Jerry-Rigged

Perhaps it is a nod to how college may change you, that this is not the first time that I have started a post specifically to talk about how I have jerry-rigged something in my life.


You see, I may have told you that when faced with a problem I come up with odd solutions. Like, using a deodorant lid to mix paint, or carving a 'bullet' out of a potato to take a picture. 

This was forever ago, for an art project.

Or you may remember my original post Jerry-Rigged Chinese Food. Regardless, my odd solutions tend to work out. Well, not really with that Chinese food one-- turns out the cup was not microwavable safe. And in case you're curious what happens when you microwave a non-microwaveable safe cup, it cracks. What I thought were just odd lines turned out to be huge cracks in the bottom-- which I found out when I tried to full the cup up.

Anyway! I started this post primarily to write about my newest accomplishment. You see, I received this really cute Paris magnetic board (haha long story short behind the magnetic board, thank you hot French guys whose names I cannot remember) before heading off to college. Then I forgot it at home. After my brief trip home, I eagerly brought it back to school, planning on hanging it up behind my desk with command strips. Because, you know, command strips are like magic.

Well, not really. The dorm I live in is so old (and moldy...which isn't particularly applicable in this story but in case you were curious it smells. And has an ant problem. And the lights in the bathroom don't work too well. But other than that it's a great dorm!) and the walls have been covered in numerous coats of the paint. What this means is that the command strips do their very best to adhere to the wall, but often times just end up stripping off the most recent coat of white paint.

So, this weekend being Parents Weekend my parents, being the amazing parents they are, brought me alcohol.

Rubbing, alcohol that is, for the walls. I hoped that if I cleaned them well, then the command strips would actually work. And they did.

For about two hours. Last night, at some awful hour of the morning, my magnetic board fell off the wall, crashing down. Viewing the situation, I finally decided to just ditch the command strips.

Enter, an ice cream scoop. You see, for Christmas my mother bought me an ice cream scoop-- and seeing how I don't eat that much ice cream, I didn't think it would particularly useful.

Until now. 

Yup, that's my ice cream scoop. Holding up my magnetic board through a little bit of magic. :)

As soon as I got my eccentric idea to work, I jumped up and down, wishing that either of my roommates was in my room-- and texted just about everyone I knew.

Sorry, I'm just a little proud. This stupid magnetic board has refused to stay on the walls-- and I've been trying to adhere it for like a month. 

A close-up of the magic. :)

In other news, this weekend has been kind of amazing. It's been the lightest homework load of any week so far, it's also Parents Weekend, I saw the new movie Looper on Friday, the mini-season finale of Dr Who on Saturday and hung out with friends in between all that. :)

Last night, before Dr Who, some friends and I went to the local lake to play on the swings.

For homework.

On Friday our Physics teacher told us to go on some swings because they are an awesome representation of a driven harmonic oscillator. 

 So of course we had to do our homework. ;)

I'm going to have to do all the other less fun homework I've been putting on today, but overall, it's been a good weekend, and a much needed stress-reliever.

As always, thanks for reading!

The Fairest of All

Last weekend, I went to the local fair with a couple of friends.

I'm not the biggest fan of fairs-- I get motion sickness just looking at the rides, but it was fun to see all the animals. Years ago, during my brief stint in 4-H, I learned how to judge bulls. Now that that's over, I just think all cows are adorable.

I don't know how my life will turn out, or where I'll live but one thing I know-- I want to have a cow. An adorable, milking cow. ;)

My friend and the terrified cow. ;) It was pretty warm in the animal building; the poor animals all look hot.

Look at that face. How adorable is that??

Haha I took this picture because the calf reminded me of Bambi. Even if I haven't seen the movie (who knew Bambi was a boy?? Not me)) I loved the coloring of this calf. Funny story, I was once camping with a friend and his family. I got out of the camper one morning, and spotted a baby deer in the woods. Which caused me to promptly start yelling 'ohhmmiigooshhh it's bambi!!' and squealing over and over like some fan girl.

Yeah, they still haven't let me live that down.

Bunny rabbits! Aka, adorable balls of furriness. The poor things were panting in the heat, but were still cute and soft.

Thumper!

We headed to the goats next. ;) I just love farm animals, though that's probably because I'm such a city girl that they are still novelties to me. My equine class this summer helped to dispel some romantic horse riding ideas I had been holding onto. Suffice to say, trotting through the fields is much more painful than one might imagine. And horses are pretty ornery. Adorable, but still.

Fair buddies! Out of focus fair buddies, I should say. I don't know what happened to my camera. However, I stumbled upon some vintage actions I have in Photoshop-- I used them on the goat photo, this one and the next one. I kind of like the results. :)

One of the many sickening rides. Serious. I used to have a stomach of steel-- I would ride nauseating rides over and over as a kid. Now? I can't even look at them without feeling queasy.

In other news, I just bought Mumford and Son's new album, Babel! Amazing epic album of awesomeness is the first description that pops into my mind.

Anyway! Even though Tuesday technically is my day off, I must go and practice piano, go to my lesson, Walmart, diffy-q homework, physics homework, youth group, and finish my french homework.

Oy.

Thanks for reading!

Weekend Fun

It's the weekend!

After a long and tortuous week, it's finally time for a break. :)

Last night I finally saw Brave-- a movie that I have been wanting to see alllll summer. I'm trying to catch up on Disney movies after a childhood rather devoid of them.

Anyway, I've been so busy this week, I don't have any pictures to post. If I did, they would simply oscillate between Physics, French, Calculus, and a piano. Which aren't too terribly interesting to photograph.

So! When I don't have any new photos to edit, I often flip through my copious amounts of photographs. Often times, I'll take a hundred photos, upload them, edit two favorites, and then forget about the rest. Then, at times like these, when I don't have any new photos, I go back and look at all those photos, shoved into various folders, metaphorically gathering dust.

Because, you know, pixels can't gather dust. But, yeah.

Okay. I'll just post pictures now, as my ability to string words together into coherent sentences is rapidly deteriorating.

This is actually from my last trip home-- I loved the overlapping layers of leaves, imperfections dotting their green flesh.

What I like about this picture is the progression of life-- you start in the bottom, where the buds of the flower can just be seen. Then, you move up, the buds are larger, just about to bloom. Then, at the top, you get the final result, this odd fiery flower.

This picture is actually from a while ago. I experimented with more square cropping-- I think it helped focus the picture. I tried to give it this yellow, relaxed look through editing.

My favorite little plant ;) I believe it's some sort of seedling the squirrels plant-- they are everywhere in my yard, driving my mom nuts.

 Another old one! I can't tell if the pale red overlay I did was too much...I do love the feel it gives to the photo though.

So! This afternoon a friend and I are going to Acroyoga-- whatever that is. It contains the word acrobatics in the description, so I was sold instantly.

Thanks for reading!

Study Break!

Four Exams.

One week.

That, my dear blog, is why I haven't written in some time. I'm in the midst of my busiest week yet, though I'm taking a little break to write about what's been going on, which has been a lot.

For starters, I went home last Friday night, for mon pere's birthday. (Sorry, studying for my French exam. Writing my blog in french totally counts as studying, right??) It was kind of hectic, as I had to leave the next afternoon, but welllll worth it. My only regret last year, first semester, was that I wish I had gone home more than once (during fall break) during the fall. I missed those cool, Sunday afternoons, spent watching whatever college football game happened to be playing.

Anyway, while I was home I managed to snap a few photos of my yard.

This photo didn't have the clear focus I wanted, but I still had to post it because I just loved the faded feel to it.

I had fun editing this one-- I slightly desaturated the greens so that they weren't so vibrantly distracting.

This was a new flower I found! I have no idea what it's called-- the colors just popped in the cloudy light. Even though it's just September, many of the flowers have already fallen dormant, their bursts of color faded from the grassy backdrop.

Before I left for home, last Thursday, my friends and I went rock climbing. While there, one of my friends mentioned that the school had these inflatable games set up. While I was going to pass, my friend really wanted to go, so almost reluctantly I went with her.

And had an amazing time. :D

I'm so glad my friend wanted to go-- we all ended up having a blast. There were multiple inflatable games set up, from obstacle courses to this gladiator thing pictured above. ;)

I went on the obstacle course, racing my friend. Since I'm kind of crazy competitive about some things I tore through the course, throwing myself down, over, up, sliding against the plastic.

Well, I won. And I still have the burns/wounds on my knees to prove it ;) Suffice to say, it hurt to walk for days afterwards.

Oh, the price of winning.

Foam party!

That was next-- Saturday night was foam party. Sadly, due to rain, it was moved indoors. Still, I had a blast. I didn't get any pictures, as I didn't dare to bring my phone in with me. I did it last year, and had a heart attack as I was submerged in the foam, certain it would ruin my phone.

If I had brought my phone, I would have snapped a shot as we all linked hands, dodging through the tallest part of the foam-- up to my neck-- before escaping outside. I would have clicked away as we took off running, flinging up arms up and down like birds, watching as the foam flew off, the sound of our laughter the best music of the night.

Anyway,  I really should get back to studying. I have part two of my French exam, a take home exam, and a Physics (D:) exam on Thursday to be preparing for.

Merci! Je suis heuruse que tu lis mon 'blog' :P

My life

My life has been very intensely stressful.

So you can imagine how glad I was when Tuesday-- my day off-- rolled around. I slept in, read more of The Hobbit, worked on French, and tried to de-stress.

I thought I knew what stress was last year, around finals. I complained, I worried, and yeah I was stressed.

For about a week.

Imagine that, times ten, everyday of sophomore year. My classes are exponentially harder-- making me have an existential crisis a day-- and overwhelmingly demanding.

Such is my life. I was actually not planning to complain about my life, I just recently took a photo that I felt summed up my life.

Yup. Emma Watson and physics reading.

Good times. Kind of ;) minus the physics. Which is much more challenging than I ever thought it could be. It's hard to remember why I'm even in this major.

Regardless! I've actually contemplated several back up plans for my life that exclude physics. I'm just not overly fond of them.

Taking a break from talking about physics, foam party is coming up this weekend!!

So excited. Imagine a playground of foam.

Yeah. My school is just that amazing.

It'll be a nice reward for getting through this week, to say the least.

What I look at when I need a break from physics. My pirate kitty! And no, I don't have an eyepatch for her, regardless of how cool that would be.

But that would be kind of cool.

It feels like I've been at Hendrix for months now; settling into my second home, trying to remember what it was like this summer. When I still had hopes and dreams (now dashed and half dead, victims of physics).

In other news, I felt pretty ;) sorry for the blatant picture of myself-- it's rare to get a picture of me that turns out. I won't make a habit out of it. I always hate those girls who post hundreds of pictures of themselves on facebook/twitter. They don't even bother to be creative, they just stand in front of a mirror.

Though I have to admit, taking a self portrait is hard! Trying to set up the camera, exposure, and timing-- not easy. Which is why the iPhone is a nice out, with it's front facing camera.

Anyway, I really should get back to my physics reading.

Thanks, as always, for reading! :)

Golden Cliffs

I didn't discover the beauty of what we called 'the cliffs' until the veryyyy end of my freshman year. We went there just as school had ended, waiting for graduation to come. It was such a peaceful-- and very odd-- feeling, being completely done with our freshman year.

This year, we resolved to do all the fun nature things that we didn't know about last year. So, a couple of nights ago, some friends and I braved the oppressing heat and humidity to go to the cliffs. Many wrong turns and a few desperate phone calls for directions later, we arrived.

It was just as beautiful as I remembered it.

I used the HDR program on this one. My camera was accidentally set to ISO 3200 from when I was taking pictures of the t-shirt fun so a lotttt of necessary noise. Wow, that's a lot of links in one blog post. Anyway! I kind of liked how the photo above turned out, though I'm worried it looks over processed.

It was so gorgeous! Granted it was hot, and the rocks burned after laying in the heat for the whole day, but it was so worth it.

My lovely friends!

My friend grabbed my camera (a careful grab, as we were close to a deadly (for cameras at least) drop off) and took a few rare photos of me. What's even rarer if that some turned out well!

Me and my friend!

I might be the most un-photogenic person you know.

But I get kind of lucky every now and then. ;)

Yay for panoramas!

After the sun went down, I subjected my poor friends to my first-curtain sync flash type thing ordeal that I learned about. It allows me to freeze a subject-- such as his face-- and then pull out colors from the fading sunset.

I do believe that is the most embedded links I have ever had in one post.

Though eventually all good things-- aka procrastination-- must come to an end! I'm off to continue on my with my homework. Which is so overwhelming I can't even come up with a fit analogy. You'll just have to understand.

Thanks for reading :)

More T-Shirts!

More t-shirt fun!

I wasn't sure if I would have time in college to make another t-shirt, but some friends and I took advantage of the three-day weekend to make some t-shirts.

After an unreasonably long and stressful search for fabric medium, and some black magic printing out the stencils, we were ready to craft.

We had all the major geek subjects covered-- LOTR, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones-- for our t-shirt designs.

Geek love!

I decided to add the quote 'Not all who wander are lost' to the back of my lord of the rings shirt.

I found a foam paintbrush stuck away in some box I had packed.

We watched some Downton Abby-- a wonderful show I was just introduced to-- while we cut out our designs.

Speaking of amazing shows, I saw the season premiere of dr who this weekend! Epicness.

Coming to college I had just briefly heard of this show called Dr. Who-- my roommate at the time was a big fan, but I wasn't really interested. She knew some people who were going to get together and watch an episode-- I tagged along because I didn't have anything better to do and ended up being introduced to the most amazing show ever. I was hooked-- okay mostly drastically confused-- by the first episode, and it just got better from there. Now a year later I am the one trying to convert everyone I know into rabid Dr Who fans.

Anyway! There were no Dr Who shirts to be made this time around. Maybe next time. I'm not too happy with how my old dr who shirt turned out-- there was a lot of bleeding around the letters. The more t-shirts I do, the more I learn so I might make another dr who shirt.

One of my friends accidentally cut out the the design wrong-- cutting out the object rather than its inverse. Her design was complicated and it was difficult to decide which part to cut out. Regardless, she put the cut out object onto the shirt and then used a splattering technique to cover a small area of the shirt with paint. We were all excited to see how this turned out.

Just try and imagine four people-- and four t-shirts-- an ironing board, wet paint, and two x-acto knives in a room that was only meant to house two people and you'll begin to see how cramped it was. We made it work, though. No serious mishaps occurred.

My design! Let me tell you, cutting out those tiny little delicate hobbit letters was a mess. I thought for sure that my crude cuts with the knife would result in a messy quote.

Funny story. So here we were, with a bottle of paint, and a bottle of fabric medium. Then, we realized we needed some way to mix them together. Of course my room was devoid of any small cups or convenient answers. Glancing around my room I spotted an unlikely answer-- the lid to my deodorant. Weird, perhaps. A working solution? Most definitely-- it held enough paint for us to apply to our shirts.

Et, voila, the first t-shirt! I loved how the splatter technique turned out, the white paint really was a nice contrast to the beautiful purple shirt.

Et, voila, the second shirt! Gandalf's staff turned out really well-- especially with the asymmetrical placement.

As for the game of thrones shirt...use your imagination? I don't have a picture of the final project (I'll post it later!) but rest assured it had amazingly crisp lines.

My quote! It's not the best picture (I'll post a better one later) but I wanted to quickly write this post while I actually had free time, a scare event which might not happen again soon. I dipped my pencil in the paint to create the dots over the letters-- which is so much easier than trying to cut them out.

Anyway! My crafting summer has continued onto the school year it would seem! I am instructing my friends in my crafty ways :P

I'll post better final photos later! We, being the wonderful geeks we are, are planning on wearing our shirts on the same day and I'll get photos then. :)

Thanks for reading!