Two wine label designs I made for my illustration class:
<–this one was never completed, as the other design I had was selected. So I made this into a wallpaper for my desktop. ^_^
And this is the wine label I AM using in it’s (possibly) complete state.
Thanksgiving is blissfully over and today we are getting our first snow*. I have a cat on my lap, my boyfriend is threatening to do unspeakable things to my tea, I have a pile of unfinished homework that I keep trying to forget exists and the Top Gear Armageddon special queued up and waiting.
But before I surrender myself to the fabulousity of British Automotive shows, I had a few things I wanted to share.
1. My Next Internship:
After the prospects for this quarters’ internship ranging from a beer company to a childrens’ educational group, I decided to see what I could do about seeking out my own internship this quarter, as I was hoping to find something at an actual graphic design studio. So, a couple weeks ago, I sent out my resume and sample sheet to every design studio
I could find in the area that actually had an email address.
To date, I have heard back from three.
One informed me that they did offer an internship program, and that it was 12 weeks long, unpaid and 40 hours a week. As I would be attending classes full time and getting ready for graduation, I had to let them know that the position wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.
One regretfully replied with the news that they were not looking for an intern at this time.
The third, however (well, chronologically, the second, but it is more dramatic in this order) wrote back and told me that they had just been discussing bringing an intern on board at the beginning of the year and that they were intrigued by my offer to fetch coffee. We set up an interview for the 24th, which was this past Wednesday.
My interview lasted about an hour and forty-five minutes. I got a tee-shirt and they told me that my work was very impressive. They told me about all kinds of stuff I would have the opportunity to learn and work on with them and I am pretty sure I am their intern this coming quarter. I am supposed to get official confirmation around the beginning of this coming week.
2. Star Wars Girl:
By now, you have very likely heard about Katie and her Star Wars thermos. (if not, go here to read about it).
Well, in the past couple weeks, the internet has rallied in a wicked cool way, sending this sweet little geek girl all kinds of mad love. Grown up geek girls (and boys…we don’t discriminate!) have written her thousands of messages, and there is an article about it here, including an interview with the little geekette herself. I admit I got pretty teared up reading/watching this. I wish the internet had been around when I was a little girl to tell me that there was nothing wrong with my love of reading and my use of big words.
Seriously, this is one of the main things I LOVE about the internet. Sure, there are trolls and jerks and idiots galore, but there is also the reassurance that no matter who you are or what you are into or how weird you may be, there are other people like you out there. And they will stand up for you.
3. On the Topic of Things That Warm the Cockles:
This post from IMMD was just kind of charming.
4. To Offset the Mushy, Something That’s Just Cool:
This glowing dress made of knitted clear tubes that move fluid around isn’t really a practical option for wearing, but is certainly awesome. Plus, who knows? Perhaps it will inspire some engineer/designer to figure out a way to make this 
work in an actual functional feasible fashion. Regardless, this is super cool.
5. Tangled
I went to see Tangled last night. It was awesome. That is all.
* application of ‘snow’ may vary. Company makes no promises regarding regularity, density or actual snow of falling snow. Two visible flakes/hour or above constitutes ‘snow’. Snow may be composed of falling frozen water, small pieces of dry leaf, or dirty windows viewed without glasses. Please enjoy your ‘snow’. All complaints and questions should be directed to…we’ll let you know when we have a department for that.
…to write another blog. I believe I heard somewhere that any decision is better than none.
I am currently sitting at my “desk” (see: small Formica’d table with a desk chair) in the office that holds my internship, and killing time until I have fulfilled my 100% undocumented shift. My supervisor has nothing new for me to work on and the tasks I worked on last week have not yet garnered feedback, so I am basically here for no reason. I take that back…this morning, upon arrival, it was requested that I a make a spreadsheet (with about 5 columns and maybe 10 
lines worth of information) and pull up board meeting dates for a few local school districts; two arduous tasks that filled about 30 minutes combined. Since then, I have been basically catching up on incredibly important internet stuff, but now that all my regular blogs are read and my facebook photo changed, writing a blog seemed the next best course of action.
The environment here today is less than optimal, and certainly not ideal for any kind of writing. My coworkers are vacillating between chatting loudly and listening to Christmas music, and occasionally mixing it up by singing along with Christmas music or chatting loudly with a background of Christmas music. The air conditioner is running for some inexplicable reason, and though my fingerless gloves are keeping my hands from freezing, they are also interfering with the manual dexterity necessary for typing, plus, my wrists are chilly where my sleeves have slid up my extended arms.
The granola bars i grabbed this morning remain on the kitchen counter at home, and I have (have had for three days now) an infuriating and persistent knot or pinch in my right shoulder/neck area that radiates an irritating ache down my entire arm, and occasionally over my shoulder blade or up to right under my ear. I made hot cereal this morning and it bubbled out of the bowl and onto the microwave tray and never into my stomach. I am awash in ennui brought on by artist’s block, or perhaps artist’s block brought on by ennui, but either way I’m cranky an melancholy. I have to spend $100 on a portfolio case today for one internship interview because i haven’t had the chance to order my 
graduation portfolio case (which will be a different size and etched with my logo) but my interview is this week and I will need to bring samples of my work in a portfolio.
Over all, it is a Monday, in the most traditional sense of the word.
My weekend went by far too fast, full of stuff and no stuff and more stuff, in turn.
Wednesday night we got hit by a deer on the way home — it leapt off an embankment directly in front of the car in such a manner that impact was unavoidable. Luckily, it was on the move and we barely bumped it ‘s rump, suffering little more damage than a broken headlamp and a slight bend in the flimsy metal of our Prius’ side. Of course, just the replacement light, with no labor included, costs more than one of our larger grocery shopping trips would.
I am often told I should be thankful to live out in the country like I do.
I took Thursday off, ostensibly to catch up on homework — a goal at which I failed to succeed. I did, on the other hand, clean the kitchen, try my luck at cabbage soup (and learn that cabbage stays fresh an eerily long time), eviscerate two little pumpkins, in order to harvest and brutally roast their innocent seeds, and try out some pumpkin muffin mix (which had nothing to do with the two little pumpkins) I had in the pantry.
On Friday, I put on pretty clothes and Briggs and I went and had steak for dinner for his birthday, which was awesome and delicious.
On Saturday, we lounged around and watched The Daily Show in the morning, and in the late afternoon I put on much 
less pretty clothes than the night previous and we watched the new Harry Potter, which I had heard great things and bad things about and I felt was over all very enjoyable, pretty good and cut in a good place, but also that they left out a few plot points I wish they hadn’t and also, I disagree with the casting of Xeno Lovegood.
That night I made some relatively awesome spinach-cheese dip. No, seriously. You would have liked it.
Before I went to bed, I decided that I was officially over the idea of growing out my hair…when it gets long, it just tangles more easily and gets a multitude of split ends and is almost always in a ponytail regardless, and will never be the lustrous, flowing locks I dream of. So, I chopped it off. And now am re-accustoming myself to short hair, which is strange. I don’t really remember what to do with it.
Sunday involved more of not much and mostly musing at the fact that it was Sunday already. I also made some black bean soup that came out pretty well and some mini cheesecakes from my healthy cooking cookbook, about which I am still determining my feelings…the recipe called for cherry pie filling and I didn’t have any and substituted canned tart cherries, which simply are not the same, so I suppose I shall have to try them the proper way before making my final ruling.
And with that, my time has been officially killed, wasted, decimated or whatever other verb you wish to use, and I shall have to return later with pictures.
When life is hard and stressful, because I have a zillion things to do and artists’ block, or when I’m just having a really crappy, crappy day, I usually want to blog about it…a blog is supposed to sort of be a diary, in which to record experiences both good and bad. However, inevitably, I later read back over the post the next day and am immediately filled with disgust and rage at my self-pitying emo whininess, because a blog may be a diary of sorts, but it is also public and I feel like, if I were reading that crap, and someone else wrote it, I would want to slap the s**t out of them and then never read what they write again and they need to grow a pair and stop being so whiny. So, I generally end up deleting the post full of all my pain and anguish and issuing a formal apology for sucking so much to any one who reads my blog.
The thing is, because it’s kind of a diary too, I like to sometimes read old posts and thing ‘golly gee! I forgot all about that apple harvest festival I went to in the fall of ’07 where I met the president and was called upon to save the world from utter destruction! That was a pretty sweet day — the weather was great that diamond tiara that the Grand Duke insisted I wear really worked for me.’ …but the post I made the week before that where I was all, ‘Today sucks. I stubbed my toe and my favorite jeans don’t fit anymore ’cause my new college lifestyle leads to bad eating habits and no time for exercising…only I probably have time but I’ve been kind of lonely and depressed which leads to bad time-management, so I really have no one to blame but myself, and I am jealous of the young people I go to school with who started college right after high school, even though I know that totally wouldn’t have worked for me and I feel old now, plus I’m not inspired by what we are learning and wondering if I can ever succeed in this field or if I am fooling myself…I’m very stressed out!’ …that post, I deleted, after repeating my words in my mind in a mocking bully tone and throwing my virtual lunch bag in a mud puddle. But I might want to look back on those posts some day too…to be able to say — “look — it was hard but you got through it! See…the next week, you saved the world! And looked totally sexy in your superhero spandex…things may be hard now, but you can still accomplish so much — just keep trying!” or even just…”You totally went through some downs, but you rallied and look how far you have come!” (Yes, I give myself pep talks. What?)
But I can’t read those old posts, because I deleted them out of shame. So when I look back, it’s like they never happened, and all I ever did was save the world…which makes now look pretty crappy, especially since there is no way I’d look good in spandex now. And then I realize that maybe it doesn’t matter, because maybe I’ve just been bitching about the same darn things for the last four years….but then again, perhaps it just seems that way because I deleted my posts and don’t KNOW what I was upset about back then. I know I’ve been surprised by old posts before.
Anyway, I suppose my point is that if my self-pitying posts were anywhere near as awesome as this one by the girl from Hyperbole and a Half I would post them with pride. But there is a reason that she has a far wider readership than I.
I’m eating popcorn with chopsticks.
None
A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4) by George R.R. Martin
Crossroads of Twilight (The Wheel of Time, Book 10) by Robert Jordan
