Hi from camp!

I just finished teaching the first part of session 1 of the duct tape sculpture class and it went pretty well. I'll write more about specifics when I've got photos of the kids' projects later. I'm finding that I'm not running out of duct tape, but out of cardboard instead! So i need to find some more before Wednesday's class. My class is all girls, and one guy. The kids seem to be enjoying it quite well. Some are really challenging themselves. Two of the girls are making flip flops out of their tape, another girl is making a walnut, which at first I was like, hm, okay.. interesting. I talked to her again at the end of class to view her progress and the way she's using the tape to make a walnutty texture is pretty interesting. She said she wanted to use the tape, being a new medium for her, to try something different from everyone else. I told her I was impressed.

The grounds of this camp are pretty neat, and the buildings too. It's all located on a hill away from the lake, so it's all sort of an up or downhill hike wherever you go. They actually have a Hall of Fame in one of the main buildings from the many prior years of FFA-FCCLA history.

Right now I'm hiding in the back corner of the main auditorium behind the A/V Nerds, as Jon and the band practice. I found some salad-related foods to eat for lunch today, because I'm picky about the "normal food" choices they have (pizza, hot dogs). Another week of salads. We went to Waffle House last night (first time ever for me). The idea of Waffle House has always scared me, but I actually got something non deadly- hot chocolate and unbuttered raisin toast with apple butter. Live free or die hard, hehe. Jon and I went with Tucker, Brad and Mark: the other band guys (Brad and Mark are in their 30s and 40s) but that outing was hilarious, I wish I'd filmed some of our conversations last night. I was so tired, but man it was funny.

I had some sleeping issues I need to solve tonight. My room was freezing and I have no socks and only shorts with two jackets. The air control is in Jon and Matt's room, which when on, their room is still warm but mine and Joyce's room is freezing. I tried warming the sheets with my laptop but I didn't give it enough time to warm up. Even with a towel over the vent, and sheets plus the cover plus the other cover from the unused bed, plus two thin additional sheets, I still had to twist my legs together in order to get them to warm each other up. I spent most of the night in the fetal position, which kept me awake and made my back sore. I got up at 5am to add the other cover, and overslept til 10am, thinking I might have missed when I was supposed to teach my class, and not knowing where it was to be held yet. A little stressful for me. Can I borrow some socks from you tonight, Jon?

Disturbing Dream

I had a really disturbing dream this morning where my molars split in half all the way to the root and they crumbled out of my mouth with lots of blood spewing all over my hands as I tried to save them. It was so realistic and I was at Jon’s apartment. I was crying as I told/showed him about it and he started crying too as he made unsuccessful attempts to help me. I remember saying to him: “This has to be a nightmare!" cause it’s just so odd and unreal. But Jon's reaction was so realistic that it scared me into believing it was actually happening.

Isn't it strange how our brain can convince us of a reality that isn't so?

Web Glob

I've been making myself work pretty hard to get through these Dreamweaver web design lessons. I'm bored of looking at it right now, so I'm taking a useless break to write a "blog." I don't know why, but I dislike the word "blog". I think it's because using it makes me sound like a trendy know-it-all internetter. Web + blog = weblog, how clever.

Coming up with lasting names for things is quite a challenge I suppose. Jon, Nathan, Stamos and I have discussed creating (writing/illustrating/animating) a comic about ourselves, which so far is untitled, but it's pretty fun to entertain the possibilities of this thing. I've already designed the Jon character, but I need to reconfigure his joints for animational purposes and then construct an animation test. I want to start on the other character designs soon, though. I can just imagine a poster or a t-shirt design with these characters on it, ha. Although this endeaver is currently for fun and for our own entertainment, it'd be nice if it Homestarrunnered one day, make money off of it or something. Hilarious. At least for some of us it'd be portfolio material (writing Stamos, sound design/composition Jon, illustration/animation for me..) I'm not sure about you Nathan, ha... just kidding. ;)

I've been inspired by the Venture Bros series. Such a great cartoon, the stories are actually very well-written too; highly comical and entertaining.



I love animation. I love analyzing the frame-by-frameage and understanding motion, and the concept that everything you see is the product of an incredible amount of tedioussery (and patience). It's not very hard, it just takes extra discipline; which to me is admirable upon the review of others' work.

Nice, I found the blogspot for the Storyboard and Design Supervisor for Venture Bros here!

Old Jobs

My youngest sister Beth has moved back to St Louis from Cape Girardeau to continue her schooling at Webster University, for writing and business last I heard. She's taking two part time jobs for income, one at a grocery store, the other at either Applebee's or Panera. Her going-back-to-retail reminds me of when I was there.. ha! I have to laugh at myself for such an experience...

My first real job was a doughnut girl at Krispy Kreme, where the oil from doughnut fryery covered the floor at all times. The place was basically a skating rink during the busiest time of service. It always amazed me that so many people want doughnuts at all hours of the day. It was also interesting that I developed a knack for predicting what flavors of doughnuts people would order. Hispanics and black people always ordered lemon-filled doughnuts. Old guys always ordered chocolate-covered-custard-filled, and of course kids always wanted sprinkled. I used to snack on the freeze-dried blueberries, and my lunch generally consisted of a bagel.. bet you didn't know Krispey Kreme had greaseless bagels. They do. Well this one did. I also formulated a ridiculous crush on one of my many Bosnian coworkers. It's so funny and kind of embarrassing to think back on old crushes, hehe. I thought he was cute, but he was pretty much clueless and destined for no destiny. He got his finger nearly chewed off once by one of the dough mixing machines. The best stories from working here came from the the drive through, even though I wasn't usually stationed there. Supposed celebrities would come through, or people with llamas in their back seat, or jerks chewing us out for slow service. Good Lord.

My second job was at Panera. It was leaps and bounds better than Krispy Kreme, or at least it had healthier options so I didn't have to feel like I was leading people to a quicker death-by-sugargrease. It was much slower-paced, too. I only worked on the bakery side. My manager was 19 and left me a secret note once: "Missy, give me a call sometime 846-2121 - Aaron." (I've got my old 2000-2003 journal opened here and I saved the note so I could make fun of it, ha). This guy was a looser, one of those jeep-driving types with the upside-down "It's a Jeep thing, you wouldn't understand" decals on his windshield. He had a girlfriend too, and had no business asking me out. I ignored him. Actually I just made this connection, but some time shortly after this I suddenly was scheduled for fewer and fewer hours at Panera. Whatever, dude.

My third job, and my final experience working customer service in the food industry, was Schnuck's grocery store, in the deli...slicing meats and cheeses, and getting bits of meats and cheeses in my hair (we didn't wear hairnets, thank God).
Look at me in my deli getup in 2001! And check out this line from my old journal "..maybe I can get one of my new co-workers to be my date to prom!" Ha. Wow. Can you tell having a job was really my first experience with the desire to date boys? Yes, I went to an all girl's private school, hush. It was new for me, even if all the boys I was forced to meet were invariably lame, including the one I developed another pointless crush over. Jerk. I also realize that my first three jobs put me in a position to be hit on by old men quite often. On guy actually acted like he was inviting me to a party with his friends! He was like 75 years old! (and ordering head cheese, mind you). Do I look like I want to be at a party with 75 year old men and head cheese? No, no, no, noo... Schnuck's had so many interesting customers. There was Ed, an old man who always came in for like 5 pounds of hot green beans, ha. He looked kind of homeless, but we loved him. And then there was the Rhino Lady, who was difficult to understand her orders, she had some kind of speech impediment, and also fingers that looked like rhino feet. There was also No-Eyebrows Lady (they were deliberately shaven and redrawn on very poorly). Honestly it is kind of hard to wait on people like this sometimes. It's hard not to be distracted. Then you have those customers who want 1 ton of meat sliced Bible-page thin. Snack bologna is only 2" in diameter, so when they want a pound of it sliced real thin, it takes forever, then they get mad and huffy with you when it takes too long. Not my fault, sir. The best was when the power went out and we had to try to keep all the cases closed so everything wouldn't rot. Oh, and the grossest product, by far, is tongue and blood loaf. Who wants that? And why is it that old men always enjoy these strange things?

I plan to keep these types of experiences in the past. I have no desire to revisit customer service, or doughnuts or head cheese.

Micah Dalton: 3rd & Lindsley

I made this skirt today. Actually it still needs to be hemmed, but I found this color of broadcloth that caught my eye and the $1.88/yd price tag told me not to walk away from it. The pockets are rounded on the bottom and I found some thin ivory ribbon with an embroidered flower pattern on it, with which to line the pockets. I'd never actually done this type of pocket for myself before, where the edges are inserted into the side seams, but it worked out nicely. Sewing has really become an interesting hobby to me. The more I learn about how different things are assembled the more appreciation I have for the art of it. It's an art not a craft! I hate crafts ;)

Tonight Jonathan is playing with Micah Dalton in Nashville. I really like the sound of Micah's stuff. It's relaxing and soulful. He's a cool guy as well. But not as cool as the guy on keys. I really like him. I'm going to try to get his autograph tonight, hehe. I'm bringing my laptop with me so I can continue my web design lessons in Dreamweaver.. so I can sooner make those web templates so I can make some income.

You know, other designers keep telling me about how they tried freelancing and every one of them says it hasn't worked out, because they either don't have the dicipline to maintain all the aspects of having a business or a combination of that and just a low workflow. I keep getting discouraged, but keep telling myself that as long as I'm patient and stick with it, eventually it will pay off for me. Then I talked with Phil and he told me this bit of paraphrasal: Let them drop out of the race, in the end you'll be the only one, they'll have to hire you, and your persistence with it will prove you more worthy to be hired. I haven't dropped the effort because I think it could make me happiest in the end, or at least for the time being.

I never really thought before how noisy my apartment complex is. Whenever the air kicks on I have to turn up anything that has volume control, like 4 bars. My place is small, efficiency-sized, so it's kind of hard to escape the noise when I'm on the phone or something. If I don't have my air on, the a/c unit of my neighbor blasts through my window all night long. The vent in my bathroom is also very loud, and comes on automatically whenever the light goes on. I can't hear my phone ring if I'm just in there with the light on washing my hands or something. And then there's the dude in my complex who drives a Saturn (it's not Jonathan) and his transmission sounds like a dying cow. I heard a new one today, I'm not sure what it is yet, but something outside my front door resembled a rattlesnake quite closely.

In conclusion, these are the things that I will be happy to leave once I move from here. When will I be able to move from here? That my friends, is up to someone else ;)

Interceptor

I've been planning out my lesson for the art class I'm teaching at Riverstone next week. I decided I'm going to teach a "duct tape sculpture class". I worked on an example to show the class about the wonders of working with duct tape (and cereal boxes.. actually in this case I used the box from the laminating sheets we used for signs at the last camp) anyway.. here's the result of my afternoon:

Play Date

I spent the afternoon with a talkative 6 year old, in what amounted to be about an hour worth of a play date. The VanPeborghs invited me over for lunch, which lead to Mia telling me all of her experiences as a kindergardener and her expectations for first grade, aside from non related bits about inch worms and lady bugs that she caught. She also showed me a video her friend's mother put together of a production of the Little Mermaid. Oh man. These people live in Knoxville and have a Jane Austen garden, and an elaborate outdoor theater for plays, among other things. Apparently the girl's parents are a carpenter and an artist. Anyway, Mia was the Little Mermaid, and she is actually a pretty amazing actress and singer, and I told her I thought so. She also played Ode to Joy for me on the piano, and told me that she has decided to be an artist when she grows up. I told her I was also an artist as I am "grown up" and that it's pretty fun. She smiled.

Test Post

I'm not sure if I'm going to like blogspot better than xanga, but I'm making this post to further my exploration attempts here to see how I like it.

For previous journalings, please visit my xanga.