May 4, 2011

Fitting for my last day of undergraduate college, I spent the morning working on my online final for History of Photo that was due today. It was somewhat easier than the the midterm was, I think. Either that or I just didn't care as much?

I got to Westby just before my Sculpture final was to begin and it turned out we had to wait a while for everyone to get their stuff up. This is one of my favorite pieces of Joanna's. The lines are made of pills.

There was a performance much like last semester, but the instrument's hammers were refined for more intricate playing. The piece he played was beautiful and really impressive that he created this himself basically.

My pieces were received differently by everyone. This isn't the best light in which to view them, but I was happy with the results. The critique itself was strangely hostile. Not just toward my pieces but others as well. A few people who I've not been in crit with before just tore people apart for no good reason. I didn't let them get to me, and I defended my idea and my process calmly, much to the chagrin of the person trying to rile me with his comments. Another disappointing critique.. and that's the end of school. What an anticlimax.

After the end of college, Joanna picked me up at we went to Moe's, where Chuck met us for food before he and I headed up to Hoboken. The Deptford Moe's is terrible. Maybe it's just the quality of the one in Millville, but I'm always disappointed up there.

We got to Maxwell's early for the show so we took a walk down to the river while we waited for doors to open. It's always a nice place to hang out and enjoy the view of New York.

We went in when doors opened and waited in the mostly empty room until the first band started. They were pretty good and then when they finished the keyboardist stayed on to help Jonah with his opening song, which was a real surprise to me. He played a Gratitude song, which is very unusual. It was a nice surprise.

We were right up front for the whole set, though it was a small crowd even for that venue. He played an awesome set as he always does and left us happy and inspired and wanting more. Luckily for us, we'd be seeing him the next day as well. We had a good drive back home and I went to Westby for a bit with Alex and then went home and watched Scott Pilgrim falling asleep.

May 3, 2011

After getting my images ready in the morning, I went to my final photo classes hopeful. I was swiftly let down by the typical lackadaisical style and attitude that has been there the whole semester. We spent the first hour or so looking through a couple of people's photos, leaving the second hour to go through the last ten people. I guess I'm still bitter about my disappointment in these classes.

When the second class final got underway an hour late, we looked at my silhouette photos. People were generally uninterested of course, having their own conversations and playing on their laptops instead of joining in a critique. Some people had really good work to show too. So, there it is. I suppose that basically sums up all of the photo classes I've taken and I don't have to deal with them again.. but it sucks that I probably could have advanced and been a part of something productive and exciting elsewhere.

To get out of the building, Joanna and I went on a cache hunt on campus. It was in the woods near the engineering building. After a little bit of searching I spotted it in a tree and pulled it down.

I really liked the quote on the fortune so I took that and left a Rita's coupon. I went in search for another one outside of Bunce but didn't end up finding that one after a lot of searching.

I went back to Westby and spent the night painting steel with a clear coat, then printing my transparency images onto them in the darkroom. Some of them came out really well, but some were hard to see. It might have been the emulsion I was using or the timing of the light exposure but for whatever reason they didn't turn out uniformly. If I had more time and more steel I would redo some of them, but since I needed it for the next day, I went with what I had.

I went back to Bunce with Joanna to look around for that other cache but came up with nothing again. All of the graduation staging is up so it might be more difficult to find with that there.

I went back to Westby for a while with Alex before heading home for the night.

Apr 30, 2010

After only a few hours of sleeping, I spent much of the morning going through my giant pile of flash cards for Art History II. Way too much to learn for one exam. I eventually switched back to Modern Art studying since that test was first.

We met up with Hottle and he took us to two computers where we each had our own private screening of the test. I think I did well like I always do on his tests but I know I screwed up the unknown artist section on at least one. Overall I was pretty happy with that test.

I studied some more for the next test and then met Adelson, who took me into the conference room to do his test. I was surprised at how many of the works I actually knew. I guess that last minute studying paid off. I hope I did better than on the first test.

I met my grandmother at Chili's for dinner. I had some of that delicious soup and a veggie burger. It was a rodeo burger.. Burger King may have the copyright on that name but they're all the same. Sarah was working so we got good service.

I came home for about a minute and then headed back up to pick up Joanna and go to Philly. We walked around for a while because the weather was so nice. She went into the Troc to see Converge but I stayed out longer to enjoy the beautiful night. I walked over to Samosa for a smoothie and had some rock candy, which left me wanting more rock candy! I need to get some..

I went in after Converge finished to see Thursday. They were really good as always but I was just not in the mood for it. I got into the last two songs, which were Jet Black New Year and Autobiography of a Nation. Great ending songs. I wish I could have enjoyed it a little more but there will be more.

I came home and zoned out watching shows and lying with the cool breeze coming in from outside. I fell asleep quickly. I had pretty much forgotten that I barely got any sleep last night until the point where I was nodding off.

Apr 29, 2010

I wrote a paper in the morning when I got up and then I went for a run around the neighborhood. It was strange running in the daytime around my house. When I got home I realized I needed to do a collage for Modern Art. I threw one together pretty quickly and this is what became of it.

I came to Westby to glue things and ran into Brian, Justin and a new friend, Stephanie, who wanted to play frisbee. We played out in the field for a while. The wind was against us though, making the frisbee hover way above our heads even if we threw it well. It was a nice day to play outside though.

I was starving so we walked down to the Chinese place and I got veggie lo mein and an egg roll. Brian says, "Show me hunger!"

We had our final Graphic Design class tonight, so sad. We looked at our poster designs and talked about what to do for our finals. No more big head nods, no more horses (morses), no more totally and no more humbuhguh.

After class it was study time. Hottle came in and talked to us for a while, delaying my study time but possibly giving me an opportunity for the summer... more on that later. I printed out my study cards and looked over them for a while.

I have two finals tomorrow. Still studying. I haven't even started studying for the second one, Art History II, on which I'm sure I will do poorly. I can't take that class. Ugh. Wish me luck.

Apr 28, 2010

I came up to Westby a little early so I could precariously carry all of my works in to put in the BFA review. I had to show six works to be judged to be accepted into the BFA program.

After my final Art History II class (woo!) I went with Katie to Zizi's Vegan (or Amiani's, as it is called now) for lunch. We got vegan chicken cheesesteaks and brought them back to Rowan to eat for lunch.

I came to my last Photojournalism class a little late, where I gave my final presentation about my sister and Aiden. I don't know if it was as good as my slaughterhouse idea but Jerry seemed to like it. After we finished some other presentations, we got out early again.

I took some time and set up my sculpture final. I added a few last minute things and turned on the DVD. It's supposed to represent me and the most important things about myself. The video screen had rapidly switching images to show my constantly racing mind, the iPod was over my heart, the camera made one of my hands and pens made my other one.

The Sculpture class came up and looked at our final pieces. Joanna used a camera under a cloth that we had to focus on images that represent her on the wall. Both of our pieces went over very well.

We critiqued the box in the Sculpture room also. It was one of my favorite of the year. There were candles all over and each person that entered had to hold a lit candle as well. All of the thumbprints on the wall represented 64 abortions that would occur any given day around the world. The warmth in the box and the serious statistics made it a really interesting presentation.

Ryan and I met up later and did the Cub. It was a nice night so we wanted to take advantage of that before my trip. This is the wall jump portion.

I'm sure everyone wanted some more visuals of the Cub so here are a few. This is the wall climb. The awkward part is when we got to the top and had to squeeze through a small opening at the top of the wall.

The flip over the bar is always fun. I have a hard time regaining my equilibrium when I flip and then start running again. Ryan killed me this time around. I did a little worse than last time and Ryan made a new record with 4:03. I'm gonna have to work hard to beat that one.

We had a straight running race around the school, which was a good ending. I won that one by a second. I had to win at least one before we went home.

I went home and figured out what I need to do tomorrow and then got to sleep watching How I Met Your Mother.

Dec 16, 2009

Once I got up I had to take care of a few things. I sold one of my Thursday tickets on eBay so I had to mail it and then I had to study for my Film final. I went to Rowan so Joanna could quiz me on my flash cards that I made last night. It was really the first time I went over them at all so I didn't know anything at first, but within the one hour we spent going through them I learned just about everything I wrote on them all.

The test itself was not as hard as I thought it would be on the grid where I had to fill in the blanks of either the film, date, genre, director or stars. The flash card studying really helped on this part though. The rest of the final was short answer and essay questions about films, techniques and the studio system so even the ones I didn't know that much about I wrote a lot.

I went back to Westby after my final and helped out with Joanna's printmaking. By "helped," I mean I watched, making comments every now and again and then holding the edge of the paper when she was ready to print.

I was really interested in the process and I think I want to take printmaking next semester. I need some more studios anyway so maybe this one would fit into my schedule. This was the final product after a few prints and some painting/collage. I really like this design.

I went to Wawa at one point and got stuffing, mac and cheese and other junk. It was a hearty dinner. Alex and Josh were working in the Graphic Design room so I was in and out of there trying to work on my Philosophy paper but ending up taking a typing test (72 wpm!) and adding my voice to Alex's video project. This is the print for the wood carving piece that Joanna has been working on for a while now. I think it came out great, I'm gonna need a print of that.

We may or may not have gained access to the roof of Westby around 2am before going back to her room. It may or may not have been very cold and windy up there.

We hung out watching It's Always Sunny and How I Met Your Mother (I stand corrected) while working and/or planning to work on things. All of the print pieces had to be wrapped for the morning critique. I came home and tried to get to sleep without much luck.

Dec 15, 2009

I couldn't get to sleep and I ended up not getting much sleep AND waking up about forty minutes before my exam at Rowan. I had to hurry up and get ready then rush up the highway to get there about five minutes ahead of time. I didn't have time to study at all for Logic but I thought the test was quite easy this time. There might have been one idea I didn't remember well but I think overall I did really well on it.

I had time after my Logic final to go home and get a shower. I came back to Rowan and spent a little time studying for my Russian final. I studied quite a bit and then ran over to Bunce to take my test. The test was a 75-question, multiple-choice test. I didn't need to really know how to spell things or write them because it was all there for me. I'm glad it was much easier than I thought it would be, but come on! I was worried about this! At least I'll get a good grade in the class now.

After my test, I hung around in Westby for a while watching people scramble to get things done for critiques... I remember the last three semesters like that. After Joanna's final was over, we hung out for a while and then went to down to Quizzo with Chuck and Diebra. We were on fire for most of the first few rounds. We were close to the first place team (which consists of at least ten people) but we were never able to overtake them. Second place finish wasn't too bad. And the new veggie burger was pretty great too.

We came back to Rowan and worked on homeworks; I made flash cards while Joanna (and I) worked on accounting homework. After multiple cartoons had finished and I made one small set of flash cards from my notes, I headed home for sleeping.