The Midnight Run

Last night around 8:00 pm, I gathered at the Rutherford Campus chapel along with about 13 other students to help with the Midnight Run. Some faces were familiar, some were not, but I'd like to discuss the event because it left such a lasting impression on me. The 14 of us spent two hours sorting through clothes, making sandwiches / snack bags, and loading everything onto a Felician College shuttle. After everything seemed to be in place we piled onto the shuttle bus and headed off to New York City to give away clothing, food, shoes, and toiletries to the homeless.

Our first two stops only had two or three people, but our third, and final stop of the evening had several. We piled off the shuttle taking boxes of toiletries, and coolers of hot coffee and homemade turkey noodle soup, and grape juice. People lined up outside the shuttle for clothing, socks, underwear, and shoes. Three people (+ Father Tom) stayed on the shuttle to hand out goods. The rest of us talked to the people to find out what they needed. I, along with Penny - another RA, helped dole out soup into cups for people. I must have given out 80 cups of soup and people kept coming back for more. It was a cold rainy night. I'm sure the coffee and soup helped keep people warm.

What amazed me most about the experience is that, honestly, most of the people only took what they needed. If they had good shoes on, they didn't ask for shoes. The other thing I noticed, since I was on soup detail, was that a lot of people only wanted a half a cup. I asked them why and they said they could only eat a half a cup. The comment reminded me of a story I read about Jewish people that were liberated from the concentration camps: when a person has had very little, or barely nourishing food for long periods of time, food in large quantities can make you quite ill. The entire event left me feeling a little warm and fuzzy inside because I really feel like I did something to help somebody. Maybe it wasn't a lasting impression. Maybe those people won't remember me, but it doesn't matter. The important thing is that they remember that somebody was kind to them when they were down on their luck.

When I got back to campus last night, I sat down outside the dorms at the top of the stairs. I tried to imagine what it would be like to not be able to go in. Sure I was sheltered from the rain and it was cold. I imagined what it would be like to have to sleep out there on the ground. I sat there for about thirty minutes until I just absolutely couldn't sit there anymore. Thankfully I have the luxury of a warm bed and blankets, and won't be sleeping at the top of the stairs in front of some church in New York City tonight. My heart and prayers go out to those who are, though.

RA Training and Classes

It's been a busy few weeks so I'll go ahead and tackle everything that's happened recently.

RA Training started on August 21st. The first day was mostly a "what to expect" meeting. It was pretty informative. We also did an informative scavenger hunt in the rain. It had us running all over campus and finding out information about not only our teammates but about security, administration, and the campus itself.

The following day we went to a Ropes Course that was really difficult for me but I was so thankful for the support from my RA teammates. I'm absolutely terrified of heights, and the course instructor told us that all she asked us to do was push ourselves past what we thought we were capable of. I decided to try, when the day before I was 100% certain that I wouldn't even try if heights were involved, because I know myself. I made it up a 12 foot ladder and onto a pole before I couldn't make myself climb any higher but at least I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone. It felt great to at least make the attempt. I learned a very valuable lesson that day. Usually I'm the supportive person in a team that is the constant voice of "You can do it!" The truth is, with the support of others, I was able to push myself farther than I thought I'd be able to. The day was one huge obstacle course for all of us that forced us to use teamwork, etc. It was a great team-building exercise. I'm happy that I could be a part of it.

The rest of the week was filled with info-sessions about policy, procedure, sexual assault, etc. There were also some fun activities, though, such as a group yoga session, a trip to the park, and walking up to Park Avenue to Ice Cream Charlie's (where I had the sinfully delicious Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Ice Cream). That stuff should be illegal it's so delicious!

My first week of classes was actually just two classes. Philosophy and Literature was a great way to kick off my semester. Abaunza's classes are always fascinating. This is going to be such an interesting class, I can tell already. I'm pretty psyched about this and left wondering.. Why wasn't I a Philosophy major again? Oh, right. I love graphic design also!

Core 400 was what it was supposed to be. It was a class that was instituted to help us integrate the Franciscan Values into our lives: Peace, Respect, Joy, Diversity, Service, Reverence, Compassion. We are required to do 20 hours of community service that's meant to somehow stretch us as a person. I'm doing mine through the Midnight Run. Last week there were no classes on Monday so I got off from Friday - Tuesday. I had Choir, and Cartooning on Wednesday, both of which proved to be what I was expecting - fun and difficult. It's nice to be presented with a challenge this year.

The class I'm most excited about, though, is my Senior Seminar I, which I took for the first time yesterday. I'm so psyched up about all the projects we have that in typical Nyla fashion, I want to tackle them all right this very moment. I wish I could do them all at the same time and not lose my mind or let my GPA drop.

Back in NJ

Well here I am, back in Jersey. Katelyn picked me up at the airport Saturday night and she and her dad helped me move in on Sunday. (Huge thanks)

I took off on Sunday to visit a friend in Philly for a few days and got back last night. Isaac and I went to Park Tavern and had a couple of drinks + bar food dinner. I then came back to my room to try and decipher what to do with all my stuff! It pretty much looks like a train wreck at the moment but I have high expectations that it will be sorted out within the day. I'm meeting Angel for lunch and have a busy couple of weeks ahead of me with RA training and finishing unpacking! I'm totally excited for the year to start already...

Shaun's Birthday

Yesterday was Shaun's birthday so I went with Shaun & Ash to meet Aaron & Erin in Ft. Worth as it was also Erin's birthday. We hung around in Ft. Worth for a while waiting on the elephant parade that seemed like it was never going to arrive so we walked down the street to the Barnes & Noble where I just had to have a Green Tea Lemonade from Starbucks. By the time we got back up to Pirahna it was gone (just to tell you how hot it was). Those things are really refreshing... (Thanks to Katelyn for the discovery of the worlds best summertime drink)

All in all it was a fun trip into Ft. Worth to hang out with some friends. I've discovered endless amounts of new and awesome food, as well as new and awesome people here in DFW. It's a shame that the summertime heat tends to keep me away from the area. I think next time they should totally come up to NYC to visit me!

Also this summer I've discovered a brand new musical obsession! Bow down to Mt. Eden. (That's right bow people...)

Go watch and join the obsession:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIEEIif21g4

Summer 2010

This summer has been a bit of a whirlwind. I've managed to pack every single emotion possible into one summer.

Firstly there is the immense joy that I felt at the beginning of my summer break. Not only did I get to spend a great deal of time with one of my friends, Katelyn, and get to know her family, but I also got to spend nearly a week in New York City at the Marriot Marquis in Times Square with my mom who came up for a continuing education seminar. How lucky were we that it happened to be the weekend of my 29th birthday?! Well Wednesday Mom arrived and Katelyn's mother took off early to drive us into the city (Isn't she just a saint?). Wednesday night we walked around Times Sq. and mom took in the sights of the city (and no wonder being as she's from Georgia). She's never seen anything quite as busy as NYC. We probably walked 20 miles from Wed. night til Sunday night when we both took separate flights out of Newark Liberty International bound for different destinations (sad face). Thursday was quite eventful! Mom got out of the conference a bit on the late side, but we decided to make the long trek to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We took the subway up to Central Park and decided to take the foot path all through Central Park. By the time we got to the Met we only had a couple of hours to walk around before high tailing it back to the subway as fast as we could (exhausted as we were for the 7 miles we walked). We got back to the hotel, changed clothes and grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading off to see the Phantom of the Opera.

I have to linger here for a moment because I'd never been to a Broadway show and neither had she! It was phenomenal! How is it that I didn't do this before?! I've never seen anything quite so amazing! The songs were simply moving. The theater itself was breathtaking, and I thought I was going to jump out of my pants when the chandelier fell! The effects were stunning... I'm so glad I listened to Katelyn about the back rows being the best seats in the house also... They had to be! You could see and hear everything so very clearly! From the candles rising out of the mist, to the echo of the phantom throughout the theater I can honestly say that I've never seen anything quite so wonderful in my life. This was definitely the highlight of the trip for me (and for mom).

Friday was another busy day. Eric came into the city to meet my mom and we went to the Statue of Liberty, some famous bar i'd never actually heard of where the staff was nice enough to take a picture of the three of us having a beer, Ground Zero, Ellis Island, and then off to Bleecker Street to the Blind Tiger on Eric's recommendation! They had the most awesome microbrewed beer there. Eric and mom made bets on whether they could finish their second beer by the time I finished my first.. (Yes they did) I tend to drink beer slowly. (lol)

Saturday morning we got up, packed and caught a shuttle back to Newark Liberty International and from there we caught another shuttle to a different hotel (slightly less grand) was the Howard Johnson's in Newark, where I have to tell you folks, you need to try the greek pizza in their cafe because it beats anything I've ever eaten in NYC. After we got settled, ate our pizza and took a short nap, Isaac picked us up and we met Eric in Rutherford, NJ at Eros Cafe where we had awesome greek food and melon hookah! (Happy Birthday to me!) After our bellies were full we headed on over to Park Tavern where we celebrated my birthday properly with Blue Moon beer all around! Also, it was somebody elses birthday that day! I know because they were singing happy birthday via karaoke! How exciting right?

Sunday was sad as mom and i got up at the crack of 11 am and checked out of our hotels. We hung around in the airport til 1 or 2 pm and went our separate ways. She went back to Atlanta and I took off for the DFW Metroplex. I arrived in DFW feeling a little uneasy, really hot (it was 100+ already), a little nervous to see a friend I hadn't in nearly 5 years, a little excited to see a few other friends I saw last summer on my trip into DFW, a little sad that one of my friends is no longer with me, and fairly depressed at the prospect that one of my friends turned out to be such a jerk and I no longer speak to him, and for that matter nor do half his other "friends."

Christine picked me up at the airport and I got back to her apartment to meet and greet her two kids (Curtis age 4 & Marie age 1.5). I hung around with George and Christine and was quickly tossed into the stressful world that is (even though I'm not) being a mother. Every single day Christine wakes up, gets her caffiene on, gets her kids out of bed, dresses them, plays with them, teaches them, yells at them for whatever they're doing wrong, feeds them, puts Marie down for a nap, spends a learning hour with Curtis, plays outside in the 105 degree heat with Curtis for 2 hours, gets Marie up, feeds her husband, children, and myself dinner, cleans the house, does the dishes, bathes her kids, puts them into pajamas and into bed, cleans the house again, puts her husband into bed, sits down to have two beers and then finally is able to tuck her own self into bed. How on earth can one person do it all?! I think she's superwoman. I'm beginning to think I'm simply not cut out for motherhood at all. She loves her children but I think she misses her alone time. She never gets to do anything but be a mom. Half the time she gets dragged out of bed at random hours of the night because of nightmares or dirty diapers or simply that Curtis refuses to sleep. It's been an interesting look into the life of a stay at home mom. I can tell you folks that you haven't worked until you've been a housewife. (I'd rather have a job than do everything she does in a day.)

I also spent a great deal of time hanging out with some old World of Warcraft friends, Shaun & Ash. It's been great fun even though it sometimes reminds me of the friend that is no longer a friend since we were all mutual friends. Sad, but happy at the same time. I'm pretty sure he was a sociopath anyway. (like 99.999%) We hang out and talk about our old guild and talk about what they're doing in WoW now and sometimes I play a friends account since I gave mine away. It's certainly been the least stressful period of my summer.

I was supposed to go visit a friend that recently lost his wife and help him take care of his kids as well as to teach him how to cook for them. He doesn't seem to be ready for the tasks I was prepared to teach him and sort of ignored my calls most of the summer. I hope that his depression isn't sinking to new lows, but I fear it is. I hope he is doing ok and continue trying to call to give a few uplifting words, even if he's not ready to move out yet or even learn how to cook. Apparently this month the local neighborhood church decided to help him out and they do a lot of his cooking for him during this time of great grief. He's taking great care of his kids, but not so much of himself. I truly hope he is ok and I hope he calls me whenever he needs a friend.

And so that brings me to the conclusion of my summer break (sort of). I leave to go back to New Jersey next week: a little less stressed, a little happier, a little lighter, and with a totally new hair color(s). Look out Felician College... I'm coming back!

Summer Break

Summer break is here and the swimming pool is open at Katelyn's. I'm so excited to have had my first swim of the season! Tomorrow I plan to get up early, do 50 laps in the pool (back and forth) and some light aquatic gymnastics! I'm in the mood to get back into shape this summer, but mostly I'm just happy that summer break is here. I know I've been on break since May 13ish but it hasn't really felt like break until now.

After school was over I ran the box office for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" four or five days (I forget how many), plus all of Katelyn's graduation festivities. I really have just been worn out. I hadn't had time to grieve, and I barely had time to sleep in the last few weeks so my body is finally getting back to its normal rhythms after a solid week of 8+ hours per night.

All in all I'm glad this school year is over. I'm looking forward to next year. Next year is a new year, a fresh start, and hopefully less riddled with problems. I'm very optimistic all in all.

The Rise of the Moon Flower

A long time ago, when the earth was newer, wilder and untamed, existed a flower. Every evening she would slowly awaken as the inky darkness of nightfall overtook the brilliance of day, and the creatures of night arose from their daytime hibernation to roam the forests and grasslands of the planet. 

At first, her petals were twirled together so tightly, closed. At first appearing as though she were a tiny star on a vine. As the moon rose slowly in the sky, she would unfurl her petals, as if she were taking a stretch, sending her silent regards to the glowing moon in the velvet covered sky. "Good evening, little flower," the moon seemed to say. And she replied by opening her petals wide to reveal the beauty and quite feminine grace that only she, the moon flower, possessed.

I'm back(ish)

Ok so it's been a while since I posted. Life has been sort of flipped upside down for me lately. I'm still working on my Jr. Thesis project. It's coming along. Angel and I took an awesome trip to St Louis to visit Alec & Brad. It turned out great. I took about a thousand pictures, which are on my facebook. This weekend I went to visit my friend Ingrid's tea shop (Insani-Tea) in Montclair. That was fun and exciting. I ate an elevation burger for the first time in my life, which was delicious.

The sad news is Angel and I are no longer a couple. A lot of things happened. I made a lot of mistakes. I hoped for a while that he would take me back but he seems to be pretty set on this so I suppose now is the time to throw myself into my work and see how much I can accomplish this week. I'm sort of excited at the prospect of a trip to Philadelphia though to see a piece by Duchamp "Bride Laid bare by Her Bachelors, Even" with Cathlene. Angel is driving us so I'm hoping no awkwardness will arise. The two of us seem to be doing ok at getting over each other. He's still being really nice to me, which is something I wholly appreciate. It's kind of weird. I've never had a guy break up with me and simultaneously help me through the breakup as my friend. I'm thankful though. He does so much for me.

It's an action packed three weeks as we have scheduled trips to the MoMA, Philadelphia, and Felician Live is also coming up soon! (Think SNL) Mr. & Ms. Felician is coming up in April also! How busy I will be, so if I don't write you know why...

I'm off to do some real work now~
Ciao.

Tutorial 2

Ok so I started working on a tutorial today. (Wednesday) I came to discover (rather quickly) that there are some effects that can be created in CS3, but when you try to do the exact same thing in CS4 you get very different results.
The tutorial i started to use was: http://psdlearning.com/2008/06/luminescent-lines/

Using the tutorial I upped the brush size to 5, because 1 was way WAY too choppy. It looked *horrible* in CS4. That made thicker lines. After that I added an outer glow layer style (size 50) (yellow). I then used a radial blur on it at max everything. After that I used the leaf brush on a new layer (blue) and then I did another max radial blur, and then a gaussian blur (100px), I then set the blend mode to overlay. This is the result. I did finish the tutorial above but due to the differences of Cs3 and Cs4 it didn't look quite the same so I figured I'd just keep playing with it! As you can see, though, I did actually learn something from doing the tutorial which was the point.

Tutorial-a-Day

I pretty much decided that in order to tune my skills, I will do a tutorial a day. Today's tutorial was simple. Perhaps my next one will be much more complex. Here is the stock photo I used which belongs to Sugargrl14. 

The final result looked something like this:

The tutorial used was http://dewaldhein.com/joomla/photoshop/74-the-perfect-eye.html

It was a pretty easy tutorial. I found it to be entirely more effective than the way I was doing this before! I have only just now started entering the areas of adjustment layers. I hope that soon I will be navigating the Adobe programs with ease!

The JR. Seminar Project

Ok, so as you know I've been working on my Junior Seminar project about respect. I sat down today with my overseeing professor and listened to him tell me how to change my project into something it wasn't truly meant to be. I stuck to my guns though and plan to do the project anyway, my way. I understand that professors are more knowledgeable than us but at some point we have to become our own critic. I hate to take a lower grade for doing my project my way but I plan to.

This is my vision, nobody else can tell me what my vision is. I don't mind a little tweaking but I definitely don't want to hear about how everything i'm doing in my project is totally wrong. Only I know what respect means to me. I know what I think respect should mean in this world. He's trying to adapt my project to his idea of respect, and that just doesn't work for me. I chose this project purposefully, with a meaningful theory behind it. I'm starting to transition into that phase of being an artist that requires that I stop doing projects because they're cool and start doing them because they have meaning, they have value, and they have a life of their own.

Baking for Angel

Today is Valentines Day. As always I will from this point forward refer to it as Singles Awareness Day, as I always have. (Even though I'm no longer single.) Essentially I decided to treat this holiday like any other day, except perhaps that I'm writing in red today. Angel and I went to Saladworks for lunch, came home and I decided to bake him brownies. (Cream Cheese Brownies to be exact.) Which actually just came out of the oven!!! They smell delicious.


I figured I'd go ahead and post this recipe since I'm typing it up for Mike anyway.

Cream Cheese Brownies

1/4 cup butter
1 cup (6oz) semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of hot water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of Salt
(if desired you can add 1/2 cup of walnuts, although I never do.)

Cream Cheese Filling:
1 (8oz) package of cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Prepare Cream Cheese Filling and set aside. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 8 or 9 inch baking pan. In a medium saucepan, combine butter or margarine and chocolate pieces. Heat over low heat until melted and smooth, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in sugar, eggs, water, and vanilla until combined. Add flour, baking soda and salt, stirring well. (If you're using them stir in the walnuts.) Spread half the chocolate batter evenly in greased baking pan. Top with Cream Cheese Filling, spreading evenly. Drop spoonfuls of remaining chocolate batter evenly on top of cream cheese filling, spreading as evenly as possible with a knife. To marble, swirl the knife gently through the batter. Bake 30-35 minutes. Do not overbake. Brownies should be moist in center. Cool in pan. Cut into squares, store in refrigerator. Makes about 20 (1-1/2-inch) brownies.

Cream Cheese Filling:
In a small bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth.

As you can see I decided to marble this set. I can't wait until they're cool and we can eat them. They're making the whole house smell delicious. So while I'm still protesting Valentine's Day, and the entire commercial establishment of holidays in general. I'm totally ok with spending a little quality time with my boyfriend and baking him brownies. Ok so maybe I'm sitting here writing this and he's playing Modern Warfare 2, and to some that might not really be considered "quality time." I think it is. The entire point is that we're together, even though we're doing our own thing. I'm sure later we'll sit down and watch a movie or something. :)

On a side note... Isn't it hilarious the screen names that people use these days?

Respect v2.0

I decided today that it was time for me to start learning flash. I love it and hate it right now since I can only do so much but I redid my original animation in flash and it turned out better. It has the "I will" leaving the screen at the end and you are left with the word Respect, in white.
My goal by the end of this project is to give the active viewer a look through my eyes at what it is we must truly respect in life. The initial animation simply says that we must respect. But what is it exactly that we must respect? I've come up with a short list. I plan to start with the simplest one. Life. We should respect life. This is not meant to be a pro life vs. pro choice thing. I simply think that we should respect the living denizens of this planet. I understand this isn't always possible and there are always people that we lose respect for, but for the most part I think that the world would be a better place if we respected life.

So now that I have topics set for two of my ten flip books... I just need to think of the other 8 topics for them.

Respect

This is my idea for the first flip book in a set of 10 for my Junior Thesis. The idea is that I will do the rest about flip books about things/ideas/etc that I respect.

The idea behind this particular piece is that we use our hands in such an expressive manner as artists. As artists we use our hands to create! Deaf people use their hands to speak.

I also plan to design the table on which they will be displayed in black and white. It will probably have either the sign language letters or it will say respect with little places outlined for each book! The idea to design the table was a good one in my opinion. I'll probably do it on butcher paper.

Junior Thesis

I finally picked a topic for my Junior Thesis! I'm going to do flip animation books about respect! A huge thanks to my Jr. Thesis professor for giving me the low tech idea of Flip Books. I wanted to do flash animation but this works also!

I'll post pictures once I get started!

Homework

The homework is already getting to me.

Homework list for the week:

RS405HON

Reading
Article : Where was God?
Article: Defining Evil
Article: Nowhere to turn for Shelter
Article: The Islamic Tradition
Genesis 1-2
Luke 4:1-13
Harrington: Prologue
Kelly Ch 1 (pg 5-17)

Threaded Discussion & Response to 1 Student. (Due TUE)
a paper about Original Sin (due TUE)

Modern & Contemporary Art
Read a 36 page article on photography
Threaded Discussion and Response (due THU)
Threaded Discussion about Degas (due THU)
Test

Philosophy of Art
Reading
Aristotle's Poetics
Oedipus the King
Article: Oedipus Plot cycle
Article: Oedipus the King, the Perfect Tragedy of Poetics

Jr. Thesis:
Reading
Art Theory: Sigmund Freud and Dreaming pp21-27

3-D Design:
Complete Wire Sculpture
Read pp104-117 in Elements of Design for next week

I also need to save 5 links on Delicious and be prepared to discuss them in class on Tuesday and somewhere in all this mess I have to find time to practice my choir music AND make the stuff I need for RHA (which you can't even imagine at this point)

I'd say life is catching up to me fast. I need a break already! lol
How far away is spring break again?

Phone took a dip

Today was a pretty decent day until this evening. I was out to dinner with Angel and my phone decided to jump out of my hoodie. Of course... It couldn't just land on the ground! It had to land in a puddle. It is pretty much worthless now. I'm waiting on the new one to arrive. yay -_- Programming numbers into my cell is SO MUCH FUN!

Ok on a side note I've been really busy with school. I'm taking 21 credits this semester but I'm trying to teach myself Adobe Flash!!!! Yay! This is real excitement. I want to do my Junior Thesis on Reverence for Creation/Nature, and I want to do it in Flash! (Wish me luck!)

On a side note I've found the most amazing blog! Positive Space. Check it out :D EVERY designer MUST see!

http://www.positivespaceblog.com/