Turn Right

Friday afternoon Ashley and I took Heather to the airport (well, Ashley drove since she has a car on campus.. i was just the direction-er). Having not been out much lately, we got a little.. uhm, lost? But it was okay. My favorite part is when I was reading the mapquest directions and they said "Turn Right" that's IT. No, turn right at elm street, just turn right. How silly of them. 

park point, the shopping place that RIT just opened in August.

After dropping Heather off, we went to Red Robbin! Yummm. It was nice to have some non-gracie's food.

How Many Kropogs to Cape Cod?

Ever feel like just dropping everything and taking a full day break? Unfortunately that is not really possible around this place. 

It was so nice outside yesterday, hard to believe that 60 degrees can feel too warm for a jacket. Maybe i'm adjusting to this whole cold weather thing? I hope. Woke up around 9:30 and went to this FYE "coaching meeting" which basically just means I had to sit in my professors office for 45 minutes and talk to her about adjusting to college, it's some mandatory thing we have to do twice a year. After the meeting I went and got a wrap from gracie's and then took a walk around campus before picking out a spot under my favorite tree for lunch. 

Spent the rest of the morning/afternoon in the 3d studio working on my clay sculpture. Had class from 2 until 9. Except we got out early, yay! Drew models in drawing class, it was okay. He mostly just told us stories all class and then we worked for the last half hour. Next class were drawing for three straight hours. 100 gesture drawings, anyone? I actually really like that class. After that was 3D and since we just finished a project yesterday we had a whole class critique.. which went pretty well! My piece was picked top 2 in the class. Not to brag or anything, but it's kind of a big deal when something goes right around here because there really is not a lot of praise. College is a huge shot to your self-esteem (if you had any to begin with..). I actually like critiques a lot, except when they make you talk to the whole class about which piece you think is the crappiest and why. 

Pretty much just hung around the dorm room/hall  last night. Went to get frozen yogurt with Ashley! Yummm. Watched hour and a half of football with Drake in the lounge.  Hung out with Andrew and Ashley. Then, stupidly, we decided it would be a good idea to watch a 45 minute episode of the OC... at 3 in the morning... Whoops. Luckily, we got to sleep in until 9:45 today. Yay for Fridays! Just had my creative sources class which is a giant lecture for 50 minutes and then we have to write an essay about it. Really easy. In half an hour is my Raster Imaging class which is easy as well. I sit there and do work for another class or play around on the computers. It's kind of annoying because I already know how to use photoshop and last class we were learning how to zoom in and out of a document... for about 15 minutes. Oh well. One easy class every once in a while is not a bad thing when you have 6 other hard ones.. 

Tonight after class Ashley and I are going to the airport to drop someone off and then going to Red Robbin! Yayy. We decided it was a good Friday thing to do. Making, yet another, trip to the art store and then coming back here for an improv show in Ingle Aud. Yay for not doing homework on a Friday night! 

Humans vs Zombies

Today marks the start of a campus wide game called Humans vs Zombies. Over 480 people are participating (not me...). Basically it includes people tying orange bandanas around their arms and then running around tagging people, throwing balled up socks, hitting people with nerf guns. It certainly makes the walk to class interesting... especially because inside is out of bounds so if you happen to be standing in a doorway, you will be steam-rollered by people trying to make it to safety. For more information.. Click here!

Anyway, it is going on 4am in the morning and i'm still plodding away at homework. This is my 5 minute break to make sure my hands cramp up and fall off. 

Had a floor "party" today to celebrate all august/september birthdays. It consisted of our entire floor (or most of it) piling into the lounge, eating brownies/chips and playing games. Silliness occurred. 

Aside from a 45 minute break for the floor thing as well as 30 minutes for dinner, I've been working on homework since 5 pm. Lovely. All I have to do is make it through Thursday at 9 pm and then I can sleep (guess what genius already finished their homework for Friday but not tomorrow...) Oh well. Luckily I do not have class until noon so I can work until 5 am or so and then get a good 3 hours of sleep until it's time to wake up to draw some more and write a paper! Woohoo, gotta love college life. 

Noise Level

Lately, the noise level around here has been insane. Between people running up and down the hallways at 2 in the morning (drunk...) and banging on all of the dorms and pushing the stupid flashing doorbells and the greek bids that happened today (the sororities ran around the halls singing at the top of their lungs and banging on doors to congratulate the new members). 

Then there is the issue of police cars. I've seen more police cars, ambulances, firetrucks in the past 3 weeks than I can count. There were the three firetrucks last week that surrounded our building with no explanation and then just last night (well, technically this morning) at 3 am there was a firetruck outside our building and a bunch of people were just hanging around outside. 

I've been doing a ridiculous amount of work lately.  Last weekend aside from a 2 hour game of volleyball on Saturday night I pretty much worked from Friday night after 5 until Monday morning at noon on homework. Every night after class, I generally work from 5 (or 9pm on tuesdays and thursdays) until 2 or 3 am. I mean, it's all art stuff but it's really overwhelming.  This weekend I have 3 projects (well, i had a forth but i finished it yesterday), as well as 2 papers all due on Monday or Tuesday. Woke up at 8:30 this morning and went over to the art studios for an hour, came back had lunch with Ashley and then went back until 3. Since then i've pretty much been doing... homework. Ashley's over at a friends house today so I'm lonely :( It's so weird having the room all to myself. You'd think after being in really close quarters with people ALL of the time i'd get sick of it, but i actually prefer being around people. Got some more stuff to work on tonight which I can hopefully finish before Sunday night (probably not happening...)

Aside from homework and class, school's good. There isn't a whole lot of time for socializing and what not. I go to lunch/dinner with people sometimes. I've been hanging out with some people on our floor too. Most of the time it's just Ashley and I hanging around. Everyone else is so busy it's hard to fit stuff in. Earlier this week Andrew took Ashley and I out to dinner to Ruby Tuesdays which was a welcomed break from Gracie's salad everyday. Wow, this is pathetic, I need to get out more. Maybe after Tuesday when everything is due. 

Roll the Dice

Roll The Dice
By Charles Bukowski

if you’re going to try, go all the way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.

it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance,
of how much you really want to
do it.

and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like that.

you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.

you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
its the only good fight
there is.

8 am Laundry

Alarm went off at 7 am this morning. That was not a very pleasant sound. 

I actually don't even have class until noon but I have so much nonsense to do.  Spent 13 hours so far on a drawing for one of my classes-- i'm 25% done and it's due Tuesday. Just ask Ashley, i've been eating, sleeping, breathing art. Basically didn't do anything except homework and sleeping all weekend and because of this my laundry did not get done.. so solution is to wake up at 7 am, draw for an hour and then go do laundry. To my surprise there was no one else who had that idea so I had the ENTIRE laundry room to myself. I thought about putting one shirt in each washer just because I could but then decided that sounded like a bad idea. 

Now I'm headed over to NRH to print out some stuff in the computer lab (doesn't cost anything, so why use your own?). Probably spend another hour or so drawing and then get breakfast/lunch before class at noon. Classes until 5 then drawing for an hour, dinner, working on my clay duck and then more drawing... you get the idea.. 

I'll try updating something longer and more meaningful on Wednesday once I finish the drawing. Of course, then I'll have three papers to write and another project to do. So hope you all have a happy thanksgiving, a merry christmas and I'll see you when I come out of the cave in four years at graduation! 

Clay Ducks, Wire and Stuffed Mooses

white board right ouside of our dorm room-- greg drew us some pretty pictures

tinfoil that i'm drawing for one of my classes

clay duck i'm working on for my 3d class

this is greg. he put on a puppet show for us with this moose he found in the stairwell. he's also been teaching us a lot of sign language.

this is a wire piece i'm working on for my 2d class. 

Firetrucks, Tinfoil and Uncle Plum

I've had far more adventures in this past two weeks than I have ever had before. Anyway, so yesterday morning I woke up around 7:30 and after a shower and breakfast I headed off to barnes and noble to pick up some clay. The store is only about 1/2 mile away so I just walked over. On the way down the elevator it started smelling really funny and I was on there alone so I pushed the nearest floor and got off and walked the rest of the way down. I was probably 200 feet from the building when I start to hear firetrucks and then 3 of them drive up and surround my dorm building. I was going to turn around and go back in (dumb, I know) but I just decided to keep on walking because I really needed that clay. I still have absolutely no idea what they were doing here-- but at least the building wasn't on fire :)

After coming back with the clay I headed over to the art building to go sculpt some clay for two hours. We have this project in 3D to make a banana out of clay (ironic? i think so). I went up to the professor and I was like dude uhmm, I'm not touching that. So he gave me a duck. Worked on the project for a while and then I had to go to Creative Sources. That class is basically just a lecture that happens once a week. They bring in some artist and they talk for an hour. Yesterday's artist just happened to be my drawing professor, Clifford Wun. It was pretty cool to see some of the stuff that he's done in the past. It's pretty nice to be able to bring your computer into that class-- i just recorded the entire lecture on it! I haven't checked to see if it worked yet though.

Last night Ashley, Drake and I went to a CCC meeting just to check it out. It was alright, we all agreed that we didn't really fit in all that well, although the people there were super nice and inviting. It wasn't really that overly pushy either which was good. Walking back from the meeting we came upon a concert, Uncle Plum. Ended up staying and watching that for over two hours and then watching the fireworks afterwards. Came back and watched a few episodes of the OC before people started bombarding our room. Talked with a few of the deaf guys on our floor which is kind of neat, it's a great way to pick up sign language quickly. They stayed until nearly 5 am, although I fell asleep at 3 so I missed most of it.. oops :P 

Woke up this morning at 8 and drew for a few hours. Waited for Ashley to get up and then we went out to breakfast/lunch around 1:30 with Andrew. Went to the art studio and worked on my clay duck for about 3 hours. Tried to do my 2D homework but the stupid printer in the lab wasn't working, oh well that's what tomorrow is for. Ashley and I went to dinner (at gracies...) and had some... SALAD! Who woulda thought. About halfway through two guys came up to us and asked if we wanted to come join them for dinner. It's college and we're supposed to be social so we accepted and it turns out that they were sitting at a table with 8 other guys (yeah, the ratio is obvious around here). After dinner two of them invited us to go back to their dorm and play wii and rockband with them. Hung out for a while and then we ended up going to the Gordon Field house and playing volleyball with 10 other guys. They all seem pretty cool and it was nice to play volleyball again. We played against some guys from the club team and almost beat them. Came back here, watched an episode of the OC and then we ended up just talking for the past two hours. I think it's bedtime though! Got a ton of work to do tomorrow. I'll try and post some pictures later of my project, I took some today but I'm too lazy to upload them at the moment.

Tough Times

There are times when it's hard being the only art kid on the floor. 

Example:

It's currently Thursday night (well, technically friday at 12:42 am but whatever).  Everyone on my floor has either gone out once already and is getting ready to go out again or is going out now for the first time. By "going out" i mean to parties and stuff.  It's THURSDAY night guys, come on, can't you wait for a weekend?? Everyone else on my floor is a liberal arts major and that particular college doesn't schedule classes on Fridays so this is technically everyone's Friday. And then there's me: I have class from 12-5 tomorrow and then the thought of three large projects due next Tuesday as well as two papers and about 50 pages to read in a book which all needs to get done this weekend. According to the teachers time estimate, the three projects together should take anywhere from 30-35 hours to complete. This is wonderful. 

Now, of course, don't get me wrong. I'm absolutely loving the classes. I got to mold a duck out of clay today in 3d! I'm really happy with my new 2D design professor and drawing is amazing as always. It's just kind of frustrating because I feel like if I had a Friday off I could get so much more done on my homework before Saturday rolls around but oh well. I am still looking forward to the classes tomorrow. 

Guess it's bedtime for me. Need to go to Barnes and Noble tomorrow morning for some more clay and then I think i'm going to work on homework until my noon class. I'll try to post some pictures of my current projects tomorrow if I remember/get a chance. 

Morning Wake Up Call

It's day four of classes, two weeks into this whole college thing and I have not once slept through my alarm. Go me! 

Of course, I have had a little help from the NOISY CONSTRUCTION OUTSIDE OUR WINDOW. Who knows what they are even doing out there, I just hope it doesn't cause a giant sink hole outside of our dorm. It's been going on since about 8 am this morning and I was just a tad annoyed because I don't have class until 2 pm. Luckily due to my amazing sleeping abilities (thanks dad!)  I was able to fall back asleep until 9:45. Woke up, took a shower, got a package from home! (cookiesss, mmmmm) and then went out to lunch with Ashley.  We even had something other than salad for lunch... a wrap! Which I guess for me is technically just salad in a tortilla but oh well it was very tasty. Now i'm just waiting around until 1:30 to walk over to class. I finished all of my homework last night like a good kid so I just get to hang out today! Yay. Two classes today, both 3 hours so I won't get back here until 9pm but i'm looking forward to drawing today so I don't mind it's such a long class. 

(hole at 10 am)

(large ditch at 12:30)

Had class yesterday until 5 pm and then met up with Ashley for dinner at 6:30 after her class. We've taken to eating outside on this giant concrete thing (which i've posted a picture of before). We're trying to take advantage of this really nice weather before it becomes too cold to eat outside. It's 72 degrees outside today, so nice. After dinner Ashley was kind enough to drive me to the art store (for the second time this week) so I could get supplies for classes. Unfortunately the bus system does not reach the art store so I'm lucky enough to have a super awesome roommate with a car. 

Let's see what's happened since I last posted... I switched out of one of my classes because it was way too easy. I actually just switched to the same class but with a different professor who seems really good and pushes us a lot more. Went to Walmart on a shopping run with Ashley to buy animal crackers and other things we needed. I had a professor for the first time that made me realize why I came to RIT in the first place. He's seriously amazing, tough but good. I'd rather be pushed than learn nothing and get easy As. Went out for pizza with Ashley and Andrew on Tuesday after my 9 pm class.. it was a nice change of pace from salad. 

Yay! Tomorrow is Friday. Unlike everyone else on my floor, I have class tomorrow but I'm actually looking forward to them. I haven't had raster imagining yet so I'm thinking that's going to be a good class. Plus for my creative sources class my drawing professor is coming in and showing all of his work so that'll be pretty sweet. Not really sure of any plans for this weekend. We're having waffles tomorrow for dinner which is exciting-- Ashley and I have declared Friday to be waffle friday. Got a project and two papers to do this weekend. There are also a couple of greek events going on around campus on Saturday so we might check those out. I think there might even be a lazy river/hot tub run.