Feeling Weird

Subway from Lee Bretschneider on Vimeo.

I promise to start writing again once I get back into the semester grove.  

For now I'll say that:  Art to Art is going well (Elisabeth and I have made neat, laminated schedules using clip art she found), my fish are growing by the hour, Stephanie is finally back in our lives, Jenna's got a boyfriend, I cut David's hair really, really, really short, my hair is growing at the speed of light, I'm still working on applications for graduate school, yesterday I started throwing on the wheel again and got back into the swing of things, there is already a lot of dried clay on my pants (which looks like mud and dirt to normal people I walk by on campus), my sculpture came back from Denver undamaged, I really like my art history teacher, I had to drop my installation class (sad :( face) for fear that it would interfere with my honors thesis, I feel very prepared for this semester, this blog is one year old (not today, I missed it's birthday), I missed Irina's "birthday" too, Jenna and Alexa got into NCUR which means Stephanie and I have the apartment all to ourselves for a few days in the future, I went to the gym yesterday and ran three miles very quickly, the ping pong tables were taken so I couldn't play yesterday, I can't wait until next weekend because I get to go home and celebrate my favorite holiday (Chinese New Year), I got a new kazoo after my other new kazoo was busted from me blowing/humming too hard into it, I'm waiting to watch a documentary I found in the library on noodling (bare-handed catfishing), and I'm finally taking piano lessons (I think I found my teacher on wikipedia).

For Mommy (Fall Break and Update on life)

So, while life has not actually started to slow down, I have gotten some big presentations out of the way.  I spent fall break in Cary, NC this year to show my stuff at a day-long final interview for TFA (Yes, that's me in a suit of sorts to make a good impression).  It felt nice to look all sleek and put-together.  My roommate, Stephanie, is a business major and always knows how to dress up professionally.  I'd say I felt a lot like her. 

Because I spent most of my short fall break preparing for the interview, I spent the rest of it catching up on neglected homework while attempting hibernation.  Some highlights were Indian food, shopping w/David, making dark chocolate chip pancakes from scratch in the late afternoon, taking Gizmo to the dog park, and going to see Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story (I cried).

The break in general, though, was filled with lots of cute animals.  That's Gizmo above wondering what-in-the-world I'm doing, flashing at him like some paparazzi.  I'm basically obsessed with getting him to like me, even when I'm not holding food in my hands.

And here's a very recent picture of Irina (who came to David's home with me).  She's still alive and kicking (not to mention biting).  In just a couple of months I will have had her for one year!  It's exciting, but also a little depressing because I think her breed is only supposed to live for about 16 months (and she hasn't grown that much since I got her).  She, too, was curious about the camera.

And this is a picture taken from my powerpoint presentation (yesterday).  I had to give my "Presentation of Progress" for honors.  I went first and despite my nerves everyone said I did an outstanding job.  It was actually a really nice opportunity to get 15 minutes to tell an audience (some, complete strangers) about a project that I've almost been working a year on now.  The other presenters in my group were wonderful too.  I was lucky to be in a fun, creative, enthusiastic group.  There were eight concurrent presentation sessions spread across two floors and grouped by like-majors so that all of the 37 honors students could present within two hours.  My group had an art major (me), an art history major (my talented and genius friend, Nichole), a Music Technology major (rock n roll Andrew),  a Theatrical Design and Production major (cute and confident Sarah Linn) and a Music Theatre major (Topher, who was wearing his signature vest).

Nichole is doing a presentation comparing perceptions between flat, abstracted paintings and their realistic, 3-d (using perspective) counterparts (Flat Can Be Deep: A Perspective on the Valuation and Common Perceptions of Two-Dimensional Artworks).  Andrew is busy writing, directing and composing music for a Rock Opera with a story line comparable to Westside Story (Beautiful Disease: A Rock Tragedy).  Sarah Linn is stage managing the spring musical (State Management for Musical Theatre: An Artistic Presentation of Elon University's 2009 Fall Musical, "Kiss Me, Kate").  I loved learning a lot about what goes on behind the scenes and I will never look at her in the same way now, knowing all the hard work that she is doing.  Lastly, Topher is writing the script and lyrics for an original musical (Finding "i.d.": Developing an Original Musical within the Workshop Process).  I'm really excited to see Topher's musical in the spring because last spring I went with some friends to see a preview and the writing was hilarious as well as the music fantastic and inspiring.  In a sentence, his musical revolves around a young woman with dissociative identity disorder whose father has just died.

Speaking of fathers, my dad is coming on Tuesday.  I can't wait because he's going to take me to a bike store to get a rack which I can use to tie a milk crate to.  Kind of like this:

Love,

Monica

P.S. David and I might venture out to the football game.  That might change, though, as it's Homecoming weekend and crowded like mad.  Our back-up plan is to see the lemurs at Duke.

Snow adventures

The snow this past weekend was awesome!  Not only was it deserving of a three-day-weekend, but it was as good as any snowfall and snow-day I've had in Maryland (keep rockin' NC!).  And it was the peerrffect combination of wet and fluff.  It was fulffy enough to get that nice dandruff effect when throwing it into the sky as if in a winter wonderland and it was wet enough to pack snow into tight snowballs to throw at your unsuspecting friends.

Oh, and it was good for snow angels, too.  Like every child, we (Alexa, Amanda, Kimberly and Me) had lots of trouble getting our bodies out of the snow angels without messing up their little snow skirts.  This one is Kim's snow angel.  I actually kind of like the spot where her feet were and I especially like the part where her hat fell off:

And, of course, no snow-day is complete without a snowman!  Amanda and I declared the snowman our first biological son (since we literally made him).  For those that can't tell, his eyes are made from some breed of yellow flower that was able to survive negative temperatures and beds of snow.  His nose and mouth are the stems from said flower.  And his arms (don't poke fun!) are sticks that had already fallen off of trees (this being the reason they are not hand-picked, matching limbs):

In other news, I just got back from my honors thesis meeting with Mike.  I told him what I had been doing for the past couple of weeks.  Basically, I have a lot of good ideas and am having trouble narrowing them down.  I know, though, that I want my thesis to communicate ideas about the hybridity of human identity (It's something that everyone can relate to, I think).  So there...chew on that very broad piece of, er, idea!

Love,

Monica