Aug 10, 2011

Hey, Remember me?

It's seems most of my posts over the last few months have been "I haven't blogged in forever, I need to catch up!" Not that I haven't wanted to, it's just hard to get started and there's always something else I should be doing. Since this is the first time this summer block I have homework due the next day and I'm procrastinating, why not blog? Also, having the excuse of not blogging for over a month is a good way to begin I guess, cuz that's what I've been doing. I haven't blogged in over a month. What shall I talk about?

My summer semester is over tomorrow. I've taken some pictures of the assignments I did, will try to post them tomorrow. To let you know what you're looking forward to, the class is 3D Design and no, it's not design with computers, that would be useful, and we can't have that. Our first assignment was wire sculpture, meaning make like a skeleton or contour out of... wire. To say it was more fun that it sounds would be an overstatement, but it wasn't my least favorite assignment, probably second least. I did a skull and at the urging of one of my friends in class used 1 continuous wire for the whole thing. My second assignment was my least favorite, we were supposed to take an organic object like a piece of fruit or vegetable and make an abstraction of it using matte board, basically a geometric fruit. I did a pear and hated every second of it. Ok, not every second of it, I was quite glad when it was done. My second to last project and second favorite was carving a non-representational (looks like nothing) shape out of Alabaster. It was fun to actually use rock carving tools and see it take shape. Mine ended looking like a cross between the lock ness monster, a shiny piece of poop and a twisted part of the male anatomy that isn't always polite to mention in polite circles. (the penis) The final project and the one I have been looking forward to all semester was a found object assignment. Unlike the original found objects like Duchamp's fountain, (which were more 'readymade' but whatever) we had to make something with our found objects. Originally I had planned to make a large hand made out of toys coming out of a toy chest. Since I couldn't find a toy chest, I decided to use an old TV. I've spent more hours on this one than probably the rest combined, and although it's not quite what I had hoped for, it still looks pretty cool. I'll show pictures soon.

Morgan's still behind in his speech but he's always improving, so it could be worse. I couldn't love him any more and he couldn't be cuter, but I'm often sad I can't give him the attention he needs or deserves, as some days I am so exhausted I literally can't move. Hopefully he'll understand that one day and forgive me for at least some things in the way I raised him. He can now say his name "Mowgaine!" but it often sounds like "My name!" and he still speaks about 60% in sign, but as I said, he's always improving and even though he doesn't talk a ton, he gets his point across most of the time and already has quite a developed sense of humor. *tear* I'm so proud.

I'm still listening to books on CD, currently listening to Outliers. The first half was extremely interesting and informative even if I didn't buy everything; so far the second half has been boring to the point of making me afraid of crashing the car, (either because he's boring me to sleep or to break the monotony) and doesn't seem to have any useful information other than Korean people don't make good airline pilots. I'm up for any suggestions on what to read/listen to next if you wanna make some recommendations.

Work is good, we're in our new building and apart from the air conditioning treating us like we're polar bears, it's a good change. I've made peace with the fact that I won't get promoted because of my ever changing school schedule and am trying to teach myself Javascript, which is already much more successful than trying to learn Python.

I'm excited for next week, we'll be spending it in Lake Arrowhead, CA (namesake of the second worst bottled water I've tasted, looking at you, Sparkletts.) with my grandparents and some extended family. It will be our first vacation with Morgan, and other than the 10 hour drive there, it should be awesome. If anyone wants to water our dead plants or feed our invisible dog let us know. We're debating buying a portable DVD player for Morgan to watch while we're in the car for 5+ hours at a time. (By debating, I mean I'm somewhat against it and Tracie's buying it.) My gripe is one of my favorite parts of going on road trips growing up was time with family, singing silly songs, playing road games, etc. While it's hard to do with a delayed speaking 2 year old, I'm afraid it will get us in the habit of watching movies in the car rather than interacting. Thoughts, anyone? Bueller?

We've bought Biggest Loser Challenge for the Wii and in my opinion it's the best workout program we've bought. (We've bought a lot.) We started 2 weeks ago and I've lost 4 pounds so far. It's a cool game, it measures how good you're doing in the exercises and tailors the next day to improve what you were not excelling in the day before. It has hundreds of different exercises and is always different, all good things. The only downside I can think of is the computer generated avatars of the people from the show are creepy/nightmare fuel at best. But hey, you can just tell yourself that devil-faced-Jillian or Bob the Blob will skulk into your room late at night and eat your spleen if you have that piece of chocolate cheesecake.

Other than that life is fairly good, no complaints other than the normal ones, can't believe I'm still in college, can't believe my leg still hurts, blah blah blah. Overall I'm happy and healthy and losing weight! How's your summer going?

8 comments:

Laurie said...

• I should try that Wii game out.
• I can't wait to see the pictures of your projects.
• Yes, you should come visit in Texas!

Jasmine said...

As someone who has made the drive between California and Utah several times with young children (often on my own), I can attest that the DVD player can be a sanity-saver. I don't let Alexis watch it the entire time, but it is a nice distraction when she starts getting antsy and I'm not ready to get off the road, yet. I say go for it, but keep it controlled -- meaning YOU control when it goes on, not the kid.

Jacob I. McMillan said...

I could never forget you, Captain Hammer.

Ross & Amanda Goodman- but mostly Amanda :) said...

I wasn't going to comment until I saw that my word verification is a bad word that I have never actually typed out. I am strange and get highs off of weird things. I refuse to apologize for it. :)

Austin said...

Laurie,
• You should, it's fun.
• Let me know what you think.
• Maybe around Christmas time.

Jasmine,
Thanks for the advice, it made me feel a little better about the car dvd player. :)

Jacob,
These, are not the Hammer...

Ross&AmandabutmostlyAmanda,
I am judging you. JUUUUUUUDGE! ;)
j/k, but now I'm curious what the word was...

ammon said...

Thanks for listening to me and posting. More Austin is (usually) a good thing.

Congrats on the weight loss. Keep it up!

Here are some picks for Audiobooks to get you started:
Peter Pan read by Jim Dale
Dune full cast reading
CS Lewis Space Trilogy
Neverwhere read by Neil Gaiman

Charlo said...

Next time I come over remind me to bring you so mp3s of some of the the audio books I have acquired. I'd be happy to loan them to you.

I recommend "THe Book Thief". The first 30 min are a little odd as they introduce the narrator, but it gets better. Plus, it will teach you a few german swear words, which are always useful.

I'm sure you've read Gaiman's "Graveyard book" But I have those audio files too. Really liked that one.


(if you are in the mood for children's books)
I have all the chronicles of Narnia
Charlie and the chocolate factory (Rauld Dahl)
THe BFG (ALso Rauld Dahl)
THe harry Potter's

I also have the BOok of Mormon



In the process of getting audio's for the Hunger games trilogy, as well as the the Underland chronicles ( just started and liking decently)
AndI recommend (but do not have)
THe Kite runner (I read that oen)
100 spended sun's (same author, I listened to it)

Charlo said...

oh, I have Neverwhere too if you want to re-listen to it, but that one is an Audible file, so I don't know if it will share, maybe I can burn to cd. He did a marvelous job reading though

and I'd like to see that fit wii-ness