Alive!

I'm alive!

I promise.

Though have you ever thought how creepy it is if someone dies, yet their representation on the interest-- social media-- doesn't? Internet does give a sense of immortality I would suppose. The idea that what you say or do is kept, hidden on servers thousands of miles away, always there.

Kind of creepy, in a big brother way.

Anyway! I just finished my first majorrrr physics assignment. Like ten pages, front back, is what I'm turning in.

Crazy.

Yes I've already had like ten existential crises. It's crazy hard; I don't feel smart enough.

But when it comes down to it there is nothing else I want to do. My passion is physics. More specially Astrophysics. That's what I want to do with the rest of my life. Regardless of how difficult, how stressful my life is currently.

Anyway! First full week of sophomore year-- over!

Goodness it feels like we've been here for months already, not just two weeks.

Minus the stressful work, sophomore year has had a great start :)

The first week was jammed full of campus events; my friends and I went to like every cookout there was.

First day of classes and I get a disco tray :D which, by the way, is a Hendrix tradition. There are several disco trays hidden amongst the normal trays. It's always so exciting to get a disco tray.

Sundae Thursday! Boy did I miss those this summer. While I never gained the freshman 15 I might be headed towards a sophomore 20 or something.

My beautiful friend Serena!

First party of the year! It was Shirtails- the dance competition that my dorm win last year :D

My beautiful friends :)

The party was fun and the mandatory midnight trip to IHOP was also a blast.

 

This is actually from lunch and revolves around a bet my friend and I had. He, being sick of Instagram as a whole, challenged me to take a picture of my food, insisting that no one would like it. 

Challenge, accepted. And won, thanks to some anonymous internet person who liked the photo. And even though he argued that this wasn't 'high art' I kind of like the photo. 

Anyway! I am off to enjoy a hard won three day weekend :) 

Thanks for reading!

Reflected Gold

I just wrote an entire post.

And then it got deleted.

This is not good for an already homework-overwhelmed Physics major.

I had a lot of waxing and waning of how God's handiwork was so brilliantly displayed on the canvas of nature. Of how the light just bounced of the water of a nearby lake, shimmering in the evening sun.

Of how the clouds were modeled after dreams, alight with the last rays of a dying sun.

Of how seeing old friends gathered from different states made for a fun evening, foreshadowing the fun of the upcoming semester.

Of how frustrated I was that I didn't think to bring my actual camera, and simply made do with my iPhone.

But this chick has homework to do.

So I guess I'll just leave the waxing and waning for later. 

Moving In

Aka, the day everyone hates.

Don't get me wrong, it's been a blast to finally see all my friends and hang out. I just wish that could all occur without the haul-all-my-stuff-three-flights-up...debacle. I'm living in a forced triple, so there isn't much free space, but that's alright.

Now that all the heavy stuff is finally up here, the next, equally bad part comes. Unpacking.

It's worse than it looks, I promise. Some interesting (not really) housing shenanigans have resulted in three and a half people living in what its meant to be a double.

So. Yeah.

But that will soon be all cleared up, along with our precious floor space.


I hated packing, and unpacking is no more fun. Currently our room is taken over with half-opened boxes, and dreams of free space. Luckily for me I have no class on Tuesday-- when our year officially starts-- so I may have some time to wrangle the mess that is our dorm room.

To Narnia!

 Life has been crazy, and a drastic change from home. It's like I have two lives, one at home and one at school. And the two lives are so different it's hard to imagine myself in the other one. (I really just lied on the couch watching tv??)

The roomies!

That's us!

So I don't have much to say, I just wanted to write a brief update on my college life as a new sophomore. The freshmen are a mere one year younger than us, though we act as though it's ten, reminiscing when we were that 'young', feeling so much more ready for college life than they appear to be.

Anyway, I better get back to unpacking (ha!).

Thanks for reading!

Why my SLR is amazing

Recently, I awoke one morning to find that by some fluke, it was actually pleasant outside. So I grabbed my coffee and newspaper (yes I am an old lady already) and headed outside to enjoy this brief respite from the heat and humidity.

Once I was done reading the newspaper, I glanced up, and saw that the blossoms of the bush behind me were hanging over me, danitly swaying in the wind. It would make a pretty picture; I ran inside to grab my phone.

After all, I love my iPhone and while I knew it was no where near as good as my camera, I grabbed it anyway. Heading back outside, I snapped the picture. The iPhone was unable to cope with the lighting, forcing me either try and fix an under exposed photo or have an awfully over exposed photo. I went under exposed, and try to fix it.

Still not happy with the results, I went into the house and grabbed my baby, my DSLR. Easily I snapped a photo of the same plant, not expecting much because of the somewhat awkward back lighting. The result surprised and amazed me, so drastically better than my iPhone's attempts to capture the beauty of the scene.

Here are the two photos:

iPhone

SLR

See the huge difference in quality? Granted the photos are slightly different in composition-- different focal lengths, ect-- it still shows just how much difference a good quality camera can make. You can't even tell what I'm trying to take a photo of in the iPhone photo, but with the SLR it's crystal clear.

After taking the picture, I continued to wander around me yard, snapping away.










 
Even in the heat of summer, there are still beautiful flowers.

I was feeling a little B&W ;)

Next time I write I will most likely be back at the wonderful world of Hendrix! I move in on Sunday...it's crazy. I've spent almost the whole summer bored, waiting for school to start, and now it's finally here...

However! I can't wait to post about my life at Hendrix :) My new dorm room, my new roommates, hopefully more lakeside picnics-- I can't wait to see my friends. That's the major downside to college; you make all these amazing friends, only to have them move away to the far corners of the country. However, we are all about to reunite :)

Thanks for reading!

T-Shirt of Gondor

As you may or may not know, I recently went to Abilities Unlimited and picked up some amazingly cheap, blank shirts. One became a batman t-shirt, but the other one just sat in my closet. I couldn't think of a design. I had already created a Zelda shirt, and a Dr. Who shirt.

I was out of ideas. Thankfully, I have creative friends. One of them reminded me of a really cool Lord of the Rings design-- the Tree of Gondor.

Beautiful, yes. Crazy? Also yes.

It was the most complicated design I had attempted to cut out. I was worried that the bungled attempts to make delicate cuts with an x-acto knife would result in an odd, messy t-shirt.

Still, I figured it was worth a try.

So I pulled out the x-acto knife, turned on the Glee Project, and got to cutting.

And cutting.

And then some more cutting.

It was pretty tedious to cut out the small, curling branches of the tree but the hardest thing to cut out was the petite stars. They were just so small and so angular it was near impossible for me to cut them out.

 After I managed to cut out the tree, my next worry (yes I'm a worrier, can ya tell?) was that I wouldn't be able to iron the stencil on flat. The little bits of freezer paper had a tendency to curl up, and I was worried that they would curl up under the iron and not adhere properly.

The stencil! I laid it our on the shirt before ironing down. I never really try and make sure it's even or straight....mostly I've just been able to wing it.

Carefully I began to press the stencil down with the iron. It turned out a lot easier to adhere than I had previously imagined. The little branches smoothed down easily.

I applied a thin coat of the dark acrylic paint over the stencil. I didn't want to put too much paint for fear that it would bleed, but I did want to apply enough to cover the grey shirt.

It took only about thirty minutes for the paint to dry; I used the hair dryer to finish drying it.

Et, volia! It turned out so much better than I had imagined. The stars actually look like stars, and the tree pretty much resembles the tree of Gondor!

My last t-shirt before college starts! Which is crazy soon, come to think of it. I move in in four days. Four. Wow. It's crazy to think that I'm gonna be a sophomore...

Thanks for reading!

My Adventures with Hippie Face Wash

So recently my cousin mentioned that she created her own face wash, using products you find in your kitchen. Inspired, I looked up hippie (aka natural) face wash recipes.

I then kind of mixed a couple different recipes together and slathered it onto my face. Because I'm just that cool (stupid).

Anyway! Here's what I did:

Step One:

 

 Assemble the ingredients! I used honey, yogurt (that was actually flavored...which it probably shouldn't be...), cinnamon and nutmeg. 

 Step Two:

Mix all the wonderful ingredients together. I probably used a tablespoon of yogurt, and almost as much honey. I had difficulties with the honey-- it had decided to solidify into a questionable looking mass. Feeling clever, I filled a bowl up with water, nuked in the microwave, and then set the honey container in the hot water. This helped, slightly, with getting the honey out of the container.

Step Three:

Slather the mixture onto your lovely face. I was worried that the meager amount of...yogurt-turned-face-wash wouldn't be enough be but I only ended up using half of my mixture. 

Yeah. There will be no pictures for this step. 

Step Four:

Leave the mixture on for 10-15 min and pretend you're an Egyptian queen.

Oh wait, is that just me? (sorry, it's the whole honey, anciently-amazing type recipe)

My cat, Foster, was pretty curious at the strange mask on my face. I was worried he would try and lick it off-- it did taste pretty good. 

Step Five:

Wash it all off! I eagerly dunked my face in some water and scrubbed the mixture off. Excited, I ran to a nearby mirror. 

And found my face red. D: Which, by the way, was what the face wash was supposed to fix, not create on my face. 

Luckily the red slowly dissipated from my face. 

So...my face looks the same....but I guess face washes aren't supposed to have sudden-miraculous effects. Which is why, being the impatient person I am, I have never really used them. 

On another note, I grabbed my camera and headed outside this morning. It was insanely beautiful for Arkansas, like 80 degrees. 

I just loved the color of this prematurely-fall leaf.

 

Water droplet fun!

So! I am going to go work on my overly-ambitious t-shirt design that I recently came up with...we'll see if I bit off more than I can chew!

Thanks for reading :)

 

 

An Iowa Summer

Yesterday we were driving around in the unbelievably beautiful weather of Iowa. Is this what summer is supposed to feel like? Is this why people are always like 'I looveee summer' and I'm like 'You guys are crazy, I hateeee the heat'? Because in Arkansas, summer equals 100+ degree heat. And humidity. Which is pretty much miserable.

Because if this is what summer is meant to feel like, then I never want it to end. Seventy degrees. That was the high. 70! With a refreshingly cool breeze.

It's kind of amazing. Unfortunately I can't really take a picture to show you how amazing it feels to be outside. But! I can show you some pictures that came from a unexpected detour. We had some time to kill, driving around town. Because it was so gorgeous outside, we stopped at a local park.

Turns out, there was a little botanical garden/greenhouse garden/thing that was full of beautiful, blooming, flowers.

This plant reminds me of a hydrangea or something but I'm not sure what it officially is. I do know it's beautiful.  

I actually took a picture of a flower like this, eons ago, in a little public greenhouse tucked away in the corner of a park in France. It had started to sprinkle, so my family and I ducked into an unassuming building, only to find a huge, beautiful greenhouse. 

They had a section of the greenhouse set aside for all the baby flowers/stuff still growing. It's sad-- I think baby anything is cute. You should've heard me pining over these little green sprouts.

Hey. They were cute baby plants. 

This is the same pink flower, only at a different angle. Back when I was in France I had absolutely no photographic knowledge. I just kind of pointed and pushed the button. It's crazy to think how much has changed. Now, when I look at a flower, I try to imagine the best angle to capture its beauty. I don't just limit myself to one quick photo, I look again, different angle, different exposure. I know I still have a long way to go, but it's always fun to look back and see how much I've improved. 

 A rare, no filter photo! I'm semi-obsessed with the Instagram filters. I've tried to find comparable Photoshop actions, but to no avail. It's also just so convenient! I can take a photo, edit it, upload it, and have it sent to my computer, wireless, in like five minutes.

I love technology. 

 I loved the thick flesh of this plant. It's a far cry from the pretty, dainty blossoms of other plants. It attempts to replicate their beauty on a more substantial level with darker colors. 

And this, my friends, is what perfection looks like.

In case you were wondering, perfection is a Weight Watchers ice cream bar (120 calories! not that I really care) that somehow manages to be one of the best, most decadent, ice cream bars I have ever eaten. Oh, and combine that with a cool evening outside with a beautiful view?

Yup. Perfection.

Next time I write I will be back in the amazingly-heat-stroke-inducing state of Arkansas!

Yeah. I'm excited.

The Land of Corn and Plenty

Aka, the wonderful state of Iowa! Yesterday my family and I braved another ten hour car trip to travel up north to see family! (at least we didn't break down this time!)

My lovely shoes made the trip as well. I love the idea of the shoes but already there are tiny tears in the cartoons. It would probably work better to make another pair out of book pages, like I did with my first pair of shoes.The newspaper is just so thin.

We stopped at the same river access as last time, eating lunch out by the water. The weather was simply amazing. Coming from over-100 degree weather, the drop into the 80s was brilliant. Up here in Iowa, the high for the day is like 80.

I never want to leave. After a brutal summer of scorching temperatures and no rain I'm ready for a change. Like A let's-just-move-to-Canada change. Because Canada is cool.

 Anyway, I don't have too much to say, I just wanted to write this little update on my life.

I only have seven days till I move into college! I can't believe it. I mean, granted, I have spent the majority of my summer wishing that it was fall already and I really am excited to go back to Hendrix. I'm excited to see my friends, live in a new dorm, meet new people, go rock climbing, and all the other amazing things I do at Hendrix. It's just crazy to think that I'll be a sophomore in college! I don't feel old enough to say that. I thought that college kids were supposed to feel older-- I still feel like a high school student, age wise.

But I'm not. 19, sophomore in college...it's crazy. (and this is crazzzyyyyy but here's my number...okay I'll stop) I'm going to do my best to continue to post something regularly when college starts and not just completely abandon this blog, which is kind of what I did last year.

On a side note, I finally have a plan sketched out for my final blank t-shirt! Stay tuned to see what happens. ;) 

As always, thanks for reading!

Music Madness

So you might be flattered (I do this partly for you, dear reader!), or worried, that I have spent a lot of time thinking about what to post! I try to stay on a self-imposed schedule of posting at least every two days. Some days are easier than others to figure out what to post about.

A little over a year ago I finally got the instrument I had wanted to play my whole life.

A violin.

They have always appeared beautiful and mysterious, a far more potable instrument than my beloved piano. While piano is, in my mind, the best instrument due to its sheer range and ability to stand alone, I've always pined after the violin.

As soon as I got the violin, I wanted to take pictures of it. It is, after all, a rather beautiful instrument. Today I finally went out, staging the violin against nature, trying to find the best way to see it.

It was actually more difficult than I had imagined. I should have expected that; after all, I have never photographed a musical instrument before.

Still, I ended up with some photos that I liked.

I even experimented with some cropping!

:D Yes, my love for Instagram and it's square cropping inspired me. Because Instagram is awesome.

And now for something completely different!

In my year-and-some-months of blogging I have posted countless photos, harping on different topics. I've even posted with pure text, and no photos.

But I have never posted a video! Since my ability to play the violin consists of a pain-educing rendition of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' (power lost equals I squared R!) on a good day, I have decided to spare you the torture of hearing me play it. Because after that I really would have no viewers.

So without further ado, here is the beginning of a marvelous piece, The Great Gate of Kiev by Modest Mussorgsky. On the piano. Because I do love you guys.

Though seriously, this is taking so long to upload, my whole 'ooohhhh I should do a vlog!' phase is going out the window.

I'm sorry if the quality is iffy-- the file was soooo largeee I had to try and downsize it any way I could.

As always, thanks for reading! What did you think of the video? Do you think I should just stick to pictures, or do you want to hear more music/video things?