Insomnia

Empty beds have become the hardest to sleep in.

This is a really old photo. I just realized I like it.

The Return

I've spent the last week or so (I got back to Portland on Tuesday night last week) doing pretty much nothing. I haven't been scheduled to work, I don't have school anymore, and there isn't much I really need to do (besides some chores that I have managed to avoid quite successfully. What I really want to do is go print in a darkroom. I want to spend my whole summer hidden away in there, learning through experience, teaching myself how to create what it is I actually want with my film. I wish I knew something about printing color film, I'd go do that in a heartbeat too. Since I don't though, I'm thinking I'll focus on perfecting my black and white printing. I have tons of photos from China, but I haven't gotten around to loading them onto flickr. I'll get to it soon, but right now I'm enjoying doing nothing and indulging myself in laziness. It's not something I always allow myself to do, especially not for this long. 

News

I have some news....
I suppose pretty much anything I post would count as news since I've been so sporatic on this space lately. School and work and life have been keeping me really busy lately, but anyway, on to the news (there are several items, actually):


1. In just over a week I will have graduated with my Bachelor's of Science in Anthropology (if you know anyone who needs an anthropologist and is willing to pay let me know...)


2. Two days after my graduation, I will be going to China for two weeks with my grandma and cousin. I still can't believe this is actually going to be happening.


3. Portland (the entire state of Oregon, really) seems to have finally figured out that it should be summer right now and is finally having some nice weather. 


4. I'm finally, very slowly, getting around to scanning all my black and white film from my photo classes (the photos above are from a landscape project I did this winter).


5. Hopefully, I'll be getting a car soon... which means I can go camping... which means this summer will actually feel like summer.


That's really all that's been happening in my life (or at least all I'm willing to share on the internet). I'm hoping that now that I'm going to be done with school for a while, I'll try and post here more regularly.

Something New

This is what happens when you let some people use your camera and you don't really want your picture to be taken... and the boringness and lack of blogging present on this blog is what happens when said people make you very happy and distract you from doing your normal time-wasting activities. 


I'm graduating in June. I'm going to China in June. I'm working at the pool. I'm planning the adventure that I want to be my life. I'm coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas. I'm spending more time with friends and making new ones too. I'm starting to exercise again on Tuesday. I'm spending the free time I have previously spent in the student union trying not to fall asleep scanning and editing film. I want to be more productive. I want to feel like this last term was worthwhile. I want to have time to do all the photography projects floating around my head. I want to be able to articulate what I am feeling and thinking. I want an outlet for all my frustrations with life. 


I think I'll start writing here again, writing about the mundane life I lead in this damp, damp city. And hopefully that will encourage me to take more photos, not just photos for photos sake but actual photos that I can be proud of. 


In other news, my toothbrush recently found a mate. It has me blushing to myself.

Goals and Hopes

Here's the dealio: 
I don't make New Year's Resolutions and
I don't make set goals
But I do have vague goal-idea-hopes-things floating around my head.


Recently they've looked something like this:
Get better at photographing people
Start taking photos I actually like again
Get into/apply for graduate school
Go somewhere/do something exciting
Finish my degree
Get really really incredibly good grades (mostly because I know I can if I just actually try)
Make some connections for my future (work-wise)
Have friendships (not just friends I see once a month)
Get back in shape (it's been way to long)
Don't worry about what everyone is thinking
Write (creatively) more


Yeah, that's about it. 


The photos are from New Year's Eve. We had sparklers. It was kind of boring. And all my photos are awful. 

A River Runs Through It

Growing up I remember that there was a book of my dad's on fly-fishing. It was always out somewhere. I don't ever remember my dad going fly-fishing growing up but I know he had all the equipment for it, a fairly nice pole, flys that my aunt (his sister) had made him, and even the hat. When I was in high school I learned to fly-fish in one of my classes, I even caught a fish. It was a rewarding and new experience and I wish that I had had the opportunity to do it at some time earlier in my life. I just watched A River Runs Through It for the first time, and I am surprised that I had not seen it before. I'm sure it's a movie my dad likes, so much of it reminds me of him and also of what I want my life to be like eventually. I'm not the kind of person who loves living in a city. I like it, it's fun and there are some things that are great about it, but really I want to live in the woods one day. Just be out there away from people with the trees and a river and some mountains and live. Just enjoy the parts of the world where I feel most at home. I think that's something that my dad and I have in common, although we've never really spoken about it, I think he prefers to be outside, away from people. As I've gotten older I've come to realize that I'm a lot more like him than I ever thought, but there are some things about him that I will never be like. When it comes to fly fishing though I want to do more of it, I want to be out in the woods more, I don't want to spend all my time in the city.

November

I'm really missing being out of the city. I'm also missing pine trees, mountains, and aspen leaves, but those aren't all that easily remedied. I do like living in the city but I just feel so at home when I'm out in the woods. I think I'll try to at least make it to Forest Park this week (not that that is really the woods, but I live fairly close to it and it might make me feel a little better, plus I have to observe animals for one of my classes) as well as doing some other things that have been on my to-do list for a while (like buying some tea and getting supplies to make this tote). Lately I've been trying to get some things taken care of so I can actually do what I hope I'll be able to do next year as well as cooking some pretty delicious food. Also, did you notice that for the first time in a long time this post is less than a week after my last one? Not only that but it isn't at an ungodly hour of the night. I'm working getting myself to have a more regular sleep schedule. Hopefully I'll get out and about and take some new photos soon. October was a stressful month for me, but November is looking like it's going to be better already. I'm glad the weather's gotten cold, I can actually wear the things I want to without being over-dressed (and therefore, ridiculous).

I don't really have anything to say. I've been busy with school and work lately. I'm getting sick of Portland's weather already but at the same time I'm excited for the rain. Sometimes I think I just need to start over.

Lately

Yesterday I went to my brother's soccer game and found that along my way there was an old pioneer cemetery. It was so beautiful and park like I was tempted to come back for a picnic. I feel that might be too morbid, to have a picnic in a cemetery, but I still wanted to do it. There were old gravestones with hidden stories buried in the names on them and a beautiful old building that looked like it was probably a mausoleum (that's what that picture is of) as well as some really great trees. I've always felt that I would like trees to be near my grave, if I have a grave. And really the best kind of tree to be buried near would be a really great climbing tree... Ok I'm done being so morbid... Later while I was waiting for the bus to go home, I realized that autumn really is showing up, the leaves are starting to change and even though there have been a few sunny days lately the rain and gloomy clouds have started to come back. 

On another entirely unrelated note, I got new glasses. I'm still not entirely sure what to think of them... is that bad? I mean I did pick them out, I just am not entirely sure why I like them or if I really do like them all that much. 

Huh...

Well, I still don't have everything packed to move later today, I need to do laundry, oh and I haven't even finished one of the two rolls of film I am supposed to have taken portraits on. The last one is mostly due to my lack of being around people.. I feel pathetic.

Busy

A random picture from the coast that I like...

A long and some-what boring rant-ish writing about my life as it is currently...


I'm not unhappy, just exhausted.. actually I'm pretty happy with my life right now, I just need to have a little more time somewhere so I can think about things and figure out what is coming next. Right now it seems as if I am living my life day by day. Most of the time I hardly know what it is coming the next day (or even what day it is). I'm enjoying my photography class and I've been taking pictures like mad but printing them myself in the darkroom is such a long process that I feel like I don't have much to show for all the photos I've been taking. Don't get me wrong, working in the darkroom is a really rewarding process. I probably would have been there at some point today if I wasn't out of paper. For our next assignment we have to take portraits which I'm a little worried about, just because I don't know who I'm going to take them of or when. I'm moving to a new apartment on Monday and not at all ready, but I have tomorrow free all day, so I think I'll be able to get some things done then. It just seems like I'm doing nothing but working, going to class, sleeping, and eating (occasionally, sometimes I seem to forget about this one) right now. Even on my days off that's all I feel like I'm doing (mostly because if I have a day off work, I still go to class/work in the darkroom/do homework/help people with things and when I have days off school, well I'm definitely working then). Luckily I should have a break soon. I'm not sure why I'm posting this right now... I just really need more time to have a life. I need to talk to people. 

Night

When I get tired I tend to like repetition. I repeat words over and over when I'm speaking or writing something and the same thoughts or bit of song will repeat in my head over and over. I try to avoid going to bed sometimes because of this, I don't want to give my mind time to settle down and find whatever is going to start repeating itself in my head. Especially when they turn out to be thoughts, because the thoughts that come around at this time of night, are the ones I spend the whole day trying not to think.

I started my photography class on Monday, I get to use the darkroom and actually develop and print my own work. I like it, I like seeing things all the way through a process, I like turning science into art. It's like magic. 

That is a pretty old photo up there.

A bit lost...

I don't know where I am going right now, quite literally. I have to move out of where I'm living now by the first and I don't have anywhere to go to (at least not anywhere that isn't temporary). But also I don't really know where my life is going right now. I, as usual, put too much on my plate of things to do in life and now I'm panicking at the mess I've caused and trying desperately to get it all put together and to turn out alright before it's too late, even though it probably already is too late. After re-reading that I realize I could really apply that to a lot of different things in my life if I wanted to, but I really only had one thing in mind. And the other thing is that once I get the things I need to get figured out now figured out, I have no idea where I'll be going from there. I like to have some sort of idea about where things are going, I like to have a loose plan to follow so I know where to go with my life if some part doesn't work out. Probably mostly because I feel like nothing ever works for me, I kind of destroy anything that is working out. But that might just be me blaming myself for everything (which I do seem to do). Also, I'm turning 20 soon, I feel so old and so young at the same time. I feel like I'm wasting my life sometimes.

I should write this stupid paper and get it over with already. But somehow I just don't care about this anymore, even though I know I should... I just don't have time to care? Ach, my mind doesn't even make sense to me anymore.

Endless

I am so disappointed in myself right now. I was finally not procrastinating anything for school for the first two-thirds of this summer term (I am never taking summer classes again! Not that I was planning to anyway, but I have come to that decision in case there is some future situation I'm not seeing right now). But these last couple of weeks I've been working even more and forgetting about schoolwork and well, just being lazy and procrastinating (cue profanity coming out of my mouth and being directed at myself). Considering I am getting pretty close to pulling an all-nighter (something I haven't actually done since last spring when I had a really really strange sleep schedule and it's not that I haven't stayed up through the night since then, it's that I've always gone to bed oh, sometime around now or in the next hour or so) and probably will pull an all-nighter I just can't help but being upset with myself. Especially because what I'm working on isn't difficult, it doesn't even really require much critical thinking, it is just ridiculously time-consuming. But it should turn out to be a pretty cool project once it's done. I'll post some pictures or something, because I don't really have anything else going on in my life and, well I feel bad just letting this blog sit here with nothing new on it. 

I have to say that if you made it through that without being completely confused by the side-tracks my mind takes or the way that I write them out... well, then you are amazing! 

Delicate

Quite a while ago a friend of mine described my blog as containing "delicate little descriptions." I honestly haven't been able to get these words out of my head since I first read them. Mostly it's that one word: delicate. I feel like the entire world is delicate, like my entire life is delicate; one wrong turn and everything can fall apart, everything can disappear. I like to think that light is delicate and when I take pictures I am trying to capture the delicate little bits and pieces that the light is creating. I'm trying to show people how delicate my life is, how the light streams through all the cracks and pinholes, how it's like a whole other universe waiting to be discovered. That's what light really is to me, it's what reveals the truth. Anything can happen when it's dark, but when the light comes back, when the sun rises, that's when everything really happens, and those in-between moments are just magical, anything can happen between the lightness and the darkness.

Forgotten

I forgot that I had pictures from the beginning of the month sitting in my digital camera until I went and took some pictures today. 

These are from the day after 4th of July (July 5th?), I woke up before everyone else and took this little guy for a walk along the Lewis River (I was staying at my dad's up in Washington).

He looks like a puppy but he's nearly two! He just got all his hair cut off for the summer.

I also found this on there, at the beginning of the month I ate cinnamon pancakes every day for about a week, one day I even put strawberries in them, they were delicious.

Feathers and Moonlight

I wish my mind would quiet down.

Differences

I can't believe how little this summer feels like summer. Last summer was just too good to me. I'm going to drop off some more film to get developed tomorrow I think, that is if I get to it... I feel like I have a never-ending amount of things to do right now and too many things pulling on my mind at once. So, I will leave you with this picture that someone (I really can't remember who) showed me recently. If you ever had anything to do with Babar you will (hopefully, if not I might feel a bit crazy) agree with me that it is awesome.

Sent to my brother

As I briefly mentioned a while ago, my brother and I send pictures back and forth to each other, trying to outdo each other. Well, to be honest, I send more than he does. But I thought that I would share some of the more interesting things I've seen and shared with him lately.

Yeah, this actually happened in the store... I couldn't believe it.

When my brother was living with my dad and I was in Portland last year my mom made a ham that she and my step-dad had gotten as a gift... they ate ham everything for just about a month... (so I actually sent this to her, but I still love the pic)

It's hard to tell but the crane is actually moving port-a-potties... oh yeah.

A strawberry shaped like a tooth!

I was bored in class this morning... I realized later I should have written 'oh deer' instead.

Yes, I sent my brother a picture of my foot. Because my chaco tan is beginning to show and it's gonna be AWESOME by the end of the summer.

Travels

Sometimes this is just too much.

I have this idea that someday I'll just pack what I need to live and go where ever I end up for a few months. Preferably in Europe. Maybe after I'm done with school... we'll see. I still don't know what I'm going to do after this year of school. I feel like my mind travels more than I ever will in my entire life.