Search of a most difficult kind.

So this week I am searching for a kitten. Most often in this area and back home people just find stray kittens and have no problem locating one. Actually people inherit them when they do not want them. We usually have 3 cats in the barn and right now we are down to one, and it isn't even friendly. So I told my mother that I was going to find a kitten to give my younger sister for easter. She said that was fine, and so my search ensued. It is Wen. now and I have to find one by Sat. Haven't had much luck yet but I shall not get discouraged! The search must go on!

Opposite of a "pack rat"

This past weekend was quite eventful, but I can't tell you until later. It is top secret! So now that you, I'm sure, are thoroughly intrigued, I will go on to the next topic at hand. My mother went with me to the mall this weekend back in my home town, since I was home to work. She had offered to buy me a new pair of work pants and I was not one to object. We ended up buying them at a scrub store, like for nurses, cause they work really well for the restaurant where I work. After getting those we stopped in at Old Navy. Old Navy is one of those stores that every one takes for advantage and never realizes what good quality they are getting for super cheap. I didn't notice until this weekend how practical the clothes they sell are. My mom ended up telling me to pick any thing out that I wanted so I got: three t-shirts, three tank tops, a pair of jeans, 8 pairs of socks, three pair of underwear, a pair of sleep shorts, a skirt, and a pair of really soft capris. This, surprisingly, is the biggest shopping spree I have ever been on and we were done in about an hour and spent 100 dollars. I like to shop for things that are not cloths. Like home decorating, art supplies and groceries. Clothes have never fit me right and I hate trying things on. If I find something that fits well I will buy like 10 of that item so that I won't have to shop again. I will buy one item here or there, but never do I just go out and buy a whole bunch of clothes. I think from now on I will go and buy plain t's and tanks with versitile jeans and shorts. I now have about 15 t- shirts, 8 tanks, 3 pairs of jeans and 6 skirts. This might not sound like a lot but I would wear any of these pieces any day. They are all comfortable and fit me well. Many people, my sister included (love you Manda!) have a plethora of clothes but they never wear them all. I, on the other hand, am a simpleton. I like to have the minimum and I do not hold on to things if I won't use them. I am quite the opposite of a pack rat.

Photo Shoot

Ifyou were to sign up for a history course that was titled "Ancient History of Rome" you would think that the content of the course would, most likely, contain information about Rome. I am in one such course and it is approximately 2/3 of the way to the end of the semester and we have yet to talk about Rome. I took the course because I had one elective space for my entire college career and I love Rome so I thought it would be a dandy idea to take a class in it. Not so much. I am now reading a book entitled "The Afghan Campaign", which granted is an excellent read and I would recommend it, except for the fact that it has nothing to do with Rome. It is quite infuriating.

Dispite the troubling class content confusion, I am having a delightful week. I completed a photo shoot for my photo one class and am quite pleased with the results. The project assignment was to shoot three rolls of film on the topic of "landscapes". Although I have no previous plight with landscapes, they are not my favorite. The human body is one of my favorites. So I decided to put my creative juices to good use and do a photo shoot on the landscape of the human body. The photos printed fantastically! I have posted several of my favorites here.

Pondering...

It is 3:05 am on Saturday. Why am I still awake you might ask? Well because I work as a resident assistant in one of the halls on campus. The front desk is staffed between 9 pm and one am by an RA and between one am and 6 am by a night assistant. The night assistant did not show up for their shift so now the RA's have to split up their time and watch the desk till 6 am. I have the 3-4 am shift. Needless to say I am not happy about this.

On a happier note, my parents and younger siblings came to visit me today. My house is 3 hours away from my school so I don't go home very often. They decided to come and see me and then go to an indoor water park nearby. It was nice to see them and it was a good use of what would have been a very boring Saturday. I think that they also enjoyed the trip. My younger siblings are always happy to see either me or my older sister because we give them the unending attention they crave. I love them so much and sometimes I regret that I will not be there while they are growing up. My youngest sister was 6 when I started college; still a baby. I will miss all of her teenage years. My older sister and I are 18 months apart. We grew up as best friends and experienced everything together. Who will be there for her to experience her teenage years with? Who will hold her hand on the way into the first day of Junior High and walk her to all her classes. To her I am going to just be that older sister that she never sees. I could very well be married and have children by then time she is in high school. She will tell her friends about her older sisters that are doing this or that. The poor dear. My brother as well will go through this, but I think not as harshly. He will be the one to say to his buddies on the football team "Ya I have two older sisters in college" just to impress them. He is taller than I am now, by almost 2 inches, and he is only 13. He is going to be a big boy and I have a feeling that he is going to break many girls' hearts throughout his high school career. Will I be there when Grace experiences her first kiss, her first car, her first love? Will I be there when Garret dances with his first girlfriend, when he gets accepted into college or joins the Marines, when he gets engaged. My family means so much to me, my siblings are my best friends. As we grow older how much am I going to miss out on? Where will I be? Will they remember to call and let Abby know the exciting news? Or will I just fade out of their lives like a toy that the novelty has worn off of.

I pray that we stay connected. When I have children some day I hope to give them middle names to match my best friends: Amanda, Garret and Grace.

print success!

Today is Thursday. Thank God! I have no classes on Fridays so Thursdays are like fridays to me. I slept in until noon today so I am fully rested and ready for the weekend. My parents are coming up to Edinboro to visit me this weekend so I have to be ready to entertain them. In my post yesterday I was expressing concern about the completion of my print project. Well I have finished it and I am exceedingly happy with the outcome. The design is engaging and the idea conveyed is exactly what I wanted it to be. I had mentioned the artist Darren Waterston and how much I enjoyed his work. His style is free and ever changing. I like the idea of art that is random and spontaneous. I might pursue this genre for a while.
On a larger scale, I am now thinking about going to Graduate School to get my masters. I'm not sure in what yet but I still have to think about it more. I am the type (if you hadn't noticed) that once an idea comes to my head I immediately set about doing it. I have to slow myself down sometimes and think. If I were to master in an art form, such as drawing, printmaking, metals, ect, I am not sure what I would choose. God has blessed me with average talent in every art form I have ventured into. I like the idea of mastering in art and teaching at a college level but again, I do not know what I would choose. I will have to put some more thought into it. I shall keep you posted on my progress.
My photo shoot is tomorrow for my landscape photography project. Instead of doing regular outdoor landscapes I decided to put a unique spin on it. My professor encouraged us to shoot what we feel is natural. My interpretation of this is the human body. Thus I recruited several of my friends to come to my room tomorrow so that I could photograph them. It is quite difficult, as you might imagine, to find people who are comfortable with being semi-naked and being photographed. I did find a sufficient number of people though and gave them all times to come. My one friend, Rebecca, is especially excited about it. She said that it has always been a dream of hers to be a nude model. I really appreciate he enthusiasm and I can't wait to photograph her.
Well that is all for now. I will post a picture of my completed print.

Print Difficulties.

I am an extreamly patient person when it comes to art. Which art being my major, it is a very good skill to posses. I can sit for hours on end working on a piece and not even notice. My life as of now is that of your average college art student, with late nights in the studio and more coffee than water in my blood stream. Besides God, I live for my art. These past few years I have been searching for my unique style, but for one such as myself (being superbly random and all) it is extremely difficult to stay with one.
I had print making class this morning at noon. Yes, noon is morning in college. So I go to class and of course since it is St. Patrick's day most of the students had started their drinking festivities the night before, causing attendance to suffer greatly. There was approximately 8 people out of 16 in class. The professor opts out of doing a demonstration on aquatinting and declares that it will be a work day. This caused an all around hoot of joy. Work days are golden to an art student; when you work on one piece of art in any given class for approx. 15 hours each, a 3 hour work period is heaven sent. I immediately ensue work on a freshly hardgrounded piece of metal. For Intaglio printing you take a piece of sheet metal and put a substance called o hardground n it. You then scribe thin lines in the hardground to expose metal. After all the lines are scribed you submerge the plate in acid and the exposed metal is eaten away, causing you scribed image to be indented into the surface. The metal plate is then cleaned of hardground and printed.
Today I had a fresh piece of metal, that was rather large and completely blank. To an artist, anything blank is positively exhilarating, a blank piece of paper, canvas, metal, clay... anything. So you can guess my excitement at having 3 hours to work on this blank piece of metal! I promptly plugged my ears with headphones, put on some classical piano and ensued work. I only rarely sketch ideas before putting them on a surface. I just let my brain explode onto the page. (not literally mind you) I began to sketch a horse. I scribed for about an hour and a half then took a break and then continued. By the end of class I had a completed form of a horse running majestically in the lower right corner of my metal sheet. The problem? I had 3/4 of the sheet left with nothing on it. I sat the last 15 minutes of class staring at it in despair. The high I had achieved from working was starting to ware off as I had a complete mental lapse for creativity. Do you remember taking any art classes when you had no idea what to draw or paint? You just sat there, like a lump, until the teacher came over and told you what to do. It is every artists worst nightmare. I silently prayed that the professor would venture over and assist me in my futile attempts. He eventually did and said that I eventually would figure something out. With this advise I started doing what I do best, being random! I doodled, listened to music, wrote a paragraph or two, when all of a sudden I saw a vivid image of a butterfly! So of course I immediately called the professor over and informed him that I would be filling the background with butterflies. He procured a book which contained the work of an artist named Darren Waterston. I loved his work and was ready to start up work again, but the class was over and I was due in wood-shop. I packed up and went to my next class.
I had two more studios (that equals 6 hours) before I could go back to my room. The whole time I thought of the print. I was tortured by the unfinished etching I carried with me the rest of the day. By the time I reached my room I was so bursting with ideas that I felt slightly nauseous.
Needless to say I spent the rest of the night scribing, at least until I needed to write and thus I started this blog.
I hope that tomorrow will be slightly less agonizing.

This is me.

So I have another blog for my trip to China next year, but I think I like this blog idea so I figured I would give it a try for my every day life. This is where I will put my thoughts, experiences and just ramble. I know that there probably won't be very many people who read it but I guess it doesn't really matter anyway. The blog is titled "My Average Lives..." because I feel like a act differently towards every person I know and come in contact with. My "lives" are different towards every person. This flaw I have become acutely aware of recently and I hope to reconcile it eventually... or maybe not. I am an on the fly type of person that has to have set plans. Just because I should fix it doesn't mean I actually will.
If any of my friends or acquaintances read this, I hope you will not find offense in it in any way. I still love you all.
I love classical music.
So I feel I should warn you, dear reader, that I am a very random person. I feel the urge to write whatever comes to my mind. This can some times cause difficult situations to arise. For example, I am sitting in History class and the professor mentions Mayan Temples so, naturally, I think of rain forest then animal then monkey then evolution then God and all of a sudden I feel the urge to write about God, or a story plot unfolds in my head about all or one of these things and I HAVE to write it down. So of course I do.
I love the sound of typing.
If you can deal with my randomness then you might find my life, or at least my way of thinking to be interesting. If not, then at least you will have a good laugh. But I will bore you no more with introductions, I bid you farewell and hope that you enjoy.