all alone

Hey guys, how's it goin? POW

nobody@vox.com(LightWriter) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:57:17 -0700

Guess what? I quit my job! Wanna know why? Well. I don't get enough hours. But more importantly, I think it is quite safe to say that I have had my fill of corporations for the time being. I feel like...like...spray-painting the side of the corporate office building with a magnificently cheeky work of guerrilla art, that's what I feel like doing!

Firingrandompeople

But I won't.

Cause that's in Texas.

And now that I have no job, I wouldn't have the money to do it anyway. (T_T)

So I slapped together this screenshot from Kung Pow: Enter the Fist instead!

If you have not worked in retail for an extended amount of time, pay attention to this picture. District/regional manager visits are a lot like this. Do what they say, or they'll cut off your big toe!

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perfect silence

nobody@vox.com(LightWriter) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:54:37 -0700

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; 5

Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

--Walt Whitman

Fullofstars

I memorized this poem for literature class during my tender freshman year of high school. Now, eight years later, I find myself in a university astronomy class. It seems rather fitting for me to be in the class. The sky has alwaysinspired me and captured my imagination. I tend to stop in my tracks to look at the sky and soak in its ephemeral beauty (for it is almost always especially beautiful) until whoever I'm with urges me to stop daydreaming and pay attention to some tediously familiar thing at hand on Earth.

I signed up for the class with high expectations. It seemed far more interesting and less painful than dissecting some poor animal in biology or stumbling through miry equations in chemistry. The first few weeks have been fruitful. I learned many foundational things about the universe, which inspired me to pore through Sky and Telescope magazine, which in turn inspired me to combine what I've learned in both astronomy class and photography class and dabble in astrophotography. This beautiful universe leaves me in awe of God's glory.

I had hoped that my astronomy teacher might emphasize with my wonder of the skies. Perhaps he does, but much differently--he is nowhere near as abstract as I am! He is, however, passionate about his field of study. Whenever we go to a new subject, he always says it's his favorite thing to talk about. I can't help but grin at him--every subject in astronomy is his favorite. He is an enthusiastic teacher, but mere enthusiasm does not turn on the light bulbs in the minds of students. The past few class sessions have shifted onto the subject of calculating distances, temperatures, luminosities, densities, and masses of the stars. And I completely drifted away in the moments that he wrote those calculations on the chalk board.

The moment that I glided out occurred sometime last week. I'm afraid I haven't returned to earth since then.

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further up and further in

nobody@vox.com(LightWriter) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:46:35 -0700

Narniadsign

" As long as you keep Narnia in your heart, you keep a little bit of Lucy inside you no matter how Susan you have become."

Today I saw a sign on the door of a cheap little wardrobe located in the dorm lobby where the kitchen, laundry, and pool tables are. It was scribbled on a piece of notebook paper and taped to the door of the wardrobe. It said:

NARNIA
THIS WAY.

I looked around, as if I actually expected to find the person who wrote it. And I daresay I had an overwhelming desire to peep inside.

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...and my username is lightwriter

nobody@vox.com(LightWriter) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:38:26 -0800

I have a newfound respect for black and white photographers. Photography 101 is harder than I thought. I'm used to correcting my photos' contrast and brightness on the computer, but now I am learning how to shoot the photos correctly in the first place. There are so many different things that one has to remember throughout the whole process that it gives me a headache just thinking about it.

I've yet to take a photograph that satisfies me. I know I'm just an amateur in a Photo 101 class, but when the teacher looks at my photo and says it's "not bad", I wilt. I want him to at least look at my photos and say it's "pretty good." I'm currently making a B- in the class (which has probably gone down to a C after my last project...), and that frustrates me to no end. I think the reason that I am so frustrated is because I am used to naturally doing well in art classes. I naturally excel at composition and design, but I'm not naturally excelling at photography. I'm mediocre. I usually pick up a new artistic skill much faster than this.

Mokonaplushie

Photography is more technical than traditional art, and I think that trips me up. I am terribly abstract. Let me say that again: I am terribly abstract. I absent-mindedly shoot photos focusing only on repetition, lines, shapes, shadows, positive and negative space, and balance...but consequently ruin what could have been a good photo because I forget everything but the design. I completely over-expose or under-expose it (since my light meter's not working). I often forget that the light source is in a stupid place. It often has way too much contrast and hot areas and is usually beyond the help of a filter. Then my photo teacher makes a snarky remark about the fact that I didn't have enough sense to put the light source behind me. In response, I don't know whether I want to simply disappear or say something cheeky back to him, for snarky teachers deserve cheeky students, even if the student isn't usually cheeky. This world is all about balance.

I wish I could get a Digital SLR so that I could see my mistakes immediately, correct them, and therefore learn how to operate a manual SLR a bit more efficiently, but DSLRs are horrendously expensive. I has no monies. I feel extremely lucky to have recently bought this $20 Mokona plushie, as you see in the photo. I suppose some might think it's a terrible waste of money, but for some reason that little plushie makes me so happy every time I look at it. My photos don't make me that happy when I look at them. I suppose practice makes perfect, though. With experience, I'm sure I will get better and start using the left side of my brain for once. But practice sure does cost an awful lot. The photo paper is costly. So is the film. Maybe I should focus more on printmaking than photography...

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flu season

nobody@vox.com(LightWriter) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:02:11 -0800

I'm confined to the dorm today--doctors orders. I have the flu. I slept pretty much all day yesterday. I feel a bit better today, but not well enough to go to class. I've been watching the snow as it lazily falls outside my window. I feel really dizzy and it hurts to move my eyes. Whenever I move, it's like the whole world is spinning around me...or am I spinning around it? I feel disconnected with everything around me.

So today, I figured it would be a good time to paint something.

I dug out all my paints, brushes, and rulers only to find that I had no bristol board--I had left it at home. I looked around for something else to paint on, but to no avail. I had actually already been planning on painting a logo, but thanks to my flu I missed the deadline. Oh well, I guess that's life.

Some good came from it. Instead of painting, I got online and stumbled across freerice.com, where you can do your part to feed hungry people around the world. I don't have much money to spare, but I do have plenty of time, so it's my new favorite website.

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a present for me.

nobody@vox.com(LightWriter) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:19:28 -0800

Sorry to be so ranty lately. It's just that blogs are good places to let off some steam, you know? No one really reads this blog anyway, so I say to myself, "Why not?" I'd rather rant here than to waste space in my handwritten journal. I'll try to do better.

Ah, today is Valentines. I think I'm going to spend my afternoon in my happy place--with a cup of coffee and some fancy dessert at a coffee shop or bookstore. It'd probably be even happier if I had someone to share my coffee and desert with today. We'd have such a great conversation that we'd lose track of time.

...okay, maybe "happy place" isn't quite the word I'm looking for. It's probably more along the lines of a "comforting place." Oh well. It beats sitting in a dark little dorm on such a beautiful day, so I'm curling my hair and taking off. Ciao!

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stone cold stunner.

nobody@vox.com(LightWriter) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:55:43 -0800

Pleh

I feel like ranting. Don't get me wrong, I'm fairly content with life. I'm just in a mood to gripe about something here in a blog where no one really has to hear me out if they don't want to. I'm not quite sure what I ought to rant about, though. There are several things I could choose that are on my mind right now. I'm frustrated by the injustice of racial discrimination in the workplace. My friend is the recipient of this injustice and I want to kick his boss in the teeth. I'm also paying one grand to live in the dorm with a rude, alcoholic roommate. She's over there on her bed in her drawers, and I'm blogging about her. Hee.

And, as a smaller annoyance, the media is horribly slanted this election year. The media is covered with headlines, photos, and videos that feature Clinton and Obama. Republicans are covered as well, to be fair(and there's always exceptions to this), but for the most part, they're kind of swept under the rug in the shadow of the first woman and first black man to run for president of a nation that is sick of George W. Bush. Now, for the record, I'm independent, so I pick whoever I feel is best for our nation as a whole, whether it's Democrat or Republican. But it's not right for the media to slant their reports.

And another thing! RAWR! I don't really care about the media filling me in on what's going on with Britney Spears (or whoever it is at the moment) in between the political discussion. No one deserves to have their personal life drama plastered over the evening news. The evening news should not be concerned with things like that. Leave that to the sleazy celeb magazines. So...yeah! LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! (it's an old joke but I couldn't help it. Not really a joke, anyway. I'm starting to feel sorry for her, at least for the way the media treats her.) My point is that I want to hear real news that actually effects everyday people, without trying to subtly influence their opinion.

'k, there. That's enough of that subject.

...it didn't work. I still want to kick someone in the shin. It really doesn't help when people I don't know keep unlocking my door and walking in the room, saying they're my room mate's friends and she sent them to get something for her. Mmyep.

--oh look! There's another girl walking into my room with my roommate's keys! It's a different one this time! Ain't that swell? And against policy? And isn't it great that she's gonna bust in later tonight at 1:00AM, drunk as a skunk, turning on the florescent lights, talking on the phone, and slamming doors, drawers, and other things around as if there's no one trying to sleep only four feet away from her? Isn't it lovely? ISN'T IT? RRRRRRGH?!?

. . .

Huh. The ranting blog post usually gets things off my chest and makes me feel better. Weird. I feel only slightly better. Maybe. Not much, though. Guess I'll try to watch some Ergo Proxy instead. Avoiding reality usually works better than griping about it.

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invisible kitteh grl

nobody@vox.com(LightWriter) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:31:34 -0800

Oh hai. Even though they've been around for a few years, I've only just now stumbled across an image macro internet phenomenon called lolcats, and I've been wasting my time giggling at them. The only aggravating thing about them is that the kitty pidgin gets really old. I don't mind the cutesy grammar (baby talking to pets is common), but anything more than that gets really annoying. It's like a fourteen year old girl is typing them, thinking she's being cool and original. Srsly.

Speaking of cats, thanks to my new kitty hat in an aforementioned blog, I have a new nickname: CATGIRL. It's kinda weird. When I take it off, I'm invisible. When I put it on, I'm not invisible. Ooooh, fancy neato. It's amazing, that hat.

Invisible

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a gratefully frustrated FAFSA rant.

nobody@vox.com(LightWriter) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:46:08 -0800

I have a love/hate relationship with the FAFSA student federal financial aid website.

FAFSA_rdax_90

On one hand, I am eternally grateful to it. It provides me with a means to go to college and pursue my dreams. It's like a free ticket to freedom--freedom to pursue my dreams as I wish.

And yet one must go through hell just to fill the thing out online. Every year I end up typing and retyping the same things I just finished typing, over and over again, just in an attempt to log in. Then, as I try to navigate backwards for whatever reason (forgot something, re-checking my submission, step away from computer for too long, etc), it screws the whole thing up and I lose what I had. Now I have to do the whole thing over again! The whole thing!

I'm not really all that much of a hothead, though. I give people the benefit of the doubt. Probably too much, sometimes. I know the site has to be that way to protect my information. I imagine it deletes the data after a page is left, and that's why you have to type some things in again. It just gets really really old when something that should, in theory, take about an hour, takes about three hours instead. I think I just wanting something to gripe about. The real frustration is that I need to take a roll of film outside and develop it by tonight for photography class, but it's really cloudy outside and I don't know if I'll be able to make it. And all the other kids will have photos to print tomorrow, and I won't. *sniff*

I took my other frustrations out on you, FAFSA. I sorry. I'ma go eat me a sammich now.
.

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the best things never last long

nobody@vox.com(LightWriter) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:10:06 -0800

I have found U L T R A O I S H I I candy.

Peppermintbar

It. is. the. best. tasting. candy. ever. The whole world could be falling down around me, and I wouldn't mind so much as long as I could have this candy bar crammed in my mouth. Unfortunately, it's only available for a limited amount of time! (T__T) Somehow that makes it even more delicious, so I appreciate every single bite of chocolate-minty goodness. Must..buy...more!

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When I heard the learn'd astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;	5
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. --Walt Whitman

all alone

Hey guys, how's it goin? *POW*

perfect silence

further up and further in

...and my username is lightwriter

flu season

a present for me.

stone cold stunner.

invisible kitteh grl

a gratefully frustrated FAFSA rant.

the best things never last long

Hey guys, how's it goin? POW