"Go in there, acting like soldiers preparing for battle tomorrow and scare the sh*t out of them."

I would like to apologize for the very very very long delay in updating this! I know all you spoiled readers of mine have had to go nearly four days without being informed about my life. I am sorry, but my life has just been so full lately it was hard for me to find time to do this. But I'm here now, and that's all that matters!

So it was a long weekend. I spent a disproportionate amount of time at the NSIC Indoor Conference Track meet. It was long, but it was worth it. I personally PRed in both shot put and weight throw (I did beat two people in the shot... who scratched out), and the boys won conference (girls placed 9th)! It was a very exciting day! It's a great day to be a Dragon!

So I guess my reason for not updating this last night would be due to the Oscars. I watched the whole thing, from the Red Carpet Live to the Best Picture. And I lost my family's Oscar Pool by one. It came down to best picture between my brother and I, and I lost. I had high hopes for "The Social Network" but I realized about halfway through the show that there was no way it was going to beat "The King's Speech" and I instantly regretted not choosing it. Besides that, it was pretty predictable. I thought Anne Hathaway and James Franco didn't make as big of a fool of themselves as they could have, and Hathaway had some interesting dresses. There were a lot of interesting dresses. I liked Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis's, but besides that, it was a pretty questionable dress night. And this was happening in our room throughout the whole show:

Meet Lambie and Brutus. Brutus belongs to me and Lambie belongs to a friend. They are not dating. They are friends with benefits and we had to tell them multiple times during the show to keep it down. They were sad to be separated at the end of the night.

That's all I really have to say about the Oscars, I went 17/24 so I can't say there were that many surprises for me but it was an interesting night!

This is a cat for you:

(\_/)

/. . \

=\T/=

/\

| _ |

/| | | \

                                 ( ) _|_ ( )……………………

’ ” “ ” “ ‘

Don't question it, just enjoy it. 

Today was a long day, mostly because in Econ, I had this test that I unsuccessfully studied for this weekend. But we made some interesting art and if you're on your game, you'll start to see resemblance of something in my "mystery design project."

Everything is still there, it's just turning into something vaguely recognizable. Still nowhere near being done, but hey, we're getting closer.

My studies from drawing on "manipulation." In case you can't tell, it's a bottle. This was not my best. The purple one is supposed to be twisting but I couldn't get it right so it's just a bubble bottle instead. And the red yellow orange one is just boring. But I like shading with colored pencils so it was cool to do, anyway.

Study on "mutation." This is just more interesting. It was fun to draw and everything actually looks like something. There's a change! Don't ask why the shoe is there, I just started with that and couldn't really think of what to mutate it into so the bottle just went straight through it...

For people who care about the NFL or college football, you should be excited because the NFL Combine was this weekend. I have a few players on my radar who did well including JJ Watt (LB, Wisconsin), Christian Ponder (QB, Florida State), Blaine Gabbert (QB, Missouri), and of course Cam Newton (QB, Auburn). And then there's the sad, sad story of Casey Matthews (LB, Oregon) who injured his shoulder and couldn't showcase his talents. They're not sure if he'll be back for Oregon's Pro-Day in 10 days either, which I'm guessing could be a damper on his draft chances. But I'm sure that his family name will help him get a spot somewhere. It'll be sad to see it come down to that but it's better than not getting a chance at all! Go football!

Love this video. Will get me through Econ for the rest of the semester. Will also make mom (math teacher) and dad (engineer) happy because I can tell them I'm voluntarily studying math. Win.

I need to shower and get to bed. Tomorrow is my last day off before I go back to track and soccer (wtf two days off in one week? I think it's time for a run!) and I'd like to be awake to enjoy it! I'll end with a very inspiring quote from the deceased portion of the Oscars last night by recently deceased Lena Horne:

“It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.”

"Sorry, we're reminiscing about our childhood."

Ahh, Thursdays. If it weren't for waking up at 5:30AM to run (or watch my teammates run) the beep test (and getting chewed up about it afterward) it probably would have been a good day.

We're finally learning how to edit video in Video Production so I can finally start editing my project. Not that I'll have time for any editing anytime soon. But the thought of being able to at least get a start on it is very appealing to me.

Two things happened in Film History that made my day bittersweet. We were lectured at for a while then we watched a film ("Applause" which is a very good film, I actually enjoyed it). After the film (there was still 45 minutes of class) we realized that our professor was gone. Just gone. And the TA was also gone. So we sat there for about 15 minutes, waiting. And I kid you not, the minute we all get up to leave, he comes strolling into the room wondering where we were all going. FML. But he only had a few things to say so it wasn't too bad. The other thing I realized was while walking back to the dorms. I walk really, really slow. Even when I try to walk fast, it's just not that possible for me. I was just walking at my normal speed and a girl who was, no joke, no taller than 4'9" walks past me. And I tried to keep up. And it was hard for me. Her legs were as long as my shin bones. Her backpack almost dragged on the ground behind her because she was so small. And she walked faster than me. I don't know why my legs won't walk faster. I just can't walk that fast. Just. Can't.

I had a whole afternoon off today. Like, from 4:15pm today until 8:30am tomorrow morning, I actually have nothing. And I didn't know what to do with myself. Luckily I got the chance to go to Party City. And what's the first thing we see when we walk into Party City?

Candy City. It's like a sub-city of Party City and they had all the best candy from my childhood that you sometimes can't find in a normal store. So $3.00 and 15 minutes later, this is how happy I was:

This would be two Smarties suckers, some Necco Wafers, a large Laffy Taffy, an interesting sucker and a "Squirrel Nut Zipper" which I only got because someone's been listening to a band called the "Squirrel Nut Zippers" in the bathroom and I wanted to taste the music. It wasn't that good. And the Laffy Taffy didn't have the little black watermelon seeds that it used to have. I was disappointed but it still tasted OK so I ate it anyway.

So then we ate dinner and came up with a few genius ideas. For some reason, whenever we're at Kise Cafeteria eating, or talking about going there, all these genius ideas start popping up. The first one is for a website I'm supposed to start called "Things I Want to Say to My Roommate." It probably already exists but there are a few pairs of people rooming together this year and some things they wish they could say to their roommates are just really, really funny. So that was our first idea. Our second idea was an "Exotic Plumbing" service. And that turned into a whole setup where we could purposely clog toilets of rich people and then have them hire our exotic plumbers to fix them and split the profit. Genius.

I have to throw tomorrow at the NSIC Conference Track Meet. I'm seeded last and second-to-last in my events in the conference, so I guess there's not a lot of pressure on me so maybe that'll work in my advantage and I won't actually end up in last and second-to-last.

I decided today (and I know there are some people from my high school who, if they read this will holler at me for being waaaaaaaay behind the times) that Lupe Fiasco is probably the smartest rapper alive. I was listening to his song "Words I Never Said" and I actually had to think about some of the lines from his songs. What he manages to say in his songs is actually amazing. So much power in such a short amount of time. So I'll end with a few lines from his song:

"If you turn on TV all you see’s a bunch of “what the f-cks”
Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such
And that aint Jersey Shore, homie thats the news
And these the same people that supposed to be telling us the truth
Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist
Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit
Thats why I aint vote for him, next one either
I’ma part of the problem, my problem is I’m peaceful
And I believe in the people."

"How much does a polar bear weigh? Enough to break the ice. Hi."

Very long but surprisingly exciting day! If it weren't for the fact that I have to wake up at 5:30AM tomorrow to watch my soccer team run the beep test, in full knowledge of the fact that I'll have to run it by myself later, this would have been a good night, as well.

The big, big news is that my portrait of Wolverine is finally done! He sat for us one more day and I finished. No longer does Wolverine live in Jersey Shore-land. He's a real person now. Feels so good to be done!

Got the shoulders in proper proportion and fixed a few parts on the face. And thought of a clutch last minute idea for the background which actually worked out well. WHEW! DONE!

Just an intriguing pastel splatter on the floor. When asked why I was photographing the floor, I responded, "This dust caught my interest."

And we made progress on our mystery project in Design as well. I still can't tell you what it is because the random assortment of materials and objects we're collected so far will make for a super surprising end project. But here's a little of what we did today:

More washes. But just orange this time... Hmm...

Peace Tea cans, orange and green herring bone pattern and a thing that looks like a pizza tray. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

We had a mandatory meeting for all student athletes today. It was about taking drugs and supplements and the NCAA's banned substance list. The very first slide said, "Don't wait until URINE trouble." Like "you're in" but also "urine," you know cause they test your urine... It was funny. The rest of the presentation, not so much. Except when we saw that there was a drug called "Man Scorch" and under side effects of using anabolic steroids there was a picture of a dragon.

Don't take this, or you'll turn into a dragon and be banned from the NCAA.

We had the opportunity to sign up for pen pals from other area colleges a few weeks ago and I, being the social person I am, signed up. I got his name today and wrote him a nice letter. It basically sounded like this:

Hi, how was your day? Was it good? Do you know how much a polar bear weighs? I do. Enough to break the ice. My name is Tory. (random true information about me). I like to make crispy treats, sing karaoke dressed as Ke$ha and stalk research famous people. I can't write on one sheet of paper so I layered lots of sheets to act as a comforter for my pen. What do you get when you turn an elephant into a cat? A cat. (more random but true information about me). Sometimes when I text my friends I like to pretend to be a gangster and write like this: yo wassup mah homedog? I just licked my roommate's envelope shut... Seductively. I have to wake up at 5:30AM tomorrow. Good bye. 

I think there's a good chance we'll be best friends.

Since I do have to wake up tomorrow at 5AM and still have a small amount of homework to finish, I really should probably go. I'll end with a quote from a song that I've recently become obsessed with. It's called "Science and Faith" by The Script, off their newest album called "Science and Faith," which I recommend everyone to buy because it's amazing. Here's my favorite line so far (I almost finished the whole album but I listened to this song about 15 times so I didn't quite make it straight through):

"You won't find faith or hope down a telescope/ you won't find heart or soul in the stars/ you can break everything down into chemicals/ but you can't explain a love like ours."

"I didn't know we were allowed to do that." "You're not."

Very unimpressive day marked only by about four events: news about New Zealand, track, Glee and a 10pm meeting.

If you haven't heard, Christchurch in New Zealand was hit by a large earthquake. Last I checked, there were at least 75 confirmed dead and some 300 still missing/buried. This is sad, first of all because whenever something like that happens, you have to have a black hole in your heart not to feel pain for victims and second of all because I feel a special connection to New Zealand because it is where I plan to study for a semester. (I chose a school in Wellington, which is a fair distance from Christchurch, but still). This video about it almost made me cry: (Sorry I couldn't embed it!)
 http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-reports/christchurch-cathedral-bells-toll-no-more-after-devastating-earthquake/story-fn7z04co-1226010368194
So I encourage everyone to keep New Zealand in their thoughts and prayers!


Track was surprisingly inspiring today. Every Tuesday we have a team meeting and this Tuesday, our coach really went above and beyond. Our conference meet is this week and even though we have a small team, expectations are very high. I found out today that our men's team is ranked 18 in the nation. WOW. But anyway, our coach talked about the "human spirit" and how it relates to pushing yourself to be your best. He talked about how being a champion is the most painful experience anybody can endure, but in the end it's worth it. I am not doing him justice by trying to summarize what he said, but it was exactly what our team needed before going into our biggest meet of the season.

Glee. I don't know what to say about it except that it was better than last week only because it had no Justin Bieber and it had Ke$ha (even though it wasn't that good). Plot-wise very bad but it made me laugh and like I said before, it had no Justin Bieber so that makes it better than last week. And on a side note, every time they play the trailer for the upcoming movie "Beastly" I keep thinking Chord Overstreet from Glee is the main character, see any resemblance?

Alex Pettyfer from the upcoming "Beastly"

Chord Overstreet from my beloved "Glee"

My 10PM meeting wasn't interesting except for the fact that it was for sketch comedy and we haven't actually had a show yet (we have one scheduled for March 25th but we also had about three scheduled for last semester so... Maybe...) but we're trying again. And I learned that getting an iPhone makes you an *sshole. At least for a month. And it corrects your grammar and makes you want to correct the grammar of those around you.

"Can you please do this for me?" "I can do that on my iPhone." 

"I need this next week." "I can bring it on my iPhone." 

"This will happen very quick-" "Quickly."

I'll end with the only solid quote I remember from coach's speech today. It really stuck out to me, even though I'm not a runner, it obviously can relate to just about anything:

"Man created time. Times you can run your race in. The human spirit wants to run faster, wants to beat those times. And it'll hurt. But it'll be worth it."

Oh double quote because this one was written on the board:

"The price it takes to be a champion is everything you have."

"Gravity becomes the most dangerous force of nature when working with art in three dimensions."

As far as Mondays go, this one didn't suck. Got a lot of art done and made it through our shortened Econ class. Then I got a solid workout in and decided to save my homework until tomorrow (maybe not my best decision but I'm taking advantage of the fact that I'm in a good mood but extremely tired to get a good night's sleep. As JJ Watt always says: work + rest = success!).

So we're working on that indescribable project in design and even though I can't- or don't really want to- explain what we're doing, here's a few pictures of what I accomplished today, just to peak your curiousity a little:

Some watercolor washes. I love watercolor painting and I wish I was better at it. But I have developed a strange talent for making washes like these.

Coffee cup sleeves hot glued to newspaper. Confused yet?

Drawing was more stressful today that usual because we are still working on our portrait but now we're starting to add color and I've never really used chalk pastels before so it's kind of a new experience for me. But I'm starting to get the hang of it and even though right now, Wolverine looks more like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I recognize what I need to do to fix it and I can do it! I debated whether or not I would put my progress up here, but I just decided that I should because even though it's bad, it's going to get better and when it turns out awesome and I tell you how bad it was no one will believe me. So this is proof that once, this project was a mess:

He kind of looks like someone from Jersey Shore because his face is orange. And the picture doesn't do his nose justice but in real life it's a little more red and he looks like a reindeer. His ear doesn't even begin to match the rest of the head and I ended with the shadow on his neck, which is purple right now. Lots of work to do but I'm willing to do it so hopefully it ends up OK!

I just hope that this week goes by quickly. And then the next two weeks go quickly too. Because then it's BAM spring break and then BAM end of school. And even though the realization that my first year in college is almost over is both sad and shocking, 19 credits and two sports is kicking my ass right now and I am so ready for a break. And summer. Because winter sucks (did you know I hated winter?) and I want to go to the beach and sit in the sunshine.

To finish I'll end with a quote I read somewhere today. I don't know who it's by, and it didn't turn up any search results on the Internet but it peaked my curiousity and I like it. So here it is:

"For how does one know that the thoughts that come to us in dreams are any more false than others, given that they are often no less vivid and explicit?"

"If you stick around, we're giving away a prize worth more than an iPad or a car!"

GREAT WEEKEND. This might be an understatement. That's why the long gap between posts. I do apologize, but I promise this entry will be filled with awesome goodness.

This was a record breaking record for Dragon Basketball, no, really. Saturday's games were very eventful. (So were Friday's but, not as much as Saturday's). It was the last home game so we played "Fill the Fieldhouse" and broke the attendance record (1). Angie Jetvig broke 1000 points in the women's game (2). And Alex Novak broke the record for blocks- he's a sophomore (3). "Gear Guy" made us all wait until after the game to "announce a prize worth more than an iPad or a car" and ended up proposing to his girlfriend in front of the whole audience. It was priceless. Great weekend!

Friday night we held the "black light glow in the dark tie dye" party. Although attendance wasn't as high as we initially expected, it was still loads of fun. We replaced all the lightbulbs in the house with either blue bulbs or black lights. It was awesome. Here's our food/drink setup:

I know this looks totally sketch, but everything on that table was made by one of us, so I guarantee you, nothing fishy, only delicious. There are four types of Crispy Treats- Captain Crunch, Coco Puffs, Oreo and S'morez. There were two types of cookies plus haystacks and the long awaited "Dragon Drink" who's recipe will remain a secret... Shh... But it was delicious.

Pretty self-explanatory. I guarantee you, however, there was no alcohol in it.

Ok, I realize this isn't food. But when we parked at Menard's to get lightbulbs, we got this awesome parking spot. "Rockstar Parking" I believe it's called. And as we were leaving, we notice this hearse parked next to us- with a casket in it. Can a driver just do that? Just leave a casket in the car while they go to Menard's? Regardless, we were kind of creeped out, but also amused.

Saturday we went to this pizza place we had heard of, but never been to. It's called Spicy Pie and let me tell you, it's awesome. Three of us ordered an 18" pizza for $5 a person and ate the whole thing. It was just SO GOOD. We'll definitely be going back. And now that we know what Zeppolis are, we'll also be trying those.

Approximately 15 minutes later, this was gone. Disappeared. Just gone. And we probably could have eaten more. DELICIOUS.

I filmed a video this morning. It was fun, and my professor was right when she said that the only way to learn was to really get out and do it. Because there were a lot of things about being on set, especially directing, that I just never realized would come up until I got there. Like getting to say "Rolling... Aaaaaaand action!" whenever we want to start filming something. Or setting up a shot. Lighting. Everything we talked about in class came crashing down on me so fast I hardly had time to blink. But luckily I had some help and it went pretty smoothly without breaking anything. Now to learn Final Cut Pro...

Today I binged on iTunes. Mom sent me a $25 gift card and I just went bizerk. I got three whole albums, plus three singles. I have to admit, so far I am very pleased. I downloaded The Script's new release "Science and Faith," Mumford and Son's "Sigh No More," and Arcade Fire's "Suburbs." I had to try Arcade Fire after the Grammy's. And I love them! Not quite as much as The Script, but well enough that I'm definitely not disappointed. So those three albums plus some Lupe Fiasco ("Words I Never Said" and "The Show Goes On") and a song from Kabluey called "Some of them are Nice Days" by the Honey Brothers. Awesome. I recommend that you spend $25 and buy all of those things.

I guess I just have more music to talk about. Lady Gaga's new single "Born this Way" is awesome, catchy and I believe, unless I completely misunderstand what she's saying, about God. Could this be a turn for her? Not so long ago, she was riding disco sticks and playing love games. Curious... I newly discovered Ke$ha's "Cannibal" album this weekend, particularly "Cannibal," "Kiss N Tell," and "Blow." I don't think saying "I'll eat you up" will ever get boring. And Rihanna's new song, "S&M" while catchy and dancable, is really, really inappropriate. The words just kill me. There's a lot of information about her in there that I really didn't need to know. But when it comes on, you still can't help but dance.

I have my long day of class tomorrow. While the whole southern part of the state is actually buried under snow, none fell here and we actually have class tomorrow. Why can't we celebrate President's Day like the rest of the country? Or just get a snow day. Why does it just have to be ridiculously cold and windy here all the time without reward for it's inhabitants? Why, why why?

For some positive moral reinforcement I remembered this quote from Thoreau (I love Thoreau... Not...) and I decided that it was very fitting for me because I'm about 100% positive that the weather here is doing this to me, free of charge. But as long as being here and getting educated gets me somewhere warmer I guess I'll suffer. And in the future, when I have a nice job in California and it gets to 40 and the whole city shuts down, I'll be the one walking to work in shorts and a t-shirt, singing and dancing. So here you go, Thoreau:

"You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one."

"We wantum your wampum."

Ahh, Thursdays. Having no classes on Fridays has to make Thursdays my favorite day of classes. And I'll actually get to sleep in tomorrow, which is a first for Fridays this semester. Today was really only eventful because of the plans I made for this weekend.

I am filming my first ever video on Sunday. This is both exciting and sh*t-my-pants scary. I wrote a script and found an actor (thank the Lord I found someone on such short notice!) and actually got equipment reserved. Whew. Now just more planning and hopefully I remember enough of what we've learned so far in class to make a decent project.

I got two huge packages of food and other items in the mail this week. One from Grandma and one from my mom and brother. Because of them, I'm constantly eating and my room looks like this:

That's snacks on snacks. Pringles cans full of cookies, a whole jar of peanut butter, more chocolate than I think I can eat in a year and some Krazy Glue (thanks, Grandma). Not to mention, two pairs of gardening (sorry, I mean farm) gloves for picking up farm boys! Whew!

Our long awaited black light glow in the dark tie dye party is also tomorrow. The only bad news is that when I ordered the strobe light, something got messed up with the payment and I have no longer ordered a strobe light. But that's OK, because things will be glowing and tie dyed enough to be awesome without it.

I came across this random but hilarious video while on one of my friend's Facebook pages. I laughed and laughed and laughed until the end, when it got a little weird (creepy?). But definitely still worth the watch:

And finally, for today, I am debating buying this movie. It's an independent movie, I got the recommendation from someone who loved "Kabluey" as much as I did. So I did some research and thus far I have no heard any negative reviews about it, everyone who sees it loves the story and the visuals. There are three trailers but I thought this one was the best.

To wrap it up, this is a quote that you've probably heard before, but it made me think for a long time about having a good attitude and believing in yourself and what you want to accomplish. I encourage you to do the same. Said by the great Henry Ford:

"Whether you think you can, or can't, you're right."

"Are you going to watch Perfume tonight?"

I feel like my blog posts are losing interest because nothing exciting is happening in my life. I'll try to spice things up a little again today.

I have more pictures of artwork to show! We started phase two of our long portrait session today, so I carbon copied my rough draft onto my final draft paper and did an understudy of black and white conte. Here's what it looks like:

Not too impressive, but it's a start. Next week we get to start using color!

This happened when I prepped my rough draft for copying:

It's like a mirror image ghost of our model. Creepy. And now it's on my board until I wipe it off. Scary.

Besides that, not a lot happened. I watched Off the Map with a few friends. It's getting desperate for plot though and all of us ended up doing homework through most of it anyway. We decided that this would probably be our last week watching it (but I might secretly watch it anyway... Shh...).

I ordered a strobe light from Amazon today. We're having a "black light glow in the dark tie dye" party on Friday and we decided that it would not be complete without a strobe light. I went to finalize my order and it tried to get me to pay in Hong Kong dollars. I got really, really confused. So I just pressed the button that said "pay in USD" and clicked order. I hope it worked because the party is on Friday and that's the estimated date of delivery.

I found this today (on hypebeast.com) which I think is pretty cool, since I am a Moleskine customer:

I want these shoes (although it's hard to think about wearing anything but rain boots right now! So much melted snow, so long, flooding...):

And to add to the Adidas love, I also came across this. I guess I haven't really said much on here about one of my favorite things ever- soccer. It's just not really soccer season right now and I've had a lot of other stuff on myy mind and schedule lately but it's things like this that get my heart pounding and my blood pumping for soccer again:

I hope that was enough excitement for today! I'll end with a funny quote about soccer I hope everyone understands! From Ronaldo (for those of you who don't know Ronaldo, he was one of Brazil's best players and goal scorers. He actually just officially retired on Valentine's day this year... Wow, even I learned something new today!).

"I'm sure sex wouldn't be so rewarding as this World Cup. It's not that sex isn't good but the World Cup is every four years and sex is not."

"I've never taken drugs, but..."

But... But what?

Anyway, today was another average day. I finished my first Video Production test in 7 minutes and got no more than 6 questions wrong (out of 50). I didn't fall asleep in Film History and I knew the answers to some of Prof's questions (it's called reading the book, people, it's not that hard!!). I made myself dizzy to the point where I couldn't read the scoreboard on the gym wall anymore at track. I ate dinner and talked about where hot dogs came from (at the same time, unfortunately). Glee was on, but I blocked most of it out because it was Justin Bieber themed and I don't dig that. Raising Hope was funny though!

I did do this today:

It's called tensegrity, In theory, you should be able to throw it against  wall without it breaking because it can transfer the pressure to other points on itself. But my friend who so patiently helped me construct it pointed out that mine is made of a wooden dowel and dental floss so it probably wouldn't work. But there are lots of awesome tensegrity artworks out there, just Google search it!

I also constructed a piece of art that I've been working on for a while. It's definitely not done yet, but it's nice to have a point of reference to work from.

Right now, everything's just lightly taped down because I know I need to move some pieces around and fix some things. I want to somehow darken the background and bring out the colors in the "rays" shooting out of the head, basically add more contrast. I don't know how to add more color though because I cut those out of magazines. We'll see. Maybe darkening the background will be enough.

Tomorrow is definitely a rain boots day, I almost drowned in puddles on campus today they're so deep! And I'm already ready for Friday to come, this weekend is going to be awesome (no track meet! Amongst other things...) and I'm already ready for classes tomorrow to end.

I'll finish with a quote my track coach shared with us today about the importance of being the best you can be (and presumably better than everyone else), by the famous Maya Angelou (who knew she was talking about track and field when she said this?).

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

"I'll be your Valentine!"

Today was uneventful. And I don't even have drawings to show you because drawing class was canceled today. And all we did in design was brainstorm (which actually went really well, you should be excited to eventually see pictures of our next project).

Besides that I went on a longer run than yesterday, making the mistake of thinking that since it has now been above freezing for two days, there would be even less ice and snow on the sidewalks. Wrong. There was more ice and more water. Think of running on ice, covered in water and that's how my whole four miles went. Plus climbing over three foot high snow piles only to jump off the backside into an 8-inch puddle of water. It was both annoying and fantastic at the same time. I wish someone would follow me with a camera on one of my runs because I'm almost positive people who see me running laugh at me.

And I guess everyone expects me to say something about Valentine's Day. To be honest, I didn't even realize it was Valentine's Day until after my first class and my long run when I went to lunch and "Captain Valentine" made a surprise visit. It doesn't bother me that I didn't have a Valentine, and looking back I realize that I have cleverly planned all my previous relationships around the holiday, meaning that, yes, I have never had a real Valentine. This doesn't make me sad, or happy, it's just interesting.

I feel bad for not having anything more interesting to talk about so I'll share one of my favorite websites of all time with you. SoundCloud.com. If you ever need some good workout songs, check it out. Not only is this a great website for discovering up and coming musical artists but there are also a number of DJs who will put whole sets on here for you to download for free. And if you're on on the right time, you might even catch a free limited download. I could spend hours on here. I made a whole Christmas-song-remix-playlist for our 12 hour car ride on Christmas Eve (it was only about 90 minutes of music, though) from this website. Sorry that's the best I can do for you today!

I'll end with a memorable tweet from Mikey ADHD, posted today. It makes no sense but it made me laugh and smile a little so I guess it's worth a shout out:

"I CAN TELL IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY CAUSE A UNICORN JUST ATE MY CAT."

"I was like, really pissed off at her in my dream, but then I woke up and didn't know if I should still be mad or not."

Today was a relaxing, productive day. I learned a few things and found a few very interesting things that I will later on share with you. First, however, the things that I learned.

The first thing I learned is that heat wave = good. It got into the 40's here today. And when it gets that warm, you know what I do- I run. And a good run it was. I ran about 15 minutes of intervals then finished with about 30 minutes of just running. And I was happy. And the world was peaceful. And then I got to an intersection. The car at the stop sign signaled me to cross. So I did. As I approached the other side of the street, I see this puddle. There's no going around, so I quickly see a spot in the middle that looks shallow enough to step on. I leap, stretching my foot out to the spot, hit it, and it goes down about six inches. I stood there, on one leg, foot completely submersed in water for a second as the car slowly passed me. Good thing I was almost done. So second thing I learned was heat wave = good but heat wave also = ridiculously deep puddles.

Thirdly, changing sheets on a lofted bed is not for everyone. I thought I was being all awesome and finally washing my sheets (I don't want to tell you how long I went avoiding it) and then I go to put them back on and poop (ha ha censoring) hit the fan. My bed is six feet off the ground (No, I can't actually sit up when I'm up there. Yes I hit my knee on the fire alarm almost every night. And yes if there wasn't a safety bar and the fire alarm went off I would probably fall off and hurt myself) and I had no idea how to get my sheets back on. This is what I have to work with:

Those two little bars are how I get in and out of my bed everyday. And the reason I almost died today. Guess what I won't be doing again anytime soon? Sleeping in a clean bed. Gross.

Then I found a few things that made me really, really happy.

First: hypebeast.com This website is awesome. I haven't had time to explore the whole thing but I like the art, I like the design, I like the shoes and I like the music they showcase so it sounds like a winner to me, even though I can't afford (there is definitely a trend happening here) most of what they show, it's nice to get inspiration anyway! Plus some of the comments people leave are ridiculous and fun to read. Especially in the music section. Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out!

From this website, I found this other awesome website that Google launched. I had no idea this existed and it makes me sad! Because it's amazing. http://www.googleartproject.com/ You can visit any number of the world's greatest museums and not only tour them with the same technology Google Maps uses, but you can also look at individual pieces of art. And you can zoom in closer than you could probably get at the museums. It's just really cool. A definite must for anyone interested in art!

I'm doing this right now and it's making me happy.

Who knew that Mike and Ike's fit so perfectly around the outside of a MacBook? And looked so good? And tasted so delicious? And I guess you can tell I'm blogging, which for some strange reason also makes me happy.

And last but not least, to end, I'll share one more picture I found today that made me happy:

This is just a really cool picture and it quotes one of my favorite authors ever- Jack Keruoac.

So it's only fitting now to end with the quote that he has on his shirt (also the quote in my "about me" profile deal down at the bottom of the page) because spring is coming and this book reminds me of spring all the time. From Jack Keruoac's On the Road:

"But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!""

"I think you've flipped about 700 pancakes so far."

Yeah, that's right, it's true. I flipped over 1000 pancakes today (Saturday). I spent most of my day at the Fargodome with some soccer girls and Farmhouse Frat boys from NDSU flipping and serving pancakes for the Kiwanis pancake feed. This was my life for about five hours:

And when my right hand got tired, I started using my left hand. I am an ambidextrous pancake maker now. And I helped serve people at the second largest pancake feed in the NATION (thanks to Texas, we no longer hold the record for biggest). I had never heard of this before and I get here and over 12,000 people show up to eat my pancakes. It was HUGE. If you like pancakes and you're in Fargo this time next year, check it out. It was only $3 for all you can eat pancakes and sausage. Delicious.

Yesterday was a long day too. Four hour car ride to St. Thomas University. Six hour track meet. Four hour car ride back to Moorhead. Not my cup of tea. But it was great to get back into the spirit of track meets. The atmosphere at this meet was amazing, it was nice to be immersed in a true track tradition again. There were people there the whole time cheering and it felt like the good old days of high school track. I miss that. And I got to see a whole bunch of people from high school who were competing on other teams at the meet, and my family. It was kind of sad that I knew more people on the other teams than I know on my own team! But we did well, and if they had been keeping score, we would have completely dominated!

Speaking of a positive atmosphere, tonight's basketball games were also amazing. The girls game was exciting and we pulled away with a win. The guys game was even more exciting though. We were down almost the whole game, and then the second half of the second half we got a lead and held it until the end! Exciting. It was a great day to be a Dragon! (LOL).

And then I watched a movie. A movie I mentioned a few days ago called "Kabluey." And  remembered how much I really, really love that movie. So I decided to make a list of my all-time favorite movies. I limited it to ten and let me tell you, it was hard to contain this list, but here's my attempt (in no particular order):

Even my friend who wasn't a film major commented on how awesome the cinematography in this movie is (she didn't actually use that term, but it's what she was talking about). It is beautifully shot and everything looks just awesome. And the movie itself is adorable, funny and keeps an interesting storyline throughout. Probably close to my favorite of all time.

Amazing music. Amazing dance. Amazing acting. Amazing movie!

I just love this movie. It's probably one of the only movies I will watch anytime, ever. I never get old of all the jokes, and my favorite part is when Columbus tries to drive away on the motorcycle and falls into the bushes. I might get scratches on my DVD from rewinding and rewatching that so many times. Epic.

In the same style of Kabluey, this movie keeps an interesting storyline laced with subtle humor throughout. PlusRyan Reynolds is adorable, and Kristen Wiig/Bill Hader pair up in a classic duo.

This is the cover for the first movie, but it really stands for the whole series (I couldn't list all of them or else it would have been longer than ten picks. Sorry.). Toy Story was just something I grew up on and when the third one came out, I cried (multiple times). How will my life continue without Andy, Woody and Buzz?

This movie is on my list for a number of reasons. First of all, it's hilarious. It has the same type of subtle humor the both Kabluey and Adventureland has, but the climax scene is the most unforgettable scene from almost any movie, ever. Abigail Breslin makes a phenomenal debut and Steve Carrell plays a different type of character than his other projects. And Grandpa is hilarious. Just awesome.

In case you couldn't tell, I'm a sucker for a good story. And there's no better story than an epic story. And this epic tale tops them all. Because it is a truly epic story. Completely spontaneous and unpredictable and beautifully shot (it took four years and 18 countries to film) it defines a modern epic movie.

If this movie isn't one of the funniest movies you've ever seen, something is wrong with you. That is all.

Once again, I'm a sucker for a good story. And Tim Burton. So naturally, the combination of both makes this one of my all time favorites. Plus the underlying message is different every time you watch it, and it speaks any type of motivation, at any stage in life. Lots of symbolism and allegorical type messages if you pay close enough attention.

What kind of person wouldn't have this on their list? Easily my favorite Tom Hanks performance and I cry every time I watch it, without a doubt.

If you've never seen any of these, tell me and we can watch them together. I have them all. And if you have any favorites, tell me so we can watch them together. I just really, really like movies.

I'm going to end with a really long quote from Forrest Gump just because it's the part that makes me cry every time, and my roommate's gone so I can cry without worrying about her walking in on me (scandalous!):

"You died on a Saturday morning. And I had you placed here under our tree. And I had that house of your father's bulldozed to the ground. Momma always said dyin' was a part of life. I sure wish it wasn't. Little Forrest, he's doing just fine. About to start school again soon. I make his breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. I make sure he combs his hair and brushes his teeth every day. Teaching him how to play ping-pong. He's really good. We fish a lot. And every night, we read a book. He's so smart, Jenny. You'd be so proud of him. I am. He, uh, wrote a letter, and he says I can't read it. I'm not supposed to, so I'll just leave it here for you. Jenny, I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time. I miss you, Jenny. If there's anything you need, I won't be far away."

"I don't have any ideas yet, maybe something with glitter."

Today was another normal, long day. Went to video production, lunch, did some econ quizzes, went to nearly 3 hours of film history, went to track practice, went to soccer practice, ate dinner, toured an apartment, took a shower, did some random stuff, and now I'm here.

Since nothing happened today, and it's supposed to get really warm this weekend (for everyone who's not from Northern Minnesota, "really warm" in February means upper 30's!) I started thinking about spring and my favorite part of spring- being able to wear real clothes again. So I was looking at some Urban Outfitter trends and started my mental wishlist for spring/summer. Here's a taste:

Just cute casual shorts. Not a fan of the shoes though.

I love dresses. I may not seem like the type, but I love dresses. Especially spring time dresses because they're so bright and colorful!

Just a cute top!

Skirts are kind of like dresses.

If I can ever afford this, I would buy it. Unfortunately, I have a feeling $600 will be a little bit out of my price range for a long, long time.

If I ever get money, I'll buy some of those. In the meantime, I'll look at Target, Forever 21 and Charlotts Russe. Now to find somewhere warm and beachy to go for spring break...

I'm getting a cold and I have a 7:30am wake up call, plus two four hour bus rides tomorrow, so it's definitely time for bed. I've had this quote from "Dinner for Schmucks" stuck in my head all day, since the ESP guy came to our school last night. I thought it was fitting.

"You're right! I have brain control and brain control is better than mind control because... Because the brain controls the mind!"

"You just made this presenter's career!"

I just saw pretty much the freakiest thing ever. But I have to share my art with you first, to keep you reading until the end, otherwise you'll get so freaked out by what I tell you you won't look at my drawings.

We started working from a live model in drawing today. It's actually really fun because the model we're working from is male, and not too hard on the eyes. I know his name but he looks like Wolverine, so that's what we called him. We worked on a rough draft today, which sucks because I really like mine. And like everyone says, you can't recreate the same piece of art twice. So I guess I'll just have to live with having an awesome rough draft.

This was the preliminary sketch we did, just to make sure proportions were correct and such. I'm sitting at a really awkward angle, it's not quite a profile, but it's not quite 3/4s either. So I struggled a little with the facial features, and so did Prof so I didn't feel too bad. And I didn't quite get down to the shoulders so just don't look at them.

And I had some time left over so I went back in for shading and such and I really like how it turned out. I need to get some separation between the beard and the shadow above/around his jawline and work on the forehead a little, but I thought I would struggle with the hair, but it turned out pretty nicely (except for the top, but the rest of it is kind of cool).

So hopefully next week when we start the real thing, it'll look better (the real thing is on charcoal paper with full color pastel... Yikes!).

So now the thing everyone's been waiting for- the freakiest thing I think I've ever seen. There was this event in the theater tonight where this guy named Christopher Carter came in and performed for us. I was skeptical because it sounded like he was just one of those lame magician guys who "guess your card" and then do some other things. But it was really cool and really freaky. This guy could tell you anything about you. It was weird. And I thought he could have been bluffing until he guessed my bra color (he had duct-taped nickels to his eyes, then duct-taped a blindfold on top of the nickels). And he guessed all this other stuff about random people, and make lightbulbs light up from people's eyes and made people control things with their minds, and had pre-recorded messages about things that had just happened, it was just freaky. If you get the chance to see him at your school, GO, I promise you'll be amazed! I am not doing him justice in this post. He did this trick with our school (it looks like he does something different with every school):

Just amazing. And even though you know the whole time he's going to make the lightbulbs light up, you still are amazed when they actually do. WOW. If anyone can tell me how to do that, I'll... Buy them something.

I told myself I'd be in bed before midnight today because I've been up so late every night this week, so it's about that time. My quote today is actually a song. It's something that I heard once when I was really little, and it sometimes pops into my head, and my hope is for it to do the same with you, because it always brightens my day. (It's actually a link to the song on YouTube. Please watch, you will not be disappointed!)

Here's a link to the lyrics!

"That's awesome!"

So I'd like to start by saying today was not a very exciting day, except for one thing. Since I wrote about JJ Watt yesterday in my blog, I posted it on Twitter and sent it to him AND HE READ IT, RETWEETED IT AND SAID "THAT'S AWESOME" BACK TO ME. It was actually the first thing I read this morning. I think it's fair that I can get excited about this. Definitely the highlight of my day (you can tell what kind of a day it was, but seriously, JJ Watt read my blog. I feel the DBWH power rubbing off already!).

Since nothing super exciting happened, I just have some more pictures of what I worked on today. It's a sketchbook assignment, due tomorrow, focusing on the face and parts of the head. Sounds boring but it's actually really exciting (and when we talked about lighting in video production today, all I wanted to do was tell her to stop moving the lights around for like, five minutes so I could draw the model with the perfect lighting).

I'll start with my least favorite and weakest feature- the nose. The upper right one is fine, and the bottom definitely has potential, but can someone please tell me what's on the upper left? I don't know what it is and I drew it.

Also not my strongest, but definitely better than my noses. I think they're all about equal except the one on the bottom looks like a skunk with a handlebar moustache.

My eyes are alright. I was drawing from these stone carvings, though, so I feel like they're a little unrealistic because the actual eyeball didn't have any sort of gleam/glare for me to include, so I made it up. and the bottom one is a little incomplete because I told myself I would be done by midnight and I was finishing that one up around 12:05, so I just had to be done! Gotta stick to the plan!

And finally, my favorites. My ears. I just really like how my style makes them look, kind of sketchy and abstracted but at the same time realistic enough to make them look like ears. Once again, I was drawing from stone carvings though so I didn't get a good grasp of what it looks like around them, or where hair would go.

So that's what I did tonight. We start working on a 12 hour session tomorrow, with a real model in class so hopefully I can get everything to work together and start the semester off with two good projects. (And not dig myself into a huge hole like I did last semester).

That was pretty much my day. Nothing too special. I'll end with a quote from one of my all-time favorite movies that you've never heard of, "Kabluey." It's a great movie and I love it dearly and I want to watch it the next time I have more than five minutes to sit and enjoy myself.

"Alright, now, which night-light? Annubis, Egyptian Jackal God? Or melted football shape?"

Good night (or good morning, or good day, depending on who you are)!