Slide

I just got this new shirt, with lyrics from a song by Rachael Yamamgata, called "Would You Please", from her EP. The full lyrics are, "Would you please let me slide a few words under your door / The first three say I love you / The last five / but I can't no more."

Yeah.

School is back in for the Spring. I have to make a serious effort to be organized, because I have a lot of work to do in all of my classes—Writing for Mass Media, Digital Graphic Design, Intermediate Photography I, and Graphic Design I. So, that will mean that I'll have even less time to draw recreationally, but I'll be posting more stuff related to photography and graphic design.

When I got my fin-aid funds, I took the opportunity to buy a few new CDs. Actually, they were free, I just paid shipping and handling (BMG Music is great for that).

What I got:
—Avril Lavigne - Under My Skin ****
—Three Days Grace - self titled ***
—Yellowcard - Ocean Avenue ***
—Alicia Keys - The Diary of Alicia Keys ****
—JoJo - self-titled **

And while I'm rating entertainment I'll go ahead and give some movie recommedations. I just saw Coach Carter twice this weekend. It was that good. The story was engaging, even though I don't know how much it was actually factual. It had nice character development, and it wasn't all about the basketball, which I really appreciated. What I appreciated more what that Ashanti could actually act. My only crit would be that Ashanti has a distinctive Philly accent, and the character she was playing was from Cali. Other than that, she was great. Rob Brown has grown up nicely since Finding Forrester. He's so natural. But one performance that stood out to me in particular was that of Rick Gonzalez, as the conflicted character of Timo Cruz. I've had my eye on him ever since I first saw him in The Rookie, but that was just because I thought he was cute (He's got a purty mouth). But now it's refreshing to see that he's actually a pretty good actor. Even so, the other supporting actors were good in their respctive roles as well. I'm not gonna go spoiling the movie plot, so I don't want to say anthing else about the movie other than it was really good, and I went away quite entertained and satisfied both times I left the theatre.

I'll conclude with a photo I neglected to post on my last entry. I found this bottle of lotion on my dresser in my room. I don't know who it belongs to, but I found the packaging and product name amusing enough to share.


The label reads:
Enriched with Natural Canabis
Sativa hemp seed extract
THC Drug Free

Overrun

I've got some photos from the last two months that I've been wanting to post. We have way too many dogs at my house right now, the current count being six, not including the puppies.


Ana is my sister Nicole's puppy. I think they look alike.

Ana sleeping in the car.

Jaime, with his intense ice-blue eyes, is the mastermind of the litter. Every time the puppies escaped from the backyard, he was the ringleader. The day this pic was taken, he had gotten out of the fence yet again, and my sis decided to bring him with her to pick me up from school.

One day, for whatever reason, Max decided to break a board out of the fence, and hop through the resulting hole. He chain wasn't long enough and he couldn't get back through. My dad found him like this the next morning. He was lucky that he didn't hang himself. The pups we have right now are Max's grandchildren. They get their blue eyes from him.

This one has ice blue eyes as well. He was the quiet loner. We gave him to a friend of my little sister.

The puppies play around Nicole's legs.

A Personal Problem

Ok, here’s a hypothetical (possibly could have happened to me) situation.

Let’s say, for example, that I’ve been occasionally talking to a certain male on the phone. The last time I talk to them, they end the conversation prematurely and say that they’ll call me back. So, the next day, I call him back to see how he’s doing, but he doesn’t answer his phone. Then less than a minute later, I get a call back, and there’s a young lady on the phone who asked me if I dialed the number I just dialed. So I say yes. Then the young lady asks me who I’m calling for. Duh! I’m calling the person who the cell phone belongs to, I say to myself. But I tell her the guy’s name. And she’s like, “He’s busy. Can I take a message?” So I say just to tell him that I called.

Say, I don’t really trust the sound of the young lady’s voice, or that she’ll give the guy my message, so I call back a couple of hours later and he answers the phone. I ask him if he got my message and if he’s busy. He says yeah. I ask him what he’s doing, and he says he’s “visiting with some friends.” Hmm. Okay. So I ask him if he’ll call me back later, and he’s all vague. Whatever.

Let’s say, just for kicks, that a young lady calls back a few minutes later—the same one who answered the phone before—and tells me her name, and then asks me if the guy told me that he had a girlfriend. I say no. (I’d actually met her a few days before and he introduced her to me as his “friend.” And she didn’t seem to have a problem with it then. But she doesn’t know that I am same person that had called.) Then she says that she doesn’t like other girls/women calling her man. So what? I’m thinking, Sounds like a personal problem to me, I think. But I say, “Ok, thanks. Bye.”

That was me being nice. Hypothetically, I could have told the young lady that all out of all the conversations that the gentleman and I had, he never once mentioned his girlfriend, and actually gave the impression that he was single. And when a friend of mine asked him about his girlfriend, he got all indignant and didn’t want to talk about it. That should have let me know right there, but I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, because I hadn’t known him long enough and didn’t want to jump to conclusions. I wasn’t even trying to go with the guy. But seriously, he's trying to hide the girl to the end. I ask him what he's doing and he says, "I'm visiting with some friends," rather than, "I'm visiting my girlfriend in another state, and I'm with her right now, so please stop calling me because she suspects my fidelity and is jealous, so stop calling me."

So, the point of this possible situation is just to say that if your significant other is ashamed to mention you for whatever reason—and you conveniently happen to live in another state—don’t get mad at the person who has been calling them. That person needs to ask why their boyfriend/girlfriend has been trying to hide their existence, and probably going around flirting with other people. That’s just really immature and crazy.

I am too old to have to be dealing with this kind of mess.

But I am reminded:

"Continue putting up with one another and forgiving one another freely if anyone has a cause for complaint against another.Even as Jehovah freely forgave you, so do you also." —Colossians 10:13

Spoiled

I just got back from taking my little sister and her friend to a high school basketball tournament that was 30 miles away in the middle of nowhere. What fun. Alabama is great for that. Not to mention the horribly inaccurate directions my mom gave me from yahoo!. Driving down and dark, sinuous highway when you don't know where you're going isn't the best way to spend a Saturday night. It's a good thing her school won, otherwise. . .

The team is rather good, though. They're currently undefeated I actually enjoy watching basketball very much. I guess I like the physicality of the game the most, how the players are aggressive, yet graceful, all at the same time. My dad always says, "Basketball is a contact sport." And I believe that's true in a sense. (I'm in no way referring to the brawl that broke out between those players and fans that has created so much controversy recently.)

Then there's school. Sigh. I'm so ready for it to be over. I'm on break right now, so I've been taking it easy. I still have a lot of art work from Figure Drawing that I need to upload. I'm finally done with that class (I had to have three), but Claire (my instructor), said that I could come back anytime to the class and draw, so hopefully I'll have time between my two intensive graphic design classes and photography to do it. I shudder just thinking of all the lab hours I'm going to spend on campus next semester.

We'll see how often I get to update then.

Something Old, Something New

The photos are up>> Club Underpants

Today is the last day of classes for the semester and I'm currently skipping two of them. Such a great idea right before the final, right? I still have so much reading to catch up on in World Lit, it's quite sad.

On a personal note, my fiancé and I are no longer together, so Sharon (me) has been sad panda recently. But, I believe that it's for the best, for both of us. It seems we're doing more growth apart than we were doing together, so that's positive. Still, being with someone for so long (two years) you get used to certain things, like them always being there, or always being able to call them. However, this caused me to have a lack of friends outside of that relationship, so now I'm able to branch out and meet more people, i.e, the attendance of Club Underpants.

Now my sister Nicole is talking about wanting to go to Italy next summer. I'm supposed to be going with her, so we'll see how it goes.

checking in

I went to an awesome party Saturday night in Pensacola, FL (about 45 minutes from Mobile). It was hosted by a very cool guy we met last weekend named Jarad. I've got lots of pics that I'll be posting soon, so stay tuned.

Last weekend my sister Nicole and I went to Pensacola to volunteer with the Jehovah's Witness Relief effort that was going on there, to help repair the damage done to people's homes by Hurricane Ivan. We had an awesome time, we stayed for two days and didn't have to spend any money hardly, because we were fed breakfast, lunch (which as brought to us on the work site), and dinner. Now I can put roof-stripping (there's a whole inside joke around that phrase) experience on my resumé. It was a very worthwhile and spiritually-upbuilding experience.

braids & n ails

I've got cornrows and my nails painted—two things I haven't done in a very long time. Laura did them and they look really cute, but they're itching like crazy. . .the braids I mean. I'll take them down tomorrow so my hair will be crinkley.

Things haven't changed much. I still need to be more studious in school. I made an 76 on my last English test. I'm pretty sure I can pull out with a B, but an A could still be possible if I make good on my final paper. I really dislike essay tests, but I seem to be pretty good at them, so I guess it's good that I don't hate them because I'm always failing them. It turns out that my English professor knows my granddfather. In fact, the interviewed him as part of his doctorate dissertation. Pretty interesting. Too bad that didn't help me out on the test. . .

j/k. ;)

Slacking

Lately I've been slacking so much at everything it's really pathetic. Apparently I'm not doing that bad in school, though, because I got invited to join a national honour society. Still, I think I totally bombed my World Lit test that I took on Tuesday. I'm so behind on the reading in that class, and I still have to memorize some poem for recitation today.

I have been somewhat productive though. I'd been working on a logo design for a local pediatrician who is about to open up her own practice. She loved what I came up with and now I've been tapped to design her opening announcement post cards. It's good to actually be putting my design skills to work after two semesters off from it.

This past weekend I went to the Mobile Arts & Crafts Fair. There were significantly fewer artists in attendance, I wonder if it has anything to do with the aftermath of hurricane Ivan, or what. We tend to forget that people are still recovering from the damage. But while I was there, I took pictures of the Azalea Trail Maids. It's a local thing, where high school girls dress up in brighly colored ante bellum type dresses and attend local events acting as ambassadors for the city of Mobile. They each get their dress custom made, and it's not cheap either. But I guess it's a cool thing to do if you have a lot of free time and a couple of thousand dollars just lying around.





Monday, I was sitting in the car, parked behind a florist shop, waiting for my sister to pick up her sewing maching that she was having fixed, and this man who workd at the florist brought us out two vases with two roses each for both of us. How randomly cool is that. My roses have since bloomed, and they look so beautiful. ^_^





I saw Ray this weekend. Jaime Fox's performance was definitely Oscar-buzz worthy. The supporting cast was really great as well.

Bayfest 2004

Lots of pics as promised. Two weekends ago my sister Nicole and I attended Bayfest, a local music festival. We got to see Three Days Grace and Seether. They both rocked. Breaking Benjamin (only caught the end of their performance) and Collective Soul also performed. We had this really booty experience I'll only mildly refer to as the Back-Stage-Pass Fiasco. Other than that it was pretty cool. What was uncool was people throwing bottles across the crowd.

Also, there are before and after photos of Licorice. Two of the black puppies have died since then. =(

Life Cycle

At home. . .
Three days ago my dog, Licorice, gave birth to a litter of six. Yesterday, the runt died, and I had to bury it. My sister Nicole is terribly squeamish about such things. However, all the rest of the puppies seem pretty healthy. We plan on taking them to the vet when they're a bit older just to make sure. The last litter of puppies we had were infested with worms, which caused the death of three out of eight, so that is still a potential hazard.

Hopefully, everything will go well. The last litter also had to be bottle fed for some weeks because their mother developed mastitis, which is an infection of the mammary gland.

At school. . .
I'm so terrible with my World Literature class. I had mostly been caught up by all the reading by the first test, which was last Thursday. (I think I did pretty well on it.) And now I'm behind again, with the Song of Roland. And, instead of reading it now, I'm hopelessly typing away in the University Library.

In entertainment. . .
Jamaal has got me hooked on the Sims2. It's an awesome game. I just created sims from my characters and put them in a little neighborhood. What I hate, though, is that you have to do everything for them, including making them go to the bathroom.

If you like smart romantic comedies based on Shakespeare, rent Deliver Us from Eva

Well, now I'm off to waste more time surfing deviantART

breaking the habit

I've got a World Lit test at 11:00, and I have less than an hour left to study. I should have done it last night, but decided instead to work on my business card for another class. Then I remembered that I only have that class once a week. (It's supposed to be on Tuesday and Thursday.)

Wish me luck. :/

Last week I had my first test in Sociology. I missed two days of class including the review before the test. The test had been pushed back to last Thursday because of the hurricane, but I forgot. So I walk in class and everyone looks to be studying. Shoot. So I quickly glance over my notes. I hadn't bought a text book because it's rediculously overpriced, and I'm only taking this class to fill space. So I was going to see how I did on the first test and then decide whether or not I need to buy the book. I made an 88 on the test, so no book for me. It missed making an A by one question. So it seems that had I not missed those two days of class, I would have made that A.

8 AM

The only reason I'm up this early is because I had to get up to take Jamaal to his postal examination, which began at 7:30. Today is the first day of school since the hurricane so traffic was a bit much. My sister told me I look like a soccer mom with the hat on. I've had it over a year, but I'm not a hat person, so this is my first time wearing it.

I've got a lot of stuff to do to day so I guess it's good that I'm up early. I've got to finish my homework for figure drawing, redesign my business card for professional practices, and finish reading Ovid's Metarmorphoses for tomorrow. I also have to study with Jamaal, and ink my Dyanna & Neera drawing.

::Nicole just walked in, harassing me::

I guess I'll go now.

Oh. . . If you haven't seen it already, rent Mean Girls. It's not a chick flick. It's a really smart comedy.

Ivan Survivor

So I made it through my first hurricane. Now I have one more story to bore my kids with in the future.

For a while, it looked like the eye of Hurricane Ivan was going to hit Mobile. But it veered off at the last moment and completely trashed Pensacola, FL. I think people are just starting to be able to go back home in that area. I was very fortunate in particular. My family had a generator going through the whole ordeal (with the power going out at around 9:30 PM Wednesday), and only had to go without power for a day and a half. There are still people having to stand in line to get clean water, and searching for reasonably priced generators to buy, because they're still without electricity.


a tree fallen through a garage, with the car inside. =(

For a few days there was a dusk til dawn curfew to keep the homes of evacuees from being looted. It was very eerie driving around at night to approach intersections that were completely dark. No flashing caution lights or anything. Three traffic lights on University Boulevard were blown to pieces, literally, and the sign at the Shell gas station across the street was totaled. My university was quick to get things back up and running. Classes resumed today. Public schools, however, are out indefinitely, or until, next Monday at least. On the down side, I didn't get any reading done for my World Lit class, so I'll have to cram it all in tonight. Things are definitely getting back to normal.

Storm Watch

Looks like Hurricane Ivan is headed my way. My hometown (Mobile, AL) is right in the projected path of the storm. The last category 5 hurricane to hit my area was Fredrick in 1979, three years before I was born. My dad said that after the storm he saw rows of pine trees that were snapped off at the top. That's some pretty strong stuff. People are stocking up on supplies at Wal-Mart now, and the storm is expected to hit sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning. I don't have to worry about flooding in my part of town, but some trees might fall over. On a positive note, I won't have to go to school for two days.

The last hurricane I can remember actually making it to Mobile was hurricane Danny a few years ago. I think I was in high school then. The funny thing is that the storm didn't come on land. It just stopped in the bay, and kept sucking all the water out, pouring all this rain onto the city for like three days straight. That was pretty weird.

Justin & Jonathan

I got some new pets.

Their names were inspired by the movie The Secret of NIMH. They're brothers. Jonathan is the dominant one, but he's more afraid of people than Justin.

It looks like all our hard work paid off:

"Oracle has won the University and College Designers Association Award of Excellence and the latest issue will be exhibited in the UCDA 34th Annual Design Competition Show."

So, that's something more to put on my resumé. Amanda, the design editor, really deserves props for getting everything organized at such short notice. Still, they're calling for editors and design staff, so I guess I'll join up once again. And I still have time to produce some decent artwork in time to submit to the issue.

But procrastination still seems very likely. . .

Fall Semester '04 & pics

So I'm back in school for the fall. I've got four classes this semester, and I think I'll be a senior in the Spring. . . finally. I'm so ready to be done with school.

I have new pics that I should have uploaded weeks ago. But better late. . .




Jamaal totalled his car =(


Two weeks ago I have a very eventful weekend. I attended a baby shower for the first time, went to Florida with Jamaal, where I got a nifty new cell phone. ^_^ The next day he totalled his car. His airbag didn't go off, but he's ok.

summer class '04 finale; The Village, Bourne Supremacy

School is finally over for the summer, so I get a month break, right?

Wrong.

This morning I get a call from my good friend Nestor, asking me to take him to get car and then follow him to the auto repair place so he'd have a ride back home. Actually, he called Jamaal, but I had his phone. I also had Jamaal's car, so he couldn't take him. And all this transpires before 7:30 a.m.

Well, at least I got free breakfast out of it.

.

I saw The Village last night. It was good. Typical M. Night Shyamalan surprise-ending, but the story was very engaging as well, with a very character-driven plot. I'm not gonna give anything away, but the music really made the movie. I mean, they're be all this scary, moody music, and then nothing would happen, which lulls the into a false sense of security, then BAM! something happens. The suspense was great.

Last weekend I saw The Bourne Supremacy. It had an awesome car-chase scene at the end, but the plot wasn't quite fulfilling just, but more so than the first. I anticipate a third installment of the film some time soon.

Summer semester is winding down, this being the last week of classes and all. Photography is still quite expensive, but I really like it. Hopefully I'll have the photography page up by the end of next week. I still have to shoot my final photography project, which consists of five images with a uniting them, and we have to shoot five rolls of film for the project. That's the only drawback. So, it's gonna be a busy weekend. I'll have to shoot two rolls of film today and develop it tonight so I can turn in my contact sheets for review tomorrow. The lab opens at 5:00 p.m., which doesn't leave me much time.
 
The lab is going to be a madhouse this weekend, with everyone trying to get their stuff done. And I've still got to buy matte board because out final prints have to be matted. The good thing is that we've got a matte-cutting machine, which we didn't have in my graphic design classes. I still get shivers thinking about all the mattes I had to cut, and all the ones I'll have to cut in the future.
 
Speaking of graphic design, I still can't get into those classes I really need, so I've resorted to taking classes I don't really need just so I can get all my financial aid for the fall. I was planning on graduating by next December, but now I'm not so sure. That really puts a damper on things. I wanted to take intermediate photography, but that's not offered until the spring, so once again I have to wait. However, I can still use the photo lab as long as I pay the lab fee, which is a nice concession.
 
Hopefully it'll all work out.

It totally sucks that I missed the first two days of web registration and now the two classes that I really need to take this fall are closed. Maybe somebody will drop and I'll be able to get in. . . not very likely, though.
 
What sucks even more is that the lower level Graphic Design courses are still open, but I've already taken all of them, and then I've taken all my other basic requirement courses, so all that's left for me to take are upper-level courses. : (