Tim Gunn

....because my mom doesn't quite know who he is...

Relay For Life

Relay for Life is coming up again here April 25-26th. Like last year, I am participating on the Apparel Merchandising and Design Team. If you are unaware of the event, hundreds of people camp out on the quad from 6pm-6am. Someone from each team has to be walking around the quad at all times. There are games, activities, bands, a drag show, etc. to help pass the night. The sole purpose of the event is to raise money for cancer. Each team sets a goal and each individual team member has a goal as well. My personal goal is $100 and our team goal is $600. That shouldn't be hard to accomplish, but we need help! I'm not sure yet what our on-site fundraiser is going to be, but last year we did an impromptu "Pie in the Face" to raise more money. Hopefully it won't snow like it did last year. If you would like to help support Relay For Life, please click on the link here http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeIllinoisDivision?px=3677104&pg=personal&fr_id=7618 which goes to my personal page and make a donation!! :) Any contribution you might be able to make will be greatly appreciated!!

Spring Break is Over...

...and I just can't seem to do anything right. After a short week off of school that was filled with too much driving but some quality time with family and friends I never see, I just can't seem to get back into the swing of things. Yesterday started off fairly well. I woke up late but still had time to shower and made it to my 8am meeting at work with enough time to type up my report. I made it through a couple classes on an empty stomach (typical during the week as I never have time for breakfast), registered for classes for next semester, and realized I left my stuff for apparel design and my school i.d. at home, which I needed to get an academic progress report for my appointment with my advisor. Fortunately I have an hour break between all of my classes. So I run home, grab my stuff, eat a nice lean cuisine, and head out again. Then my phone went off in mads, I dropped my folder, spilling music all over the room, my stand wouldn't stand straight, I couldn't read right, and as everyone left for a delicious lunch at McAllister's, I had to leave to go to my advising appointment...which actually isn't until tomorrow. It was also pouring at this point so I sit in the lobby of Turner soaking wet and trying to finish up my drawings for apparel design. I couldn't finish my collages in the 2 hours we have for class, so now I have to go buy a glue gun so I can finish them for tomorrow. I took a short nap and went to a 2 hour recital that I fell asleep at...all so I don't have to do my theory homework for tomorrow.

I got to bed around midnight last night and set my alarm for 9am thinking I didn't have class till 11. Around 9:15 I realized that actually my voice lesson is at 10! I still made it on time but accidently threw my pencil across the room once. I somehow made it through my next 2 classes, ran home real quick and then off to work where it was completely dead. The rain must have scared people off because we had 0 appointments all day and very few phone calls. I then proceeded to make numerous silly mistakes that had no affect on anything but my self esteem since everyone continued to make fun of me. I got home after my rehearsal for John Todd's recital (where I nearly fell off of my wobbly chair) and I realized I forgot to go buy a glue gun, among other things I am in need of. So I decided to watch American Idol and will head out soon. I only hope I don't have any accidents like burning my hand off....

I love the Beatles. And Richard Avedon (who made this one). He was a fashion photographer. You should google him. He's awesome. :)

Ouch

This next story will come as no surprise. Soooo, I'm running a little late to work this morning but I figure it's ok because someone will be there to open the office and turn on the lights and let our 10:00am appointment in. But as I run through the slush and snow up to the door, I realize it's still locked. I quickly unlock the back door, turn on the lights, and rush to the front of the office. Sure enough, our first appointment is standing outside the front door. I'm flustered at this point and rushing to put my things down so I can unlock the door and let them in. Well, wet slushy shoes and a little wood flooring do not go well together. Before I know it, my feet are in the air and I am crashing to the floor, landing directly on my tail bone and hitting my head. It was such a terrible experience and all I wanted to do was lay there in agony, but I had to jump up and open the door before anyone saw me. I let the people in and immediately go to the back, only to have Dan come in to find me laughing/crying at my little incident. Surprisingly, he was pretty sympathetic. Ulises, on the other hand...couldn't stop laughing. I think my tail bone is cracked. Ouch...

Intern With Oprah?

I am a huge Oprah fan. In fact, Melissa, Jen, and I are calling on Friday in attempt to get tickets to her show. Anyway...in recent searches for a summer internship, I decided to email Oprah to see if she offered any internships for her show, then her people from O, The Oprah Magazine to see if they do. I know it's a long shot, but who wouldn't kill to work for Oprah? She basically rules the world! Tonight I received an email from one of Oprah's people!!!! She said she hasn't started interviewing yet but will probably begin in March and to please send her my resume! How amazing would that be?

Semester #6?

Yikes. Today I started my second semester of my junior year. This is very weird to me. It doesn't seem like I can possibly be almost done with my 3rd year here! I actually just received an email from the university registrar stating that they have not yet received my request for graduation... WHAT? After this semester I should have 125 hours. You need 120 to graduate. That is insane. I still have 8 classes to take for my major and 1 for my minor so I can't actually graduate, but it's crazy to think I have enough credits to do so!

I'll do a quick run down of my classes. First I had Music Theory II which hopefully won't be too bad, but I took the first semester last year so I'll need some serious memory refreshing. Gender in the Humanities should be pretty interesting and my teacher is super young and cool but there's a ton of reading and writing in that class (I should have known since it's an English class)... Mads will be another usual spring semester of awesome chamber music. Apparel Design is going to be so much fun! It's basically a drawing class with a lot of projects, 1 quiz, and no tests! That's my kind of class. Tomorrow I have my voice lesson, a visual arts class, and Practical Problem Solving in Family and Consumer Sciences...not looking for it to be a very exciting day...

In other news, I need to start working on all of my stuff for my recital and the fashion show. I have a lot of work to do before then! I'm still a little apprehensive about starting another semester but here goes...And no school on Monday for Martin Luther King Day! (which I misread on our syllabus as "MILK" day!)

The End is Near...

...At least the end of break. It's sad really. It was going really slowly at first, but now it's going too fast. Of course I want everyone to come back so I'm not all alone anymore, but I am really not looking forward to the start of another semester. I'm not even sure about what this semester will entail in terms of classes and outside work, other than the fashion show in April and my recital which will be scheduled sometime in the near future. I just don't think I'm ready to start everything again. It's a little scary that right now I have enough credits to be considered a senior, though I am far from graduation. I'm hoping to be done in another year, but we'll see how my classes lay out. I really do want to go on to grad school, mostly because I am not 100% sure of what I want to do and I definitely do not want to go out into "the real world." All I want to do for the rest of break is paint, which I did a little bit of tonight :) And really all I want to do for the rest of my life is travel :P Wouldn't that be nice? If only I could win $100 million and have the resources to do so... I wish someone would just figure out my life for me! Any volunteers? Go on...I'm open to suggestions...

The Orphanage

I thought it looked dumb at first, but Ben was insistent on seeing it. Produced by the same director of "Pan's Labrynth," Guillermo del Toro, the "El Orfanato" is also in Spanish. Knowing this, my expectations for the film were raised slightly, but I was still a little apprehensive about seeing a movie about a supposedly haunted orphanage filled with the ghosts of tortured disabled children. Despite my initial thoughts, the movie was suspenseful, chilling, and tragic...and really really good. Here's the synopsis:

"The Orphanage centers on a Laura (Belén Rueda) who purchases her beloved childhood orphanage with dreams of restoring and reopening the long abandoned facility as a place for disabled children. Once there, Laura discovers that the new environment awakens her sons imagination, but the ongoing fantasy games he plays with an invisible friend quickly turn into something more disturbing. Upon seeing her family increasingly threatened by the strange occurrences in the house, Laura looks to a group of parapsychologists for help in unraveling the mystery that has taken over the place."

See it.