another semester over

4.0


Hooray!!!!

some discoveries

1. want to offer brownies to your roommates but insure a large portion for yourself? bake walnuts into half the batch. ("oh, you don't like walnuts??")
2. create a list of things that you would like to accomplish outdoors for spring. wait. wait. wait. continue waiting, and mother nature will do it for you. that pesky rusted metal shed you want to tear down? done, one windy-windy-windy day later.
3. i do not want to teach art (or anything else) to middle schoolers. ever. (formally). i never planned to teach this age group, but while i'm at it, i should add elementary and secondary ed.
4. when you saute onions and garlic, it smells good. when your roommate sautes onions and garlic it makes you want to open every window and door in the house, even if its freezing outside and there is a storm of sand blowing through your neighborhood. (not to mention kick him in the shin for creating such a horrible odor)

That's about all for updates. I'm slowly looking forward in thinking about summer jobs, and maybe fall for that matter. We're done in early June, and I have at least one lead for summer that involves travel, leading, biking, and getting paid. I'll have more details later and will definitely share once I have them.

Oh, and though we don't have snow and ice and all that freezing, it's still cold sometimes, and a 35 degree day does feel cold after a 65 degree day. (really cold)

And as many are, I'm impatiently awaiting spring. I started a few herbs inside and think about the garden that I will plant this spring, although this potential summer job will get in the way of tending to such a garden.
OH! I now have tomatoes growing too...a tomato I purchased in the produce department decided to sprout its seeds while they were still inside the tomato. I was weirded out and fascinated at the same time. I first researched what the heck was going on, then transplanted six tiny sprouts to one of the trays I already have seedlings in. We'll see what happens. I found a picture that looks like mine did, only my tomato was red.

hitting the nail on the head

Check this out.

How do people come up with this stuff??

Photo update

Click here to see some photos that have been taken over the last few months. I have found something that will make posting photos in the future much simpler...hooray!
But since I had already started on this method, it will just have to wait until next time.

login e-mail: schoolhouse@weldon.com
password: guest

new year, new blog

I've been horrible these past two weeks--horrible in my not-so-timely replies to e-mail messages, voice mail messages, and I'm on break from work and school. And just like the laundry, not writing a little bit here and there has left me with many weeks and three whole holidays to catch up on.

I'm not sure where to start, so here are some pictures that have been taken over that last 4 months:

-The mural in its beginning stages


-the front doors of the school are perpendicular and to the right of the mural. basically, it's the first thing you see when you walk in...-and these are most of the students that worked on it. we started with 10, and each week the number would fluctuate. (mural still incomplete in this photo...)



-this one is at hart witzen gallery in the noda neighborhood. it is where we had our 'WOW'--the finale of a Citizen Schools semester where students show what they have learned. we had a great turnout.



-this one is probably my favorite.


I still don't have a photo of the 'completed' mural...

And now it's nearly 2am. Loading, positioning, and captioning photos is taking much longer than expected so I'm going to try and find another means to post some pictures.
Staying up late and getting up late is a bad habit to develop on break. School starts next week!

fall is finally here

hallelujah. i'm not used to the leaves changing so late. it felt like i had missed my favorite season, doomed to wearing t-shirts well into december. that's no longer the case. my scarf collection is slowly making its way out of the nearly sealed dresser drawer and into the regular rotation of wear i.e. hanging from doorknobs, draped over my head board, on my bed, over the closet door, on the chair, etc. it's a good thing.
there is one tree in the backyard that represents all that fall should be. i took these pictures this morning:


i have a few other updates, but it's now time to change and get ready for work. it will be a beautiful fall bike ride! (in case some of you don't know, i live 2.5 miles from the middle school and bike nearly everyday:)

paint!

So here are the updates: We are finally experiencing fall-like weather here in charlotte. It'll be nice when the cool weather is more consistent. It smelled like fall today and it was nice. My roommates and I finally started to paint in the house. The front entry way/sitting room/hallway is called honey tone. it's a yellow. The back/side/dining/music/hanging out/studying room will be painted squirrel.Are you thinking brown? Well, it's not. It's slate-ish grey. I took before and during pictures of the first painting attempt and will post pictures eventually.
Painting has made a huge difference to the front room already. It looks, well, colorful--warmer and intentional. It's still not put together, but it's a start.

Another painting expedition is for/with my job. Going back three or four weeks ago (my first week) I was informed that our program had received a grant from the Charlotte Arts and Science Council and the school wanted a mural painted (through an apprenticeship; go here to learn about them. My campus director asked if I was interested in teaching an art apprenticeship...so I enthusiastically said yes while harboring quiet anxiety. In short, it's a lot of work, and a huge project. Despite all the horrible scenarios I came up with in my head (what could go wrong, etc) I couldn't believe my luck...then two weeks went by and I was told that we were now partnering with the McColl Center for Visual Art.
That meant someone else was coming in. To make the story a bit shorter, it's looking to be a really great thing. Sarah is the artist coming in, and we're quickly becoming friends. And I may have a church to actually belong to--the church she and her husband go to. I'm going to check it out tomorrow. (well, later today. it's 3am--I can't sleep--started drinking coffee at 8pm due to an anthropology exam) Here is some of her work:
We have started the concept of the mural and have students' drawings to work from. It's still going to take a lot of work and after program time, but I think the end product has the potential to be pretty great. We have 10 weeks total with the unveiling in December. I'll do my best to record the progression.

That's pretty much all that's going on. School and work--which right now includes drawing--while still trying to organize everything, and choose a paint color for my room. That's perhaps the hardest task.