Been a while. Sorry about that. With two videos a week and final projects and general lack of sleep, it’s tough to blog twice a week, but it’s gonna be my new year’s resolution to try and get back on the wagon (spoiler alert). I thought I’d just use this post to catch ya’ll up on what’s been going on in my life lately.
The only things I’ve recently blogged about have been writing and Kristen Stewart, and I promise, outside of this sentence, I will NOT mention them again. For at least this blog. And I thought it might be a cool idea to explore the past couple months of my life in the pictures I’ve taken. So without further ado:
I’m a member of my college’s film club, so this year, as a project for the club to do together, we paired off and did something called an “exquisite corpse.” This meant that we made an entire film in individual, one minute clips. After the first group went, the second group got to see the last five seconds of the first minute, and then they went off to make their own minute. The next group got to see those last five seconds, and so on and so forth.
My partner and I went before Ellen and hers, so Ellen “cast” me and Colton to help her with her idea. It’s kind of hard to explain the concept, but we dressed Colton up like a Zombie therapist and I was his patient. This might be my favorite picture ever.
Then, it was Halloween. I was the Doctor, complete with a homemade bowtie, fez, and suspenders along with my sonic screwdriver that was a graduation present from my brother, a shirt and tweed jacket from Goodwill, dress pants, 
and the boots my grandparents bought me when they came up to visit. I was quite proud of the ensemble, and several people recognized me. That was a nice surprise. Ellen was a creepy doll and Colton was Stan from South Park.
Speaking of Colton’s costume, I made his hat and his mittens with my limited crocheting knowledge. It was definitely difficult, but they turned out really cute, don’t you think?
I also got to carve a pumpkin, which I’ve never done on my own before. (This means I’m growing up, right?)
Can you tell what it’s supposed to be? (I’ll tell you…. it was supposed to be Harry Potter. See the scar?? And the glasses?? He looks a little silly, but overall I was happy with the effort)
This year, we didn’t have a speech tournament on Halloween weekend, which meant that we got to hand out candy to the kids who trick-or-treated in our dorm. That’s another thing I’ve never really done- handed out candy to kids for Halloween. The neighborhood I grew up in was mostly comprised of older people, and the houses were so far apart that no one ever trick-or-treated there. I always went to Rachel’s house to trick-or-treat myself.
But since we’re sort of on the subject of things I’ve made recently, let’s talk about the two art classes I had this semester. You know about a lot of the cool stuff I made in ceramics from a blog earlier in the year, but since then I’ve made a bunch of NEW stuff. Unfortunately, I can’t show you a lot of it yet because 
they’re Christmas presents, but here’s something I can show you!
This is the pre-fired version of my tea set, which turned out alright. This picture makes them look a lot cooler than they actually turned out, but I still made a passably decent tea set, which I was happy with. That was all created entirely by hand, and I’m really proud with my progress this semester.
I was also in a drawing class this semester, which I enjoyed a lot. For our final project, we had to do a figure drawing, then a paper on a particular artist or art movement, then a second figure drawing in which we imitated the style of the art movement we researched. I, of course, chose Van Gogh and the impressionists. The first picture here was my initial sketch for my initial figure drawing. Then we have my initial figure drawing, which turned out pretty well, and, finally, my final figure drawing, imitating Van Gogh’s style. The problem with that drawing was that Van Gogh used paints, and I only had colored pencils, so I can’t even tell you how painstaking it was to use colored pencils to imitate the thick, varied brush strokes of Van Gogh and the impressionists. It turned out better than I expected, but it took forever.
 
We also, as a class, did a collaborative drawing of Steve Jobs’ face, which I’ll do a separate blog about soon. (my bit of the collaborative piece was the rectangle of the lower left part of his face)
Transitioning from class-sanctioned creations, however, let’s talk a little about Cooking with Gandalf. This video series has been both a blessing and a pain in my ass. I love cooking with my roommates and being silly on camera, it just takes forever to set up/cook/clean up after/edit the hours of footage down to something entertaining.
Just look at our two theme episodes: the silly little decorations in the background? All handmade prior to filming. they may not look like much, but I worked hard on them. Even this stupid Doctor Who hand turkey. I love Cooking with Gandalf, and I hope it’s something we do for a long time, and I just want everyone to understand/ appreciate all the work we out into them.
This next picture is the aftermath of my brief time as an intramural indoor soccer player. It’s an imprint of a soccer ball. As out of shape/ bad at soccer as I am, boy did I have a blast. I love sports, and I’ll probably try to play more intramurals in the future. It’s a great way to blow off steam and have some fun, without the pressure of set practices and game schedules.
Then it was Thanksgiving. This year, Ellen and I went with Colton to his older sister’s house in Olympia for the holiday, the first time either of us have ever been away from family during thanksgiving. We had a lot of fun, and I’m glad I went, even though the two cats they had gave me bad allergies and a rash. While we were there, Ellen and I went to a very hipster coffee shop to do some homework, and the coffee they gave me looked like
this:
Which was cool, except the coffee wasn’t very good. Maggie’s Buns once gave me a coffee that looked like THIS:
and not only was it made with love, but it tastes delicious. I’m kind of a regular there now, which is the first time I’ve been a regular at a cafe since Borders closed. (sheds a silent tear for Borders)
This is my wall of speech plaques, from the various tournaments I’ve attended this year on both coasts. I know I’ve harped on this before, but speech has honestly changed my life. It gave me something to be good at as well as a community that accepts me for all the crazy that I am. As much as I complain about it sometimes, I love speech, and I’m so honored to be apart of the program here in college.
Now, this is the prize I got for, once again, getting third place at a writer’s open mic night. I love these open mic nights, because I love performing, but I also love writing, and this seems like the perfect combination of the two. Plus, it’s fun to hear friends and people from my classes reading their work aloud. This year, I won with my slam-esque poem “Motherf@!#e%r”, which is about my anger issues. It’s slightly less funny than the poem from last year, “Piss Off”, which was about peeing standing up, but it was still pretty funny, and that seems to get me noticed by the writing and speech community. Who knew that the kid writing poems about the color black would turn into the class clown?
This Saturday, the 10th, was Ellen’s 20th birthday, so we went into Portland for the day with our friends Dion, Gustavo, and Dakota, who have all been featured on at least one Cooking with Gandalf episode, if you care to look. Ellen wanted to get breakfast at this very hipster cafe in downtown Portland, so we all dressed up like hipsters for the day, which produced, as you can expect, hilarity. Dakota actually borrowed skinnier jeans for the occasion. Though there aren’t any pictures, we went to a mall, then to an arcade where we played three epic games of laser tag, then to a little off-the-beaten-path Greek restaurant Gustavo knew about, before finally ending up back at school, watching movies and playing cribbage and purring outside of Lindsey’s door (don’t ask) until one in the morning. It was a good day.
Ellen, Dakota, and Dion before the day began
Breakfast!
Beiber AND the Doctor?! I’m a lucky girl.
(left to right) Ellen (BIRTHDAY GIRL!), me, Gustavo, Dakota, Dion. Fun fact: Dion’s eyes were closed…
so I photoshopped them open.
Finally, our last blog topic for today, Christmas. I’m leaving from school at 4am on Wednesday to go home for a couple weeks, and as much as I love college and Oregon, it’ll be nice to go home for a while. I made a ghetto Christmas tree out of a very bizarre white Elephant gift, then Ellen and I collaborated (it was mostly Ellen, though) on a slightly less ghetto one.
This semester has been crazy and busy and amazing, and although it hasn’t all been good, I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had for the world. Thank you all for continuing to visit my website and watch my videos and have a happy holiday season! I can’t promise I’ll be blogging regularly until after the new year, but I promise that I’ll make a definite effort. 🙂
