Last Gasp of a Dying Blog

Hey!

If you got here from one of my Moo Cards handed out at WebVisions, welcome! This blog kinda died around the time...no make that exactly the time I started school at the Art Institute of Portland in the fall of 2008.

I plan to rise like a phoenix from the ashes next month with a new blog/portfolio site on Wordpress. In the meantime, you should follow me on twitter, as 140 character chunks is all my brain has to give for the time being. Be sure to introduce yourself so I can follow you back!

I'm also looking for a web development internship this summer. I'm into front-end development with a particular interest in learning Wordpress, Drupal and other content management systems, sharpening up my JQuery and generally soaking up all your wisdom.

Contact me if you think we might be a match.

Road Map to Distraction

...because knowing is half the battle.

1. OK, I'm getting to work. See me study web site design. Now where was that tutorial I was going to check out?  Hmm, I will search for it.

2. Ah, here it is! But what's this? Looks interesting. I should go check it out.

3. (30 min later...) wow, this site is full of great stuff. So helpful and interesting. I think I'll check out the examples of good design next.

4. (Clicks on example page). Wow, this guy not only has a good site, he is hysterical and totally twisted. Better sign up for the RSS feed so I can read more later.

5. (RSS sign up takes me to Bloglines) OK, that's done. Oh look, Fat Cyclist has a new post. (Click)

6. Fatty: "Be sure to take a look at my sister’s blog post today. In one day, she’s went from $0 to $755 for her LiveStrong Challenge." I hate cancer. (Click).

7. Wow, that's so cool. Maybe I should sign up for a Livestrong ride and raise some money...

8. What was I doing?

And so on...

The problem with working 'on the web' is you have to be on the web to do it.  Must work on Save vs OHLOOKBRIGHTSHINYINTERNETOBJECT!

All About Art

I have an art quiz later today so I'm going to do a post all about art.  Who says blogging can't be productive?

Part 1: Basic Elements

1. Line:  The distance between two points, or the pathway of a moving point.  Line can have endless characteristics such as thin, thick, wavy, broken, implied (--  --- --- --- --- ---), psychic (line of sight), contour (the edge of a shape), calligraphic, etc.

2. Shape: A flat, 2-dimensional enclosed line.  Possessing width and height.

3. Form: Round, 3-dimensional figure, possessing width, height and depth.

4. Value:  Amount of lights and darks.  The upper left corner is high value, minor contrast. Top right is intermediate value, minor contrast.  Bottom left is low-minor and bottom right is high-major.

5. Texture: The surface character of a material that can be experienced through touch or the illusion of touch. Tactile texture is stuff you can touch. Simulated texture is a convincing copy or translation of an object's surface in any medium.  For this assignment, we spent time in class drawing invented textures on an outline of our hands.  Then we took various rubbings of surfaces around school and then had to use a certain number of each type of texture to create a composition.  I used bubbly, prickly, scaley, smooth invented finger textures as well as the sole of a shoe and some other things.

 

6. Space: Flat, shallow or deep.  Positive space is occupied space; objects and most dominant areas.  Negative space is less dominant, unoccupied space.  One of the innovations of cubism, invented by Picasso and George Braque, was to portray more than one perspective of an object at the same time. For our assignment, we made five different viewpoint drawings of a small, interesting object on trace paper.  Then the drawings were layered and we drew a whole new shape from the intersecting drawings.  This was done three times, one a line drawing, one shaded in black and white for a flat design and one shaded to look three dimensional and give depth.  Any guesses as to what my original object was? 

Part 2: Principles of Design

1. Balance: A sense of visual equilibrium achieved through implied weight, attention or attraction, by manipulating the elements in a composition.

Symmetrical Balance is the exact duplication of appearances in mirror-like repetition on either side of an imaginary line down the center of the composition.

Asymmetrical: A composition which is visually balanced, but does not have the same exact elements on each side.

Approximate Symmetry: The use of similar imagery on either side of a central axis.

Radial: Parts of a design seem to emanate toward or away from a central point.

 

This week's homework on balance was to take three differently balanced designs and distill the basic shapes into a non-objective design which obscures the original reference. New design did not have to have the same type of balance as the original.

 

 

2. Proportion: The relationship in scale between one element and another or between a whole and one of it's parts. Proportion refers to a comparison of sizes or parts of a whole (Is the head in proportion to the body?). Scale is established when associations of size are measured relative to human dimensions. Monumental, miniature, life-sized, exaggerated and idealized.

3. Repetition/Pattern: The use of the same visual effect a number of times in the same composition.

4. Unity/Harmony: The quality of one-ness, of individual elements relating to the whole in a composition. Assignment: Make three unified designs using ONLY three circles and two lines.

5. Rhythm: A flow or sense of movement achieved by repetition of regulated visual units. Rhthym results from the perception of intervals between repeated elements.

6. Dominance/Focal point: The perceived focus of interest. Visual emphasis in a work of art is a way of calling our attention to a particular area.  Dominance--making one element the strongest (brightest color, unique shape).  Focal point: An isolated element, larger or smaller in size, contrast, having lines or paths that come together.

7. Variety: Differences achieved by the use of unexpected, opposing, contrasting, changing or diversifying elements to add interest.

A Rvr ov Knawlege is Floin' en Mi Hed

I survived my first two weeks of school.  My cold lasted three weeks, that would be up until a few days ago.  Monday is my long day with Logical Thought and Programming in the morning and Principles of Visual Design (PVC) in the afternoon. 

Going from Laurie, who is very calm, logical and good at explaining things slowly, to Amy, who talks as fast as that one girl from the Cosby show and has the psychic energy to match, was a shock to my system, to say the least. I seriously explored the option of dropping the class or switching to a different teacher.  But the other section I wanted was full and reports were that Amy is a good teacher if you can handle her.  Week two I was better prepared mentally, so I decided to stick it out.

My other classes are WDIM 101, which is basically an exploration of the field of web design and interactive media.  Sort of a 'what the heck am I getting into,' class for new students so you don't take a related class the two terms before graduation and realize you've been in the wrong major for three years. (True story).

There's also writing and argumentation.  That teacher seems to really know her history and says a lot of interesting things in class.  As a mainly fiction reader (or at least I used to be when I had time to read books, which I seem have fallen out of for the past two years), this class will be good for me to catch up on some 'classic' stuff I haven't gotten around to--and wouldn't without a class to force me into it.  The downers are that the actual tone of her voice is slightly irritating--but more annoying is that ninety percent of the class seems to be mute.  There are about four of us who talk and this week's class was like a bad Ferris Bueller nightmare.  When I said something after class, the teacher said her classes are usually much more engaged.  Just my luck.  Hopefully some of them will warm up in a week or two.

Thursdays I have off. Those are art days, since all my art homework takes me forever to do.

Fridays is my Image Manipulation class (think Photoshop fun).  That started out slow but ramped up quickly this week.  Fortunately, Phil is insistent that we tell him if he's going too fast.  I took him at his word and made him repeat several sequences.  I have taken a Photoshop class, but the muscled are out of shape.  Our first assignment is a collage based on a song, which should be both fun and frustrating, as I try to make real images match what's in my head.  I'm thinking of using one of Stephanie's new songs and doing something kind of sexy and haunted.  She loves the tortured love songs, that one. 

So far I'm actually enjoying my classes.  Even all the books are good. Last week, I was geeking out about the Declaration of Independence.  I really need to see the second movie...

Could be just the honeymoon phase, but I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore.

The End and the Beginning

Summer is over. It hits me hard every year. Temperatures are still pretty warm, but the rain is relentless and the gray is oppressive. Only four days and I can barely remember riding home at night in a t-shirt just last week.

I spent the weekend getting ready for school and 'winterizing' the house. Saturday, I pulled one of my surprise house projects--we've had a piece of wood sitting in the garage for almost a year that was supposed to turn into a shelf at some point. With more bikes arriving daily, it was getting kind of urgent to clear up some more floor space in the garage.

I calculated the amount of time and swearing it would take to do the job ourselves, and then I called my friend Geahk, who is an artist and a carpenter and can build anything. He was happy to come over and do in a few hours, what would have taken us all weekend:

After Jess came home and I collected my girlfriend points, we spent some time picking the last of the tomatoes and bringing the grill and deck furniture into the garage for the winter, putting away the fans and sticking the sandals in the upstairs closet to make room for the winter boots close to the door. Depressing, but it is nice not to have to squeeze past the air conditioner to get into bed.

Sunday I got up early and spent the first half of the day taking back control of my office from the random scattered paper monster. Then I went out into the steady rain for four hours and ran a bunch of errands, starting with a trip to a Walgreens in Vancouver for more Sudafed. I got to try out my new rain legs, which worked pretty well. They seem perfect for a warm rain where you don't want to get soaked, but rain pants would be too sweaty. The only downside, is that if I actually care about keeping whatever pants I'm wearing looking nice, then I'll still need the full coverage of rain pants.

The rest of the evening was spent making dinner and lunch, packing up and getting ready for the first day of the end of my free time. School, here I come!

The Orient

Today was orientation day, which means I got to go down to my new school and sit for hours and listen to people talk about things I mostly could have read on my own.  I've been sick since Sunday and I'm well into the sinus drainage and evil headaches part of the process, which made today extra fun. Not.

Aside from being miserable and high on Sudafed (the real stuff, not that over the counter crap), I did actually get some good information from the session. I wasn't exactly in the mood to network either, but I made a point to meet a few of my nearest seat-neighbors.

We were still waiting to get started in the morning and the main MC came on to let us know that there was Rock Band set up in the back.  It took about 45 seconds for three guys to form a band and start jamming out to Eye of the Tiger, which I have now had stuck in my head all day.  It was cool to finally see the game I hear so much about from Wil Wheaton.  I have yet to actually play Guitar Hero or Rock Band, and I didn't want my debut to be in a room full of 300 people.  Though I probably would be OK singing, as long as I knew the song.

While we sat in hard plastic chairs through hours of talking, I tried to make good use of the time by reading the student handbook and putting a bunch of  school numbers in my phone.  At lunch time, it paid to be sitting in the back, as we were closest to the sandwich buffet. I got third in line in front of a bunch of hungry 20-something guys. Not bad.  I used the extra time to run over to Powells and pick up some of my books.

After lunch we had break out sessions with different workshops to choose from.  I was tempted by digital cameras 101, but I already took some photography classes this spring so I went to the non-traditional students meeting instead.  That turned out to be a total dud.  I came in on the tail end of introductions and then the facilitators said they wanted the meeting to be whatever *we* wanted--which translated mostly to sitting around in awkward silence.  There was no one there from my department (which if you're wondering is Web Design & Interactive Media or WDIM). 

For the next session I went to scholarships, which was much more useful.  Dawn, the scholarship coordinator had some specific helpful tips for getting scholarships and invited us to schedule a follow up meeting with her so she can help search out specific scholarship matches.

Then it was back to the big room, where they went over resources--library, the cage where you can check out equipment, AKA the AV nerd's dream playhouse, how to use the computer labs and the student online services site for registering etc.

Just when I thought my head was about to explode, they let us go for our last session, which was an hour long meeting with our department head.  For some reason the schedule listed the WDIM's and the Video heads together in the same room.  It was packed.  Then Chris, my department head came in and cleared up the confusion.  "Everyone in the video department go to room 360." Three quarters of the room got up and left.  As the last students were filing out, Chris added, "And everyone who's going to make money, stay here."

We laughed, but it turns out he wasn't kidding.  He checked the career placement data today and our department graduates have an average entry level salary of $50k, $14,000 higher than the second place major (game designers), with a 100% job placement rate.  He mentioned several times that we should not worry about getting jobs out of school. He's got more jobs than he has grads to fill them.  Comforting knowledge in the face of the mess that is the economy right now.

He talked for the full time, but for the first time all day, I wasn't bored to tears.  He seems to be approachable, tough but fair and a tad gay.  There are eight people starting this term in my department.  We didn't do introductions, but I'm sure I'll get to know them soon enough.  There's one other woman and everyone is at least two years out of high school and most seem to be at least in their mid-twenties.  We also got to meet Dan, the one full time instructor in the department.  He was dressed in slightly ripped jeans, t-shirt and flip flops.  Chris was in jeans, polo shirt and white tennis shoes.  He said he's the only department head who doesn't wear suits because he wants to represent the industry and jeans is what all the geeks are wearing these days.  I think I've found my people.  I wonder if I could get away with doing interviews with out my monkey suit?  I'll have to look into that.

I was thrilled to be done at 4:30 instead of 6:30 like I thought. Most people still had to stand in a long line to pick up their supply kits, hefty little portfolio bags filled with all the mandatory supplies.  Since I have some stuff from my spring drawing class, I opted to just buy other needed supplies ala carte.  The one thing that I anticipate might be a huge pain is no lockers on campus.  but I talked to the president and he said they're actually working on that.

Jess was downtown for an unsupervised trip to REI and a workout at 24 Hour fitness.  When I got outside, I found her bike locked up to mine and she was stalking me, waiting across the street.  So nice to be the stalk-ee for once.  Since I was done early, I talked her into going over to Seven Corners with me, where I got to pick up my new Cross Check!  It's not as hot and sexy as hers--just black bar tape with no fancy accents.  But it rides like butter and it felt like floating after riding the Dummy for the past month.  Jess left her bike in the shop for some tune ups, and rode the Dummy as far as Dalo's Kitchen, where I was meeting up with a friend for dinner. Since I have no rack yet, she had to carry all the stuff, which was a nice change for me.

I had a nice time catching up with Aiden, although finger food probably wasn't the best choice, considering how germy I am. Hopefully I'm well past the contagious period. 

Now I have a cross bike and two passes for the Cross Crusade series, and cross tires...so I guess that means I'll be doing a cross race sometime soon.  I had planned to be at Alpenrose this Sunday but unless I'm feeling significantly better, I might have to postpone.  But I definitely want to get out there before the weather gets too nasty.  I know, I know, that's the whole point of cross--but I really don't like being cold and miserable.  I haven't trained a lick, but I've watched several videos about cross tips on Bike Hugger, so I should be fine, right? Right?

Out On A Limb

One of the prompts for the third of our four essays due in writing class, was to write about where you're from and who you are, and to answer questions such as:

How one perceives oneself within and outside of a community and culture. How have you dealt with assumptions about each culture? What assumptions do people have about you? How have you handled these situations?  To what extent have you embraced or resisted stereotypes?

Well, it's kind of a no-brainer, this prompt.  Obviously, I could write about being a black gay girl in a straight white world--but I really didn't want to.  I desperately wanted to write about something 'more upbeat.'  On the day that we spent time in class brainstorming our topics, I made the mistake of mentioning my dilemma to a classmate:

As I attempted to express my frustration with the demographic make up of my home town, my classmate hastened to reassure me by saying how much worse things were in her home town in the Midwest, where 'the N word' can still be heard on a regular basis.  I took a deep breath, and tried to explain to her, the subtle forms of racism which are not necessarily any easier to deal with, precisely because they can be so hard to pin down. “You know, I've heard that from other people,” she replied.
    I ended the conversation at that point, before I officially became the 'angry black girl.'  Her response was a red flag to me that those 'other people' were most likely people of color.  It is common for people in a dominant group to not actually hear something that is said about their privilege, unless it is coming from someone in their group.  If my classmate had actually internalized what those 'other people' had told her, perhaps she would not now be responding to my experience by telling me how grateful I should be that things are 'so good in Portland,' compared to where she is from.  As if Portland had figured it all out, despite having a history of racist laws in the Oregon constitution until 1959.  Her comment was completely inappropriate, for the same reason it would be unseemly to suggest to a paraplegic  that they should be grateful they're not a quadriplegic. 

Well, after that, I really felt like I had to write it, if only to give her a clue, and deal with my frustration.  But now I was pissed off, defensive and wary.  The next class, Joan, the teacher, asked us to go around and share our topics.  I didn't really feel like talking about it at that point, so I just said something vague about 'not fitting in.'

"Oh yes, there's a whole area of research on that," Joan said excitedly. "Outsider/insider syndrome."  She then went on with some story about going to a little town to do research and how she experienced the same thing.  But I wasn't in the mood for "I know just how you feel!" coming from a straight, white, middle class woman just then.  She felt me too, because at the break, she ran right over to me.  "I just wanted to check in--I don't feel like I answered your question."

"I wasn't asking a question." I told her that I was feeling guarded about my topic, and that I wasn't going to workshop it in class.  She panicked then, thinking she'd done something to offend me, so I had to reassure her that it wasn't her. 

I worked on it over the weekend, starting over completely three days before it was due, because the first one had just turned into a rant about everything that had ever pissed me off.  Not very useful.  When I was done, I sent it to my WBPs (Weird Black People's) and they all wrote back with virtual head-nods that yes, I'd gotten it right.

The next class, I pulled S (my new metro straight, white boy-friend who loves the lesbos), and L (the other lesbo in class) into the hall and gave it to them.  "You're the first ones to see this in this class," I told them.

"You're gonna give it to us crackers eh?" S joked.  I wasn't worried though and we ended up meeting after class at Cup and Saucer and they gave me some good grammar feedback, and generally said they loved it.  L kept saying how she wished I was in her diversity class the year before, where all the black people were straight and all the gay people were white.  And one of the black women basically had the attitude of, 'let's take care of us (black folks) and then we'll get to you.'  Yeah, that strategy wouldn't really work for me.

"You need a hotline," I told L, "so you can dial it up when you need a queer person of color to come and call bullshit on everybody.  I'm envisioning a nice outfit with a cape of some sort.  Maybe an invisible plane.  You could have different extensions depending on which race you need."

Before I left, I said, "Now watch, we'll get them back next week and Joan will ask me to read it in class." 

Fast forward to this morning.  I walked in late, and Joan was giving a lecture about run-on sentences.  I guess the latest crop of essays wasn't quite up to snuff in the grammar department.  That got me worried.  Grammar isn't really my best thing, and doing things last-minute doesn't help.  But after her diatribe, she came over and handed me my essay and a quick scan revealed all 4's--her grading system is three numbers from 1-4 for concept, development of idea, and execution.  "Beautiful essay," was her comment.

Well, good, I hadn't twisted my guts out for nothing at least.  But the best was yet to come. 

"I would love to have Dean and Kronda read parts of their essays, if you're willing." She looked at me.

I debated.  S and L, sitting next to me, knew better than to offer advice.  Of course it would suck to sit there and read my angry black girl manifesto to a room full of unknown white people.  But really, why had I written it, if not for this very moment, to call out my well meaning, but clueless classmate and make her listen?  I said yes.

I let Dean go first, enjoying his letter to his 'maybe, someday' child.  Then it was my turn. 

I was expecting it to be challenging, but I hadn't bargained on just how hard it was.  I started crying in the middle of page two and didn't stop until class was over.  Oh, so it's going to be like that eh? Crap. The worst part was when I got to the conversation (quoted above).  I was crying too hard to make sentences anymore and had to stop for a long moment.  I didn't look up, but I could imaging how much discomfort I was causing in the room.  Well, why should I be the only one? I heard Joan start to say something, but I ignored her and continued.  Wow, I guess that really got to me.  I wasn't trying to be a drama queen, and I certainly don't like crying in front of a big group of people staring at me, but it wasn't the first time and it would be over soon. If showing these strangers my pain helped make my point (and got a certain person to listen), then it was worth it.

I settled into an acceptable level of crying that would still allow me to speak, and kept going.  All was well until the very end, when I started choking up again.  Come on, you've only got three sentences, suck it up!  Another long deep breath, and I was done.  I felt like I'd just finished biking up Larch Mountain.

I sat and wiped my face on my sleeve, grateful it was cool enough to warrant long sleeves today.

M, chimed in first.  She was in the workshop group when I refused to talk about it.  But they pestered me, so I told them a little bit, to which she and B (from Forest Grove, a suburb about 30 miles from Portland) replied, "Wow, we never thought of that." Yeah, why would they?  I don't remember exactly what she said, except that it was sweet, that she was thankful that I shared, considering I didn't even want to talk to three people about it, and now I had dismantled myself for the whole class--and she said that "anyone with ears should hear this," which is possibly the nicest compliment on my writing, ever.

Another woman (name forgotten) chimed in with more nice words and said she hopes I find a way to get it published (general consensus).  And Dean, Irish, forceful, loud, all-about-me Dean, complimented the 'quality of the writing' and said my tone was 'just right.'

Joan, who admits she spends hours trying to find just the right words for everything, was amazed that I had written the whole thing in a week (less, really).  "I can't do that.  You have a rare gift."

But the best comment was the one that didn't come: my classmate was silent, and looking *very* pensive, which is exactly what I hoped for.  Maybe she actually listened.  Maybe she'll think twice before she says something stupid to the next black person she meets.  Maybe she finally heard me.  If that's true, then I'll take, 'slicing your heart open and bleeding all over your sleeve,' for the win.

Monday Monday

I procrastinated my homework as usual, which had me awake at 5:30 this morning with all intentions of working on the first draft of my next story for writing class. Instead I spent an hour with a heating pad on my belly, waiting for the drugs to kick in. I seriously considered staying home and skipping every class, which I have not yet done this term.

Jess brought me my laptop in bed and eventually I was able to sit up and spit out some words. I wasn't at all happy with any of it, but I got up and went to class (on time even!) anyway, because 90% of life is showing up. And I really wanted to find out what Joan thought of my last paper.

When I got to class, my classmates were sitting around in the hall outside the door. Joan was there, leaning against the wall and handing back papers. I wondered if she'd forgotten her classroom keys, but it turned out she was sick and was only staying long enough to hand back papers. On the one hand I was glad I came and on the other, I could have safely stayed in bed till at least 10:00, and I was bummed. But the drugs had kicked in after all, and Joan did like my paper and wants me to read it in class on Wednesday.

Since we were there and most of us had drafts that we hated, a few of us headed down to the Underground to do the workshopping that would have happened in class. In our group was Sean the Irish smoker, Emily the non-writer (who had draft twice as long as the longest of the rest of us) and Simon the quiet red-head.

We're writing about place and Sean's piece started in my neighborhood of Kenton. I loved the way he talked about the Paul Bunyan statue, staring across at the Dancin' Bare strip bar as if working up his courage to go in. His view of Portland is kind of a tough love, but the piece should prove educational since he's planning to put a lot of history into it.

Simon gave us a few luscious paragraphs about his love of kitchen's that made me think of mom's kitchen. I managed to read my piece aloud (which I hate doing) and get through both the reading and most of the feedback without crying. The other two talked about the story--but the first thing Simon said was, "I'm SO sorry," and clearly, he was very affected by what I wrote, which then set me off too. I guessed then, that somehow, he is in the club too. Note to self--bring tissues to writing class for the next few weeks...

ETA: As I picked up one of the two copies of my story to begin reading, Sean reached for the other one. "Do you mind?"

"No," I said, thinking he wanted to read along as I read, perhaps make notes. But then he stood up.

"I'm going to read this outside and have a cigarette," he said.

I was too stunned and speechless to react. He was out of the room before I recovered. Probably a good thing. Lots of things came to mind many seconds too late. "By the way, she died from that," is always my go-to phrase. I had the urge to run after him and snatch back the paper, lest he fill them with the stink of his nasty, lethal habit. But I didn't do any of that. He was long gone and it seemed I should explain the long silence and what I'm sure was an interesting look on my face, to my remaining audience.

"She died from that," I said, this time for the benefit of my remaining audience of two. I didn't think they were smokers, but I didn't much care at that point. They smiled resigned smiles of understanding. "It's really hard for me not to lecture," I told them, by way of explaining what I felt had become an awkwardly long silence. I think they got it.

I don't know why I'm still so stunned when irony smacks me on the head like that. I should be expecting the blow by now.

By the time we finished the workshop, I was really glad we'd decided to make our own class session out of the time. I hate my stuff a little less now, and I might have a new riding buddy in new-to-town Simon. It's always thrilling to meet a boy I might like enough to be friends with, even though I don't really need new friends. He asked where I shop because, he said, "I like your outfits." Let's tally: 1) Flattery from a boy. 2) Flattery about my clothes from a boy.

Yup, the apocalypse should be along any day now.

Off to math and then to see if I survive yoga after my snowboarding adventure on Saturday. And stay tuned for snowboarding video, hopefully in the next day or two.

Morning is Not My Time

I hate days like this.  I got up early, thinking I'd come to school early and have breakfast on campus. I was doing well. Made myself a smoothie to use up the banana that was going south in the fruit bowl, gathered up my stuff--remembered my rain pants 'cause the weather has sucked so bad.  Grabbed my wallet from the bookshelf--checked my pocket for my phone--grabbed keys on the way out---

Oops. As I rolled up to the bike rack I reached into my pocket and realized, I had not, in fact, grabbed my keys. This is the problem with having a fancy garage door opener and leaving by bike. There's nothing that forces me to remember my keys.

So there I was with five hours of classes ahead of me and no save place to put my bike.  I was not riding all the way home again, especially not with the amount of headwind I fought on the way to school. There had to be a solution.  Could I take the bike to class? Someone had their bike in math class just the other day, but for writing I would have to leave it in the hall and I definitely couldn't take it into the gym for yoga.  I called campus safety and was told their office was too small to hold a bike.

I was just about to give up when I remembered Daniel.

My math teacher from last year bikes to class every day. I ran into him on my way home just a few weeks ago and I knew he taught a 7:00am class that gets out at 8:40.  I went to his office and he showed up a few minutes later.  I explained my problem and he was totally sympathetic.  He offered a few solutions. I could put it in his office, but he wouldn't be around by the time I got out of classes.  In the end, we walked out to his bike and he let me borrow his lock.  He could keep his bike in his office both here and at his Portland State U office later in the day.  We exchanged phone numbers and I promised to slip key and lock under his office door in an envelope later today.  I put the key in a closed zippered pocket of my pants to prevent further stupidity.

Since I had planned on having breakfast at school, I skipped the first 20 minutes of writing class to have eggs and hashbrowns in the cafeteria and prevent (my own or someone else's) low-blood-sugar related death later in the day.

So much for being an early bird.

Yes, We Have No Bananas

Drawing class continues to be fun and challenging.  I couldn't finish in class, so I too a bunch of bananas home to finish up, then fed them to an enthusiastic writing class the next morning.  It's great when a plan comes together.

Today we studied creating value with hatching. I don't think I quite have the hang of it yet.

(These are supposed to be paper bags, in case you can't tell...)

First week of school

I'm almost through the first week of the term and aside from spring break being way too short, things are good.  I think I'm really going to enjoy my schedule.  On the first day, I walked into the first class room for creative writing and noticed a surprising number of black students (for Portland, even in the hood), and an older black male professor.  I looked at the board and noticed it said, "Black History 334"  It all became clear.  I had to go down to the information booth to get the correct room, which turned out to be right next door.  When I walked in, I saw the usual roomful of mostly white faces and the teacher was a mid to late 50's looking woman named Dr Swinney, but she prefers Joan.

Much more what I was expecting.  Coloring not withstanding, the class seems to be made up of some diverse and interesting characters who's stories I'm going to enjoy hearing for the next couple of months.  It'll be nice to get feedback from people who don't know me and won't automatically shower me with 'ohyouresogoodyoushouldwriteabook.'  Though that's nice, it doesn't do much to make me a better writer.  And it will also be nice to have permission to really focus and write some stories I might not (read: definitely would not) have gotten to otherwise.

At the break, Joan told me that I looked familiar, but none of my old retail haunts rang a bell for her.  I was about to blow it off as another 'lookslikealltheothers' moment, but then she asked me if I'd taken writing classes from Linda Christensen when I was at Jefferson. I still don't know where she would have seen me, unless she was stalking the halls of Jefferson  19 years ago, but perhaps it will be revealed before the term is over.

Wednesday, she had some of her students from last term read their pieces and they were all outstanding.  Two of my classmates are or have done active military duty and Ben's story of his first 24 hours in Iraq was mesmerizing.  Anne Marie's tale of where she's from--which includes a bunch of different places--was a revelation for someone who's lived in 15+ houses in the same neighborhood her whole life.  This is going to be a great class.  Even the book is a joy to pick up, and I'd read it happily on my own, even if not required.

After writing is math and the transition from essays to functions on day one was pretty harsh.  My brain rebelled.  I'm hoping it will cooperate a little better after a couple of weeks.  I did follow the review material, but barely.  I'm glad I still have my two pages of tiny typed notes summarizing my previous math class. 

Sadly, my old teacher had to back out of teaching the class, so I was greeted with a strange face when I walked in the door.  After spending Monday's class pouting about it, I've gotten over myself and admitted that the new guy (Paul) seems pretty good.  Math will be OK.

After scrambling my brain all morning, I get to empty it out with yoga.  We didn't do anything except talk on the first day, so I had my first real session yesterday.  It was hard, but I did better than I expected.  My big goal in yoga is just not to get down on myself and try not to think about everything I can't do.  I like the teacher and the fact that she is easing us into things and she doesn't show off by sticking her foot behind her head or some such move, just because she can.  That, and she's constantly reminding us to 'let go of judgements, either of ourselves or others. 

One thing I didn't expect is that we have to keep yoga journals and write down specific things about each session.  I'm sure that's going to be very helpful to actually see that progress happened when the end of the term comes.  Maybe I'll even be able to touch my toes, whoo hoo!

Tuesdays and Thursdays, I switch to right brain and go to drawing class for three house.  Our teacher Kicki, is Swedish, has a cute accent and a mischievous sense of humor that helps put us at ease.  I was a little nervous about drawing, since it's not one of my natural talents, but after two classes, I'm already enjoying myself.  Kicki made us partner up and draw each other in profile and head and shoulders detail.  Some people walked out at that point.  (What, we actually have to draw? THE HORROR!).  I made my partner--a 20-something woman named Courtney--look like an old man, but since she made me look like a hairless alien, we called it even and agreed to share a locker.

This week I got to go shopping for a bunch of fun art toys and today we spent some time just making random marks with different media, getting used to the differences and learning the proper grip.  We have to do at least three 'free' drawings per week of anything we want.  When I got home, it was still nice out so I sat in the backyard and attempted my first sketch of the raised garden bed I've been building this week.  It's not great, but you can at least tell what it is.  I'm itching to learn some stuff, so I can get better at translating what I see.  I notice that I'm already starting to look at people and things differently.  Whee, being an artist is fun!  Plus, later on in the class, there will be LIVE NUDE GIRLS!

I should've taken this class a long time ago.  Still working on getting Jess to volunteer...

First week of school

I'm almost through the first week of the term and aside from spring break being way too short, things are good.  I think I'm really going to enjoy my schedule.  On the first day, I walked into the first class room for creative writing and noticed a surprising number of black students (for Portland, even in the hood), and an older black male professor.  I looked at the board and noticed it said, "Black History 334"  It all became clear.  I had to go down to the information booth to get the correct room, which turned out to be right next door.  When I walked in, I saw the usual roomful of mostly white faces and the teacher was a mid to late 50's looking woman named Dr Swinney, but she prefers Joan.

Much more what I was expecting.  Coloring not withstanding, the class seems to be made up of some diverse and interesting characters who's stories I'm going to enjoy hearing for the next couple of months.  It'll be nice to get feedback from people who don't know me and won't automatically shower me with 'ohyoursogoodyoushouldwriteabook.'  Though that's nice, it doesn't do much to make me a better writer.  And it will also be nice to have permission to really focus and write some stories I might not (read: definitely would not) have gotten to otherwise.

At the break, Joan told me that I looked familiar, but none of my old retail haunts rang a bell for.  I was about to blow it off as another 'lookslikealltheothers' moment, but then she asked me if I'd taken writing classes from Linda Christensen when I was at Jefferson. I still don't know where she would have seen me, unless she was stalking the halls of Jefferson  19 years ago, but perhaps it will be revealed before the term is over.

Wednesday, she had some of her students from last term read their pieces and they were all outstanding.  Two of my classmates are or have done active military duty and Ben's story of his first 24 hours in Iraq was mesmerizing.  Anne Marie's tale of where she's from--which includes a bunch of different places--was a revelation for someone who's lived in 15+ houses in the same neighborhood her whole life.  This is going to be a great class.  Even the book is a joy to pick up, and I'd read it happily on my own, even if not required.

After writing is math and the transition from essays to functions on day one was pretty harsh.  My brain rebelled a little.  I'm hoping it will cooperate a little better after a couple of weeks.  I did follow the review material, but barely.  Which is why I'm glad I still have my two pages of tiny typed notes summarizing my previous math class. 

Sadly, my old teacher had to back out of teaching the class, so I was greeted with a strange face when I walked in the door.  After spending Monday's class pouting about it, I've gotten over myself and admitted that the new guy seems pretty good.  Math will be OK.

After scrambling my brain all morning, I get to empty it out with Yoga.  We didn't do anything except talk on the first day, so I had my first real session yesterday.  It was hard, but I did better than I expected.  My big goal in yoga is just not to get down on myself and try not to think about everything I can't do.  I like the teacher and the fact that she is easing us into things and she doesn't show off by sticking her foot behind her head or some such move, just because she can.  That, and she's constantly reminding us to 'let go of judgements, either of ourselves or others. 

One thing I didn't expect is that we have to keep yoga journals and write down specific things about each session.  I'm sure that's going to be very helpful to actually see that progress happened when the end of the term comes.  Maybe I'll even be able to touch my toes, whoo hoo!

Tuesdays and Thursdays, I switch to right brain and go to drawing class for three house.  Our teacher Kicki, is Swedish, has a cute accent and a mischievous sense of humor that helps put us at ease.  I was a little nervous about drawing, since it's not one of my natural talents, but after two classes, I'm already enjoying myself.  Kicki made us partner up and draw each other in profile and head and shoulders detail.  Some people walked out at that point.  (What, we actually have to draw? THE HORROR!).  I made Courtney look like an old man, but since she made me look like a hairless alien, we called it even and agreed to share a locker.

This week I got to go shopping for a bunch of fun art toys and today we spent some time just making random marks with different media, getting used to the differences and learning the proper grip.  We have to do at least three 'free' drawings per week of anything we want.  When I got home, it was still nice out so I sat in the backyard and attempted my first sketch of the raised garden bed I've been building this week.  It's not great, but you can at least tell what it is.  I'm itching to learn some stuff, so I can get better at translating what I see.  I notice that I'm already starting to look at people and things differently.  Whee, being an artist is fun!  Plus, later on in the class, there will be LIVE NUDE GIRLS!

I should've taken this class a long time ago.  Still working on getting Jess to volunteer...

Distraction

All I wanted, was to find this link, so I could put it into an email. But the link was posted by my sister on Facebook. So I logged on to Facebook. But then I had to read the mini-feed. I saw a link for Twitterfeed, which takes your tweets and updates your Facebook status with them. I've been meaning to try it so I subscribed, which meant going over to the Twitter page to remember my password (turns out I didn't need it anyway).

What was I doing? Oh yeah, I need to send that email. Switch back over to Gmail. Remember why I opened Facebook in the first place, but now 20 minutes have gone by in which no productivity has been seen or heard of.

And that is why the Internet is EVIL.

What? No, I'm not blogging to procrastinate, why do you ask? Excuse me, I have to get back to work.


Posted from XP on Mac

Rambles

I feel like this is becoming the dead mom blog so I'm going to ramble on about some other stuff for a while. I will say, the house is finally empty, but things got much worse before they got better.

I'm still in school. I realize what a glorious luxury it is not to have to work while I'm in school full time. Thanks Ford! I really really hope to continue that trend for the rest of my school career. Mostly my days are filled with homework right now, trying to finish up projects for the end of the term. Today was Java, tomorrow is PHP and CSS. If you followed that last sentence, then you are probably somewhat geeky.

I'm working becoming more geeky but it's slow going. I finally installed Ubuntu Linux as an extra OS on my Mac so I could see what all the fuss is about. I used VMWare Fusion, which I originally got so I could defile my Mac with a Windows installation. It's a necessary evil for school purposes and truth-be-told, it's not Windows I mind, so much as the viruses and crashes that seem to come with it. But it's been fine so far.

I haven't had much time to monkey around with the Linux, but I noticed that the mouse functions weren't what they could be. I needed to install VMWare tools to get more seamless functionality but the graphical installer wasn't working. So I successfully used my root user privileges in the command terminal and installed it that way. Go me. So now I'm posting this from Firefox in Ubuntu.

All my t's and i's are just about crossed and dotted for my transfer to AIP next fall. I'm really looking forward to my last term at PCC. I designed my schedule with an eye for classes that will definitely transfer over to my new (very expensive) school and as a result, my schedule is structured to stretch my brain (and body) in every possible direction:

Drawing: Although I will eventually focus on programming, I have been adamant that I wanted a program where I could learn design principles as well. Hence the art school. Everyone takes drawing and color theory. At this point in my life, I can draw a stick figure and that's about it. I'm both excited and nervous about this class.

Math: My math requirements are sufficient for the two-year plan I started out with, but for a bachelor's, there's a little more math in my future. I had a choice of three different focuses: A) Liberal Arts, B) Business/management/life/social science or C) hardcore science/engineering. I'm not sure how you skew math in those different directions, but I chose B as soon as I saw the name of my old math teacher from last year in front of it. I like his teaching style and he wrote me an awesome recommendation letter for my Ford scholarship. Plus he's totally into bikes, so we were always talking about our steeds after class. He came to a Dirty Martini show at happy hour when class was over and was a witness to my first drunken binge--but that's another story. Math will be hard, but cool.

Since it's my last hurrah, I decided to totally indulge, so my third class is Creative Writing Nonfiction. Can you say, 'Excuse to blog?"

Last but certainly not least, I signed up for a yoga class, three times a week. I've only been talking about taking yoga for the last 15 years, so now I'm taking the plunge. My new massage therapist forbade me to stand on my head and ruin all her hard work on my neck.

See? Mind and body. Since I'm not taking any programming or hard core geekery this term, that means I can take all my classes at the Cascade campus 15 minutes from home. My schedule is 9-2 MWF, and 2-5 TH which means I'll have to get off my butt and ride my bike to school every day. I'm sure that will do wonders for my mental health.

In other news, I have an actual paid writing gig for a new magazine all about the Portland bike scene. I never really thought about it, but it is kind of ridiculous that we are widely considered to be the best cycling city in the U.S. but we don't have our own magazine. My friend Curt aims to fill the gap. I ran into him last fall while working a rest stop on the Bike to the Future ride. I met Curt a few years ago when I was still on a long term mission to get mom a bike. He was working at River City Bikes and he was extremely helpful and nice to us. Mom actually put a down payment on a Specialized Sirrus, but then changed her mind. Stubborn. It was another two years before I forced her into buying a bike, which she took one ride on before things went downhill (and there we go down the forbidden path again...)

Anyway...of course I mentioned that I was a writer so Curt promptly offered me the Women on Bikes monthly column. The first issue will be out in April, check your local bike shops.

Jess and I are having a hard time getting to bed before 2am these days, what with her out of work because of her wrist and me not having any classes before 1pm. She has become quite the social butterfly, and is always off on some date or another with her friends, since all I do is read and mumble unintelligible things about objects and methods. Her old camera died (RIP Casio) and the new one arrived today and she's been obsessing about photo organizing programs, and picture hosting for the last several days. She even started her own blog, which you should add to your feed reader immediately. Her new camera makes movies with sounds and she's busy learning to edit with her Movie Maker program and if I hear myself say, "Hi movie watching people" one more time, I'm going to pull out what's left of my hair, but since I've been the one behind the camera till now, I guess I'll just suck it up.

OK, I'm going to stop typing now and go to bed, despite the fact that I just discovered the built in games in Linux, one of which is Tetris. I *really* did not need to know that.

4.0

Just took my last final. As of 11:12pm I can now resume attending normal life. That means I might actually post some stuff. Soon.

Crunch

My slacking off last week came back to haunt me this week, as I had my first big project due for a class which coincided with Jess's dad coming into town. I stayed up till 5:30am Saturday morning finishing most of the work, slept till 10:00 or so and then we went over to the Red Bike for breakfast. It was hopping as usual and we saw our fellow bike dorks Deanne and Jonathan.

The plan was to drop me off at home to finish my paper while Jess and Chuck went to Powells. They got distracted talking about home projects and before I knew it they had a bunch of tools and the step stool out and were tackling the upstairs office door. Our house is fairly new and the settling of the first few years has tilted things enough that two of our doors won't close. Chuck, being ah, frugally minded, took a look and figure sanding down the top of the doors would be the cheapest, easiest way to fix them.

I finished my paper to the sounds of electric sanding, vacuuming and occasional swearing, but we both got the job done eventually.

I rewarded myself with an episode of season 2 Battlestar Galactica and later we went out to a Livewire show, which is a whole post in itself.

I made it through the day pretty well considering I'd only had 3 hours of sleep, but I was glad to hit the sheets finally. Sadly, my rest was short lived. I woke up three hours later with a phlegm attack and spent 30 minutes coughing and hacking. I couldn't even retreat to the guest room, since it was occupied--and besides, laying down seemed to make it worse. Instead I spent some time online researching the possible causes of my trouble. I figured it could be either dairy, gastric problems, which I have a history of, or the lingering of the cold I had three weeks ago. Either way, I was pretty pissed off about not being able to sleep. After an hour online, I successfully went back to bed for a few hours.

Today we grabbed waffle goodness at Flavour Spot and headed out to Rainier, OR for the third in the Cross Crusade Cyclocross series. We wanted to Chuck to have a quintessential Portland experience. Lots of Sorella's were out representing and I think we got 3 of the top 5 spots in the Master women 35-44. Colleen keeps saying she's 'retired' but she keeps winning the races. I hope I can ride that fast when I 'retire.'

We also got to see our buddy Rebecca, whom we met doing the Idaho ride this past Labor Day weekend (which I will one day finish writing about--really). She's doing her best to lure me out to race (as are many of my team mates) and she reeled in the line a little by suggesting I take her new ultra-light cross bike for a spin around the parking lot. It was light alright, and cornered like a dream and I almost endo'd when I forgot the brakes were disc and they worked *really* well. There were no barriers on today's course which makes the whole thing look more enticing--but I could still see the pain on those uphills. I'll probably end up trying it at some point. Maybe next year...

Here's a few shots we snapped of the action:


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Soon after we left the race, Jess saved us all from untimely death with a masterful piece of defensive driving. Some idiot that didn't know how to merge was coming onto the highway and would've totally broadsided us had she not gunned it and laid on her horn. With a car directly to the left of us, she had nowhere else to go. The other driver finally got a clue and we watched as he slammed on the brakes and his car swerved 90 degrees in both directions and nearly hit both retaining walls, while we cruised away unscathed. We all waited for the bad sound we knew was coming, but miraculously, they got straightened out and kept going. Hopefully the near death experience means they'll watch where they're going next time. The odd thing was I looked up in time from my crocheting to see the whole thing, but my heart rate never even went up, even after the fact. Neither did Jess's obviously, cause she reacted and got us clear and never broke a sweat. And people think bike commuting is dangerous...

The evening has been spent in various forms of industry--more door fixing for Jess and Chuck and cookie and cake baking for me. Cory is coming over to pick up his post hole digger and wheel barrow that we borrowed for fence building so it seems a good opportunity to thank him again with some baked goods--all of which I have thoroughly checked for poisons by sampling them myself. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it.

First day of school

I set my alarm for 8:00 this morning but my wake up call came at 7:45. I really must remember to turn off my phone at night. Of course, that didn't keep me from running late as usual. I decided to ride to campus but missed the shuttle that goes directly out to Sylvania so I ended up on the bus instead.

I have two classes on campus this term, Java programming and Data Communication Concepts. First impressions of the teacher's are good. They both seem engaged and like they enjoy teaching--a definite improvement over last year.

More and more I'm reminded of the fact that I'm delving into a pretty male-dominated field. But I didn't think the domination would come in the particular form I encountered today. I'm talking about smelly boys. Yup, I was olfactorily assaulted, shortly after arriving at my first class of the day. I was already logged into my work station and had several programs open, so I was trapped. At first I thought he was a smoker, but then I realized it was either lack of showering or laundry or both. And my nose is my worst sense, so I had to assume that if I noticed it, the problem was pretty severe.

I escaped to my next class, only to have the smell repeated. I was sitting between two guys this time and couldn't pin down the culprit. But from now on, I think I'll sit in the back.

Other than that, I'm feeling much better about being able to handle my classes this term. I suppose not having a dying mother to take care of will make it easier to focus on classes. But just writing that makes me want to go have a good cry. Have I mentioned how much CANCER SUCKS??? Oh, I guess I did. Well, it can't be repeated too often if you ask me.

All nighters

I just pulled a couple of all nighters to finish up my online Photoshop class. I'm so glad to be done. It was sort of something I squeezed in between all my summer adventures. You can get a lot done on the train once you find an electrical outlet...

For a hot minute, the link to my projects is here.