+ recent iTunes dloads:
· "Helena" and "I'm Not Okay (I Promise) by My Chemical Romance
· "Hands Down" by Dashboard Confessional

Yeah. I'm really feeling the emo/ansty music at the moment. The lyrics are always amazingly introspective, and I love that.

So, I went to photo class today and it was worth it. After a few people presented their artist response papers, we watched a video on Richard Avedon. I'd never heard of him before today, even though he's a very influential photographer. I was very inspired by his portrait photography. I'd like to try some shoots that emulate his style, just for experimentation.

I went to the hair stylist today and got a new cut. I like it lots. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up. Next I want to get some highlights. I haven't dyed my hair in over a year because it's been damaged (mainly because I did it myself), but now that I've been going to my stylist regularly I think I'll try it again. My sister told me that I'm not a real artist because I don't have a cool hair style. I don't know about hair styles being a definitive measure of artistic devotion, but I agree that I needed a change. I truly wish that I could dye my hair extreme colors, but I refrain because would like to maintain a modicum of modesty with my appearance due to Christian values. Still there's always room for individuality, which I mostly express through my shirts with pithy sayings and little accents in the form of Strawberry Shortcake buttons.

^_^

+ listening to: "Everything" by Alanis Morissette

Well, I don't really feel any better than I did last night.

Today I'm going to the hair stylist and I'm planning on a drastic style change. I've been entertaining the idea of getting my hair cut short for years. Now it looks like I'm finally gonna do it. My sisters don't believe I have the guts, so I guess that gives me more impetus to go ahead with it. I'd really like to get some highlights as well, but I don't think I can afford it right now, and my hair is recovering from previous damage.

Anyway, I think a change will do me good.

I'm seriously considering not going to photo class today. We have a paper due, which I have barely started, and I don't know if it's my day to go.


:sigh: It's now 9:11. I guess I'll get ready to go to class. I've just considered some things I need to take care of.

feelin' that feeling

Let me tell you something
Tell you how I feel
When he comes around
I get to feelin ill
It's a achy feelin inside my chest
It's like I'm going into cardiac arrest

Adrenaline rushing in my body
All my power I just can't fight it
No matter how I keep on tryin'
I can't deny I got this...heartburn
Burnin in my soul
Call the fire department
It's out of control

—from "Heartburn" by Alicia Keys

+ listening to: "what if" by coldplay

Looking through alumni of my high school on the thefacebook.com I began to think back to the kind of people I went to high school with. A lot of people have joined fraternities and sororities (I try not to hold it against them).

Then my thoughts traveled to senior honors day. It was a program held near the end of the year in which scholarships were announced and awards were given out for the people with the highest averages in academic subjects and electives. There was one girl who received an award from her church. The presenter of the award told of what a nice and respectable young woman she was, and how honored she was of to be giving her the award?or something to that effect. The girl was overcome with emotion and teared up. I'm pretty sure she didn't know she was getting the award, so it made for a nice little moment.

The entire time, this is playing out, I'm thinking of what type of person she was in class. She was in my government and economics class, and we weren't friends, and I don't think we ever had an actual conversation. I do distinctly recall herbehaviorr in class. She wasn't disruptive or anything, but she did use pretty foul language quite often. I know for a fact that I almost definitely would not have remembered that about her had it not been for her getting the award for her commitment to her church.

Though I was 18 at the time (God, almost 5 years ago), I guess I was pretty naive. I knew that people acted differently with their peers than they did with their parents and other authority figures. That wasn't new to me. I was aware of the hypocrisy of it all, and was, and still am, turned off by it. I'll even admit that I don't act exactly the same around my parents as I do when they're not around. I just recall being so absolutely astounded that this girl was receiving an award, and she had the audacity to be touched by it, like she deserved it. I mean, sure, she probably was really devoted at church and was not a bad person. But that little incident in class just stuck out in my mind. If she was like that at school?so casually using very vulgar language?then how was she when she was elsewhere.

I'm not sure if I have a point, and I may come out sounding like a big hypocrite. I'm just expressing my feeling at that point in time. It was definitely a wake-up call to the ways of the world. I see it more today, and it still gets on my nerves. It's not the fact that the person is doing non-Christian things. It's the fact that they proclaim to be a Christian, but it only last for an hour a week. No, even that doesn't isn't it. It's the fact that they get praised for their few good efforts, when that's not really, truly, the type of person they are, "having some for of godly devotion but proving false to its power."

Stop Thinking About Her

Gone, she's gone
How do you feel about it
That's what I thought
You're real torn up about it
And I wish you the best
But I could do without it
And I will, because you've worn me down
Oh, I will, because you've worn me down

Worn me down like a road
I did everything you told
Worn me down to my knees
I did everything to please
But you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her

And you're wrong, you're wrong
I'm not overreacting
Something is off
Why don't we ever believe ourselves
And I, oh, I feel that word for you
And I will, because you've worn me down
Oh, I will because you have worn me down

Worn me down like a road
I did everything you told
Worn me down to my knees
I did everything to please
But you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her

She's so pretty; she's so damn right
But I'm so tired of thinking
About her tonight

Worn me down like a road
I did everything you told
Worn me down to my knees
I did everything to please
But you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her

Worn me down like a road
I did everything you told
Worn me down to my knees
I did everything to please
Worn me down like a road
I did everything you told to me to do
But you, you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her
No, you can't stop thinking about her

—"Worn Me Down" by Rachael Yamagata

Carpe Diem

+ listening to: "tongue-tied" by Aqualung

Yesterday my friend Kevin treated me to my first outing to a little coffe house called Carpe Diem.







finis.

+ listening to: "crawling in the dark" by hoobastank

"In the homes of the black and white Americans of the same cultural and economic level one finds similar furniture, literature, and conversation. How, then, can the black American be expected to produce art and literature dissimilar to that of the white American?

Consider Coleridge-Taylor, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Claude McKay, the Englishmen; Pushkin, the Russian; Bridgewater, the Pole; Antar, the Arabian; Latino, the Spaniard; Dumas, pere and fils, the Frenchmen; and Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles W. Chestnut, and James Weldon Johnson, the Americans. All Negroes; yet their work shows the impress of nationality rather than race. They all reveal the psychology and culture of their environment?their color is incidental. Why should Negro artists of America vary from the national artistic norm when Negro artists in other countries have not done so?"

–from ?The Negro Art Hokum?, 1926 article by George Schuyler

More than once people have asked me why I don't draw more "black" people (males in particular). It's not an common question, but it has come up. So, while I may not agree with the article as a whole, I sympathize with the general idea. My art reflects my surroundings and my upbringing.

I could go way more in depth with my views and feelings about race and stereotypes. . .but I'm not. I'll just point out that I like to draw characters that are racially ambiguous. Of course, all of them have specific ethnicities and cultural backgrounds that I have in mind for them, but unless they're colored, I think, the viewer isn't really sure. Also, I don't draw a lot of males in general, because I'm not that good at it. I'm working on it, though. So, my lack of African-American male figures has nothing to do with my dislike of that particular group. On the contrary, it's because I don't want to do them injustice that I don't attempt to draw them much, if that makes any sense. Since I can't quite execute artistically the idealized version of said male, I stay on the safe side and draw other things (people) that I'm more confident in portraying–like pretty young women. ^_^

+ listening to: "not for all the love in the world" by The Thrills
+ mood: completely disoriented

I was awakened this morning by the wringing of my cell phone. It was on the other side of the room by my computer. I jumped out of the bed to answer it as I realized that I may have overslept for class. As I went for the phone. I looked at my alarm clock: 8:49.

Shoot.

I hastily answered, and after having a brief chat with my younger sister about her anxieties about turning in her argumentative essay on blood transfusion alternatives, I rushed to get ready.

Fully dressed, I went back to look at the clock. 9:02 a.m. My class doesn't start until 10:10. I don't know what was going on with my mind. It is now 9:11, so I've got about an hour to kill before class. I could be productive and work on sketches for my children's book, or layout for my web site design project. . . in so doing, actually being productive, for once.

Well, the first thing I'll do is go find some grub, because I'm always starving after my studio classesÃ?–they last two and a half to almost three hours, and we can't eat in the computer lab. I'll see what happens after that, and return this afternoon with a progress report.