Ahhh ...

That's better!

My first class today...a great painting class with only 12 people...

Looks good, a little more traditonal than I might like...but that's ok...for now.

I have a self portrait due by next Wednesday...in oil..

Yeeks!

The last one I did took me about 6 months!

...hmmm.

AND...Oreneta...I must draw every day...

!

Signed up...

K got signed up for all my courses, turns out I need 6 more credits than I have space for in my program, so will have to do an extra semester, summer or night school...

So far....total of 18 credits.

TUESDAY 4:45 - 7 :15 Digital Skills & Composition II

TUESDAY 7:30 - 10:00 Critical Reading and Writing I

WEDNESDAY 8:30 - 1:45 Sophomore Painting

THURSDAY 8:30 - 1:45 Sophomore Sculpture

FRIDAY 8:30 - 1:45 Sophomore Drawing

So far so good, it's just the self absorbed disinterested teenagers...

The Critical Studies head (Vivian) is well...critical...

Meh...

Welll...so my orientation week has begun and for those of you who do not know..

My adoring readers (high sarcasm) I have been accepted at Parson's Paris to complete a fine art degree.

The first few days have been, well lets just say LESS than scintillating, and I must confess, I am really wondering what I am doing there, this morning. Being a mature adult amongst freshman, while I thought would not pose much of a challenge...just might after all.

Have not had my first day yet of classes, and academic advising begins today.

So...here's HOPING that there are a few mature students in and amongst my group.

The head of the department did not show up for our welcome lecture yesterday...

After all this effort, moving, changes of schools, jobs and uprooting of lives...that was CRUSHING....

What do you do all day.... anyway?

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pyjamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.

The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and
there was no sign of the dog.

Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess.

A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened.

He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls. As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pyjamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.

He looked at her bewildered and asked, 'What happened here today?'

She again smiled and answered, 'You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?'

"Yes!' was his incredulous reply.

"Well..." She answered with a gleam in here eye...

'...Well, today... I didn't do it."

Spinning crazy

So sucked up by my life right now it feels like it has been FOREVER since I have had a quiet moment to reflect, you know that head spinney feeling you get when your eyes have hard time resting in one spot, and it feels impossible to sit down because you have been moving and doing so incessantly?

Ugh.

Snapshot of my week...TBG is away for 2 weeks, so I did an insane cleanup of the house, I am one of those anal (or handicapped) folks who can't think straight if surrounded by chaos... so perhaps also a bug effort to clear my mind...for the nutty week ahead.

As the idea girl and for any of you who know me you will know this is true, I am incapable of doing anything in a straightforward fashion...always way too complicated and complex...ugh...and never really done as there is always another idea...gotta work on that...

It is the last month of school so have been busy with class parties and class scrapbooks, volunteer mentoring, volunteer teaching.... and blah blah blah... home room mom activities...I tried hard to not over commit, but as usual I am up to my ears....big breath...OH and the little guy got bitten by a tick yesterday and though he is fine we also had to make an impromptu trip to the Docs to have the little creatures decapitated head extricated from his calf... BIG UGH...

Gotta get to work on the happy list...and stick to it...

I have been at the at studio 3 days each week and am doing lots of neat things started a new drawing classes ...but really looking forward next week to a bit of a breather...

OH and I MADE A DRESS YESTERDAY....with no pattern...felt good to be wielding scissors and chopping my way through fabric... Hey THAT IS on my happy list...miss TBG

;-)

..like you'll never see me again... (Yes I stole this from Blind Beth)

Lord, I pray that you remind me of this everyday.
Let me live each days as if it's my last...with no regrets...with no sadness...and let the people in my life know just how much I love them.If I had no more timeno more time left to be here,would you cherish what we havewas it everything thatyou were lookin for?

If I couldn't feel your touch
And no longer were you with me
I'd be wishin you were here
To be everything that I been lookin for

I don't want to forget the present is a gift
and I don't wanna take for granted
The time you may have here with me
Lord only knows another day is not really guaranteed

So every time you hold me
Hold me like this is the last time
And every time you kiss me
Kiss me like you'll never see me again

And every time you touch me
Touch me like this is the last time
Promise that you'll love me
Love me like you'll never see me again.

How many really know what love is?
Now you never will
Do you know until you lose it
That it's everything that we've were lookin for

When I wake up in the morning
You're beside me
I'm so thankful that I found
Everything that I been lookin for

I don't want to forget the present is a gift
And I don't wanna take for granted
the time you may have here with me
Cuz Lord only knows another day is not really guaranteed

So every time you hold me
Hold me like this is the last time
And every time you kiss me
Kiss me like you'll never see me again

And every time you touch me
Touch me like this is the last time
Promise that you'll love me
Love me like you'll never see me again.

*fumbling for hanky*

Sheepish smile...I try to do this...every day but, always good to have a reminder...

Written by Alicia Keys

Aha! Moment of the Week

In Music it is called REST, I know that because now I am taking piano lessons, go figure!

You know that little squiggle that looks like a baroque-sideways-snail (forgive the fashion designer musician lingo...), and it means a pause, or silence. It is considered to be a note, since without it all the other notes would run on endlessly together.

The absence of sound, or the rests define the music.

In art, I am learning, as in music, what is NOT in a drawing is as important as what is IN a drawing. As a student I am having difficulty not defining every area of my drawings in an effort to be correct and clear. I am learning to realize that light illuminates colours and makes the colour disappear into white or nothingness, softens outlines and removes lines, and that is important to leave stuff out...I am learning that an absence of colour or line, simply NOTHING on the page is as important as the lines and colour there.

Does this principle follow also for life? As I think about it, maybe it does. Maybe the absence of things in life are just as important as the things present. Perhaps this is the key to balance and instead of filling every last particle of our days with thoughts activities and business maybe we we need to create more "rests" and "light" in our lives to better define what we really are...

What do you think?

Later the next day... Beth has commented that yes, it is a good to take moments for reflection, and yes, I completely agree, but to me that falls into the active/shade/line/ note category, and what I am thinking is a little different than that. Conscious nothing. Meditation is hovering at the edge of my mind...just the idea of leaving space...in conversation, in time... just really nothing. Plus the idea that if we are completely scheduled and organized, well it does not leave so much room for creative living...and you all know I all about being creative...

Hmmmm....

The "Nothing" idea seems counter productive (and impossible to do), but maybe that is my/our obsessive western culture paradigm talking...

I am going to think about this a bit more and see where I get with it...

I would love to hear your ideas....

Virtual Age and Life expectancy..this is cool!!

OOoooh Man,

I knew it.... I am practically still a toddler , my virtual age is 7.8 (HA!!) and I will live to be 101.

I LOVE that!

Check it out, try it out!

I wonder how smart I will be by then, or if I will just be a toothless bag of drool...

*Ick...*