Meet Sammie!

We got a new member of the family on Monday from the Paris Animal Shelter...meet Sammie (or Samantha). She is certainly doing everything she can to fit in - including climbing into chairs and sitting at the table after we finished dinner Monday night. But she's a 2 yr old Black Lab, and has just been real calm so far. She likes to climb on me though if I'm sitting on the ground or just put her paws in my lap if I'm sitting in a chair. But it's all been good and it's nice having a dog around the house.

Other news...I made Dean's List (3.5 GPA and higher)!! I had a 3.66 for the semester (B+, A, A, B+). Yay! I'm so happy about that, especially when compared to my other semesters at Alabama. As Mrs. K pointed out tonight, this time last year I had no idea what I would be majoring in and what college I'd be at in the fall. I'm still doing some serious work to get my GPA up to a reasonable point after freshman year (stupid Biology...), but it's getting there. Hopefully my overall GPA will be reasonable by the time I graduate...

For a non-cumulative test, it sure covered everything from this semester.

I made it through finals week. It was a little iffy there when I got my Western Civ review sheet and learned exactly what my teacher meant by "non-cumulative". As an example , the key term section -

"You will be asked to answer a series of basic questions on a variety of key terms (key terms, that is to say, provided on previous exam guides). Note that material from previous geography and basic chronology questions may appear."

And let's not even talk about the possible questions for the longer comprehensive essay:

1) Evaluate the balance sheet of Western Civilization. In what ways do art, monuments, ideas, economy and so on tell a story of progress and achievement? In what ways and why does the story often seem "uncivilized", or one of oppression, exploitation, or regression? How do we explain that a "civilization" can be "uncivilized"? Be sure to draw your examples evenly from across the ancient, medieval, and early-modern periods!
2) Evaluate the relationships between secular power and religion across the ancient, medieval, and early-modern periods. What specific people, ideas, or events illustrate some basic things about those relationships? What about the relationships seems to have remained constant over time and what seems to have changed? Be sure to draw your examples evenly from across the ancient, medieval, and early-modern periods!

That was not what I was expecting, let me tell you. I typed out all of the notes that would be relevant to the review sheet and ideas for the essays - 23 pages. I don't want to know what a cumulative test review sheet would look like in my teacher's opinion.

I survived finals week though. :) And with good grades. It's nice to be in classes pertaining to a subject that I love.

Dead (or not so Dead) Week

The library got ready for all the people studying this week and next week. This was in the Art/Music floor of Gorgas on Saturday when I went up there to work on my Gothic Revival Architecture paper (worth 30 extra credit points in History). I believe they're anticipating a lot of laptops being up there, especially since the library's open 24/7 until the 14th.

Well by this time next week I will be done with three out of my four classes. I will be completely finished on the 14th. I've already finished my Drawing class and turned in my final earlier today. My final for Design is due at noon on Friday. The Art department doesn't believe in Dead Week apparently. You're not supposed to have any projects/papers due during this week, but if it stops me from having to take a final during finals week and gives me more time to study/pack then I can't complain. My two History finals don't seem like they'll be too bad. Latin America I'll probably have trouble with all the names/dates that I need to know. I mean it covers Independence, that's a whole lot of stuff that involves Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Mexico, Brazil, so on and so on. Western Civ won't be too bad - it's mainly the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation and possibly some things from earlier in the year, I'll know once I get the study guide. All in all, I don't think my finals will be horrible, which makes me a happy camper.

Time flies

Seriously. Time flies. I knew that the semester was coming to an end, but I didn't quite realize how soon that would be. Next week is Dead Week. The week after that is Finals. Oh my. It seemed further down the road even though it was already the end of November. I cannot believe how fast this semester seems to be going by. Next semester is creeping up on me too. I got an e-mail before Thanksgiving that was from one of my Spring professors giving us our booklist ahead of time so that we could find the best deals on the books we need. I need EIGHT books for that one class. I hope my other classes don't need near as many books each, but time will tell. I ordered seven of the books online at barnesandnoble.com and saved $20 by shopping there instead of Amazon, and I saved who knows how much by getting the books online than if I had gotten them at the SupeStore.

Thanksgiving was a great break, one that I needed for sure. I caught up on my sleep, spent time with the parents, spent a while on the beach messing around with my digital camera and my new memory card, and did some outlet mall shopping. Unfortunately, I also did History homework. It never ends. I have a test in Western Civ tomorrow which I'm feeling pretty good about - especially when probably a third of the test I have studied more in depth in other classes I've taken at the University. The only hard part about that will having to make sure I don't go off on tangents on my essay and get all the relevant parts that I need to in there. :) I corrected my Study Guide too - because Cortes did not conquer the Aztecs in 1518, but 1521. In fact, Cortes (as far as I know) wasn't near Mexico in 1518, he didn't land in Vera Cruz until 1519 when he established Vera Cruz... I could keep on going too. And could go more in depth also - that's just the surface of the Conquest. Yes, I'm a nerd.

We're a weird bunch...

I took the elevator in Woods for like the second time yesterday and actually looked at the elevator (other than staring at the doors hoping that it'd hurry up so I could get to my class) and saw these two in the corners. Now Woods is the building that houses ALL of the Studio Arts classes (drawing, graphic design, digital art, painting, printmaking/bookmaking, photography, sculpture, ceramics, and you get the idea) for the University. How long do you think these would of taken?! And can you imagine the fumes while you were working? But it's interesting and it's different - what else can you say about the art majors/minors? Sorry - I'm falling into stereotypes here. It is certainly more interesting than the normal writing on elevator doors and in bathroom stalls...

Busy week this week: drawing and sketchbook due earlier today, 3 page paper due tomorrow, 4 page paper due Wednesday, 4 collages due Thursday, and hopefully nothing due Friday.

Erasing from a blank slate and making memories

From ART

So much to blog about!

The above pictures are the project that I turned in for my drawing class today. The first picture is what we had to erase and the second picture is my finished product. It was the same concept as my dolphin sketchbook - fill in the background with a medium (in this case charcoal) and erase the subject to show just about everything. Everything had to be a different shade from the background so that was interesting. I'm sick of my erasers though and don't want to see them for a while (I used three different erasers on this - each eraser was a different thickness). I'm happy with how this turned out even though it took me a while to be happy with it. Also, since you can't tell in the picture the final drawing is 18 by 24 inches.

This weekend was awesome. James and I left Tuscaloosa around 11:30 and headed down to Gulf Shores so that we could go to the Fall Out Boy/Cute is What We Aim For/Plain White T's/Gym Class Heroes concert that was there Friday night. Before the whole idea of going to the concert came up James had been talking about me and him going to a music festival over Fall Break outside of Atlanta where The Killers were playing. The idea was cool, but I had only heard of The Killers out of the 20+ bands and tickets were like $200. As much as I love James I really didn't want to pay that kind of money unless I knew a lot of the bands - but I would've. But it got me started thinking about bands that I would really like to see in concert and Fall Out Boy was one of the bands I thought of so I looked to see if they would be playing within driving distance from Tuscaloosa sometime (hello run-on sentence). Sure enough they were going to be in Orange Beach. I looked up the ticket prices: $23.50 for one ticket center stage near the back of the Amphitheater - floor tickets would've been $36.50. For four bands that are all big names that was not a bad deal. The concert was great. I only knew one song of Gym Class Heroes and had only been listening to Cute is What We Aim For for a couple of weeks, but it was pretty freaking awesome. There were some great moments/comments from the lead singers that made me wish life could be like DVR - rewind and record. I apparently made Mom's night and called her during "Hey There Delilah" - which is a great song for those who haven't heard it. When we told Mom about the concert she wanted us to get her pictures of Plain White T's and before we left I told her I would take a video and hope that the sound turned out great so that she could hear it. It was great - they started the song and James pulled out his camera and started a video and I pulled out my phone and called Momma. I was hoping that she'd be able to hear them singing it because I know that she loves the song and I knew she could hear a little bit of it for sure because I heard her laugh after she picked up and recognized the song. (To read her opinions on it click). As a side note the lead singer from Gym Class Heroes apparently has issues with Dog the Bounty Hunter. Fall Out Boy was just amazing. It was great to be able to watch them live. James and I were a little ticked - both of our camera batteries ran dead about the same time and so we didn't get any video of like the the last three songs. For those interested, pictures and videos are posted on my Picasa Albums (see link on right hand of page).

Registration starts tomorrow, for me at least. It's been going on for a while, which I could definitely tell when I looked to make sure that I'd be able to get into all my classes when I did register. Yeah. It's not going to happen. Every single class that I want to take next semester is full. All of my alternative courses are full. I can waitlist two of my classes so I'll do that and pray that someone drops out of them (Photography and Digital Art - definitely two classes that I need). If I don't get into either of those classes then I'm going to have an all History semester of classes. Speaking of History - my TA for my Western Civ class posted a quiz online that he wanted us to complete before class tomorrow. He gave us an hour to finish it and told us that it would be open book, open notes (even though how can you check when your students have to finish the quiz at home?) and I was freaking out. I mean, an hour and open book? The open book part usually means that they'll be obscure questions and an hour to finish probably meant that there would be like 20 obscure questions to deal with or a couple of short answer questions. I do my readings, open up the quiz, and start laughing. Seriously. It was five question, multiple choice, with at least two of the answers complete BS that you could automatically rule out. I mean, I know no matter our opinions of the LSU Tigers that they were not the carriers of the Black Death in medieval Europe. Believe it or not, my TA came up with the quiz before the game on Saturday - but that's a whole 'nother story.

I'm not sure how many people look at my Picasa Albums - I'm sure Mom's got it on her Google Reader - but I added other pictures to my Various Pictures album. So the only new pictures in there are not in the YoungWildThings Tour album or those two pictures from above in my ART album.

As this post has now turned into an epic I think I'll stop typing.

You and me, we couldn't stand being normal
That's why we, make a good you and me
We both laugh, at the most random situations
That's the key, baby don't you agree?
-- Plain White T's "You and Me"

The boy who cried wolf...

...or the fire alarm which called wolf. The fire alarm in our building (out of the fifteen or so buildings in our complex) has been set of four times this semester. Each time, no fire trucks come to our rescue. This keeps on happening and people won't want to go outside of their apartment like their supposed to. Does the FD not care about the poor college students? Aren't they supposed to respond to every situation? Or you know, even if Campus Way would give us a sheet with emergency situation instructions on it (like, where is our safe place when the tornado sirens go off? HELLO?!?! I live on the third floor of a three story building - I know that is not my safe place). The sirens are not an unreal example either - those have gone off twice this semester.

As a side note, as of 8:15 the promised apartment inspection or the reverse trick-or-treating has not happened yet.

Murders in the Amityville Horror house on CSI: NY tonight. Oh Halloween in the CSI: world!!

I've got RHYTHM part deux

This is my second design for my Rhythm project. I'm going to add music notes and stuff after I collage it together - the staff(s) will probably carry on throughout the collage to tie it all together. This was my third different design using the clarinet bells. I did one and decided I didn't like the way it looked, thought of a different design while I was laying in bed, so I drew a second one yesterday and then changed that to add the staffs because it was just going to be music notes.

And the dolphin sketchbook grade was: 10/10!!

Out of the darkness...

And here is my latest sketchbook assignment for my Drawing class!! We had to color in the entire sketchbook page so that it had a black background and then we had to erase the shapes out of that background. I'm not too happy with the dolphin on the left of the sketchbook and how that turned out. We're doing the same thing in class right now too except we're using charcoal and an 18" by 24" piece of paper - I think I like the charcoal better - it's easier to erase and cover up mistakes with! The graphite pencils took forever to erase and I ended up having problems with that - on some of the shadows you can see where the outline is darker than everything else - yeah, the graphite turned real greasy there and wouldn't erase without messing everything up so I just left it like it was. It's interesting though - I like the whole concept with the assignment, it's different.

I've got RHYTHM

Alright. I bet you're wondering what the heck this is or what it's for. This is Part 1 of multiple parts (I have no idea how many parts there are total) of my Design project that's due sometime next week (once again - no idea when - it just depends on how much we have done by when). The total project is supposed to be a study of Rhythm. We started out drawing thumbnails to describe a list of adjectives (we drew one intuitive thumbnail and one intellectual per word). We then picked one pair of intuitive and intellectual that we liked and combined the two into one drawing. The above scan is my combined drawing to describe a jackhammer. We then have to do this with another pair of thumbnails (I'll post that one once I've actually done it) and then go camp out at Kinko's or the library and spend a LOT of money. My teacher wants 20-25 copies per drawing (so with two drawings about 50 copies) at different magnifications/crops, etc. Once we have the copies we will collage them onto an 11" by 15" piece of paper (that nice expensive kind too). Each drawing gets it's own collage, so there will be two total collages on one kind of paper. Then once we've done that we go back to Kinko's or some other place and get them to copy the collage we feel works the best onto an 11" by 15" cardstock. We will turn in three finished collages.

The collage itself will be interesting and I'll be sure and take pictures and post those on here when I've finished the project. I know my next design I want it to have smooth lines and not so many black shapes like this one does. I think the teacher wants us to be able to demonstrate a sense of either a staccato rhythm or a legato rhythm, so that's why I want my next drawing to have smooth lines in it.

It looks like for now this blog will mainly be to share my Art projects with everyone. Or anything interesting that pops up - like my 5:30 AM ramblings!

Can you make sense of this?

We got a notice on the door today: next Wednesday our new property manager will be coming around and doing inspections and addressing outstanding maintenance issues. If there are any holes in the wall, damaged/missing carpet, damaged appliances, damaged furniture the damages will be assessed and the CURRENT residents will be fined. They never did inspections after my past roommates moved out, or if they did they never sent out a notification telling me that they did and that I didn't have to pay or if I did have to pay anything. So why would they be doing inspections on Halloween and say if Salimah stained her carpet (Jasmine has already mentioned that while we were griping about the notice) and management decided that was a fine they would make Jasmine pay for something Salimah did? Doesn't it make better sense to do the inspection before the current tenants move in? How could you differentiate between new damage and older damage?


I wonder if the new property manager is the same person that told Amy in the office that her and I must have been lying when I said my front door's deadbolt had been changed and that I couldn't lock my door when I left "because when she went through last week the master key worked just fine." Wouldn't that be great?! If so, I've got some issues to go over with her...

How 'bout dem apples?!

So the first picture is what I was drawing and then the last two are the final copies of the sketch from different angles. That was my sketchbook assignment due today in Drawing. I'm very proud of it - it took me a while to get the 3-dimensionality of the tiles working right. That was probably my biggest worry with the whole assignment, actually. But as I said - it was due today and I got a 10/10 on it!! YAY! The only other thing I had gotten a 10/10 on has been my blind contour self-portraits (use one line to draw a self-portrait without looking at the paper while you're drawing).

Ah - also - I've been trying to keep my Picasa Albums up-to-date. http://picasaweb.google.com/bama.amanda Check 'em out.

5:30 AM ramblings...

It's currently 5:30 in the morning and I can't go back to sleep. Don't you hate it when that happens? I woke up at 3:30 (after getting to bed at 12:30) to my stomach protesting something I ate yesterday and I couldn't go back to sleep after that. I guess this means that I'll get a good nights sleep tonight and be well rested for my Western Civ test tomorrow.

So I'm anticipating a messy semester in Drawing for the rest of the year. Found out last Wednesday we are going to be working with charcoal for the rest of the year. I'll be glad when these two foundational art classes are done with. I'm enjoying them - I really am - it's just even I get tired of just wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans every day except Friday because I never know what I'll be working with in Drawing and Design and how washable that'll be. We've been working with gouache paint in Design and it's fun. So far we've just been using black and white gouache but I think we're moving on to COLOR sometime soon (a nice change of pace for this class). I'm glad that I'm taking these classes and not just because I need them for my photography minor but because I'm having fun and I'm not necessarily getting a bad grade based on my lack of drawing skills. Or the lack of skills I had at the beginning of the semester, I do believe I have gotten better in that. And I think the fam agrees with me on that opinion, based on their reactions to my homework that I did over Fall Break. Before this semester I would occasionally feel like I wanted to draw something - I mean it would never be anything big, because I didn't think I could handle that, but it would usually be the same things and I would draw with whatever I had in my backpack (used to be a mechanical pencil now I only have felt pens in there). The drawings would always be the same way - strict form, no loose lines, no shading, color, and I never thought they looked that great. Now, I feel like sketching more and taking photos more (always a good thing). I also have different tools and techniques that I can use while sketching, and seriously strict form is not always the best look for a sketch. :)

Did you know that this time last year I was so fed up with Alabama, my lack of a major, and the distance from home that I was seriously considering transferring? I had sent in my application, got accepted to the University of North Texas, looked at the campus when I was at home one weekend, but didn't get accepted to the major I applied for so I decided to stay at Alabama. Isn't it funny how everything works out in the end?! I'm glad that I stayed, because this year is great. I think it helps that I'm doing stuff that I love and that I'm interested in, and I've got some great (sober) roommates. As much as I loved my Fab Four freshman year - we're not a Fab Four anymore. One transferred home, another isn't talking to me anymore (for reasons unknown) and the other is living in the sorority house with the one who isn't talking to me anymore and we just never talk. Living together can be good for some friends and bad for others. I think it was bad for us - just my humble opinion.

Surprisingly this post is not just a bunch of mumbo jumbo that one would expect from a 20 year old college student awake WAY before she wants to be. Seriously - my alarm isn't set to go off until 8:30 so that I can get ready for my 10 o'clock class. I am awake 5 hours before I wanted to be. My thoughts are rather coherent (to me at least), but I have had to use the spell check about fifty times on words that I know how to spell.

Let's try this again...

Alright. So I'm going to actually try this blog thing again - I lost my log-in information to my other blog so I'm starting up a new one. Who knew that the ajreed username was available for once and I didn't have to come up with some weird nickname to use.

I'm having a great year at Bama so far - it is so much better than last year was, it's crazy. I've declared my major and minor: History with a minor in Photography. Pretty awesome major/minor and they're both two things that I love!! Judging by all of my calculations of hours and semesters and all that jazz I will be graduating in December 2009. Only a semester later than I thought I would freshman year. For having a different major freshman year and being Undeclared last year I'm not really all that far behind it seems like. I'm still in the same apartment that I was in last year just with different roommates. I love my roommates this year - they are AMAZING. We have some good times with lots of laughter. I'm not sure if I want to stay in this apartment complex next year - if our new management can't get their act together then I may start looking for a new apartment. There's just some little things adding up right now and then I had a major problem with them at the beginning of the school year.

So my big news school wise: there is a possibility that I'll be able to study abroad in Summer 2008 in ITALY!! If it all works out (I've still got to talk to my advisors and college about this) then I will be in Italy (mostly Florence, but also Venice and Rome) for a month and taking two Art History classes. It turns out, while using last years information, that it would only cost $1,000 (roughly) more to take six hours in Florence than to take six hours on the Tuscaloosa campus. Given those numbers...I'll take Florence anyday!

And now, school calls.