First of all, thanks for the encouragement on my last (majorly downer) post. Last week was especially rough, and the weekend was not much better. It included breaking out in a stress rash, driving to the doctor to find it closed, driving to my school to find my key didn’t work, and driving home sobbing on the phone to my mom. After a rough start on Monday which included dropping a stack my student’s scrapbooks on my foot, this week has been….not terrible.

My students have been understanding the information this week and have been more engaged than usual. They actually started doing internet research today, and kept checking with me to make sure their sources were credible and reliable. (English teacher win!) I had someone observe my class this morning, and instead of telling me I’m completely failing at life, she basically told me to work on things I already knew I had to work on. It was less discouraging and more validating, having someone tell me that I’m not crazy in thinking there are some things I’m good at and some things I definitely need to work on. I have trouble knowing when I’m being too hard on myself and when I’m not being hard enough. Having another set of eyes helps me see what I can’t – it’s much less scary than I thought it would be.

I also somehow finally got into a grove this week of getting all my work done in such a way that I can take an hour or two at night to just sit back, kind of relax in that I’m-almost-not-able-to-keep-my-eyes-open way, and watch Bob and Jillian scream at sweaty, “Biggest Loser” contestants. Yes, I still have a lot going on, and yes, I still might have another nervous breakdown this weekend, but right now, in this moment, I feel alright, and that is definitely worth documenting.

Oh, and as an early birthday present to myself (12 days!), I bought myself Adobe Lightroom with my educator’s discount. $100 baby! Hopefully, it will motivate me to finally edit the awesome photos I took at my cousin’s bar mitzvah a few weeks ago.

There are 8,000 topics I keep meaning to blog about, but my sad dying iBook combined with my apparent inability to climb stairs to use my parent’s computer have combined to create an almost insurmountable obsacle to my blogging. Thus, I bring you a list of things I’ve been spending a lot of my time thinking about lately in one easy-to-digest blog post. Here goes:

1. Ira Glass – Last Thursday night, I dragged my mother to go with me to see “This American Life LIVE“, an event put on by the brilliant and addictive Public Radio show “This American Life” in which they do a live broadcast of their show in New York and beam it out to movie theaters around the country like freakin’ Star Trek! I was beyond excited for it, as my love for “This American Life” knows no bounds, PLUS the fact that actally watching Ira Glass, the freakishly amazing host, talk could entertain me for hours, as I’m so used to hearing him as this omnipresent voice on my walks to and from class rather than a noise actually coming out of a human face. When we got to the theater, we were one of two groups of people there, and my mother laughed at the lack of NPR listeners in the area – 10 minutes later the theater was almost full. Suck it, Mom! (Just kidding, I love you! And Happy Birthday!) I instantly wanted to befriend everyone there, as liking TAL (especially enough to drop $20 to see TAL LIfe) is one of my cool people indicators (you know you have them too). My love was even further solidified by the fact that they had word puzzels playing on the screen as the pre-show entertainment! It was like writing geek heaven. The show itself was great, as the radio show most always is. I cried at two stories and cracked up at all of them. My favorite comedian, Mike Birbiglia, told a story about a car crash in which he was wrongly found at fault (the other guy was drunk, so this was a pretty big slap in the face), and it was alterntately hilarious, infuriating, and touching, like every awesome story should be. (And because I haven’t mentioned it here before, I saw Mike’s off-Broadway show in March and it’s amazing! If you haven’t listened to his CD’s or seen is show, I strongly suggest doing so.) Basically, it was $20 well spent. I reccomend listening to the radio broadcast of the show next week, which you can do on their website.(It’s the episode titled “Return to the Scene of the Crime”)

2. Gregory House – Am I the only one who has noticed that there are only about 3 hours in the day when House is not playing on the USA Network? Take a minute, and check it right now. I’ll be you $20 bucks it’s on. Go ahead. I’ll wait…….As someone who has always thought I should watch House, because it’s a quality show and I am a lover of quality shows, it’s been nice to be able to watch some episodes here and there, but it’s becoming ridiculous. I watch one because it’s the only thing on, then I can’t change the channel in time before the next episodes starts and BOOM someone collapses with a siezure or heart failure that is TOTALLY UNEXPLAINABLE and OMGIHAVETOKNOWWHATTHEYHAVE!! Suddenly it’s three hours later, I still don’t exactly understand what was wrong with the patient, and I’m dreaming in medical jargon. Luckily, House’s witty dialogue and curmudgeonly attidute make it all worth while.

3. Flickr – This site is like photography crack. I get on to upload a few pictures then BOOM, I see someone made a comment on one of my pictures. “Join our group! It will be fun! Everyone’s doing it!” I click on the link to check out the group then suddenly I’ve lost ANOTHER three hours I thought I’d use to do something productive after breaking free of House, but instead I go from photostream to photostream with my mouth hanging open wondering how in the hell someone took this picture. It’s a problem. (Speaking of photos, have you checked out my new photoblog? Have you? Again, I’ll wait…../end shameless self-promotion)

4. Work – It’s slowly sucking out my soul. I don’t do well dealing with the public. At all. Especially when I have to work to please them and live with the mantra that somehow, despite how stupid and ridiculous and clearly WRONG they are, they are right. It hurs my soul. It really does.

And that is what has been taking up my time. Clearly, these are life-altering things I’m devoting myself to. I mean, I’ve got all major medium covered – radio, TV, internet. My life is crawling with excitement. Soon, though, that sarcastic statement could be true! Thursday, I’m headed to Boston for two days, then I’m back for a week, then it’s off to Boston AGAIN for senior week, then home for two weeks to pack up my life, then it’s off to Vegas, Baby (!!) for a little meet-up you may have heard about, then I’m flying to San Diego to pick up  my car and see the family, AND THEN I’m driving to LA and hanging out with my high school BFF and you know, starting my new life. So…yeah…this  may be the end of me complaining about how bored I am. Thank god.

Yes, it’s true. Even though I’ve been slacking on blogging here, I’ve found it necessary to start up ANOTHER blog. It seems crazy, but really, I think it will make me blog more, because I keep wanting to post pictures here, but I don’t like how small I have to make them to fit into the columns, so a new one-column blog it is! 

So CLICK HERE, and check it out! It’s obviously still a work in progress, and I’m not sure if I’ll just be posting pictures or posting how I took them or what I’m learning (as I’m clearly still learning)…hopefully, I’ll figure it out soon enough. Until then, go! Look! Yay!

Of all the things I saw (and subsequently photographed) on my day trip to Annapolis a few weeks ago, I think this was my favorite - 

I mean, do the owners wish they could shut down their boat mid-sail? Did it freeze in the middle of the bay? Or do they just spend way too much time on their computers and think this boat name is snappier than Ctrl C / Ctrl V? (Then they could’ve had TWO boats!) I just wish I knew…

The only excitement in my life this week has been my quest to make the famous Bakerella‘s cupcake pops. They looked adorable and mouthwatering, and I had to have some. Thus, I had to make some. Luckily, my mom, two of my aunts, and my grandmother all have birthdays around now, so we had a mini party on Sunday at my grandparents’ house, giving me the perfect opportunity to make a batch of these little suckers (get it…suckers, like lollipops…like cupcake pops….and I’m leaving in shame….) without the very frightening (and very real) possibility I would eat them all myself.

It was certainly a process. Friday I went and gathered all my supplies. (Luckily, my mom used to be an avid candy maker and knew what the best kind of chocolate would be for this venture…) and made my cake. Saturday, the real work began. First, I had to mix the cake and icing (without eating too much of the icing by itself) and form them into the shape of the cupcakes:

Next I had to cover the bottoms in milk chocolate (again, avoiding the eating all the supplies issue)

Then I had to dip the tops into blue candy/chocolate (I’m not sure what it is exactly, except delicious), then cover the tops in sprinkles and a little dark chocolate M+M. I was proud of how adorable they turned out.

They also made the sink look like this, which was a fun added bonus. (It’s like a party in the sink!)

AND, I’m extra proud of my organizational skills in keeping my kitchen looking like this rather than like an explosion of chocolate and sprinkles had hit the kitchen:

On Sunday, they looked adorable on the table at my grandparents’.

So, if you’ve got a spare 5 hours and a hankering for chocolate filled with cake and icing,  I definitely recommend these. My cousins ate three each and my dad and uncle (below) seemed to have fun with them, so I think they were a success.

Other than the cake pops, we had a really fun time with the family on Sunday. I think I sold my cousin on getting a Nikon camera after she walked around the party for an hour with mine. We also may have made plans to see the Hannah Montana movie together, as she is still in middle school and can be my beard to get into the movie without shame. (Not that I have any…I think I lost my ability to feel shame at the movies when I purchased my tickets to HSM3 for the third time.)

The rest of the weekend was spent car shopping with my mom. Every time we walk into a dealer, we have to explain that we need three cars in the next four months (one for my sister, one for me, one for Mom and Dad) and then have to wait as all the salesmen finishing battling to see who gets to walk us around the lot. We even had the owner of one dealership walk us around for a while. My personal dilemma right now is that I can afford to get a new car, but the new cars I want are all hybrids (because in CA, I’d get to drive in the HOV lane ALL THE TIME and if you live in CA, you know how AWESOME this would be, especially in traffic. Plus, less time out of my life pumping gas? Yes, please!), but of course, all the hybrids are way expensive, so I’d have to go used. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful to be having the option of either a new regular car or a used hybrid at all, but still, it’s a tough call.

Other than that, life has been pretty boring: working, watching ridiculous amounts of television on Monday nights (Last night my dad and I had to split up at 8 – he watched House upstairs as I watched the season premier Greek of in my room, all while our DVR taped Chuck, How I Met Your Mother, and Big Bang Theory. Then, of course, I have to watch Gossip Girl online. Is there really no other time ANY of these shows could be on?), and reading for TFA.  I’m debating (and I guess will have to decide to do by the end of the day) NaBloPoMo in April, since I’ve been slacking on the blogging front and could use some motivation. I guess we’ll see tomorrow.

The last few days have been filled with nothing but work and playing with my new camera…and really, all I’m doing at work is playing with a very similar camera…so exciting blog posts have been hard to come by, unless you are just dying to read a little story that goes like this: Today I work up. I took a shower. I drove to work. I took pictures of a family. I drove home. I took pictures of my family. I watched insane amounts of television while cooking and eating dinner. I read blogs. I watched Jimmy Fallon (he’s getting better, right?). I went to bed. THE EXCITEMENT NEVER ENDS, I TELL YOU!

I figured instead of regaling you with that tale and instead of ignoring you all together, I should share some of the massive amounts of photos I’ve been taking, as that is all I can really offer except for maybe a rant about American Idol, which was my original plan. (I mean, picking Jasmine over Ricky?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME, IDOL!? *Deep Breaths* Just remember Anoop….and that Tatiana is gone…gooodddd….breathe….) I swear, if that show wasn’t so culturally relevant and full of potential train wrecks, I’d stop watching. (For a very close description of my thoughts, visit Michael Slezak at Entertainment Weekly.)

Now that I got that ALL THAT off my chest, onto some photos! On our drive home from Food Heaven, aka Trader Joe’s, I noticed the light was beautiful (for once), so my mom suggested we go on walk through a nearby park with her beloved dog, Sookie. I love my mother both for suggesting this and for putting up with my obnoxious picture taking (and for learning to be a kick ass model for me.) Thanks, mom! Everyone should tell her how pretty she is. Seriously, I’m going to look AMAZING in 20 years. 

If you’re bored, you can check out the rest of the photos here. The photos shown are, sadly enough, a very small cross section of the photos taken. (Aka what I could edit before my eyes started blurring from staring at my parent’s giant monitor.)

I’ve been in a weird funk all week, internet wise, and I’m not sure why, because I’ve had some things I could’ve blogged about.

I started working part-time job at a portrait studio. It’s actually the perfect part time job for me, besides the fact that I can only work for about three months before I leave. They knew that hiring me, though, so I don’t feel terrible about it. I’ve been training all week, learning how to use the fancy equipment (by photographing adorable stuffed animals on baby pillows) and memorizing all the package prices. It’s fun to utilize my burgeoning photography skills into a money making situation and to learn a little bit about portrait photography in the process.

Using fancy DSLR’s all day, however, was making me more and more sad that I hadn’t been able to buy my own DSLR that I’d been lusting after since July, especially now that I’m making money (and got a sweet tax refund), which had been my excuse for not buying a camera for the past two months. That mild sadness and frustration then combined with stress over my TFA readings (which are alternately making me feel mildly prepaerd and unbelievably unprepared) and the occasional lonliness of being at home with only  my parents to hang out with, thus making me super fun these past few days. After being sick of the funk, I  instigated many, many mildly tense conversations with my parents about how I’d really like to use my money to get this thing I’ve been wanting to get for months and months as a small reward for working hard, graduating early, and living at home to save money. I somehow convinced them it was a sound idea, found a way to finance it  and today, I went to Best Buy and got myself……

A BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL, NIKON D90!!!! SUPERPHOTOEXCITEMENTWOOHOOO!!!!!

I, of course, came home, waited impatiently for my battery to charge, breezed through the user’s manuel, and started snapping photos of my only available subjects:

My mom’s uber cute, super tiny dog, Sookie.

My dad – who happily posed for a ridiculous amount of photos.

And of course, myself, in the obligatory mirror shot to show off myself and my beautiful new toy. (There was one where I looked way more exicted, but I figured I’d attempt to look cool for a brief moment.)

Hopefully, I’m now offcially snapped out of the funk. This week I’m finishing training at work and will hopefully be moving on to photographing actual children soon. Next Sunday, I’m meeting Jillian in New York to see Sleepwalk with Me (more on that soon), then a week from Tuesday, I’m heading back to LA for a week!

For now, though, I’m going to go take pictures of snow.

This semester, I’ve been in a basic photography class, where we shoot on film and develop and print all our own photos in the darkroom. After the first day, I got the hang of developing and printing down quickly. I know when I need to burn down some light spots, dodge some dark ones, or expose for a few more seconds. I’ve become an automaton when developing, to the point where I don’t even think about what I’m doing anymore. Because of this, I’ve been making decent prints and getting good grades.

But I haven’t felt like a photographer. I haven’t loved any of my pictures, and I’ve pretty much just been printing the photos that best meet the requirements of the assignment. While others struggled with their prints and worked hours after I turned my prints in, I actually envied them, because their photos captured these amazing moments. They were interesting and exciting, and I almost stole a few to frame and hang in my room to look artsy. I felt like a lab technician around a bunch of creatives. 

Today, though, I started printing my photos for my final project: a five photo story about any event – I photographed my five-year-old cousin’s soccer game on Saturday. Looking at my pictures today, I finally saw it. I finally saw interesting, exciting pictures – pictures I would have envied someone else for taking – pictures where you forget someone is behind the camera. While they aren’t masterpieces, I can see that I am getting better, and I’m proud of myself for finally advancing at the part of photography that doesn’t require just being technically smart. 

Now if I can only convince someone to give me a DSLR so I can keep getting better….a Nikon D90, perhaps?