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.

Honor

It's been interesting watching how all of the events related to Japan and Libya have played out the last couple of days.  For about 7-8 days everything was about Japan and the nuclear reactors, now I hardly see anything about that but I keep hearing about the air strikes in Libya by the Allied forces and the controversies over it.  It's interesting to see how the media deals with news, interesting, but not unexpected.  I'm still thinking about Japan, I still want to go and help if I can.  For right now I don't foresee a way to get over there.  Oil prices are still high from what's going on in the Middle East which is having a strong effect on the price of an airplane ticket.  Even if I were able to procure a ticket I would still have to weigh whether the health side effects of possibly being near radiation is worth it... I'm not sure I'm going to choose to buy a ticket to radiation though.  I'm still waiting to see how things progress but Japan's government sure hasn't helped in assuring me that things are under control or that the government is being honest and straightforward with their citizens.  I have a feeling that the atomic situation is a bit more than we're led to believe, at least the Japanese are led to believe.  Everyone in the US seems to be sold on Cali, Hawaii and Alaska's plume of radiation killing everything, fear gets the better of us I suppose though.  Buying Iodine tablets doesn't prevent against all sorts of radiation and in most cases is not a benefit to your health to take too many or any if not necessary.  What people here don't get is that the concentration of radiation across the Pacific in Japan is much more serious than any radioactive materials we might have gotten here.  My thoughts turn to the workers inside the nuclear plants trying to gain a firm grasp on the situation so no one else gets hurt.  Such dedication to a people and a nation, I wouldn't expect less from the Japanese.  This whole catastrophe has been handled by the Japanese in the most respectable of ways.  If anything like this happened in the US you'd see all sorts of people stealing and disputes arising between people.  For a nation which thinks so much of itself we sure don't know how to cooperate with each other during dire times.  I shouldn't speak quite so harshly of Americans, we did manage to pull together during 9/11, that was the first time I had ever felt proud to be an American and proud of our nation.  If we could only manage to carry ourselves in such a honorable manner all the time.

Hopes and prayers...

It's completely irrational but I'm so aggravated...  Aggravated about everything that's happening in Japan.  The earthquake, tsunami and now the chance that there could be a nuclear disaster...  Completely frustrating.  I want so badly to help Japan, not just to donate money to the red cross or something like that, I want to be there, I want to help them recover, and as a photographer, to document everything that has happened.  I had before decided against going to Japan because of financial matters but now if I'm able to then I will for sure, I'm trying to find ways that might aid me in achieving this goal.  I spoke with both my friends Hossan and Haseyan yesterday.  Hossan is living in Nagano with his wife Chie, far from the danger of the earthquakes and tsunami, although Chie's family lives in Sendai, one of the hardest hit regions of Japan.  I was quite relieved to hear from Hossan that Chie's family is ok!  Hossan mentioned to me that he would like to contact Haseyan if at all possible because Haseyan is now in San Diego and difficult to contact from Japan.  Hossan is trying to figure out what he should do to help with recovery in the most effected regions of Northern Japan which is why Haseyan could be of great aid to him.  Haseyan has traveled to Sri Lanka to help them recover from their deadly tsunami in 2004 and he also has quite a bit of experience building and volunteering elsewhere.  I spoke to Haseyan later that night, he seemed very calm and collected about it all, much more relaxed than I feel.  I'm not sure if he was or is now aware of how many died or of the great damage caused yet.  I hope with so much of my heart that Japan can recover from this and that people in Japan find some sort of relief from the hopes and prayers from the international community and the unaffected areas of Japan.

Perfection

I often times have difficulty feeling satisfied with my art whether it be drawing, ceramics, painting or photography.  I always feel like it's not good enough, never fulfilled or if I am it's only for a short time.  It makes me feel sort of depressed sometimes because I definitely feel that my ability at art, sort of what I'm best at, reflects who I am, it's my identity.  I feel this way even though my friends and family both enjoy what I do.  That leads me to a new subject.  Does one practice art for themselves or for others.  I can only speak for myself but I'm not sure I would have as much drive to do it if I knew that people weren't going to appreciate it afterwards.  I suppose that for me it's a source of expression but would we feel a need to express ourselves if there were no one to express our feelings to?  I would guess not.  I feel like there are a lot of artists that I look up to that seem to put on a facade of doing art exclusively for themselves.  Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's not a facade, maybe I'm just not in that place in my life where I can feel completely comfortable making art for myself, without the judgment from people on the outside.  As humans we are so social that I cannot think that there are any artists that would not be effected in some way by their social group.  It's a difficult question to answer.

War! What is it good for?!

Ever since I became interested in becoming a photographer I've known that photojournalism is what I wanted to do.  I took my first photography class in the spring of 2008, since then I have worked at a camera shop, shot 3 weddings, won 1st place in photography at my schools art show and a student purchase by my school, Asheville Buncombe Tech.  I'm very grateful that all this has happened to me but at the same time I feel as though I have strayed from the path of the photojournalist.  When I first began shooting I was actually making photographs that were reminiscent, in certain ways, to some of my favorite photographers' shots.  That was back when I shot black and white film, when I had absolutely no idea how to operate a camera and I was just flying by the seat of my pants, so to speak.  I'm not sure how it happened but since that time I feel I have regressed in a sense.  Although now I'm far more knowledgeable about my art and have acquired a decent set of equipment, I seem to be lacking the certain spirit or enthusiasm to shoot in a photo-journalistic way.  It's not that I don't like photojournalism anymore, just that I feel so far away from it at the moment.  When I invested into my digital camera I loved it! I still love it, but I feel like I betrayed my true passion after I began to shoot with a digital camera.  I think it is time to relearn my craft...

Recently I have been researching photojournalism, specifically war-photojournalism.  As I think more and more about it I wonder to myself why I want to do a job which involves so much violence.  I can't say that I have an answer to give you regarding that... All I can say is that I feel like it's an important part of dealing with war in a positive way, someone has to photograph those areas which others don't dare to cover.  Currently in Northern Africa there's a great deal of turmoil over political leaders.  Both the governments of Egypt and Tunisia have already gave way to popular protests by the people in which their leaders stepped down with little violence.  Libya is dealing with a great deal of violence, Gaddafi, the past revolutionary turned leader of Libya refuses to relinquish rule leading to a great deal of fighting.  I find irony in the fact that he was once a revolutionary and now his people revolt.. haha.  The whole situation makes me feel like I want to be over there where I could hopefully make a difference.  So many people talk about the huge difference photographs from Vietnam played and I want to be part of the driving force that enforces that change.  I think that the media is so full of bullshit right now and I'm not inferring that once I become a journalist that there wont be all the bullshit but maybe I could start my own new agency, something private run off of a blog or something similar.  If anyone's interested one of my inspirations is a guy named Dan Eldon, he was a photojournalist and a very interesting person who seemed to enjoy life.  The phrase "Dance like no one is watching" seems to be how he lived his life.  It's extremely unfortunate but he was killed by a very angry mob in Africa as he and a few other journalists arrived on the scene of a US ordered bombing.  All but one of the journalists were stoned to death... the other escaped.  I have many photojournalists I admire but Dan Eldon was a person who's life philosophy is extremely admirable.  If anyone is interested in learning more about him, his family published two books, "The Journey is the Destination" and "Dan Eldon: The Art of Life".
I started to feel like I was reporting for PBS or something as I got further into this blog entry haha.

Why do I gotta title this?

As usual this blog has experienced a shortage of posts.  There's been no point in blogging lately, not about mundane things like school and such.  However, my friend Kumi at Canadian farm in Nagano, Japan emailed me the other day.  She said that Haseyan, the owner of Canadian farm, is in San Diego building a traditional Japanese style house and that I should go visit him.  I'm not sure if anyone who reads this knows where I live but I live in North Carolina, completely opposite side of the US from San Diego.  Even though there is such a great distance the idea still lingered on my mind... I'm thinking now that I'll ditch school for a week and go to San Diego.  I found a pretty cheap plane ticket, only like $252, not too bad.  I have no idea how everything is going to happen but that's the next thing I'm going to work on.

Lately I have had a bit of a resurgence in photography.  I'm taking a photography class which hasn't benefited me at all but apart from that I have been walking around downtown during the last few weeks when the temperature was nice, up in the 60ies!  I ended up running into a few photographers that inspired me to start shooting more often so that's what I'm working on doing.  This picture was of a homeless guy I ran into.  I asked him for his picture and he asked me for some change... I didn't like the idea of paying for a shot but he probably needs the money so, yeah, the picture turned out well.  Unfortunately I didn't get his name. If I get to go to Cali I'm going to have a great time shooting out there, lots of new scenery.  Hopefully some rockin' food too!

It occurred to me earlier today that I very thoroughly enjoyed this past fall semester and that during that semester I didn't give the semester as much credit as it was due.
Classes such as art history which were such a drag to me because of the incessant need to write essays, but of course in hind sight I think of the class fondly and with much joy.  It was amazing learning about all of the great artists, who weren't necessarily aware of it, but were recording moments in history which otherwise wouldn't known to us.  This also led me and my class mates to ask, "when is an artist, an artist?", as I was taking Art history 1, which covers the beginning of time until the renaissance.  Up until and even after Jesus' time is still riddled with speculation.  From what we can tell it seems many of the first craftsman were making totems, tools for rituals or cave drawings which were often times purely associated with survival rather than artistic appreciation as Michelangelo's Sistine chapel is.  So for me it was an interesting journey between art history 1 and my world civ 1 class which basically followed art history 1 with the exception of when we dipped into China.
There were many opportunities for me to exam various religions like Manichaeism, for example, which I knew nothing of prior to my history classes.  Along with learning of religion through history I also gained a better perspective on religion first hand after getting into a heated skirmish with a past friend.  Although that situation never came to a positive fruition, from my perspective, I appreciated the experience and it allowed for self reflection which I couldn't have gained through other means.
As I've matured more I have learned that every experience, including school, which although seems like a barrier now, is another step on life's journey.  It's not about seeing things as individualistic but rather as a whole in which every experience is valid in complementing ways.

It's been quite a while since I last wrote.  Since then school has ended.  Winter break has begun.  And, now winter break slowly draws to an end.  There were many good times had, many a kayak raced down a snow covered hill, a fair share of photos taken that require my attention and too many good friends and moments lost to the past and their respective universities.  It's a very strange feeling to think we're in the year 2011 and that 2010 is gone, along with the world cup, the winter Olympics and all the hard work that was put into the last two semesters. 

I will return to my community college this spring.  My brother who is four years younger than me will also be there which will be cool and I have a few classes with good friends.  My grades have steadily become better as I have become more focused on school and my ultimate goal, Japan.

When I read about Japan from peoples blogs or from some of my lucky friends who reside there right now, it makes me miss it so much.  The magic I know of Japan comes back if only for a teasing moment.  Then I'm left with sadness and a renewed focus to achieve my dreams.  My last trip feels like a fleeting memory, surreal.  Almost as if it were a perfect dream, in which none of the bad things I experienced are acknowledged as negative and everything positive shows through like a warm ray of sunshine.  I know in my mind that of course there exist the negatives as well as the positives but I still can't help thinking about it... There may be a slight possibility that I'll have the chance to go this spring or early summer but I wont know until later in the new year.  I'm caught between very much enjoying school and all the information that exists for me to absorb and wanting to go to Japan where I will have much less discipline to study on my own.  I have a lot of interest in studying in Japan but as I have found it seems you need to know quite a bit of Japanese although there are classes taught in English.  However I don't think many of the art classes I would be interested in studying would be available in English.

I'm just waiting for the new year and hopefully a prosperous new year at that to bring me closer to Japan and completing my bachelors.

Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays!

Also, if anyone still reads my blog, leave a comment stating what you would most like to achieve in 2011 if you weren't restricted by anything.