[e003] Sleepy Jabbering

Finals are all finally over! I can have a life again! The cockroaches all rejoice, and we join hands and tarsi together in a wild dance of flailing hair and antennae. I have so many fantastic ideas and plans for this winter break, some of which will be easily accomplished, and others that will undoubtedly turn into long-term projects, much like this little journal that I need to start updating regularly... there's something soothing about writing often, even just stream of consciousness, instead of awkwardly trying to punch out a journal entry every month or three in this public cyberspace. It's very uncouth, these hiatuses, and I apologize sincerely for them. I'll try to be a better Troll in the future.

After overwhelming myself with art projects in the last month I'm starting to feel at a loss of what to do first with my free time. There are some unfinished school projects, some pieces I want to rework, and then my own projects, unrelated to any class. Last week I had to stay up four nights (not consecutively, mind you, and each night had a two hour nap) to only get half way through my Drawing final. There were fun moments of microsleeps, in one of which I was convinced for about fifteen seconds that I was named Sally, and there were not-so-fun moments of art-comas immediately afterwards mixed with dreams inside of dreams and sleep paralysis. Now... there is a lot of free time. I still have a job that I regularly go to, but I also have about fifty more hours a week to dedicate to whatever.

Edwin (my fiancé) and I have been cleaning up the house nicely. If there's one thing that finals week proves every time, no matter if I'm taking biology finals or art finals, it's that every room I enter violently transforms into a war-zone. This is only amplified when it involves producing art. My little studio turned into a catastrophe: broken charcoal all over the floor and crushed into the carpet, scraps of paper and graphite pencils everywhere, previously completed projects abandoned left and right, and random articles of clothing strewn about. It's like I turned into the Tazmanian Devil from Looney Toons: I walked into a room, twirled around, and suddenly there was a cataclysm. Much in the same manner, suddenly there was artwork.


(The Comforts of Familiarity - Cubism piece [shown still in progress] with charcoal and pastel. Based off my sneakers, camera, cell phone, laptop, and keys)

Suddenly we have a clean house. Suddenly I'm sitting here, on my futon, after a wonderful evening with some friends, and I'm updating a journal I felt like I would never have a chance to use. I have this free time that I wish I could capture in a jar and preserve with ethanol to admire and use at a later point, when there is more of a dire need for it. Since time can't be captured in such a way I'll have to do the next best thing: spend it with the ones I love, indulge in gratuitous amounts of sleep, and let inspiration carry me away.

On that note: I'm borderline falling asleep typing this. Good night, world.

[e002] More reading

This has been a long, long semester filled with too much homework and not enough socializing. I miss being able to spend time with my friends without having to stress out over the assignments I could be completing. Final projects are sneaking up on me, and plans for changing the house around have been reaching a slow boil in my head. I’m really looking forward to the short break from this busy schedule around Thanksgiving.

School aside, I have been working on my 52 books in 52 weeks goal. This doesn’t mean that I’m in the place that I need to be for this to be accomplished, but all the same I’m not so far behind that it’s impossible. I’m on week 17 and have read only 9 books, the most recent 8 being:

(Angela Cater's The Bloody Chamber, John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, Euripides's Medea, Stephen King's Misery, Everyman by Anonymous, Shakespeare's Richard II, Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines, and Moliere's Tartuffe)

I’m almost done reading 3 others:

(Aphra Behn's The Rover, Goethe's Faust, and Robert Atkin's ArtSpeak)

I'm pretty sure that once I can start reading general fiction again I'll be cruising through this challenge.

[e001] 52 Books in 52 Weeks

Why not start this first entry with something unrelated to art or science? I was recently browsing Eric Nuzum's blog when I saw he did a challenge of reading 52 books in 52 weeks. I couldn't help but think, "Cool! I definitely want to try that."

I'm that obnoxious person that hates being told that she is incapable of doing something, and being told such makes me want to do it even more. I can say with certainty that I will fail this goal, especially since I am on week three and I still have not finished my first book. Ergo, I want to prove myself wrong and turn these next eleven months into a reading spree, possibly even surpassing 52 books (more than double of what I read last year).

So, here I begin:

Book 1: The Dead Travel Fast by Eric Nuzum