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.

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.

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.

monsoon season

friday? well, sort of.

let's start off by describing yesterday morning. it was disgusting. not like, oh there is some rain disgusting.. we're talking full blown monsoon, turn your pants a different color, soak your raincoat, all the way through your backpack/art history book, mash your notecards together and make the ink bleed kind of rain. not only did i have the pleasure of experiencing this while carefully dodging worms that were being sucked into the drains but i remained wet from 9 am when i showed up for work ALL the way until my class ended at 5 (my jeans were just damp then) disgusting i tell you. my backpack is still wet and i had to find an alternative way to tote my nonsense to class today.

moving on.

art history midterm was yesterday. i went to work an hour early so that i could leave an hour early to review before the test. that lovely rain had mushed the notecards i spent like 3 hours finishing together so that was really no help. but i think the test went alright regardless.

last night i was watching harry potter thinking about how much i would love for my 8 am class to be cancelled and what do you know, a little notification pops up on my computer from my email saying "class cancelled tomorrow"! what are the chances. i'll have you know that i fully enjoyed my extra 2.5 hours of sleep and waking up at 8:30. fantastic.

worked for 2 hours this morning and i'm currently sitting in the ritz after my ice skating class waiting for imagery in design to start. then its the weekend! sort of kind of. i have so much work to finish this weekend between political science, the 3 page paper i need to write for graphic novel class, the 2 graphic novels i need to read, poster designs, imagery projects, a 3 page spread for a story and i believe that's it. i hope. there are also 2 hockey games this weekend, possible work tomorrow, a tailgating party before the games at Lovin Cup, halloween shenanigans on saturday, grocery shopping to do, and the list goes on.

next week is week NINE. WHAT?! how in the world did that happen. finals are soon. bad news bears.

175

looking back, i remembered that my goal for blog pots this year is 175. i'm at 147 now, that seems okay right? i'm not a math major though. i'm going to have to start having some pretty blog worthy days. encounters with the police? trips to foreign countries? maybe i'll just stick to being really busy. went ice skating today, i got my blades re-sharpened so stopping was a no-go. backwards skating is coming along, dont expect to see me in the olympics anytime soon though.

speaking of time and the year. week 5 is almost over.. what?! 6 weeks from now is thanksgiving break. 4 weeks after that is christmas break. the picture above isnt really serving any purpose other than the fact that its a drawing i did last year and into this year. .. im slow, okay?

i love sagmeister, his lecture was on monday night and it was absolutely fantastic.

you cant really see it from the picture but thats my project on the left. the place was packed.

anyway, i should start paying attention in class again. this is my way of attempting to stay awake. don't worry, half of the time i wrote this we were on break so its a-okay.

so cool

just thought i would share.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/16/liquid.glasses.self.refraction/index.html


what a genius idea.

in school news, today is my friday woohoo. well kind of. im working tomorrow from 8:30 am until some unknown time and then i have stuff pretty much all day/night but it'll be okay. this weekend is looking bussyyy. so much to do, so little time.

i'm mooching off of the RIT wireless on campus now, forgot how fast internet could be.

design meeting in 13 minutes. then dinner. then homework. then THE OFFICE season premiere! so excited.

that's about all for now, i have some design projects i'll be posting hopefully sooner rather than later so be on the look out. we're almost done about 3 projects already-- it's week two I KNOW. crazyyy.

oh right, ice skating is good. i'm learning how to hockey stop, some turns and backward crossovers. it's a little ridiculous but fun. i've been skating about 4 hours a week :) apparently we're going to be doing sycronized skating by the end of the quarter. we'll see about that. no jumps please.

letters

seriously caps? what the heck is going on. 4-0 pens and it's only 5 minutes into the 2nd period. two goals in less than 8 seconds?

anyway, here's some of the project i'm working on for elements of graphic design.

what's a partridge and a pear tree?

the caps are losing already, five minutes into the first period. 

my action figure's hand and foot broke off this morning.

and i have two 30 in by 40 in drawings due tomorrow.

as well as 51 more sketchbook entries. 

i've been listening to christmas music all day. it has been excellent. 

4 am wake ups

apparently 4 am is an appropriate time to wake up? 

class registration was this morning, went to bed around 12:30 which is the earliest this week!! set the alarm for 5:55 to get up in time to roll over and start the annoying registering process. of course, when given the first chance in a week to sleep 6 hours-- my body decides that nope, 4 am is a good time to wake up. so there i laid for another hour and a half. and duh, of course i would do something like fall asleep about 20 minutes before the alarm is going to go off. oh well, woke up in time and managed to get into the system only 30 seconds after it opened!! got all of the classes i need for next quarter. except here comes the problem. i'm signed up for 9 credits. which is 10 less than i took this quarter and 3 less than full-time student status. OOPS. it's really not my fault though, the system kicked me out and won't let me sign up for anything else so i'm going to have to run around campus talking to various people begging them to let me in a class or two. i decided that i would avoid that today because my voice is not in the persuasion mood. 

schedule

there it is for now. i'm taking 1 online course (psych) which isn't shown on the schedule and ice skating!!! i'm still trying to get into textiles (basically quilt making) haha oh art majors.. 

got out of class early this morning which meant i got out of work early which means that i just finished doing laundry!!! and i'm working on loads of homework before my 12 hours of classes tomorrow! ITS ALMOST FRIDAY!!!!!!

calm before the storm

this is effectively the "calm before the storm" except not really. just finished up laundry and got back from dinner with a big group of people. im sitting here on my bed listening to the pouring rain and sirens pass by. it's week seven which means major stress is just around the corner. 

tonight is the fourth and last accepted students chat. two weeks ago we had 150 students sign on between 7 and 10 pm to chat with us. there are anywhere between 10 and 12 ambassadors in the chat so it's a LOT of typing. sometimes it's a tad hard to keep up. 

tomorrow i have only 1 three hour class, work & i'm giving a tour around 1 (hopefully it doesnt pour... i can hope, right?). tomorrow night there is an IV small group meeting which i might go to if i have enough time? there is another one tonight but i can't go because of this chat. 

as for projects.. currently in the middle of a sort of logo design project for elements of graphic design, due next week. for that class i'm also working on a presentation (10 minutes long) where i'm supposed to talk about a famous graphic designer. for psychology, we're still plodding away at the book, we've gotten through 9 chapters so far, i think. in philosophy we're on our third book, took a test a week or so ago, so only two big tests left before the end. in vector we're working on 5 one page layouts of a quote (which you might have seen in my last post) i still need to finish 3 of those by thursday night. in 3d we're working on another project for imagine RIT, it's due monday so im going to need to finish that either tomorrow or friday. for drawing we just finished up our 30 in by 40 in drawing in chalk pastel (two weekends ago) but apparently it's wrong so i'm going to need to start over and finish that by wednesday night (oh wait, that's tomorrow...) we're also starting a new project due tuesday, two 9 by 12" drawings chalk pastel that are supposed to be "studies" for our larger drawing... two 30 by 40 in.. yeah you got that right. diptych drawing, the large one is in color (chalk pastel) as well and that's due in 3 weeks. we're supposed to build them at the same time so im going to figure out how the heck to store a 30 by 80 inch drawing...

things could be busier i guess. i think it sounds worse writing it all out. this weekend is IV, a four hour orientation assistant get together thingamabob, a lacrosse game and a possible picnic at charlotte beach. 

easter

been drawing pretty much all weekend. i think i drew from 11 am yesterday until 6 pm and then again today from 1 until 6 and then a few hours after that. i guess that sounds like a lot of hours when you think about it but it really wasn't, the time went by pretty quickly. it was nice to be able to listen to a heck of a lot of music. it's easter weekend and although RIT doesn't really acknowledge holidays, a lot of people went home for the weekend. i think i saw two people yesterday total. it's okay though, good to buckle down and get things done. i don't actually really care about how the drawing turned out, actually i kind of think that i would go back and change things but tomorrow is another day.

aside from all of this work nonsense. today is easter! despite going to bed around 2 am, i woke up at 6:20 and watched the sunrise-- with no alarm or anything! due to my still life taking over my bed, i slept on ashley's bed last night haha it's a good thing she was home for the weekend because then i didnt have to sleep on the floor. anyway, got ready and went to church with matt and ozzy. i don't think i can even fully describe this church. it's just amazing. we were talking about it afterwards and it's pretty much best described as a church for graphic designers. it's so overwhelming at first. the music is amazing-- they have a professional drummer, guitarist,etc. a hugeee (and when i say huge, i mean huge) screen tv along the back of the stage. i guess i never really realized until this weekend how much i missed being at church, it was really nice and i definitely plan on going back :)

after church the three of us went to jay's diner for breakfast! pancakes...yum. got back around 1 and drew until they informed me that it was dinner time... oops, i would have completely forgotten. hung around commons for a bit and then ashley got back! drew some more, hung out with people, etc. time for bed now, i have a headache. which i shouldn't be surprised about because i've had at least one headache a day for the past 3 weeks. lovely.



in case you couldn't tell, the drawing is of the quilt my mom made me and it's draped over my bed post.

5 weeks until the end of the quarter!

soy beans and broccoli

apparently i have a thing for green foods. i've been pretty much living off of honeydew, salad, soy beans and broccoli lately. yum! too bad pistachios have been recalled...

ashley and i are watching the sabres redwings hockey game instead of doing homework... we're such good students. just kidding! i got a lot of homework done this weekend and i only had one class today so i don't have an overwhelming load of things to do.

it's supposed to snow again tonight. and tomorrow. and wednesday. gross. where'd spring go? i'm sick of the worms especially because no one believes me that worms smell disgusting!!!

turned in another application for housing today... hopefully we'll get something. i'm not sure if i've mentioned anything before but ashley and i are in "temporary housing" in a hotel next year... and it's 4 miles off campus... not the ideal situation.

here's some pictures from the reliquary project. they aren't very good because the lighting was yucky hopefully ill get some better ones when i get it back in a few weeks. it's a 6 by 6 inch wooden box with designs on three of the sides and a letter on the inside. we were supposed to pick something that was special to us and create a "reliquary" for it. i think it looks better in person but oh well. it was pretty fun to make :)

rain means worms

spring quarter is off to a ridiculously good start. of course, it is day one at 3:30 pm and i've only had 1 hour of class and 4 hours of work so far. but regardless. work was a good four hours of stuffing envelopes which --no joke-- is my favorite thing to do there ever. met a new admissions ambassador who, as it turns out, is dating the starting goalie of the hockey team so i got to talk about hockey for two hours with someone who doesn't think i'm insane! 

it's good to be back and see everyone. the tunnels were full last night of people meeting up for the first time since break. got settled back in, did a load of laundry, got some dinner stuffs. our dorm room feels surprisingly bigger than usual which is odd because ashley and i were sleeping in the basement which is ginormous. i guess that is a good thing though.

despite the weather button on my dashboard saying that it's 34 degrees, it feels really warm out and all i needed today was a fleece jacket. it is disgustingly smooshy outside though from all of the rain. 

just waiting for ashley to get out of class now so we can go buy books for this quarter. the only homework tonight is to read 2 chapters in the psych book! 

Monday of Doom

6:35 Wake up & hit snooze.
6:45 Wake up & get ready.
7:20 Walk to Beanz to meet Amanda and Francesca for coffee!
7:45 Walk to class.
8:00 Design Survey.
9:00 3d, build chair.
10:20 Leave 3d briefly, get duct tape from room, stop at bank, talk to mom on the walk back.
10:40 More 3d, continue chair building.
11:55 Walk back to dorm.
12:15 Get lunch at Gracie's with Ashley... and more coffee!
12:45 Gather art stuffs for next class, read blogs for work, check email.
1:30 Walk to next class, stop in professors office for paper.
2:00 Class (2d), work on color aid project
4:27 Run over to work (got to leave class 20 minutes early, yay!)
4:30 Eat chinese food & listen to directions for chat power.
5:00 Begin calling tons of accepted students to congratulate them.
7:15 Wrap up calling and walk back to dorm.
7:30 Begin drawing.
12:21 Quit drawing.


Yeah, I really like to pack it all in there ;) Tomorrow is looking like more of the same with the addition of two volleyball games & a movie night. Yay coffee!

Don't get me wrong, this is not a complaint. I just felt like I was constantly moving today so I wanted to see what all I did!

Time for bed, goodnight all!

Chai Snow Melt-age

I love snow
the end.

(ashley on giant 10+ foot snowpile)

Got back to Rochester yesterday afternoon after all the shenanigans noted in the post below. I realized wayyy to late that I could have just taken the blade out of the knife... oh well. Too late. Got back and unpacked everything. Went to the corner store with Ashley to get some dinner! (hummus, pita and cheese sticks! mmmm) We were looking for something fun to do --other than homework-- and noticed the large snow pile outside so we piled on everything we could and went outside looking like marshmallows. Rochester has a ridiculous amount of snow right now, it snowed 46 inches last month and it's pretty much been under 32 degrees so there is little melt-age. The snow piles were so huge that when I walk my leg would sink in up to my waist. To add on to the excitement, the pile extends the entire length of the parking lot and it is extremely good for tunnel making. Although, it's not so terrific for snowman building. We are supposed to be getting a giant blizzard tomorrow though so perhaps that snow will be good in that department.

Woke up super early for class this morning. Since I got ready so fast (literally in like 10 minutes or less...) I decided that I needed some coffee so I walked down to Beanz. Amanda and her roommate happened to be there already so we waited --forever-- for them to open up the darn coffeeshop and I finally got a chai latte! Which I am currently in love with and I wish that I had a giant tub of that stuff right now. Just got back from Design Survey and 3d. Design survey was ridiculous as always and we just had a critique in 3d so that was a good start for an early Monday morning. I'm just waiting for Ashley to get back now so that we can go get some lunch! Class again at 2 and then I can go play in the snow piles again!! I mean... uh.... do some homework!

Somedays All I Do Is Watch the Sky

Snow, Snow, Snow! It has officially snowed in Rochester. No accumulation yet, but there were some definite flurries yesterday from about 3 am until 6 pm-- very pretty. Looking at the forecast, I think it has decided that it is not quite time for a heavy dump-- although a few hours north of us there was between 6 and 12 inches...

Anyway, let's see what's new... I don't think this week has been overly excited.. just a lot more of the usual homework, class, sleep, homework but that's not always a bad thing. This week has been oddly short, I can't believe that tomorrow is Friday! Next week is week ten-- the last week of the quarter. Let's just say I almost need my toes in order to count the number of things that I need to get done..

Wednesday morning Ashley and I got up around 9:30 and went to the SAU to make hundreds of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I got an email through habitat for humanity a while back that asked for volunteers so I decided to sign up for it. It was run by Hillel ( Jewish Community) and Foodlink. They had hundreds of boxes of bread, peanut butter and jelly and we got our nifty paper hats on and got to work spreading peanut butter. Channel 12 News from Rochester showed up and actually filmed us so we were on the news sometime.. but I never got a chance to see it. I talked with someone from Foodlink about what they do etc and she suggested that if I was interested to volunteer at their warehouse sometime.. so, I came home yesterday and emailed a guy at Foodlink and I'm going to be going in to volunteer on November 8th! Foodlink is not a soup kitchen or whatever you wanna call it.. it's a food distribution center which means they go to places like Wegmans and ask for food donations and then distribute that food out to local soup kitchens. That way there is one person, rather than 12 going to Wegmans for donations.

This morning I woke up bright and early at 6:30 am... haven't seen that hour on the front side of my day in a while. I had a 9 am job interview with admissions this morning so I got all bundled up in my coat and headed over there. Unlike most interviews, it was a group one so there were 4 people interviewing 5 applicants.. interesting. We're supposed to hear back either tonight or tomorrow so we'll see how that goes. If I do get the job, it would mean that I could blog for RIT that all of the perspective students read... I think that'd be pretty awesome because I blog already anyway =)

Well, I can't really promise to update much for the next week or so... but the last class of the quarter is on November 7th, so I'll have tons of time then!

As long as you're here... take a look at the survey question at the top right of the page... you can click to vote! I just picked this question because it seemed appropriate for the time of year but I will be putting other ones up eventually.. just thought I'd point it out!

Twenty Days, Folks.

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, faster than some of you may think... So watch out Maryland, here I come! 

Just finished up week eight. Went out to dinner with a group of friends.. It's kind of funny here.. once you have one deaf friend you start meeting them ALL because they are somehow all related, friends, or knew each other in some weird chain of knowing. After nine weeks of using sign language, I can definitely tell I'm getting better at it. I am by no means fluent.. in fact, far from it. But I manage to hold conversations and at least have some idea of what is going on. It's kind of cool really, I've just been thrown in an entire new language. I've gotten some comments like "wow, you're actually improving.." or "can you seriously understand what they're saying?". The way I see it, you won't learn something unless you try. Sure, it's a lot easier to pick up just by living around other deaf kids but you actually have to ... in mr. molfino's phrase, be "proactive"... I try to learn at least one new sign every day either by watching the interpreter in class/campus events, asking how to sign something or watching other people in the elevator or at dinner (no, it's not rude to watch other people sign.. i've asked.). 

Anyway, a bunch of people went out tonight to see Saw 5 because it came out. For one, i'm not a big fan of scary movies... although I don't really mind seeing the Saw movies. I just decided to be a good kid (or just really lame...) and stay here and knock out some of my homework so i'm not up until 3 am next week. Worked on my self-portrait for a few hours and now i'm switching gears and going to work on my research paper for writing. I think I pretty much have the entire library sitting on my nightstand right now... I'm working on a project for 3d and I checked 4 books out to use as a reference then I'm working on this research paper about how bikes are going to provide a sustainable future for our environment... so i cleared out the libraries section of books on bikes then I checked out a book on graphic design just because it had an awesome cover page. I do believe I will be living in the library this winter, they have comfy couches, tons of books and coffee! What more could you want? 

And the Beat Goes On....

Yeah, yeah... four updates in less than 24 hrs. At least, I think it's four. These past 24 hours have seriously felt like an eternity. I think that might have something to do with me staying up until 2:45 am, waking up at 5, attempting to register until 8:15, sleeping until 10, doing homework until 11:30, sitting in two lecture/critiques from noon until 5, doing homework until 7, eating dinner, watching the first game of the world series, hanging out with people, doing more homework, wandering around campus.. and the list goes on. Seriously, who knew you could fit so much in??

I didn't end up getting into the Vector Imaging class that I needed which has both pros and cons... Pros: no longer have class from 8am until 9 pm on Wednesdays. Cons: i'm going to have to end up taking it spring quarter, I'm only taking 12 credits right now, I wanted to take it... I tried applying for unmet needs but that didn't go so well. I'm currently in the process of trying to declare a minor so that I can take classes in that field...

(these are just two of the pictures I took tonight while messing around with the camera for a 3d design project. Ashley is rather cooperative while I mess around settings, Drake on the other hand moves around more than a 3 year old.. in fact, he moves around so much that I have to use the motion setting for him =) It took about 15 tries to get this one haha)

It's so hard to believe that it's already Thursday!! Where the heck did the week go??? Last time I checked it was Sunday morning and we were being idiots standing outside waiting for an event that had actually happened a day earlier. Only a week and 2 days before finals week and then we get to go home and eat mashed potatoes!! Mmmm.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Well, class registration starts in about 3 hours. Or we have to get up then anyway, but as you can see I haven't even gone to bed yet so it's going to be a rather short night =) We might actually never get around to the whole sleeping thing. Oh well. 

Today was disgusting. It was raining/freezing rain/snowing all day and really, really cold with big gusts of wind. Not that i'm complaining... but I did step in a giant puddle of cold water on the way back from my 6-9pm class. Yuck. Did some painting to finish up my 2d project, went to dinner with Drake at the dining commons and then we've mostly just been hanging around here being goofy on our floor. Ashley has officially gone insane tonight.. she's been dancing around and talking in weird accents all night =) 

Just went outside for the heck of it, I had to take a few pictures for my 3d class and then we just ran around and frolicked.