thursday

because you know it is.

link so i dont get sued
so i should probably be getting ready for school or cleaning but i feel sick so im doing this instead.

im excited to be spending two, maybe even three back to back weekends in athens. as much fun as i have running around and visiting people and working etc. i havent really had much time to get to know this place, and according to my advisor i have five semesters left here (yes that means i'll be a cool 24 years old by the time i graduate undergrad...oh well the economy sucks a nut anyway right now so its probably a good thing) so i feel like i should make a life here. i feel like part of the problem with my college experience thus far is that no matter where i was i was always wanting to be somewhere else. when i was in tn i just wanted to be home. when i was home i just wanted to be in athens and once i finally got to athens i just wanted to be somewhere else. its not how i want to be, i want to feel at home here. now i think its going to take me finding a place to live where i am truly comfortable before that happens, but at least i can become acclimated to this place and let the living situation fall into place sometime later for now. so this weekend i will enjoy my time in athens, ive got a full plate for sure, but ill be here basically by myself so hopefully i can have some time to explore. i spent most of my days alone in tn and now i feel like its been forever since ive done something alone...definitely not a bad thing, but im an independent girl too : )

guess im off to learn about the ins and outs of the food industry. please pray that i will continue to not cutabitch. here are some things that might make me want to cutabitch:
-heals in the morning
-heals in the evening
-heals at suppertime
(well maybe not, mostly just in the morning)
-cups that leak milk
-high volume levels on tv
-olive oil all over the place
-vomit in the sink
-chewing
-prying into my biz

happy thursday!

ps: resolution #1: check! seven weddings scheduled this year, won't be hard to make my goal of eight yay!

used to have a grip on everything, it feels better to let go

just some wedding pics from a wedding a few weekends ago, im sure it will be back up on the other blog soon. my internet life is becoming more complex than my real life and i have to say its pretty hard to keep up with lol.

since school started my life has been a huge ball of stress, projects, assignments, papers and tests abound. im having trouble keeping up with it all whilst maintaining my sanity and trying to leave at least a bit of room for something relaxing or fun, but im somehow doing it nonetheless. but its been good, business is a good thing for me and as long as it doesnt get too overwhelming, which im sure it eventually will, i will be fine. things seem to be falling into place a little better here now. its nice to be out and see people you know instead of feeling like youre in a city full of strangers. now if i could only learn all their damn names.

i signed up to participate in a Bible study group at Athens church. i think it will be good for me assuming this isnt another one of those holier than thou kind of groups. i have to get up tomorrow evening and tell my story. im not sure what to say. in general my life has been pretty boring save about the last three or four years when it got a little too interesting for my taste. what do you say about yourself to a room full of strangers?

i shall figure it out later, for now ill pack up my crap and do the usual routine of crossword puzzle and bus ride. but for your entertainment, you luck assed reader you, some stop motion which is in short ammmaazing. cant get enough of this stuff, mostly because i know how hard it is to do and how awesome the end result is. enjoy!

just so happens to be one of my favorite songs as well
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY

this commercial is stunning. the making of is even more unbelievable, albeit not in English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Nu8bo2d-o

happy tuesday everyone!

im finding more and more that people feel the way i do. perhaps we place too high of expectations on college or perhaps theres just something we're all not getting. its probably a mixture between the two.

if youre one of those who doesnt feel like youve met too many new friends since you started, if youre the type who feels alone in such a crowded space believe me
youre not the only one.
i know a few others and im one of them too.
~~~~
the honeymoon period is over, school is definitely in full swing. the work is piling on and im stressed, but worst of all is i see the familiar patterns of last semester creaping out.

three weeks of r & r at home doesnt do shit, youre the same. the difference is we're all moving on with our lives. ive got other shit to do.

beauty in the breakdown

bored waiting for model to arrive. shes making me a little testy because her tardiness is preventing me from getting back to school. ill surely get caught in this so called blizzard we are apparently about to have. this weekend has been nice. after only a week and a half i was already looking for an out, which is pretty bad to be honest. but while its been nice to be home the weekend is short as they all are and passes much too quickly. i spent most of it stressing about undone items on my to do list. this semester intimidates the shit out of me and if i want it to run smoothly, it gives me no room for error. ive really just got to learn to let go a little bit. i know that whenever anything happens i place the full burden on myself and let it lie there until it dies. this is not a fair thing through which to put myself. plus its exhausting! any stress, anxiety or anger i have for any reason becomes a weight upon my shoulders that i lug with me wherever i go, it only gets worse as the situation worsens, and i cant do that to myself anymore. it is time that i allow myself to relax, and part of that goes with not allowing myself to be victimized so much. i let others take advantage of me; of my time, my patience, my property, my skills, my friendship. im out of rope and i really cant do it anymore. so if i say no when you ask me to do something for you, or if some of the things you associate with having me around slowly start to dissappear dont take it personally, it's personal.

currently listening to: roxanne-the police

i stopped watching.

i think thats what im going to call my next body of work...now what to put in it. for the purposes of this entry im going to call myself an artist. im not sure if i should or can actually classify myself in that way, but here and now im going to just because it makes things easier.

technically, in the area of photography i have never been trained. all of my knowledge and understanding has been picked up in little pieces throughout the years through trial and error, shadowing professionals, reading books, one intro photography class, guessing and belton. and then of course there was my year long stint in the tag program in high school. ms. colvin and i struggled the best we could guiding me through an independent study of advanced placement art. problem was i didnt know shit and she was an english teacher with very little prior knowledge of photography.

we kicked ass.

i got a better grade on the ap exam than most people who took it under the school art teacher.

the one thing ms. colvin stressed was that everything have a clear meaning and everything be what it is for a reason. since then my work has always been narrative in nature, story telling, and of course wordy...but the last part isn't ms colvins fault, i was born that way.

now in college and under the watchful eye of professors who have more knowledge of the fine arts side of things i begin to question this idea that everything has to mean something and if people dont understand what you meant when they see it just by seeing it then you werent successful. sure for graphic design that is important, thats kind of the point, but what about other kinds of art? what about a photograph? do i have to have a reason? do i have to spell it out for you?

my drawing teacher believed you shouldnt do things too literally to save making the audience feel stupid. if you throw it in their face theyll feel like you think theyre incapable of drawing conclusions on their own.

my mind works in such a way that an image will occur to me. sometimes in the middle of the night sometimes at the grocery store. there is no particular rhyme or reason to it, but it just comes often out of nowhere. the robyn housewife picture was that way. i didnt think "oh lets create a whole series of juxtapositions of facades and realities in modern day suburbia" i just saw this image in my head of a completely fucked up housewife mixing pills instead of cake batter.

thats where it came from. no philosophical reasoning why, perhaps in the subconscious the last 12 songs i listened to, the last two movies i watched and the last four books i read somehow meshed together to make some grand visual statement of a complex psychological state, but somehow i doubt it.

i guess the question i struggle with is can the images just speak for themselves regardless or do i have to make them such? ive got images and im ready to go. the problem is drawing them together under a common umbrella, a theme, an idea, a statement. does it even have to make sense to be successful?

i dunno...that would be the problem.

so for now im going to shoot some ballerinas for my photography class and hope that i can improve the quality of my work. tonight on myspace i saw the comments left on the page of a recent "model" i worked with. the comments harped on the technical shortcomings of the photographs i had made of her. i have no problem with critique but i doubt the model is interested in these matters. critique should be aimed at the one who made the error, she needs to learn how to pose and i need to learn how to make a decent picture.

ill admit the pictures were bad, as most of mine are. and yes, i do know the difference between being healthily critical of yourself and harping on the negative in everything you do. my issue is the former. i am never happy with my work because i know it could be better but i just settle for what i can do at that moment. i shoot too quickly at times and blame the setting, the equipment, the situation, the model and at times personal safety on the lackluster results. i would like to for once produce something that i am technically, aesthetically and lyrically proud of, if that even makes sense.

tomorrow is the first day of school. hopefully this semester i can make some friends since i managed to end last semester with about zero new ones. im very nervous about this semester and im not sure im ready for the grueling blows to my self esteem that are sure to follow with the endless critiques ill endure for the next four months...fcukkkkk

this has been far too long and boring for the masses. oh well im not writing for you anyway. im gonna go do a damn crossword puzzle now.

currently listening to "the opposite of the sea" -oren lavie

Sunday morning coming down

People are beginning to return back to school and back to life in the real world once again. Jordan leaves today and I go back Wednesday. Ashley leaves for Australia on Thursday...I don't know what I'm going to do without her in Athens.

This semester is definitely going to be a toughie, but one that I've waited for for literally a year or more, sitting still waiting for this time to transpire. I don't know how to feel about it now that it's here. I've got so much going on in my head at any given time it makes it hard to slow down and really think about anything. Makes it hard to sleep too. But I have to keep it all organized, take it one day at a time and try not to put problems upon myself that don't actually belong to me...thats a hard one for me to do. I just hope that this semester I can be successful and keep it all together too. I know its going to be stressful because I'll be under a great deal of pressure, but I don't want to break down. I actually enjoy being at school and going there for the most part, but for some reason this is like pulling teeth this time.

Launched my website officially on Friday. Please let me know what you think. However I swear, if another person tells me that my pictures are great and what kind of camera do i have? im gonna slap a bitch. when you eat a meal do you tell the person who cooked it that it was delicious and what kinds of pots and pans did the cook use? NO you dont. Cameras don't take photographs, they expose light sensitive services to preconceived amount of light in a preconceived composition. people take pictures. sorry thats my rant lol.

good luck to everyone moving back in and getting settled once again, and as always safe travels.

Good evening, 2009.

So another year has passed. I used to enjoy looking back on the time and seeing the changes and progress that transpired over the year, but now it just makes me more depressed than anything. knowing that just around the corner lies some pretty heavy stuff. i dont want to think about those things now. so as i get older i find that the more i can zoom in on my life, the more i can look at things on a macro level and a day to day time line the more sane i can be.

i couldnt help but notice yesterday that many people's facebook statuses reveled in the joy of a fresh start. 2008 was a horrible year, they said, and they couldnt wait to get out of this year. i cant speak on behalf of others, for i know not what 2008 did to them, but i would sa it was not so bad. it was a holding pattern kind of a year for me. after leaving knoxville, my life was put on standby as i attended classes unrelated to my major and worked my tail off at nv trying to raise money for new equipment and a few mindless pieces of entertainment to keep my mind of how things were. i arrived at a new school only to find that despite its differences, it is solely up to me to make the changes real. it was a year of departures, reunions, depressions, triumphs, slacking, progress, confusion, understanding, loss, love, endings and beginnings.

i do not know what 2009 will bring. i prefer these days to not think too far ahead as i tend to be much happier that way. im not sure that im ready for what the next semester will hold. its a very important semester academically, and at the same time i am really trying to adjust and grow in my new surroundings...maybe for real this time. im not sure im ready to return to a house of such unpredictability, where the tone changes almost as much as a stoplight, but i take a sort of comfort in knowing that i dont have a choice and in that i must get through it and in the end be better for it.

the change of the year reminds me not just of what i want to change or make better in coming times, but also the many many things i should be grateful and thankful for in my life. God has truly blessed me by placing wonderful people in my life. i will never be able to express my gratitude for what they do for me and who they are to me. I hope that in the coming year i can only add to this amazing group.

and finally, the requisite list of resolutions, im doin it for real this time lol

_grow the biz
i hope in the coming year to make my business a legal entity and expand greatly via a stronger marketing strategy. my official website will be launched by the end of this week and a rebranding campaign online and in print will be soon to follow. i also hope to invest in additional advertising and promotional materials. contingent on summer plans, i hope to create a strong client base for senior portraits. i currently have four weddings planned to shoot on my own in 2009 and I hope to bring that number to eight by the end of the year.

_expand creativity
i speak of this mainly of photography, but not photography alone. i hope to better utilize people and resources i have at my disposal to become more educated and expand my creativity. my ultimate goal is to pass the portfolio review in april, as well as produce gallery-quality work that will be shown or scheduled for showing in 2009.

_the atypical healthy resolution
i really do need to start taking better care of my body. i hope to continue the workout regimen that has worked for me this past semester while simultaneously revamping my diet. i hope to cook more, and i dont mean microwaving things lol.

_hone in on my faith
my life has been pretty crazy for the past few years, and unfortunately many things including my spiritual life have been put on the back burner. i would like to attend church more often and find a way that i can nurture that aspect of my life on a daily basis as well. as i look around me and see the positive attitudes and personal successes of those who have a strong faith versus the loneliness and emptiness of those who are lacking it, i realize all the more the importance of this aspect of life. i hope that in the coming year i will chose to no longer neglect this very important facet of health.

_be a better friend
it might be safe to say ive lost more friends in the past year than i have gained. i would like to negate that trend in the coming year by being a better friend. working on my social skills and my ability to reach out to others will play a crucial role in the success of this goal.

_enjoy
anyone who believes i dont work hard for what i have must not know me very well. i spend an immense amount of time stressing over projects, plans, my self image, money, safety and a myriad number of other things. im not sure how, but this year id like to seek out a little more inner peace to allow me to truly enjoy the things and people around me.

those were long-winded and far too detailed for anyones own good.


if anyone is still reading this post (or ever was to begin with haha) i wish you a happy new year. may 2009 be the best year yet, and may you be blessed in all your endeavors.