it works wonders.

anyway, im headed back home now so ashley and i can go on adventures! its a nice day out so we've decided to go exploring. we'll see where that takes us.

rounding up

okay, plan failed.

didn't make it to bed by 1:30 or 2 or 2:30.

finally fell asleep sometime after 3. at no fault of my own. for some reason, despite the five hours from the night before i was apparently not tired. go figure.

anyway, moving on. graphic novel is finished. waiting outside the printers at crossroads for them to open so i can print out my project before i run to the lab to print out my paper and make it to class at 8 (it's 7:22 now) think i can make it? don't worry i'm not wasting time, the lady at the hub refuses to open before 7:30 anyway.

chilly morning. earlier this week it was almost shorts weather-- like open the windows, tank top wearing weather. however, this morning i wake up to 25 degree weather and frost covering everything. crazy i tell you. it looks pretty but my face gets a wee bit cold. and, no, in case you were wondering i am not wearing my winter coat. why? because it's not after thanksgiving. yes, christmas music can be listened to year-round but when it comes to winter coats. only between thanksgiving break and spring break are these acceptable (some exceptions are made for the crazy rochester weather but no this is not one of them) oh would you look at that, dashboard just informed me that it dropped another degree. hmm....

gotten a ton of work done the past two nights. last night i started drawing and doing homework at 5pm and didn't stop until 12:45am i think. i mean obviously a few breaks i'm not some freak but relatively uninterrupted. after class tonight i'm hoping to finish up my last 2 quizzes for political science, work on notes for art history and come up with a stamp design concept. tomorrow will be spent entirely in the lab working on stuff for finals week. saturday morning is the open house. saturday afternoon is a review session for art history. saturday night is up in the air but most likely looking like a trip to erie. not to worry, homework WILL be brought on the car trip.

okay seriously, this place needs to open now. isn't 7:28 close enough? lets round up kids.

count

THREE CLASSES.

4 FINAL PROJECTS.

2 QUIZZES.

2 CRITIQUES

and 1 FINAL...

away from thanksgiving break.

however, it's 1:20 and I need to be up by 6. so goodnight for now.

week from today i'll be home :)

hop on pop

slowly knocking things off of my to-do list.

probably helps i skipped class and work this morning.

probably does not help that i've been sick for three days now.

no one ever told me how disgusting dayquil is. seriously nastiest stuff ever.

luckily alison had the idea to chase it down with some crackers.

in need of a new pair of lungs and more cough drops.

luckily walmart allowed me to fulfill the second wish. first, not so much.

imagery is driving me banana cakes.

this might look odd because it's a two page magazine spread.

this is what happens when i cannot come up with a concept for a project.

a collaborative piece full of nonsense.

sometimes we take trips to the vending machines in the middle of class.

not for food, but rather a much needed break.

plus it's fun to wonder who in the world would eat a vending machine hamburger.

what i've been up to