To sell, or not to sell...

I posted this around on some boards, but I figured I'd ask opinions here as well.

In preparation for the upcoming term, in which I'll be needing to scrounge money as best I can, and I humored the idea of perhaps selling some art online.

I checked around here and there. On ebay, glass art seems to go pretty well, but i'm still unsure about the whole thing. What do you guys think? Should I try an auction and see how it goes? Are there other auction sites I should look into? Any advice from people who already sell art online?

There is a student art show here, which I can probably make a bit of cash from, and I'm going to a convention this summer where my glass sold pretty well last year (but I'm going to be needing money before then).

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas?

End-o-Break

Tomorrow I pack up to go home for the remainder of my break. I had a good time overall, though people were a lot busier than I had anticipated. Still, time with friends with no pressure is always nice. I hung out with Eric quite a bit, which was fun, since I've never really hung out with him much before. The same with Jeff, and we had dinner, woo!

Tonight, Brendan and Ken surprised me with a birthday cake and present. D Flo and Eric were there, and we had a nice little birthday extravaganza. Berea and little Sylvie came to visit (though Sylvie is much bigger now). And we rounded up the evening with some Halo and other games.

I was stomping in Halo on this particular night, so much so that some good-natured insults were exchanged, and I ended up attacking Flora. He used the opportunity to start a new game while my controller was out of reach, intending to blast me while I lay helpless. However, through some trick of fate (which D Flo blames on me being an apparent voodoo practicioner), he rolled onto my controller, and my character ended up wasting him for the first kill of the game. Muahaha!

'Twas a very restful break, and I intend to use my time at home to prepare for the busy term ahead. I need to work on my resume for SETC, and an essay to apply for a scholarship for a glass class at Corning this summer. I'm also kitten-sitting for my brother this weekend (and I intend to take photos).

Recap

Winter term is officially over! Let's review the things I've learned in the past 3 weeks.

- I learned more about castable refractory than I think I'll ever need in my life.
- I learned how to lay bricks
- I learned that, even though I'm unsure of my future profession, I'm sure that I do NOT want to be a mason
- I learned that wearing your respirator backwards on your head when you're not using it could've sparked a fashion trend
- I learned that the suspicions I've had all these years are true: I cannot operate a bucket.

Now for break, my birthday, and spring term. Bring it!

Last day!

Ah, today is the last day of winter term, and oh what a term it's been. Yesterday was a bit dull at first, as everyone was busy busy busy finishing papers and projects and whatnot. Eric and I pulled some ninja fun, though (by Eric I mean Eric Abele, not my brother. In fact from henceforth, I will refer to the former as "Eric" and the latter as "my brother," even though my brother should technically get name rights, it's easier to say "my brother" than "my friend Eric who is not my brother").

We knew the film class kids were editting their horror movie over in the design studio, so we made an elaborate plan for scaring them, which involved us sneaking around Grant with no shoes on and banging doors and stuff. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people up there working, so all our subtle spooky-noise-making was in vain. We even crept right into the Black Box, the small theater directly attached to the design studio, and opened the door all creepy-like, but no one even noticed!

However, we were successful in the end, by hiding in the little tech room attached to the black box and jiggling the door handle when poor Tater walked by. Eventually, Alison came in weilding a sword and we jumped out and scared her and there was laughing and Tater throwing stuff at us. Eric and I are master scary-folk.

We actually ended up feeling kinda bad for Tater afterwards, it seemed she'd been freaking out a lot that weekend while they filmed their movie. And I can completely understand, the Norton Center is scaryashell at night, and of course they picked all the scariest places for their movie...the creepy hallways and their lack of 90º angles, the shop, Newlin (the big theater), and the catwalk. Yeek! I need to get some pictures of the place.

At any rate, we accompanied them for a bit, ate some pizza, then left them to their work. I wasn't quite tired yet, so I revised Strother's paper for him. It's been awhile since I revised a paper, but I did a thorough job. I felt bad, though, leaving him with so much work to do O.o...

Strother's away message: Lisa if you see this I worked until 5 with only one break. I better get an A or I'm coming to get you.

>_< Oh well, I'm off to my "final." Steve is bringing us doughnuts, yay!

Bleh x_x

Yesterday I woke up with a sore throat, an icky stomach, achey wrists, and had to go do furnace stuff. The fates were against me, I'm convinced they were trying to foil my Halo skills for that evening. A video game tournament was thrown together last minute, and Halo was involved, so the Rodes 2 gang was very excited.

It was very fun, all in all. We did suffer some setbacks, with Ken () in Italy and D Flo home for his birthday, we were short some of our best players. Buddah joined us, along with some other dude who's name I can't remember but whose handle was "Poo" and was very very good. However, the SAE (E in this case standing for Epsilon) team proved more organized and used to group team play. Even though they won in the end, the games were very close, and I will be excited to tell Ken that we stomped them the first round, with me coming in first above everyone else, even the notorious Grey Munford (I swear, between this and the Student Film Festival, that boy is fast becoming my arch rival). That was before my wrists started going numb, though x_x

Overall, I think it was fun, and I would be happy to have an ongoing Halo battle between the SAEs and Rodes 2 (even though 3 of the 5 members of the Rodes 2 Halo Krew do not actually reside in Rodes 2, and 2 of them aren't even in Rodes at all).

In other news, Brendan is having a contest on his forums, and everyone should participate, even if they don't know Brendan. Why? Because it's a caption contest for a picture of me! Go here and play...

http://www.xorph.com/xorphorum/viewthread.php?tid=211

Stomp revisited

I watched Stomp again last night from the catwalk, it was still just as envigorating. The sound collects rather well up in the catwalk, and the view was spectacular. I even went backstage early for the encore, it's even *more* amazing when they're 10 feet away. I'm jealous of Squirt, she got to work the show on props (meaning she got to toss them brooms and things onstage if one of theirs should break).

Load-out went well. There is a strange phenomenon concerning roadshow load-outs...whenever Katie Stubblefield and I are in the same proximity, we ALWAYS end up coiling cable. It's some strange trick of fate. Anyway, I loved the Stomp electricians, they were all very friendly.

The load-out itself went surprisingly fast, and we were out by midnight (usually load-outs don't end until 1 or 2 in the morning), and yesterday was Midnight Movie night (in which the college kids get to go watch movies at the local theater for free. We decided to be hard core and go, since D Flo hadn't seen the second Lord of the Rings yet. So, D Flo, Tater, Eric, and myself drove out to the theater as the previews just drew to a close.

The idea didn't work so well. Three of us had just finished a load-out, so the adrenaline quickly wore off. Bye the treck to Helmsdeep we were all nodding off. Originally, we were struggling to stay awake for Flora, since he'd never seen it, but even *he* was slipping away. Ultimately, we decided to savor what was left of the day's strength and went back home.

I can now officially say I've seen The Two Towers 2 1/2 times. x_x

Stomp....and volleyball??

Monday I got a break from the manual labor of building the furnace to instead take part in the manual labor of the prehang for Stomp. I love working in electrics, and I loved having a separate day for hanging the lights. It was much more lightly paced, and I didn't have to worry about tripping over the carpenters.

I was plotting to sneak up to the catwalk to watch the show, since both nights were sold out before break even started (curse my procrastination). However, a nice girl in my furnace class gave me her ticket, because she was unable to go. It was still as amazing and energizing as when I'd first seen it several years ago with my mother, and I still plan on sneaking up to the catwalk tomorrow night to catch another show ^_^

Of course, tomorrow in the dining hall there's bound to be a slurry of rhythmic playfulness from table to table. It's addictive. If anyone *hasn't* seen Stomp, I highly recommend it.

In other news, we were informed by Steve on Monday morning that our furnace building class was also on a volleyball team (much to our suprise). It seems that Steve suggested the idea of class intermural volleyball for the winter term, and "couldn't just suggest the idea and not sign up." At first, we were a little miffed about being "volunteered" to have a team, but that soon wore off.

Our first game was that night, and we won! Sort of...Dr. Miles' team didn't accumulate enough players. We played a game for fun, though, and it *was* fun. Surprisingly, too, because I am horrible at volleyball. Next game tomorrow night! Then the load out for Stomp. A busy week already.

Mario Paint

The first week of furnace building has drawn to a close, and I think we've gotten a lot accomplished so far. We seem to alternate between a day of getting lots done and a day of disaster and error and getting nothing done. But, we're almost completely finished with the substructure, yay!

The other day, was explaining his experience in practical applications in math. Coincidentally enough, I had a similar experience this week, though it mostly involved figuring out how many insulating fire bricks we'd need and at what angles they'd have to be cut to fit in the circular glory holes. It served as further proof that the easiest facets of math--like adding and multiplying--slip beyond my grasp.
"Let's see...12 x 7...uhhhhhhhhhhhhh...........::gets out calculator." Oh well, at least there were some math majors there to help me out.

In other news, D Flo is a musical genius. Well, that's not really news, but we were playing with Mario Paint last night. D Flo whipped out this amazing little piece, even under the limitations of only having quarter notes, only three notes together at a time, and replacement of traditional instruments with mushrooms, geese, and airplanes. I was amazed, so I made a little animation for him (a dancing kitten, to be specific). I'd forgotten just how fun Mario Paint can be.

Plus, the collaboration reminded me of how I need to get crackin on my entry for the film festival. It's almost all storyboarded, and since Flora's also writing music for Patrick for Chalk Circle in the spring, I need to give him as much time as possible to help me out.

For now, I'll just get my laundry done...

Day 3

Furnace building good so far. I think a lot of the heavy lifting is winding down, as Tuesday I was tossing bricks out of a dumpster, and today I was merely mortaring them.

(Regarding the dumpster tossing bit. Our dumpster was so heavy after we'd thrown out bricks from the old furnace that the dumpster truck man couldn't lift it. Yes, we shut down the dumpster guy. Curiously enough, whenever I tell someone about this, the general response is of enthusiastic congratulations, often accompanied by a cheer, as if the dumpster man were some great symbol of human repression, and we defied him by making the dumpster too heavy. Our reward was to have to climb back in the dumpster and throw bricks out to lighten it ¬_¬ )

Projected results of this term:

good--I'm going to be so buff that I'll be able to lift cars over my head on a regular basis

bad--I think I'm going to end up with permanent respirator lines in my face.

Day 1

Well, the first day of the winter term is over and the second one beginning, and so far my judgement is...it's going to be a loooooooooong three weeks.

Don't get me wrong, rebuilding this furnace is going to be awesome, I learned so much in just the first day! But it's going to be physically taxing, and I can see myself thoroughly exhausted by the time it's all over.

On the upside, my theory about all physical labor and no outside work was correct. I work from 9-12 in the morning, and often 1-4, but after that, nothing else. No homework or papers to fret about, and the evenings are devoted to rest and play. That time will probably fill up with my stage management duties to D Flo's plays, but I have no real worries there.

In other news, someone is visiting Centre this week, someone I've missed very much since they graduated. Everyone's favorite demon-llama, the one and only Ian Jones is back on campus for awhile, and I got to see him again for the first time last night. It was a joyous reunion.

Stay tuned!

Home again...er...no wait...

The move back to school was successful, and my room is clean for perhaps the first and last time in a term. Yesterday kicked off with an enthusiastic reunion between Brendan, D Flo, Ken and myself, and we celebrated with many hugs, since the heat in Rodes was out and it was frickin freezing.

We then proceeded to rearrange the living room, and skipped off to see Eric Abele, who had returned to us from a long fall term in Strausbourg, complete with residual German accent.

It was a perfect time, as we were all together back in the safety and convenience of the college bubble, but no classes yet with which to worry us. It's my favorite time. D Flo is trying to corrupt me by getting me to start Final Fantasy Tactics, even though I've not finished Chrono Cross yet and already broke my oath by starting Legend of Dragoon (I'm one of those one-rpg-at-a-time people), and Brendan brought back the next volume of Bone, hooray!

Overall, the night was exquisitely joyous, as I'd missed everyone immensely over break. In fact, the only downside is that even though we went to Walmart, I was so excited about the fun of the reunion that I only bought a box of Clementines and a Pomegranate, both of which I left over at Rodes...and I'm STARVING x_x

2002

2002, what a weird year. Well, I suppose I'll do a little recap, for me more than anything, I suppose. I have a tendency to think in terms of 'school years' as opposed to real years, so it's helpful to do little things like this.

- 2002 kicked off with my study-abroad trip to England, where I traveled from Manchester to London and many places in between, and saw 30 plays in 3 1/2 weeks. My birthday had its ups and downs, the down being I had to sit through a Pinter play, the up being that I got to go to Riki Tiki Tavi's, the most awesome restaurant in Manchester, and have the best vanilla milkshake in the world.

- Spring term of 2002 was a rough one for me. I'd flown in from England late one night, and the next day had to move back to school. The lack of rest and busiest term I'd had so far wore me down quite a bit. I was really unprepared for the stresses of taking 2 studio art classes at once, but I managed through.

- On the up side, I had a lot of fun that spring term. I remember my Monday night 9-midnight glassblowing slot with Ian. Neither of us had class the next morning, so after our blowslot we'd drive over to Jen's apartment, where I would make pancakes and Dr. Mario tournements would take place.

- I got to be really good friends with Andrew that term. Seeing my beloved senior friends graduate was tough. Ian, Andrew, Liz, Nate, Sara...everyone, I really missed them, but had great times with them

- Summer 2002. Not quite as eventful as the summer before. I did manage some visits to see my friends, and it was the first summer I actually sold art. I did rather well, selling quite a bit of my glass, I was very excited!

- Fall 2002. Junior year started off rather strangely. I solidified and grew strong friendships with different people, namely D Flo, Brendan, Ken, and Squirt. This year has been eventful and fun-filled, if not DRIPPING with DRAMA. I remember being terrified of having an independent study in glass with Woody, Arijan, and Ken (who are all way way talented), but it turned out for the best for me.

- 2002 wrapped up with New Year's with friends. I'm glad I got to see before he goes off to Italy. My resolution this year is to expand on my other talents, especially getting over my fear of playing the piano.

Have a great year, everyone!