i've actually been pretty productive since i've been home. but the appeal of a digital camera is just too much for me.
the patio.
a mirror in my parents room. it used to be in mine, and it would scare me at night.
this is actually pretty creepy. it's book through a screen window.
then there's the new picture of me, with the pretty pink fingernails. and don't think there isn't more. oh, there are plenty!
today i went to ames with my mom. it's a two hour trip each way, and my mom talked the entire two hours. both ways. oi vey. i did listen, cause i'm a good girl, but it's sometimes depressing. but it was fun, and we saw some art, ate some good food at cafe phoenix in grinell (where there was a really cute guy) before going to ames (where it's iowa state's greek week--more cute guys) and spending about an hour and a half in copyworks in an attempt to get my senior show invites. the front looks like this:
i'm not sure about the title. i'm always nervous about titling things. it's like giving it a defined something that might not otherwise be there. but, i felt it was necessary. and it totally makes sense. to me, at least. after spending years there and getting a discount because the guy is nice and it wasn't my fault the thing wouldn't print on a normal machine, we went and hung out at my grandparents. my grandmere and granddad have to be the coolest grandparents on the planet. i love going to visit them, and i especially love it when they feed me.
mostly i wanted to show everyone the front of my invite. and say that i saw some good looking guys today. maybe i should have gone to ames for my spring break, lol!
so i'm at home in fun ol' ottumwa. i've been to the doctor, again, and this time there was no poking or prodding. all he could do for me was give me a trial size of flonase and tell me that this wonderful chronic problem i have with my ears is basically not preventable, i just have to live with it and take sudafed or this flonase. nasal sprays are not my forte, so i might have to stick with the sudafed.
i was driving back here yesterday and so badly i just wanted to keep driving to someplace warm. like texas. and go camping. i've never done anything fun for spring break because i never have any money. except freshman year, and then i was just lame.
this morning i critiqued the ottumwa courier. oh lordy, i spent about ten minutes just on the layout problems...then i got to the content. it's just random stuff they throw in wherever they think it fits on the page. what relevance does a helicopter search in houston have in ottumwa? i don't know. *shakes head* i might see if they have a job opening i could have this summer. maybe they need someone to do layout...i might not be the best person on the cornellian staff for it, but i'm better than whoever they've got here.
my mom wants me to work at excel this summer. i don't know what they do, but i would make a lot of money. i bet it's factory work...oh no! i just had a horrible thought...oh yeah, my suspicions confirmed...excel is a "pork processing facility". that is just so wrong and disgusting. i don't think i could work there even for $12/hour. *shudder*
grossgrossgross...
added:
excel's "rap sheet" from the sierra club. ewewew.
i'm still very excited about getting into the salt institute, but it's a little nervewracking to know that i have basically until the end of spring break to find some money to pay the first part of my tuition. they said april 4, but that's a sunday and i think that perhaps i should send it to them before that. the worst part is, since i won't be affiliated with any school, and salt isn't really a school and certainly doesn't process financial aid, i may end up having to take out a $9000 loan to pay for it. i think it'll be worth it, and perhaps i can figure out a way to have some aid, but EEK! it's a little scary.
and apparantly my dad is freaking out again about it. *rolls eyes* that'll be fun to deal with. at least my mom is excited.
i can't wait for my pirate party. everyone should come!
picture from some random website.
(laura thinks i should post more, since i'm paying $4 a month. does this qualify?)
the doctor called me today. i'm "normal." medically. we all know how "normal" i really am.
i really hope that this week is somewhat less crazy than last week. i really do wish it was the weekend already though, we have a date party on saturday and i invited kirsten, laura, and derek. the new actives had better invite them, or there will be problems. or i will just invite them anyway, cause hey, i'm a senior. what are they gonna do to me?
i'm also looking forward to thursday, because i am finally planning on having the pirate party i've been talking about since england. i found this great photo of a guy dressed as a pirate and he's got a speaking bubble...and it's in russian! it's pretty hilarious, i think.
the party i'm not looking forward to is friday night. we're having toga with the delts. now, i'm not really a fan of the delts to begin with, really haven't been for awhile. they're just unpleasant people to deal with, in my opinion. and now, they are having some problems with the cornellian, and i actually think that having a bodyguard would be preferable should i decide to go to said party with the delts. maybe they won't know that i'm a cornellian staff member and all will be fine and dandy.
since i'm speaking about parties, i had a fine weekend. friday night was uneventful, but then on saturday derek imed me about hanging out, and i thought, well, no need to be lame, so i did. i had a half of a bottle of vodka in my body by the time we went to the bars. i also fell off of the papizan and cut my hand somehow. it was a great time. i love my friends.
so i last stopped at friday night. i can't really remember what we did...oh! that's the night that mcdonald's declined my debit card. yes, i caved in and ate at mcdonalds. three times on this trip. i'm so ashamed of myself, i had done so well up until we came back from england. but i promise to not eat there again.
that was not a fun time for me, because i was upset it wouldn't take it. i didn't have any cash, because i was clearly thinking ahead about that part. but it did work out pretty well. after we left mcdonalds, we--we being erika, laura and i--went to the bellagio and watched the water in front. it was so cool, it totally made my day. i was happy after that, and it made me think of oceans eleven. we went back to the hotel, where we were the only sober people. (excluding josh, who is perpetually sober). after everyone had their fair share of alcohol, we went back to the bellagio where i won 25¢ off of a nickel. then i stopped, because i wanted to keep the ticket as a souvenir. i also took pictures in the casino, which is apparanlty not legal for security reasons. i didn't find this out until saturday night at like 2am. eh.
we walked around some more, legally carrying open containers outside.
saturday morning the crowd was somewhat thinner at the conference. my first session was "stories we're missing on our campus." which i don't really remember much. i think laura took notes on that one. then the next one was the photo ethics. at first, i didn't want to go because of the day before, but i actually enjoyed that one. it was more interactive, and even though annoying guy was there, i didn't want to throttle him as much. we looked at photos that could be considered disturbing, and discussed whether or not we would run them. it was definitely interesting to consider.
then was the keynote speaker, don bartletti. he's a photojournalist who won a pulitzer prize. i enjoyed his presentation much, but it was long and not everyone did like it. it really made me want to go out there and DO something, though.
after lunch, my last two sessions were "covering the presidential election" and "april fool's issues: who gets the last laugh." the presidential election one i wasn't sure why i was there, since we don't really cover national issues, and i was shocked at the idea of endorsing a candidate, i did take a lot of notes. and the april fools one turned into one guys story about what not to do. for example, run really rascist stuff and not put a disclaimer. somehow, that doesn't seem so difficult to me.
after buying some souvenirs, we went to the hotel and hung out and drunk for awhile. we ate at the espnzone because josh really wanted to go, and hung out in new york new york before we got our table. i was a little tipsy by dinner. afterwards, we hung out with a couple of guys from a school in new york, and they talked about their trials and tribulations trying to restart their paper, and got some ideas for things from us. it was kinda cool, but i really wanted to go to the luxor and take pictures, and nobody was going anywhere. it was finally about 2am, and i was about to leave, but derek waslike, i don't want you go to alone. thanks, dad. so i waited for 20 minutes (not patiently, i might add) for him to put his shoes on so i could leave. really, i was just going across the street, so i don't know what he was being so protective about. i went around london by myself at night. i know it's not the same as las vegas, but the idea is the same. gah. so i finally got to go to bed at like 3am.
sunday morning was even more sparse than saturday. it was one session, laura and i went to one about blogging. it was...so much fun...haha. then it was the keynote speaker, harlan cohen. he was pretty funny, actually. when it was all over, we had our luggage at the alexis with us, and we just hung out by the pool for like three hours before we took a taxi to the airport. i got a serious sunburn, and i'm now peeling like mad. the flight was almost an hour late in taking off because of nascar, and all the private jets. so we thought we would miss our flight to chicago. but it turns out they held it for us, disgruntling other passengers already on that flight. after a mishap in the public transportation to liz's, we got into our cars at about 2am and started for our drive back to mt. vernon. we pulled in at around 6:30 am, and i got to go to bed at 7. it was a very long night. and derek wasn't much help in his incoherent state. where is a tape recorder when you need one? : )
that's a (not so) brief description of the trip to vegas.
i'm currently having some issues regarding my senior show. i finally have an idea of what i'm going to do, so that's not the problem. it's more like, the people i'm showing with and i (minus heather) decided to do invites together. initally, it was going to be postcards, which i'm cool with. but they (well, one) decided it was too much money--even though it would be divided by three people--and came up with another idea. handmade invitations. not so bad in itself. these, though, would be triangular and pop up in three sections. like yes, pop up invites. i'm not sure how i feel about this, aside from the labour it would involve which i really want nothing to do with ANYWAY. yeah...so i'm just trying to figure it out. and i'm mad about the idea of it not being an open reception, because i want to be able to invite everyone. although i understand the cost issue and getting around sodexho.
gah...too much to consider. it would be a lot easier if i was doing this by myself. there would be no question as to how to do things.
and people think being an art major is the easy way out!
i was going to keep writing yesterday, but i had to go home for a doctor's appointment this morning. i mean, the appointment was this morning, i went home last night. i watched rachael ray on the food network instead of doing anything.
so on friday morning of our trip, after listening to about half of the group snoring all night, we walked to the alexis after getting ready for the first session. mine was a photo one, "digital or film: shooting tips + what makes a good picture." what we did was the last part, what makes a good picture, and then we looked at the speaker's work for the last 40 minutes of the session. (meanwhile, there was an annoying guy who kepy talking and i wanted to throttle him. gah!) overall, i was like, well, i guess i kinda learned something, i suppose and went to the next one, a design one, with kirsten. it was kinda cool, but we never got to the questions. then was the keynote speaker, who i don't remember, and lunch. i was cheap and ate bagels with orange marmalade. until then, i fortified myself with coffee.
my first one in the afternoon was writing a music review. these were two canadian guys, and they cracked me up. i was listening for them to say "oot" and "aboot" and secretly, i laughed. they weren't entirely prepared for what they were going to say, but they did have a handout, and they knew what they were talking about. unlike a lot of my other sessions. then i was SUPPOSED to go to a photo editing session. haha...so they guy was not even the one who was originally going to speak. plus annoying guy was in there. and the whole thing turned into a discussion about photo ethics...which was a session i was going to on friday...all in all, i was not happy about the situation. plus, my blisters hurt. okay, so i survived it, clearly, but i was annoyed. the last one of the day was a movie review session. tilford was my companion, and that was...interesting, i guess. i don't know why i was there really, but i diligently took notes to pass on to our entertainment editor. with whom i was supposed to go to a photo critique, but since we didn't have any photos, we sat by the pool. it was pretty sweet.
my arm hurts. will continue later.
before i begin telling my vegas story, i want to congratulate lane and tina on the birth of the wee tomato. he's so cute!
...okay, so now on to vegas. we were leaving on wednesday to drive to chicago. i thought we were leaving at, oh, 3ish after everyone got out of class. by the time we actually left it was closer to 4:45--guess who was holding everyone up. yeah, the one guy. i had planned on stopping in iowa city, because i had failed to pick up slide sheets on my previous two visits and i needed to send in my application to the salt institute. of course, by the time we got there, the post office was closed, so i had to carry the thing around with me until i could find one. i was a little more than annoyed by that.
we got to birkel's a little after 10, and we hung out at her place. it was a lot of fun, but i think i got a little tipsy. i did drink those three beers pretty fast, i guess. we got some hilarious quotes for the anthem wall too. "i've never seen a toilet do that before!", and so on. we sort of slept for a few hours, but were at the L around 4am. i didn't think things like that ran that late. or early. we checked in at the airport, sat around, and then boarded and flew on to las vegas. it's so warm there! it was so nice. it was also really cool because we flew over zion, and i love the landscape. it's even cooler from above, and it's amazing how something so big looks so small. (i'm always amazed by that.)
so anyway, our taxi driver was really nice and gave us some tips on places to eat and things. but we got to our hotel, the tropicana, and we couldn't check in until 2. so we had about four hours to kill. we checked our baggage and decided that our smelly selves would head on over to the alexis, where the conference was, and also get some lunch. we took a really long way around the mgm grand, and also turned left when we should have turned right. meanwhile, i was wearing laura's clogs with socks that had no elastic, and therefore had some really fun blisters that i tried to avoid the rest of the trip, gaining even more blisters and shinsplints. it was a good way to start the trip, i might say.
well, after we found the alexis, we kept on walkign trying to find this place with $1.99 burgers. we didn't see it, but stopped somewhere else that had hamburgers, hamburger mary's, instead. it was alright, but they wouldn't let me get a kid's meal. just because i'm over the age of ten does not mean i want to eat ten pounds of meat on my burger, folks. seriously.
anyway, we stopped in the alexis to look around the place, and they convinced me to ask about mailing my application. i had been carrying it around, i wouldn't even check it on the plane--i would not let the thing out of my sight. it was ridiculous, really. so i mailed it finally and we hung out for awhile before heading back to the tropicana.
it was so sweet to be able to shower and put on clean clothes.
we had to walk back to the alexis, because there was a keynote speaker, followed by pizza. the speaker i really don't remember other than he talked about war, and it was not a very good speech. i couldn't really stay awake, so i don't know any details about it. the pizza wasn't really any good either. we went back to our hotel room, because we were trying to find the other group who was flying in later. i think we stopped at a souvenir shop, and looked around some other places before we got back to the hotel. i think that was the night of the pointless "thesis party" in our room, were derek and katie kind of sort of worked on their papers, but really most people just drank and we all hung out before passing out. it was really a very long day.
and now i have to go get ready for work. i will finish my fun story later!
i think that was the catchphrase for the trip. that and "darkness!" and "i'm rick james, bitch!"
we clearly had a fantastic time, outside of a few snags as far as the actual travel part goes. i have a sunburn now, but the blisters and the shinsplints are okay. and my pictures turned out great, other than a few where i didn't roll the film very well. grr.
i'm going to post about it sometime, but i want it to be coherent. so...i will leave with this:
she's totally cool, and she's giving me some money because i don't have any. i heart her. and tomorrow we're going to chicago, and the day after vegas! i'm so super excited!
