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.