[e181]
For the second time this month I'm skipping school because I'm overloaded and a little overwhelmed with what I need to get done. Instead of doing my work right now I'm sitting here, sipping luke-warm coffee, trying to wake myself up and force some motivation down my throat. It's been one of "those" weeks.
Classes are going pretty well. I don't know if it's the heat, or my poor sleeping pattern, or just the need to get out and do something not school related, but I'm started to feel a bit burned out. I want this semester to be over so badly, and I want the new one to start. Now that I've decided to double-major, I think I'll be alternating semesters of art and science - starting June 1st I'll be thrown headfirst into the science semester, interspersed with a music theory class and continuing violin lessons. I am pretty sure I am going to end up with an Associate's Degree in Fine Arts at the rate I am going. I'm determined to collect degrees like most girls collect pretty shoes.
I'm a bit sick of the house and I really want to rearrange some of the rooms. I think of a lot of my unhappiness/discomfort/whatever this is gets caused by the messes I make inside of here. Cleaning for me is soothing - it's like a trance, a meditation, where I sort out my problems and throw them away, and where I have time to really look at myself. We desperately need some new furniture. Our shelving in the second bedroom (my future "studio" haha) is ugly and not very good at keeping things organized. We need some actual furniture for the bedroom, and some lights. Lights to actually see in there at night would be nice. I want to go on a crazy all-day thrift-store spree and see if I can't walk away with these items for under $50, even if it means having to fix all of them.
So much inside of me has changed in the last three years that I feel like a completely different person. This last year, especially, has been eye-opening... I'm a new me, and I like the direction that I'm going in, though I'm still (as always) anxious to see where the future takes me. In art, I think I'm slowly starting to build some solid roots and make some decent connections. I'm still thinking about trying to make enough things and get them displayed in a gallery by the year's end, though I don't know if this is realistic of me or not. I don't honestly care. In science, I've already made some good connections. My two bosses, Sara and Quentin, love me. Sara pulled me aside the other day and told me that she's adopting me. Quentin wants me to photoshop insect genitalia for him when he eventually finds the time to do his monograph of Eleodes. He said to me that if I do this work for him that he'll make me co-author, which is no small deal.
On that subject, this is what I do at work:
I relax the beetles for two days in a dessication jar.
I look at them under a dissecting microscope and clean them. If any limbs fall off I carefully use tweezers to hold them and I shellac them back in place. It's a serious pain in the ass and can take over 20 minutes per limb if I am extremely unlucky (like when said limbs are under 1mm in width). See all the white stuff on him? That's all dirt.
I look impressive while I am cleaning, I know.
April takes photographs of them with our $70,000 camera equipment. She stacks all of the images into two final ones with ventral and dorsal views. This is what I get.
I remove additional dirt, replace missing limbs, replace decayed exoskeletons, and add subtle shadows.
Sometimes I'm a bad Troll-beast and I snoop around to look at other bugs, but I promise it's always off the clock. I hit the motherload the other night. I fell so hard and so fast in love that I thought my heart was going to stop.
Anyway, I've procrastinated long enough. My coffee is done and gone, and I need to finish these assignments.
Classes are going pretty well. I don't know if it's the heat, or my poor sleeping pattern, or just the need to get out and do something not school related, but I'm started to feel a bit burned out. I want this semester to be over so badly, and I want the new one to start. Now that I've decided to double-major, I think I'll be alternating semesters of art and science - starting June 1st I'll be thrown headfirst into the science semester, interspersed with a music theory class and continuing violin lessons. I am pretty sure I am going to end up with an Associate's Degree in Fine Arts at the rate I am going. I'm determined to collect degrees like most girls collect pretty shoes.
I'm a bit sick of the house and I really want to rearrange some of the rooms. I think of a lot of my unhappiness/discomfort/whatever this is gets caused by the messes I make inside of here. Cleaning for me is soothing - it's like a trance, a meditation, where I sort out my problems and throw them away, and where I have time to really look at myself. We desperately need some new furniture. Our shelving in the second bedroom (my future "studio" haha) is ugly and not very good at keeping things organized. We need some actual furniture for the bedroom, and some lights. Lights to actually see in there at night would be nice. I want to go on a crazy all-day thrift-store spree and see if I can't walk away with these items for under $50, even if it means having to fix all of them.
So much inside of me has changed in the last three years that I feel like a completely different person. This last year, especially, has been eye-opening... I'm a new me, and I like the direction that I'm going in, though I'm still (as always) anxious to see where the future takes me. In art, I think I'm slowly starting to build some solid roots and make some decent connections. I'm still thinking about trying to make enough things and get them displayed in a gallery by the year's end, though I don't know if this is realistic of me or not. I don't honestly care. In science, I've already made some good connections. My two bosses, Sara and Quentin, love me. Sara pulled me aside the other day and told me that she's adopting me. Quentin wants me to photoshop insect genitalia for him when he eventually finds the time to do his monograph of Eleodes. He said to me that if I do this work for him that he'll make me co-author, which is no small deal.
On that subject, this is what I do at work:
I relax the beetles for two days in a dessication jar.
I look at them under a dissecting microscope and clean them. If any limbs fall off I carefully use tweezers to hold them and I shellac them back in place. It's a serious pain in the ass and can take over 20 minutes per limb if I am extremely unlucky (like when said limbs are under 1mm in width). See all the white stuff on him? That's all dirt.
I look impressive while I am cleaning, I know.
April takes photographs of them with our $70,000 camera equipment. She stacks all of the images into two final ones with ventral and dorsal views. This is what I get.
I remove additional dirt, replace missing limbs, replace decayed exoskeletons, and add subtle shadows.
Sometimes I'm a bad Troll-beast and I snoop around to look at other bugs, but I promise it's always off the clock. I hit the motherload the other night. I fell so hard and so fast in love that I thought my heart was going to stop.
Anyway, I've procrastinated long enough. My coffee is done and gone, and I need to finish these assignments.