Carnival

I always forget about Carnival until it is right upon me, even this year when little ooze-shaped paper advertisements showed up everywhere from dorm doors to the back pockets of unexpecting launderers returning to fold their clothes from the dryer.

Carnival is awesome. It's a big festival with live music, endless supplies of free cotton candy, snocones, and popcorn, and large inflatable play devices. You know, the kind of big bouncy things you played in as a kid, only they're more awesome because they're college-student-sized (and even MORE awesome for little kids, since they're twice as gigantic).

Anyway, I thought this year's Carnival was getting off to a bad start, as my stomach was upset all day. However, I decided to have fun in spite of this. I challenged Strother to a race in the Safari Challenge (a large, inflatable obstacle course with a plastic palm tree for setting). In my frantic scramble to win the race, my back bent in a way it was not supposed to. It was one of those injuries that didn't hurt right away, but you FELT it, and you knew it would hurt like nothing else in a matter of time.

As all people are entitled to make ridiculously poor decisions every now and again, I thought to myself "Well, my back's going to stop working here in a bit, I'd better use it as much as I can before that happens," and proceeded to play on the inflato-bungee course (on which I promptly injured my head and neck).

In spite of the fact that today I can barely hobble without some sort of pain, I had a fun time at Carnival. Chalk Circle was also awesome. David Flora is a musical genius. That is all.

Frickin decisions

I have a dilemna.

I'm almost certain I've brought this up several times in several different places, but it has come down to crunch time. I have to pick a focus for my art major.

Up until now, I'd been leaning almost 100% towards glass. The reasoning, since I listed out everything I could and realized I love glass and painting EXACTLY the same, was because Nick and Augustine (my fellow art majors) are doing painting, so I figured I'd throw in some variety. However, I talked to Sheldon about it, and a number of issues have brought themselves up.

1. Steve is going on sabbatical in the fall term. Now, I could still do an independent study, and I'm sure Bohack could still help me, but Sheldon was concerned that I wouldn't get the proper critique I needed to develop work for my show. This is indeed a serious concern, for while my glass is improving, it's nowhere near where I'd like it to be and I have a long way to go.

2. I explained to Sheldon that another reason I was leaning towards glass was that I felt it was an easier outlet for my cartoony nature than painting. My oil paintings always seem to turn out darker and more serious, and I think I want to do something lighter for my show. However, Sheldon then said, "Well, you have a solid enough foundation in painting that if you'd like to pursue a more humorous route, we could arrange that. I mean, you could bring in a portfolio of your outside work and we could look over it and set something up, I've seen your website and the comics you do for The Cento, but I'm sure you have other things." Basically, that's Sheldon-speak for "you can do cartoons for your senior show if you want to." My response..

O.o

This changes EVERYTHING. I'd dismissed the possibility of doing my more illustrative stuff for my senior show in the very beginning, because I didn't think it'd be appropriate, or thought Sheldon would dismiss the idea. This opens up a whoooooooole new realm of possibilities.

So this swings me right back to dead center regarding the choice between glass and painting. Now, let it be known, that this is not an issue of doing both. A lot of people have noted that "it's not fair" that I have to pick, or say "why can't you do mixed media?" That's not an issue at all. Even if I *had* the option of doing both, I would NOT do it, because...simply enough...I would die. Explode even.

It's a troubling decision for me. All my glass buddies want me to do glass, and Emil hovers over me when I'm not looking to say I should do painting. I'm hesitant to ask advice from aquaintances, because glass is usually the default answer (because it's cool). If I had some idea of what I was going to be doing with my art in the future, it could help me decide, but as of yet I have no idea.

I suppose, all in all, it's a better situation to be in than others. I mean, I love them both, so no matter which I choose, I will be happy doing it. I will just miss not being able to do the other one. This is the first term I haven't been able to take both glass and painting, and while I miss painting terribly. I know that if the roles were reversed, I would be dying to get into the hot shop. I'm getting no gut feeling about which of these is the better choice, but this matter is too big to let the Coin of Fate decide. Graaaaaaaaaaah!!!

...on a less important, more aesthetic note, I also have to decide whether I want to get a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree. Sheldon says to pick whichever looks best behind my name, and Dr. Shannon recommends I pick the one corresponding to my preferred color for the hoods. It's nice to have a less pressing decision to make in addition to the bigger one. What do you think?

Regarding the bigger decision, I just don't know. I keep hoping I will talk to someone and they will give me the perfect advice, and I'll be able to decide without hesitation. Maybe I'll go talk to Judith.

Easter stuff

As my third year as the official family Easter-egg hider, I once again took careful count of the total number of eggs (there were 18, just 18, seems like a managable amount), and once again there were two missing by the end of the hunt. I carefully checked all my hiding spaces, and at last had to tell my cousins that it was the work of the mischievious Easter Weasel, who'd come in and stolen them for himself. Next year, I plan on creating an accurate map of the yard, and plot all egg locations. Maybe I could employ some GPS, just for good measure.

On another note, I've discovered that the limit for who my grandma gives candy to is not based on age. It must be based on when you get married, for this year my brother did not get a huge bag of Easter candy, and I did. Unfortunately, I've found that I am no longer able to metabolize the huge amounts of candy I receive like I used to, so I'll be doing a lot of sharing this week.

I have gripes with Easter candy anyway. It's too shape-driven, and I'm particularly upset with those speckled, bubble gum eggs and the similar looking malted milk ball eggs. They're like frickin identical! They're both tasty in their own right, but biting into one while expecting the other is not a pleasant experience. Bleh!

As far as candy-holidays go, I'm still with Halloween. It seems to cater to general, commercial candy much better. Just look at M&M's. You have red and green for Christmas, pink, red and white for Valentine's, pastels for Easter, but for Halloween it's like they relax. No pressure.

Back to school with me..

Updates!

Brendan made a wallpaper out of me!! Go check it out!!

The picture is from SETC, and no, I'm not singing. In fact, I have no idea what I'm doing. Maybe I'm yawning, or about to sneeze. Or maybe I really did let out a lion roar, and just forgot about it.

Also, I updated my website! Go and see! Special thanks to Strother for writing my first guest rant.

http://www.wertle.com

Interesting

I take online quizzes a lot, for fun, but don't normally post results for the clutter. Then again, they've mostly always been silly quizzes just for amusement, but I guess if I gain a nugget of insight from one, it's worth posting..


(note, I rehosted the image on my space, so I'll still have it around well after the quiz is gone)

You are the fox.


Saint Exupery's 'The Little Prince' Quiz.
brought to you by Quizilla

I took this particular quiz because I don't know anything about The Little Prince (aside from the cartoon from my youth, I think there was a rose somewhere), and I like it when I get to answer questions based on the validity of the answer in accordance to me, rather than (however hard I may restrain myself) try to "sway" the results one way or the other.

When I got my result, I recalled a time when Eva was reading us the part of The Little Prince about the fox, I'd completely forgotten about it! The text was in French, and she was translating directly to English for us, so the story was very direct and simple. I remember thinking "this is a good story, it's important, and I should remember it."

Of course, I say that about a lot of things, and then promptly forget them, only to have them pop up later on in unexpected places. So it's a bit of something for me to think about.

There are a lot of times when I don't trust in my own wisdom, I'm always looking around for people to look up to, somewhat unconsciously hoping that my friends are these great pools of wisdom that I can go to to figure things out. I think a lot, about lots of things, and have a lot to share.

Maybe part of what's been troubling me recently is the lack of an outlet to share these important things. Maybe I need to stop waiting for someone to come up and ask me...

[Edit: I may as well post a link to the story http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/lpfox.html]

SMASH

It's one of those pacing, puzzling, agitated days. I'm frustrated because the sun is shining, the weather is pleasant, and I am completely out of good or even logical reasons to be down about anything. I have this internal festering that I've only had twice before, which makes me want to do nothing more than skip down to the art barn, collect every piece of glass I've made, and SMASH them against the concrete. SMASH SMASH SMASH!!!!!!!!

The first time I felt it, I had Andrew with me, and he detered the mood a bit to where I only smashed things in my "broken box," so there was no real loss. The second time, I had friends about to hide among, so I would stay safely away from the art barn. Today, however, everyone's in the usual busy state, and I can't find anyone. I fear that if I can not find anything to prevent me, the aforementioned SMASHing will ensue (hence the reason for the journal entry, it should delay me a bit before dinner).

This would cause quite a predicament, as the student show is next week, and if I smashed all my stuff, I wouldn't have anything to put in there. It is strange, this art-destructo feeling isn't normal for me, not with anything 2-D, and I'm one of those people who is horrified when others tear up their drawings. Of course, the glass smashing isn't really about my feelings on the quality of my art. I love all my pieces, like little children, which makes it even more disturbing how much I want to hurl them to the ground and watch them explode.

I'm sure there's some deep, internal metaphor in there somewhere, but I'm tired and grumpy and don't wish to find it, only the smashing. I think they should be safe, I'll go to run some errands then go to dinner, maybe some food will make me not want to smash when I go to my glass slot tonight (maybe I'll fling a wonky cup into the wall, just for good measure).

Wow.

While I was home for the weekend, my parents informed me that a chemistry teacher who used to teach at my high school had died. Of course, I thought this was terrible to begin with, but I found that he didn't die in a car wreck, or of a disease...

No, he was crossing a stream in Hawaii, was knocked down by a wall of water, and was swept over a 190 ft waterfall.

...

What a way to go, Mr. Brown, what a way to go.

Who is this mysterious Dante person anyhow?

So, when I was younger, I never had the experience of being really in to a popular boy band, or gape over a movie star, or any of that. You see, I'm not used to being a fangirl, it's new and fun!

Dante Marioni rocks my socks off



Dante is frickin awesome, here he is making frickin awesome stuff...



I personally think that whistling cheerfully while you torch the bajeezus out of a badass vase makes for a good photo, don't you?


Janusz Pozniak was also here, he's a badass in his own right (he's the tall one)


Speaking of height, it was reassuring to me that one of my heros isn't overwhelmingly tall. No one, not Ken, not Ian, no one can ever give me guff again about having to stand on a cinder block to be able to blow into the optic mold...


These two are definately getting framed. I'm such a dorky fangirl ^_^;;;;



And, on an entirely unrelated note, one Dominic Barbato DARED to complain that I never mention him in my journal..


for more pictures and video clips, you can go see the post I made in the hot glass community..
http://www.livejournal.com/community/hot_glass/12591.html

Seriously, though, this was really an awesome experience. I learned so much just by being there. Yaaay!

The Glass Inferno

I just got out of a fairly challenging cs theory test, but that had been far out of my mind for the whole week. Why? Because it's Dante party week!

Dante Marioni is here at Centre, to teach us glass kiddies and to give demos and such, and I have been bounding about in excitement for the past two days.

It's a bit frustrating, as I'm sure it is with well-known badass people in *any* field of interest, that I flutter around going "Dante's coming!! Dante's coming!! It's gonna be soooo awesome, eeeeeeeeee!!!", and my friends just sort of half-smile and say "Uh...good!" Oh well, I'm sure it's that way everywhere else. Whether you're big into glass, comics, basket-weaving, trashy romance novels, ANYTHING, I'm sure you've had the experience of spouting off about some awesome person in the field, only to have the vast majority have no idea what you're talking about.

So, for those who don't know, Dante Marioni is a really cool glass guy. That should cover it.

I'll be in the studio for the bulk of 3 days learning who knows what, it will be awesome. *Swoon* Yaaaaaaaaay!

Spring Forward

I found Strother's away message to be particularly insightful...

"I hate spring forward daylight savings time, we should just fall back 23 hours. A 23 hour period where people are not allowed to do anything but relax, sleep, and be happy."

Although I'm losing an hour of my precious time, I'm still quite happy. It seems that the fates felt so sorry for putting me through 1st-half-of-spring-term-from-hell that they're making things go extra smoothly for the last half. Since none of my classes will conflict in the fall, it is now certain that I can complete my comp sci major, and I filled out the official forms that upgraded it from a minor to a second major yesterday. Also, I've found a roommate! Yuliya (my roommate from freshman year) had her eyes set on Fox Hall as well, and was searching for roommates, so if we get one more girl we can try for the apartment. My application for Centre Internship Plus is almost completely ready to turn in tomorrow, so that's another load off.

On the other side, the glass class I applied for at Corning was full, but I'm on the waiting list. I'm not terribly concerned, though, because it will eliminate the problem of figuring out how to get from Stockbridge to Corning at the end of the summer. Also, I'm sad that I won't get to go to Conglomeration this summer, but I'm still going to send my art in to the art show (and who knows, there might be some slim glimmer of hope that I can go).

All in all, things are going well. Strother and I are going to sneak off to Lexington today to catch Spirited Away again, and the rest of the evening will be full of studying for this week's tests.

Night Thoughts

At around 4:30 this morning, I sat straight up in bed and thought,

"3 hours ago, at Rodes, David Flora lulling me to sleep by playing the Zelda song, Pink Floyd, and the James Bond theme on the accordian.......did that really happen?"

...

"Yes, it did."

28 seconds later, I was sound asleep again.

Ah, the Advocate Messenger

I haven't laughed so hard at a newspaper in a long time.