this post is going to be extra dumb and fluffy, but I have so many good pictures
It's kind of weird that I don't see much sunlight anymore. By the time I get out of class, it's always dark, but I like it. When it rains, everything reflects off of the roads
and the overcast usually makes the horizon glow orange
and the fog is so thick, you usually can't see past your hand - the perks of living right next to a river. I'm always frustrated I can't capture it via photos.
The first week of the semester, my advanced figure drawing teacher sent us out to do 50 cafe drawings in a week. It was super fun!
It helped me get back into the habit of carrying my sketchbook everywhere and seeing opportunities of drawing people/things. My friends and I took some time everyday to just sit in the school cafe or to go to the mall to draw people.
I feel like this assignment really pushed me, but I don't know what I got on it. My figure drawing teacher is new and doesn't know all of the policies yet (which includes giving us our grades after so many days of turning it in). Regardless, here are some of the 'best of's
One of my good friends had a birthday party. The plan was to have a BBQ at the big park down the street, but none of the grills were open. Instead, we opted out for pizza and costco cheesecake while the boys played football (at Digipen?? who knew.)
My friend and I honestly didn't really know anyone; we were the only two girls out of A LOT of guys, so we sat and drew a giant group of LARPers who showed up at the table next to us.
But, the park also is known for having the largest off-leash dog park in the pacific northwest, so we decided to check it out and to pet some cool dogs, but we had no idea the park was actually that big. It was a huge path along the Sammamish River and had a bunch of paths that branched off, and eventually, we were in the middle of a forest (?????) where we didn't run into anyone else for maybe two more miles when we finally found a path that lead back to the park.
Besides feeling kind of lost and isolated, it was a really neat path.
There are lots of frogs?? I had never seen a real wild frog before coming to Washington.
but the river was very pretty! Once we got away from all the dogs, we found lots of little paths to the actual river bank where you could find little fish and lily pads (who knew lily pads were a real thing too!)
Except as we were talking about how we didn't think lily pads were real, the path took us to Sammamish Lake where there were LOTS of lily pads.
There was part of the path that lead out over the water, and it was actually really creepy how many lily pads there were! You couldn't even see the water! Thinking about falling in and having to fight them all just made me anxious.
Washington is pretty anyway, I guess.
After we FINALLY got back (and everyone had texted us asking if we were okay/if we went home), the BBQ migrated to the pool. My complex has three pools though, so my friend and I ended up waiting at one of them for a good hour before realizing we went to the wrong one.
I got some nice pictures though, right? Good aesthetics.
My friends and I bought tickets to The So So Glo's/The Front Bottoms/Say Anything MONTHS AGO. It was probably one of the best shows I've ever been to; the crowd had really good concert etiquette and the vibe wasn't too harsh. It was a lot more enjoyable than the other Seattle shows I've been to, at least!
Before the show, we hung out at my friend's place in Capitol Hill and my friend bought me Indian food (in exchange for driving us to Seattle) from a tiny underground restaurant down the street which turned out to be the best Indian restaurant in Seattle. The both of us were both extremely sick and the Indian food cured us from all previous ailments.
My other friend's best friend from her old college was in town visiting too though, so they met up with us for the show and our Capitol Hill friend hired fancy black SUV's to take us to the show. Heck, it was nice. Even though my friend and I both forgot our tickets at our friend's apartment and we had to run back.
We only went for The Front Bottoms, but The So So Glo's were KILLER live. I also honestly wanted to stay for Say Anything since they were a big band from my middle school years, but none of my friends shared the same feelings and had a hard enough time even letting me stay for one song.
This is the only group photo we have. Post-concert. Very sweaty. Very tired.
The venue was right across the street from the market, so that was p rad to finally see at night (from a moving car.)
I was having a bad week with friend fall outs and dumb boys, so one of my best friends took me to the beach! I didn't know I was so close to a beach like the one she took me to, but it was great! I had no idea West Seattle was a beach town; it looked like a wannabe L.A. with pine trees in lieu of palm trees.
Even the people kind of looked like L.A. folk.
My best friend was super motivated to make this trip work out! She organized it all herself and got everything ready. When we got there, she made sure we all got into 'beach mode' and made her boyfriend roll up his pants and made us all go in the water for a few seconds to get our feet wet.
But, after we claimed a fire pit, we realized she forgot most of her firewood at home and we only had a plank and some bark to work with. After an hour of not being able to start a fire, a group of men walked up and asked if they could use our fire pit. In return, we could use their fire. Okay.
We were embarrassed, but it worked out.
I like this picture because it looks like we have friends (but really it's just the group the kicked us off the fire pit since we couldn't start a fire)
Also these pictures because they show the real struggle of digital artists who never go outside.
It was super pretty though, and my friend did a really good job planning everything (besides the whole fire part).
I got into going out and painting with a little traveling watercolors set I had to get for a summer workshop class. Watercolors are uh??? hard????? but it's really nice to have to sit and think about it, and it was a nice review of my color theory class from this last Spring semester.
This is my second go. We went to the big Bellevue mall, got jamba juice, and sat in the sun for an hour or so. It wasn't really that good of an art day, and the second half of the painting looks like poop so I only took a picture of half of it (HA)
This one's my first attempt. We went to the Kirkland waterfront which is actually a really nice place to go! They have beaches and benches and a nice walking path along the water!
Summer's been weird. Living on my own for the summer's been weird. I've been getting homesick a lot, but Washington's still alright.
I've been busy yet I still have enough time to do things like go to roller derby games or Seattle with friends, but I still have enough time to sleep and binge on bad 80's movies via Netflix. Have you ever seen The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension? It has Jeff Goldblum dressed as a cheesy cowboy. And it's like two hours long, but I love it.
What about Rock and Rule?
It has the voices of Blondie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and some other guy they say is important but I honestly don't know. I watched it with some friends and the entire movie, we joked how one of our professors probably worked on it. Sure enough, his name was the very first under background paintings. Five minutes later, I went to figure drawing and he was sitting across from me. That was weird. Got to see him under a new light.
Anyway, I've been keeping a life points list to keep me from feeling like I'm wasting time (because I'm not? Digipen has really skewed my perception of free time. If I'm not busy all day everyday, I kind of get the jitters. I don't know if that's normal).
I like reflecting back on them though. Some days are really eventful, like:
June 16, 2014 Monday
drove self and Taylor to Seattle (and during rush hour)
checked first book out at the digipen library
carried a conversation for two hours
pushed way to front and center at Mewithoutyou concert and held it for the full hour and a half
got two set lists from the show
drove self and Taylor home from Seattle
but the next day will be something dumb, like:
June 17, 2014 Tuesday
unclogged first toilet
And you know, that Mewithoutyou concert was pretty great (yeah, I saw them in February too), even if I was bruised and sore for an entire week.
I'll try to catch up on writing though and recap the end of my semester. Finals weren't that bad (they were still pretty bad.) and I've done a lot this summer so far, so y'know.
Spring break was awfully quiet. My roommates were gone the entire week and I really just sat on my couch and watched netflix. My friend took me out one day though before she went home for the rest of the week.
I'm sorry I only really have photos of her? She took a bunch of me but I haven't seen them, so hopefully she doesn't read this and think it's weird
We went to Snoqualmie Falls, which is about a twenty minute drive away, where you can just drive up to and walk around basically.
My best friend's birthday was a few weeks ago and her favorite band just so happened to be in Seattle that weekend. We got a small group of people from school and spent the evening in Capital Hill.
It was my first time experiencing Capital Hill, and I'm a fan. I wouldn't mind living there if I had to.
The concert was really fun though. It was a lot different than I expected? I didn't look into what other bands would be playing, so MeWithOutYou really stuck out. There was a lot of pop punk bands and one really good grungy punk band. I made sure my friend got a spot right up front, so we got to experience being spat on and getting bearded men sweat on us during guitar solos.
There was a lot of moshing and the crowd was very nice. After the show, I managed to get a set list for my friend and we waiting outside the venue for a few hours for the band to come out. There was a little fish fry next door where we got fries while we waited (very very good for being such a hole-in-the-wall). We caught the lead singer as he was trying to sneak out for a while; he was polite enough to sign our things and get pictures with us even though he wasn't really in his meet-n-greet face yet.
Anyway, I hope she had a good birthday. We met some cool people and saw some cool things, so I feel it was pretty worth it.
It snowed for the first time since I've been out in Washington. We got a good two inches over night.
It snowed over winter break, but no one was around to experience it; my facebook feed is going crazy with snow pictures.
It's very wet here and the snow is incredibly dense; I can see how traffic gets so dangerous.
January was very warm too; it felt like spring, and even the trees were starting to bud and there was little to no overcast. It tricked everyone. People have been blaming global warming for the snow, but I think they forget it's still winter?
It's been a long week besides that. Lots of talk about the Seahawks winning. Lots of riots.
I went to Seattle the other day with my friend. We got stuck in traffic but were pretty excited that we could barely see the space needle from the car and had to take a picture. We agreed it came out very unflattering, so I blocked over our faces to be polite for my friend.
Seattle is nice, anyway. I enjoy it.
But, people in Seattle are weird. As we were driving around, I came up with, "Seattle people are weird, but they're a weird weird because they don't realize they're weird."
That's it. That's how you summarize Seattle. At least other big cities acknowledge they're weird, but everyone in Seattle honestly believes they're normal and hip as a city. Like that guy who wears sunglasses indoors at night.
We spent way too long trying to find a parking spot though, and most everything is closed on the weekends? I've noticed that in my city too (and everything closes before 8 or earlier).
We finally settled on eating pho at a little hole-in-the-wall, family-owned Chinese restaurant (Vietnamese noodle soup at a Chinese restaurant? It was still very very tasty) and walked around the block a few times.
We ended the day off by getting coffee at a Starbucks just so we could say we've done that in Seattle so far in our lives.
But anyway, that's all. Just an update that I actually did something besides stuff for school.
My friends and I went to Geek Girl Con in Settle a few weeks ago. It was a really small convention but had a really nice, safe, progressive atmosphere.
My roommates dressed up, but I didn't have the motivation to put anything together in a week (this was a last minute decision). Our school was one of the big sponsors this year, so they advertised it on facebook and we figured it'd be a fun way to celebrate the end of midterms (which I did pretty well on, by the way).
There were a lot of panels on racial and gender diversity in video games, comic books, animation, and the overall geek culture.
I got to attend a panel with this lovely lady. She does a youtube series on women's portrayal in video games and helped kickstart a feminist movement within the gaming industry.
She's really nice in person! I was a bit starstruck though; I'm really embarrassed. I got the opportunity to talk to her for a minute or two, but I forgot all the questions I've had for her and only ended up getting a picture and sputtering out an awkward, "thanks." I'm pretty sure she thought the thanks was for the photo, but it was really a, "thanks for being inspirational and putting up with such a negative, abusive community to help change the lives of so many girls in the geek community"
And my roommates kept trying to get me to take pictures with things and people, but I was way too shy for my own good. They'd have to shove me in front of someone if they wanted the picture, whoops.
After, we walked to Pike Place. We got there right as everything was closing, and I'm pretty sure I saw a dead guy along the way? He was laying in a pool of blood and wasn't moving, and some paramedics put a cloth over his face right as we stumbled into them; they hadn't blocked the area off yet.
As we were waiting for our bus though, a guy in a gorilla suit walked up to us and asked if we wanted a photo. Okay. It was really weird. We didn't know how to react, and we kept telling him, "We don't have money to pay you," but he explained he was just dressed up for a sociology experiment.
Turns out he goes to the local college by my school, so he took the same bus back with us and we ended up befriending him
