Optimism?

Earlier, I was really angry about being jerked back to Raleigh and back to reality. Away from my 12+ hrs of sleep, away from my kitties, away from delicious food, away from my beautiful car. But. I'm here now, and I guess there are some good things here. So, in an attempt to be positive about school/life, here are nine things I was excited to come back to (I named them all "My ______" like Scrubs episodes):

1. My consistent water pressure. My water pressure in my Durham shower is weak, but here I can actually rinse all the shampoo out of my hair.

2. My Mac. My home PC moans and groans and tries to shut down whenever I open AIM, the interwebz or similar. I think it's so full of music and high school English papers that it's diseased somehow. Also, my laptop doesn't get the internet at home because my mom FORGOT the password for our wireless "LDEAR" system. NICE.

3. My roommate She made cookies, cleaned the kitchen and brought back Glamour. And she's just kind of great in general.

4. My knowledge map Today I did one outline drawering in Illustratorof my brother developing a photograph. ONE. It's going slowly, but I like this map about a million times more than my first studio map.

5. My job designing + friends + bojangles' runs + monie$$ + office hours where i do nothing = my job right now

6. My clothes Over thanksgiving break, I brought home ONE shirt and TWO pairs of pants. Dumb dumb dumb. It's nice to be back to having options.

7. My knowledge of missing links Meredith just told us all about missing links; too bad I KNOW MISSING LINKS VERY WELL ALREADY! Hey, 12:59. Hey, missing links. Yep, I forgot about you. CRAP.

8. My gmail Today I received several emails with me/LauraW/Alison/Maggie animated as dancing elves, which pretty much made my morning.

9. My routine I'm such a freak, but I really LIKE having a routine of having to do this and that in whatever order. I like structure. I hate change. Now I'm back in my little structured world, which is kind of like an invisible security blanket. I know that in 45 minutes I will trek to the office, hit up the budget office for some colored paper, draw out the front page, go to the budget meeting, split pages, eat dinner, design, design, send pages, go home, watchy trashy TV with Alison and go to sleep.

It's nice to be back. Sort of.

Hello, internetz

Maybe this is silly, but I generally just think of my blog as only read by Nosila, Magattacksyou, and maybe Alisontheinternet. I keep forgetting that this blog can be read by EVERYONE who has internet access AROUND THE WORLD. Maybe THAT'S silly...maybe Nosila and Magattacksyou ARE the only readers I have.
Anyway. Since I am theoretically speaking to everyone on the webz, here are sites you should check out if you're bored over Thanksgiving (They've greatly improved my break, so I just wanted to share the love):

1. Justice's D.A.N.C.E, a great song with a greater video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=fo_QVq2lGMs

2. Postsecret finally updated! Sometimes they don't, which is really frustrating. I count on you changing every Sunday morning, PS, and you keep letting me down: http://www.postsecret.com

3. Some scathing fashion criticism that my darling roommate shared with me: http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/

4. I love old Penguin book covers -- the designs are so simple, yet there's something really captivating about them. I found this site last week during Art History; click on a thumbnail to look through all the covers: http://www.lifeclever.com/flickr-find-the-beautiful-nostalgia-of-penguin-books/

5. Another internet gem I found during Art History. This magazine (GOOD) has this section called "Transparency," which is a collection of really nicely done infographics about world issues. I love information design, and I used this website as inspiration for our last Science & Tech page: http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/Transparency
(The Solar Power infographic is my fav)

6. I'm generally too poor to buy lots of magazines, so I like to read this http://www.nylonmag.com online instead. Their design AND content are cool. BALLLLER.

7. Only the best show on TV these days: http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/the_hills/series.jhtml Are you on team Lauren or team Heidi, internet friend?

8. Another great infographic HAHAHAHA: http://www.funnelinc.com/funl_tattoff_detail.html

Okay, that's enough finds for one day, I think. And, Thanksgiving dinner's ready. Mmmmmm.
****AAAAH SORRY I CANT GET THE LINKS TO WORK*****

Okay, here are my top ten reasons why Thanksgiving is a great holiday:
1. Yesterday I slept from 11:00 p.m. to 2:35 p.m. and even had some dreams! I don't dream very much anymore since I'm so tired all the time, so it was a nice change.
2. Tonight my mom and I made chocolate sauce (for ice cream). And didn't argue! at all!
3. On Tuesday night my mom and I went to a Thai restaurant and I got some yummy pad thai. She then told me that the car "smelled like alcohol." And asked "if I drank," to which I replied "um, no, not today." AAAAAAHHH!
4. I stole some great tunes from my bro, including: Justice, Ratatat, The Knife, Jose Gonzalez, and more Broken Social Scene.
5. I have time to sit down and read. Today I read "Best of Brochure Design 6," which was the closest to book design I could find. I wish I'd checked out more books before the break.
6. My kitties suddenly don't hate me anymore, which is nice. Except one of them threw up last night (EW).
7. My brother's chinchillas are cute and soft and fun to pet. I especially like Lyle, who only has three legs.
8. I rode Blaze today; it was really fun and he didn't misbehave. I hate riding in the winter because it's so cold and the wind always numbs your face, but that didn't happen since it was like 70 degrees today. Thanks, Global Warming!
9. I can drive and blast my music and sing as loudly as I want. I love my ipod and listening to music on my computer(s), but I can never sing out loud without looking/sounding insane. Also, the sick bass in my car drowns out my singing voice.
10. Hopefully I'll hang out with Ana/Sophia and Lauren later this week. It's weird to switch from seeing them every day in high school to only seeing them on holidays...But this way we've all kind of accumulated a lot of stories to share.

A close call

So for my "experience book" in studio (make a book! about your experience! with a camera! oh okay), I wrote an essay about this internship I did in Durham when I was a senior in high school. For the internship, I got to take photos of the American Tobacco District with a really nice camera and design a brochure using the photos. So my studio prof suggested going back to the ATD and taking similar photos to use for THIS project. Simple enough, right? Go back to dtown, take some pics, hang out.

Well.

I get to the American Tobacco District (it's like a big courtyard complete with waterfalls, bridges, a watertower, and businesses/restaurants/bars on either side) and start taking photos near the Mellow Mushroom. As I'm walking around snapping photos of this big overhanging, I hear "HEY YOUNG LADY!," so I turn around and see this large Middle Eastern security guard striding towards me. The conversation:
Security Guard: "What exactly do you think you're doing, young lady?"
Helen: "Um...taking some photos for a project."
SG: "Photos are forbidden here. You have to leave, now."
H: "Look, it's for a class! I'm a design student at NC State, and I'm trying to do a project based on an experience I had while interning at McKinney when I was in high school" [point to where the agency is]
SG: "I'm sorry, but photos are not allowed. Come with me."
So, panic stricken, I follow this guy inside the Crowe building, thinking he's going to chop me up into little pieces or something.
H: "But I don't understand. Why aren't photos allowed? Why exactly?" (sounding like a petulant six year old)
SG: "Well, after 9/11, they started to get a lot stricter. You know, since you look like a terrorist and all."
H: "Ha...ha."
So we go inside and talk to "Merv" at "The Desk." After I re-explain how I just want to do this for a design class, and no I CANT come back because i LIVE in RALEIGH and DONT have a car, Merv tells me to talk to the "folks at Management" on Monday. Whenever I talk to grown-ups that I don't know, I tend to get stressed, so I started to get all choked and sputtering and started to cry.
H: "But look! My professor is the only one who will see my photos! I'm not selling them!"
Merv: "I'm sorry. I can't make an exception for you. You have to leave now."
H: "Well, I'm sorry you can't give me a good reason. Thanks for nothing."
So I walk away and am almost at the parking deck when I hear "HEY MISSY!" It's the security guard again
SG: "Hey. I'm going to go take a walk. Be discreet, and be quick. When I come back, I don't want to see you."
H: "Yes sir. Thank you sir!"
YESSSSSSSSSSSS. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked, but still. Thanks, nice blue dress. Thanks, ability to cry all the damn time. Thanks, sympathetic security guard!

By the Numbers

So since I'm such a Technician sports fan (ha), I've decided to do a BY THE NUMBERS of my life in the month of November:

25 - number of minutes left in Art History

69 - number of points i earned on the last Art History test, mainly because a) i have a lot of studio work, so i didn't study much b) i have a job, so i didn't study much c) i didn't know we were supposed to know all that architecture stuff, so i didn't study it

115 - highest grade on said test, and amount of points i feel like i DESERVE. i mean really. i try, right? im a good person, right? WHY DOESNT THIS EQUAL A GOOD GRADE??

3 - number of approximate dollops of shampoo i have left. this is a problem. why exactly do i always end up with more conditioner than shampoo?

35 - cost (US$) of amazing brown suede scrunchy boots that i really, really want: DONT BUY THE 6.5s PLEASE! http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=/qid=/ref=br_1_br_1_13/601-9816556-9530512?ie=UTF8&node=370189011&frombrowse=1&index=tgt-mf-mv&field-browse=370189011&rank=%2Bdaterank&asin=B000VAQ1OI&rh=&page=5

5 - number of days left until Thanksgiving Break!

21129083129 - number of hours (approx.) that I will sleep over Thanksgiving Break

0 - number of turkeys my family will eat over Thanksgiving Break. hopefully we will order Indian food like we did last year instead.

8 - number of hours before i GET PAID, since I didn't get paid last time. I AM SO PUMPED!

4 - number of Gilmore Girls episodes I watched (season 2!) last night, since I refused to do anything for Typography. i really feel like it was time well spent...i had forgotten how many great the pre-Yale episodes were.

75 - approx. number of goldfish I ate while watching said Gilmore Girls episodes.

7 - number of scarves that i own and am excited about wearing this winter. for a minute i thought that was a lot of scarves, but then thought about how many maggie has, and then realized i was wrong.

18 - hours a day (approx.) i think I am online. like seriously. it's getting kind of out of control. last night, alison and i were sitting 3 feet apart in the room and were talking online. i think it felt so normal because we talk online in studio all the time, so why not when we are in the room? who needs real communication skills? not us. nope.