The Bucket List and the Work Boots

Yesterday was the first day of classes at Columbia, which ushered in the fruitful chaos that is the fall semester here at college. Though I've been here for a week to work on Well Woman topics and generally ease myself back into New York-style living, the beginning of classes was wonderful. Sitting down with a bunch of strangers in order to explore a new and interesting (or required) topic is still exciting to me. Alas, I am a student at heart.

But another thought dawns on me whenever I sit down in one of our classrooms. I picture myself in the trenches of stats homework, putting on my size 8 work boots and wielding my pencil like a musket, spending hours in the morning and night trying to finish… The work is all consuming. And thus, I had to start thinking of how I would shift my mentality towards fun and creative pursuits.

So, I came up with a deceptively simple solution: a bucket list.

Art Crash!

Sometimes, when you work on a project for too long, it starts to look like a mass of craziness. You heave an internal sigh whenever you look at the thing and hope to God that it passes for something not hideous. That, my friends, is what happened to me with my negative space note card project.
Negative space, defined to us Basic Drawing students as "the spaces around an object," is hard to see if you're not looking for it. Shown above in its final form, the assignment was to isolate negative space, draw 100 note cards of it, and then paint in a colored ink around the negative space you drew. But, in this pursuit of exalting negative space, many mishaps may arise.
The first one was that we were supposed to isolate negative space rather than draw the entire area around an object; that means that what you get are non-distinct shapes rather than something that looks like, say, a necklace or something. I had already finished 10 note cards by the time I knew this.
My second mistake was underestimating the drawing time it takes to make 100 cards. I spent a 2 hours during the week and 5 hours at the Met on Saturday working on drawing those cards - it catches up with you if you don't plan ahead!
Finally, my third mistake was thinking that taping and painting was going to be the quickest part. While it took 3 hours less time than drawing the cards, a few issues arose. I couldn't get the studio door lock to open. My tape ran out. I didn't bring any music. My brush skills make me cringe... but, after 4 hours in the studio, this piece was finished.
Looking at it now, I think the whole looks much better than the sum of its parts. It is a work of art when looked at not as a laborious process of 11 total man hours, but as a piece that I myself made from start to finish. Overall, I am glad that all the individual mistakes did not hinder this project's outcome - but I am mostly glad that it is now finished for good!

Take a look at further art and drawings that I have created.

RBW Creative Project Zine

As promised, here is a sample of the work I have been doing - it is my final project for my Reading Barnard Writing class. It's a smattering of photography, non-fiction, fiction based off the authors we read in that class, and personal opinion. I really could not decide to do just one, basically. The printed product is also available if you let me know - I hand bind the pages with Japanese stab-binding technique.
I put the file up on DeviantArt, but you're going to have to press 'Download' to view it (it's in the left sidebar). Never fear, the file pops up in your browser window rather than downloading directly to your computer - at least that is my experience. Enjoy!

RBW Creative Zine

Check out some of my other zines, such as a comic alterna-history The Bearniverse.

Work Week

I have long since given up my maxim "never start a book at night."
There are just so many books to read! Both for class and for pleasure, late into the night we are glued to the pages of text. But that makes me feel great sometimes because it is an accomplishment to finish each little stretch of reading - it's probably something I'll never have to do again after my college years. Anyway...
This week, I embarked on the first week of my new job! I got a job in the mail room and it's pretty good so far. I also got a second job at the library, which is ideal for me, being a book nerd as mentioned above. Now I can actually afford to eat meals! I can't wait till I can finally pay my dad back something... but my goal right now is to just make sure that my expenses at the end of the month add up to the amount I make from these two jobs. We'll see how it goes.
I have been starting to work out when I get stressed or unable to do schoolwork any longer. I literally skid out of my Decolonization class thinking "I need to go swimming." At least it's something that's good for my body but, as I've been saying literally every time I get out of the pool, I feel like an old person. I just haven't worked out in a long while and it's taking some time for my body to adjust; not to the soreness, but just to the regular exercise. Hopefully that changes when I get massively toned abs and arms (ha, not). It's another one of my gentle introduction things - so far it is paying off.
I sense that the weeks to come will be more interesting than the weeks that have passed; I have been carrying all these grand ideas in my head lately but haven't been able yet to write them down, so I think my next gentle introduction will be into writing a little on the weekends so that it comes out (yay, fiction class!) as well as going to a lot of campus events again. It's just been too cold to do anything else. There is no snow, even though they said there was going to be a lot but the wind has been bone-chilling so I have just been waiting it out in my dorm room, venturing out into the world only to eat, work, go to class, and exercise. Hmm, that should probably change.

Momentary Pauses

440 pages.
That was the amount that I read in three days here. Not that I'm complaining, because it was for really enjoyable classes and I expected this semester to be harder than the last, but still! It feels like an astronomical calculation - amazingly, though I do wonder at it, I do not want to complain.

I have been slowly realizing what this year is about for me: gentle incorporation.
What does that mean? Well, for me, it means calmly and quietly bringing in some of those principles that I had previously tried to force into my life. My major examples:
- It's not about sneaking in time to do something, it's about choosing what you really want to do for that moment.
- Have a schedule, but always be willing to break it.
- Eat! Just make sure that you're taking care of yourself at the same time.
- Write and read and create and smile when you want to. Just don't force any of those things down your own throat!
- Take a few calm breaths before embarking on anything.

The difference between this and last year is that I'm realizing that if I try to impose something upon myself (like, write 500 words a day or something) it's not the route that gets anything done. I guess I had read those articles about 'habit-forming' and such but taken them too closely to heart. When I came stumbled upon 2010, I had an enlightenment - what if we were easy on ourselves?
It makes me happy to note that I have a lot of stuff that I want to do and will make time to do it. In my slower moments, I hope that I can continue to do it; the future is not going to be nearly as busy as this (unless I have something to do with it!) and so I need to start self-motivating in a way that doesn't drain me of my senses.
Anyway, this is a momentary pause in between the ledgers of different classes, assignments and understandings. So now I must fly!

Barnard: The Early Days

Ta da! I am still alive after a trip to New York (a shockingly smooth and timely flight o_o) and now I'm rockin' away at my dorm in Barnard [Sulzberger Hall].
Strangely, it was a pretty easy transition. Ruby's house was cozy (and cold because we were in the basement) even though the outside was humid and - at times - oppressive. However, other than the gigantic headache that I got from dehydration after the flight, everything has been pretty swell. New York is still beautifully grungy, and there is still an air of grandeur around Barnard that I just can't shake (even though now I've been around a bit and the awe has slowly faded, it's become sort of a comfy second home). Da has been palling around with Ghosh the entire time, so it seems that they are having fun (a big reconnection after all these years).
After getting to NY, everything became just a little BIGGER. In comparison, we don't have extremely huge shopping lists for the drugstore [obviously, not at home], nor huge Indian breakfasts, nor gigantic seafood dinners [go Sammy's!]. After being here, it seems that the way we live in Seattle is very frugal and very small (and here I thought we were living large, ha!).
For now, however, the scene is much different. My roommate has a big personality [although she's from New Mexico - the ghetto nonetheless], there is 200+ people here, the room is bigger than I expected... and the adjustment was surprisingly small.
Our classes started today, and its been the first time that I've really been away from Da since we got here [and during a semi-school year, for that matter] (although he did show up to drop off my charger this afternoon... I love parenthesis!). I have to write a 7-10 page paper for psychology [which is perfect for my Extended Essay] and then there is a free-form style writing class with a culminating zine which actually seems pretty cool, but we just have to work on it.
Other than that, I've slowly been meeting people (after kicking out calc kids from our room this morning, there was a little bit of a bond going around) and starting to go out on the town. We have a pretty piece of freedom here (sign in/out but whatever) and we also have some fun organized things called "excursions" [lame name] and so our time is either full or pleasantly plump so that we can meander and do things. I'll probably start working out either tomorrow or the next day, and I started (barely) Gulliver's Travels along with the million other books I have to read. Well, now it's off to a little planning and some other fun stuff.
I feel like a college student sometimes. Trippy...

Read more posts about my awesome Barnard pre-college experience.
Also, you may be interested to read about what happened when I began going to college at Barnard.