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.