life’s not a paragraph

it’s cold in boston today. i’m talking bone-chilling, nose-hair freezing, wind burn cold. i pulled out the good old wool sweater today, and boy, did i need it. at least the sun is out though. if it were cloudy, i don’t think anybody would be able to gather enough courage to face the bitter temps.

i’m nice and toasty warm at my apartment and i have a feeling i’m going to stay here tonight. hahaha hot chocolate and a movie anyone? thankfully, it’s going to warm up a little this weekend. although i’ll still probably spend a good amount of it indoors. i have lots of reading to do and lots of work for my 3D class.

the only really exciting thing i have planned for this weekend is coffee with one of my friends from home. she goes to school right outside of boston, but i don’t get to see her very often because she works a lot. i’m so excited that she’s coming into the city! i can’t wait to hear how her semester is going. i know it’s only been about two or three weeks since break ended, but i feel like it’s been much longer than that. i hoping this semester i can make a trip out to visit her!

it’s almost the end of another week. if this is a forecast for the semester, then it’s going to be May in no time. these weeks just seem to be flying by! but i haven’t gotten really deep into my classes, so there’s a chance that when i start getting more work the weeks will seem a bit longer. this week i have been filling my free time with the t.v. show Dexter. i’m addicted. haha

so far, the semester is going really well. yesterday i had my first alternative spring break meeting of this semester. we are going to start meeting every tuesday during student activities hour (an hour set aside every tuesday and thursdays when no classes are scheduled. this way clubs and other organizations have a time to meet when everyone will be free). we talked about the family that we are going to be building for and some of the history of the city of meridian. the more i hear about the trip, the more i get excited. i really can’t wait to help these people, and i really can’t wait to go down south! i have never been to the deep south, so it’s going to be so interesting learning all of these different customs and sayings that are just as american as our customs here in the northeast.

i don’t know if any of you have figured this out yet, but i am a bit of a culture hound. i love learning about other cultures. when i was a freshman in high school i did my career project on anthropology. i was positive that i wanted to be a anthropologist (specifically an egyptologist) when i got older. then i found out that i would have to go to school for basically the next ten years and i would probably end up working in a museum or university somewhere, doing research. interesting if i uncovered something new and exciting, but most likely, i would get bored real fast. long term projects, especially possible life-time projects, aren’t really my thing. at least in the graphic design field i know that i will be faced with a new challenge almost daily, even if it’s within one larger project. anthropology will just have to remain a hobby. my weird fascination with learning languages satisfies that craving of mine.

so as many of you know, a new semester means new classes. this spring semester of twenty-ten i have five classes. now i don’t know if i explained this before… but i’ll go over it again. just in case. so the number of classes you can take here at suffolk university depend on the number of credits each class is worth (this is the same as most universities). a full time student is required to take at least twelve credits (no more than seventeen). the average suffolk student who is say a business major or an english major will take four classes a semester because each of their classes is four credits. four x four = sixteen. perfect!

now the new england school of art and design (nesad) at suffolk university works a bit differently. classes here are generally worth three credits. i am not quite sure why. but hey, that’s just how it is. therefore, i can take more classes than the “average” suffolk student. this semester i am taking three studio courses: drawing two, three-dimensional design, and design issues and processes. and then two college of arts and sciences classes: latin american fiction and cinema and ideas of western art two.

i’m pretty satisfied with my schedule this year. i like the timing of them all and so far, i enjoy them. my three studio classes are still a part of my foundation education. so drawing is a basic drawing class. but this semester, we are moving on from contour and black and white and moving into color! 🙂 those of you who have never seen me in person do not know how much i love color. granted, i am not one of those people who likes to wear rainbows every day, but i am very much a mood/color dresser. i’m happy, so i wear something bright like pink. i’m a little mellow and relaxed, i wear nice earth tones. no matter my mood, i always have a bit of color… and i digress.

three-d  i am a bit more hesitant about. i’m not really accustomed to working with three-d media. yea, i’ve done some pottery and jewelry work, but i have never experimented with wires and plaster and styrofoam. so the class is going to take my out of my comfort zone. which is good, but naturally, it makes me nervous.

i wasn’t quite sure what design issues and processes was going to be when i walked into the class. i had completely forgotten the course description. but i was pleasantly surprised to find out that we are going to be going on lots of museum trips. i always mean to go to all the different museums and galleries that are around boston, but then i always do something else. this is an excellent opportunity to spend some time at the museum of fine arts, the institute of contemporary art, and all the other places sprinkled around the city. i’m excited for this course.

my two other classes are going to be fun too. my latin american fiction class is going to be great, but a lot of work. since i am a spanish minor, i am going to be reading all the literature and writing all the homework in spanish. if i’m not completely fluent by the end of this semester, i don’t know if i ever will be. haha and my art history class is a continuation of art history one (which i took in madrid). it’s a required course for us nesad-ers, but i think it will still be cool. 1400-1950 is a long time and a lot of art happened in those 550 years. if anything, it will certainly be informative.

so as you might have assumed, it’s going to be a busy semester. i’ve got lots of work ahead of me! 😀 (i’m trying to be optimistic about it! haha)

hello everyone! a new semester has begun, so you know what that means…. more blog entries! 🙂

i hope everyone had a great holiday. i know i did. vacation was great. it was just so great to be home. i got to sleep in a bit, see all my friends from high school (i missed them A LOT), and give my brain a nice break too. although, i didn’t completely slack off in the brain department. i finished an isabel allende novel in spanish! that was my big accomplishment over break. haha but overall, it was a great way to end 2009.

and so far, two thousand ten (or twenty ten, however you choose to say it) has treated me pretty well. as my chirstmas gift, i got a trip to michigan to visit one of my best friends. her school starts early, so i went out there, stayed in her dorm, and got to meet all of her friends! i had such a great time. i got to see lake michigan for the first time (which is beautiful and very windy in the wintertime). i went to sonic for the first time. i toured around grand rapids. i even went to a class or two. haha if i could afford it, i would love to make it a annual trip.

to tell the truth, i was a little hesitant to come back to school. i mean, doing absolutely nothing is just… well, absolutely great. hahaha but now that i’m back, i’m glad i am. (i probably would’ve gotten bored at home soon anyways. at least that’s what i am telling myself. 😉 )

today was my last day of the first week of classes. i really like my schedule. but i have a feeling it’s going to be a lot of work. but ill go into more detail next entry…

so today i think i can consider the official end of the semester, for me anyway. my parents are going to come pick me up in a few hours. classes and finals are over, therefore i have no more work to do. i am officially on vacation. and i am taking advantage of it. hahaha

i hope you all have a great holiday where ever you might be. i have no heat in my apartment right now, so i am particularly jealous of all of you who are some place warm. but i have a wood stove to look forward to in new hampshire and hopefully, a very white christmas (we are expecting 4-7 inches of snow tomorrow!).

eat lots of cookies! spend lots of time with your family! and make sure you relax and enjoy the season! be back in mid-january with the start of a new semester and hopefully, some new adventures!!

my last class of the week and my last class to finish. ethics is are required course, and since i do not have the talent of philosophizing, so i am not going to gush about this course. it wasn’t my favorite, but i did like it. i would take ethics over math any day. haha

the course was just a general ethics course. we learned about a bunch of moral theories like utilitarianism, ethical egoism, and virtue ethics. after we went over the basics of all those, we moved on to some more current ethical issues like abortion, animal rights, and euthanasia.

the last time i had a debate unit in a class was in language arts in eighth grade. sure, polarizing issues have come up in other courses, but since i was thirteen, i have been involved in very few discussions in school which examine two sides of an issue. i have to say i found the latter part of the class particularly interesting because in my life, these are issues that i must have an opinion on. they are not hypothetical situations; these issues are dilemmas that people face every day. before the class, i already had a general idea about how i felt about most of these issues, but it was definitely intriguing to hear the pro and con arguments from the philosophical perspective for each issue.

and even though it was the dullest part of the class, i enjoyed learning about all of the different moral theories. i have never really thought about what label(s) my moral beliefs fall under. this class kind of forced me to compare my opinions to these established theories and evaluate them. i haven’t really come up with a label for myself, but i now know some of the theories i associate with.

i have definitely taken a lot out of the class. but, i must say, i was extremely relieved when i got out of my final last night and i realized that i was completely done. i think i have had enough of philosophy for awhile. i have learned a lot… most importantly, that i am definitely not cut out to be a philosophy major. hahaha

since i have already written about my studio classes, i though i would also give you a little idea of what classes are like at suffolk proper. since this semester i had my spanish course and my ethics course, i can only really describe those. obviously, i am going to start with my spanish course.

so advanced spanish conversation and composition is the next class offered after you learn all the grammar and verb tenses. basically, after all of my 100 and 200 level courses, i should know all the verb tenses, how to conjugate verbs, and all the grammar; now, to improve, i just have to practice. hence, the conversation and composition part of the course title.

our textbook had six chapters filled with short stories, vocabulary, short films (well stills from the short films), and lots of homework questions. hahaha my professor assigned us certain films to watch and certain cuentos (stories) to read, then, like most classes, we had to answer the questions for homework. in class, we would talk about the articles and the movies.

we actually covered some very interesting and controversial topics in the class like cloning, globalization, and paranormal activity… a wide variety of topics. haha but i learned some great vocabulary and we had some really god discussions in the class.

i find that while learning a language it is a lot easier to pick up on reading, writing and listening to the language than speaking it. most of the people i’ve asked have said the same thing. speaking is the hardest part. despite my experience in spain, i still got very nervous speaking for the first time in front of everyone in my class. i didn’t want to make a stupid mistake, or say the wrong thing. it took me a while to adjust and get comfortable, especially since there were some native speakers in my class. i know they weren’t judging me or anything, since most of my classmates were experiencing the same thing (even though you couldn’t tell from their behavior). but either way, it’s intimidating.

one day in spain i thought about how i try so hard to be perfect when i speak my spanish that, often times, i trip myself up because i get so caught up on the grammar rather than what i am saying. i thought about all the foreign people i have encountered in my lifetime who speak broken english and i realized that i probably sound the same way when i am speaking spanish. and it’s not a bad thing at all. personally, i don’t judge people when they struggle to find a particular word in english. if anything, i want to help them.

it’s kind of a strange concept, relating how i sound in spanish to how others sound in english. i can’t really fully wrap my mind around it. i probably never will. but the idea comforted me somehow. i put a little less pressure on myself. it’s hard, though, to remember that i am still learning when faced with a group of twenty faces listening to your every spanish word.

at least, in this class, i have learned to be a little more comfortable when speaking spanish to large groups, and i am pretty sure that’s the goal of the course! i know that my writing has gotten better. i just wrote a six and half page paper all in spanish. i read it over about five times, and it sounded pretty good. now i just have to wait for my grade…. and i’ll be biting my nails agitatedly until i get it.

today i had my final portfolio review for 2d design, so i think it’s appropriate to write about it today in the blog.

it’s not as easy to describe 2d. we did a lot in this class– painting, drawing, tracing, and photography. i guess it’s about learning how to create an interesting effective composition in whatever you are doing, in whatever medium.

we started out with simple things, by using blacks, whites, and grays in a composition of circles, then we started to move on to color. we created six collages from magazines, representing each of the primary and secondary colors. then we created collages from photo copies of those collages. i didn’t expect that one!

i have definitely learned a lot about design in 2d. we had so many interesting projects that made me think out side of the box. i really had to use my creativity and take some risks. sometimes my project worked out better than others, but i got some really good feedback today at my portfolio review, so i think that i did really well over all. my professor was great. he really helped us all. if we need him to help, he would point us in the right direction but always wouldn’t really give us the answer, so we had to figure it out ourselves.

i am going to miss the class. it really challenged me. not in an overwhelming way, but in a good way. i think i have produced some really great pieces. i hope that i have a class like this next semester.

before university this year, i never fully understood what color theory was. the theory of color. it’s just such an odd idea.

now that the semester is over, i cannot say that i am a color expert, but i definitely have a better understanding of the world of color.

there is obviously the basics of the color wheel. complementary colors, triads, secondary colors. and then there are all the various tube names of the paints and where they are placed on the color wheel. also, we addressed the different emotions associated with different colors. i expected all of this.

what i didn’t expect was the science. don’t worry. there are no labs or experiments in the traditional sense. we covered how the eye works, the different light waves, and why we see an after image. the professor gave examples of student projects and famous works to demonstrate how all this science affects us! i must say, i did learn a lot about the human eye this semester.

and i did learn how to mix colors. if you’ve never done it before, learning how to mix paint and get the color you want is hard. a lot harder than it sounds. i was never a big painter in high school, so i didn’t know all the ratios of color to color and the techniques. it was a little tough at first, but once i got the hang of it, i was able to paint a paper full of swatches before you could say “picasso!” ok well maybe not that fast…

i have definitely learned a lot in the class though. i know that the information will be really useful to me throughout the next few years, especially once i get up into my design classes. i guess that’s why you’re required to take it at the beginning!

so the administrators who i work for at the new england school of art and design had this great idea that i should give a little summary about each class that i have taken this semester so you can get an better idea of what they are like. which is really great because i realize now that i haven’t really talked in much detail about any of my classes! i think i am going to start with drawing one since it was the first class i had every week. 9:30-12:10 every monday and wednesday.

obviously, drawing one is a basic drawing class, which focuses on developing a student’s drawing skills. at first, i was a little hesitant to take the class because i had done a lot of drawing in high school so i thought drawing one would be a boring review of everything i already know… well, i was wrong. haha i think it’s a really good that i took the class because not only was i able to refresh and build upon the skills i already have, i was able to explore a bit more and learn some new techniques that i had never been taught.

the class centers around contour line, measuring and proportions. drawing accurately takes practice– lots of it. and unfortunately, i wasn’t taught to focus on accuracy during my drawing classes in high school. it was just kind of assumed that we would draw in proportion all the time; sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. drawing one really forces your to measure and compare all the objects you’re drawing so that you get the proportions right.

i’ve noticed a huge difference in the way i draw and the way i go about drawing in this class. as a result, i think my drawing skills have improved significantly. now that i know my drawing process has changed, it will change the way i go about creating pieces in other classes.

the last few weeks of the course, we started addressing how to draw form. we transitioned from the single contour line to using these lines to create the illusion of three-dimensionality. then we moved on to value (lights and shadows) to create this effect. since i am partial to shading, i was practically jumping out of my seat when we finally got to use charcoal. charcoal is my favorite medium to use. i absolutely love it, despite the mess it makes. 🙂

my professor taught me a new charcoal technique as well. using vine charcoal (which i had never used before), you cover the entire page with a medium value gray. then to find the lights, you erase, and to find the darks, you add more charcoal. and you keep building it up until you get an accurate image. it’s a really distinct way of creating highlights and shadows. our final drawing homework was to draw three value drawings in three different light settings. we could choose from a variety of techniques to use, but i chose the erase-away method. since i love the technique so much, i looked forward to doing the homework every night!

our last class we did a figure value study, and my professor decided to give us the option of charcoal or sumi ink. since i had been using charcoal for the past two weeks, i decided to be adventurous and try out the ink! ink makes me nervous because you can’t erase and ink can kind of have a mind of its own, so i was determined to control it. haha i really actually enjoyed the process. it’s kind of methodical– water, ink, blend, water, ink, blend… i was very pleased with the result. i found a new medium to work with! yay for new discoveries! haha

for our final, we had to pass in a portfolio of all of our classwork and homework since the midterm. we are going to get them back next week. over all, i really enjoyed the class, and i think i did really well in the course, so let’s keep our fingers crossed!! 🙂