School is...

Well, school is… it’s… It’s ruining me, that’s what it is! It’s destroying my mind, laying waste to all my ideas, ambitions, creativity. I have no desire to do art anymore. I have no desire to write anymore. I don’t want to do anything anymore!

In the year that I wasn’t in school, I had so many ideas I thought I might burst from thinking too much. There wasn’t enough time in the day to think about everything I wanted to, to write all the words flying through my head, to draw every image that flowed like visual poetry through my fingers.

And now, all I think about are my classes, my work, my duties, and when they’re done, and my homework is finished, I don’t want to think about anything anymore. I don’t want to paint, or draw, or write. It’s horrible. It’s a wall I can’t seem to scale, to get over: a creative block that could rival the Great Wall of China.

I’ve never really felt this way before, even when I was in school previously. I think it’s because… this is the first year in my whole life where art has not been a part of it. Even when I took Theatre for a semester we still had mini-art projects that kept my creative mind at work. But now… in Arabic… there’s no room left in my head for anything but vocabulary. And grammar. And culture. And whatever else we’re learning this week or last week or next week or any week.

I make it sound as though I don’t like Arabic. But I do. I think. It’s kind of interesting, I guess. I feel like I’m accomplishing something, I suppose. It’s just… sometimes the doubts in my head about learning this language are just too overwhelming to deal with.

I used to think my years in Communication Design made me hate art. And they did. Art was my passion, my life, and my time in Comm Des was like rehab for my art addiction: it made me never want to do art again. But now that I look back upon it, in hindsight everything is clearer. As much as I hated Comm Des, it was still art, and I was still forced to think in the creative sense, outside the box, be different and unique from everyone else. Learning a language is not like that. The language is inside the box, and jumping out will only cause confusion and distress. There is no vocabulary outside the box. The grammar must be kept at room temperature inside the box at all times. The culture would likely shrivel if exposed to the toxic airs outside the box. We are encouraged to stay inside the box, where it’s safe and comfortable and everyone is thinking along the same plane of thought. But that plane is so flat and barren and so very… very... empty.

It’s driving me mad. I hate the box. It’s cramped, and crowded. Most people live in this box. It smells. It's monotonous. It's miserable. The walls are so square. There’s hardly any light in here. We need air! We need color! We need words! We need life!

I need life...

Not so Hot

So, about a week ago, I finally began to recover from an illness which I carried for two solid weeks. At the very beginning of my sickness, before I was actually ill, I predicted that I was about to get sick. So, naturally, I went to the doctor so I could catch it early, before it could start kicking my ass. I was in the room with the doctor for about three minutes when he determined I wasn’t sick because I didn’t have a fever. In fact, he determined I was just getting over a sickness, which is absurd because I hadn’t been sick previously. So, like an idiot I left without challenging him (doctors have this interesting knack of convincing me of their perspective, and the instant I’m out the door, I’m like “wait a second… wtf just happened in there?”), and that night I was struck with the fever I didn’t have because I “wasn’t sick”.

Every night the fever hit me, for two weeks, starting around 7pm and ending around noon the next day, leaving me exhausted, fatigued, and extremely achey. I saw a total of five different doctors in those two weeks, trying to determine what I had, and conveniently I never had a fever when I went. Two ER visits, two trips to the Allergy doctor, one trip to the Infectious Disease doctor, and two IV’s and three blood-draws later, they never determined what I had.  It wasn’t the flu, or mono, or anything typical. The closest they could come was Typhus Fever, but in the end, even that wasn’t correct.

I missed 7 days of Arabic class. We can miss a total of 10 before we get an F in the class. I don’t plan on missing anymore, because I need to save at least a couple of those absences for accidental over-sleeping or a random bout of stomach virus or something.

I’m better now—except for a tiny amount of residual fatigue—but dang, what a great way to spend two weeks: in hospitals, lying in bed while my head is on fire, worrying about the horrifying looking rash spreading across my limbs, and getting needles stabbed into my arms until they bruise.

Welcome to Austin: have an unnamable viral infection!

[buffering]

And now it’s time for another exciting hour and half wait between my classes as I sit in a secluded corner of the library on the fourth floor, allowing me too much time to think and contemplate my life. I blame my outdated laptop and its inability to keep me distracted with Netflix. There was only 15 minutes left of that movie! Let me finish it [buffering], damn you!

So here I am. Yep. In the library. It smells of books. Heavily. I’d never been in here before [buffering] last week when I was forced to come here and take a test.  Now, this shall be my Tuesday dwelling. An hour and a half. Still [buffering] ticking by. Still here.

Welp, I guess I could talk about yesterday? Is that interesting? Yesterday was International [buffering] Talk Like a Pirate day, and I celebrated in the only way I know how: by dressing subtly like a pirate. It wasn’t so subtle that my Arrrabic classmates didn’t [buffering] notice.

     “Why are you dressed like a pirate?”

     “Yarr! Do ye not know what day i'tis, ya slimy sea-dog?”

They think I’m [buffering] strange. I can hardly blame them.

And now I’ve managed to waste enough time, thinking, writing and otherwise doing nothing and I must be off to class. Hopefully I can [buffering] ...

More like BOREientation

So I went to the UT Transfer Orientation last weekend, and that was a hellava good time, lemme tell ya. It was hot and the lines were long and their campus has STAIRS, which, needless to say, does not mix with the first two ingredients well.

There were hundreds and hundreds of people there. I showed up at 9:30am and stood in one line for an hour, then I walked to another building and stood in a different line for an hour and a half (at the end of which I had my picture taken for my ID—I look super happy). After the lines, I walked back across campus to a third building where they sorted us into two very large auditoriums: Liberal Arts, Nursing, Business, etc into one room and Fine Arts and everything else into the other. After a long talking to about how wonderful it will be to go to UT—which, btw, I AM looking forward to, however, every single one of us in that room had already attended another college and could not bring themselves to be too enthusiastic when shouting TEXAS FIGHT over and over. Save that for the freshman, who are still excited about college—and after that room, we were sorted down even further into schools. The School of Liberal Arts went to another building—after a very round-and-about trip across campus, btw—where they talked to us again in another auditorium. After that, they divided us by majors: I was included in the “Small Departments”. And after that, they split us into two groups and we went into separate classrooms.

And out of all the hundreds and hundreds of people there that day, I was the only Arabic Major, which I found extremely interesting and couldn’t help feeling a little prideful about.

I’m all registered for classes now. I’ll have class everyday of the week, but that kind of comes with the major—intro level language classes are usually everyday of the week, from what I could tell. At least I’ll only have one class on Thursday’s and Friday’s, so that’ll be nice.

..

are LAZORS the solution?

So, sometime this summer, I was considering getting Lasik eye surgery. As you may or may not know, my vision is not so good. I'm nervous about the surgery, sure. But I hear from all the cool kids that there's lots of perks to being able to see well: 

·         Not having to carry around two pairs of glasses; one because it matches and one in case the lens falls out of the first one, as it often does.

·         Not having to carry around prescription sunglasses as well.

·         Not having to be two inches away from the mirror to put on eye makeup.

·         Being able to watch movies while laying down with head on a pillow. Ooh, I hear that's nice.

·         Not having to push said glasses back up nose every 10 seconds because they keep slipping down.

·         Not having to clean glasses ALL the time, because they manage to get dirty even when I'm not doing anything even remotely interesting.

·         Being able to see things outside these tiny circular frames without having to turn entire head to do so.

·         Not having vision instantly fogged over every time I: step out of a car when it's humid outside, open the dishwasher right after it's finished, or just get out of the shower. Wouldn't that be wickedly cool?

·         Being able to buy cool, new, in-style sunglasses purely for giggles.

A person with good vision has 20/20, which is what I should get with Lasik. People who are born lucky have 20/15, which means that what a normal person can see from 15 feet away, they can see it from 20. So let's say someone had, I dunno, 20/60 vision. That's not good at all. What a normal person can see at 60 feet, they have to be 20 feet away to see it. No bueno.

My vision is 20/800... if you can imagine.  (Well... it was 6 years ago. I know that it's gotten worse since then. I haven't dared to ask my eye doctor for a number again.) So, what a normal person can see from 800 feet away (that's almost 3 football fields,  mind), I have to be 20 feet away to see it. Da-yum.

My vision-ish with glass and without. This isn't really an accurate representation (obviously because things change depending on the lighting, distance, size, etc.)... but... it's what I might see if I was standing,  oh I dunno, less than halfway between us and where the photographer was standing--so 4 feet-ish.

But you know, there's something very calming about not being able to see. It sounds a little nuts, but I like taking off my glasses to enjoy the blissful nothing,  not having to focus on anything. It's strangely freeing. I like to do it when I'm riding in the car (while somebody else is driving, obviously hurr hurr), and just let the world pass by in a smooth mixture of nonsensical color. Lights--particularly at Christmas--are especially beautiful this way, in how they glow and melt together, like tiny, colorful suns, suspended in the air.

To not wear my glasses is to appreciate life at its most basic levels: simple colors and shapes, all mish-moshed together to make a strangely beautiful and almost painterly whole. Perfect vision all the time means there is nothing left to the imagination; there is no more guessing, no more possibilities. Everything is exactly as it appears.

I dunno. It's sort of impossible to describe...

If I had the option to wear contacts, I would, believe me, but I don't. They don't make them for my prescription. So I have to choose between glasses (troublesome eyewear but peaceful nothing) or Lasik (perfect vision with no more mystery). It shouldn't be a tough choice, but strangely... it is.

To see, or not to see, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the eye to suffer

The cones and rods of outrageous vision,

Or to take lasers against a mist of blurriness,

And by opposing fix them? The eye, to see,

Forevermore; and to see is to say we end

The head-ache, and the thousand to twenty acuity

That eyesight is heir to: 'tis a surgery

Devoutly to be wished. The eye, to see;

To see, perchance to clarify – ay, there's the rub:

For in that clarification what images may come,

When we have shuffled off this hazy fog,

Must give us pause – there's the respect

That makes calamity of so crisp sight.

(I could go on, but I'll stop now.)

Sister Day

I know we just got through celebrating Mother's Day, but I would also like to take a moment to celebrate my sister. There really is no better sister out there than the one I have. I am truly the luckiest person alive to have been blessed with such great fortune. My sister is smart (like, really really smart), witty, helpful, loving, generous, amazing (seriously--she's going to school, has two kids, a husband, a house, a life, and still manages to keep up with everything) and she is always there should I need her. And that doesn't even cover half of it!

This isn't much of a tribute to such an remarkable person, but I just wanted to say I love and admire her.



My Mother, Sister, and Me (the babeh).

I'm so happy that I get to see her soon when we go to her congraduation next week. I'd shower her with riches and roses if I had showers of riches and roses, but we'll settle for a long distance wave and a hug.

 I miss you!!

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Mom Day

I drew this as a Mother's Day gift for my Mom, who loves the Harry Potter series just as much as I do.

It's Lily and her son, Harry (maybe age 4 or 5), at a playground.

Love you, Mem!

Posting to Post

Hey, what's up?

...not much, eh?

Not much...

*tap tap tap*

It'd be great if I had something to post about. Something like... LIFE. IDEAS. THINGS/PEOPLE THAT INSPIRE ME. But... I don't. Does that mean I don't have a life, ideas, or things/people that inspire me? Yes. Yes it does.

It's not like a do nothing all day. Except OH WAIT. That's exactly what I do all day.
I draw. Sometimes. And I write. Occasionally. I'll paint something. If I feel like it. I eat. When I remember.

How exciting. I'm really living life by the seat of my pants here (if the dust settling on my shoulders is any kind of indication).

I should be moving to Austin soon, at least.  I got accepted to the University of Texas, so that’s good. Ah, I’ll be starting a new major from the beginning. In class with freshmen. Love it.

Anyway, it’ll hopefully break this trance-like spell that is lack-of-school (symptoms including: inability to walk long distances, cramps from extended bouts of sitting, and all forms of comfortable and addictive laziness.)



Also: MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOOOOU.

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Fantasstic

So, I've thought a lot about it. I suppose I made this blog with the intention for it to be family friendly, so people can come look at my artwork in a nice, trusting environment, whatever. But that's just not who I am anymore.

Here's a still life of some fabric
that I drew with charcoal back in 2007.
Original is 27x34 or something.

Sure, I'm a nice person. I won't steal your kid's lollipop and I won't tell you how that blockbuster movie ends even though it is o-so tempting (everybody dies), but you know, I thoroughly enjoy (to use Patrick Star's terminology) "sentence enhancers." I use them. I do. I like spicy sentence sandwiches. So when I start whipping them out, because I will, don't be all surprised and shit. Oh see! There's one now!

I'm happier without the filter. A blog is supposed to be an expression of oneself, yes? So mine shall be.
.

It's About Time

You know, I never thought about how the names of years were pronounced. Like... 1995, for example. We say, "Nineteen Ninety Five," as opposed to what it actually is, and that's "One Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety-Five." Which is a lot to say, and I understand perfectly not wanting to put forth any more effort than is absolutely necessary to do something.


Here's a Mandala I made back in 2007.
Painted with acrylics.


Anyway, This never occurred to me until last year, 2010, when people started calling it "Twenty Ten," and after ten years of saying "Two Thousand Something," the sudden conversion from "Two Thousand" to "Twenty" was alarming and uncomfortable, right up until I actually sat down and thought about it. After a realizing I'd been calling the 20th century "Nineteen Whatevers" my whole life, I was like, "Oooh. Well that makes sense then."

So, Twenty Ten it is! (Er... Twenty Eleven, by now, actually, but whatever.)

Artwork Shmartwork

Apart from random thoughts about life and bits of nonsense I shall be pulling out of my brain from time to time (much in the way one would pull lint from the depths of their pockets before making a disgusted face and tossing it aside,) I hope to use this blog to post some of my various art attempts.

For now we'll start with a doodle I did of myself back when I lived in my Traditions dorm room (sophomore year). Those were terrible good days.

B(lol)gging

ALRIIIIIIGHT. So, as this is my very first blog ever, I thought I should make it special by.... uhm... saying that it's special, I guess.

Me: "Blog, you are special. Though... I honestly can't see how, seeing as how there are millions of other blogs out there, ones that are insanely more creative and original than you are, so much so that you will probably never stand out in a crowd, ever. But um... you know I don't remember where I was going with this."
Blog: *bursts into tears*

Er... Well, yes. Now that's taken care of, we can move on to more important things!

Eventually...