Magnanimous Coolata

I write this on the eve of battle.

Tomorrow I end an old season of my life and start a new one.  I'm so scared that I probably won't be able to sleep much tonight.  Six years ago I was in this same situation, but I felt like I could see so much farther into what my life could be.  Of course, I never believed it would bring me through some of the things it has.  Even though I'm so much more scared than I was then, the future looks more promising than I could have ever hoped.  I can't help but have faith in that.

But I know that it's also going to be hard.  The field of work I want to go into isn't an easy mountain to climb and comes with a landslide of rejection, something that I've never taken well.  I guess it's because I love my work and I want other people to love it too.  It's strange, and something I've never understood, that God would give this kind of gift and this kind of dream to a sensitive and introverted person like me.

After 18 years of nothing but school I'm standing in a strange place.  I've heard advice to go to grad school immediately and I've heard advice to wait a bit, but for now I have no desire to go back to school and I don't feel any pull from God to keep going right now.  And yet, even though I'm pretty tired of classes day after day, such an abrupt end to something so familiar is frightening.  But most unknowns are.  So if you'll excuse me, I need to go buff up my armor.

If You Like Frozen, Don't Read This

Last year, probably last spring if I remember correctly, Caroline brought to my attention a small group of concept art pieces for a new Disney movie that was in production.  I always get a little worried when I hear the phrase "new Disney movie," but we looked at it anyways.  Needless to say, the concept art got us both really excited.  But something was still there niggling in the back of my mind.  Maybe it was Disney's past track record with adapting fairy tales.  Not too long later our excitement was given a good punch in the stomach when more information came out, including the addition of a goofy snowman character.  I just had no words for how awful I felt it was going to be.  Further loathing came with the teaser trailer, and then again with subsequent trailers.

During this period of time we also noticed a big fan base building up, and the film hadn't even come out yet.  People were basically obsessed.  And most people who know me know that I tend to stay away from hyped up things (unless they are actually good), so basically I was thinking that I really didn't want to see it, at least not if I had to pay money.  At one point Caroline was persuaded to see it with a member of her family and she reported that she wasn't very impressed.  I found that after that point I was only basing my dislike of the film on what I had seen of the fandom and what Caroline had told me about it.  She pointed it out to me, and I realized that I really did need to see it for myself before making a final judgement.  Very recently I finally got a chance to see it (for free, of course) and I decided that a review was worth a blog post.

I watched it twice.  The first time I watched it all the way through without any interruptions, to get a good sense of things and take it all in.  The second time I watched it with a word document open and typed out notes as I watched, sometimes even pausing for extended commentary or thoughts.  Sadly, the vast majority of my opinions were only confirmed.

To begin, Frozen is supposedly based on The Snow Queen, a story by Hans Christian Anderson.  I say supposedly because the movie retains very little of the original story.  I was really sad about that because it's a good story and I would have loved to see a more faithful adaptation.  This being said, there are still numerous issues I have with the film.

The story basically centers around two sisters, Elsa and Anna, who also happen to be princesses. Elsa, who has magical snow powers, is the elder of the two.  When they are very young Elsa accidentally hurts Anna (and gives her a stylish new highlight) when she strikes her in the head with her powers.  The king and queen take her to a magical colony of boulder trolls where an elder troll heals Anna by taking away her memories of magic.  The king and queen then shut up the castle and confine Elsa to her room after the troll elder tells them that her powers are beautiful, but dangerous uncontrolled.  And of course, Anna doesn't know why her sister, who used to be her best friend, will no longer play with her, or even come out of her room.  Her parents make her wear gloves to help with the powers.  Years go by and the king and queen go on a trip by sea, where they die.

There are a lot of issues here:
1) Where did Elsa's powers come from?  The film states that she was born with them, but we get no back story as to how that happened.  Did it have to do with her parents?  Was she cursed?  Blessed?  Who really knows?
2) Why did Elsa's powers give Anna a highlight in her hair?
3) How does the king just instantly know where to go for magical healing?  Does this kind of thing happen often?
4) Does Kristoff not have a family?  In the beginning (which I failed to mention) he is seen with a group of ice breakers.  He is following them around like he knows them.  But when he sees a trail of ice, he leaves them and follows the trail to the boulder trolls and watches them heal Anna.  They then take him in.  This is a big plot hole.
5) How do the boulder trolls know magic?  Also, why are they boulder trolls?  I guess they can't just be normal trolls.
6) Why do Elsa's powers affect Anna the way they do?  The only reason I can see for this is to draw some faint parallels to the original story, but that doesn't explain it away.  Also, why is the troll's remedy to remove all memories of magic?  To me it seems like a very convenient element that the story wouldn't be able to happen without.
7) The parents don't seem to be any help at all.  Their first response is to make Elsa a veritable prisoner, even though she is just a child.
8) How do the gloves help? The only way I could see them helping is if they are magical, otherwise, it's just cloth.  Caroline says that it might be a mental thing.  I'll give that some consideration.


After a few years, when Elsa is finally old enough, the castle gates are opened and she is to be crowned queen.  She's worried her powers will get out of hand, though.  Anna is more excited that the gates are opening and she finally gets to see the world.  Before the coronation she goes out into the town and happens to meet a handsome prince, who she thinks she is in love with instantly.  Then the coronation takes place with a nervous Elsa.  Afterwards there is a ball.  There we are introduced to the character the Duke of Weselton, who I will refer to as Weasel Man.  Anna barely talks to her sister.  Instead she spends the whole night with the prince, whose name is Hans, which I forgot to mention.  By the end of the night, and a song, they get engaged and ask Elsa to approve, but she doesn't.  When Anna presses the matter, Elsa's powers are accidentally revealed to all.  She runs away to the mountains, unintentionally leaving the kingdom in a wake of ice and snow that won't go away.  During a song she makes a whole entire ice castle and does a wardrobe change, all while singing.

9) Everything from before the coronation takes place in about the first twelve minutes.  It goes by so fast that it can be too much.
10) I just love that Anna thinks she has fallen in love over the course of one song.  My only consolation is that Elsa refused to bless the marriage.
11) The first response to Elsa's powers is the typical "WITCHCRAFT!" of the days of yore.  And this is from someone who is supposed to be an ally (yes, I'm talking about Weasel Man).
12) Why is Weasel man suddenly trying to take charge? What authority does he have?
13) I don't understand why "Let it Go" is so popular.  It's only a mediocre song, and some of the lyrics sound so strange.
14) During "Let it Go" Elsa's hair seems to pass right through her shoulder.  This mistake is one I've cringed over since Caroline showed me a gif of it last year.  I don't understand how a mistake like that can be missed.  The film had to have been reviewed thousands of times before they put it out.  But really, did you not see that when you were animating it?


Anna takes it upon herself to go find her sister, leaving Hans in charge of the kingdom while she is gone.  After a few mishaps she runs into Kristoff, an ice man (and his reindeer, Sven) who seems to know where the snow is coming from.  After doing him a favor, she gets him to take her to the mountain.  Along the way they lose Kristoff's sleigh to a pack of ravenous wolves and must continue on foot.  They then meet a talking, walking snowman with wit and a longing for summer, and who also happens to know where Elsa is.  After a song the snowman, named Olaf, leads them to Elsa's ice castle.  Kristoff, Sven, and Olaf wait outside while Anna goes in to talk to her sister.  Elsa wants to be left alone, and Anna wants to help.  She tells Elsa about what happened to the kingdom, and in a fit of fear Elsa accidentally strikes Anna again, but this time in her heart.  Elsa then creates a snow monster to kick Anna and her friends out.  Unsure of what to do now, and with her hair turning white, Anna lets Kristoff take her to his family, which turns out to be the boulder trolls from the beginning.  Claiming to be "love experts"  over the course of a song they try to get Anna and Kristoff together.  When Anna becomes weak, the elder troll says that only an act of true love can heal what's been done.  Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven then take her back to Arendelle so that a kiss from her true love, who she thinks is Hans, can make everything better.

15)  I don't understand how they let a princess who’s been shut up in a castle for years go off into the unknown by herself in the middle of a blizzard in a fancy dress.  I just...I can't.
16) How does Kristoff know the snow is coming from the North Mountain?
17) Where did Anna get money?  Does she just carry it around all the time while she's shut up in the castle?
18) Olaf is the only good, even though he doesn’t seem to be very useful or push the plot forward.
19) I don't understand the situation with Weasel Man.  Why does he want to kill Elsa?  and what authority does he have to do it?
20) The whole business with the trolls trying to put the two together is really annoying.  Apparently two characters can’t be friends, they have to be together.
21) Why does Anna's hair turn white? What does that have to do with anything?
22) The elder troll seems to be omnipotent or something, which is confusing.
23) When they say an act of true love, they immediately assume it has to be a kiss.


Meanwhile, when Anna never returned, Hans took a group of men to find her, and the queen.  Weasel Man sends two of his henchmen along with the intent of killing the queen.  When they get to Elsa's castle, they are greeted by the snow monster, who they begin to fight.  The Weasel henchmen go around it and into the castle to try to kill Elsa.  Hans intervenes when she is very near killing them in defense.  After Elsa is somehow knocked out, they take her back to Arendelle and imprison her, putting metal mitts on her hands.  Hans promises to try and help her, then goes to meet with some important-looking people, including Weasel Man.  While they are talking Kristoff arrives with Anna, then leaves with Sven.  The important people leave Anna and Hans alone together.  When Anna tries to get Hans to kiss her, he almost does, then reveals that he is the villain and gives the obligatory speech about his evil plot.  He then locks Anna in the room to die (her hair is now completely white).  He goes back to the important people and says that Anna is dead, killed by her sister, but he married her before she died, making him ruler.  He then decides Elsa should be put to death.  But when he goes down to carry out the sentence, Elsa breaks out.  Somehow she starts up a crazy storm.  

24) Throughout the movie Elsa goes through bouts where she seems to be 100% in control of her powers, and then she will suddenly act like she doesn't know how to control it.  That's really strange.
25) Okay, so Elsa is imprisoned.  By who?  Hans acts like Anna left him in charge, and yet Weasel Man and the important people who are with him seem to be the ones who imprison Elsa.  Then, later Hans gives Elsa the impression that he's not in charge. I couldn't tell if he was doing that intentionally or if the creators messed up.
26) These people are supposed to live in Scandinavia, but they act like they don’t know what winter is.
27) They don’t do anything for or ask questions of Kristoff whenever he brings Anna back.  I guess so he can be conveniently away and have to come racing back.
28) Hans is a fairly good villain twist.  That’s about it.
29) The marriage vows thing isn’t suspicious at all to anyone?  No priest, nothing in writing, no proof…
30) Elsa doesn’t get a trial, he just charges her and sentences her in one breath.


Meanwhile, Olaf has found his way into the castle and breaks into the room Anna is in.  He then makes a fire for her and they talk.  He basically gets her to realize that Kristoff is her true love.  When Olaf sees from the window that Kristoff is coming back for Anna, they try to go out to meet him, but are forced to go out a window because Elsa's powers have blocked the way out.  Kristoff and Anna then try to make it to each other through the storm, while Anna is beginning to totally freeze.  Meanwhile, Hans has found Elsa in the storm and tells her that Anna is dead.  In grief, she drops to the ground and the storm stops.  The important people look on from a balcony while Hans swings back his sword to kill Elsa.  Anna abandons her pursuit of Kristoff when she sees her sister in danger, and runs in between Elsa and Hans.  As his sword comes down, Anna turns to ice and the sword breaks.  Elsa hugs her ice sister and cries.  Kristoff is bummed.  Hans is temporarily out of commission.  The important people are still looking on.  Anna then turns back into her non-icy self and they realize that love can also turn the winter thing around, so Elsa lifts winter and everyone is happy again, except Hans, who gets deported, and Weasel Man, who loses his shipping buddy.  Elsa then keeps Olaf alive with his own snow cloud.  Anna presents Kristoff with a new sled, and they end up kissing.  Finally, Elsa uses her powers to turn the courtyard into a skating rink and everyone skates.  They live happily ever after, the end.

31) So if, according to Olaf, Kristoff bringing Anna back and leaving her forever is an act of love, then why didn’t that fix her frozen heart?
32) Elsa can’t find her way through her own storm?
33) Elsa has sudden and immediate control of her powers.  Ummm….
34) The weasel guy is ridiculously annoying.
35) What’s with the peanut gallery watching from the balcony and doing absolutely nothing?
36) Best friend to the hair-through-the-shoulder mistake is the thumb-through-the-body mistake when Kristoff picks Anna up.


So, if you couldn't tell, I have A LOT of issues with this movie.  My basic assessment is that it was very underdeveloped.  The makers of the movie seemed more concerned with the awesome technology they came up with to make the film rather than the making of the film itself.  Apparently Elsa has more hair on her head than an actual human being.  I don't understand how that's relevant to the movie, and I certainly didn't notice anything special about the hair in this film.  However, while it is a pretty stinky movie, I still think it's characters are deserving of some awards.

Best Impression of a Cockatoo:  Elsa

Most Annoying Character:  Weasel Man

Ugliest sideburns:  Hans

Best Male Character:  Olaf

Best Female Character:  This woman who loves to skate.

Best Outfit:  Sven

Best Impression of the Horse from Tangled:  Hans' horse

Best Impression of Triplets:  Anna, Elsa, the Queen

Most Likely to be Bad Parents:  the King and Queen

Most Likely to be Useless:  the important people

Best 80s hair:  Anna

A much better film that I saw recently was How to Train Your Dragon 2.  The plot and characters were pretty sound, and the soundtrack was brilliant (I can't stop listening to it).  In my opinion it trumps Frozen, even though it is far less popular, and the concept art that backed the credits was so amazing that Caroline and I stayed until they were over just to look at it.  But, then, we love that kind of thing.

The moral of today's post?  Be careful where you step in a plot hole minefield.

I Promise I'm Not Batty

I'm really tired and sad of seeing people who are afraid of bats.  I'm not trying to say that someone else's fear isn't legitimate, especially considering that I'm the one over here that has issues with touching raw meat.  But time and time again bats have been labeled bad news by people who don't know them very well, and it makes me too sad for words.  So let's get to it, and see how bats aren't what most people think they are, and maybe by the end you'll think they're as cool as I think they are.

 

Let's start with the misconceptions:

1) Bats will swoop and attack people.

Nope.  I think this myth comes from a combination of movies and real life experiences.  You've seen those movies where a colony of bats comes swooping through a cave to harass a group of people only to get stuck in someone's hair.  Bats don't do that.  When bats are feeding they use a swooping-down motion.  They like the insects your outdoor lights can attract, so if you're standing by an outdoor light at night, it's possible you might see a bat swoop down for a tasty treat, one that doesn't include you.

2) Bats have rabies.

Bats are mammals, and all mammals have the possibility of getting rabies, including your cute little kitty cat.  But this doesn't mean that all bats have rabies and are out to get you.  In fact, less that .5% of bats have rabies.  As one article puts it , "You stand a better chance of being hit by lightning or winning the state lottery than you do of being bitten by a bat with rabies."

3) Bat's drink blood. (Yeah, some people still think this.)

This one is a popular generalization that is only partly true.  Nearly all bats claim insects and/or fruit as their diet staples.  Only one species of bat survives on blood, and that is the vampire bat.  But guess what?  You're only going to encounter this species if you go out at night in Central or South America.  Besides, they're more likely to feed on other animals than you.

 

Bats are pretty amazing, and they're far more likely to be helpful than harmful.  Besides the amazing fact that they are the only flying mammal, they can eat from 600 to 1000 bugs in only one hour.  That includes those pesky mosquitoes that eat you alive, and even bugs that hinder farmers from growing the food you eat.

Bats are also not blind, they merely have poor eyesight.  That's the reason for their beyond cool echolocation system in which they send out high frequency sounds that bounce off of objects.  This lets them know how big something is and what shape it is.  Bats are even better than our own radars: they can "detect something as fine as human hair in total darkness."

I've even had my own amazing experience with bats when I got to see a huge colony of Mexican free-tailed bats fly from Carlsbad Caverns for their dinner a few years ago.  I even wrote an essay about it later because it affected me so much.  It's basically the only reason I would ever go back to New Mexico.  I'll leave you with the essay and this: "Often, people who've never seen a bat automatically react poorly when they are mentioned. The constant negative deluge hurts them. In China, bats are held in high esteem and are considered omens of good luck and happiness. The word for bat means happiness and good luck in Chinese." - Traci Wethington, endangered species biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources




 Exodus
 
    I was not happy.  The hot dogs and the beans were okay, but the bugs that feasted alongside us weren’t.  And don’t get me started on the petting zoo fifty feet away.  “Visit New Mexico!” I thought in my head, “ Where you can eat hot dogs in the desert as you breath in the deep aroma of goat crap.”  I was relieved to get in the tent.
    The next day wasn’t much better.  Lack of a tree line set the sun fully in the sky and you couldn’t even close your eyes to escape it.  The only place to retreat was a man made establishment or one of the few hulking trees that had attached themselves like parasites to the banks of the nearby Pecos River.  Or, as many of us naïve tourists did, you can drive a few miles out of town through the dust to a little park on top of a perfectly situated hill.  As you drive around this twisting knoll in the middle of the desert you might think that any second you will surely dead end in a mass of cactus.  I assure you that it’s not so, but I pity the person whose car goes toppling down the hillside.
    Once we reached the top of the hill and found a parking spot between Washington B562IA and Iowa 89A225 we found ourselves sprinting across the sizzling asphalt to seek refuge in the visitor center.  We paid our surprisingly low ticket fees and shuffled along to wait for an elevator.  In all my life I have never seen such elevators.  These dimly lit metal boxes gave me the feeling that I was descending into some secret government facility, and I might not come back out.  The windows on either side held an unwavering one foot view of solid rock.
    Once we entered the chamber below, the mood changed completely.  Cool damp air washed over our skin and filled our lungs, inviting us into the shadowy recesses of its chambers.  We had stepped into another world altogether, where the earth moved itself into a multitude of rippling and creviced formations. I could only stare in wonder and utter, “Holy crap” in a whispered tone.
    When the initial shock does wear off, the first thing you want to do is yell something undeterminable at the top of your lungs. You just can’t help it. To hear the echo almost makes your skin crawl with goose bumps. As you continue walking on you can sometimes hear the faint echo of a voice as someone wonders over a great rippling column. Then you might think twice and swear that you are hearing things. The feeling never goes away.
    We continued on our way, taking fuzzy pictures with our cameras and christening the formations with our own names as we went. When we happened upon other people it was very interesting to hear their comments. At one point, as we stood with our heads leaning into a small domed room, a man behind us exclaimed, “That looks like the inside of my microwave!” I could only hope that he was planning to clean it out. Once we had finished our tour it was back out into the searing heat of the desert to eat lunch and pass the rest of the day.
    As the sun came to meet the horizon, we ventured once more to the park, hoping that our visit here was worth the heat we had endured during the day. We walked silently down the sloping path toward the natural cavern entrance listening to the people talk all around us. Once we came to the amphitheater the crowd thinned out as people found their seats, waiting and chatting away about their experiences below. We sat and waited and hoped with them, and soon we were rewarded. At around eight o’clock we began to hear a faint high-pitched screeching noise echoing from the dark pit before us. As it grew louder, the crowd became silent, and everyone peered into the blackness holding their breath.
    In a fury of noise, they surged up from the ground. They circled higher and higher, a vortex of little bodies and beating wings. They rose until they flooded the sky and set off on their nightly journey across the desert. For nearly an hour they emerged from below and took to the sky and we sat in awed silence and stared up at these magnificent and misunderstood creatures. It was then that I knew it was worth it to be here at this moment, to see something genuinely beautiful. It is at night when this place truly comes alive. And the bats are the masters of this night, racing across the desert through the starlit skies over New Mexico. 



Misconceptions About Bats

From Cats to Nicolas Cage: How Fandoms Seem to Ruin Everything

For those of you who don't know, tumblr is a pretty amazing place.  It's where people who have the same interests can band together.  There are plenty of Mori girls and Lolitas on there, and as a lot of people know, plenty of fandoms.

For those of you who don't know, a fandom is basically a group of people who all love the same thing.  Personally, I'm okay with liking things and not becoming a part of a community celebrating that.  The reason is that fandoms can get crazy.  The people in these fandoms can have a wide range of feelings about their interest.  I'd say it's a scale from this cat, who's happy to see it's owner:

To Nicolas Cage in Vampire's Kiss:

It's the Nicolas Cages of fandoms that make me cringe.  What follows are some instances of the extreme end of fandoms:

Harassment.  This past winter actor Tom Hiddleston (or Loki, as some people know him) was in a production of Coriolanus.  Every night when the play was over he would come out and meet with his fans, signing autographs and whatnot.  As time went by though, things got crazy.  There would be too many people wanting too much and at one point the security guards themselves were actually scared.  Hiddleston then stopped coming out to meet people, and it made him sad that he had to do that.  There was even an incident where a group of fans followed him and Benedict Cumberbatch to a restaurant where they were just trying to have dinner.  These are only two examples (Please don't get me started on the person who stalked Benedict Cumberbatch in his own home).  While famous people do open themselves up to their lives being more public, they still deserve respect, and honestly, they don't owe you anything.

Premature Obsession.  Now I'm going to talk about Frozen.  First, I have not seen it yet.  And while I have a strong suspicion I won't like it, the jury is still out.  That being said, do you know one of the reasons I feel like I won't like it?  The fans.  Before Frozen even came out it was all over tumblr.  People were freaking out and saying how much they were going to love it, and this was all based on concept art, pictures, and a minute long teaser trailer.  And Disney didn't help by prematurely producing Frozen merchandise.  I can understand fans getting this excited over a sequel to a movie, because they have something substantial to base their love on, but this is a little much.  Not to mention Frozen fans are a little too excited in general.  I'm tired of hearing the songs and seeing it on tumblr.  I'll get around to seeing the movie eventually, and that, I'm sure, will be a blog post in itself.

Fanfiction.  In general I don't find anything wrong with fanfiction.  It's a form of creative writing, and I would never discourage someone from writing, especially if they're passionate about it.  However, there will always be the slightly deranged ones.  Apparently there is a whole genre of sexual and really creepy/strange fanfic.  I've never read any, and I don't want to.  In addition to that, there's some extremely explicit art that circulates around tumblr, especially in the Sherlock fandom.  I know, because I once followed a Benedict Cumberbatch blog for a month before unfollowing when one of those explicit images showed up on my dash.  The girl that created it reblogged WAY to many pictures anyways, and I got tired of seeing it all.  I recently found a blog whose creator is way more toned down, and now I only see just enough to know that my favorite actor still exists.  I have to say, though, that while I haven't read any fanfic, I've seen some really amazing fan artwork.  Keep it up guys!  Maybe you can drown out the crazies.

Shipping.  Behind harassment this is probably one of the worst things I've encountered about fandoms.  Shipping is basically when a person really likes two characters together, romantically.  It's not limited to inside of fandoms: a character of one fandom can be shipped with a character from another fandom.  It's also not limited to male-female pairings.  There are so many things I don't like about shipping.  First, people become very obsessed about their ships, to the point of invalidating other people's ships.  Very recently this term was added to the dictionary, with an example of a popular Sherlock (BBC series, awesome by the way) ship: Sherlolly (Sherlock and Molly).  The actress who plays Molly, Louise Brealey, was excited about it and tweeted about it.  But count on someone to ruin it.  The fans of another Sherlock ship, Johnlock (John Watson and Sherlock) became enraged because they thought their ship should have been the example, merely because it had "been around longer" and "was more popular."  They proceeded to rant about it over the internet and harass Brealey because of her tweets.  This kind of behavior is really creepy and it's divisive to the Sherlock fandom, not to mention the fact that it makes the docile end of the fandom look crazy too.  Another element I don't like is that shipping diminishes the existence and importance of platonic friendships.  Can characters be close friends without people trying to put them in a romantic relationship?  Not according to some fans.

If I'm going to rant on the bad end, I feel like I should give a little credit to the adorable kitty end of the spectrum.  These are the people who don't do any (or most) of the things that I've mentioned above.  Not only that, but they actively speak out against these things like I am right now.  They don't like being grouped with the bad part of their fandom and they aren't against chastising those people either.  The best part is seeing people from different fandoms getting along well, and I've heard that some of the best fanfic has come from fandom crossovers.

I'm still not convinced that being a part of a fandom is such a good idea, though.  I think I'll stick to distanced admiration for now.  How about you?  Are you a part of a fandom?  Have you ever had any bad experiences with a fandom?

And yes, Vampire's Kiss is a real movie.

When Life Becomes Dramatic...Because Eventually it Does

I don't really consider college to be dramatic.  There are times when things get hard and hectic, of course, but school in itself is not dramatic, unless maybe you're a theater major.  This particular semester was deeply entrenched in the hectic category.  However, the great part about being an art major is that your classes usually end the week before exam week, so by the time the weekend rolls around you're free until the next semester.  There are those times, though, when you take a class, like Spanish, where you have to go back for that one exam.

So there I was on Sunday night, the day before my Spanish exam, finishing up cleaning my room and deciding what Mori outfit I was going to wear.  Then suddenly my phone started ringing, nearly flinging me up to the ceiling.  It doesn't ring often, so the sound always scares me when it does.  It was the beginning of my drama-filled break.

Through the confusing labyrinth of human communication I found out that my dad had had a heart attack.  Because a fling to the ceiling always warrants a slam back to the floor, right?  The good news was that he was at the hospital when he had it.  The great news is that he was okay.  The best news in the world is that I got to take this picture of him and my nephew Nolan last week, almost two weeks after the incident.

The reason I was taking pictures and not actually in the pool will come up later.

So with the knowledge that my dad was okay the exam went smoothly.  I was a really cute Mori girl and I drew my teacher some great doodles on the back of my exam.  But by the time I got back to the apartment I realized that I hadn't picked up my portfolio for figure drawing, and the Fine Arts Building closed at 5.  It was after 4.  So lucky me, I got to drive back to school (because the bus would have taken too long) and get it.  Thankfully I made it in time, and I got an A.  The rest of my night was spent packing to head back to Lake City for a week and a half break of fun-filled medical attention.

Tuesday was awful.  For some reason it seems to rain anytime I have to drive long distances, so I got to drive on the interstate in blowing wind and heavy rain nearly all the way home.  Since my dad's heart attack was pretty recent he was still in Gainesville and my mom was with him, so I was alone for the afternoon.

The next day began my torture.  You see, for a year or two now my dentist has been bugging me to get my wisdom teeth out.  I've had them for a couple years now without any problems, but he thought that eventually they would cause problems.  I've been ignoring him for a while now, but I finally decided to give in after a) they developed cavities and b) I'm graduating soon and I won't be on my parents' insurance forever.  Thankfully I only had the top ones.  Hopefully the bottoms ones will never show up.  So that's how I spent my morning that day, getting teeth pulled.  I didn't get any of the happy gas, just eight pleasant numbing shots, four on each side.  I'd really rather not talk about what happened after that.  The sound of my teeth being yanked out of my head will scar me for life.  My dentist had the audacity to ask if I wanted to keep the teeth, and I refused.  Caroline said I should have made them into a necklace.  I think they would have been better as earrings.

I spent the rest of the morning at my sister's house while my mom went to go pick my dad up from the hospital.  I attempted to play with my nephew, but it's hard to make playing noises when you're mouth is stuffed with gauze, so he mostly stared at me like I was insane.

With my dad back at home we had the task of keeping him out of trouble, physically and food-wise.  My mom had taken the rest of the week off so we cleaned the pool while my dad "supervised" and generally listened for the door opening and closing to let us know we should be following him outside.  My mom even said we needed a door alarm.  While I was stuck with eating applesauce and mashed potatoes and changing my gauze until the blood stopped, I was still quite the police officer myself.  Monday was the real test.  It was the first day my mom went back to work and the first day I was in charge of keeping my dad out of trouble.  It went smoothly.  The next day was the worst day of all.

For about two or three years now I've had what my doctor thought was a cyst on my leg.  It was really creepy looking and I was honestly tired of nicking it every time I shaved my legs, so I finally got up the courage to have it removed.  I had to go to a surgeon because my doctor couldn't do it.  I was REALLY nervous.  I've never really had any medical problems and I've certainly never had to have surgery, so this was a big deal for me.  Plus, I don't like anything medical related anyways, especially blood, needles, and sharp cutting instruments.

They used local anesthesia, and a lot of it.  I could feel him cutting in the first time, and that was really not okay, so he had to poke me again.  I was thankful that I was laying down and didn't have to watch, and I was also thankful that my mom was there with me.  I'm not ashamed to say I had to hold her hand.  I seriously DO NOT do medical things.  My mom said what he pulled out was about the size of an acorn.  From my previous reactions the doctor figured I didn't want to see it, so he didn't ask.  Up until then I had been relatively okay, but when it came time for the stitches I was internally not okay.  I thought, "Okay, he's just going to stitch me up and I'll be done."  No.  First he stitched the inside up and then he stitched the outside up.  But he made the mistake of telling me that before he did it.  It really bothered me, especially because I could feel the pressure of him stitching and tightening the stitches.  When it was over I was SO done.

The next few days I was confined to the couch because any pressure I put on my leg would make it start bleeding.  When I did move around I had to use crutches, which I despise.  I also couldn't get it wet so I had to wrap my leg with saran wrap and take baths with it out of the water.  I also couldn't get in the pool, which is why I got to be the photographer for my nephew's first time in the pool.  I got to use my sister's snazzy camera with lots of buttons I didn't know how to operate.  It was actually kind of fun.

I also went to the eye doctor, while I was on crutches, to get my eyes checked, only to find out that my prescription hadn't changed at all in two years.  I'm not complaining, though, because at least my eyes haven't gotten worse.

My Lake City excursion ended Sunday with Mother's day.  I gave my mom one of the three copies of the trip journal I made (you can see them in my last post here), and we ate out with Hannah and Nolan, who played with straws the whole time.  Ryan, sadly, was in Pensacola dealing with the aftermath of all that flooding and storming a couple weeks ago.

Right before I left I soaked my leg under running water so my sticky bandages would come off and mom mom could see my wound.  It grossed me out a lot, and it still does, though by now it's scabbed over nicely and I can walk normally.

And that was my break.  I can only hope that this semester is not nearly as dramatic as all that.

Seriously, no more heart attacks, please.

The Longest Post in History

It's been a super long time since I wrote last, but I have to say that this semester has probably been the craziest semester that I've had here at FSU.  Lots of final projects and such, from books to poetry to the spring BFA/MFA show.  So fair warning: this is going to be a REALLY long post.

At the beginning of the semester some of my work from last fall's print class was in a show.  My name was even on a poster!

I took a really awesome class this semester, probably my favorite ever: book-making.  We learned everything from pamphlets to flatbacks, and we had to do a final project that incorporated print-making, text and, images.  The first was a single pamphlet.  We only had to focus on covers and sewing for this one, no content:

 Next we did double pamphlets, one plain and one with content involving a list.  I did mine on a list of my ancestors and relatives, with an image of the youngest and the oldest.  I drew my nephew for the first image and imagined what I thought my oldest ancestor might look like for the other.

Next, we learned the link stitch, probably the hardest stitch of the semester for me.  It has an open spine, which means that you can see the stitching and the sections on the outside.  We did one plain and the other had to have content involving a cliche.  I did "mind your Ps and Qs."  I made strange phrases with the letters in them and then switched each P for a Q and vice versa.

Then came my favorite stitch of the semester: the long stitch.   It has a really unique look because you can see the stitching but not the sections.  This was also when I learned how to do a tab cover, which wraps around and secures the whole book with a tab an slot.  This time we didn;t have to do any content for the second book, but we had to decorate the cover.  I went with a Mori girl theme and even stitched fabric and a mini quilt top to the cover.  Thanks to my mom for her sewing machine and leftover fabric squares!

As a side project we learned how to do Japanese stab binding.  It wasn't graded so we only had to do one.

 Next came the bane of my existence: boxes.  I didn't understand this assignment at all because it was a book-making class, not a box-making class.  She said it was supposed to be practice for the next book form, but I think I could have done it regardless of ridiculous boxes.  Neither of mine would close all the way, despite correct measurements, and this was the case for most everyone in the class.  Once again, we had to make two, and the second had to be for a specific item.  I made mine for my lace collars.  I made it a little big in anticipation of more collars in the future.

The final form we learned was flatback binding.  This is what most people imagine when they think of a book.  It was the longest and most involved binding we've done, but it turned out so good.  We had to sew the text block together before casing it in with the cover.  We were also working on our final projects at the time, so we didn't have to have content for these books.

The last form we did was the accordion.  Once again two books and no content, but the second was only folded paper.  We also learned how to make covers without glue by only folding paper around the covers.  And then we made removable spines to allow for multiple ways to look at the book.

For our final projects we had to come up with a concept that incorporated one of the forms we learned this semester.  We also had to include images and text and use one method of printmaking.  The biggest thing was that we had to do an edition of three, meaning we had to make three of the same book, with the teacher keeping one. I decided to do a remake of my Grand Canyon trip journal and use linocut, my favorite printmaking technique.  I hand wrote all of the text and scanned it into the computer to reprint and I illustrated a memory from each day.  The cover, the pocket, and the map were all linocut, and I dyed the thread to a darker color.  The first three pictures are of the mock-up we had to do before we started.

And here are my plates for the printing part:

I also had a side project earlier this semester.  My boyfriend's birthday was in March so I painted an old guitar for him.

The one crazy class I took was Poetic Technique.  I'm not going to say anything bad about the teacher, but the class was hectic and the work load was a little much.  The end result was a website of poetry, basically an online portfolio.  I'm really proud of a lot of the poems I wrote, but I don't want to clutter up this post any more than it needs to be.  So if you want to check out the website, you can go here.

I also took Figure Drawing II, which was just as enjoyable as teh first class, especially because I had the same teacher.  I'm not going to put any naked people in this post, but if you want to look at some of the stuff I drew, you can click on the Figure Drawing link on the side panel of this page, or you can go here.  I will, however, show you a better version of the portrait I posted on Facebook a few months ago.

A few weeks ago, the event of the semester took place: the BFA/MFA show.  It wasn't as good as last year's unicorn party, but what could compare to that?   There were some really great pieces, though.  Caroline and I got there early, so we had lots of room to take pictures without people being in the way.

I didn't understand what these were all about, and I didn't like them very much.

This was one of my favorites.

Another of my favorites.  These are watercolors!

This guy was in my painting class last semester.

This one had a lot of different things going on.

I don't even know, but I had a printmaking class with him last semester.

This was part of a performance piece that was really strange and made no sense, so I didn't record it.  The artist basically ended up smashing all of the jars.

These were kind of boring.

This one was my absolute favorite in the show.  It's beautiful.

This guy cut out all of these tiny pieces by hand and glued them all together.

I didn't even bother with individual photos of the photography.  It was kind of blah, and I probably could have done it.

This guy was pretty cool.  I think his name was William.  And there I am in Lolita!

These looked like a few hours in photoshop.  We almost walked right by them.

On the top floor was the MFA show.  I'm not sure how I feel about this one.

Or this one.

This was kind of cool.

This one was pretty cool.

This one had something to do with voodoo and it was a little disturbing.  Behind the wall were some weird statues.

 There's Caroline taking my picture from the other side!

I don't even know what any of this futuristic stuff was about.  You had to scan bar codes with your phone to get any information, which I found a little rude since not everyone has a phone that can do that....you know, like me.

 This looked so squishy, but it was actually hard.

 Hey, there's Caroline!  She was a Mori Girl that night.

These guys were pretty cool, so much detail.  This person is being serious with their life.

 Isn't this one adorable?

It's been one crazy semester, but the results are worth it.  And guess what else?  I'm only three classes away from my BA!  I'm graduating in August!  The summer is going to be filled with lots of school, lots of job hunting, and lots of story-writing, book-making, and arting.  I'm excited!

But for now, I'll just sit here and nurse the holes where my wisdom teeth used to be and wait for my mom to get home with the ice-cream.