Snow Wonder & Hair

It's 'snow' wonder it's so busy around here! haha, sorry just had to do that. The snow and the homework have been pounding down by the bucketload. The picture with snow in it below is  from before we got the 6+ inches this weekend. It's actually been pretty warm-- around 28! But we have massive piles of snow, seriously like 2 times bigger than a decent size car.  On the academic side of things, it's week 5. Midterm week, ahhhhh. Design majors don't have "midterms" but we certainly have tons of projects. In all three of my studio classes I have large projects due within the next few days. The picture below the snow one is of a drawing I've been working on for a few weeks now. I've actually worked on it since that picture but ya know, I'm lazy and don't feel like updating anything. Also, I accidentally knocked it right before I took the picture so some of the contents are uhm, not in the right place. 

In other news, I cut my hair. Ashley and I were out at Wegman’s getting some stuff for my 2d design project (details on that to come) and I suddenly felt a wave of spontaneity come upon me. I told her that if for some reason we saw a haircutter on the way back to campus, I’d get at least my bangs cut. Well, as fate would have it, there was one almost right next door.   So I walked in and said CUT THEM NOW BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND. I'm not entirely sure if I like it yet, but we'll see! 

It's BEDTIME! Hopefully I'll get more sleep than last night. For some reason my body kept waking itself up (at 2 freaking am) thinking it was time for class. I guess I was really excited for chai tea Mondays? Work, paper writing, 

Go Tigers!

Since I spent two hours making this blog post and I'm super lazy and need to get dinner and finish homework, I copied this over from my admissions blog. 

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Yes, students at RIT can find things to do on weekends. And no, it does not have to include playing computer games.

In fact there are quite a few things to do here on any given night to fit your every need.

Concerts/Comedians
CAB (or College Activities Board) is responsible for most of the entertainment around here dealing with concerts, local bands, comedians, magicians, etc. These events usually take place on Friday or Saturday nights around 10 or 11. And they onlycost $1! Throughout the year there are usually two or three major concerts (like cute is what we aim for, boys like girls or nas—this year’s concerts) and then a number of smaller bands, which are usually from around the Rochester area. Friday night “The Demos” came to play at the Ritz. They’re a local band made up of 5 guys from the Rochester area.

Saturday night we went to see Johnny Walker, a comedian. The venue is really small so it makes it more personal and you can even go up and talk to them after! They might not be the biggest names in show business but it’s still a good way to spend a Friday or Saturday night :)

Athletics

One of the best things about RIT, social life wise is…hockey games! Men’s hockey is RIT’s only division 1 sport on campus and the games are awesome. Seriously, I’ve been waiting since the week before break for this game, they’re that good. I could sit here and tell you more about how amazing they are but sometimes I think it’s best to see for yourself so at the last two games I took some videos. Hopefully it gives you a feel for what an RIT Hockey game is and you’ll be motivated to go check them out.

Of course, I can’t leave out the other sports. So, today we went to see both the Men and Women’s basketball teams play Ithaca College. The women’s team unfortunately lost in a close match. However, the men’s team pulled off an exciting win against the Ithaca Bombers. The last basket was freaking amazing, I’m kind of upset that I didn’t have my video camera out at the time. A three point shot from about half court right as the buzzer was announcing the end of the game allowed the Tigers to pull of an 87-84 win.

Sunny D

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth... it was just one day! 

I was doing so well there, one post everyday for the entire year! I guess it did help that the year is currently only 9 days long. I decided that I didn't really have anything uber interesting or pressing to share so I'd sleep instead and wait until today... FRIDAY!

I love Fridays...who doesn't? The satisfactory end of the week which means that relaxation is only one day away. Of course, I did work for 3 hours this morning and I am working tomorrow at 9 am so... relaxation is limited but that's alright. They feed us really well there and I get to open large stacks of mail which is actually quite fun.In a few hours we're going to a tailgate and then a hockey game! Just got back from some errands around Rochester and now we're settling in to work on some homework. 

A while back my parents came up and bought me some Sunny D. I finished about half a case (since October :) ) but I didn't really know what to do with the rest and it technically expired in late December. I was willing to take a chance and drink it past the expiration date because I didn't really think it would cause ringworm or anything. Ashley had the brilliant idea of FREEZING it. Man, it's so ridiculously tasty. It's like a party in my day. 

Ice Ice Baby

It has been winter weathering for over 24 hours now. Rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain, ice, you name it, we've had it. It's disgusting. I wish it would just snow, snow, snow. It started snow yesterday around 5 and quickly changed over to ice so we had a good layer of that junk this morning when we woke up. Took a bit of extra effort to walk to class this morning, I actually had to pay attention for once instead of just groundhog-day-ing it and walking wherever my legs took me. Eventually it got up to 34 degrees-- which feels super warm here-- so it started melting which means BIG time floodage. We already had a good six inches of snow, not to mention the 10 foot piles of snow everywhere so there were huge puddles. Yucky. I want to build a darn snowman already.

I'm thinking that I would like to add an additional 12 hours to everyday because I just don't see how everything is going to fit in! Lots of stuff going on at work regarding blogging and all that jazz. It's really fun to work on but it's rather time consuming. Projects in drawing, 2d, 3d... paper in design survey... homework for sign language and the list goes on. 

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

We won!

First volleyball game of the season was tonight. I convinced Ashley to go with me now that she's in her "going to say yes to everything" mood. Got there 15 minutes early and we were really afraid that it was going to be the two of us against a team of 8 guys! Good thing some other people decided to show up. It's by no means high class volleyball, we won't be knocking Penn State out of their position any day soon but it's still fun.

It's currently snowing outside and the snow appears to want to continue until Sunday according to weather dot com. Hopefully we well get some good snowman building snow, that would be lovely.

I got to paint today! Fingerpainting, actually! We're working on one project in drawing right now that requires ridiculous amounts of concentration and the next project is really really loose so my professor gave us paint and told us to use pencils and paint to draw the skeleton. I'm actually rather happy with how my turned out, not really so much how it looks but it was super fun to make and it's surprising what you can convey even when everything is messy. I'll post a picture sometime later, it's currently drying in my locker and I didn't want the snow to mess it up.

My eight am class tomorrow was cancelled about two minutes ago due to snow (already... yeah, i know..) but that's okay because now I get to sit here and "be in class" on my computer. Too bad we have a quiz tomorrow on unknown topics. 3d goes from 9 until noon, meeting Ashley for a quick lunch, meeting at work from 1-2, class from 2-5 then DRAWING until the end of time! It's actually not that bad, i'm having fun drawing it now. I'm also working on this giant coloraid project for 2d. It's an extension of something we're doing in class and I liked it so much that I'm just working on something for the heck of it.

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!

Security Alert

Given the events of the last three days (mostly just today), I don’t think that I’ll have any problem filling 175 post with blog-worthy topics…

Okay, so I’m currently sitting in the BWI airport waiting for my 12:54 flight to Rochester. Except this will be posted once I get back to the dorms because I do not particularly care to pay the $9.95 internet fee. Now that we’ve established that here’s the shenanigans that went down…

big tsa guy: “excuse me, is this anyone’s” shows backpack
me: “uhmm, yeah…”
big tsa guy: “you need to step over here, do you have any knives”
me: “uhm no sir, I have a box of them in my checked bag though..”
big tsa guy: “I’m going to look through your bag” pulls out box of cookies and all of the other contents of my backpack  onto the table “If you had a box cutter in here, where might that be”
me: “uhmm, the front pocket, I don’t know? I told you it was in my checked bag”
big tsa guy: “you mean this…” pulls out large gray box cutter.

me: oops. 

big tsa guy: takes box cutter away.

Big sad face. Although, the scary part is that I had no idea that was in there because... the Rochester security checkpoint missed that... which means I was technically carrying that onboard to go home two weeks ago. Whoops. So much for "heightened security".  So in conclusion, I made it back to Rochester safely but I'm currently box cutter-less. The flight itself was fine although my seat mates were well... gross. Enough said. 

In other things, here are pictures from Christmas 2008. There were WAYYYYY too many pictures to put on here so I uploaded them all to Picasa so if you click on the thing below you can go look at them!

Christmas 2008

New Years Resolution: Three Days Late

I figure that if I post a resolution on here I will be more apt to fulfill it. Or not. We'll see.

2009 Goals

1. Blogging- Last year I started my blog in late May which means I missed about 5 months of the year. I ended up with 126 blogs. So, if all goes well, I should be able to hit at least 175 this year. Perhaps that is a lofty goal because it implies that I'm filling 175 of the next 365 days with something blog-worthy... hmm...
2. Gym- I'd like to perhaps step foot in the RIT gym for something other than giving a tour. With this goal is intramural volleyball, I'd like to go to at least half of the games/practices unless homework/classes seriously prevent me.
3. Sleep- Not that sleep has been a huge issue because I've been sleeping more than I did in high school! But, I'd like to get to bed by 12:30 on nights before 8:00 am classes. [With the exception of this Sunday because it's the first Sunday back and who knows what kind of sleep schedule I'm on]
4. Blogging 2- Now that I'm blogging for the RIT website, I have to come up with not one but two posts everything I do something. The RIT site will probably not be as active as this one, however, so I'm hoping that I post at least twice a week.
5. Job- I have a job in Rochester, unfortunately that is a rather inconvenient summer job. So my goal is to get a job somewhere in Clarksville/Columbia before the summer. Any ideas???

I'm sure I could list stuff forever, but we'll leave it at this and see how it goes.

Pancakes, Friends and Homework

Okay, another week please? 

Just kidding. Sure, it'd be nice to have another entire week full of fun and frivolity but like all good things, there is an end. I think a two week break is a perfect amount of time, it's enough time to disengage from busy life and relax. Of course, RIT has the added bonus of being in the middle of a quarter so yep, you guessed it... homework! How enjoyable. I guess it could be worse. I could have exams the week after break (like Harvard) or have a 10 page paper due (if i wasn't an art major). But, I'm not at Harvard and I'm an art major so, I draw! And draw and draw and draw and glue. 

These past two days have been friend-packed... if there is such a term. Thursday night I went over to Corey's house with Jenni and we watched some movies and had "girl time"-- something not found often on RIT's 70-30 guy to girl ratio campus. Had pancakes for breakfast made by mom... yummm! And sausage made by dad.. but I'll let Sarah tell you how that was :) After breakfast went over to Liz's house to hang out. Came back to do some homework-- okay, so I did watch an episode of the OC before doing so. And in a little while Alison is coming over to hang out and do some puzzles. 

Tomorrow is the last full day of winter break which means Sunday I make the trek from 40 degree Clarksville to snowy Rochester. As noted by my mom has gotten a record snowfall this December.. 46 inches. Luckily most of that has fallen since I've been home so I'm not sick of snow yet. But ask me again in March and we'll see if that changes. 

I guess that perhaps I should stop avoiding the inevitable and get back to work. 

Year in Review: 2008

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go."

- Dr. Seuss

January

Brought in 2008 taking pictures.. LOTS of pictures. Eric stayed with us for a week after Christmas to hang out and take pictures for his new headshot... this picture, however, did not make the cut.

March

We made the annual drive to Athens, Georgia to visit family. 

April

In April, my dad and I made the 7 hour drive up to Rochester for the accepted students open house. Little did I know that I would be living here in a few months! We also got a chance to visit Marathon, home of my (then) future roommate), on our way from Rochester to Hawthorne. Of course, we had to make pit stops at all of the scenic overlooks and Clyde Pelling's Reptileland. 

May

The busiest of the months. In early May we drove up to Hawthorne for a birthday, anniversary and mother's day all in one

Mid-May was prom. 


And late-May marked the end of my 12 year stay in the lovely education system that Howard County provides.

June

June was the month of shenanigans. No longer tied down by the thought of school, chaos ensued. Well, maybe not chaos, but lots of picnicing, hanging out, sleepovers, and late night pancake making. 

July

The shenanigans continued on into July: birthdays, more picnics, and mall adventures. My blog was actually started in May I think, so if you want a more detailed telling you should go back and read that. 

August

August began with a family vacation to Bald Head Island along with some friends. Lots of golf-carting, house looking, beach sitting and watermelon eating was involved! 

August was the beginning of a new adventure... college. Of course, I wouldn't leave without saying goodbye.. 

In late August I packed up my things and moved seven (ish) hours away to Rochester, New York. 

I started off the adventure at dinner with tons of people I've never met! Some turned out to be good friends =) 

I met the tiger. 
And finally met the roommate I had been talking to online for months! 

 

September/October

September and October passed with a blur. It's hard to remember when everything occurred. There were late night hang outs, concerts, dinners, and other shenanigans. 

Homecoming weekend came in October.

Oh yeah, and some academic learning went on too :) 

November

November marked the beginning of winter. Thanksgiving fell the week after finals giving us a spectacular 2.5 weeks off. 

After one week of break at home we took off on our annual pilgrimage to Wisconsin to visit family. We made a few stops along the way for college visits, volleyball games and FOOD!  

December

December marked the beginning of second quarter -- yeah, hard to believe that i'm already a SECOND quarter freshman, huh? Winter break started around the end of the month and we drove up to New Jersey to visit family. Unfortunately, I'm a giant slacker and I have no pictures uploaded from my camera for the entire month of december! Guess I know what my new years resolution is! 

All in all, a pretty eventful year. First prom, graduation from high school, vacations, beginning college, moving away, getting a job in admissions... and the list goes on. We'll have to wait and see what 2009 has in store =)

For now, Happy New Years! Hope you all had a great holiday.