Ma Belle Amie

If I don't see this:

soon, I'm gonna punch someone in the face.

the angels wanna wear my red shoes

I made this cake today:

from scratch, which is a first for me. Carrot cake with Cream Cheese frosting. I hate to flatter myself, but I personally think it turned out delicious. Although if I make it again, I would take about ten minutes off the baking time. And I need to hone my frosting skillz, as it took me like ten minutes to get it to look all smooth and such.

Just thought I'd share my accomplishment.

Other things that are happening:

-I'm training for a 5k. I've been slacking this week, because I've lacked motivation (seems to be a trend in my young life), but I've been getting back on track, and I didn't technically lose any time because I have an extra week built into my training schedge.

-My parents have gotten use to having leftovers and barbeque chicken sandwiches, so I've had to take up cooking dinner more often than usual. The point of this is, is that I'm slowly turning into a housewife.

-This week I saw Inception on Wednesday. So. Excellent. I just...want to see that movie always. I'm seeing it again on tuesday, and let's be honest, I'll probably see it 5 times after that.

-I went the the Squeeze/English Beat concert with my father on thursday. Originally my sister was going to go with him, but she said it probably meant more to me. Score! Although, father didn't realize that I knew any Squeeze music, let alone was huge fan, until we were in the car on the way to the show. Ugh.

-I went to the Jack Johnson concert in Somerset tonight. If I never see another grungy hippy smoking pot again, it'll be too soon. Harsh, but fair.

Also, I threw a dinner party about a week ago for Jessica, Tianna, and Lizzie. Kind of as a welcome back from europe Jessica, have fun at Comic-Con Tianna and Lizzie (which they are at right now. It makes me sound insane that I turned down the chance to go. Ugh, again.). Some photos, as literally nothing got screwed up, and everything went smoothly in terms of cooking errthing. Especially since T-pain is a vegetarian, and it was hot and humid, it was limiting.

Greek Salad Pita, and Tabuli salad with vegetables.

Iced Green Tea with Gingerale and Raspberry Sherbet

Homemade garlic bread, which Tianna helped make and supplied the bread. Pretty much she did everything, for which, I thank her.

I'd leave it all tomorrow, there's sorrow if I stay

I'll update for real again soon, maybe later tonight, as there seems to be a mild amount of demand for a post, because I actually do have legit things going on right now, whereas only a week ago, I had nothing going on.

I won't update long-ly for now because I'm going to go on a bike ride to clear my head. I was cleaning my room when I became overwhelmingly depressed and anxious, and so I need to get out and boost my mental health. I think I know the cause, so that's good, but it's unavoidable, so that's bad. I don't feel like I'm having a very good day, and that's happened a lot this summer. Not so much lately because I've been keeping a little more busy, but I've become very disenchanted with a lot of people in my life lately, over different things, and that puts me in an awful mood that I don't like to be in.

Ugh, people truly suck sometimes.

Get with it.

I think this is what every fridge should look like. Just saying.

My wife has moved to Jersey, so mum is not the word.

I didn't die, I just haven't really been in the blogging mood. And don't mistake me- it's not like I've been busy or anything. In fact, it's just that.

As much as I looked forward to this summer, I should have known that I would be bored most of the time. Maybe it's because I assumed I would have a job-- and I will be the first to admit that I haven't tried terribly hard to GET a job, just saying-- and I'm not going on any trips or anything. And of course, one best friend is 1/3 of the way through her 6-week european vacation, another best friend is housesitting in a different part of town, which I didn't even know about until about a week before it happened (and she will adamantly tell you that she told me about it ages ago, but that is a big fat lie) as well as has a job. And other best friend also has a job, but she lives fairly close, so we've actually gotten to hang out. Sister Caroline never wants to hang out, and when she does, she always complains about driving and having to do other things, which are usually going out with people she sees every day. And she won't see Sex and the City with me, except, she invited me begrudgingly to go see it with her and her friend. Sister Emily just got done with school last week, and we hung out yesterday, but her best friend and roommate is getting married in less than a month, and is moving to China immediately after, not to mention she has 6 months to plan her own wedding. My friends from school don't live that close to me, and one of them is going to Europe for a month soon anyway, so that puts off our camping plans that we had until the tail end of the summer.

I'm not trying to have a public pity party, trying to get all sorts of sympathy from people, and I have friends, and it's not like I'm some pathetic hermit, but I don't know, I guess I feel a little lonely right now? Maybe this is my passive way of saying "feel bad for me, everyone I know is being a jerk right now" or something like that. I think I do that kind of thing all the time, whether I realize it or not. I think a lot of people do. It's like fishing for compliments. Although, a lot of the time, people realize that they're doing it. I think I have a sort of a villainous personality, where I seem sympathetic, but I prey on people's sympathies to get what I want. And maybe sub-consciously I admit that so people will tell me it's not true. But I think it probably is a little bit. And all of this business isn't really relevant to the "lonely" think, but I found a sorta segue, so I took it.

It's just that I've had too much me time lately I think, which I usually love, but I think I drive myself crazy. I have too much time to analyze things in my life. I usually think a lot about philosophy in my head, and I how I choose to live, and whether I think it's the right way, or whether I think I should be doing something differently, or how exactly I view the world. It's dangerous to think to much about that kind of thing. But I guess if I thought enough about that statement, I would label it as an imperfect philosophy.

But I guess I'm just saying, hang out with me. Ugh.

L'Etranger

a few things:

I served my first day of Jury Duty today. Dull as tombs. Sat around for a long time, got called for a jury, got dismissed, have to come back tomorrow and probably have the same thing happen all over again.

I feel it is now safe to say that my sister Emily got engaged about a week ago. I found out on wednesday when she and her "betrothed" came and visited me at my dorm, and surprised me with the news. I get an honorary award from Derek for the best reaction to the news ever.

I'm finished with freshman year, so I came home on friday night, and now my stuff is everywhere. my room is quite a mess.

Today is the two-year anniversary of my face being broken into by a window. Nuff said.

I had to make a website for my digital imaging class, so, I made a wordpress blog. There's not really anything on it, but it has a fuller portfolio of my artwork. There are really few of my drawings/other things that I'm actually proud of after a considerable amount of time after I've completed them, and often times they look worse in picture form, but whatevs. addieroyce.wordpress.com

on seeing my reflection i'm looking slightly rough

So, I've been starting to pack up all of my stuff in my room for move-out on friday. It's really weird to see how much stuff I have, now that it's all sitting out on the floor in boxes and bags, it makes the room so much messier. There are some things that I refused to take down until tonight, like my bulletin board. I thought it would look too empty, and I really liked my colorful arrangement of pictures and such, but I figured, since all of my crap is piled up around my desk, I wouldn't be able to sit there anyway. But now it really looks bare. I have to pack it all up now because I am leaving about 2 hours after my last final, and I won't have time to pack on friday at all. And tomorrow I'll have to work on my 3D final project, so I won't have much time then, either.

Yes, I know that's not terribly interesting..sorry about that.

Also, roommate bought be a present which completely caught me off guard, and I was embarrassed because I had not gotten her one, but she also wrote me a little card, and filled a big red (my favorite color) basket with all of my favorite things. She bought me a 2-liter of Diet Coke, a big bag of Salt and Vinegar chips, 2 Warm Delights (molten chocolate cake, and carmel molten cake, my favorite flavors), a 54 pack of trident gum (my favorite gum), and season 1 of friends. Can you believe her? It was probs the best present I've gotten in a long time.

I also just wanted to post some pictures of drawings that I recently completed. They're in color, which I don't think I've posted any of on here yet. I'm not completely satisfied with them, but I think they turned out better than many of the drawings I've done in the past.

The three R2D2's are for our perception of color and light project, and we had to take three photographs of the same or similar image to draw them at those three different times of day. My small lego R2D2, as you can see served as my model. I really hate the backgrounds on all of them, mostly because I hate drawing backgrounds. It's not really my thing.

This is my final project, which was a self-portrait, and it is also huge, like 3 or 4...ft tall? I might be making that up, I'm not good with perception of measurement. This is it when it is almost done. This is what I showed at the critique, but I drew a little blue on the whites of my eyes, because as you can see, they flatten out a bit, after the critique, because that was one thing my professor said he'd like to see change. I was surprised that people commented on the eyes, because the thing that was giving me the hardest time was my nose, because it kept looking so big, and also my eyebrows, because in my opinion, and compared to the photograph, they are too low, and a little too dark. I also obvs took the tape off the edges.

I'm all lost in the supermarket

Saw Iron Man 2 at midnight on thursday with Beth, Tegan and Melissa. So awesome that Cinemagic in Menomonie does midnight shows. It was the perfect thing. We went and bought our tickets beforehand, although we didn't realize that the theater doesn't even open until 6:30, so we went to the Dollar Store to kill some time, which I found to be an absolute GEM. I'm so excited to go shopping on the cheap there next year. So we got our tickets, came back at 11, it was raining, we waited outside, they let us in, it was epic, the movie started. The movie was AWESOME. So love it. I'm really glad that it lived up to "Dark Knight is a sequel potential" meaning that it was just as good, if not better than the first, although, I really really love the first, so it's hard to say whether it was better, I'd have to see it again. But the addition of Sam Rockwell, and Don Cheadle, how can you possibly go wrong? I mean, Mickey Rourke wasn't that phenom, I gotta say. He kind of annoyed me actually. And I eternally dislike Scarlett Johansson, so that's whatevs. Ugh, the RDJ craze is back on. I love the spring, because it always gives me awes movies to obsess over. Last year was Star Trek, the year before that, Iron Man, the year before that, Silver Surfer. They just keep getting better and better.

Also, I just signed up for Pandora, can't believe I didn't do it sooner. So far, this is an awesome playlist.

Also also, I'm so excited to go home, I only have 6 days. 5 days until I'm done with finals. 2 days until I'm done with classes.

And after eating a muffin and a half, I'm off to dinner. Don't...don't judge me.

The Raw Deal

I just read this article on Glamour.com (I won't apologize for love glamour and visiting their website every day) and I just thought it was interesting. Enjoy.

Good Morning, Starshine, Good Day, Sunshine, Good Night, Moon

I just wanted to say that I just watched the documentary "No Impact Man" which you can all watch instantly on netflix, if you happen to have netflix, otherwise, please rent it and watch it, because it really is just so good. I can't say I love documentary's in general, but I have nothing against them existing. Sometimes I have an issue with the philosophy of the documentary, or the message, or if it's being to preachy, or if I feel they approached the object in the wrong way, but I had no such feelings about No Impact Man. It's about a family in New York City (mother, father, small daughter) trying to make no net impact on the environment for a year, and the steps they take, and the phases of the process they go through. The wife is kind of whiny sometimes, which can get a little annoying, but I appreciate so much how passionate the man, Colin Beavan, is about the project (it was his idea) and his enthusiasm to understand what he and others are doing to the planet, and what it's like to change, or adapt to different ways where there might not be such a negative effect on the planet.

What I like so much about about it is that it's not saying all of these shocking facts that are supposed to terrify you into be eco conscious, I believe watching this family's eco routine motivates and encourages me personally enough to do what I know I should be doing, or even showing me the alternatives that I may not have thought about before. He pinpoints classic cases of people being eco-light, and that would be thinking that recycling is the answer to everything, when it really is not. People feel okay about using plastic if they recycle it, but what many people don't know is that it degrades in quality after recycling it so many times, so really, it's better than throwing it away, but there are so many other alternatives, such as glass, which can be recycled forever without losing it's quality (and would also take 4000 years to break down in the environment if not recycled, so that's even more incentive to do it!) Many people recycle the wrong way, too, but that's a battle for another blog post. I also also appreciate about this movie is that it addresses the social stigma of being an "eco-nazi" and how it can negatively affect you socially, and how people view you. I consider myself to be mid-range eco friendly, which I would say means that I do better than some people, but really not as well as I should, or would even like to. I say this because, even with the way I live now, I feel pretty embarrassed sometimes about my efforts, or feel completely judged because of them. My roommate in particular has a special talent of making me feel stupid because I want to turn off the T.V. when we leave the room for two minutes, but it's important to me, and for that reason, I don't feel like I should have to feel bad about it. It's a negative attitude that discourages me because I do something that I know is the right thing to do. A friend of mine threw out a plastic bottle that still had liquid in it, and I felt like a complete ass fishing it out of the garbage and yelling at her for not dumping out the liquid and recycling it.

One last thing I will say, is that I know that I'm "liberal", and therefore tend to think differently than most "conservatives" about the merits of eco living, and I appreciate that people have different views on the subject, and I know there's a whole thing about recycling and whether it actually does make a difference, but could you give me a good reason to have every single light on in the house while you're sitting there, or even out for the evening? Or generating more garbage than is humanly necessary? Or taking the worlds longest shower? (I am so so guilty of this one, because I've always loved showers, and I'm cutting back on my time, but I'm still not perfect at all, let's be honest) Would you feed your body a high fat diet every single day, and justify it by saying that you eat a salad every once and awhile? (minimal earth friendly effort would be the "salad" in this scenario) I should hope not, and so don't do the same to the planet.

I'll get off of my soapbox now.

Alison, I know this world is killing you

I registered for housing next year today, and I'm really excited about it. I'm rooming with the aforementioned friend from drawing class, Maddi. What's even more exciting is that we registered for the building which will be newly remodeled for next fall, and it's connected to the new dining/fitness center/convenience store. It's on north campus so it's farther away from all of the buildings that I'll actually have class in (a.k.a. the only building I'll have classes in, Applied Arts, which is also the farthest away from north campus.) But it's really close to the co-op, which will be nice, because as it is now, it's a five minute walk up the hill. It's also much closer to Penco. And it's literally right next door to subway. The subway that I haven't gone to at all this year. This doesn't mean I'm going to spend a ton of money next year because it'll be a lot more convenient, I'm just saying it'll be more convenient than it is this year to do the shopping that I already do.

By the way, I understand that this isn't terribly interesting, but I've been having a bit of writers block lately on what to blog about, and I legit like to blog, so any suggestions would be nice.

Also, I've been craving sweets a ton lately. I usually have like literally no sweet tooth, but lately I've been craving dessert after every meal. Not breakfast, obvs, because that would be silly. I still like a really bland breakfast. I am not a huge fan of sugary cereals, as evidenced by the box of apple jacks that is still sitting in my food crate that I bought in, I believe, november. It was a fleeting craving, and I've been trying to pawn them off on someone for a while now, but nobody wants an old box of apple jacks. I just finally found someone to take all of my ramen, because once upon a time I thought it would be a good idea to buy 12 packets when I already had 5 in my room. But the point is...sweets. I like the occasional dessert, but even now, I really want to go get a snickers ice cream bar right this very second. I think it's because I've been eating so healthy, it makes me want dessert every single day. When I was staying with my host family in france, I remember loving how they had dessert every night, and made me have some too, even if it was just a treat like a fancy yogurt thing. And they also bought me the snickers ice cream bars, and made me eat them and a glass of diet coke in the afternoon. They had my best interest at heart. So it's stuff like that, sometimes I'm like "I should really be eating super healthy right now, but at the same time, I feel like I should just enjoy myself, so long as I stay within reason" I feel the two are not mutually exclusive. And sometimes it's hard to care.

The Last Tycoon

Spring Break went a little too fast, for my taste. HOWEVER, coming back to school was not as bad as it could have been. Even though I had to finish my 3D Project, I haven't had too many stressors. My Wellness class is over, so now my Mondays and Wednesdays don't start until 2:30, which is really nice. And as always, I don't have class on fridays. But this week is particularly nice, as Mid Program review for art students is on thursday, so all art classes are cancelled. I'm so glad it's on a day that I have 3 art classes. And on TOP of that, my Digital Imaging class was cancelled today. So basically I come back, and I'm already done by 11 on thursday morning, and then get to go home. Also, I don't have classes next monday. So this is a really huge joke week, but I'm going to appreciate it, because I have a feeling things will pick up a little bit more. I would do as much homework this week as I can, but I literally have very few assignments right now, and I can't go much further with my 2D project without discussing with my teacher. So...I'm just going to take it easy, so there.

On another note, I'm just so excited for summer, and most especially the cabin. I have a feeling it's going to be really awesome this year. But when is it not, really?

(Although, I think we can all agree, Summer '04 was nothing to write home about)

Fortune found me, fate just crowned me, I'm the King of New York!

I believe I am getting sick. Which I would say makes no sense, because I've been eating super healthy, and you'd think that I would be anything BUT unhealthy, but I probably haven't been sleeping quite like I should be. Late nights, or all-nights, it's bad news bears. It probably also doesn't help that it is 3 in the morning as I write this, but in my defense, it's daylight savings. I'm not sure really why I'm writing about this specifically, because everybody gets sick, bfd, but if you haven't noticed, I'm into posting lately. I believe it keeps me healthy. Mentally, clearly not physically.

It's all over Danny Bailey

I couldn't find any rubber bands, so I tied my carrots with a red ribbon. Which will make my next snack feel like Christmas!!

On my way out, I was even going to shake his hand, but just in time, I remembered that I had killed a man

I just wanted to give a shout-out to my novelty items today. I got back from class early, and I noticed, (as I was in a rush this morning) that my breakfast dishes happened to be comprised my favorite novelty dishes.

A little grody, I know, but I was seriously in a rush, and I can guarantee that they are rinsed now.

Obvs, just the ones in the foreground, the James LEGO mug which held coffee (which, as I mentioned on facebook, I'm getting addicted to for the caffeine, as I gave up pop for lent) and my clone wars bowl, and lightsaber spoon. Who knew breakfast could be so awesome?!

Mario and the Magician

Corey Haim died! No ways man. World, don't you know that when you kill Corey Haim you kill "the Corey's"?!? If I had to choose, he would be the one I'd save. I have a soft spot for him because of Lucas. Which, crazy enough, I was thinking about yesterday. And then he dies today. This seems to always happen with celebrity deaths.

Speeeeaking of the 80's I will treat you all with Kenny Loggins' "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)" music video. It is excellently bad (I looked it up: "Excellently" IS a word) in it's quality, and just straight up excellent in it's jammin' out potential. And cameo by Virginia Madsen! Enjoy.

On another note, it looks like I will most likely be rooming with my friend from first semester drawing, Maddi, next year. I believe I have mentioned her before on here, when I wrote about the day trip to Minneapolis last semester. I'm excited about it, although it's only 99.9% happening (.1% is still a percent), to have a roommate most likely nailed down for next semester. It might be nice to have a roommate who is also an art major, as current roommate doesn't seem to understand what it's like to be in said major. Speaking of whom, she seems to be antagonizing me lately. Like, just being pick-y towards me. I can tell that she's just trying to joke around, but c'mon, there's a limit. If anyone has ever observed my relationship with Lizzie, I can only take so much of one person pushing my buttons, my greatest pet peeve ever. Getting back to roommate, I can only be expected to watch so much TV with her and get all of my homework done, and I'd like her to understand that without having a pissy attitude about it. She did tell me I have nice legs, but that won't excuse her from all the sass. Just saying y'allz, it's getting on my nerves.

And lastly, project is going well. I made the seahorse (if I haven't mentioned, that is the project- making a cardboard animal, and I am doing a seahorse) smaller (which also means it's cuter), and I have a great idea for the environment, which will hopefully work out. I'm really going to pay attention to detail this time, and now that I have done it once, I kind of know what not to do. I don't want to give myself false hope. I hope I'm not.

There's a Starman Waiting in the Sky

I was in a magnificent mood today, probably because of the delightfully gloomy weather. But I have a full week ahead of me, and I've started work on Cardboard animal 2.0.

I just wanted to share one of my purchases from the co-op this evening:

Only a few people will appreciate why this is awesome. And obvs. it's flipped around, but I'm sure everyone is more than capable of reading backwards.

The Judgement of Midas

I had a bad week, as you all know if you read my last post, and I just felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I'm still not used to having 3 studio classes at the same time, as well as keeping up in my seminar class which I feel terrified to fall behind in. Unfortunately so many things ended up being due last week, which resulted in my sanity being tested, and my emotions being pushed to the edge. I still felt horrible on thursday, but decided that instead of sitting in my room moping I thought I should go and have fun with my friends (who all sympathized with me and made me feel a lot better, and are willing to help me with my project to get it done and make it look good on time) and take a break from the non-stop schoolwork I'd been doing all week that was causing me to go insane and causing me to be so emotional. We went to Sketch-Off which is a fundraiser where some of the Art Department faculty have a large scale game of pictionary, meanwhile Lars (my 3D design professor...) makes merciless fun of all of the drawings and insults them, because if you haven't been able to tell by now, that's what he does best. Even though he's hilarious and I respect his opinion, he is mean without warrant sometimes. It was fun, and we had a good laugh, and it took my mind off of things. And on Friday, Krista, Beth and I hung out and watched the Office because we missed it the night before, and we decided to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's stone, because Krista has NEVER SEEN ANY OF THE MOVIES OR READ THE BOOKS, and I've been wanting to expose her to Harry Potter for some time. It was weird watching with someone who had such little basis for the story. Then Beth and Krista slept over in my room and we went to brunch the next day, I did homework ALL day, we went to dinner, made brownies, watched SNL, I worked more on homework while watching the Godfather (which makes ANYTHING more enjoyable) and then this morning we made brunch down in the basement, and I've just been doing homework all day.

I know this post seems very play-by-play, but I just want to let people to know that I'm feeling much better after wednesday, and my friends are helping me through it, and it really helps that everyone is being very supportive of me getting this project done and shoving it in my professor's face. I have a plan to try to get it done and awesome-looking in just one week, which will involve me pulling an all nighter on tuesday night, and then again on thursday night (especially since I don't have class on friday, so I can just keep going if I need to, or take a nap if necessary) and then have a couple of late nights next weekend, maybe pull an all nighter on saturday, but we'll see. I know that plan won't make a lot of people happy, but I feel good about from where I'm standing, and I know I can handle it if I sleep on the days in between, and get some good naps in. I feel it's going to be the only way, and I'll watch movies and tv shows so I will feel better about it (the prospects of watching something while I stay up late make me almost look forward to staying up all night. Watching Back to the Future two times really helped on tuesday night) and it won't be so bad pulling an all nighter if it's not the night before a project is due. Plus, I will probably enlist help from my friends, as I said to do all the work they can without it being considered cheating. (They're allowed to cut cardboard, but not apply anything to the actual project.) I'm going to try to have a really positive attitude about this week, and what I have ahead of me, because after next monday when the project is due, I will only have one week until spring break.

Go Speedracer go.

Your life depends on it

I've never cried because I've felt so embarrassed and disappointing; and maybe it's the fact that I haven't slept since Monday night, and I know I won't be able to sleep again until Thursday night, and won't get the break I thought I would for weeks now. I am so embarrassed by my cockiness, and my feeling invincible; and when I was brought back down to earth, even though I agree with the criticism of myself, I privately couldn't handle it.

My first 3d project was an utter failure. An utter and complete failure. This doesn't mean that I got a failing grade, I'm literally doing the entire thing over because what I've just "finished" is probably the worst thing I've ever made, and I can't believe I made it in college, and not, say, 4th grade. The worst part is, my professor publicly agreed, and was the first one to bring it up. He said that he was proud that I could handle that kind of criticism, and I was surprised myself, but then I felt like crying. Partly because he embarrassed me (he had every right) but because I embarrassed myself, and we all know that's totally worse, because that's all on you.

I don't think anyone could be more disappointed in me more than I am in myself right now. I came back to my dorm room and cried, and as I said, maybe it's because I haven't had any sleep since monday night (and now my most previous all-nighter was in vain), but I couldn't handle the thought that I'd failed for the first time in college. As I said, this has nothing to do with grades, as I get to re-do the entire project, but I failed my abilities, and I know I could do so much better.

Lay the real thing on me

I forgot to set my alarm for this morning? Get your head in the game, Royce.

More on that later.