Being busy and other excuses.

I haven't written in a blog post in the longest time. I didn't think to look at the actual date of my last post, but it was probably late August/Early September. Woops. I'm really sorry about that. I have come up with multiple excuses for this hiatus:

1. My dog ate my laptop (except not really).
2. I lost my laptop (also not really).
3. My laptop broke (TRUE).
4. School is crazy (kind of).
5. I forgot (also true).

So I don't know if you noticed that I said my laptop broke. It did. Worst experience. I was at work at the Information Desk, where all I do is use my laptop to do homework (which actually means browse the internet) and listen to music on either Pandora or Spotify. The day my laptop died, I was listening to music on Pandora. Whenever someone comes up the window, I'm supposed to pause my music so I can talk to them. So, someone came up to the window and I paused my music. When they walked away, I hit the space bar to resume my music listening. I guess my computer wasn't feelin' that idea, because it decided to give me the pinwheel. The awful, awful pinwheel. This happened a lot, so I just turned off my computer, per usual, and turned it back on. Except it didn't turn back on. I started to get a bit concerned, but I figured it was just being difficult. So, I turned it off and back on again, and again, and again, and again. Each time yielded the same result. I freaked out. I emailed my coworkers and boss and asked if someone could come cover the last hour of my shift so I could take my computer to the IT department at the school. My supervisor sent someone down and I ran across the street from the Union to the IT building. I sat there for two hours, skipped my photo class and missed the critique (which cost me 5 points on the project that I turned in that day. Boo. I would have gotten a 95 on it), and they didn't even fix my computer. They just told me I had to order some mystery cable off Amazon. I couldn't find the cable on Amazon, so I asked Reddit. They advised me to take it to the local Apple Store to see what they could do about it, being professionals and all. There was a problem with that, though. I got my computer in June of 2010, and though I got Apple Care, I was quite positive it only added an extra year to my warranty, which would mean it would have expired. I decided it wouldn't hurt to reinforce that theory, so before making an appointment at the Genius Bar, I looked up my Apple Care status online. Guess what? My Apple Care doesn't expire until June of 2013! Thank you Steve Jobs, you wonderful man. Oh, did I mention that the iPhone 5 was released the day after my computer broke? I had to wait until the day after that to get an appointment at the Genius Bar. So I make my way to the Tucson Apple Store, which is in North Bufu. The place was a mad house. It was awful. When I got to the Genius Bar and started my appointment, the Genius, I guess is his proper title, ran about a million different tests and came to the conclusion that my hard drive had bit the big one and I couldn't save it. I needed a new one. With labor included, it would cost $400. Luckily, Apple Care covered every penny. So, I have a brand spanking new hard drive, and to celebrate I bought the newest operating system to go with it. My computer is running like a champ and hopefully will continue to do so for a few more years.

This is going to be the longest blog post in existence. I guess that's what I get for not writing anything for two months. 

I also mentioned that school is crazy, kind of. It's not so much crazy as just stressful. I changed my major from Studio Art back to Psychology and changed my minor from Psychology to Art Education. I think I'm finally where I want to be. For real this time. I also learned that I can graduate a semester early, which is great considering I failed my first semester of Freshman year and I've changed my major about twenty billion times. If all goes according to plan, I will be graduating in December of 2013! I also am starting to look into post-graduation plans. I want to go back to New Hampshire, so very badly.  I also think attending graduate school might be a good idea. I've thought about doing Interior Design, Psychology, Education, Special Education, and Art. However, a few people have mentioned Art Therapy to me. So, I googled it. Two Universities in Massachusetts offer accredited Art Therapy Master's Programs! I got information from both schools and hopefully will go visit the campuses this summer. The future is so near and it is so exciting. 

In other news, I went back to work at Safe Ride, and I am so glad. It is seriously the best campus job, maybe even just the best job, I've ever had. Even though most of the people I worked with last year either graduated on left, it's still great. 

I also got a job as an Abnormal Psychology tutor. It's kind of tough, but I also really enjoy it. I get to share my knowledge with someone who wants it, even needs, and really appreciates it. It's really awesome. 

Let's see, what else, what else. I finish my photo class on Tuesday and I am extremely sad about it. Because I'm no longer an art major, I can't take any further photo classes, from what I understand. I guess that means I'll be taking them at the community college and I'll just take the rest of the 100 level art classes UA offers to fulfill my requirements for the Art Therapy Master's (the requirements are the same at any school, so the pre-reqs won't affect which school I choose!). I start a sculpture class on Thursday and a painting class next Monday. I'm pretty excited for painting, since that's my medium of choice. The sculpture class scares me a little. I'm not good at it, at all, in any way. We'll see how it goes. 

In other other news, I've been pretty successful at my whole getting healthy thing. I'm eating a lot better and exercising on the regs. It's pretty great. I feel pretty great, well, aside from having the worst allergies/cold/sinus infection I've had in a while for the past two weeks. It's clearing up, though. Thank goodness because, unfortunately, my eyes react pretty badly when I have allergies and I can't wear my contacts, so I've been wearing my dopey glasses for a few days and hating every minute of it.

It's officially (I should technically) fall. It definitely doesn't feel like it, however. It was probably at least 90 today. Tomorrow it's supposed to be 92. The coldest day this week: 78. That's still hot. I just want to be able to wear sweaters and boots. Even when I don't try to look cute in fall/winter, I do anyway, because I have a huge/adorable sweater collection. Also, I have a wide array of fall shoes. And some awesome pairs of tights. GIVE ME COLD WEATHER. 50 DEGREES, AT LEAST. COME ON. I hate summer. I have a perpetual sub burn and I'm pretty done with that. 

Alright, I seriously need to wrap this up. I get off work in 20 minutes and this is probably the longest blog post in history. Sorry to bore you all to tears. I hope everyone had a great weekend and that you have an even better week!

Lata'. 

All Snails Considered. Or something like that.

I have too many blogs. This one, tumblr, my food blog. I'm thinking I should just combine them. Andrew and I were brainstorming names for it and came up with All Snails Considered and Snail Things Considered. I'm not sure which I'll use, if I even choose to combine my blogs into one blog. I'll let you know if and when that happens.

Speaking of my other blog, the food one, there's a new post on there! You can find it here. It's about this soup recipe I found on Pinterest, which I made this evening. It was pretty good. It was kind of bland since it was mostly beans. I think I'll add some other stuff to it the next time I make it to add some more flavor. Maybe some chicken sausage or ground turkey or something. Or cheese. More cheese, anyway. You can never have enough cheese...even if you're lactose intolerant.

Stay tuned for a new combo blog and maybe some other stuff. The weekend's almost over, spend the last day doing fun/relaxing/good stuff.

Peace out.

I'm not sure what to call this one.

I just realized I never put up pictures of what my house looks like now, now that it's full of furniture and not boxes. It's so wonderful and homey and great. I think I fall in love with it more every day.

I started another blog. It's a food blog and you can find it on my page that includes other social media things I subscribe to. I hope you guys like it. It's all about being a college student and trying to eat awesome food that's easy to make and easy to buy. I definitely know all about that.

I whine a lot, but it's my blog and I'll do what I want. I follow a few other blogs that have many more followers than I do. It's just a number and who cares how many people read this, but it kind of makes me sad. I don't know if it's because I'm not as interesting as them or what. It makes me worry that most of these posts are just me talking to myself. I like to think someone is reading them and enjoying them as much as I am.

I think this blog is really lacking direction, and I'm not sure what to do about that. I don't know what to make this blog about. I don't know if people are interested in what I'm wearing, watching, reading, or creating. I really don't know. If my readers wanted to give me feedback, I guess that would be good.

This post is all over the place, but so am I, so you're just experiencing me as I am most of the time. I recently started running and working out every day. The other day though, on my first run, I tripped over some construction stuff on campus and fell on the sidewalk. It was super embarrassing. I cut open my left arm, scraped my elbow, my shoulder, and my knee and ankle, and my face; I have a really attractive bruise on my cheek. I can't even believe I did that. I feel and look like an idiot. The next day I didn't fall or do anything stupid, so I don't feel so bad anymore. Anyway, my ambition behind doing this is not necessarily to lose weight or inches or whatever. I just want to be healthy. I want to feel good. So, I'm taking care of myself and eating better. So far so good. I have lost some weight, which I won't be complaining about anytime soon.

I'm not sure what else to write about. I meant it when I asked you guys, the readers, to give some input. What do you want to see, hear, read, whatever?

Good night.

Long time no blog.

I haven't written a blog post in nearly a month. I don't have a particularly good excuse for this, besides laziness and possible busy-ness. It's now the second month of the school, the third week, and I'm finally getting in to the swing of things.

This is my first semester ever taking art classes. I have to take all the foundation courses, which are basically every medium 101 (for example, there's one for drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography). Most of the students in those classes are freshman, with age ranges from 16-19. Yeah, there's a sixteen-year-old in my photo class. I don't feel old or super behind or anything. I'm the oldest person besides the teacher in these classes. Anyway, these classes are only half a semester long, so in total I was taking four of them this semester. I have to take six before I can move on to the real classes. I am now taking three this semester and I will take the other three next semester. I'll explain why I dropped one. I dropped the drawing class. Not because I hate drawing still lifes (that's actually the plural of still life and I do hate them). My teacher was 1.) a bro and 2.) listened to the most awful dubstep during class. How am I supposed to create art when I have to listen to dubstep? Besides that, he wasn't the best teacher. I wasn't sure what he wanted me to accomplish from the assignments and didn't really give a lot of feedback. So I dropped the class and will take it next semester, ideally with a different teacher.

The other foundation class that I'm currently in is awesome, though. It's the photography one and it's super fun and wonderful. We had our first critique of our first assignment yesterday, which I was super nervous about. I was feeling confident about my work until I saw everyone else's and saw mine up on a wall from a distance. There were some seriously cool pieces. We had to make collages of a special place; I'll post a photo of mine when I get it back from my teacher. Anyway, when we finally got to mine during the critique, people actually had almost entirely good things to say about it, including my teacher! There were definitely people who did better than me, but there also were people who didn't do as well as the rest of us. I'm feeling much more confident about my photography abilities. Our next assignment is to make a pin hole camera and take a series of photos about an alternate universe. It's going to be really cool and I have a few ideas that I definitely need to start working them out on paper.

I've realized that this blog post is definitely very rambling, but I feel like I need to talk about EVERYTHING I've done in the last three weeks or however long it's been since I last wrote a post. So I shall continue.

I got a new job the week before school started. I miss Safe Ride, no doubt about it. I had a lot of fun there and had some amazing coworkers. The schedule was killing me though. There was no way I could have continued working until 1:00 AM and still get my act together in the morning before school.  My new job has a great schedule and I can do my homework or watch TV or movies and listen to music while I'm there. I work at the Information Desk so I'm still helping my fellow students, just in a different way. It's really nice and I definitely am enjoying it. It's also pretty cool being able to just come home after school instead of work. It's nice to have the evening to unwind and relax.

So school is going really well so far. Even so, I can't wait until Christmas so I can go back to New Hampshire. I'm definitely missing it a lot. I'm feeling very homesick lately. It's tough being so close to being able to move back permanently, yet still being so far. I'm eagerly awaiting the day I can move back home, for good.

Sorry again for the super long, super boring blog post. I'll do my absolute best to post more often and post more interesting things. I hope everyone else is having a good time at school or work, and as always have a beautiful day.

I'm baaaaaaack.

I don't think I've written a blog post in about two weeks. Sorry about that. Life has been pretty exciting and hectic, and it's continuing to be that way still. Andrew came to New Hampshire to meet my family and we did many fun things, such as mini golf, going to the beach, going to the coast in Massachusetts, and Canobie Lake Park. I have some pictures of said fun things. My family really liked him, which is super exciting and wonderful. It was so great.

It didn't end as well as it could have, however. We were scheduled to fly out of Manchester on Friday afternoon. The weather was iffy, and our plane showed up late and our flights kept getting delayed. We fly Southwest, so when we were lining up to board the plane, a lady came over the loud speaker and said, "If you're continuing on to Chicago and then Tucson do not get on that plane because it is no longer going either of those places." Our flight was supposed to stop in Baltimore and then continue to Chicago where we would change planes and fly to Tucson. Our flight from Baltimore to Chicago was cancelled as was our flight from Chicago to Tucson. So we got another flight for the next day. There were zero flights from Manchester to Tucson and zero from Boston to Tucson, but there was one flight from Manchester to Phoenix, with only four seats on it. So I snagged that, otherwise we might still be in New Hampshire (not like that's a bad thing). My grandparents picked us up from the airport, where we had spent FIVE HOURS for no reason. That was fun. Not. We got another night in New Hampshire, which was nice, but also made leaving the next day so much harder than it already is. Now we're back in Tucson and getting ourselves prepared for school to start a week from today.

You know how I moved in to my new house almost a month ago? Well,  I did. I never got to stay there though, before I left for New Hampshire. Yesterday was the first day I spent in my house, which is still amazing. It doesn't even feel real (that's the silliest thing to say about a house but I do not even care). It feels like I don't really live here and I'll have to leave or something. But I do live here! Breanne and I are still in the (very long and horrible) process of unpacking all of our stuff and finding places for said stuff. This is proving a bit more difficult than expected because our walls are 1. plaster and 2. eight million feet high so it's nearly impossible to hang stuff on them. We've managed to hang some stuff at fairly reasonable heights (i.e. heights that short people can reach on a stool). I still have a few things to hang and find places for, but it's all coming together quite nicely. It's a wonderful little place. I really love it.

That's what I've been doing lately! Quite hectic, but exciting as well. As I said, school starts a week from today. I'm excited to start my art classes. We'll see how they go, I'm sure you'll hear all about it on here. Now enjoy some photos of New Hampshire! Pictures of the house will follow when it doesn't look like a war zone (when we've put everything away and cleaned up).

Have a happy Monday!

Gloucester, MA. 

The Quarry at Halibut Point in Gloucester. 

Halibut Point

The woods across the street from my house.

Looking at the swamp and beaver dams across the street. 

Catching up.

I was going to post a picture of fruit (Day 7 of the photo challenge) yesterday. However, we didn't go to the grocery store until today. So we have some fruit. I really don't see the point in taking a picture of fruit, but I took a picture of some bananas and peaches, mostly because peaches look like funny butts. So here's a picture of some funny butt peaches.

I also took a picture of a bad habit (Day 8). So here's that.

I don't untie my shoes when I take them off. I don't know if most people would consider this a bad habit, but I clearly do. It makes putting on my shoes a pain. You'd think I'd learn to untie my shoes. Nope. Bad habit.

In order to catch up with this photo challenge, I'm going to start doing two photos a day until I'm where I should be.

Speaking of catching up, I also have to catch up on school work. Can I just say that I hate everything about online classes? They are awful. I don't think I'll ever take one again. I hate them. SO MUCH.

Also, Andrew will be here in four days! Exciting exciting.

That's all I have to say about that.

Day 6 of the photo challenge.

I know, I know. I'm super behind on this. My cousin is also doing it and is a few days ahead of me. I'm pretty sure she started it a week after me. Woops. Anyway, Day 6 of the photo challenge was "from a low angle." Now, I wanted to do something other than a picture of the sky or trees or anything like that, so I just looked around at the things around the house that I found interesting to look at and took some photos of them while sitting on the ground or standing under them. None of these photos were overly interesting or fantastic, not in my opinion anyway. However, there was one that I did sort of like. It's a photo of the cover on my grandparents' well in the backyard. At one time it looked like a tiny roof for the well, but it's seen better days. I sat down on the ground and took a picture of it. Here's the picture.

In other news: Andrew is coming to New Hampshire on the third! That's in five days! I've been trying to get him to come here for quite some time, and he finally is! I'm so excited for him not only to meet my family but to see the beautiful place I grew up. I'm finally getting to share my roots with him. I think that's really important and special. I'm going to take him around Amherst and Milford and show him all the places around here that are important to me. Then I'll take him to the beach and other places I frequent. I seriously can't explain how amazing and important and wonderful it will be.

I'll try to post again later today, to try and catch up with this photo challenge business. The next subject is fruit. Since I'm going grocery shopping today, maybe I'll take some nice fruit pictures in the grocery store. Is that a weird thing to do? Whatever. I'm doing it anyway.

Have a splendid Caturday! Here's a cat:

Master Chef

In case you weren't aware, Master Chef and Hell's Kitchen (but mostly Master Chef) are my favorite TV shows. They are so exciting. I'm always on the edge of my seat while watching them. Really, I am, I'm not kidding. I love to cook and I probably love to eat even more than cooking. I'm nowhere near being as talented as the people on Master Chef. The one's on Hell's Kitchen, they're a little rough sometimes. Anyway, I was watching Master Chef tonight and I was like, "DANG. All the girls on this show make such awesome looking food, and they must eat a lot of food, but they look GOOD." I eat a lot and I definitely don't look that good. It got me thinking a bit about getting healthy. Not necessarily going to the gym every day for hours, but eating more healthy, fresh, lean foods.

I go on these kicks where I'll eat really healthy and go to the gym a few times a week, but that last for about...a week. I get lazy. It's really hard to make time with work and school. It's especially hard when you work until 1 or 1:30 in the morning to wake up an hour earlier when you could be sleeping. However, I think it's time for me to get serious about being healthy. I don't necessarily want to be skinny, though I wouldn't complain if that happened, I just want to be healthy and feel good.

I scoured Pinterest this evening for some easy, tasty looking, healthy recipes. I found quite a few. I've make quite the compilation of tasty, healthy things. I'm really excited to try them. I'm also really excited to start eating more fresh produce and lean meats. Ideally, I'll stop eating meat sometime soon, since the idea of it really repulses me. I'm still getting over that after being so sick. About that, when I was really sick, it's definitely a motivator in my quest to get healthy. I don't want to feel like that ever again. I honestly thought there was something terribly wrong with me. For all I know, there was.

I like to make schedules. I think they help me keep myself accountable. So, I made a schedule that includes workouts, school, and the work schedule I hope to have. Currently, I've got it so that I'm working out every single day, which may be kind of a lot at first. I should probably give myself at least one day off. I don't know if anyone even cares when or how often I  go to the gym, but whatever, I'm telling you anyway.

I encourage everyone who reads this to at least consider eating healthy. You don't have to have grand dreams of losing weight or getting huge muscles. You should have dreams and feeling good. I know I do. I also encourage you to watch Master Chef. It's awesome. Monti Carlo is my favorite. Her hair is cool. She also cooks really well, which is the more important thing.

Thanks for reading. Good night.

Uh...Day 5 of the photo challenge.

Woops. I think I first posted about the photo challenge like...two weeks ago. And I'm on Day 5. Uh....my bad. Sorry for that, if you were super interested and I just kind of left you hanging after my super titillating post about my photo of some clouds. I know you guys were SO INTERESTED. Anyway, since I got my new camera, which may I just say is the greatest thing I've ever owned, I will begin taking photos again! Yay! I bet you guys are really, REALLY excited.

My camera came with some little booklets about other Canon products that will eat my money but potentially make my photographs awesome. I think my next purchase will be a macro lens, so I can get all up in my subject's grill and take cool pictures of their pores and stuff. Not really, though. I definitely prefer taking photos of inanimate objects. Maybe one day I'll grow up to be a food photographer like Becky from Master Chef! !!! I can dream. Anyway, in the booklet about macro lenses it mentioned that taking photos of antiques with said lens was a cool thing to do, because it can really highlight all the tiny details and the craftsmanship and everything else that's awesome about antiques (I love antiques, you have no idea). So I decided today that I'd take some photos of the cool antiques my grandparents have in various corners of their house. One of my favorite antiques is this sewing machine. It's from Germany and may be older than my grandparents. It's in super excellent condition for its age. I mean, this thing is beautiful. So, for your viewing pleasure, I took a few photos of it, one being the assignment for Day 5 of the photo challenge (from a high angle). I don't know if this could be considered "from a high angle" but I'm a lot taller than the sewing machine, so to me, taking a picture from above it is a high enough angle for me. I wanted to try and capture how cool this thing really is, especially the paint and the detail on the body of the machine (is that what it's called? I have no idea). Anyway, I'll get on with it, here's the picture.

On a more serious note, I assume nearly everyone by now has heard about what happened in Denver, Colorado last night/this morning. It is very sad, heartbreaking, that things like this happen. Things like this are the product of hatred. It may sound cheesy or stupid, but I think the Beatles really said it best, all you need is love. I sincerely hope that one day we can all learn to love one another. A friend of mine posted this on facebook (I'll post the link at the end of this paragraph); it's about a blogger who was shot and killed at that movie theater in Denver. She wrote on her blog about an incident in a mall where a man opened fire in the food court, and she happened to go outside minutes before it happened, saving her own life. I think the following paragraphs from her account was really powerful, and I would like to share it with you. Thank you for reading this, I hope you are well, and I hope you are thankful for this beautiful life we are able to continue living today.

"I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders' faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don't know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath. For one man, it was in the middle of a busy food court on a Saturday evening.

I say all the time that every moment we have to live our life is a blessing. So often I have found myself taking it for granted. Every hug from a family member. Every laugh we share with friends. Even the times of solitude are all blessings. Every second of every day is a gift. After Saturday evening, I know I truly understand how blessed I am for each second I am given."

http://www.brobible.com/life/article/heartbreaking-last-tweets-jessica-ghawi

New camera, new camera, new camera.

I got the new camera I wanted! My grandparents got it for me as a belated birthday present. It's a Canon Rebel T3i with an 18-55mm lens. I also got a 75-300mm lens. This camera is seriously blowing my mind. I want to take pictures of everything. It takes the most beautiful photographs. It's an amazing piece of machinery. I took quite a few photos and I want to put every single one of them up. However, I'll spare you and only put up my absolute favorites. I'll return the actual photo challenge tomorrow...maybe. For now, here are some photos!

LOOK AT THE DETAIL ON THE LAST ONE. You can see the freaking fibers of the fake flower. The power of this camera is seriously crazy to me. Absolutely crazy. I am so very excited to learn more about this machine and how to make it really work for me. I'm taking a photography class this coming semester as part of my requirement for my art major. I'm hoping I'll learn even more from that and that my teacher and peers can help me take better photos. 

I can't even really put in to words how excited I am. This camera is a step forward for myself and for my art. I'm really hoping I'll be able to produce some great stuff that I can share with you guys.

In other news, I'm really enjoying being in New Hampshire. Whenever I come back here, I never want to leave. I love being home. It's so wonderful. I love this place. I'll save you all from my blubbering, though, and bring this post to a close. 

Thanks  for reading. 

New Hampshire!

Hello all. I am currently in New Hampshire. It's quite nice. I'm enjoying spending time with my family and the beautiful weather. It's nice to not be sweaty 24/7. The humidity is actually really nice, too. Today was pretty hot, though.

I'm sure reading this isn't as exciting as it was when I was posting every day, but I'm doing my best, I promise. Anyway, let's get on with the blog post.

I'm going to hold off on taking any more pictures for the photo challenge until I possibly get a new camera. I'm looking in to getting a Canon Rebel t2i and some lenses for it. I feel that my current camera is holding me back from advancing with my photography. So, hopefully, that will happen soon and more photos will be on the way.

I've started thinking about graduate school and where I want to go after I graduate. I originally wanted to come back here, but my options are limited for art schools. There are quite a few in Boston and there's a very interesting one in Portland, Maine. However, I think that New York will be my best bet. Here's why: I found a school there that offers a Master's degree in art therapy. Maybe people have told me I should go into the field, as it combines two things I am passionate about, psychology and art. It seems like the perfect opportunity for me. I'm not going to make any final decisions now, that's a bit rash. I'm going to begin making plans to visit all of the schools I'm interested in, and then applying when the time comes. Which is sooner than it seems. Which is terrifying, but now I've got some ideas about the future, so it's not so scary.

I hate summer school. Can I just say that? I spent my entire day doing homework and I feel like I accomplished mostly nothing. One of my instructors didn't post the videos of his lectures for the day until an hour or so ago. The other instructor had me watch a movie that took about two hours. I just want  summer school to be over and I want it to stop cramping my vacation style.

That's all for now. I just thought I'd share some updates. Happy Tuesday night!

Day 4: Green Things

Alright, I know it's been about a week since I last posted anything that actually had to do with the photo challenge. Woops. So much for it being thirty days long. In reality, it's now probably like forty. Whatever. I like to take my time with my art.

Anyway, so the subject of the fourth day of the photo challenge was something green. I wasn't entirely sure what to make the subject of my photo, since there's not very many green things in Tucson. It's mostly brown things. However, I'm currently at my boyfriend's house, which is known as Cactus Fortress. Cacti are green. So I went outside after the rain had stopped and took some pictures of the cacti. This one is by far my favorite.

I especially liked the baby cactus buds. I think they're pretty cute, as cacti go.

This time tomorrow I'll be on a plain headed for New Hampshire! Maybe tomorrow's blog post will occur from 30,000 feet. Who knows. Air planes have wifi now, which totally blows my mind and makes no sense to me. But whatever, it's pretty cool and convenient for me. Now I don't have to read books (who even does that anymore?) and I can watch really bad television shows on Netflix! Not really. I'll probably still read. That sounds much more pleasant.

Hopefully once I reach New Hampshire I will have more time/opportunities to take some interesting pictures of the place I love most! I'm very excited for that. I don't tend to take many pictures when I'm in New Hampshire, but now that I have a camera, I'm sure I will be doing plenty of that. I hope you all are as excited as I am!

Also, a note about rain in Tucson: it makes it super humid. I haven't had short hair in humidity in about five years. I hate it. It's really so awful. I look absolutely ridiculous. Just everyone is aware. I will be glad when humidity is no longer a thing and when my hair is a little longer so I don't look like Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka.

Have a nice, rainy (or not so rainy, depending on your location) afternoon!

New houses make everything better.

I can't even explain how excited I am to finally be able to live in my new house. I moved all of my stuff in there yesterday. By myself. Let me tell you, it's pretty difficult moving a huge wooden dresser, a full-size mattress and box spring all by yourself. I'm super sore today and don't want to lift anything over ten pounds ever again. Anyway, I hadn't been in the house since Breanne and I first looked at it in March. Neither of us really remembered what the inside looked like. It is so much better than I could ever have imagined and way better than I remember it. It's such a wonderful house. It's beautiful. Instead of babbling on about it, I'll post some pictures. It looks a little rough right now, but I'll post more when Breanne and I get back from our vacations and we have everything in it's place and all that jazz. For now, here's our house!

It's been a while.

I know I haven't posted anything in a few days, and for that I am terribly sorry. My life has been pretty busy the past few days and will continue to be that way for a while. I got back to Tucson on Tuesday and have since been spending some much needed quality time with my wonderful boyfriend, Andrew, who has kindly agreed to let me squat at his house. Until tomorrow!

Tomorrow I get to move in to my beautiful new house where I will be living with my dear friend, Breanne. I am so very excited, as is she. It is really the prettiest house ever. We have all hardwood floors, a fireplace, and a basement. Ain't no thang. So I rented a U-Haul and loaded it up with all my stuff, which surprisingly took up and entire 10 foot truck (I had no idea I had so much stuff). Tomorrow morning I'll be venturing over to my new house and I get to go inside it for the first time since March! You guys, this is so exciting. I can't even explain it.

Also, I started two summer classes on Monday, which turned out to require more work than I had anticipated. I've been spending much of my time on the internet doing homework, which really sucks, let me tell you. Hopefully, once I get to New Hampshire and things slow down a little, I'll be able to post more often and get back into the photo challenge. I'll probably post again on Monday, from beautiful New Hampshire!

Again, sorry for being absent for a while. I'll be back soon!

PEACE AND BLESSINS~~~~~ (If you don't understand this, I suggest you go on youtube and get some Glozell in your life.)

Day 3 of the photo challenge and figuring out some unknowns

I'm on Day 3 of the photo challenge! It's very exciting that I'm actually keeping up with it. I never keep up with anything of this sort. Anyway, Day 3's photo subject is clouds. I actually took quite a few photos that I really liked. Most of those were of the sun, though. Sunflares come later, but now I know how to achieve them, which is very exciting for me. Anyway, this is my favorite cloud photo that I took.

I know I've mentioned my film camera in nearly every post, but I learn something new about it every day. I think I finally discovered why my photos were turning out blurry. I didn't realize I had to set the film speed to match the speed of the film. I had it set at 1600 when I was using 200 speed film. I feel like that miiiiiiiight cause a problem. Maybe I'm totally wrong and it's just a piece of shit. Whatever. I'll go buy more film and I guess we'll find out! I, of course, will keep everyone posted about my adventures with the Devil Camera.

Some unknowns regarding the next few weeks will be answered tomorrow! The biggest one being a phone call from my land lord, who will hopefully tell me that Breanne (my roommate and good friend) and I can move in to our house this week/coming weekend before we both leave on trips to somewhere nicer than Arizona! If it doesn't work out that way, I will cry and hate my life. So there's that.


I return to the Dirtiest of T's on Tuesday and then it's off to the land of my birth, New Hampshire, on Sunday! These are very exciting things. I will be spending almost all of tomorrow packing the rest of my stuff. I will, of course, make time to take some photos and post them here. And if something else happens with my camera, I'll tell you about! See you next time on, Snail's blog. This is NPR. [Not really, I wish. Sorry if you don't listen to Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me and were left out of that reference. (Listen to Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me. It's hilarious and informative!)] (Unsolicited indorsement. I wish they would solicit me to endorse their show).

Good night!

Unknowns, the future, and technical difficulties.

Well, due to my technical difficulties, I'm writing this post from my phone. My computer honestly sounds like a jet engine and is the temperature of the sun currently. Just to give you an idea of what I'm working with. Anyway, on to the blogging.

I've been thinking a lot about the future lately. I might be graduating this year. Or next year. Or possibly the year after that. It all depends on whether I enjoy majoring in art enough to stick with it. I had almost completed my psychology major when I decided to switch. It might not have been the best decision, but it's something I want to do, as far as I know. There's unknown number one: when am I graduating?

Unknown number two kind of ties in to unknown number one. Unknown number two: what am I going to do after I graduate aka what am I going to do with my degree? I honestly have zero idea. I hope I can find a cool, interesting job that allows me to utilize my art degree. Besides finding some kind of employment, I also intend to go to graduate school and get my Master's in...something...somewhere. Enter the third unknown. Maybe the fourth, too.

I don't what I want to go to graduate school for. I'd like to go for just art, art education, interior design, interior architecture, landscape architecture, just to name a few. In the coming months/year, I might have to narrow that list. It's actually much longer than this one. My fourth unknown kind of ties in with this. I want to go back East, that is for sure. Where, specifically, I don't know. Do I want to go to New York City, Boston, Massachusetts in general, New Hampshire? I honestly don't know. I'm trying to find graduate schools that offer any of my listed interests in these general locations. Actually finding them has proven to be extremely difficult. I don't know where to even begin to start looking.

All of these things are extremely stressful for me. What's even more stressful is knowing that I can't do a whole lot about any of it right this second. I'll have to wait a few months, a year, maybe longer. The future is terrifying, but it's also very exciting. I cannot wait to really begin my life. The road of life will lead somewhere, and I am beyond excited to see where it takes me. It will really be a long, strange, glorious trip.

Good night.

Day 2: What You Wore Today (Part 1 of 2)

Day 2 of the photo challenge is "what you wore today." I wanted to do something sort of like a fashion blogger would do, so I tried to take a photo of each part of my outfit (except for my jeans, since those are pretty standard and boring and I wear them almost every day). I'll do a proper blog post later tonight. Here are the photos.

Excuse the line in the last photo. I literally uploaded it four times and still got stupid lines in various places in the photo. The weather is a bit yucky, so I'm having some technical difficulties. Because of said difficulties it might take me a bit longer to post my actual post for the night. It will happen, though, promise!

Day 1 Photo Challenge and other things

Day 1: Self-portrait

Day one of the photo challenge was to take a self-portrait. I didn't know what to do for this photo, really. I went in to taking the photo with no plan or vision for it, so I think I just sort of ended up with one that looked okay. That's how chose it, anyway. It was the one that looked the most "okay." The last photo of the challenge is also a self-portrait. I'm hoping that by the end of these thirty days and taking many photographs, the next and last self-portrait of the challenge will look a lot better and a lot more interesting. Anyway, onto my real blog post.

In my last post I talked a little bit about my film camera, the old Canon. I thought my photos had been blurry because my hands shake. However, after today, I realize that is not the case. I dropped off my film at Walgreens. When I came back to get it at 4, the lady at the photo center told me that she had a really difficult time getting the film out of the canister, as it had been very badly mangled and seemed like it had almost gotten stuffed inside the canister. In addition, my camera had skipped over about seven photos, the negatives were blank in those spots. The few photos that did survive turned out blurry as well. Apparently the problem wasn't really me, it was the camera. I guess that's what I get for buying an old camera over the internet. I'm definitely disappointed.

I'm not entirely sure what else to write about today. Tomorrow is my last day at work (my summer job, I mean), so there's that. I'm returning to Tucson on Tuesday and then heading to New Hampshire next Sunday. It will be nice to be back in Tucson for a bit and even better to get out of Arizona for a while. I'll do my best to continue to post every day while I'm in Tucson and New Hampshire, though it might be a little bit difficult.

That's all for now.

It's getting better all the time.

I'm constantly trying to get better at the things I enjoy doing. Painting, writing, drawing, taking pictures.  I might be as bad at taking photographs as I am at writing. I know nothing about photography and what it takes to make a good picture. I've been browsing Pinterest for a little bit today looking for some helpful tips and things that may help me become better at taking photos. I mean, I bought a nice digital camera, I should use it, right? I also have a pretty cool old Canon film camera, which I am also trying to figure out. So far, it's been a lot easier to figure out...kind of. Here are a few things I figured out recently (regarding the film camera): my hands shake...a lot, so I have to keep the shutter speed fairly high so my shaking doesn't make the pictures blurry. I got an entire roll of film developed the other day and every single picture was blurry. So there's that. Another fun time learning to use the film camera: I had to waste two rolls of film just to figure out how to roll said film back into its canister after finishing the roll. I exposed the first roll and the second I ripped in half. The great thing about these experiences, though, is that I'm learning and hopefully making progress.

As I said, I have this digital camera. It's a Fujifilm that I bought myself for Christmas. It's a pretty nice camera, but I feel like I need to branch out of the automatic modes. The only thing I'm capable of doing is choosing the scene position and whether or not I want flash. I've found a few blogs that have some fairly simple steps and explanations that aim to teach the reader how to control the aperture and shutter speed, and all that good stuff. I'm slowly learning about all of these little things that come together to make a photograph. It's difficult and frustrating, but nothing that has ever been worth it has been easy.

I don't know if you've ever seen those things on the internet, the "30 day photo challenge" things. Well, typically, I dislike them. The subject matter (what you're supposed to photograph) is usually pretty bland, boring, or just plain stupid. However, I found one that isn't too bad. I also feel like it will be a good excuse to use my camera at least once a day and it could make for good practice. So, I'm going to do it! I will post my photos here, and hopefully we'll both begin to notice a (positive) difference in them. For all of you out there, here's the list of things I'm supposed to photograph and I'll do my best to post each photo that day with a little blurb about it and whatever else I feel the need to blurb about.

THE LIST

Day 1: Self-portrait

Day 2: What you wore today

Day 3: Clouds

Day 4: Something green

Day 5: From a high angle

Day 6: From a low angle

Day 7: Fruit

Day 8: A bad habit

Day 9: Someone you love

Day 10: Childhood memory 

Day 11: Something blue

Day 12: Sunset

Day 13: Yourself with 13 things 

Day 14: Eyes

Day 15: Silhouette

Day 16: Long exposure

Day 17: Technology

Day 18: Your shoes

Day 19: Something orange

Day 20: Bokeh (which apparently is just out of focus areas?)

Day 21: Faceless self-portrait

Day 22: Hands

Day 23: Sunflare

Day 24: Animal

Day 25: Something pink

Day 26: Close-up

Day 27: From a distance

Day 28: Flowers

Day 29: Black and white

Day 30: Self-portrait

So there it is. Some of them I'm not entirely sure, but I'll make it work. Let's hope this little (or not so little) exercise helps along my journey to become a bit more skilled behind the camera. 

Have a beautiful night and, hey, thanks for reading my blog. G'night.

P.S. I just realized I never proof-read my blog posts. I should probably do that.

Second guesses, quarter-life crisis, the usual.

I think I have a quarter-life crisis about every other week. I guess I'm not really having one, but I'm having some second thoughts about this blog. I wonder if people really care enough about my life. Does anyone care enough about what I think, feel, do, or have to say to read this blog? I'm just unsure about the whole blog thing.

I dyed my hair, because frankly, I don't want to have red hair for a while. I want something different. Not necessarily different for most people, but different for me. I think I may cut it too. I'm entering what feels like a new chapter of my life and I feel like I should reinvent myself a little. I don't know. I feel like I don't really know about anything right now. I'm at a weird place and I'm not sure where to go from here.

Excuse me for being a debbie downer, but I guess everybody has those days. Here's a song that was on the radio as I drove home from getting coffee today. I really enjoy it.

Beef: It's not for dinner.

I've tried many times to cut meat out of my diet. All of those times it's been quite difficult and I ended up giving up. It's not that I don't have a gigantic love and respect for animals, I do. I just thought they tasted really delicious. Until yesterday.

Often times when you eat something and you become sick later that day, even if it was not the fault of that specific food, you tend to eat it much less than you previously did, or just don't eat it all. Well, unfortunately, one of my favorite foods has done this to me. After eating prime rib at the restaurant where I work, I became sick. At first I chocked it up to drinking more than I previously had been (21!). A few days later however, my father made hamburgers, and these too made me extremely sick. It's quite sad really, I can't even see hamburgers or steak on TV without feeling nauseas and being completely repulsed. On the bright side, maybe this was the push I needed to stop eating meat. Or at least beef. Baby steps, you know?

In other news, I finally figured out how to roll the film back into it's little shell while it is inside my film camera. I don't know what this process is actually called (camera rookie over here), but after destroying two rolls of film, it's good to finally know how to do it the right way. I actually ripped one of the rolls of film in half trying to do it earlier today. Woops.

I also learned that my hands shake much more than I thought they did. For this reason, I don't get to do fun things with shutter speeds. I have to keep the shutter speed at a fairly quick one to ensure that my photos aren't blurry. Again, baby steps.

This summer has been largely about learning for me. I've learned a lot about my art, my abilities, my interests, and possibly my future. I don't know how many people will read this, or if they know about my struggles with my future and what I want to do with my life. For so long I did what was expected of me. I did what I was told, what made sense, and what was practical. Unfortunately, what I really love isn't necessarily practical. However, I don't think it's unfortunate, nor am I going to continue to let others keep me from doing what I love. After being a declared Studio Art major for almost two years, I finally enrolled in art classes. I'm going to do what I love and regret nothing.

Opus 28

I want to write something about the beautiful music I've been listening to this evening. Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Mozart. These composers created some of the most beautiful music, ever. I find it interesting how one sort of music influences another. It all started somehwere. I think people often forget that. I don't understand people who dislike classical music. Or people who dislike any sort of music from the past. You wouldn't be listening to Carly Rae Jepsen on your radio if so many other people hadn't created music before her. I'm not going to continue on that rant, however. I could seriously write a book about it.

Anyway, when I experience something beautiful I feel the need to share it. I want other people to experience not only the way I have experienced, but I want them to discover it for themselves as well. Everyone should listen to beautiful music, read beautiful, powerful literature, and see the beauty in life. This reminds me of something Goethe once said, which my grandparents have hanging somewhere in their house. "Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words."

Good night.

Books: I like them.

Do you ever wish you could read a million books at once? I often find myself feeling that way. Is this what you write blog posts about? The odd things you are compelled to do? What do you even write about on these things? 

I often find that after reading a particularly fantastic piece of fiction, I am struck by the desire to write something equally wonderful, if not more. However, I have a small problem. I'm not a very good writer. I know a lot of people say things like that about their writing, but really. Mine is awful. I often bounce around from topic to topic. It's all very jumbled and disorganized. I also have another problem, which isn't all that small. I don't think I have anything to say. Maybe I do have something to say, I'm just not entirely sure how to go about even beginning to say it. Actually, I guess there are quite a few problems with my writing. At least, I think so anyway. I could go on and on about how awful my writing is and how much I hate it. I guess that's the only thing I can write about. That's not very interesting at all. 

I suppose that this blog will be largely dedicated to my struggles with writing and painting. Though I like to think I am much better at the latter, I know I'm not as good as I could be. I know how to get better, though. I'm not sure how you get better at writing when you're probably the worst writer on the face of the Earth. The worst writer in the known Universe. I like to think that having a blog where I attempt to write about something daily will help me become a better writer. That's my goal. So, I guess that's what this blog is about: my journey to suck less at writing. It's good to know I've figured out at least one thing today. 

Dear Diary, are you there? It's me, Snail.

I made a blog. Obviously. I created this in hopes that I'll write something every day. We'll see how that works out (good positive attitude, huh?). Do you start these sorts of things by talking about yourself? I don't really know how blogs work. So, I suppose I'll just tell whoever is reading this a little about myself, in the event that you don't really know anything about me. Here it goes.

My name is Kayleigh. I'm turning twenty-one in about four days. I attend the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona (imagine that). What I'm studying seems to confuse a lot of people. I've majored in pretty much every major ever in the past two years. I've finally settled (hopefully) on Studio Art. Technically, I'm majoring in Psychology too, but that might change (again, imagine that). I'm entering my junior year. I guess it's pretty exciting. I like to think it is.

I don't know what else to write about. I don't like talking about myself or my life, really. Having a blog doesn't make too much sense, then, does it? Maybe having this will help me to open up and talk about anything and everything. We'll see how it goes.

I think that's about it, for now. Blog post number 1, concluded.