Checklist 2008!
Here is the checklist from my 2008 resolutions.
1. Explore New York City more. Not really. But I did get to know certain parts of New York better than I did before. I spent a lot of the summer walking around my neighborhood and parts of Manhattan for work, so I guess that's something.
2. Get a job. Yes and no. I had two jobs this past year (working as a personal assistant and then as a sales associate at a soap store), but I have been unemployed since August. So I only fulfilled my resolution by half, kind of. I need a job again. Badly.
3. Do more fun stuff! NO. 2008 was kind of the anti-fun year. Not only did it suck hard core in terms of school, but I think I became a total lame-ass because of the gigantic rut I seem to have been stuck in. For much of the year, I've been a total homebody and haven't really been up to all that much. This needs to change.
4. Cook/bake more interesting things. Not at all. I'm still making peanut butter sandwiches and pasta pretty much all the time. It's not like I didn't try, though. I bought like three cookbooks and subscribed to Martha Stewart's food magazine. Still, I haven't really had the time or money to really get down to culinary business. This also needs to change. I can start by finally calling the super when I get back to New York and getting the oven fixed.
5. Network with people! NO! Part of being a lame-ass is not socializing enough so it kind of goes without saying that my plan to network was a failure.
6. Throw parties! YES! It took me a while to finally start throwing parties in my apartment, but I finally did over the summer. I also had a pretty cute Halloween party and I threw a cool New Year's party the other day, too.
7. Take more pictures of random stuff and bring my camera everywhere. Yes, kind of. I did this like once. I probably would have done this more, though, had I not broken my mini point-and-shoot camera earlier in the year. It's a huge hassle to carry around a digital SLR everywhere I go. This is probably why I haven't taken that many pictures in general this year.
8. Take interesting classes! YES! I took four very interesting classes at Brooklyn College for my Spring semester: History of Modern Art, Psychology, Anthropology, and French. Then I went to FIT and kind of killed that whole thing. Now that I'm transferring back to Brooklyn College, I hope to start doing that again.
9. Experiment more with photography and photographic gadgets. No, but I don't really care that much about this one.
10. Do more things that are free. YES! I went to the library a few times. And I went to free museums and saw movies for free at MoMA with my student ID!
11. Have an awesome year! HA. Not really. But I guess it could have been way worse. Here's to making 2009 way better than 2008!
January 2, 2009 at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Five years!
I started this blog on December 23, 2003. It is now officially five years old! This is probably the only project that I've been able to stick to for such a long period of time besides like, life. When I first started writing on what was then titled "Maxigumee Land," I was in high school, I complained a lot, I took lots of pictures of my sister and myself, and took pictures of my room. Now, I'm in college and I complain a lot, take tons of pictures of my sister and her friends, and show off pictures of my room. So much has changed. But while we're taking a trip down memory lane.... remember.... the podcast? .... my sister's period party? .... the spoof ad campaigns? .... the Bloggy nomination? .... the article that was written about it? .... the calendars? Those were the days! Anyway-- here's to the next five years!
December 24, 2008 at 04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Starting fresh is getting old.
The other day, I was complaining to my friend that it didn't seem cold enough to be December. "It doesn't feel like it's going to be Christmas in like twenty days! I want some snow!" My current self wishes I had kicked my past self for saying such things. It was so cold and windy yesterday that my face felt like it was being blow torched as I walked about doing my errands. On top of tutoring a girl in my Photoshop class, going to the library and a screenplay reading yesterday, I also woke up at six in the morning to go register for classes. That's a lot of walking around in the cold.
I don't think I've mentioned this to that many people, but I've decided to transfer schools. Again. This semester has given me a little bit too much time to think about where I'm going in life and it's totally freaking me out. I mentioned a little while back that I was kind of having an early onset midlife identity crisis. That was also around the time that I decided to change majors. And schools.
At least I won't be going to a totally new school. If I had, it would be the fourth college I've attended in three years. Instead, I'm transferring back to Brooklyn College. For Art History. A lot of people are puzzled at this decision and wonder why on earth I would want to study something that is (a) so boring and (b) so not photography. I think it's mainly because, as I said in my previous rant, photo school kind of feels like auto mechanic school to me. When I'm done with college, I don't want to feel like all I can do is fix a car really well. Also, sitting and learning about how to properly color-correct images is far more excruciating than listening to a lecture about famous artists.
Anyway. I was trying to figure out how to register on the Brooklyn College website a few days ago, when I got a message that said that I could not register until my designated appointment on Monday at 8am. Confused, I called the Brooklyn College information booth and asked them what was up with that. The girl on the phone seemed a little perplexed as well, but told me that I should go to the office of Academic Advisement at my appointment time. So I did. I woke up at six in the morning, left at seven, and arrived at Brooklyn College at eight. After an hour of commuting in the freezing cold, I arrived to find that everything was closed.
I went to the office of Academic Advisement. Closed. I walked downstairs to go to the information booth. Closed. I went to the basement to see if anybody in the registrar's office could help me. The woman there unlocked the door only to tell me that she had no idea what I was talking about. I decided, after waiting around and going back and forth between the closed Academic Advisement office and the information booth, that perhaps my designated appointment time was just the time at which I could register online. When I finally returned home and went online, I discovered that that was the case.
For some reason, all but one of Brooklyn College's art history classes were night classes and already filled, so I had to go with History of Architecture. The other classes I've registered for thus far are French 2; Knowledge, Reality and Values; Shaping of The Modern World; and People, Power and Politics. This schedule seems almost like the exact opposite to what I'm used to and, while I really am tired of what I'm used to, I'm not sure if I'm quite ready for this.
December 9, 2008 at 01:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
I recycle!
So, I made these for the final project in my Photoshop class. The project was pretty open-ended, we just had to come up with something that would keep us busy for four weeks until the end of classes. I decided that since I do already do a lot of DIY-ish, cut-and-paste photoshop work, I might as well go with what I'm good at. I took after the Dada photomontagists like Hannah Hoch and created a bunch of retro-looking collages. At first, I pulled images from the internet, but that felt kind of cheap, so I ended up going into my own photography archives to find images. I really love how a lot of my older work goes really well with this sort of style! It's kind of like recycling! To see the slideshow, click here.
December 4, 2008 at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Black Rock
December 4, 2008 at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)