It's so stressful!!

Sometimes college just feels like a big scam to make money off of students... I have a lot of appreciation for AB-Tech for providing an inexpensive college education but some of the books they choose are outrageously expensive. I had a lot of trouble just paying for tuition this semester even with the payment plan and now I have like three books to buy. This makes me really stressed out, especially when paired with the fact that I'm trying to remember when all the homework I have is due for each of the four classes I have. I'm also really disappointed in the students I have class with. I don't know many of them very well yet as you can imagine so this is probably pretty shallow of me but the general portion of my classes seems to be composed of people that aren't very "down to earth". There will be no more art classes for me which generally equals less cool classmates, no offense to anyone but no one can take the place of art students. My teachers are all generally pretty cool with the exception of one who I will not mention for fear of them reading this blog. I did find out that I'm most likely going to be able to get the lab monitor position I have so badly wanted! It seems I will be working there from 9 until 12 when I have my World Civ II class, my one and only class for Friday. Super excited to start improving my abilities as a potter!

Worries

I've been worrying a bit lately about this up coming semester. I've got a Math, English, World History 2, Geology and "success and study skills" class. I have been at AB-Tech for close to four years! Why the hell do I need a success and study skills class?? That class doesn't even deserve to be capitalized... I'm looking forward to my English and History class, I like writing and history. Hopefully this English class will improve my writing. I decided to go reminisce on my first few blog posts a few minutes ago... I was terrible! back then. I really hope I'm better now, I'm not so sure though.
Ever since my bicycle accident I have been hassling the driver's insurance company to repair my bike and for medical coverage. They told me they sent a check for my bike about a week ago but as of today I didn't get it! I was getting pretty pissed, shouldn't take that long to deal with this shit. Well, I also received a lot of mail from lawyers wanting to represent me over this accident and I ended up finding that insurance check hidden among the lawyers' letters which I likely had a few days ago. I was so relieved after finding that. It must have gotten mixed up the day that I got 5+ pieces of mail from lawyers, it's been ridiculous, those lawyers are on top of shit when it goes down!  I'm nearly done paying people back for helping me buy my bike. So excited to have money, money that I owe to no one!

Fist of iron, car of plastic.

About a week ago I bought a road bicycle! One of my good friends, Ryan is really into bicycle racing and he had a lot of influence on my decision to get a road bike. I also wanted a bike for commuting so it wasn't purely of his influence. I found a really good deal on Craigslist, $650 but I managed to get it down to $600, I was quite excited about that. It's made by Fuji. It's red and black and beautiful. I have been considering getting into racing myself but I have yet to make much of a commitment towards that goal.
I've never had a bike this nice before and I have very little experience riding on the road and so I was also somewhat naive when I first started riding. This became extremely apparent as I was crashing into a car less than a week ago. I have been trying to get more comfortable at going faster and so I found myself flying down Victoria Rd going about 20-25 mph which is about the speed limit there although cars always go a good deal faster on it. As I was headed from downtown going towards ABTech I saw this white car on my right pull up ahead of me at a stop sign on a side street looking to turn left, coming my direction. I of course thought little of this as I had the right of way since he had a stop sign and I could easily make it past him without having to worry about him pulling out since I was so close. As I drew nearer, maybe 60-70 ft away, I saw that he was an older guy, maybe about 70, which sowed seeds of doubt into my mind... I should have heeded those thoughts. I was about 30 feet away when I started to see signs of him pulling out... right in front me! I thought I was done for. I've never been in a bicycle accident but I never imagined it turning out very well for the cyclist. Between my braking and him mover further out in the lane I managed to avoid the majority of his car, at least the majority of my body avoided most of his car. I glanced off the side of his car after my fist left a sizable dent on the rear left side of the car near the tail light. I then proceeded to veer off into a nice soft grassy hill, narrowly clearing a stop sign. The guy was nice enough to stop, I would half expect most people nowadays to just drive off but he came to make sure I was ok, etc. Apparently he didn't see me... I believed him. But really! if you're at a stop sign looking to see if the way is clear aren't you going to beware of any object hurtling toward you at high speeds?! Hopefully he will be in the future, lest he wants a matching dent on the other side of his car. The worst part has been his insurance company... This is my first instance where I've had to deal with an insurance company and I'm not keen on it. The repairs to my bike were a whooping $67.40!!! so much money right?! (insert sarcasm here) and so far the insurance has been investigating the case... for over 6 days now! They heard my story and now they are in the process, from the last I heard (5 days ago), of talking to the man I hit, the insured. My question is why has it taken them so long? I'm calling them tomorrow. I had to front the money for my bike so I could continue to ride it and I'm ready to be reimbursed... There will be hell to pay!!!

Screw the media

It's been a little over a month since I last posted anything. I feel like that's sort of sad but I wish I had more to say. I shot a wedding three weekends ago and that turned out great! I thought the pictures came out better than any of my past wedding experiences and it was all the better that it was for one of my friends. Unfortunately I'm not very progressive about getting my photography business up and running so all my work comes just from happenstance and whenever my friends need a photographer. My favorite thing about shooting weddings has to be really good free food. At least most the time it's really good, the other part of the time it's just free which is also good!

I went to go to ABtech the other day since I had some business there regarding art, etc. I ended up speaking with Sharon the art director and I mentioned that I was looking forward to working as the lab monitor as the semester starts back up in August. Before I haven't been able to be the monitor as I didn't receive financial aid but as of a few days ago I applied for FAFSA so hopefully that will work out for me. It would really be a godsend to be lab monitor because there's only one ceramics class as opposed to the four we had last semester (due to art cuts). So because of that I wouldn't have had a chance to practice pottery at all at college anyways. If I get the position I'll get paid for it though! I'm sort of ready for school to start again. Ready to get through all this bullshit at ABtech, been there far too long.

I was curious the other day about the ongoing nuclear situation in Japan as our media doesn't cover any of it anymore... It's amazing how as soon as the media stops covering something it might as well not even exist. The nuclear problem in Fukushima and all over Japan however DOES still exist. Almost four months after the earthquake and tsunami there's still very little progress on actually fixing the problem and from what I've read they just plan on cementing the nuclear reactor inside of what will be a nuclear tomb. I read the the fuel rods may not be cool enough to remove from the reactor until 100 years from now. I just don't understand why nuclear seems like a good idea to our leaders... Makes me feel depressed all over again as I did on March 11th and the days following.

New ventures

I've been drawing a fair amount lately trying to get back into the swing of it since it's been like 3 years since I last drew some Manga.  I originally started watching Naruto Shippuden again once school ended and caught up to the newest episode so now I'm just waiting week-by-week until new episodes come out.  It's so hard to wait... Haha.  So once I got all caught up I decided to star drawing some new characters and also a few from Naruto, so I started with Naruto as my first and only subject so far from the show.  Cue example of work... (Google is currently incapable of uploading images).  I looked for some videos of people drawing manga on youtube and it was really amazing! Quite humbling.  I would really like to get a Wacom tablet now which would be great for drawing and would help me edit photos as well. 

Lately I've also really wanted to write a novel.  This notion probably arose due to my reading the Lord of the Rings which I'm glad I started about a week ago.  I have no idea where to start in this venture but I've been doing a bit of research on it.  Unfortunately when I was growing up I never really read many books, I did lots of research on various things or reading of the news online but not much from novels or other similar mediums.  Due to this I'm not so well educated on the structure of a novel but since I've decided I'd like to write something I've been paying a lot more attention to how J.R.R. Tolkien writes as I continue reading LOTR.

Photography has sort of taken a back seat to other parts of my life probably because I'm not out and about as much as I was during the spring semester.  I bought a new lens somewhat recently which I have enjoyed a lot and it inspired me to buy a newer camera lol, so glad I could be inspired to buy something so expensive so easily.  So I'm weighing the benefits of buying a new camera and selling my old one, purchasing a Wacom tablet or building a Windows machine which would be far more powerful than my current Macbook pro.  Time will tell I suppose.

My Summers ambitions

Summer has arrived again and like most summers I don't really have any plans but hopefully something interesting will happen soon.  I'm quite enthralled by pottery thus I would love to work on pottery all summer.  I just need to find somewhere I can accomplish this at.  I've already checked Odyssey Ceramics which is the biggest pottery studio in Asheville.  At Odyssey you can take classes and they offer positions to enthusiastic potters such as myself.  I originally tried applying for a summer residency which they only have two openings for and would have netted me a number of benefits such as 24 hour access to the studio but they already found two people... That was really depressing to hear, I was so looking forward to it.  So now I'm trying to find something similar, I want to be able to work in the studio all day and start seriously producing and bettering myself.  I've considered apprenticing with a potter but I've heard that's hit or miss.  Sometimes you find people where you can create a lot of stuff with and other times you just do exactly as they say and just wedge a lot of clay, etc.  I was also hoping to just have the studio experience so I could work freely without any creative restrictions set upon me.
I'm really bored... I fear this summer might continue on like this.  That would sadden me.  I bought the Lord of the rings trilogy not long ago after I had read the Hobbit for my first time.  It was during the Spring semester and finals so I didn't really have time to read it.  Since then I started watching anime and got really into it and now I'm to the point where I'm just waiting for more episodes to be released from Japan.  It would seem now is an excellent time to read LOTR but I'm feeling anime, even though I was all about LOTR a few weeks ago...  I'm SOOO confused.

Over the past week I've enjoyed spring break, maybe more than I ever had, probably due to my taking bio this semester.  I've hung out with a lot of good friends, played a lot hacky-sack in some really nice weather and I was able to experience some of HATCH, although not as much as I'd have liked.

Climbing Tengudake in Nagano, Japan

Alley of downtown Asheville

               I ordered a large roll of wide format printing paper for my old boss from Ritz to split between us.  We got to hang out at his house for a bit and we made a few 12x18's, good times, made me super excited for the upcoming AB-Tech art show.  Feeling pretty confident about my work but trying not to feel too cocky, I have a tendency towards being falsely sure of myself.

Friends and snow at a middle school in West Asheville.

 I have to now decide which of these four photographs to submit, I'm leaning towards the photo to the left and the photo at the very top.  I also really like the bird above, it's a hard choice.  On a side note, I've grown really frustrated with Google's photo interface while trying to insert these photos here... it's not very well thought out. 

Shot Eastwards while the sun was setting, reflection from off my neighbors window through my own.

I went to a reception at a photography gallery downtown the other day and got a lot of inspiration for my art both as a photographer and potter.  I saw a few photographers who I knew and it was interesting talking to them about what photography meant to them and different ways to look at an image.  In the not too distant past I was not very excited about photography like I once was back in the day but being with so many artists and discussing what our art meant to each other helped relight the fire.