"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

Art-to-Art sharing

Matthew with "Brown Monkey" mask...such a sweetheart

The play went wonderfully today!  Everyone and their families and friends came out today to support the lovelies: Liam, Michael, Ewan, Peri, Graylin, and Matthew.  The kids put on a GREAT show.  While Elisabeth stayed behind the "curtain" to help them get on stage, Jordan and I stood on the sidelines playing different percussion instruments, bells and kazoos while Donovan narrated the story.  At the end, everyone erupted in satisfying applause and I wanted to cry because I was so happy and excited.  They did so well and I have never felt so accomplished before.  It was a great learning experience and I learned a lot about teaching art and teaching it to individuals with autism.

The high school volunteers were also such great sports through the whole experience.  For most, it was their first time ever working with kids with autism and I don't know if they knew what they were getting themselves into exactly.  That is to say, I don't think they knew how much FUN they were getting themselves into.  They really took responsibility for making everyone feel comfortable and happy and these pictures below represent the culmination of great effort, communication, enthusiasm and friendship between a bunch of crazy (in the best way) people:

Backstage "pow-wow" before the start of the show

"Tiger" scares and picks on "Brown Monkey"

Pikachu uses his "good-natured powers" to put "Tiger" in his place

"Frank", "Zeus" and "Jazzy" the Cat on stage

Group dance party at the finale

Parade around the University Mall...we're such show offs!

Donavan leading the play with upbeat, can't-resist-the-urge-to-dance drumming

Me and Elisabeth holding the arms of a GIANT puppet we did not make

Ewan posing for a good-bye photo

THE END

Bad day gone Good

Dear Friends,

I will not be proof-reading this entry, so I apologize for typos, bad grammar and bad writing.

I had the worst day today, but now everything is okay.  

For the past four days, I've been slaving away, compiling the written defense portion of my honors thesis.  When all the roomies are in the living room around homework hours after dinner, I kind of feel left out or lazy (even though I'm not).  For the past three semesters, they've been furiously typing their 80-100 page theses and editing and re-editing them every night.  I feel like a lazybones because I haven't been constantly writing a written thesis, despite the fact that I know I've been doing my fair share of work.  I spend about 3 hours every day in the ceramics studio sculpting, firing and thinking (the creative process is time consuming), and all of this is my contribution to my thesis as a studio artist.  And while I know that I am anything BUT lazy, I can't help but feel the pressure from my tendency of comparing myself to the pursuits of students in other disciplines.

Anyway, the important part is that for the past few days, instead of going to the studio, I stayed in the apartment and actually got to work towards my thesis on the computer like everyone else!  You see, my thesis mainly consists of a substantial body of art work culminating in a conceptual, themed exhibition.  But, it also requires this:

Studio artists must also create a written defense which more fully articulates the technical excellence and content of the  work. Such a defense, which could generally be completed in 15-20 closely-edited pages, plus notes and bibliography,  must conform to an appropriate style guide. Both the public presentation and the written defense must situate the work  in the context of other artists and thinkers working with similar techniques and content.  The written defense should be  a thorough exploration of both the technical and content contexts of the work, and must show how the work makes an  original and valuable contribution to those contexts.

I decided to buckle down Monday afternoon and begin writing the paper.  Having already made most of my artwork (I began firing the other day, the total count of sculptures is 16, and eventually all I will have to do is figure out how to treat the surfaces of the sculptures), researched artists and thinkers to relate my conceptual ideas to a context, and completed an annotated bibliography, all I really needed to do was put all the parts together.  And that's exactly what I did.  

It felt weird, let me tell you, to not stay in the ceramics room until my fingers started to prune, and, instead, sit on the couch and type until my back started to ache.  One day, even, I stayed up late just to squeeze in some studio time because I couldn't resist (that's what I'm gonna do tonight too).  But it has all payed off because, as of now, I have finished my first draft.

However, the bad news happened before I finished the paper.  Last night when I was working on it, I came to a stopping point and left a few pages to be written in the morning before I emailed it to my thesis mentor.  I thought all was well and I saved it on my computer.  When I woke up, I returned to my computer and tried to open the file but my computer told me that it was either corrupted, truncated or destroyed, meaning that my computer could no longer read it.  I started crying because everything I did resulted in the same, scary message that my computer had eaten my paper.  Even the copy that I had emailed myself (incase something like this happened) wouldn't open and said the same thing.

What was worse was that I couldn't find my keys.  I had to leave my door open and pray that someone would be in the apartment when I needed to get in.  Between freaking out at the library, freaking out in the piano practice rooms (I had a make-up lesson today), and freaking out whenever I could get back in the apartment, I could NOT, for the life of me, find either my keys OR my paper, and was running out of time.

I promised my mentor that I would be emailing him a first draft of the paper today, so I had to completely re-write the entire paper.  

JUST KIDDING, that would be impossible.  23 pages in a few hours?  I don't think so.

The great news is that I downloaded a text program from the interwebs and somehow, it was able to de-code, open and read my paper.  The bad news was that it completely destroyed all and any formatting, punctuation and left, scattered through the paper, what looked like words and letters from an alien manuscript.  Bizarre.

It took me two hours to copy and paste my poor paper into microsoft word and re-format.  Then I spent three hours finishing the paper and proof-reading it before I sent it to my mentor.  I felt terrible because I couldn't do this until after my piano lesson, despite the fact I told Mike I'd have it to him in the morning.  I sent it to him at 7:30 pm.

Anway, I ate a yummy thai dinner and then was let into my apartment by Stephanie.  I still hadn't found my keys at this point, but David is really good at it.  He usually finds them in about three minutes, but this time it took him 20 minutes.  They were in the laundry basket (I must have thrown them in there when I was putting some dirty clothes away).  Anyway, I was still really stressed out because all the drama surrounding my paper was clouding my happiness of having finished it.  The only way I was able to get giddy again was when Mike sent me an email after having read it saying that he thought it was a "great start!"  It made me feel great and made all the trouble worth it today.

Now I can enjoy spring break.  Not only do I have the Art-to-Art finale play to look forward to on Sunday, but I also have my interview in D.C.

Wish me Luck!

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

Too old for wisdom teeth

Went to the dentist today and they gotta come out.  They just gotta.  It'll probably happen sometime in the summer.  But for now I'm just waiting and watching my bottom row shift around while they grow in.  My teeth used to be straight, I swear.  Anyway, while looking through old photos of my dog, I found one of the funniest things I've seen in a while:

Yep, that's me in a batman costume (boys size large 10-12, actually).