Zombie-themed name

My lovely trivia team finally has a family photo. And it's totally not like one of those awkward family photos or anything.

November Camping photos

Here are some highlights from our November camping trip to Lake Anna, VA. All stolen property (Eric took the pictures).

Karaoke

Last Wednesday, Rachael, Christian, Eric, Eric (yes, two Erics) and I went to Solly's to partake in their karaoke extravaganza. I lost my voice singing "Single Ladies" with Eric, "Friday Night" with Rachael and "Gay Bar" with Joe and Christian dancing in the background. The only person who didn't sing was the remaining Eric. Here are some pictures, courtesy Rachael's blackberry, from the night:

Homesick

I am having a blast during my vacation week from camp. I drove up to Maryland to spend the week with my best friend, Rachael (Yep, that's us at our senior prom).

Anyway*, Rachael, Christian and I have been frantically apartment-hunting since Friday with lots of potentials, but no luck yet. We've been on site to some places to check the safety of areas out in person and have been emailing people like crazy and I think I've visited craigslist way more often than I've visited facebook this week (seriously).

Anyway, for a much-needed change of pace, I got to go all the way to downtown D.C. by myself like a big girl today (I officially have a smartrip card!). I arrived at the steps of the Natural History Museum to meet up with Kenny, Corey, Jailee, Louiza and Andy (who are friends from camp that decided to spend their vacation week house-sitting near D.C.). While Rachael was at work, I shopped around D.C. with my campy friends pretending that I wasn't about to be homeless in exactly a month...I bought coconut ice cream from a hot dog car and selfishly purchased the cutest dress from H&M (a clothing store that everyone in the world has been to but me). Also, whilst at Urban Outfitters, I got to witness a real-life shoplifter get arrested. It was actually super depressing and sad because the woman was crying and looked like any other person. The situation was simply all-around uncomfortable and humiliating. Urban Outfitters is really, really, really expensive though.

Anyway, on my crowded, but solitary, metro ride back to College Park, I began thinking more and more about my new and different life scheduled for the fall. What will grad school really be like? Will I get good grades? How stressed out will I be? What kind of people will I meet? What about boys (just kidding)? What kind of part-time job will I get to slave away at? Will I make enough money for rent? What about for food? Will I be happy? The latter is worrying me most. I know that I will be happy, but I don't know if I'll every be as happy as I was these past two years. I know I've always complained about Elon, but ever since I stepped foot into the ceramics room and got to working with Mike, I've had some kind or sense of inner calm.

I know that sounds silly. It really does. But I COMPLETELY mean it. The daily struggle and triumph that I experienced working on my ceramics and sculpture made me feel so special and unique. I would tire physically at the wheel, wedging the clay, feeling it in my arms, shoulders and, even, abdomen. I'd get weird looks walking around campus because I'd be so mentally involved, constantly thinking about art, that I wouldn't even bother to clean the dried clay off of my pants, hands and even face. Needless to say, I absolutely LOVED every painstaking minute of working on my thesis. I loved even more discussing the things of life with faculty and peers. My happiest days were at the end of April, installing the senior art show. I hadn't eaten for two days, hadn't slept for the same amount, but I was all giggly and bubbly. I didn't want to be anywhere else. All I wanted to do was stay in the art building.

What I am trying to say is that today on the metro, it hit me. It hit me hard. I am not going back to Elon this fall (which I am okay with). Rather, I am not going back to the ceramics room. I won't get to see Mike's face every day. I won't have clay under my fingernails. I won't get to walk around the maze of Artswest, passing friends in the hall. I won't get to judge the bad art in the bathrooms. There are other things that I won't get to do, but mainly I am jealous that I don't get to make more art full-time. I hope that at the Corcoran I will have enough studio time to explore more with my art. I hope that I find the faculty and students as fun as I found my cohort of art kids. I'm not worried. It's more that the Corcoran experience I am about to embark on is being held and judged against my Art/Honors experience. Mainly, though, as much as I don't want this summer and camp to end, I can not wait another day to get my fingers back in some clay and my brain wrapped around someone else's art.

Love,

Monica

*I like this word.

"That was Yoko Ono's sister."

Lucky tries to figure out how to get a hamster out of its cage...to do what?

I know that my spring break isn't over yet.  It just feels like it is.  I think it is because I am back at school already, working on my thesis and other homework as if my last weekend of spring break didn't mean anything.  

Over the break, I spent a couple of days at Elon to volunteer, teach and work in the ceramics studio before helping my parents pack up the things in my room that I wasn't actively using.  I was kind of bummed that my cool blue Ikea bookshelves would be leaving, along with the books on them because I thought I would miss them in a room left with only the basics.  But, after moving tubs and boxes of books, clothes, shoes, odds and ends, and carrying a heavy chair, a bookshelf, a chest, my electric guitar (I kept my acoustic), my keyboard (don't worry, I kept my accordion), my television and my twelve foot long art easel, getting three hours of packing out of the way then instead of later, seemed like a very good idea.

Now I suspect that I have unpacked, give or take, three-quarters of my room!  All that's left are my spring/summer clothes, a guitar, an accordion, some lights and the artwork on my walls.  And my room still manages to look like a happenin' place to be.  

That night after moving, I went to my parents' hotel near Duke.  My dad had a meeting the next day and my mom, Lucky and I took the free day as an opportunity to walk around Chapel Hill.  I took my mom to the University Mall to show her where I taught Art-to-Art in addition to the gourmet grocery, Southern Season.  I also took her and Lucky on a complete walk of Franklin Street to Carrborro.  I pointed out Cat's Cradle, the hip place where I saw Tegan and Sara two years ago.  Then we walked back to Med Deli and met David for lunch.  We got the lebanese lunches to go so that we could enjoy them with Lucky, sitting in a park.

A sweet view from the school of the monument

The next day, I drove home with my parents for my interview at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington D.C.  I've applied to the MAT in Art at the school and will hear back from them in one to two weeks.  I think my personal interveiw went pretty well, and I got to sit in on two classes with students from the program.  One was on museum and community arts education and another was some kind of seminar with four students that had prepared practice lesson plans.  I actually got to participate in the latter and got to feel what it would be like to be part of a class!

One side of the Corcoran

Also, you might find it cool to know that while I was being led through the halls of the school by the Director of the program, I held the door for Yoko Ono's sister.  She had her hands full and I didn't think twice, holding the door for someone like that.  When the woman had left, the Director turned and whispered to me, "That was Yoko Ono's sister".  I sillily blurted out, "Oh my gosh!  I HAVE to tell my mom!"

After my long day came to an end, my mom and I took the metro back and drove home.  While my mom and dad had dinner, I drove to College Park to visit Rachael and friends.  It was convenient that my friend, Jeremy, was stopping by for dinner.  I haven't seen him in a few years and was horrified to see that he too, like my brother, was now much taller than me and with a deeper voice than I was used to.  Reunion photo below:

Vote!

Now I'm back at school.  I just met with Mike about five hours ago to start another batch of sculptures.  By Sunday night, I will have fired twelve sculptures leaving one last big one and six or seven mini-sculptures to be fired the remainder of next week.  Speaking of next week, my cousin, Sarah, has decided to spend three days and two nights at my apartment for Easter weekend.  It should be fun, but I hope she realizes that we will be hanging out while completing lots of homework!

Love,

Monica

The stockings are hung by the fireplace and there's a nice smelling tree in the house but I still need to bake pies and decorate things

There's something smelly going on with the dog, and we need to do something about it immediately.  But that's not the purpose of this post.  I'm gonna take a second and brag about my grades for once:

Fundamentals of Design: A

Professional Practices in Art: A

Honors Thesis: A

Senior Seminar: A

Statistics: A

For winter term, I'm taking my upper-level GST (Plants and Civilization...should be neat).  These are the classes I'm taking in the Spring:

Advanced Projects in Ceramics

Honors Thesis

Art History III Cathedrals/Conquest

Installation Art

Senior Seminar

Whitewater Canoeing

Piano

It should be busy, but EXTREMELY fun.  I'm especially excited about the installation art class and the whitewater canoeing.  I just got the syllabus from that class a couple of weeks ago and my professor (coach, haha) said that some practices will be taking place in school lakes.  That makes me nervous because of all the stories I've heard about people getting e. coli from polar-bear-plunging into the waters.  I guess as long as I don't fall in, I'll be okay.  After all, it's canoeing, not kayaking (though I strongly wish there was a kayak class).

In other news, Rachael is officially done with school.  I'm jealous, but not jealous at the same time because I have a lot of loose ends to fix up this Spring.  I'm excited to see her this break and go to her graduation!  Now I've got to do some holiday shopping/make myself poor again.

Love,

Monica

P.S.  My artist website, for any that are interested:  My "website"

Busy busy busy makes me happy happy happy

I am so happy today.  And it's because of how busy I am.

Photo of my best friend Rachael w/baby squirrel  I think it represents "happy" pretty well

Today, in particular, though, is beginning to look like the start of a great day and productive weekend.  This morning, at 8:30 am, after hours of collecting the accomplishments from the last 3 college years of my life the night prior, I brought my messy draft of a resume to the career center for a meeting with a specialist.  He was so cool and enthusiastic and about halfway through our meeting he rolled back in his chair, clapped his hands and said, "Woo-wee.  This is looking sooooo sweet.  I'm so excited!"  And I had to agree.  For, having someone do all the dirty work in getting together your resume is sweet (it's also sweetest if they do a damn good job).  I told him, as he was cleaning up fonts and indenting like crazy that I was so thankful to have a middleman between me and my computer.  The meeting lasted for over an hour, but, after carefully looking over his shoulder all that time, I had myself a complete and updated resume before the morning was through.

One of the reasons why I scheduled this resume meeting was because of another meeting that I just had at 11:00 am.  Today I met with a recruitment officer from teach for america.  You might remember this post.  That was the first time I met with her without a resume in hand.  Today, though, I was happily able to hand her a polished piece of paper with all of my goodies (mainly I wanted to flaunt my work from this past summer).  When I got there, I was surprised to see how much she remembered about me (she could even recall where I was from and that I was one of the good ones!).  We got to talking about my summer and I listened closely as she informed me about Special Education placements within the corps.  How exciting!  I'll be applying for the upcoming deadline next week and after this meeting I have the right kind of confidence to get me through the application process.  The recruitment officer said that I would be a "tremendous candidate" and, frankly, I couldn't be happier.

Guys, I'm applying for my first, real job!

Let's see, other things in my life?  Well, I'm now a part of two student committees for two upcoming art exhibitions that are being held at Elon this year.  The first is with Tri-State Sculptors.  The 2009 annual conference is being held here this year and my mentor and fellow artist, Mike Sanford, is coordinating it.  I've been emailing him back and forth trying to figure out when the rest of the committee and I should meet with him to get the ball rolling.  He thinks that we should meet at his house for some dinner because he is so busy and so appreciative of a student committee to help him out with the work.  The other exhibition is the National Small Works Invitational (I submitted a piece to it last year).  This is a big exhibit because everything is so small, but plentiful.  And it is imperative that I begin advertising for it because we need as many artists that are not from Elon as possible.  This means that if you have art or want to make some art and get it into a great exhibit please comment and I will give you the information.  The deadline's not for a couple of months, but it would be great to get the word out now.  Even if you're not an "artist"...I doesn't really matter.

Okay, now I'm off to the ceramics studio* to work on some sculptures.  And then later I've got to go to that Honors Fellows picnic.  Meh.

Love,

Monica

*Oh oh oh, the Pendulum wants to take pictures/video footage of me in the ceramics studio for a piece they are doing on the program!  I hope that they don't ask me to throw while on camera.  I mean, I'll give it a whirl, of course.  But, I just get so nervous on the wheel when people are watching.

W-S Burn

Pixie playing her lamp, taken from W-S Burn's myspace

Last weekend, I left camp on my night/day off for a tiny trip to Winston-Salem.  I met up with friends Rachael, Ariella, Nate and Tim (those driving from College Park, MD) at friend Christian's apartment (the boy's all grown up now and writing for a hot newspaper downtown).  After trashing the apartment with our sleeping bags and polluting the stark white walls with ricochets of laughter, a few of us went to travel the nighttime streets.  We were most interested in getting a consultation at the 24/7 fitness center ("Rush") because the consultation desks could be seen from Christian's window.  But before any of that could happen, we discovered a Japanese water/rock garden next-door to the North Carolina School of the Arts. 

While sitting there and egging Nate on to jump 8 steps at once without falling and cracking his skull, we suddenly turned our heads at the sound of crunked voices.  The voices were of a woman and a man in their late twenties [one a fiery, curly redhead and the other a lanky, sexy man (with ponytail) from Maine, respectively].  The redhead woman swooped around the corner and asked if we were in a band ('cause I guess four trespassing youths in revolt seated side-by-side at 3 in the morn constitutes that question).  We said "No" with a little hesitation ('cause Rachael and I once had a band practice in her garage for our 11th grade band named Veritas).  Then I asked, "Are you in a band?"  She sprightly said that she was and requested to sing for us.  I told her to sing her favorite song and that's when the night really began.

For the next 6 long minutes, Pixie (that was her real name) sang an original composition from her band.  It was a mixture of fairy noises and whale sounds.  In other words, her voice was beautiful but a little inhibited by her level of intoxication (especially when she brought the beer bottle to her lips mid-song sentence).  Rachael and I thought the song had ended at least 5 times during the 6 minutes (have you ever clapped before a song was finished?).  Anyway, at the end, we applauded Pixie and she told us that it was better in person; Not only was she the front-woman/singer, but she was also the player of a fabulous lamp instrument pictured above & below: 

taken from here

Pixie proceeded to entertain by talking about the photon belt and the nano virus that the government was going to send through the tap water (with its harmful fluoride contents)*.  She also briefly, and bitterly, ranted about how people shouldn't have to have a baby if they didn't want to.  Therefore, her solution for any individual wanting to destroy a baby inside of them was to sit in a sauna ("nothing can stay alive in that heat").  She left before I could tell her that tap water was used in those ever-so-helpful saunas. 

She also talked a lot about her shoes.  They had so much rubber, she said, that her footsteps could not be heard through the inches of rubber and pleather and manufactured badness.  Pixie warned us not to remove ourselves too far from Mother Nature, suggesting that naked naps in the grass and growing gardens (filled with dark, leafy greens) in order to be self-sufficient were the best stress-relievers from fast-paced quotidian troubles.  The sexy man with the ponytail told me and Rachael that we were very pretty and used the word "homeboy" or "homeboys" to refer to his friend or friends.  It was a night to be remembered.

*She's right, you know.  Fluoride may whiten your teeth or whatever, but I've heard rumors of it worsening your enamel and brittling your teeth instead (which is why I've been off fluoride toothpaste for months).  I'm currently using this stuff.

Plebe Makeover

Before and After shots:

Can I just exclaim here how awful the glasses that they make them wear during boot camp are? Okay, yes.  Those boot camp glasses are just awful!

Erm, it's pretty late (considering I woke up at five this morning) and I need to get ready for bed.  Agenda for tomorrow is breakfast with the grandparents in the morning and then college park for the remainder of the day and night (slumber party with Rachael) and then I'm heading back to camp on Friday.  I promise to write an actual entry about "I Day" as they call it (short for Induction Day, duh) at a later date.  Woo class of 2013!  I am suddenly surging with Naval Academy (soon to be Navy) pride.

Love,

Monica

P.S.  Today a USNA mom turned to me and said, "Do you have a son or a daughter here today?"  I said, plainly, "I have a brother."  The whole thing made me laugh out loud but, honestly now, do I really look like I could pass for a parent?  I mean, the other day I got carded when buying sparklers.  How can I look both too old and too young for myself, people?!

I got a summer job!

This summer from May 22nd to August 8th, I'll be overnighting as a camp counselor!  At Camp Royall in Moncure, NC, a cool outdoor camp for kids, teenagers and adults with Autism, I'll spend my time doing anything from swimming and hiking to singing campfire songs and making arts and crafts.  Don't be fooled.  It may sound like a lot of fun and games, but it will also be a lot of hard work.  I'm so excited, though, and looking forward to the challenge!

Backtracking a bit now.  For spring break I went home to MD.  Not only did I hear about my wisdom teeth (this post), but I got to spend two nights at College Park with Rachael and friends.  I'm practically a regular at UMD's juggling club now and here are the photos (and videos) to prove it!

Tim and Rachael as towering figures

Matt and Christian, the professionals

Rachael is much better at juggling than me.

                                  

Circus act from Monica Huang on Vimeo.

                                  

More juggling from Monica Huang on Vimeo.

This is real, I promise.

Looks like you dropped something, Christian.

I just like this photo (note the head growing out of Tim's head).

Now I've got to go work on my thesis.  *facepalm

Love,

Monica

How would you like your eggs?

For the past few nights I've been with Rachael.  With no classes on Friday, it was the perfect opportunity for me to visit her at College Park.  We're perfectly entertained by one another's company, some music or move in the background, and at least a couple deck of cards.  However, after hours and hours of completely satisfying, yet sedentary, activity indoors, we ventured out into the cold last night, pedaling our bikes behind Christian, fashionably late for Friday's installment of juggling club.

Gathered in a racquetball court, jugglers of all kinds were, well, juggling.  Rachael and I scooted off to a side and juggled with three balls each while the rest confidently tossed pins, blocks and frisbees in the air in groups of five at least.  Everyone was juggling more than I could ever dream of handling until Matthew did a back-flip and landed, as gracefully as anyone could, on his nose-ish.  The amount of blood that came pouring out of his face was more than I wanted to photograph, so I snapped a later shot.  

Here he's cleaned up a bit, but is still red-handed:

We were able to move on, however, with the info that Matthew hadn't done any damage to his nose.  He would go on to say, "It doesn't hurt.  I just feel like I walked into a wall".   

Rachael on a unicycle, able to ride with the wall

After juggling club the gang met up at Potbelly's for better-than-subway-or-even-quizno-sandwiches/subs.  Potbelly's is the best because of the screaming employees and the screaming hot hot hot peppers (they've actually just got a nice bite).  We decided that we wanted to spend the rest of our Friday with each other and went back to apartment 725 to dance, dance, dance the night away.    

                                

This is before we turned off the lights and turned on the disco ball.

Matthew doing "Poi" with glowing balls

sweaty group shot

We all collapsed in physically-impossible ways in the end.