Thursday, March 30, 2006

Thankless Thursday

I know that it's Thursday and that I'm supposed to be posting the board today, but forgive me, it'll have to wait til at least Sunday. I had class til 6:30, didn't get home til almost 8, and I honestly just didn't feel like doing it. I had to pack for this weekend. Besides, as soon as I post, I'm going to bed. I have to get up at 5 tomorrow. We're supposed to be at the train station at 6:45 and then leave for Provence at 7am. I'm not certain exactly where we're going, but I know we're staying in a monastary. How cool is that? I will be taking lots of pictures but unfortunately I don't know when you'll be able to see them. We're only going for 2 nights and I didn't want to be responsible for two cameras, so I'm only bringing the film one. I would probably bring the digital if I didn't have the lenses for the film camera, but I don't want to be responsible for that much camera equipment. Besides, practically everyone else on my program has convenient sized digital cameras, not a hulking monster like the one I have, so I can just steal some of their pics from facebook to show you.

I went to the coolest bookstore ever today. It's pretty famous, but I'd never heard of it. Shakespeare & Co? Anyone? Anyone? Well, it's awesome and I am definitely bringing Mom when she comes. It's been around for a while, I want to say like 50 years or something like that, and some really famous writers have been there and even stayed there. There's a loft type place over the bookstore where the now-famous people used to stay. The place it just bursting with character. And books, it's bursting with books, too. And here's the cool part: they're all in ENGLISH. It's run by a British woman. At least, I think she's British. Lots of English speakers there, might be a cool place to meet other Americans. While I was waiting for the rest of my class to get there (we went in lieu of holding an actual fiction class), the people that worked there wheeled out these huge carts full of used books. Since I had nothing better to do, I started browsing. If my class hadn't been late, I would've been fine. But noooooo they MADE me look through the books and I ended up buying one to read on the train tomorrow - Velocity by Dean Koontz. Because I have no self-control, I started reading it when I got back to school.

It's all finished now.

Oops.

Guess I'll be sleeping on the train tomorrow.

Ok gang, I gotta go do my morning pages and then go to bed. I'll be up again before most of you tuck in for the night, so maybe I'll talk to you in a couple hours. Hope everybody has an awesome weekend!

A dimanche.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Trade-Offs

A day off seems like a lot of time, doesn't it? On Tuesday, my Wednesdays seem like a gloriously large amount of time in which I can accomplish absolutely everything I want.

Ha.

That only works if you get out of bed before 10am. But really, 10am was good considering that I didn't get to bed til 3. You saw that post lol. I spent what was left of the morning working on my new blog. It's not up yet (well actually it is, but it's not done so you can't have the address), but hopefully it will be within the next two weeks or so. I'm setting up a new blog over at Typepad. I like blogger but there are a lot of things that I want to be able to do that a) I just can't do because I don't know enough HTML or b) I can do but it takes me literally a whole Saturday to figure it out because I don't know enough HTML. Typepad just makes things a lot easier. And although I enjoy spending a whole day figuring out how to make a background and place it correctly on the blog, I would be saved a lot of frustration if I didn't have to mess around in the template. Enter Typepad. It's not free, unfortunately, but it's cheap enough and I enjoy blogging enough that I can justify it as a personal expense. So yes, hopefully that'll be launched in the next couple of weeks, and that's what I was working on this morning.

I finally got dressed around 12:30 and headed to school because today was LUNCH MONEY DAY! Woohoo!! It was a larger distribution that I had planned on because Kim was nice enough to give us a little extra for this weekend. Oh yes, I should mention that. This weekend we are going on an excursion en Provence. We are leaving at the butt crack of dawn on Friday morning and coming back around 8pm on Sunday. I will not be blogging this weekend unless I finish my grammar paper REALLY quickly on Sunday night, so tomorrow's post will probably be it til Monday.

But I digress again. I went to school and hung around until the person with the money showed up, then took said money and went to Monoprix and bought some highly exciting stuff, like hairspray. Yippee. After that, I walked home. Yes, I walked all the way home. I cannot take credit for the motivation. I walked more than halfway there with two of my friends. After we got to their house I continued on. All told, it took me about 2 1/2 hours. I walked from the center of Paris to the other side of the Seine. It's a long way, let me tell you, but it was highly enjoyable. The company for the first part, probably about an hour and a half but I didn't look at my watch, was awesome, and so was the rest of the time spent with my iPod. I think that counts as my artist date. Along the way I stopped in a mall-like place and found a Borders-like store. I was in the market for a sketchbook. Now, those of you who know me are probably scratching your head and going huh? What does she need a sketchbook for, she doesn't draw!

And that's where you're wrong, my friends.

Last night I found Rhonna Farrer's blog. Rhonna is an amazing digital designer, contributer over at 2Peas, and has her own product line from Autumn Leaves. I was so totally inspired by the artwork on her blog that I started doodling. Go read her blog NOW NOW NOW - it's in my blogroll. I drew for probably 2 hours last night. No masterpieces, I assure you, but it was FUN. It was hands-on creativity, something that I am severely craving right now. Man, what I wouldn't give to have my scrap supplies here right now. I feel a wicked urge to make an art journal. Anyway, drawing really helped calm that craving. I decided that I want to get better at drawing. The reason I'm not so great is because I've never really DONE it. Not since like fifth grade, anyway. And I don't know why, because I do find it fun. So I made an executive decision and bought a sketchbook.

Ok, I guess I bought more than one. I couldn't resist. The store had moleskine journals and the prices were actually pretty good. I could either buy one large journal (240 pages), or a pack of 3 (same size, 120 pages each). I went with the 3-pack. They also had MINI ones in packs of 3. I'm a sucker for anything that's cute and tiny, so I got those too. They're the perfect size for my purse or even my back pocket. I don't want to carry the large one around because that draws too much attention and at this point I'm VERY self-conscious about my drawing, but the little ones are PERFECT for doodling on the metro or writing down cool quotes and stuff like that. I also bought a pack of 18 colored pencils for a little over a euro. Not bad, huh? I was so excited to use them when I got home that I promptly filled up an entire pages with doodles. It felt good.

So why is this post titled trade-offs? Well, I chose to walk home and not take the metro, so I lost a lot of scrapping time. When I got home, I chose to call some of my family members and draw and not scrap or do work. And then I read through every single blog on my blogroll and didn't do anything constructive. At least I can truthfully say I finally finished my work BEFORE I started posting this.

Aight, that's enough for tonight. I'm peacin' out.
(What do you think, am I ghetto fabulous enough to pull off talking like that? I totally think so.)

This is what happens...

...when you scrap til almost 3am. lol. Inspired. Yeah, you're probably thinking. Inspired. BY CRACK.

Flowers by Jen Wilson. Fonts are Garamond Light and MA Sexy.

Good night.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

My photos!

Since I know you've all been dying to see what I've been doing in photo, I brought home some prints to share with you. Keep in mind that I don't have a scanner; I put the prints on the floor and photographed them with my digital and a tripod. So, the color is a little off. The color of the pyramid photo is closest to how all of them look in real life. The pyramid and the two statues were both taken at La Défense. The reflection in the puddle (yes that is a reflection, it's not blurry or upside down) is of the Louvre. I will probably post more later but I just wanted to get these up. Enjoy!






And how cool is that little copyright symbol.

Love it.

Monday, March 27, 2006

My ears are burning

No, seriously. I'm sitting here waiting for the remaining 21 minutes of my time to be up, and then I can go rinse my hair. I went to the mall today and I bought "L'Oreal Couleur Experte" (that's L'Oreal Color Expert for those of you who don't speak French). I am a big fan of this hair dye even though it costs almost $20 a box. At least, that's what it costs here. I think in the states it's closer to $15. I love it because I really can't mess it up, and it comes with highlights. Twenty dollars is still a heckuva lot cheaper than getting them done professionally. And here's the secret: if you dye your hair on the same day you get it cut, everyone will think you paid lots of money to have the good people at Franck Provost do it for you.

So that's what I did. I bought my hair dye and went right to Franck Provost. I always get my hair cut there even though it costs $44 once you do the conversion. I don't trust cheap hairdressers with my hair. It's short enough so that if someone bungles the job, I look like a man. I don't really want to look like a man. I said that to Will and he said that he didn't want me to look like a man either. I was glad we were in agreement on that one.

Getting your hair cut there is an experience. I've never been to any other place in Paris so I don't know if the routines are quite as elaborate, but here's how it goes chez Franck.

You go in and tell the receptionist what you want. You have to specify if you want your hair to be shampooed and blowdried, because if you just say you want a haircut they do just that: cut your hair and send you on your merry way with dirty hair that hasn't been styled.

The receptionist then takes your coat and puts a robe on you. And no, it's not one of those plasticky things that looks like a tacky picnic table kind of table cloth, it's actually a robe. And these are SPECIAL robes. They have a plastic pocket on the sleeve where the receptionist puts the paper that has what you want to have done written on it.

She sends you over to the row of sinks where a row of girls wander up and down, pull our your card, look at it, and then walk away. One of them will eventually come over and wash your hair. Be careful here, if you go to Franck Provost. There are two kind of washes: one with a SPECIAL conditioner, one without. If they ask, tell them that you just want a normal shampooing. If you go for the deluxe version, they charge you two euros more.

After you're done with the shampooing assembly line, they send you to a one of those spinny chairs where you will sit and dangle your feet and look rather dumb sitting there in your robe with a towel wrapped around your head because if you are as short as I am your feet don't touch the floor. Eventually a stylist will realize you are there and will come over and ask you what you want.

At this point, an elaborate pantomime and a mix of broken Franglais ensues as you try to convey to the stylist what you want. "No mullet," you try to say, but then you realize you don't know the word for mullet. You say "comme ça" a lot and make lots of gestures like your fingers are scissors. The stylist will look at you, slightly bemused, and then do pretty much whatever the hell she wants to your hair. But it always ends up looking good, so I don't complain.

After she cuts and blowdries your hair (provided you remembered to specify blowdrying to the receptionist) she will lead you back to the front desk and hand over your card. She will walk away and you will pay the receptionist and leave, all the while wondering if you were supposed to leave a tip.

And that is how it goes chez Franck. Now after all that, don't you want to see the results? Of course you do. Now this picture was obviously taken BEFORE I dumped a bottleful of dye on my head. I will take a picture of the dye job tomorrow and post it. It won't be too much different from the color I have now. It'll be reddish, I guess auburn would be a good description, for a couple days but it will calm down to a dark blondish color with highlights, I promise. At least, that's what I've assured Will will happen. He doesn't like it very much when I dye my hair. Just a personal preference, I guess.

I just rinsed the dye and put in the highlights. Those will be done in 20 minutes. And I think that's all I have to say about my hair.

On an unrelated note, IT'S FINALLY SPRING!! I define it as being spring because I went to the center and back today WITHOUT WEARING A COAT. So exciting, I cannot even tell you. It was sooooo beautiful today and I really, really hope the weather holds for when Mom is here. The warm weather really has me itching to buy new clothes. Almost all of the warm weather clothes I have hear scream "mug me, I'm an American." Seriously. In the beginning of the year it was really hard to tell what was "in" in Paris and what was not because there are SO many people wearing so many different styles. Not like back at home where if one person starts wearing a popped collar pretty they'll be EVERYWHERE within a week. So the whole time it was warm I just resigned myself to look really, really American.

I refuse to do that for the rest of the time I'm here.

I went shopping after I got my hair cut but it was really disappointing. I must say, the spring fashions don't really suit me all that much. Even though I like to pretend I'm leggy and have a tiny, tiny waist, I do have to keep in mind that I'm actually pretty stumpy. Parisian fashion does not look good on stumpy people. Sigh. Guess I'll just have to keep shopping until I find some dresses that don't make me look like I'm either 12 or 80.

Ok, I think that's enough about fashion related stuff. I'd like to scrap tonight, but it's already 11:30 and I probably won't finish whatever I start. Either that or I will finish but won't go to bed until 2.

Oh yeah, there's supposed to be a huge manif tomorrow. That's what the French people call the demonstrations, or manifestations. And we're talking HUGE. The students have conspired with the transport people, who are ALWAYS on the lookout for a chance to strike, and only 50% of the metros will be running. Same goes for all the trains, planes, and automobiles. Ok not really, I just remembered that book title and felt like using it. But seriously, my host dad told me that a lot of the air traffic controllers as well as some of the people who work at Air France at going to be striking tomorrow, so the airport will be affected. Ugh. This is really irritating. Not only that, but the people who were burning cars in the riots last time have piggybacked onto the student's cause and are following them around breaking stuff and stealing people's cell phones. Yes, tomorrow will be a fun day. I only have one class but it'll probably take me at least an hour and a half to get there. I'm not too thrilled about going to that area, because it's sort of-kind-of-roughly where the manifs are going to be, but I'm sure it'll be fine because the metro stop is only a minute away from where I have class. So no worries.

Ok really that's all.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Sunday Morning

Ok, so it's not really morning, it's really closer to late afternoon. But we changed the clocks back today, so it feels a lot earlier than it actually. So I think I'm just gonna go ahead and call it morning, ok? Ok.

And a good morning it was! I didn't go to bed til 2 last night (or rather this morning...as you can see my temporal sense is not so great). I was planning on going to bed early because I was still pretty wiped from the night before when I stayed up and watched Rob Roy til almost 3. Don't ask my why I did that, because I can't explain it to you. It was a bad movie and I was exhausted and I was finished with my scrapping by the time the movie was about half over, so there was absolutely no point for me to be up that late. But I digress. Last night I had some people over for dinner and we made that amazing salad I told you about, except I forgot to buy the corn so it wasn't quite as amazing as last time. But it was still a pretty kick-butt salad. They left around 11:30 and I had every intention of going to bed. But somehow I picked up my Feb issue of CK (Creating Keepsakes, a scrapbooking magazine) and then before I knew it I was doing a scraplift and I didn't finish til 1:30. My problem is I still feel really creative even after I finish something, so I still have all these ideas floating around in my head. I just have to squash those ideas enough to go to sleep, but sometimes it's difficult. Hence, I didn't get to sleep til 2am.

This morning I woke up around 10, but it was actually 11. One of my friends told me today that all you guys in the US don't change the clocks til next week. Is that true? That's kind of silly. Well, I changed my clocks and then decided that no matter what time it was, I was NOT going to lose my morning. So I went downstairs and made myself a pancake breakfast. And then I made a page about it! So here's that page, and the page I did last night. The Vienna Zoo page is a blatant scraplift and I think it's just ok. I really need to work on multiple photo layouts, because if you scroll through the layouts I've posted here, ALL of them only have one photo. I'm not totally satisfied with the layout, but I like the pictures and I was glad to finally do something with them.

Everything on the "Taste of Home" page is by Shabby Princess. Fonts are Garamond Light and CK Cursive. Wild Things: papers by Jen Wilson, Ams Digi Scraps, Gina Miller, Sandra Boddington, and Theresa Hernandez Fonts are ebola and marker felt. Flower by Jen Wilson, paper flower by Theresa Hernandez.


The whole time I was scrapping this morning I had the same CD on repeat, a CD I discovered the day before yesterday and one that you should definitely check out. The artist is KT Tunstall. I'm not sure if they're playing her stuff in the US yet, but if they are and you're already sick of her, just disregard this. I was watching the French version of MTV the other day and they played a video of one of her songs, "Suddenly I See." I had the song downloaded within 2 minutes and I've been playing it on repeat ever since. Download it! Another good song is "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree." Get the radio version of that one. Those are the two most upbeat songs on the CD; everything else is a little mellower.

Wanna hear something exciting? Today is the first Sunday in, hmm, 3 weeks, maybe 4, and I DON'T have to go out and do my photo assignment! Woohoo! I actually went out and did it yesterday. I don't think my pictures will be very inspired. Our teacher sent us to a bunch of passages where there are stores. All the passages are fairly narrow and there were a lot of people. I HATE taking pictures of people. They're so unpredicable and they can totally make or break your photo. I prefer to get 'em out of there and take my time with the shots, but that wasn't possible. I guess I'll find out on Tuesday.

It is now almost 4 and I have not showered or changed out of my fleece pants, so I really should do that. And guess what, by the time I get ready for the day and read through all the blogs that I stalk daily (see my blogroll), it'll be time to start making dinner! Haha. It's such a hard life being a college student, n'est-ce pas?

Oui, bien sûr.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Woe is me

Here's something that will make you feel really sorry for me, the po' college stu'ent.

This is where I'm living next year with Will and two of our friends. These are the floorplans of the brand spankin' new apartments that our college is building. They're going to be ready for our class in the fall and are only open to juniors and seniors (I'll be a senior! Pick me, pick me!). There are 3 different kind of units, this one being the best choice for 4 people. In the other model, two of the bedrooms are on the ground floor, which could be problematic if somebody wanted to have people over, but someone sleeping downstairs wanted to go to bed. Anyway, there are 30 of this kind of unit. My college uses a lottery system to assign housing. Each person gets a number, and every year you get a number that's in a different bracket, i.e. one year it'll be between 1-200, another 200-400, another 400-600, or however many people are in your class. The lower the number is, the better off you are. I had sucky numbers last year and the year before, but it didn't really matter because I applied to be in substance-free housing and the people there don't have to go to room selection. But this year, the first year that I actually have to go to room selection...my number is...

30!!!!

Sweet. So even if EVERY SINGLE PERSON ahead of me wants the same apartment, it is mathematically impossible that we won't get one. Also, have a look at the amenities. This'll really make you feel sorry for me.

Gotta love that person photoshopped into the background. Read carefully....wireless internet!! Woohoo!! I am psyched beyond belief for these apartments. Senior year is gonna rock.

Anyway I need to go do my assignment for photo and then go food shopping. A few people are coming over for dinner and we're going to make the same fabulous salad that we had last time, avocado and all. Maybe I'll take another picture and start a series of prints about avocado salads. I'll sign them and number them and have Dad frame them and you'll all want to buy them, I'm sure. I gotta hop in the shower now, but I just wanted to gloat a little bit about my apartment for next year. Also, I just wanted to prove that this is NOT the blog of a "cranky college student," as SOME people *coughgregcough* might have said. Haha. I think overall I'm pretty happy in my posts. Pretty happy in real life, too. I know I sound cranky and whiny sometimes, but you have to consider the fact that it's all relative. I have nothing major to complain about, so I whine about the little things. Besides, I'm in France, and whining is like the national pastime or something like that.

Followed closely by setting cars on fire.

Liberté, Egalité, Flammibilité!

Holy productivity batman!

I got soooooo much done today and I am so proud of myself. It's late and I'm tired so I'll just give you a quick list:

called Mom and Dad
called Gram
called Mom and Dad again to let them know that I'm not as scummy a granddaughter as they think I am
did my taxes
made myself lunch (sort of, I put some fish sticks and a hamburger patty into a frying pan)
did yoga (45 minutes worth thank you very much)
wrote my morning pages
cleaned my room (this is a bigger task than it sounds, I COMPLETELY sorted everything in my closet, cleaned off my desk, everything, took me over 3 straight hours)
made dinner (mmm pizza)
did not one but TWO layouts
watched Braveheart (in English, woohoo!!)
called my aunt

and now i'm posting! Pretty impressive, huh? Well, now I'm really tired, all this productivity really wipes me out. I'm half-watching Rob Roy right now. It must be "Scuzball-English-soldiers-raping-Scottish-women" night on the movie channel. I'd never seen either Braveheart or Rob Roy before, but that seems to be pretty much the plotline. Disturbing, probably not something i should be watching right before going to bed. ANYWAY here's something slightly less dark: my layouts!




Everything for the first page is from Jen Wilson's kit "Growing." Fonts are tweed and Minion. The little bit of background paper you can see on the second page is also by Jen Wilson from her Sunlight kit. Font is Courier.

I was digging through my pictures looking for something to scrap and I found that one from inside the cathedral at Chartres. I'd forgotten how much I love this picture. Something about it just sends shivers up my spine. I hope that you can sense some of that when you look at it. I think the quote really fits well with the picture. At least I hope so, I spent almost half an hour searching for a good one. Anyway, I'm rambling, it's time for sleep.

Night all!

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Ta-da!

I have a feeling that most of you won't be nearly as impressed with this as I was, but that's alright because it's another one of those "me" things that I've decided to do. Without any further ado, I would like to introduce you to...

The Thankful Thursday board!
I was ruminating the other day (that's a way cool word, btw) about how much I have to be thankful for. I mean, truly. Wow. And I should really be documenting this stuff. Even if it's just a little thing like a warm spring day (which will hopefully arrive soon), there is ALWAYS something to be grateful for. Always. I know I'm sounding sort of like my mom here, but it really is true. So, every week I will make a layout and post it on the Thankful Thursday board every Sunday. Lol just kidding, every Thursday (can I say DUH?). I made the board itself using Gina Miller's BYOBB kit. Everything else is by Shabby P from the Flea Market kit, except for the staples, which are from the Shabby Smiles kit. Fonts are Artistamp, Minion, and Steelfish Outline. I know the font might be kind of hard to read in the preview, so here's the journaling:
Every week I can always count on the arrival of one of Gram’s letters. Sometimes she makes me a card, sometimes it’s a store-bought card, and sometimes it’s a regular notecard. She almost always includes newspaper clippings from the local paper or funny photos. I love getting her letters because they’re a way for me to keep in for me to keep in touch with the real world outside of Paris. Even if it’s just a letter telling about what she did that week, I love to read it because it keeps me connected and up-to-date about her and other people that I miss and don’t get to talk to. I’m not nearly good enough at writing back to her, but I’m so thankful that she continues to write to me nevertheless.

The ironic thing here is that she won't see it unless I print it out and send it to her in a letter. That's why she writes to me - she doesn't have a computer. I guess one of the impetuses (impeti?) for doing this was so I'd have to write her a letter and include this. I am so awful at writing back to people, it's amazing they still send me stuff.

Well, I haven't done my morning pages or any yoga today because I spent all my time after dinner doing the layout, so I'm gonna go do that now. Tomorrow I have no class, per usual, and I'm really looking forward to getting a lot done. I need to do my photo assignment, a bit of homework, and I really should do my taxes. That and write letters to all the people that have written to me. It'll be a good day!

Now let's all go around the blogosphere and say what we're thankful for.

**edited to add** Oops! I forgot to mention yesterday that I got the inspiration for the board from Margie. She makes a "Blessing Board" every day and posts it on her blog. If you want to check it out, you can find it here.

Something wicked [awesome] this way comes

So watch for it later today. I'm posting this now so I'll HAVE to finish it and post it before the end of the day. So yeah...check back later! It'll be cool, I promise!

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Oh, the horror

I just finished writing my paper for grammar, and I use the word "paper" loosely. The assignments that we get for grammar are like going back to third or fourth or fifth grade, maybe, if you were in the slow class. Case in point: for today, we were given an article of 375 words (I know that because it said so on the bottom of the page, NOT because I counted. Sheesh, I'm not that anal) about "le cinéma fantastique" (exactly what it sounds like). We had to write a short summary, and I mean short, around 120 words, and then answer the following question. Now, don't read this too fast, it's extremely complicated and your head might explode:

Aimez-vous le cinéma fantastique? Quels genres de films a votre préférence? Pourquoi?


And yes you are probably translating that correctly. Do you like fantastic cinema, and what types of movies do you prefer and why?

Am I writing a grammar paper or a personals ad?

I know the point is to get us to write grammatically correct French, not to write a brilliant and thought-provoking paper. But come on, it's hard to squeeze 2 pages out of your movie theatre preferences.

And while I'm on the subject, can I just say that I hate the way they handle the housekeeping end of writing papers here? And what I mean by that is, THEY ARE ALL HANDWRITTEN. My professors will NOT accept a typed paper. So, for all my grammar work, this is what I do: I write it on the computer, take advantage of the spellcheck, and then write it out by hand.

How is that helpful for the professors? I don't understand. There are nine people in my grammar class and I think every single one of us writes on different sizes of paper, because none of the notebooks are standardized here either. All of the handwriting is different and runs the gamut from "chickenscratch" (moi) to "grade 3 cursive instructor" (definitely not moi).

ARGH. It kills me, it really does. One of my professors, bless his archaic little heart, refuses to use a computer for anything. Everything he gives us is written by hand.

Photocopies.
Exercises.
Tests.
Homework.
Everything.

Thank god the man is a machine and his handwriting looks like a font. If it were free I would seriously scan in a handout and make a font out of his handwriting. Compared side by side with his freehand writing, I bet you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Anyway, that's your French culture lesson for the day. On a scrapping note, I bit the bullet and subscribed to digiscrapdesigner today. They have a whole area of their website reserved entirely to tutorials that you can only access if you buy a yearly subscription, which actually isn't that bad (only $35). And they have tuts for pretty much everything you could ever want to know that deals with designing your own stuff: textured paper, metal elements, lace, buttons, bottlecaps, fibers, and tons tons more. I spent pretty much all day working through the tutorials and the results are pretty cool. One of the tuts teaches you how to make your own bling, which I think is absolutely fabulous because I always wondered how they did that. This is the one I made following the tut exactly. I think it came out ok, but I'm looking forward to playing around with it and seeing what else I can do from that basic framework.



Also, I found out the other day that most of my family is on aim. Or ichat, rather. I think that is pretty much the coolest thing ever. They're online more than some of my friends, seriously. I have screennames for I think 4 or 5 of my relatives and I've talked to them all over the last couple of days. You saw the conversation with my uncle from yesterday lol. This is so cool that they're online and I can talk to them even though I'm so far away. I have such a big family and I really do miss everybody. I don't like being so far away from all my cousins and my aunts and uncles and grandparents and definitely not my immediate family. But such is life, right? And I have to admit, I am living the good life here. I have practically no work, I get handed an envelope full of money every other week, and I can see the Eiffel Tower whenever I want. And for the icing on the cake...my host family has a housekeeper that cleans my room twice a week.

Sweeeet.

Kind of weird. But still pretty cool.

I'm off to play with some more tutorials. A demain!

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

This will be my last post

...because sadly, my head is about to explode from the praise I got from my photo teacher today. Ok just kidding, I'll keep posting, even if my brains are leaking out my ears. Class was pretty much awesome today. She liked the negs that I brought in, suggested I minor in art, take a drawing class, and continue developing my own work over the summer. She wants to work with me to make a portfolio because she thinks it's something I should have. I think she thinks I could actually have a future in something photography-related if I wanted to and if I put in the week. *cue happy dance* I was thrilled. I love photography and I love that class, but I never thought I could be good enough to do it professionally. Obviously I'm not there yet, I've got a LONG ways to go, but now that I'm learning how to develop my own prints a lot of new avenues have opened up that I might want to pursue. Anyway, it's just a thought.

Here's a layout I did tonight in PHOTOSHOP. I'm still so thrilled that I have it - especially since I know that it won't expire on me in a month. Background paper by Shabby Princess, fonts are Ariel and Pierre Tryout. Speaking of photoshop...I had an interesting conversation with one of my uncles a few minutes ago (the one that I had the chat with yesterday), and apparently there was some debate as to WHICH uncle I was referring to. When I told him that it was indeed him that I was talking about, this is the conversation that followed. I thought it was hilarious so I decided to post it. I've changed our screennames to "uncle" and "me."

uncle: SWWEEEET
uncle: I'm famous, he's not
me: but he's the one that sent me photoshop and i had that in the same post
uncle: anybody can send a copy of store bought software.
uncle: But sharing the latest technology is true kindness
me: haha i guess so
uncle: It's like a homemade birthday cake versus a McDonald's cake. Are you still with me here?
me: lol not really
me: does mcdonald's even make cake?
uncle: You've never had a Ronald McDonald cake?
me: no, never
uncle: I'll paste the image
uncle: hold on
*he sent me a picture of a cake with ronald mcdonald on it*
me: ok that's not a mcdonald's cake, that's a hannaford cake
uncle: Exactly. A store bought cake. Now what was I talking about?
uncle: Gotta go back to work.


So bizarre, but so hilarious at the same time. See, now you really are famous lol.

Ok, it's after midnight and I'm pretty tired, so I think I'm gonna go to bed now. Everybody's mission for tonight is to THINK SPRING!! It was sooooo cold here today. I won't tell you the actual degrees because everyone in New England will probably hate me for being a wimp. But trust me, it was cold, and I didn't like it. So everybody needs to concentrate really, really hard and hopefully that'll be enough to raise the temp here. You can even do a spring dance if you feel like it, I won't object.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Hip hip hooray!!


First of all, I need to start this post with a great big CONGRATULATIONS to my little sister, who was just accepted yesterday by her TOP CHOICE COLLEGE!! Woohoo!! She's been working hard these last couple of years and I'm really proud of her. If someone would like to take a picture of her holding up her acceptance letter (hint, hint, Mom), I'd be happy to scrap it. But since I don't, I just whipped up this little card type thing. Ok, I suppose that "whipped up" is stretching it a little bit. I'm half watching a movie, half paying attention to the computer, so it took me a lot longer than it should have. Everything is from Sara Carling's "Authentic" kit and the font is Stamp Act Jumbled.

And nextly (yes I have decided that "nextly" is now a word), I would just like to say that I made it using the full version of photoshop!! Woohoo!! My wonderful uncle gave it to my wonderful parents who sent it to me! Sooooo nice not to be in Elements anymore. Elements is a nice program, but I've definitely outgrown it as far as digi-scrapping goes. It's not CS2, it's just CS, so I am considering purchasing the upgrade. I can get it for $150 on newegg.com. I probably won't get it right away since CS is pretty amazing by itself, but I would like the FULL full version at some point.

Hmm I feel like there was more that I wanted to blog about. Ohhh yes. Y'all remember when I posted my last story? Well, I have another one to share. Our assignment was to write a full-length story and I wasn't sure that I had when I re-read my work this morning, but then I read it in class and it got good reviews from my prof and the other people in my class. So, here it is for your reading pleasure! It doesn't have a title, not yet anyway, so feel free to suggest one. It's a little bit different from the stuff I usually write, but I really like it. It definitely needs work and could stand to be fleshed out a little, but that's a project for another time.


He stared at the notebook in front of him and tapped his pen against the page, thinking about the way her hair fell over her face when she dipped her head to read something. Those beautiful strands, hanging delicately and brushing against her eyelashes until she blew them away with an irritated burst of air or pushed them back with a quick swipe of her hand. There was poetry in that gesture, in every gesture she made, and his heart ached with the beauty of it all. He wanted to capture it, to lasso those words that would represent her, that would be her, and trap them within the swift strokes of his pen so that everyone could see those gestures as he did.

He just needed a beginning. And an ending, too. Or maybe it didn’t matter, maybe for him they were one and the same, for either one meant he had to put pen to paper, and that was an act that seemed far too sacred for him to accomplish. There was something gloriously tragic about an unfinished poem. After all, was it really necessary to finish poems to be considered a poet? He thought not. A poet, he believed, was a sensitive soul, one in whom the rhythm of language beat strongly and the music of words flowed freely. Yes, he was a sensitive soul; he was a poet. He was bursting with words, with metaphors and images and gestures like her pushing her hair back from her face, but he could not release them. He was swollen; gravid with these words, but strain as he might he was not able to bring them into the world.
He liked that. Could a poem actually be born? He chewed on the cap of his pen and thought about whether he would be its father or mother or midwife. Probably the mother. He carried the poems but never to term, always aborting them and flushing their remains from his mind. He mourned each death and paid homage to their passing by spending hours contemplating the blank notebook page, a tombstone to mark the potential of a life that had not really begun. Each pristine page was like the soul of an unborn child, completely and perfectly untarnished.

And forever would they remain untouched. At least, that’s what she had said, but she hadn’t said it quite so poetically. Will you quit playing at being a writer and get a real goddamn job, she’d said. But she was wrong. He wasn’t playing at it; he was a writer, a poet, an artist. He was a craftsman, breathing energy and life into everyday objects, actions, gestures, and turning them into works of art. She would be immortalized, couldn’t she see that? She would be famous and everyone would see her beauty, would know her hands and her face and the way her hair fell across it. She would live forever.

But she didn’t want that and he couldn’t understand why. He would like to be immortalized, but there was no beauty in his hands or his face or his hair. Maybe if she were a poet too, she would have seen it in him, would have recognized in him an artistic counterpoint.

He slouched over his desk and rested his head in his hands. He supposed it didn’t really matter; it would be difficult for two poets to live under one roof. It was enough for him to be a writer. It was a burden but also a gift to appreciate the beauty, the poetry of every day life. When she had said those things, he had read the frustration in her eyes, heard the disappointment in her tone, and felt the slight tremor of the apartment as she had slammed the door. He had thought that it would be best expressed with a metaphor of the keening cry of the loon.

Or maybe not.

Maybe he had seen her eyes, heard her voice, and been so shaken by the slamming of the door that it was he himself who was the anguished creature, crying wordlessly because he had no words; they were all aborted and buried.



And finally, some general housecleaning stuff. I changed the font back because I received some complaints that it was too small. I previewed the blog with the old font and compared it to the new one and whaddya know, it IS quite a bit smaller. So, I changed it back. I also fixed the background image in the center of the page so if anyone was having viewing problems they should be cleared up now.

That's about it for today! Now that my money-spending binge of last week is over, I'll be staying in this week and catching up on my scrapping. I don't have class until 2 tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to do a layout tomorrow morning and post it tomorrow night.

I hope everyone had a good first day of spring! The weather is finally starting to get a little warmer here - you can definitely tell that spring WANTS to be here. Is the time change this weekend? I think it is. I hate that I lose an hour of sleep but let's face it, when you only have class 3 days a week no one really has any sympathy if you have to get up an hour earlier. So I won't complain! The extra hour of sunlight will be FABULOUS and I really can't wait. And guess what else! My mom will be here in three weeks!! I can't wait. I have a lot to do between now and then in terms of planned. We'd like to do a daytrip, possibly to the American Cemetary in Normandy. I went there first semester with my program but I'd love to go back. It is such a deeply moving experience, I can't even begin to describe it.

Anyway, I'm off to have a video conference with one of my uncles. Isn't technology grand? Man, I am so lucky to have all this stuff while I'm abroad. I can't even imagine only being able to communicate with people through letters. That would pretty much suck. I'll take Skype and video conferencing, thank you very much!

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Tired and cranky

...never a good state to blog in. But it's Saturday and I never blogged on Wednesday (I never promised that I would, mind you) and I know that you all must have missed me terribly! So, I am posting. Also, I'd like to explain some of the changes that I've spent literally all day making.

The side borders: or, if you're viewing this in firefox or internet explorer, side border. For some reason in those browsers it's only showing up on the left side, and in ie it's all squished up against the text. In safari, which is what I'm using, it's perfect. If anyone is good at css and would like to help me out here, that would be great. I just sort of pick this stuff up as I go along and a lot of it is trial and error, so feel free to shoot me an email or leave a comment.

New font! Not so different, but I felt like changing it.

No navbar! It interfered with the background and didn't really match the new scheme.

New counter. Also didn't match the scheme, and it still doesn't. Oh well. Also, it's gone up by almost 100 today. Not because my blog has suddenly caught on fire, oh no. It's because it took me so frickin' long to figure out the background and I had to preview it with every change that I made.

So, those are the blog changes. I think I'm done changing the template for now, unless I decide to add a clock or a calendar or something else mildly entertaining like that. If you know of any cool things that would be neat on here, let me know.

Now why am I so cranky, I'm sure you want to know. Well, Will left today. Or I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I left Will at the airport. I haven't heard from him since around 3pm so I'm assuming everything is going smoothly. It was sad leaving him today, but my mom is coming to visit me in 3 weeks and I'll be done with Paris 6 weeks after that!! Holy toledo batman! That was a comforting thought and it definitely made it easier. We were really lucky weather-wise this week - no rain! It was a good week overall. Granted, there were a lot of little things that didn't really go according to plan, but overall it was good.

Par exemple: on Wednesday the plan was to go see The Producers, eat out, and then climb l'Arc de Triomphe. Wednesday was also the day that we had to switch hotels, so I had all my stuff with me when I went to the center to get my lunch money. When we went into the RER station to go to the hotel, I was walking down the stairs with my big duffel bag in front of me and thought I was at the bottom when I wasn't. I missed the last step and twisted my ankle a little bit. I'm fine now, no worries, but I had to ice it when we got to the hotel and I definitely wasn't in any condition to monter anything. So that was disappointing, definitely.

I made Will try escargot! We went to Chartier's, which is probably my favorite restaurant in Paris. It's this crazy, crazy place where it's so busy that the waiters just write your order on the tablecloth and have all the prices memorized. It was so packed and for some reason all of America had decided to come to Paris and sit at the table directly behind us, loudly talking about how at this restaurant one could have a true French dining experience. Sorry gals, hearing all of you babble on VERY loudly in English and completely butchering the French language did NOT help my French dining experience. Anyway, I ordered escargot and I made Will try half a one. He didn't like it, but I thought they were absolutely delish and can't wait to go back there with Mom.

Yes Mom, if Will can try the escargot, so can you.

Also during the week, I completely neglected my morning pages, my yoga, and my schoolwork, and I ate out just about every night. So now I'm tired, sluggish, behind on my work, and I feel like a cow.

And I spent all day working on my blog template.

Ah yes, back to that dang prioritizing again. I'm not very good at that, in case you haven't noticed.

Now somebody gimme some chocolate. I'm cranky.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

New look!

Ok, I lied, but I swear, THIS is my last post til Wednesday. I had a lot more time on my hands than I thought this evening after I finished packing and I was just so happy about the page I did today that I decided to give the blog a new look! After all, it's been the same since December, and a lot has happened since then. Change is good! I know a lot of people are giving their blog templates an update and making them more springy - not so much here. But I adore this picture and this color scheme so I decided to try it out for a while. I'll probably change it again in 2 months, but that's the beauty of it being my own blog - I can do whatever I want!

Alright, I need to get some sleep. I don't have to get up too early tomorrow (8am), but it's early enough that I should be in bed within the next 10 minutes (12:30). Good night and bonnes vacances to everyone that's on spring break!

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Productive in a non-productive sort of way

That means that I'm scrapping when I should be doing other things. Bad that I'm not getting other stuff done, but good that I'm creating pages. I really like this one. I don't normally do 12x12, but it just fit. I took this picture back in November and couldn't figure out exactly what to do with it. I decided to make it inspirational. Will's mom gave me a really cute notepaper holder for my birthday that has a 3x3 space for a picture in it. I think I might print this one and stick it in there so I can see it all the time. This is probably one of my all time favorite photos that I've taken and one of my favorite quotes. Et voila!

I made the crackle background myself. The vellum squares are by Gina Miller from the Rugged Little Prince kit (available at SBB). Fonts are Zapfino and Minion.

So, what should I be doing now instead of this? Well, my photo assignment for one thing. I actually tried to do it this morning, but as soon as I got to the place where I was going to shoot, it started to rain. As soon as I walked back home, it stopped. Grr. I might try again in a while, but it's still raining right now. I HATE THIS WEATHER. It makes it pretty much impossible to do my stuff for photo. So yes, there's that to be doing. I also need to pack. I haven't done my yog aor my morning pages. I still need to do up an itinerary for this week, because I am just that OCD. There are at least 4 people I need to be emailing. I think that's it. But have I done any of those things? NoooOOooo. I've been scrapping.

Like I said. Productive in a non-productive way.

Anyway, I would like to say ta ta for now to all of you, because I will not be posting again until at least Wednesday, maybe next Saturday. I will be checking my email probably once a day, but I won't be able to post. Until then, have a fabulous week!

Friday, March 10, 2006

Another addition to the Ralph Gallery

Yes, I am a scum daughter and I missed their anniversary. I'm not even in the right month, that's how far behind I am. But look at what I did! Isn't it pretty? *ralph* haha.
Flower stitching from Gina Miller's "Softly Grape," everything else from her "Classic Pale" kit. Well, except the background, that's mine.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Bad blogger!

Yes, I know, I've been an awful blogger this week. But it's not my fault! I've been busy! When did I post last? Monday? Well, let me give you a quick recap of my week so y'all know what I've been up to.

Monday: Headache got much, much worse. Went home and went to bed around 9pm.

Tuesday: My first real photo class! AWESOME. We're learning how to develop our own black and white photos. Our instructor is so fun and cool and sooooo talented and I'm so thrilled to be learning from her. And plus, she liked my photos! (the ones I took of the bootylicious ballerina and her bf the postman) After photo, I went to a play with my program (well, most of us, anyway) - Mollière's "L'école des femmes." If anyone knows what this is about, email me, because I didn't catch any of it. Well, I caught a few words, but not enough to really understand what was going on. Discovered that in France, you're expected to tip the ushers. Good to know.

Wednesday: No classes! Got up at a reasonable hour, did some yoga, wrote my morning pages...what else did I do, hmm...not much. Oh I scrapped a page about Will, but I'm not going to post it here because it's another one of those make-you-want-to-throw-up pages. If you REALLY want to see it, leave me a comment and I might send you the link to the gallery where it IS posted. And if you're family, don't count on getting that link lol. I would much rather share my work with total strangers. Love you guys! lol. Wednesday was mine and Will's TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY!! Wow.

Thursday: Oh, that would be today. Classes pretty much all day. I'm just a little bit stressed right now because my major pretty much exploded in my face today.

Here's the story: I am a self determined major. That means that I pieced together my own program (in linguistics, incidentally) from courses at my school because they don't offer the major that I wanted to do. Because I have a self determined major, I HAVE to do a big senior project. That can be a thesis, or a research thing, whatever, I haven't decided yet. In order to do said project, I have to take a yearlong class that plans it all out. Including those 2 courses, I still have 5 courses to take when I go back next year.

Ok, not a problem, I had it planned out for the next two semesters. However, the schedule was posted today, and two of the courses that I was planning on taking in the fall are now not being offered.

And I couldn't find my advisor on the schedule.

I emailed her, and she emailed me back. She's going to London for the fall semester as part of some program for the freshman. NOT GOOD. Since I'm self-determined, she IS my department. If I can't take those two courses in the fall, I don't think I can graduate with this major. So yeah, I'm just a little stressed right now. I'll be in touch with my advisor and hopefully we can work something out.

Ok, that's enough of that. Happy thoughts! Will is coming on Sunday! Hooray! I'll probably post again tomorrow, but I have a bunch of stuff to take care of. I'll probably get in one more post before he gets here, and then you probably won't here from me for most of the week. But I promise, I will have lots of pictures to share next weekend!

Monday, March 06, 2006

Paris weather

You see my banner? Ok Will, I know you can't see it, but everybody else? That's pretty much what Paris has looked like for the last 2 weeks. Ugh, so gray and rainy and ugly. I hate rain. I will take snow over rain any day. The Parisians treat them both the same: they pull out the umbrellas. It's so weird! I mean seriously, can you picture anyone in New England whipping out an umbrella when it started to rain? Bizarre.

Anyway, it's been raining here and I don't like it. But Will is coming to visit me on Sunday! That makes me happy. Hopefully the weather will improve, because it's kind of awful right now.

Tonight I have to go to a play with my program. Ok, I guess I don't really have to, but I was tricked into going. The secretary told me and a couple other people that there was a free play and wanted to know if we were interested in going. Thinking that I should probably take advantage of something cultural like that, I said yes. I did not know, however, that there is also a MANDATORY play tomorrow night. That's two soirees in row. And I gotta tell you, they're usually not that captivating. I just don't have the attention span for 2 theatrical outings two nights in a row. And I have a touch of a headache. But, that's enough complaining for now.

I'm probably headed to chez MacDo for a super classy meal.

A demain, if I feel like posting.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

SUCCESS!

Just to warn y'all, this is gonna be a doozy of a post. I've been a bad blogger this weekend and I need to make up for it.

Finally! I finished my photo assignment! This weekend was pretty much a disaster as far as that went. My assignment was the same one that I didn't do the other day, it should be a couple posts down from this one. Yesterday afternoon when the weather wasn't so bad I went walking towards my town hall to find something to take 36 shots of. I found this really cool carousel with wooden horses and I started shooting that. Well, I didn't realize when I started that the carousel was actually RUNNING that day. I take like 3 shots and then I hear this loud buzzing noise and the stupid thing starts to move.

So, I'd sit on the bench and watch the carousel go around. I was probably creeping out the parents that were there. I was trying to make it really obvious that I was NOT photographing their children, but I still got some weird looks. When the carousel would stop, I'd scurry up to it, take between 1 and 3 shots, and then scurry back to the bench when the buzzer sounded. What fun! To add even more fun to the afternoon, I ruined 3 rolls of film.

Roll one: already in my camera when I started shooting. It was really dark so I decided to switch to a higher speed film. I hadn't taken any shots, so I was just going to rewind it and use it some other time. Well, I was winding it the wrong way and didn't realize it, so when I opened up the camera to take it out, I exposed about 3/4 of the roll.

Roll two: After I exposed roll one, I put in a roll of 3200 speed. By that time the sun had come out and seemed like it was going to stay there for a long time, and as hard as I tried I just couldn't make the light meter happy. So I decided to switch back to the 400 speed. This time I was careful about which direction I was winding the film - so careful that I wound it completely back into the canister. Mom told me that you can buy these little itty bitter tweezer things that can retrieve the film, so I might have to ask Terry if she has a pair. I do NOT want to have to throw away a completely unused roll of 3200 speed film. Anyway, then I moved on to...

Roll three: Seemed to be going really well. I actually pulled out the manual for my camera to make ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that I was doing it right. I loaded it fine, started shooting fine, albeit very slowly, and it seemed like the third time was going to be the charm. Until I looked down at the camera and realized I had put the ISO setting on 3200 for 400 speed film. Um, yeah, definitely not going to work. Totally undevelopable.

Totally discouraged and ready to start a bonfire with the camera, I decided to go food shopping for my dinner party.

My host parents were out of town this weekend and they told me I could have friends over for dinner if I wanted. So Emily, Leslie, and Sarah all came over. We made this delicious salad, and yes that is avocado! I'd never had it before last night, but I thought it was pretty good. We were going to have fettuccini alfredo afterwards, but we were so stuffed from the salad that we just moved right on to dessert. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of our dessert. It's really a shame, because it was just so classy that I'd love for you all to see it. We took brownie mix, added eggs and water, mixed it up, and (if you guessed "cooked it" you'd be wrong) spooned it into 4 bowls. Then we watched Pretty Woman and ate our brownie batter right from the bowl.

Mmmm.

It was a really good evening and it made me feel so much better after my disaster of a day. Those girls are so awesome and I'm really happy we were able to do something like that. It's such an amazing validation to know that hey, maybe I CAN cook after all. Not serious cooking, but I have a much larger repetoire that I did before I came to Paris. I've become much more resourceful and I like it.

This morning I woke up before my alarm went off and noticed that the sun was shining. I literally vaulted out of bed, threw on some clothes, and ran back to the carousel to do my assignment.

It was closed. There was a big metal gate around it.

I was angry.

I walked up the road a little bit and I found these guys: a postman on a bicycle giving a bootylicious ballerina her letter. I thought they were kinda funky and pretty cool, so I decided to use them as my subject. I took 19 pictures and then my camera died. I don't think it suffered much, so that was good. But I had no extra batteries.

I was angry.

I came back home and frantically emailed my prof. She sent me back a few places that might be open on Sundays, and thankfully I was able to find one of them. It was on the Champs-Elysée so I definitely paid more than I would've liked to, but it meant I could go back and finish my assignment. And now it's done! I feel much better now. And on the way home, since I had my digital, I took a few shots of the trees outside my house. I think this is a good sign, don't you?

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Procrastination


If you couldn't tell from my earlier post, I'm having trouble getting my work done. Translating websites into Snoop Dog-ese is infinitely more entertaining than writing exercises for grammar and fiction. I was supposed to start doing my work about an hour ago, but it hasn't happened yet. Instead of actually doing work, I figured I'd share a page I did yesterday.

Leslie had me take this picture of her wearing our dad's motorcycle goggles and leaning against the fridge in our house. She's so strange. Lol I love you, Leslie, you know that. I know the journaling isn't that creative but I didn't want to put a huge block of text there. Plus, what else can you really say about this picture? I could go into a big long thing about how she's always marched to the beat of her own drummer, blah blah blah, but I really don't think it's necessary. Everything is from Holly McCaig's kit, For the Boys. Well, except for the brads. I made those myself to match the ribbon.

On an unrelated note, I failed miserably when I went on my picture taking expedition earlier today. I set out with my heart full of hope and a backpack full of camera lenses and returned with a stomach full of McDonald's fries. It was so cold and gray. The light (what little there was) was awful, the wind was bitter, and I didn't want to be outside. I went to school for a while, played around on the internet, and then went to chez macdo with my friend. I haven't had McDonald's in a long time...I think the last time I had it was back in Germany, actually. I feel heavy now...if I have time tonight I want to do some yoga. I made a to-do list today (no, not on the computer, it was a real list) and assigned priorities to each item...for example "take shower" was a high priority, while "update blog" was a low priority. My homework was also a high priority, so it makes perfect sense that I'm posting and my work still isn't done. Oops. lol.

Artist's Way update: I've gotten back on the horse as far as the morning pages go. I did them religiously for 2 1/2 weeks, then they got really, really sporadic...write a day, skip two. Write for two days, skip a day, write half a page and stop. Also, I haven't gone on an artist's date since I went to the Pompidou Center like 3 weeks ago. But I'm going to remedy that! Sometime before the week is over I'm going to go to Sephora, have them do my makeup for free, and buy myself one item. Of course that'll probably set me back 30 euros, but we just got our lunch money today and I never spend that much on food. And plus makeup is just so fun! Not that I'm justifying this...because this is fun and it's for me and I'm going to do it! I'm just fascinated by Sephora in general. I love all the makeup displays - the colors are so enticing and the packaging is so cool. More so for the perfume bottles, but I prefer to look at the makeup. So yes, that is what I shall do for my next artist's date.

Holy cow batman, I need to do my work. If it doesn't go well...there might be another post tonight. But hopefully not.

Check this out

It's my site, as done by Snoop Dog.
Fo Shizzle
Warning: there is explicit language. Just so you know. But it's pretty hilarious so you should look at it anyway.

Just shield the children's eyes first.

Blue Skies

Wow it's not snowing or raining! Time to scurry outside and do my photo assignment! I really have no idea what to do. The assignment is to take a whole roll of b&w film of ONE subject. And it can't be 36 picture of the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower or something like that. It has to be something no larger than a metro stop, and preferably no bigger than twice my size. Our prof gave the example of one student who took 36 pictures of a bicycle on the street. Something I could circle around is definitely desirable, because that totally opens up the possible shots I could do. She also said we could use different lenses. I figure I'll just load up my backpack with film and every lens that I came here with, find something intereresting, and just play for a while. I really want to experiment with the telephoto lens. I think I read somewhere that if you zoom in while you're taking the picture, you get a cool gaussian blur type effect. I'm pretty certain that the gaussian blur filter is actually supposed to imitate this...so that could definitely be cool

Anyway, I'm gonna bundle up and head out! I'll bring my digital so I can take one picture of whatever subject I find and post it when I get back. Wish me luck!