more collage

I haven't religiously been taking photos or scans along the way, but next week I'll have photos of my assemblages, which are craptastic. Here's two collages I made tonight, due tomorrow. Obviously they look much better in person. Scanning them at high resolution, reducing their size, plus uploading to Flickr degrades it a lot.





Second one is my favorite, and I think I will frame it when it's not required to be in class anymore.

In other news, my computer and/or Internet is being extremely slow.

More importantly, I have an addiction to Pinkberry, which is frozen yogurt (like the plain kind you get at the grocery store, not soft-serve ice cream like). I have had it every day since Friday, with no plans to stop. It's very low calorie and good for you, though the toppings tend not to be.

trying to cope

I find it very hard to fully take advantage of every day. Most often, I sit on the couch, doing nothing important on the computer. There are lots of things that I could be doing otherwise. Decorating. Working on getting my photography business set up on Etsy. Study for CLEP exams, of which I need to take at least 3 more.

Most of the time, I dwell on the fact that I don't want to be here anymore and how badly I want to be finished with college and move. When unhappy, a year can seem like a lifetime, and it can seem impossible to accept where I am now. I really want to accept it and become more productive. I want to know that the time will fly and before I know it, next year will be here. It's already been 6 months since we moved into our new place, it sort of feels like half that time, which is great!

But I feel like every time I take one step forward towards getting into the mindset of being happy, I take two steps back and become lazier. I keep making excuses for when I'll feel better. "As soon as we clean up the apartment, I'll feel better." We did last week, and last night the boy accurately pointed out how I was already saying I still don't want to be in the house. My newest thing is "As soon as Jolly can exercise again, I'll feel better." Because then I'll be able to take her to the park or the dog run for an hour and let her run, and I won't have to worry about her craziness or entertaining her. But likely, nothing will change, I'll just have an hour or two less time to sit on the computer every day.

I keep telling the boy that I want to one day have two houses, one that doesn't have cable or Internet. He's not quite so addicted to the Internet as I am, but he can't understand why I would ever want that because the Internet is so wonderful. I then explained how isolating it can be. Sitting at home alone on a computer isn't great on the psyche. He agreed to a point, but I feel like I'm losing the part of him that'd rather go backpacking than sit inside all day.

Well anyway, here's hoping things can turn around for me soon enough. After too long of feeling this way, you crack, and who knows what comes out, then.

obsessions

When I move to Maine, I have to take a potentially five hour drive to Lubec, Maine. So gorgeous. I'd live there, but it's a bit too out there, sort of like Caribou. Lubec is the easternmost town in the United States.

really not a good thing

When I have a full stomach, I can easily pass for five months pregnant. I think that's horrible. My stomach bloats so much. It's a food baby. But it's really embarrassing. Otherwise, it's relatively flat.

this is very strange

So the different kinds of "paint" I am using for my box are:

1. White house paint
2. Water
3. Spray Elmer's glue
4. Wood shellac
5. Light blue house paint
6. Acai juice [at present, I have just finished this layer]
7. White house paint mixed with sugar
8. Tea
9. Soy sauce
10. Hair spray
11. Gray-blue house paint
12. Mod Podge

Project's due Thursday, and I'm really tired right now. I just finished my five (I said six last time, but I meant five) collages. It's a freak show, I am not really proud of it, and everyone in my class is going to love it

My 'h' button is working strangely.

maine

I'm slowly winning the boy over in my quest to get him to agree as early on as possible to move to Maine. Yes, I want to move there, but he isn't so sure. He doesn't know where he will be in his job a year from now and he wants to go back to school, which he'd have to wait a year to do after moving to Maine.

But I've figured out the way to win. He has two Border Collies that live with his parents that he really misses. He was thinking of bringing one of them up here in a few months, but we already have one dog and I'm worried about how she'll react to living in noisy, grass-less Manhattan and away from her sister. Well, genius! Why doesn't he wait until we move to Maine, we'll rent a house with a big back yard, and he can bring both of them up. We hadn't thought of that before and it's a really good idea. Then I did something else! I told him if he moved with me to Maine, I would buy him a Belgian Malinois, which he's been talking about getting forever. But he has to wait until then because I don't want to raise another puppy who can only pee on asphalt. So then we'd have four dogs. He's thinking of becoming a breeder, now. Not of our own dogs, but you know.

Dogs are the way to the boy's heart. I think Maine isn't so far away now. Well, it really is. 15+ months is a long time. Sigh.

oh nos

Though I get very good grades, I'm really sucky at school. I always fall behind quickly because I start skipping doing assignments that aren't immediately due.

On Thursday I was supposed to start a series of six collages during class, but I misread the directions entirely and I wasn't prepared at all. Now it's early Sunday, and I tried to begin them an hour or so ago. But sometimes frustration powers work getting done, and I have just began some of the worst work I've ever seen myself produce! They're hideous! I haven't finished a single one, but I know I am going to be ashamed to display this work to my class on Tuesday. It's especially difficult because this is one of those assignments you can't start over. I have six specific sheets of paper that I have to use, so I really have to "make it work."

I'm also behind on another project due Thursday, and I mean really behind. I am supposed to paint a box (approximately 12x12x12 in size) twelve times using twelve different forms of "paint." We were told to start this two weeks ago. I have not yet begun. I am screwed, oh yes indeed. So far the only types of paint I've come up with are tea, water, house paint, ummm... well, that's really it.

I feel my creativity slipping away.

lack of commentary

I haven't updated all week either because it's been insanely boring or overly crazy, I can't decide which. Either way, the apartment is messy, but is getting better day by day. For the first time I feel as though in about a month, the apartment will finally be done. Then we can have people over and I won't be ashamed!

I need to buy a flat panel LCD TV.

I have a lot of homework to do.

Cows.

summer

You know how every winter, when it's cold and it sucks, you wish it were the dead of summer so all you would have to wear is shorts and a tank top? Then bam, it's 92 degrees and you're like, shit! Well, I've learned my lesson. The thing about winter is, you have to invest in some really fashionable cold weather clothes and you're set. You can always pile on the clothes, but I can't walk down the street in my bra, Amy Winehouse style. That's why I think Maine is going to be perfect.

the way things were

I'm still Facebook friends with a lot of people I know from high school and who are still in high school. Sometimes I look at the photos they post and I get the strangest, most unhappy feeling that I'm trying to understand somehow. I just can't believe the way things were and the way they are now, and how I came to be where I am now. I think I'll try to explain that someday on here. Anyway, what I think is, I'm still really trying to find myself. I'm not who I was, and I don't want to be that person, but something inside me is telling me that who I am now isn't completely me, either.

and you think you're weird

I'm taking a class called Collage & Assemblage (pronounced so that the two words rhyme). I'm sure this class will produce six weeks of funny stories, mostly because of this elderly women, Giovanni. When I first entered the room, she was walking by doing something or other and I assumed she was the professor. She looked the part. Then a few minutes later, a tall man with a cardboard box comes waltzing in and says he'll be right back. Ok, so that's the professor. Then Giovanni walks to the front of the class and counts our heads. "10," she says, "We're missing two. I'm a student just like you, but I know there are supposed to be 12," she explains in a thick Italian accent. Um, ok. Then she produces a folded piece of plastic sheeting (probably to paint on top of), which I think she literally just found sitting on a table in the studio. She brings the 4-foot-long wad to the center table/big box of wood made for models and still life's to stand upon, lays it down, and lays down on top of it. Just so randomly, in front of all of us. A few minutes later she gets up and returns it.

Lots of other weird stuff from her throughout the professor's introduction to the class. He wants us to research a whole list of collage artists throughout the semester. Giovanni asks, "Do you need a computer to do this?" and suggests maybe she could use the newspaper or magazines to find these artists. Professor explains that it would be so much easier to use the computer. "Yeah, but, it is not like computers have color or anything," she says. What she thinks is that computer screens are monochrome. Someone tells her where she can use a computer at school and she says she's been there before to check her e-mail, but she never noticed that it had color. She's surprised. We're so confused.



This is the first collage I made in class. I suppose I have to explain. We were given a pizza menu and told to cut out all of the text and graphics with a razor. Then we were given random clippings and photocopies and told to add them however we want. The final step was to do something on top with a pen. It looks a bit different in person, but my scanner couldn't pick up on all of the elements (including some of the white spots that are actually empty) and I'm not going to do anything about that now.

Not all of our collages will be 2D. Most are 3D. More on them later.

oh sadness

I'm upset today because of a grade I received in a class and I'm going to have to speak to the professor about it because he single handedly ruined my GPA for no good reason.

In other news, I've attended all three of my new summer classes and they all seem manageable, though none extremely captivating. Then again, when have I ever had a captivating class? Ok, I've had a few.

I can't write because I am too forlorn.

don't complain to me anymore

Professors always complain that students wait until the last minute to do their work or study for tests. Well how come then three out of my five professors still haven't submitted grades for their classes when papers were due or finals were taken 11 or more days ago, and the deadline is tomorrow? Uh huh, talk about saving it until the last minute.

is it dead?

My cable Internet modem has been on and off the past couple of days or even weeks, but now it's not working at all. Luckily I can mooch off of someone else's wireless until Friday when tech support comes to take a look. But even this wireless connection isn't that great and everyone nearby has a password protected connection (as do I). Bummer.