Winning!

We won!!!!!

I supposed I should tell you what we won.

SHIRTTAILS!!!!

Shirttails is a dance competition between all the dorms here. At the end, a winner from the girls dorms, and a winner from the guys dorms is chosen.

Yeah, we won. :D

The victory was especially sweet because of stuff we had heard the other dorms saying about us. The other dorms said that they didn't care who won as long as it wasn't Veasey ((us)). Which made us wanna beat everyone that much more. ;) We are just viewed as sluts-- though all the dances were equally racy. It's just the stereotype of Veasey. However, we worked our buts off this week preparing the dance. It had intricate formations and tricky moves. And it had the Veasey crawl. ;) Of course.

Anyway, I have bruises all up and down my leg, and a monster one on my hip-- Shirttail scars. It's bittersweet because it's all over. One performance and that was it.

But it was amazing. When they called our name as the girls winner we all rushed towards the brick pit and formed a massive huddle. Then, we all took off for the fountain and jumped in-- winner's rights ;) though the grounds people/faculty of some sort weren't too happy about this.

After we all got soaked we ran back to the dorms. We had roughly thirty minutes to transform sweaty and soaked into sexy and fresh. There was a concert/party right after Shirttails. Super Mash Bros or something like that. So we quickly changed and tried to wipe off all the sweet and then headed to the concert. The concert was my type of party-- I could have stayed there all night. Dancing, music, and not in an enclosed dorm room space like the Martin parties are. My roommate prefers the Martin parties-- why I have no clue. I prefer the more open, concert like parties.

Unfortunately we didn't get to stay long because we were all starving. So, we-- Brittany, Lauren, and I-- all went to my car and headed to Taco Bell. Haha cause that's just what Veasey girls do.

After Taco Bell, we really wanted something sweet-- but it was 11 and everything was closed. Except McDonald's! So we went there to get some dessert. Then, it was back to Hendrix where Brittany went off to the Martin party and Lauren followed mostly to see what a Martin party was like. I came up to my dorm room and collapsed into bed.

And that was the night :) Today I'm meeting my parents are a local Lutheran church around 10:45 then going out to lunch. They brought with them two small bookcases for our dorm room-- much needed storage space.

Anyway, just another college check in. :D It was so loud in Veasey last night, every girl was screaming at the top of her lungs, the sound bouncing off the stairwell walls.

So much fun :)

1st Party!

So, the most important news of today is that I found my phone! :D Some kind soul returned it to lost and found, where I picked it up and starting squealing. And texting. And calling. And playing games.

It's so nice to have it back.

In other news, I went to my first college party-- aka my roommate/best friend drug me to a party.

*shrug* I didn't have a bad time per se, I just didn't have a good time. It was in a dorm, so there were four dorm rooms which were the 'dancing' rooms aka small torture cells. ;) Justt kiddinnngggg. It was packed, hot, and people were sweaty. There was no way to talk to anyone-- most people were too drunk to talk to anyway.

Oh, well. I left early, and practiced our Shirttails routine with some other girls. I can now say that I've been to a party-- and I also know that I haven't missed out on the others that I chose not to go to. ;)

Anyway, the only way that I went to this party was because I have absolutely no classes tomorrow. Some people there partying had 8 am classes. O.o Not too smart.

Tomorrow, the only thing on the list is possibly laundry, playing for the band director (oh no, not intimidating at all), a walmart run, and shirttails practice for three hours.

Oh the life of a college student ;)

College Woes

Yup, it's started early.

You see, I lost my phone. I've checked everywhere I can possibly think of, to no avail. Hopefully someone will find it and turn it in to the lost and found soon.

Hopefully.

Besides that, I've gone to a total of two college classes so far. The first one, Journey's wasn't bad and I had Cal I this morning, which was fun. Haha, at least my definition of fun.

We had Shirttails practice last night. Shirttails is this dance competition here at Hendrix. All the dorms preform dances and then judges determine the winning dorm.

To put it in the nicest possible manner, the dances here aren't...really classy. However, that's just Shirttails. The dance my dorm is doing is athletically challenging-- by the end of the practice I realized just how out of shape I really am. ;) My roommate is soaking it up and having a great time-- she is a dancer so the moves come easy for her. Regardless, it's gonna be crazy. Our routine is five minutes long, and we preform this Saturday. And so far we know maybe thirty seconds-- at most.

So on top of classes and homework, we also have two hour Shirttails practices at night. But it's gonna be fun ;)

Duddeeee

I just got back from the dude ranch. :D

So much fun.

There were two ranch dogs and one ranch kitty.

So cute! :)

Of course the horses there were beautiful as well. I didn't take my fancy camera along on the ride but I did manage to snap a few photos with my iPhone that I'll post later.

So, college officially starts tomorrow, though we only have Journeys. On Tuesday, all classes start.

Wow. That's soon. I mean I just kind of got used to living here, the idea of being here, and now all the sudden, another element is thrown in. Actual school. ;) Up till now it hasn't really felt like school, but some sort of summer camp. It's just starting to hit me that I'm not going home in a couple of days. o.o

College Life

So I'm sitting here in my dorm, in the briefest moment of free time before lunch. Lunch is the final parent goodbye thing. Brit's parents already left, but mine stayed the night.

So moving in was crazy. So mucchhhh stufff! So much. Probably too much. ;) Oh well. Our dorm room is starting to vaguely resemble a somewhat organized dorm room. The only problem is the beds are approximately eight inches from the ceiling-- I've already hit my head multiple times.

It's also been crazy busy here. This orientation week-thing is jam packed with all sorts of stuff. I just got done with my French placement test. I'm thinking I'll place in 2nd semester French I but I'm not sure. Some of it was easy and then some of it....*shudder*. Suffice to say, I've never understood future tense nor the whole de/des/a/ect. And then at the end of the test they had some culture questions. Though I just looked up one of the culture questions and found that I guessed right! They said that most people ended up in either 1st semester or 2nd semester French I.

The only problem that I forsee with the whole French thing is that they have one French teacher here at Hendrix and I haven't heard anything good about her....but oh well, I shall see.

Whew, it's been crazy. ;) Super busy. Today we're setting up our tentative schedules online and then tomorrow we're meeting with our adviser to set up our schedule. And then for the OR trip-- dude ranch! :)

Wow. I can't believe it is already the 14th. The 16th is when I move into college. The days just keep flying by me-- it's surreal.

Anyway, we got back from our family trip last night-- late, late last night. Tonight, I'm dying my hair. Nothing too drastic, mind you. Just a nice little red streak in my hair. :) My friend, and future college roommate, is dying the tips of her hair purple.

We will be ready for college :D

Well, sort of.

As ready as we're gonna be.

Oddly enough, this is starting to turn more into a blog, blog rather than a photo blog.

Sorry 'bout that. I'm busy, getting ready for college, and don't have too much time to spend editing and uploading pictures. I will have tons of pictures of our dorm and such, don't worry :D

Quick Update

I do believe that this is the longest that I have gone without posting in a while...sorry! I've been busy-- I'm on vacation now. Last vacation with the family before I go off to college. Which is soon.

Really soon.

Like, one week from today I will be moving into the dorms.

One week.

That's it.

Wow. Umm, yeah. Anyway, one week. I move in, we go on a horseback riding trip :D and then school starts. It's going to be surreal, not walking into Chem everyday, sitting next to Cody, and talking with Brittany. I won't walk with Katie to every class-- I won't have the seven student French class with the sweetest teacher. I'll have all new teachers-- all new classes, all new classmates, all new campus....

Gonna be fun ;)

Anyway, no photos today, just me freaking out about college. That is all.


;)

Two flashlights and one dark meadow...

Add two friends, and it all equals one fun night ;)

To begin with, the sun was just setting...

And it was beautiful (: I also took a panoramic, which I'll post later. Anyway, just as I was admiring the sunset, which was very quickly fading, my friends were fed up with the attacking bugs. We had, of course, neglected to bring any bug spray. I was so enamored with my new camera, and trying to work my tripod that they bugs barely made a dent in my mind. ;) However, the sun was just low enough so the sunset was mostly over, but it was really too light to do light trails. So, we drove back into town to my friends house and grabbed some much needed bug spray.

Then, back to the meadow for more photos. (: The 'meadow' by the way, has its own back story, I don't believe I've told here... It's this beautiful field, surrounded by trees, on the outskirts of town. I honestly don't remember how I first heard of it. I think it was through one of my friends, who heard about it through her friends. One guy from our school had found it, and had left a note for the owner, asking if he and his friends could come there sometimes-- to stargaze and the like. The owner responded, though a note I think, that as long as he didn't do anything destructive it was all good. And so it trickled through our friends and I heard about it. The first time I went was with two of my friends. It was mostly called the firefly meadow then because that is why we went-- to see the fireflies.

We got there, it was pitch black, lit only by the moon. It was pretty isolated, surrounded only by other fields. I hesitate to say 'fields' because nothing was being cultivated. Imagine long pastures, with large trees bordering it. (: Anyway, we climbed over the gate, nervously peering into the darkness. I had seen too many tv shows, and so everything I heard just had to be an ax murderer waiting in the shadows. Then, I looked over the meadow. Hundreds of fireflies flickered across the long grass. It was magical.

Over the years we went back many times. First, it was just to see the fireflies. Then, it was to stargaze. One time it was a group of roughly ten of us going. The farmer had balled the grass/hay/alfala/whatever grows there into large circles. With a little, okay a lot, of help I jumped up on top of one. I had just got a new star app, which allowed me to tilt it to the sky and see the names of the constellations I was seeing.

We were all enjoying the night when a strange sound echoed through the meadow. It just sounded like a really pissed off bull frog to me, but to everyone else it sounded like a rabid badger that was intent on ripping us limb from limb. Thus, the night ended as we all tore off for the cars. ;)

Anyway, once I learned of the magic of long exposure photography, the meadow took on another meaning. It became the perfect place to take pictures, and that is what I wanted to show you today.

Thanks to the tripod and a friend, I was finally able to test out my wing idea-- the create wings of light behind a person.

:)

My creative friends then did their interpretation of wings.

I loved the way it all turned out-- so different from what I originally imagined-- so much better. ;)

Next up was another idea that I had had in my head. I wanted to have two positions and streaks of light-- yes, it all made sense in my head somehow ;) What I wanted to do was to really convey motion, in an abstract and swirly way but also to illustrate motion in a very concrete way, with the person stopping in two different positions, putting the light on themselves to 'freeze' them there.

I rather like the result ;)

The last picture was not something that I had planned on. My friend was experimenting with creating a 'lighting' type scene but it just looked like I was holding a weird wand-- thus the idea was born. Being the geeks we were, we just had to look like we were holding wands.

It's a little 'washed' out because my friend was standing behind the tripod flashing her flashlight on us for a good five seconds. It would have been better to be closer, and move the light/have on for a shorter amount of time. Anyywayy, I still love the photo :D

So hopefully the story time wasn't too lonngg and the pictures made up for it ;)

Cammppinngg Fun

I thought that I would post just a few more camping photos. :)

Here, we were just walking along and came upon a puddle. Reflected in the puddle was the beautiful blue sky above, dotted with white clouds. Just looking at it was beautiful, but as I tried to capture that beauty on my camera, every picture I took seemed to pale in comparison with the reality and I just wrote it off as impossible. That is, until I loaded the pictures into photoshop. With just a little editing, I was able to better bring out the reflection.

More beautiful sunset :)

The next photo is comprised mostly of two photos taken of the sunset. :) I love the colors, even if the quality seems a bit low-- why, I don't know....

Well that's it! If there are any more amazing camping photos I stumble across I'll be sure to post them :)

The Wonders of Light Painting

Lighting painting trumps normal painting.

It just does.

One, it's a lot easier.

Two, it doesn't require much talent, just patience. :)

What is light painting you ask?

Light painting is where you take a long exposure at night. During this exposure someone does something with a light source in front of the camera.

The result?

Beautiful trails of light. :) And the description is vague because so much can be done with light painting. You can use a flashlight, a phone, a phone with a flashlight app, fire ((haven't tried this yet...it's kind of scary)), or any other light source that your mind can come up with.

For these photos I made use of this amazing tripod that I found in the back of our closet. :D And here I thought I was gonna have to buy one...;) I set the ISO to the lowest possible, and put my exposures anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds. I didn't make use of the bulb setting simply because everything I wanted to do was feasible during 30 seconds.

I was bound and determined to create a little stick figure holding a little light saber. But light painting can be tricky, and requires a lot of trial and error. After all, you can't see what you're doing, you just have to take a stab at it and then go see the result. My little stick guy never turned out like I wanted it. Eventually I realized that there were cooler things to try, and moved on. ;)

Recently I read an article about light painting. In the article, the guy did not use the techniques that I was used to-- creating light trails. Instead, he had his friends do something-- like swing on a swing-- and then set off a few flashes, freezing them in that position. The multiple flashes equaled multiple positions. Let me show you my interpretation...

This was a 20 second exposure. At certain points I would stand still and flash the light over me, creating a pretty solid image of myself. The beauty of this is that I could then move to a different spot, do the same thing, or continue with the random streaks of light.

:)

Even though it was pretty dark outside, around 8:30-9:00 it was still crazy hot and humid and the bugs were attacking me like crazyyy. Buttt it was still worth it.

Another technique that I tried out last night was writing.

It's not as easy as you would think. Since you're facing the camera with your light source, you have to write backwards for it to turn out.

I promise that soon I'll post some more camping photos...unless my new camera surprises me with something amazing as it has been doing. ;)

My baby :)

My baby came in yesterday. :D

Myyy precciioouuss...

Sorry, couldn't help it. My friends and I are watching the third LOTR movie today. :)

Anyway! I was just about dancing with joy when the UPS man dropped the package off at my house. It's just so beautiful! To zoom, I twist the lens-- it's so fun. It's like Christmas. :D

So, after charging the battery and skimming over most of the manual, I took it outside to see how she works. It took some getting used, but after pressing random buttons, I understand how to work the manual mode.

I've never been one to actually use the viewfinder on my point and shoot-- I've just always used the LCD screen. On my SLR, I'm switching over to the viewfinder. The main reason for this is because when I'm using just the viewfinder, it takes like one second to focus. When using the LCD screen it takes like 5...

However, the viewfinder is going to take some getting used to. I'm so used to seeing exactly how the photo is going to turn out-- exposure wise. When using the viewfinder, you don't get that. You have the meter, which tells you if it's underexposed/overexposed but visually, you don't see it. Which means I've taken a lot of photos that look amazing in the viewfinder, but are awfully under/overexposed.

One of major worries about the camera was that I would not be able to take close up pictures.

Well that proved to be a lie. ;) That picture is about as close up as I wished to get, and I still got clarity and focus. :D Major win.

I just love the way the pictures turn out. For some reason, they just seem...better? than with my point and shoot. Whenever I took landscape/ect photos on my point and shoot, nothing seemed to pop, it just seemed...like there was no detial? I don't know how to explain it, but to say I do not have that problem with my beautiful SLR.

Of course, the major win is to be able to focus on objects that aren't ten inches away from my camera.

Here, I still get that nice pop and fuzzy background, even though it isn't a real close up-- something unattainable with my point and shoot.

Suffice to say, I'm happy :D I can now do more portraits.

The AF has really been a lifesaver. I'm not used to having the camera do all the work and let me tell you it is a blast. Yesterday I was out taking pictures when a beautiful yellow butterfly landed on a flower I was nearby. I was able to easy zoom-- without losing quality, by the way, like on my point and shoot-- click the shutter, which AF quickly and take photos.

:D

It's going to take some getting used to, that's for sure. There are so many more options, and getting to used to the viewfinder is something that I need to do. Overall, though, I'm in absolute love. :D

The camping continues...

As much as I enjoyed camping, I must say, it is nice to be back in civilization, with air conditioning.

So nice.

Though I really do miss having the lake that you could just go and jump into. Trade-offs I guess. ;) Anyway, my Canon is supposed to be coming in today :D I can't wait to get it and start exploring all of its features.

But back to camping! These pictures are still from our first night exploring

The water was so nice, cool but not chilling cold. A welcome break from the heat and humidity.

As we watched the beautiful sunset, we decided 'hey, the sunrise would be just-- if not more amazing and beautiful!'. It definitely seemed worth getting up crazy early. When it's this hot, it's hard to sleep too late anyway.

The plan never worked out. ;) First night we forgot to set alarms, and then a storm cut the whole trip short. So, I just have photos of the beautiful sunset.

These next pictures involve a technique that I discovered. It was getting dark, which caused my shutter speed to start to go up too far for nice clear photos. On a whim, I set it to a long shutter speed, like 1/5 or something and then rotated the camera clockwise/counter-clockwise while the camera was taking the photo. The result?

:D I let out a squeal of joy when I saw the first results. The middle of the rotation is the clearest, as it stays relatively still, while the sides rotate. The result is the ability to frame something-- like a person-- in the middle, letting them come out relatively clear compared to the rest of the image.

:D

Well, that's it for today. :) More photos of sunsets and water and motion tomorrow. ;)