A Chocolate Box

Well, my least favorite thing about Spring is the butterflies. I see them everywhere! Today, I was minding my own business, walking back to my room from the library (which has an elevator, apparently…shows you how much I study there), and all of the sudden this big black and yellow butterfly with pointy wings swooped down in front of me and almost attacked me. I momentarily forgot there was a person walking near me and I screamed…out loud, ear splittingly, people turned their heads. I probably turned red. Oh well, what can I do.

But a good thing about Spring: I’m really enjoying my painting class. I’m learning a lot and spending a lot of time in the studio. I can’t believe how fast the semester has been! We’re required to get 4 paintings done in a semester and I originally thought that was ridiculous; I could get at least 6 done! HA! I laugh at how funny I am sometimes. I recently finished my 3rd and just now started my 4th. I enjoy it so much that I created a class for myself next semester: Painting III. None of the classes I wanted were offered, so one of my teachers graciously offered to let me make my own class! I’m really excited for it. I hope I will be able to get a better feel for what I want my Senior Project to be next Spring.

Well, that is basically all my news. Life is kinda slow here. Just waiting for finals and summer to finally come along.

I can’t believe how much time has past since I last posted! I don’t even know what I’ve done since then. There has been a lot of homework, a couple of tests, lots of work, lots of homework, some sleep, and several saltine crackers.

Ok, here’s the cracker story: I love saltines. They are quick, easy, and good travelers. The DC (dining commons on campus) has handy packets containing exactly 2 crackers per packet. Well, most of them have 2. The last batch had some issues and some of them had 3, 1and a  1/2, and I even got one with /2 a cracker! Yes, it is pinned to my wall. That was an outrageous batch. If you can’t tell, I eat a lot of these saltines. At every meal, I stuff a few in my purse for later. Hey, you never know when you will need a little snack to get you through! I have a 3 hour lecture class at night, so I will usually have about 10-20 packets in my purse to share with the poor souls that didn’t bring anything. I went on a weekend retreat for Potter’s Clay, and knew that I needed something to get me through 6 hour car rides. So what did I bring? Chocolate—no—saltines, well, yes chocolate, but mostly saltines. I shared with my car, and it gave us a little extra push to continue for a few more hours. I’ve kinda developed a reputation on campus. I always have crackers with me. I know the cracker system so well, I know when the DC has a new batch. In fact, the other day, the worst part of my day was when the DC got a new batch, and it was only a week since the last batch! And the last batch was a good one! This one is not as good, but I’m hoping they don’t last long. I was really thrown off, and haven’t fully gotten over it yet.

Let’s change topics before I get emotional about the crackers. Potter’s Clay is the next point of discussion. Westmont started this program 30 years ago where a bunch of students go down to Ensenada, Mexico and serve the people down there. Well the bunch has grown to about 300 people. We do VBS, Medical, Dental, Optical, and Construction. Last year was the first year that I went, and I had so much fun!!! I was on the haircutting team, cut about 100 people’s hair, didn’t shower for over 170 hours, and it was great. This year, I’m leading the team! And as such, there was a leadership retreat weekend this Friday-Sunday. I had a blast, met a lot of new and great people, and only spent one dollar. Yes, one dollar. I didn’t eat any tacos or anything; I spent 50¢ each on 2 bottles of Coka Cola. One I drank, and the other will probably be used for some sort of painting project.

Speaking of painting, I’m working on a painting that is a tea mug on a saucer, reflecting in a mirror. It’s nothing special, but I’m sure one day it will be worth millions one day (jk). It is very tricking getting all of the reflected colors to show and blah blah blah *insert a lot of art terms here*. Well, I’m tired (I stayed up til 1:10 last night working on my painting, and then got up early to write an essay) so I think I will wrap this up and go sleepy sleep. Sweet dreams! (ps. I hate how the word “eat” is in “sweat”, but “sweet” is what you eat. I have several issues with the language of English) Night!!!

It has been a crazy couple of weeks! There are many stories to tell, but let me just mention a few.

First, every couple of weeks, the rec. center near State Street will have a live band and the dance floor is open to all swing dancers. I love swing dancing, and a few of my friends have taken/are taking the class at school, so we decided to go! And can I say, it was soooo much fun!!! At first we were all dancing with each other, and getting a feel for the room, and the next thing I knew, I was swinging around the floor with a dear fellow. He was adorable with bright blue eyes, and a great personality. He told me all I needed to know to be able to dance is to bop to the beat, smile a lot, and laugh occasionally. He was a perfect gentleman—and a great dancer too! I didn’t know a man could be so spry at 85! =) I danced with several other guys throughout the night and then the clock stuck 12 and it was time to go. It was such a fun night!!

The next day I worked from 10-3 and it was actually pretty fun. I taught a new co-worker the ropes of the store and we had a great time reorganizing the new products (Burt’s Bees shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lotion).

Sunday I went to church and then Mumzy came to visit! We had lunch and went to a knitting store (which was more of a “flash back in time little craft store” as my roommate calls it). I showed her the painting I just finished, and then she left =( It was so good to see her for a short while, and I’m stoked to see her (and Fabio [my dad] and the Boy [my brother]) next Friday!!

I had my first test of the semester on Tuesday. It was hard. Didn’t do great, but a lot better than the average and the rest of the class. Thankfully there are other things that make up the class grade, and not just tests =/

Wednesdays are my crazy days. Class at 9:15, straight to chapel from 10:30-11:30, lunch, work til 2:10, ballroom/swing class til 3:15, short break, then dinner, and class from 6-9:15. I have a Potter’s Clay meeting from 9-10. It’s a long day, but Thursdays and Fridays are usually pretty chill, so thankfully I don’t have a lot of homework to do Wednesday night.

SO now we are to this weekend. I have a lot of homework to do and not a lot of time in which to do it. For my Wednesday night class, we have to recreate a piece of artwork that is in our Contemporary art “book”. The only one that I could possibly do (meaning getting the materials), is one of chalk graffiti. Jess is also in the class with me so I am very grateful that we were able to get this done together. We were planning on going out and buying chalk, but we didn’t know where to get chalk, and “ain’t nobody got time for that!” so I had the brilliant idea of using baking soda!! Our next task was to find were to do this without people seeing us (the prestigious Monroe Scholar candidates [eligable for full-ride scholarship for 4 years] who might come to Westmont next year are everywhere, and we didn’t want to be in their way…or them to be in our way). Finally we found a spot on campus to recreate the art pieces. Our artist did his graffiti on the wall, but I don’t want to get kicked out of school for vandalism, so we did it on the ground where it’s easy to sweep away. The tricky part was to get my body, lying down) into the position the artist held (standing up). Eventually it worked, and Jess did a fabulous job with hers. To end this story, let me tell you about our way back to our dorm. We are both dressed in black leggings, black shorts, and a black t-shirt. I’m holding my camera, a newspaper, and a box of baking soda, which has left a nice dusting on our dark attire. We hear some voices, which isn’t unusual for a college campus, but then we turned a corner and who should run into us? The Monroe scholars in their nice dresses and heels or suits and ties. Great first impression of their 1st choice school.

Well, I still need to do the rest of my homework for the coming week (and some of last week’s…oops), so I should get on that before President’s Ball tonight. I’m really excited for that. It’s free, on campus, there’s swing dancing, and I’m wearing the dress my grandma gave me, and bright pink pumps to match! Tomorrow I have church, a play that my Theater class requires us to go to, and a EuroSem Ladies’ Night. I don’t know when the homework will get done, but hopefully sometime…

Funnest day of this semester so far!

I worked very hard the last two days to get my homework done so I can have today off. Shoot, I even wrote a 3-page paper that is due on March 4th! Granted, I didn’t do some homework that is due on Thursday, but now I have 2 days to do nothing but 2 assignments and won’t have to worry about that paper in 2 months. Anyway, not the point.

Homework is mostly done and I decided not to do any more. This morning, my lovely roommate and I took our Bibles and read at a coffee shop downtown. Then we decided to go exploring and have some fun. We first went to Art Essentials and found some pretty awesome artsy stuff. Then we went to a thrift store…we think. We don’t know what it was, but Kate found a Kerr jar and I got a retro-looking recipe tin with recipes in it. I doubt I’ll make many of them (if any at all) but I still like it =)

Then we walked a little more and found this shop that was even crazier than the first one! It had everything in it. It wasn’t a thrift store, but it wasn’t a junk yard. It wasn’t organized but it had everything you can possibly imagine in it: tools, a 2007 calendar, records, a bread box, lamps, an old school desk, and an entire wall of drawers (probably 300-500) containing any kind or doorknob and patch. Yes, patches. Feathers, anchors, military stripes, kittens, everything. It was such an obscure place, but exploring was so fun. 

And as if the day wasn’t fun enough, when we got back, we made banana bread…well, banana muffins. It was meant to be bread, but the kitchen didn’t have a bread pan. So we made muffins and they were fantastic! We didn’t have cupcake liners so I had the brilliant idea to use parchment paper. And can I say, do they look adorable!! Thanks, Kate, for spending the day/weekend with me! I’m so glad we were able to actually hang out…more than just doing homework in our room =)

It was such a great day. Still haven’t done homework. Won’t do it til tomorrow. What a rebel!