Found on my camera

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs

Today I got to help teach the social skills class for kids with Autism for the second weekend in a row.  I also got to see Sara!  Class was really fun today and it went by very quickly.  We asked each other what our favorite movies were and we're social detectives in various scenarios.  And, the kids remembered me from last week despite my new hair cut:

Oh and I made the stuffed animal (his name's banana, not spongebob).

India Ink

I will never look at a container of India ink in the same way, ever again.  Now when I look at India Ink, hours and hours of tortuous, painstaking doodles will flash themselves before my eyes.  Anyway, here is the project timeline and finished product (that has a considerable likeness, if I do say so myself):

in progress...

close up

the end

I did it!

Today I found out that I made it through round 1 of Teach for America.  This means I've been invited to a phone interview which will happen early next week.  I'm so excited, but so nervous too.  I can't wait to tell them more about myself beyond what my resume says and I'm going to do everything I can to do my very best.  

In other news, school is going very well.  It's weird, but one of my favorite parts of my short week (classes only on Mondays and Wednesdays) is when I get to help the boy sitting infront of me with Statistics.  You gotta enjoy that group work and peer frustration over math.  And I absolutely LOVE watching the teacher's calculator demos via the overhead.  Yes.  I did say overhead.  You probably thought they stopped making those things when I stopped attending high school.  Thankfully, though, there are still a few of them in existence in colleges across the country that like to keep it old school.

Also, I'm having such a blast working on my thesis this semester.  I'm working on a ceramic garden of sorts right now, sculpting tree forms that have reached my personal high of 33 inches.  Mike and I will have to modify the kiln to get this plant life fired.  And since I finally got my camera battery charged the other day, I'll start posting pictures of stuff again.  And by stuff, I mean my art work!  

Now I've got to go back to my homework.  I'm working on a project for Fundamentals of Design.  The goal is to make a self-portrait that is larger than life using a small grid where each square expresses the image by way of a different pattern.  If that wording was confusing, then know that I am basically making a giant mosaic of my face.  I'll have that picture here too.

Love,

Monica

My video interview

and article.

Poll

I'm starting to think that no one reads this blog.  

If you're out there, please watch these videos and comment with which song version you like better.  This afternoon, while avoiding my thesis, I recorded both of these covers* of the song "Why do you let me stay here" (She & Him) with the program Audacity.  All of the vocals are yours truly and the guitar (that's been distorted by too much "noise removal").  While I won't tell you which one I like better, I will say that I think I sound better in one of them.

Enjoy:

#1

#2

Tomorrow I get to go back to Camp Royall and make up for all of the Autism I've missed the past month!  I'm sooo excited.  David's going to come and volunteer too :)

Love,

Monica

*And I acknowledge that I may have screwed up the lyrics in the song...

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.