I don't plan on writing much right now because I have to read about 50 chapters in my advertising book before class, but I wanted to update real quick because my last entry was so sad. I'm feeling a lot better now and everyone who left me messages have been very helpful. The past week has been a strange mix of things. I spent the weekend at home, but most of it was actually spent driving around to a whole bunch of locations around LA, beverly hills, pasadena, and santa clarita taking pictures for my upcoming photography project. I decided against doing the seven deadly sins idea for my sequencing assignment after shooting a role and not having the ideas come across very well. I changed my concept and am now doing the idea of urbanization and decay and the differences between areas of southern california. I think it's more readable on film. I divided my concept into a few different areas: homes, shopping, food, and forms of entertainment. I'm going in to develop my negatives tomorrow. It was a pain though because it took up most of my weekend relaxation time and I had to have someone follow me around holding an umbrella over my head so that raindrops wouldn't get on the lens. Hopefully the rain didn't ruin the outcome of any of my shots.

The rain is getting annoying. People on the east coast deal with rain and snow for months out of the year. I feel like a spoiled southern californian by saying that I'm tired of rain after a week and a half of it, but it's true. I inevitably get my jeans wet halfway up the shin and have to sit in class with soaking feet. I saw some people walking around in those ridiculous looking yellow rain boots and I'm seriously considering getting some. My hair has become a frizzball and is resembling a chia pet, so no matter what I do to it in the morning I will end up looking like a mad scientist. I have given up trying to fix it for the whole of the winter. I think I might end up on one of those "What Not to Wear" type shows. When I like someone, I tend to try to look nice on the offchance I might run into them on campus, but now the combination of not liking anyone and the rain ruining all attempts at presentability, I couldnt care less how I show up to class. Vicious cycle which will end with me living in a cave and little children will think I'm a witch.

I've been having a few problems with being a vegetarian the last few weeks. This is my 5th year (hard to believe) as a vegetarian, but lately I've started to feel really drained. I tend to sleep a good 7 or 8 hours a night but two hours later am ready to fall asleep again. Total lack of energy. Also, when I went to get my hair done, she was commenting how dried it was...even though i condition all the time. I couldn't help but wonder if it has something to do with my diet. I try to eat soy, but I never know how much you need and I pretty much disregard iron and B12. So I went into the doctor's and got my blood tested so i should find out today if I'm lacking anything. Hopefully it'll be something that I can make up in supplements. I find it really hard to imagine ever not being a vegetarian now and I think I'd refuse to do it even if it would give me more energy.

Anyway, I've gotta go read now, but we've been talking about a few kind of fascinating things in my Visual Culture class that I'll write about in my next entry.

I know I'll often stop and think about them

What a sad day it is today. Well, it wasn't a sad day. I went through the entire day doing my usual wednesday activities, going to photography classes, studying french, eating dinner at the sorority house. Then, as I was walking home from the house I called my brother to see how things were at home and how Taz was doing with the new antiobiotics. As I said, my dog was really sick the last week so we took him to the vet and were waiting to get blood tests back. When I asked matt if they went to go visit him this morning like they were planning on doing, he told me that Taz didn't make it through the night. I kind of expected that we would have to put him to sleep because his pancreas was so inflamed that it seemed pretty hopeless, but I had not expected at all that he would die before I got to see him again. I feel like shit. I saw him over the weekend, but I didn't know things were as bad as they were so I didnt "make my peace with it" so to speak. And now I was trapped at school and my dog died in the middle of the night, alone in some cold vet office hooked up to an IV. He probably felt totally abandoned and I didn't get to be there with him or even say goodbye. I couldn't feel worse about the whole thing. Yesterday I was starting to feel like i didn't have feelings when I was chatting with my brother. He was saying that he had been crying all day and I wasn't nearly that sad and I was starting think that I was heartless or something, but as soon as he told me today that Taz died I started bawling. I'm fine now, but I'm so depressed that I'm never going to see him bouncing around the house again or see his fat little body with wagging tail on the couch when i walk in the door. It's not really registering.

Maybe it sounds stupid to some people. He was just a dog, it's not like he was a person, but I've never had a dog before and he's been around since I was like 11 years old. My dad suggested putting up some pictures of him around the house and creating a little mini-shrine. I think that it's a nice thought. I really miss my dog.

He lives in a pineapple under the sea

I've been pretty down and out the last two days because my dog is really sick. Taz, my poodle, wasn't acting like himself and was peeing in the house a lot so my mom took him to the vet yesterday. Turns out he has a very bad intestinal infection which I thought would be ok because it can be treated with antibiotics, but then we got the bloodwork back today and the poor thing also has an inflamed pancreas which may be causing canine diabetes. I'm so sad for him. Taz has been my one and only dog for ten years. I've been through so much with him there. He's always made me feel better by coming up and licking my face or even just curling up like a little fuzzball under my feet. He's going to be at the vet's for a few days, but if it turns out that this stuff can't be cured then I think we might end up putting him to sleep. It breaks my heart, but I'd much rather do that then have him live a little longer in horrible pain. I just don't know how things would be the same without Taz around the house. So I'll keep updating about that, but right now I'm just very sad about the whole thing.

On a lighter note though, my mom and I had yet another random online conversation that I'll share with you. As you can tell, my mom gets very heated about politics and likes to express it using things like spongebob...even to the point of being totally incomprehensible. :)

jumpingzebra13 (10:29:54 PM): just ask spongebob what's politically correct. he's mad as hell and he ain't gonna take it anymore
PrityLittlePixie (10:30:10 PM): him and his alternative lifestyle choices
jumpingzebra13 (10:30:25 PM): he doesn't wear clothes
jumpingzebra13 (10:30:52 PM): so...he doesn't need to worry bout alternative lifestyles
PrityLittlePixie (10:30:55 PM): doesn't he wear pants?
jumpingzebra13 (10:31:00 PM): no
jumpingzebra13 (10:31:21 PM): he's a fucking sponge no matter what the republicans say
PrityLittlePixie (10:31:21 PM): why is his last name squarepants then?
jumpingzebra13 (10:31:35 PM): cause he thinks clothes are square
jumpingzebra13 (10:32:09 PM): he carries a bucket
PrityLittlePixie (10:32:24 PM): what does that have to do with anything?
jumpingzebra13 (10:32:30 PM): so he could drown any republican he meets
PrityLittlePixie (10:32:52 PM): drown them with the bucket?
jumpingzebra13 (10:33:06 PM): no...the water that's in the bucket
PrityLittlePixie (10:33:31 PM): But he lives underwater anyway
jumpingzebra13 (10:33:31 PM): then he bashes their heads with the bucket
PrityLittlePixie (10:33:49 PM): oh my, and people wonder where my violent streak comes from

But you have 364 UNbirthdays

What a whirlwind weekend. I tend to say that about quite a few weekends, but it's especiall true for this one. Friday night was Diamond Ball, my sorority formal invite. It's always so fun to get dressed up fancy. I felt extremely dressed up because I wore my prom dress which I love and Nana did my hair all nice. If it had been up to me to do my hair, I'm sure it wouldve ended up pulled back in a frizzy ponytail, but Nana made it very beautiful and it didn't get frizzy...even in the rain. I think that a curse has been put on me. No matter what time of the year, it always rains on big sorority events. In October, it rained on Presents where we all had to dress up in fancy white dresses. And now diamond ball. But a little rain never hurt anyone and it didn't put a damper on my evening either. Pat was awesome enough to agree to drive up from San Diego. We met up with a group and went to dinner at Wokanos which is a most excellent sushi place in downtown. Luckily we had an umbrella, but some couples didn't have anything so the guys ended up covering the girls with their coats. We met the rest of the sorority at the house and loaded onto the buses, not knowing where we were going (you never find out at invites until you get there, but it's usually always a cool venue.) Diamond ball was at The Biltmore Hotel which was SUPER fancy. Everything was gold colored and the ballroom reminded me of the ballroom from Beauty and the Beast. I had agreed to be a senior sister which meant we had to go out and buy flowers and present them to the senior at the dance, but my senior didn't come to the dance so I was left with a boquet of flowers. They now decorate our apartment table. The rest of the night was so fun with dancing and hanging out with sorority sisters. I love dancing. Seriously guys, invite me to your frat invites. I will dance. I will dance A LOT. Thanks again to pat for being a kickass date and to all the people who said I look nice. It made me feel good.

Saturday was spent in a zoned out stupor because I slept in late and was still worn out from friday. I went out to a pre-birthday dinner at CPK with just a few USC friends. It was lovely. Order the tostado pizza. Sounds weird at first, but is actually quite delicious. Then today is my real birthday! I am officially 20 years old. For a while, it seemed like 20 was an insignificant year, but it's the official mark of entering your "20's." I can say I'm a twenty-something now and not a teenage anymore. Turning 21 will probably be more exciting, but this does kind of seem like jumping over into a whole other bracket. To celebrate, I went home to valencia to hang with my family. I went to church in the morning and helped teach the kids' R.E. Then we sped over to The Odyssey restaurant. It's a beautiful restaurant overlooking all of the san fernando valley. You can see straight down the 405 freeway to the hills on a clear day. I ate at least 5 pounds of food; it was ridiculous. I don't care if I blow up like a balloon. It was delicious and worth it.

I got a slew of wonderful gifts including Gilmore Girls 2nd season, stationary and a beyond incredible calligraphy set (shut up, i like to write letters and if you want me to send you a letter you best not make fun), a pretty journal, and some books from my family. Then an amoeba gift certificate from brig, an itunes gift certificate from cait and a best buy gift card from Connor that he ever so slyly left on my doorstep for me to find. Thanks to everyone for making today so great, and now I'm off to study french and freak out that my photo negatives came out too dark.

Songfest will be interesting. That is all.

The game's up, Scarlet! There are no bullets in that gun

Probably one of the only Thursday nights this semester I have stayed in...let alone updated my blog. I actually was planning on going out but now I'm relieved that I didn't because I'm sitting in a comfy chair in a dark room and my bed is just calling to me. Anyways, Ive been slacking lately, but I find that the longer you don't update, the less events seem worthy of mentioning. Like only something extremely grand or philosophical or newsworthy should be stated. Since I waited and waited and nothing magical happened to me this week, I figured it was time to write at least something...unmagical.

Today there was a job fair on campus. The job fair is quite a big deal here at USC. It happens usually once a semester and representatives from all sorts of career paths line trousdale avenue. Hundreds of students bombard them, dressed in freshly pressed suits and brandishing resumes. I, of course, was one of them. Well, not wearing a pressed suit, but I was there all the same. I had gotten an email about it and noticed that a few companies I was interested in were going to be there. New Line Cinema was there with none other than the guy I've been talking to about an internship since January. I stopped by, said hello and gave him another copy of my resume. He said he'd keep me updated when the time came to hire summer interns. So our game of cat and mouse continues. Paramount studios, 20th century fox, and disney consumer branch were all there too and I handed out resumes. That's just about all you can do. I hate looking for internships. It's so volatile. You have to get an internship under your belt to be considered experienced when you graduate, but you can't get an internship if you don't have experience! I don't know about other majors, but in graphic entertainment design where the field of applicants is already bursting at the seams, it's nearly impossible to get your foot in the door. I hate saying "get your foot in the door." Makes me feel very competitive when what I really feel like doing is frolicking in a field of daisies with the other graphic design applicants and not compete for a job. Most of the time I want to go back to a simplier time when I didn't have to worry about working or college or anything important. That's why I liked art to begin with, I didn't have to totally be caught up in this superficial "office space" world.

I'm feeling the difference in my intro to advertising class. It's very real world based and he has all these big shot ad executives come in and talk to us. It's starting to get me freaked out though. Selling products. Pushing consumerism. Not even caring about what I'm talking about so long as it gets sales to increase. I don't like it. I refuse to let that become my life. I couldn't care less about how to market toilet paper to teenagers between the ages of 13-17 so that they'll think it's cool. The thought of doing this sort of thing is kinda depressing. So now I know what I DONT want to do. But I'm sticking with my minor in advertising so that I have that backup when i graduate. Anyway, plenty of stuff going on this weekend including Diamond Ball, my birthday dinner, and my real birthday that I'm spending with family. More update soon!

And right when I thought that all guys had lost their sense of chivalry, I had this lovely conversation with my brother about his Valentine's Day gift for his girlfriend. Brigitte and Caitlyn were saying that they don't get into traditional romantic gestures and want the guy to be wacky. Doing something really offbeat is great because then it shows that a guy is thinking about something unique and personal to you. I would like that too, but I think I'd still be pretty damn impressed if I got something even remotely like this.

PrityLittlePixie (12:06:39 AM): what are you getting noelle for valentine's day
AtarisDude23 (12:06:49 AM): well....its kinda an all day thing...
AtarisDude23 (12:09:13 AM): i want to give her roses during her brunch, then a bit before sunset i'm leaving her house & meeting ken @ this spot on a hill which overlooks everything from the 14 to the Grapvine, he & I are setting up a table w/ candels & two chairs w/ a bottle of sparkling cider, then i will go to noelle's house, blindfold her, call ken to let him know he doesnt have to guard it anymore, take her there, read her a poem, give her some chocolates, then some more chocolate, & a teddy bear, then we're going to dinner

That's twice this month you've slipped deadly nightshade into my tea

In photography, we were assigned a new project for the upcoming weeks. Basically, our last project dealt with shooting a role of film, but it didn’t matter what of because we were learning how to print and develop film so the content or subject matter was superfluous. This time we were told to experiment with sequencing which is basically a set of photographs that are meant to go together, display time or are meant to be read in a logical order from first to last. At first I had no idea what she was talking about, but she showed us a bunch of examples from famous artists and from people who were in this class before. I want my project to be really kickass. I am one of only two fine arts majors in the class and I want to defend our territory or show the non-majors up. Anyway, so since then I’ve been thinking about themes I could use to sequence. I was thinking about doing something with the idea of fire and ice and make up a narrative to go along with that. Then my other ideas are from religious things, which is odd for me but I find them interesting and think they might be cool to explore. The first is to do a sequence about the seven deadly sins: Gluttony, Envy, Wrath, Vanity, Avarice, Lust and Sloth. I am leaning toward doing this idea because it might be fun to link these things to people or situations I can take a picture of here at school. My other idea was to base it off of the triptych “Garden of Earthly Delights” by Bosch. This is one of my favorite paintings. Perhaps I’m morbid, but there seems to be a mystical quality to it. It’s sequential in that it walks you through the first part which stages of creation of Adam and Eve to the second panel when people run amuck and crazy on earth, then it ends with the third panel in this violent interpretation of hell and judgment. I am inclined to disregard this idea though because not many people have even seen this painting and even if they had it would be hard to make the connection. I don’t want to stand up there and explain myself and then fail the class cuz it’s too far out. My favorite example she showed us was the photography of Nicholas Nixon called The Brown Sisters He took a photo of the 4 girls once a year, every year from 1975 to 1997. When you look at them in order it is incredibly to see how the women have aged, the fashion has changed, and their faces have transformed. I got an email today about this contest for art depicting something to do with Lewis Carroll’s life and stories for a tribute show they're doing at the library so I think I might enter and do some kind of graphic arts representation.

Photography is starting to mean more to me than it used to. I never really thought about it as an art form, but recently I’ve been looking closer at photography. Duane Michals says, “I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody’s face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.” He said, “My portraits…have revealed nothing profound about the subjects or captured anything. They were almost all strangers to me. How could I say anything about them when I never knew them? What I did was share a moment with them, and now I share that moment with you, no more and no less.” Looking at all these photographs and hearing the artist’s words about them made me wonder about the artist’s relation to all this. Photography seems a very good outlet for those who seek to be an active observer of the world and society. Maybe that’s why I love this form of communication. The more reading I do about art, the more I wonder why I am drawn to do this sort of thing for a living. I’ve often felt not engaged in the things that go on around me, like I’m peeking through a keyhole onto things that happen to other people. An onlooker, but rarely an active participant. At first this bothered me because I don’t want to be the one who always sees what happens to other people, but the more I thought about it, it feels kind of cool to be one in the group of those who can observe and then communicate it in an engaging way. Maybe when you’re caught up in the middle of the action, you lack the sight to notice what’s going on. Charles Baudelaire spoke of the modern painter in the 19th century and said that one should see “the beauty of circumstance and the sketch of manners” and says about the true artist “the crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flaneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the center of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world.” I couldn’t describe any better myself.


P.S. Much thanks to kris for helping me figure out how to put in links

hey you with the pretty face, welcome to the human race

Well it's the start of another busy week here at USC. Mondays are always the worst days for me...nonstop running around. I've decided that Whole Foods might just be the best place ever. I ate there two or three times this weekend. They have sushi and sandwiches and a very delicious salad bar. The prices are fairly expensive and I can't find a diet pepsi can in the whole of that store, but they offer a huge array for vegetarian frozen meals now. 5 years ago when I became a vegetarian, Morningstar Farms was pretty much the only brand that offered veggie options so I'd be stuck eating gardenburgers morning, noon and night. Got very boring. But now they have an entire aisle! I feel like I'm in heaven every time I walk into that store. I ran into my old basketball coach from circa 5th grade when I was actually still somewhat athletic. He said that I looked all grown up which was much nicer to hear than the usual "wow, you havent changed a bit. You look exactly the same!" that I have gotten from past teachers and other people. 6th grade was a horrible time for me in terms of fashion. I was one of the tallest girls in my class, very awkward, and I wore clothes that didn't go together. I do not want to be reminded that I look the same as I did in 6th grade.

At monday night dinner tonight we had a practice fire drill where we had to exit the second floor from one of the bedrooms. What a site to see I'm sure. We didn't have a permanent fire escape from our window so we had to use this portable chainlink one. I didn't have much confidence in it supporting me or breaking my fall when I would inevitably slip and plummet two stories. We had to squeeze between the window and this gate and then lift our legs up and hoist ourselves over the gate. I managed to do it and felt very spy-like. It was pretty easy to climb down from there but the whole time I was looking out to see which girl I could break my fall on if i were to slip. I survived and have been elevated to the level of ninja, but it's something I hope not to do again.

I developed my first real print today in photography. I'm really enjoying this class. I think I might be slowly going blind from being in the extreme dark and then immediately running outside to check my prints, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. My birthday is coming up in less than 2 weeks! It's on February 13th and I'll be 20 years old. Amazing.
Oh, also I must say that today is January 31st and I want to take a quick moment to mention that today would be my sister's birthday if she was alive. I don't want to dwell on it because I have written a few posts on the subject already, but I like to take today to think of the memories I could have had if Andrea was here but also to be so happy and grateful for the memories I have with my family over the last 20 years. I couldn't ask for more.