tomorrow i shall be in urbana
tomorrow i shall begin re-living my last week as an undergrad.
[but this time, i won't have tests, etc. to worry about]
tomorrow i shall be in urbana.
and i cannot wait.
plus, it'll be a solid 7 week days off from work, which will be much appreciated.
i've been working a lot lately (although it's back to semi-normal levels of hours, but many of which are still out in the field) and i sure could use an actual vacation.
weekends just don't cut it again.
i feel myself getting pulled into the 9-5 (roughly) world, with nights becoming more of a routine than i'd like and weekends going by too quickly and not being meaningful.
and that really sucks.
i can't wait to start grad school.
but, alas, i still have a few months of work left.
however, i do have this trip, one to ithaca in june, and one home for wedding in july, so the time in tallahassee will be broken up fairly well.
speaking (back a little) of weekends, i had an interesting, but nice, one.
friday night was another first friday, thus there was another gallery hop.
and so i headed down to railroad square.
by myself since my friends that would normally be into going were all out of town or working.
but that's fine, 'cause i can set my own pace and look at what i want to look at only.
and there were some good exhibits, especially one in the first gallery right by the entrance, 621.
it was a collaboration of four artists and a poet, and involved a wall covered in book bindings/covers with intricate drawings and cut outs, some cool pottery sculptures spread over the walls and floors with sand, and a giant "candle".
this candle was actually a ~6 foot tall (on ~3 foot stands) rectangular metal frame filled with fiberglass insulation that was being pumped with propane that was fueling a fire at the bottom.
as i was in the studio, the climax occured where the fire got hot enough to actuall ignite the whole damn thing of insulation.
pretty solid.
i was bummed, however, because the undergrad studios were closed (their school ended a week ago).
and they have one of the top three displays usually (in my mind, at least).
but oh well, i saw some other cool stuff.
then came back here, did a little of my own (crappy)art-making, watched buffalo '66 and went to bed.
it's a weird (but pretty good) movie, that buffalo '66.
saturday came with some cleaning around the house and a trip down to the leon sinks for a nice afternoon hike.
it was a beautiful day out.
it's definitely approaching summer, but thankfully, it's not fucking humid as shit here yet.
just 90 and sunny with a nice little cool breeze.
nice enough for the white marked tussock moth caterpillar, an example of which could be seen on the siding outside my door.
for those of you not lucky enough to be at my house on saturday afternoon, here's what the creature from some other world looks like:
pretty cool-looking, eh?
at the park (which has trails through a part of the national forest with sink holes and swamps, pretty cool stuff), i saw some other nice wildlife taking advantage of the glorious afternoon.
including fence lizard:
and a pileated woodpecker:
(in the red box; i swear that's an actual bird and not some smudge).
i was sitting on a bench on a boardwalk talking to robert on the phone when it just flew in front of me and took a perch at the base of that stump.
must be some good grub in there.
i kept the camera rollin' when i got back to town, in hopes of capturing what i thought would be a cool little landscape in the train track/road crossing at the trainstation.
i've walked and driven by that station a bunch of times before, but never noticed that sign or the cool platform.
the crossing itself is pretty cool-lookin', too.
there's certainly a lot of interesting history with rail in this country.
i haven't decided if it's more interesting in a place like chicago where the rail lines were (and still are) everywhere or a place like tallahassee, where there were just a few lines, but they were used a lot.
i dunno, just something i've been thinking about.
there's a lot of history with the rail and the civil war, as well.
and i've become more and more interested in that down here, seeing how the other side (so to speak) has dealt with things post-war.
especially the pride that is evident (though often subtly) in tallahassee because it was the only confederate capital never captured by the union.
maybe if i were actually artistic i could use that as a concept for something.
but nothing i create has concepts anymore.
[did it ever?]
which is not good.
maybe i should work on that.
??
what am i trying to say?
anywho, after all of that, i watched o brother, where art thou last night.
and i like it quite a bit.
except for the fact that it is so friggen clear that it isn't george clooney singing.
that kinda bothered me...a lot.
oh well, the rest of the movie was good.
other than that, i've just been reading (through part 4 of crime and punishment) and today been packing and stuff.
oh and i watched some of the cubs' game.
which was pretty good.
i like that they're winning again.
but they're still behind the brewers, which is just hillarious to say (brewers in first place...ha!).
anywho, time to finish packing and shower and go to bed!
[but this time, i won't have tests, etc. to worry about]
tomorrow i shall be in urbana.
and i cannot wait.
plus, it'll be a solid 7 week days off from work, which will be much appreciated.
i've been working a lot lately (although it's back to semi-normal levels of hours, but many of which are still out in the field) and i sure could use an actual vacation.
weekends just don't cut it again.
i feel myself getting pulled into the 9-5 (roughly) world, with nights becoming more of a routine than i'd like and weekends going by too quickly and not being meaningful.
and that really sucks.
i can't wait to start grad school.
but, alas, i still have a few months of work left.
however, i do have this trip, one to ithaca in june, and one home for wedding in july, so the time in tallahassee will be broken up fairly well.
speaking (back a little) of weekends, i had an interesting, but nice, one.
friday night was another first friday, thus there was another gallery hop.
and so i headed down to railroad square.
by myself since my friends that would normally be into going were all out of town or working.
but that's fine, 'cause i can set my own pace and look at what i want to look at only.
and there were some good exhibits, especially one in the first gallery right by the entrance, 621.
it was a collaboration of four artists and a poet, and involved a wall covered in book bindings/covers with intricate drawings and cut outs, some cool pottery sculptures spread over the walls and floors with sand, and a giant "candle".
this candle was actually a ~6 foot tall (on ~3 foot stands) rectangular metal frame filled with fiberglass insulation that was being pumped with propane that was fueling a fire at the bottom.
as i was in the studio, the climax occured where the fire got hot enough to actuall ignite the whole damn thing of insulation.
pretty solid.
i was bummed, however, because the undergrad studios were closed (their school ended a week ago).
and they have one of the top three displays usually (in my mind, at least).
but oh well, i saw some other cool stuff.
then came back here, did a little of my own (crappy)art-making, watched buffalo '66 and went to bed.
it's a weird (but pretty good) movie, that buffalo '66.
saturday came with some cleaning around the house and a trip down to the leon sinks for a nice afternoon hike.
it was a beautiful day out.
it's definitely approaching summer, but thankfully, it's not fucking humid as shit here yet.
just 90 and sunny with a nice little cool breeze.
nice enough for the white marked tussock moth caterpillar, an example of which could be seen on the siding outside my door.
for those of you not lucky enough to be at my house on saturday afternoon, here's what the creature from some other world looks like:
pretty cool-looking, eh?
at the park (which has trails through a part of the national forest with sink holes and swamps, pretty cool stuff), i saw some other nice wildlife taking advantage of the glorious afternoon.
including fence lizard:
and a pileated woodpecker:
(in the red box; i swear that's an actual bird and not some smudge).
i was sitting on a bench on a boardwalk talking to robert on the phone when it just flew in front of me and took a perch at the base of that stump.
must be some good grub in there.
i kept the camera rollin' when i got back to town, in hopes of capturing what i thought would be a cool little landscape in the train track/road crossing at the trainstation.
i've walked and driven by that station a bunch of times before, but never noticed that sign or the cool platform.
the crossing itself is pretty cool-lookin', too.
there's certainly a lot of interesting history with rail in this country.
i haven't decided if it's more interesting in a place like chicago where the rail lines were (and still are) everywhere or a place like tallahassee, where there were just a few lines, but they were used a lot.
i dunno, just something i've been thinking about.
there's a lot of history with the rail and the civil war, as well.
and i've become more and more interested in that down here, seeing how the other side (so to speak) has dealt with things post-war.
especially the pride that is evident (though often subtly) in tallahassee because it was the only confederate capital never captured by the union.
maybe if i were actually artistic i could use that as a concept for something.
but nothing i create has concepts anymore.
[did it ever?]
which is not good.
maybe i should work on that.
??
what am i trying to say?
anywho, after all of that, i watched o brother, where art thou last night.
and i like it quite a bit.
except for the fact that it is so friggen clear that it isn't george clooney singing.
that kinda bothered me...a lot.
oh well, the rest of the movie was good.
other than that, i've just been reading (through part 4 of crime and punishment) and today been packing and stuff.
oh and i watched some of the cubs' game.
which was pretty good.
i like that they're winning again.
but they're still behind the brewers, which is just hillarious to say (brewers in first place...ha!).
anywho, time to finish packing and shower and go to bed!