whoo.
^that was a relieved exhale.
thanksgiving: I am definitely grateful for this break. I got much work done yesterday, so I'm able to relax today and tomorrow (christmas TREEEEEEEE) and I'll polish off some more on saturday.
after that, one week and one day of school -- 5 days total and then I'm completely done with this semester, hallelujah!
what am I thankful for? NOT in order of importance :)
school. honestly. it's a great opportunity and I do love it, when I don't hate it.
friends. I have gotten so many "thinking of you!" texts and emails and I have felt so much love from the wonderful people around me, I cannot express to each of you how much I am thankful for that.
food. I can smell the turkey at this moment and my stomach is making ugly noises. dude, I'm starving and I am so blessed to live in a country where I have an abundance all the time.
my awesome family. they make me food and show me funny videos and read books with me and laugh and cry with me and give me hugs and love and correction when I do something wrong. thank you, guys! I LOVE YOU!
church. this is a combination of friends and family, essentially -- these are people who love me and put me first and care about me, from the older men and women to the little kids. it's incredible: I know people from every decade and can call them my friends, and they love me. they seek me out to find out how I'm doing; they pray for me; they encourage me; they really care. and I can't believe I get to be a part of this.
design. because good design is a treasure, and I get to look at it and practice it all week long. I am learning SO MUCH and I love it SO MUCH it's really worth all the stress. YAY DESIGN and YAY JAN TSCHICHOLD, my current design hero :D
afternoons off. *bliss*
thanksgiving. I enjoy all it stands for: gratitude, relaxation, good food, the holidays, warmth and love and fuzzies. gotta love it.
a healthy body. dude, I am by no means the skinny minnie I used to be. oh well. I am young and relatively healthy -- I don't have arthritis, I don't have a cold or allergies, my mind is whole, I am comfortable and can still run up stairs two at a time. I am young and healthy and I don't want to take that for granted!
electronic communication. because it can be used for good. I've tried to use it to bless others, and I've definitely been blessed by it :)
music. andrew mcmahon; rogue valley; michael bublé; passenger; mat kearney; george ezra; take that; hey ocean; coldplay; one direction; hadley fraser; walk off the earth; mary black; capercaillie; prince of spain; yann tiersen; all that good stuff depending on how I feel at the moment. ahh, love it.
this semester. yeah, it was rough. but now that I'm pretty much done, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I have grown and learned and with everything behind me, I'm glad I went through it.
and to whom am I thankful? to my God, who has supplied all my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
26 November 2015
09 November 2015
:: I'm almost there ::
parked outside the house we used to live
staring down the green roof and the walls
the balcony, the hills, the pain
the years of hope, the months of rain
now that we're outside it
I guess we survived it after all
I heard andrew mcmahon's 'cecelia and the satellite' on the radio back in august and immediately fell in love with it. I got home and looked up the artist and have listened his latest album 'andrew mcmahon in the wilderness' to death since then. it's incredible.
andrew mcmahon has that great ability to combine the most fabulous lyrics with the best tunes. they just blend perfectly together, and that happy marriage is not something I've come across often.
I will admit that this one, 'maps for the getaway', took some time to grow on me; but one rainy thursday night I was walking to my last class of the week, so ready to go home and be dry and warm, and the last little part of that verse popped into my head: the years of hope, the months of rain / now that we're outside it / I guess we've survived it after all
for some crazy reason, it made me feel immeasurably better. I was almost done with the week, and it was (it IS oh hallelujah) almost the end of the semester, and I do love rain. it was just this amazing realization that this too shall pass; I can make it through, and when I'm through, I will have accomplished something -- if only my own survival!
it sounds dumb, written out. but I really love this song. he has great evocative combinations of lyrics and melody. 'black and white movies' is another wonderful example, one that I was sure would destroy all my tune expectations ("the music cannot be as fantastic as those words. ...whaaaaaaaaano way. I am going to cry"). it's such a california song, and this weather -- all the leaves being brown, all the sky being grey -- puts me in dreaming of it again.
as the summer came and left with the rain
pushing shadows down the road
in this old beach town when the sun goes down
all the grey turns into gold
got no plans, just a feeling
I'm no architect at all
there's a fan on the ceiling
and a telephone that you should call
are you home tonight
are you laying in bed watching black and white movies
are you home tonight
do you ever rewind to the summer you knew me
happy tears, G. happy tears.
staring down the green roof and the walls
the balcony, the hills, the pain
the years of hope, the months of rain
now that we're outside it
I guess we survived it after all
I heard andrew mcmahon's 'cecelia and the satellite' on the radio back in august and immediately fell in love with it. I got home and looked up the artist and have listened his latest album 'andrew mcmahon in the wilderness' to death since then. it's incredible.
andrew mcmahon has that great ability to combine the most fabulous lyrics with the best tunes. they just blend perfectly together, and that happy marriage is not something I've come across often.
I will admit that this one, 'maps for the getaway', took some time to grow on me; but one rainy thursday night I was walking to my last class of the week, so ready to go home and be dry and warm, and the last little part of that verse popped into my head: the years of hope, the months of rain / now that we're outside it / I guess we've survived it after all
for some crazy reason, it made me feel immeasurably better. I was almost done with the week, and it was (it IS oh hallelujah) almost the end of the semester, and I do love rain. it was just this amazing realization that this too shall pass; I can make it through, and when I'm through, I will have accomplished something -- if only my own survival!
it sounds dumb, written out. but I really love this song. he has great evocative combinations of lyrics and melody. 'black and white movies' is another wonderful example, one that I was sure would destroy all my tune expectations ("the music cannot be as fantastic as those words. ...whaaaaaaaaano way. I am going to cry"). it's such a california song, and this weather -- all the leaves being brown, all the sky being grey -- puts me in dreaming of it again.
as the summer came and left with the rain
pushing shadows down the road
in this old beach town when the sun goes down
all the grey turns into gold
got no plans, just a feeling
I'm no architect at all
there's a fan on the ceiling
and a telephone that you should call
are you home tonight
are you laying in bed watching black and white movies
are you home tonight
do you ever rewind to the summer you knew me
happy tears, G. happy tears.
02 November 2015
:: gasping for breath ::
life can feel like this enormous ice bath sometimes. have you ever tried swimming in late september, or in lake michigan on a cool summer day? it's so cold you gasp for breath, but if you're diving underwater, you can't breathe in and a lot of times you end up choking and thrashing-- and standing up and feeling all tingly and then you get used to it and it's all good, but it's bad until you stand up out of the water.
right now, life is like that ice bath and I cannot stand up if my life depended on it, which in light of my little allegory there, it does.
many of you know, my mac crashed saturday before last and I didn't have the information backed up, so I lost two years of my life. all my design assignments and projects and portfolio; all my pictures, all my music, my creative suite; my current resume, my old school assignments, my completed and ready-to-be-printed school assignments, and my in-progress school assignments.
I lost a lot.
unfortunately, many people like to respond, "well, you can redo your portfolio--make it better!" and I nod and smile and run away and cry because
NO. no, it doesn't work like that.
1. I had hundreds of documents on my computer. I don't remember them all even if I wanted to recreate them.
2. I could remake them better, but then they wouldn't be the same, would they?
3. it's the history of me that I lost. I can't get it back: not my first endeavors in illustrator or my little pine tree logo or my typography haikus. it's not that I need the content as much as I want to see the progress.
4. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY HUNDREDS OF HOURS THAT WOULD TAKE. seriously, I might as well make brand-new stuff than remake old, tired, bad ideas that weren't worth much in the first place (I'm not kidding myself. I just had warm fuzzies, that's all).
so I'm in a really discouraged place right now. I have 3.5 weeks of the semester left, which is not a lot in which to complete all the projects I couldn't do last week (and whose progress I lost on top). I'm super thankful to be nearing a rest, but the hurdles I have to jump to get there are daunting to me.
also I applied to an incredible travel program to Italy over winter break and didn't get accepted :(
OH WELL. oh well. I have so much to be thankful for. the computer was not my life, and my life is still rich and good (PUMPKIN BREAD AND ENGLISH MUFFINS). school will end and my work will get done. I have learned a lesson; the weather has been beautiful; I get a winter break. and I have no finals :D
anyway, that's what's been up with me and why I've been absent. I'm planning on being absent until christmastime, too, because time is a commodity I am woefully short on. (...on which I am woefully short?)
right now, life is like that ice bath and I cannot stand up if my life depended on it, which in light of my little allegory there, it does.
many of you know, my mac crashed saturday before last and I didn't have the information backed up, so I lost two years of my life. all my design assignments and projects and portfolio; all my pictures, all my music, my creative suite; my current resume, my old school assignments, my completed and ready-to-be-printed school assignments, and my in-progress school assignments.
I lost a lot.
unfortunately, many people like to respond, "well, you can redo your portfolio--make it better!" and I nod and smile and run away and cry because
NO. no, it doesn't work like that.
1. I had hundreds of documents on my computer. I don't remember them all even if I wanted to recreate them.
2. I could remake them better, but then they wouldn't be the same, would they?
3. it's the history of me that I lost. I can't get it back: not my first endeavors in illustrator or my little pine tree logo or my typography haikus. it's not that I need the content as much as I want to see the progress.
4. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY HUNDREDS OF HOURS THAT WOULD TAKE. seriously, I might as well make brand-new stuff than remake old, tired, bad ideas that weren't worth much in the first place (I'm not kidding myself. I just had warm fuzzies, that's all).
so I'm in a really discouraged place right now. I have 3.5 weeks of the semester left, which is not a lot in which to complete all the projects I couldn't do last week (and whose progress I lost on top). I'm super thankful to be nearing a rest, but the hurdles I have to jump to get there are daunting to me.
also I applied to an incredible travel program to Italy over winter break and didn't get accepted :(
OH WELL. oh well. I have so much to be thankful for. the computer was not my life, and my life is still rich and good (PUMPKIN BREAD AND ENGLISH MUFFINS). school will end and my work will get done. I have learned a lesson; the weather has been beautiful; I get a winter break. and I have no finals :D
anyway, that's what's been up with me and why I've been absent. I'm planning on being absent until christmastime, too, because time is a commodity I am woefully short on. (...on which I am woefully short?)
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