October 4th, nice rain

a picture my roommate took in the nature lab

Dear October,

I loved the rain today! It was good, timing that with the afternoon light. I was cooped up in the nature lab for seven hours with about ten of my drawing classmates today, and we were all drawing dynamic skeletons as accurately as possible. At some point after noon, small groups of us went downhill as it was raining and the sky was bright white, to go see the free stuff down at Market Square. There was a little art vendor event going on there, with little booths of branded art products under a big tent, and it was such a nice surprise being able to pick up a tube of gouache and technical pens and brush cleaner for free. I even got a really nice gray toned sketchbook! A bunch of students were standing around the table eyeing the sketchbooks displayed in stacks of two and three, and we all wanted them but we knew it would be too good to be true for sketchbooks like that to be free. But one daring student asked a vendor next to that table whether the sketchbooks were free, and he said we could just take them. So one girl picked up a tan toned sketchbook hesitantly and held it for a moment as if she was bracing herself for any objections, and then she walked away guiltily. Then the rest of us picked out sketchbooks, looked at each other with raised eyebrows, then walked away very slowly, and during that time the vendor who put up the sketchbook table came back and just sat down and watched it all happen without comment.

I really like having souvenirs of any kind, but especially the ones that can be opened or used for a while, because the happiness that comes from that lasts a long time. First there's the brimming excitement of having the potential for more happiness in little plastic packages, each of which can be opened at any time, and just thinking about it makes you happy. Then there's the fading happiness that is there after you've opened the package, so souvenir happiness comes in small bursts and layers. So that was how it was with us art students, I think, because we just got a whole bunch of high quality free art products and discounts, and that really cheered everyone up.

Also I got to spray paint on a slab of some kind of wall since there were art demos there too. So I did graffiti for the first and probably only time ever (except I suppose it's not really graffiti because we were allowed to do it)! I spray painted a red star over a bunch of other spray painted things. It was exhilarating.

Anyway, the timing with the rain was great. It made it all feel like an adventure, our small group running down the hill to find a tent with oil bars and spray cans and strangely absorbent claybord, and then running back up as if to return from our wardrobe.

I think I've been slamming my feet down on stairs and sloped sidewalks a bit too much, or else I've been twisting my feet in weird ways while standing in studio, because it's a little difficult walking! My feet hurt with this strange internal pressure whenever I step forward and put weight on the front of my feet, but not even my runner friends know what that means. I predict I will be limping for a few days, but at the same time that's fun too because it feels like I am enduring trials while traveling.

Goodnight,
Indigo

song of the day: Landfill by Daughter

October 3rd, the end was embarrassing

Dear October,

I am drinking Jasmine Green Tea right now because I just sent my teacher my sound art project. The project was due at midnight exactly, and I sent it 2 minutes late. The assignment requirements involve, among other things, a 3-5 minute .mp3 file and 3 questions that you want others to answer about your sound piece. My schedule today (estimated) in relation to my project:

9:00-ish: checked out audio recording device from Resources
1pm-2pm: tried recording a lot of things
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5:30pm: upload files onto computer after classes
5:40pm: cannot find my files. computer says all files were last edited in 2008
a few min. later: realize audio recording device settings were set to a default Jan. 1 2008. fix the date.
a few min. later: identify which files are today's. find that there is no sound on any of the files
a few min. later: realize I was supposed to press a certain input button that was half wiped out so I didn't know what it was the whole time I was recording
a few min. later: record myself laughing and ranting and crying internally about not having recorded anything
a few min. later: record myself eating chips
throughout this whole process: think about using the 45 min. sound file my class partner and I recorded while testing this device in class.
for several hours: record things randomly. overhear people's conversations accidentally in the cafeteria and think about how terribly creepy this device can be.
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10:00pm: a little worried.
10:10pm: plan to record something involving running down the hill to the store and back in 5 minutes. roommate is worried. asks if I want to wear her neon reflector vest so I don't get hit by a car.
10:13pm: leave dorm to run to test idea. running uphill is horrible as usual. I get back in 7 minutes.
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11:00pm: worried. perusing through recordings, feeling despair
11:20pm: freaking out a bit. get random idea of embarrassing myself by shouting a phrase out loud while running through the halls quietly because it's quiet hours
11:30pm: I panic and grab my recording device and shout "there's a pig on the schoolbus" randomly in the residence halls, and then run to the next floor as quickly possible if there are people nearby
11:35pm: upload file and edit. though I tried to shout, it was more like I spoke louder than usual
for a while: try to decide on editing one of three possible sound files. play around with editing. the other two are normal but one is not original enough and the other is possibly too boring. pick the insecure sounding one
11:50pm: freaking out and trying to thinfk up wuqsutions for project!
11:56pm: try to export sound file as mp3 from sound editing program and IT TELLS ME I HAVE TO DOWNLOAD ANOTHER PROGRAM to export as an mp3.
11:58pm: downloading mp3 program and thinking up less stupid questions
12:01am: export file as mp3 and attach to email. try really hard to reword questions
12:02am: send email. freak out a bit about it being late and about how embarrassing everything is. roommate asks if I want tea

Otherwise today was good. Please stay warm for a while longer because I don't want to wear long pants.

Thanks,
Indigo

song of the day: We Found Love covered by Ed Sheeran, originally by Rihanna

-------Also here's a letter to October by my roommate:

Dear October,

You were pretty warm today. You should like... cool down yo.

love,
eggs

List and Lights

Wow. School is starting again, in 2 days. Summer was even shorter than usual. It just started feeling like summer a few weeks ago. WHY? I guess I'm ready for school, somewhat. I used to be so bored by the time July came around that I would be really excited for school to start. But now that I've discovered the computer, and the library, and friends, and now that I actually have stuff I want to do, I feel like summer could almost go on forever and I'd never be bored. Well before, I had all those things, but I got bored of them all so fast(except for friends, because how do you get bored of friends? Unless you spend every waking hour with them until you get sick of each other, which is rare, I think) so I just sat on the couch and made boredom noises.

I feel like I have an endless array of things to do. If bored, go on the computer. If you can't, go read a book. If you haven't visited the library recently, go do some summer homework(which you probably should have been doing anyway). If you don't feel like it, go paint. If you don't feel like it, go draw. If you don't feel like it, go make something. If you don't have the stuff to make whatever you feel like making, go eat some bread. If you ran out of bakery bread, call a friend. If they aren't there, write something. If you don't feel inspired, then go check and see if the computer is open. If it isn't, sleep. If you wake up and nothing has changed, then there's nothing you can do.

It rarely comes to that though. Anyway, I guess I should make a list now.

Things I want to do

Sit on a roof - I have always wanted to sit on the roof of a house. A real roof, not one of those flat ones with pools and gardens on top. I imagine there'd be wind and birds and a giant tree swaying by and random people jogging down the sidewalk. And it would just feel weird, to be able to see the roofs of all the houses down the street, and to actually feel the wind and to be the only person on the roof of anywhere. I think you would feel more alive, because it's just one of those things that you can do that makes you feel like you're the only person aware of it, and because this is one of those things that people can go through their whole lives not doing. And you can be one of the few people that have experienced something like that!

Punch someone - I really think I may live my whole life without punching anyone. You read about it in books and see it in movies and hear that other people have done it and yet you have no idea what it's like. It's one of those first-step kind of actions. Just like sewing up a hole in a pair of pants or playing a piece of music or driving a car. Each one of these things is the first step to a whole realm of stuff, and since stepping into each realm is so different, I want to experience all of them. So punching would be like the first step to the fighting realm! Not that I want to go any further than that.

Go to a concert - I think it's pretty sad that this is on my list. But just in case I don't go to one of those concerts where everyone is a fanatic about whoever is performing and random people in the crowd scream, I have listed this down. It's just one of those random things that every person must experience.

Work at a cafe - As a part time job during college or something like that. This is just too cool. Everyone seems to have worked at a restaurant or a cafe or a bakery at some point. I always hear about how you start off as garbage-taker-outer and then you move up to dishwasher and then you move up more until you become a cashier and stuff like that. And I want to know what it's like to be whoever it is that takes my order. By the way, this just cannot work at a chain fast food store. It's too depressing. I want to work at some little or somewhat well-known place. Somewhere where there are regulars and people that sit at tables and do work for hours and only get coffee refills. Or somewhere with several super busy hours of the day where people line up and yell orders and everything is hectic. 

That's pretty much it for my list as of now. I have other things I've always wanted to do, but those either aren't notable enough or I've forgotten them. It's a pretty short list, but I want to do each one so much that it doesn't really matter. The list used to have just two things on it anyway, and I don't know why I called it a list then either.

Well, that's all. Ooh, the song I'm about to link to is one of those songs that you happen to listen to on loop while doing something specific. And it plays several times so that that song and whatever you were doing at the time are forever linked in your memory. So whenever the song plays, you instantly get this weird nostalgic feeling and it's like, flashback! That's why I associate this oldie song with playing pokemon on my gameboy. It's also why I associate this architecture thing I did last year and with this Mike Posner song.

Lights by Ellie Goulding - I was at this art workshop earlier this summer. Sometimes when we painted, this guy's ipod would play from some speakers at the far end of the room. I didn't like most of the songs on that ipod, so I was kind of surprised when I liked this one. Anyway, when we had paintings to finish in the studio on the top floor of the dorms, the same person would play the music on their ipod, and I always noticed when this one came on since it was one of the only ones I liked. So I associate this song with late nights of painting in the studio and being tired and just being in the same rut as everyone else in my class. It was fun.

Actually, on the second to last day, several of us stayed up all night to finish our pieces. They blasted that ipod really loudly from the other room in the studio. It was super tiring. The whole workshop was intense and we had homework every day and we had to replenish materials every other day and in that city people walk everywhere. And meals were a long ordeal if you wanted to go out to eat. You have to walk to the place, wait for the food, walk/run back, depending on whether there was an evening workshop thing, then buy stuff and stop by several stores to get more paper towels or another tube of toothpaste. By the time you got all the necessary stuff out of the way, it was well into the evening and everyone's feet hurt and by the way we stand all day in class while painting. And we stayed up late and had to wake up early to stop by Walgreens and get our reference photos printed because the printer in our dorms had no color ink and the other building's computer room is closed on sundays and the actual building in which our classes are held has broken printers. I hope you realize that we walked all the way to all these buildings and then had to walk all the way back. Anyway, this led to everyone being super super tired by the time it was evening. People periodically slept on the ground right in front of their canvas, on the brown paper we laid out on the floor so that we could go around barefoot and not get paint or charcoal on our feet. A lot of us had snack breaks to the vending machines and random compilements of food in the kitchen for a snack feast, which was pretty sad because we were all kind of still high school kids that hadn't realized the importance of buying groceries. So we had some sausages and bread and pizza rolls and goldfish and soda from the vending machines.

My point is, all this just made us even more tired than normal, which was why I was so surprised when the effects of late-night-sleeping hit earlier than usual. Normally staying up late doesn't show its symptoms until the afternoon, when I get really drowsy. It was weird there because as soon as you woke up, you felt super tired. And not even walking around helped.

So in the morning, people would sway while painting and have hallucinations and mix the wrong colors because they thought they had aimed their paintbrush at the brown but when they put it on the canvas it turned out to be green and getting perspectives wrong and not seeing the teacher until they were right next to you. Before that, I didn't know it was possible to fall asleep standing up. The hallucinations were funny though, I have to say. During lunch, we would share our own hallucinations and talk about the weird feeling you get where you can feel the room tilting but you can't see it. And then the giant canvases propped on the wall would look like real people and every once in a while you would be like, whoa! There's a person right there! And then you'd realize they weren't real. And then you would be painting a head when suddenly the head would look like Hogwarts and you would lean in and be like, what a mess, that looks nothing like Hogwarts, and you'd wipe away the whole thing with an oily rag and then jump back and go, wait, what'd I just erase? And then you'd think, oh my god, I just erased the entire head! and have a mini moment of clarity and hilarity at yourself and horror.

Wow. I think I really needed to get that out. I haven't told anyone this experience in detail yet really. Anyway, that workshop was really one of the funnest long-ish experiences I've ever had. Weird too. Maybe I'll just write a series of posts describing the experience, because there was just so much that happened. I'm going to end now with a question, even though my English teacher always told us not to, because my song link ending is no longer really an ending anymore. It was a beginning! Haha.. Yeah, anyway have you all ever had similar long-ish fun experiences?

And YES! I finally ended that thing that I kept doing in my recent posts where I felt I needed to have correct grammar and no run-on sentences by rambling away about that workshop I went to. Just in time for school!


Oh by the way:


Current status: eating bakery bread :D

Music

Music. I think it's interesting how sounds affect people so much. A lot of times I hear people ask other people whether they would rather lose their sight or their hearing. Usually they say sight. I guess this is because our world is so based off of what everything looks like, and so we use sight to figure out where things are and how they work. If we decided to go back in history, and instead of focusing on building a world where sight is so necessary, we decided to build one based on sound, we would be like bats.

We would read books by speaking and hearing our voice hit the page and reverberate off the words. And then people would have iPods for portable art. We'd just plug the eyephones into our eyes and we'd buy all kinds of scenery for $2 off of iTunes and it would be like we were transported somewhere else for as long as we were plugged in.

That's what happens with music, right? We listen to it and it feels like it means something, and when you close your eyes you don't have to be anywhere. If you do it long enough and forget that you're sitting in a chair in front of your computer, doing homework at 3 in the morning, you can convince yourself that you're floating. It's like those times in the morning when I know I need to get up, but it's just so much more comfortable to be snug in my bed, so I imagine that I'm getting up and turning off the alarm. Then, since I'm kind of half asleep and half awake, I start believing it, and I'm so proud of myself for forcing myself to wake up. And then I suddenly realize that I imagined that entire thing and I still need to actually get up. It's kind of funny. At the time, it's actually kind of disappointing, but at least it's one of those weird things that everyone experiences and it's just funny because it's such a random experience for people to share.

Anyway, back to the subject. For some reason, I'm trying to monopolize the world into a tiny little city. So I'm just going to continue with my city analogy since it's already rooted in my head. And hearing-city sounds silly, so that's why it's bat-city. Anyway, we have a sight-city, where sight is the most important part of our everyday lives. In bat-city, however, hearing is everything. So logically, every situation involving sight and hearing is reversed. iPods blast art, galleries showcase music, cinemas are for symphonies, etc. I think it would make sense that iPods blast scenery too, not just art, like gallery art. Music moves people, so in this city, art should move people too right? A change of scenery would obviously make you feel like you were somewhere different. And musicians and singers would no longer be the big celebrities; instead, traditional artists would enjoy the fame and fortune.

There are the other senses too. Ghosts always wish they could taste food. Animals/vampires/creepy villains use their sense of smell to find their victims. And then there's touch, which always seems like an afterthought to me because it's the only sense that's represented by something that is not directly attached to my head.

Touch is actually pretty vital. If I lost my sense of touch, would I lose the ability to feel too? Like, I wouldn't be able to feel papercuts or velvet, but would I be able to tell if I bent my elbow or turned my head? Without touch, you can feel pressure, but not surfaces, which is kind of scary. If I couldn't feel anything, I wouldn't know whether I was standing or sitting or falling. If I closed my eyes and fell off a ladder, I would think, "Hmm, there's this strange pressure all around me," and then I would hit the ground and be like, "Oh, I must have hit something." My organs would probably feel like they were dislocated or something. And maybe I'd accidentally put my hand over the stove without realizing it and it would only be when I turned around that I'd see the damage and freak out.

Ok, since I've been talking about music(or was), I think I shall conclude with a song! I've been wanting to share this song for a while anyway. Don't listen to it on Youtube. Really. It doesn't sound as good on Youtube because it hasn't been amplified and it was recorded outside and has not been cleared by computer technology and there is just no magic. Listen to it on Grooveshark! The link is below, so just click on it.

Demons by On The Rocks - So... This entire song is voices only, without instruments. As far as I know, OTR does this with all their songs. It's kind of a sad song, but it's nice to listen to anyway. At first, when I saw the title, I was like, "Hey, demons. That sounds like a song that might be a rock song that I don't feel like listening to at the moment." But just in case it turned out to be incredible, I listened to it anyway. And it was totally incredible. So listen to it.

Somewhere in the Stratosphere

Ok, I'm not going to talk about all my high school homework and stuff because that's what I did last time and I completely forgot what I was going to say so it's saved as a draft.

Well, I guess I do need to talk a little about my homework, because I'm supposed to be doing my art homework, but I have been wanting to blog for 2 weeks and I couldn't because I was bogged down with all that stuff. And I need to do this and then I'll feel better.

So, music playlist songs update.

My current favorites:

Show Me What I'm Looking For by Carolina Liar - I had been trying to find it for so long after I first heard it on tv during a trailer for "The Time Traveler's Wife", but then when I searched it up, the trailer changed songs, and I had to convince myself that I hadn't been imagining another song. And then just today, I recognized it on Lily's playlist! Yay! So, my favorite line: "Save me, I'm lost,", the last one right before they repeat the line 5 times.

Second Chance by Shinedown - My favorite line: "Somewhere in the Stratosphere!". I thought it was funny once I had finally figured out what he was singing. Also, I don't pay attention to the lyrics of a song until I hear it so much I finally start singing along to it and find myself saying something weird. Stratosphere... haha.

Ah! I have more but I need to go sleep. So yeah.

Ok. I am back. I will continue.

Suddenly I See by KT Turnstall - This one is a pretty old song I stole from a friend's playlist. My favorite line would be the chorus.

Also, I recently had to read "Unwind" for summer reading, and there's this one part that really stands out to me. Basically, this is a story set in the future when teenagers under the age of 18 can be unwound for a number of reasons. Unwinding is when the teen's body parts are seperated but still alive, and then are redistributed. These body parts are used in surgery to replace useless limbs and organs, for example.

We have three main characters in this book. One runs away once he finds a form his parents signed for his unwinding. Another is an orphan who is being unwound simply because there is not enough room for her to stay. The last, a tithe, was raised up knowing of his unwinding and feeling great about it because it was in his religion to do so.

At one point, the runaway is trapped in a cargo box with 3 other unwinds, and they discuss their unknown fate. When one of the unwinds is prompted with the question, they say that they don't know. And while another kid says that that isn't an answer, the main character disagrees, because if people would just admit that they didn't know, then maybe the world wouldn't be the way it was. The whole book is filled with small revelations like that.

I just thought that was cool.

Green

Wow, high school is busy. I hadn't touched the computer all week until yesterday because I was doing homework(geometry especially). We get so much homework! And even once you finish everything due the next day, there's still more you can do like do the homework for the day after that or something. And I can't decide whether I should lighten the load for tomorrow or work on my idea for the directory contest thing.

I'm actually using my agenda for once, too. Art is really fun, and since I have it every afternoon, it's something to look forward to. :D

So, I am thinking of compiling all of my Spanish notes into one word document so that I can use it in case I forget some old vocabulary or grammar. There's a lot of notes though...

Well, my schedule in the previous post completely failed. Homework takes more than just two hours.

This is really weird. I thought I would go on ranting about high school, but all I have to say is that there's a lot of homework. Lunch is great, since we get to eat in places other than the lunchroom.

The bus is really nice in the morning. It's all still dark and everyone is quiet or reading or listening to music. And the sun slowly comes up and you have another thirty minutes to prepare for school. Also, I can never see the sun on the bus. I can see red and orange hues coming from one area, but it's never there!

And the title is green because I'm wearing green right now and I couldn't think of another title at the time that I felt like typing.

dornob

I just found an interesting site full of design ideas.

The designs range from urban art, clothing, interior, illusions, and random miscellaneous things.

So far, I've seen a 120 zipper dress, shredded tax papers dress, color pencil shoes, a toothbrush with a dent that lets you rinse, heat activated wallpaper, life-sized dollhouse, a pen that scans a color and lets your draw with it, and an art student that decided to live in an elevator one day.

So here are some links!

http://little-people.blogspot.com/ - Miniature hand-painted people in London. Quote from dornob: "Sometimes they are slain by forces of the larger world and at other times these tiny individuals take advantage of their surroundings."

http://dornob.com/customizable-clothing-unique-120-zipper-dress-design/ - 120 zipper dress

http://dornob.com/occupied-elevator-living-life-in-a-lift-for-one-day/ - Living in an elevator

http://dornob.com/creative-scan-and-draw-color-changing-pen-design/ - Scan and draw

http://dornob.com/the-art-of-making-rain-an-amazing-interior-installation/ - Interior rain with handcrafted raindrops strung together

http://dornob.com/paper-wonderland-installation-art-photography-shoot/ - A room covered in white paper(post-it notes?).

http://dornob.com/napkin-notepad-formalizes-classic-informal-note-taking/ - Napkin Notebook

http://dornob.com/faceless-wristwatch-blends-geek-innovation-style/ - Faceless Wristwatch

http://dornob.com/the-contemporary-art-of-commercial-camouflage/ - These people camouflage themselves in a store by covering themselves with binders, boxes, and bags. I think the video is hilarious.

http://dornob.com/heat-actived-paint-for-color-changing-interior-designs/- Heat activated paint on wallpaper, calendars, and other things.

Onekey Nitrome Game

Ack, I haven't posted for a while. Anyway, Nitrome made a new game a few days ago called Onekey. Basically, you help this little guy get to the end of the level by pressing the spacebar to trigger stuff. Use it to open gates, make him bounce, float, etc. Very cute. :)

I've been using my tablet these days too. Making a frog on Paint right now.
On Friday, we had art homework, so I went afterschool to pick it up since the drawing wouldnt fit in my binder. The door was locked, so I asked the next-door art teacher, and she said that she was on her shift and would probably be back in in 15 minutes. So I couldn't go back in once leaving the building because the people in the hallway would stop us. Since I carpooled with my friend and she was already outside, I had to go out too and wait. After much freaking out, we decided to sneak into the art hallway through a door a little bit further from the front of the school. And we got in just as my teacher went into her class, and safely retrieved my homework.