going back to school was tough. not that i left, since i worked through break, but having classes again is rough. i had to shoot some photos for monday morning and i did them sunday night but they’re great so it worked out. had other things to do and simply did not do them. my thesis paper is looming, but so is quadmania so you know which one i am more interested in… QUADMANIA. tomorrow i’m free by noon, but i’m staying on campus all afternoon to work on Quadmania design projects and then go to the SEB Film Festival Awards Ceremony event before coming home to bake cakes with Alison for Cory & Zach’s joint birthday. their party is saturday night and i am really excited for all of their friends “from home” who will be coming, not to mention the mutual UMBC friends we have coming. we haven’t hosted a party since our holiday party in december, so this is serious!

I made this after work before SEB’s Open Mic Night, which I attended.

on wednesday i had an awesome lunch meeting with miriam, a staff member on campus who is involved with marketing for the university. i’m interested in the field of design and marketing (my graphic design and media & communication studies majors both point in that direction!) as a career path, and given that i am less than two months from graduation, i had some questions and things to talk out. she had some great insight, and was also really helpful in terms of thinking about what exactly it is that makes me interested in the field, reasons why i think i am prepared and equipped, and a little bit of how i intend to proceed.

i know that i need to work on my resume too. i should really be visiting the career services center. i know that they have some great staff (like sue plitt, who is one of many super super nice staff people at UMBC that the average student might run into at any given point in time) and their entire purpose is to help undergrads get internships and help grads get jobs! BUT it’s a resource you need to take advantage of before you leave, so my time is running out!

david indek, from the student government association posted a facebook status today counting down the days to graduation… i was telling katie dix, the SEB vice president / my co-worker / my friend (though that varies, katie and i notoriously argue about everything) but uhh basically i can’t believe i am almost done. it is crazy. i spent an hour today untagging 800 photos that have been posted of me on facebook (i still have another 600 though, and this isn’t the first time i’ve gone on untagging sprees) and it gave me a chance to see how i’ve grown and progressed since college began (since that’s about when i got my facebook… you used to have to be in a college network with a .edu email address to join, remember?) and i’ve really changed a lot, in terms of my appearance, style of dress, areas of involvement, groups of friends, social situation, and really so much else. it is really something.

finally, i miss my family. i haven’t seen them in two months because i don’t have a car and don’t often go to my parents’ house, and they don’t come up here. it’s a weird situation but i love them and i miss them but i can’t just tell them that because i am too tough and too manly for that.

one good thing about being in baltimore is that pretty much all of the east coast is within reach.

my favorite australian band, THE GRATES, are playing a few shows in NYC (they haven’t been to the USA in ages, last time i saw them was my first year at UMBC, so 2006, when they toured with We Are Scientists and played the Black Cat) and I am like 99.9% sure that i need to go see them! my wednesday class got canceled the week of these shows (march 23rd, the week after spring break), so i think i’m going to take the chinatown bus up to NYC, see them wednesday night, hang out thursday, see them thursday night, and then come back down for class friday morning.

SO EXCITED!!!!!!!

For all of my stressing and worrying, ArtWeek has been going amazingly! All of our events have been successful, the gallery is up (though we realized that the gallery space may need some re-working in order to accomodate large collections in the future), events have been well-attended, music and performing art showcases were just fantastic and wonderful, and SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SO INVOLVED! It’s amazing to me that all of these people are interacting with and participating in this crazy week that for so long has just felt like plans on paper and scribbles in my notebook.

ArtWeek event schedule on display in The Commons

Tuesday was the Paper Crafts on Mainstreet, and that was pretty fun and low-key. Then things got a little crazier, as Laura Schraven (my boss/BFF at commonvision) and I picked up a large food order for Visual Aid, the kickoff event that was rescheduled because of the winter weather. The event went super well, we had tons of people come and all the food was eaten (mostly). An hour later was the Music Showcase, where 10 musicians performed small sets to a large crowd (and that’s where the rest of the fruit and cheese went!) that loved it. It was a great day.

Julie and Jen performed at the Music Showcase

Wednesday was Lumen Printing on Mainstreet, and there was a great turnout, but I was at the Edgar Endress lecture at the CADVC (Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture), which was informative and exciting. There could have been more students there but on a purely selfish note, I had a great time and feel like I really benefitted from it. Then in the evening we had the Performance Showcase, in which the Musical Theatre Club, UMBC Cleftomaniacs, Stillettos, and Mama’s Boys all performed.

Edgar Endress at the CADVC

Today was the Social Art, Collaborative Engagement and Activism panel discussion, which Jaimes Mayhew arranged. It was a great event, I felt like I got a lot out of it personally, and the turnout was great (it helped that an entire art class attended as a group)! I also made flyers just for this particular event earlier in the day to spread the word last-minute.

Last-minute poster I designed for the Social Art Panel Discussion, which ended up being a big hit!

We also did our caricature event, and we never ended up being able to get a contracted caricature artist, so I just drew ridiculous drawings of the people who stopped by. A lot of people were friends and aqaintances, so I don’t think I offended anyone too badly with my “drawing skill.”

Tonight is Open Mic night and there’s free pizza, so needless to say, I’m not too worried about it.

Katie Heater dries off “burned” screens with a hair dryer last Thursday in anticipating of the Screenprinting Demonstration.

Finally, tomorrow will be the Screenprinting Demonstration and then the Artists’ Reception. The screens for printing were made last week, and Katie Heater is running this (and she’s a printmaking major and is AWESOME at it). The Artists’ Reception food order was confirmed today, Laura Schraven and I are picking up some extra items tomorrow morning, and I am almost done making the commemorative programs, they just need a little more information in them.

Well, I’m off to edit photos from the Social Art panel to put into the program, and then maybe take a bit of a breather until the pizza for Open Mic arrives and we get ready for that event.

Things are getting crazy. Things are always crazy.

Girl Talk tickets go on sale on Wednesday, and ArtWeek starts next week. Doing lots of last minute work for both things, namely the tickets haven’t been printed yet and ArtWeek posters, banner, and programs aren’t done being designed yet!

I just finished the ArtWeek schedule website and I did the 36″x48″ posters on Friday. Here’s the poster:

Also, contrary to popular belief, I also attend UMBC as a student, and my classes are tough this semester! I have a design critique tomorrow morning for which I have done very little, a lit review due Wednesday, and a website design due Friday, and I am not fully sure when I will be doing those things. Sure, I had this weekend but I didn’t really touch any work until a few hours ago when I started the site.

Basically, I feel like I work super super hard during the week, and then when the weekend comes, I try to make sure I get a bunch of time to myself to sit and do NOTHING and to hang out with my friends, and have nice times. Yesterday instead of doing any sort of work, I went to Annapolis for the first time. It was pretty neat, we went to little stores, we saw the Naval Academy and there were Midshipmen (someone told me that’s what the students are called) walking around in uniform everywhere. I had a cold cup of hot chocolate but Sarah helped me exchange it (I feel guilty about these sorts of things, even though I was completely justified), we had a pretty fancy dinner that I guess I treated myself to for no reason other than I was paid Friday, and then we hung out some more, came back to campus, had a few drinks, played Connect 4 and Scrabble, and it was great. My friends have upstairs neighbors that play Rockband really loudly and thud around the living room and it’s really annoying at 1am so I went upstairs to speak with them.

This morning I woke up and sat around for a while, then we all went to Catonsville for brunch, and settled on this little place after Taneytown was closed (apparently they’re never open Sundays… get your religion out of my sandwich!!) and it was okay but not amazing.

All in all, yesterday was a great day, and I do think I deserved to just have a bunch of fun, haha.

This week though, going to be intense as any. Then the next week actually is ArtWeek, which will be intense too. Then it’s spring break, and I think I might visit Philly and NYC, then we come back and it’s Quadmania before you know it and then HOLYSHITOHMYGOD it’s graduation!! I got my order form for the cap and gown in the mail yesterday and I am sort of like “WOAHWOAHWOAH.” I mean, it’s not a shock, and I have worked hard for three years at UMBC and a year before that too, but still, I am graduating!

I’ve been talking in circles about moving out of the house we live in here in Arbutus near campus and finding a big open space in the city for art and creative work and living with artists and collaborating and engaging and learning and whatnot, but I don’t want to leave my current roommates. I like them too much and we get along too well. It’s going to be a really tough decision, which is why I will probably stick around for a little while. Besides, most of my friends still have another year to go.

Oh, also I cut my hair. It was pretty big and I hadn’t cut it in a while but now it’s a lot smaller and less intense.

My fingers are numb from typing (and the cold, my office/work space is freezing all the time).

i do too much! i need a break and the semester is only in it’s third week. i guess that’s the nature of my upper level / senior seminar+capstone classes. plus i have lots of extracurriculars by accident even though i try not to have any these days.

valentines day bingo tomorrow night at this place near my house. tons of us are going. it’s super great. there’s a lot happening on campus too, but i’m not going to any of it. i did a bunch of stuff last weekend on campus though, there were parties and i went to back-to-back SEB weekend events.

check out myspace.com/thegoldenfilter, their track “solid gold” is just that. they played a small show at sonar recently and i didn’t bother trying to go… my bad, clearly.