Flood

Hey everyone,

Sorry I’ve been gone for so long. I obviously haven’t been inactive on the internet, but I also haven’t been blogging. I still don’t really have anything to say, but I guess I should say something.

So, I got a new camera. I found a Nikon FE with a 50 f/1.8 on ebay for like $75 so I bought it. Yay Christmas money. Got it a few days later, cleaned it all up, and then put some film and fresh batteries in it. Later that day, managed to drop it on the concrete. Oh joy, I’m so good at this proud-new-owner thing. The damage wasn’t too bad, it just isn’t the pretty new thing that it was.

I got the first roll back and they’re pretty good. I love film, it is wonderful. You can see the pics that I’ve posted so far from it on my flickr.

Let’s see… I also read the Twilight Series over Christmas break. Pretty awesome story line, bad writing though. However, she’s got me convinced that being a vampire would pretty much be the coolest thing ever (and forever).

In other news, our good friend Lydia won a Vespa at a basketball game. She gets to choose an OSU-themed specialization to go on the already orange Vespa. I’m pretty excited for her, even though it should have been mine. I told her if she wins one that she would have to give it to me. I don’t think she’s going to… I’m not amused.

Alesia would like to get a scooter. She doesn’t have a vehicle and it would be good to have something for her to zip around on, especially during the summer when she has to do a lot of field research. They’re pretty cheap, but not really cheap enough for us to just drop the money for one. Alesia wants to lease one, but I don’t think anyone in OK will do that.

Oh! I was going to tell more about my tattoos!

So I got the constellations Orion and Scorpius on my forearms (I’ll post a link if Alesia ever posts the pictures she took). Yes… they just look like freckles, but they aren’t. In each of them, my favorite star is diamond shaped and the name is written beside it. The names are Rigel in Orion and Antares in Scorpius. I really like them, they’re all healed now.

Interesting things about Scorpius and Orion: in the mythology, Scorpius stung Orion and killed him, then they were put apart from each other in the stars. Scorpius is only seen during the summer months, and Orion is only seen during the winter. Scorpius has been my favorite constellation for a long time, and Antares is my favorite star. I like Orion too, but not as much. However, Orion is Alesia’s favorite constellation. One night we stayed up all night to see if we could see Orion during the summer, but we never did… so now we just treasure it when we see it during the winter.

I really like getting tattoos. I know that sounds weird, but it’s fun to me. I like having art on my body, apart of me. It doesn’t really hurt much, it’s kind of thrilling actually. I don’t want to be covered in tattoos, that’s a little excessive, but I’m still considering getting more.

Alright… I guess I’ll stop there. I’ve been super busy here lately, and it doesn’t seem like I’ll be slowing down anytime too soon.

A Year in Retrospect and a Few Tidbits

I’m a couple of days late on the whole “New Year” thing… but I’m close enough for my comfort. So I thought I would try to update everyone on my doings and then maybe talk about the big things that happened to me in 2009.

So Christmas and New Years Day have come and gone, and I spent relatively little time with my immediate family, though I got to spend a few days with my Grandparents, so relaxing, I miss the wood stove so much! I ended up getting a lot of cooking and kitchen equipment for Christmas: stainless steel pots and pans (with lids, hallelujah!!!), a 5″ santoku knife, a paring knife, a garlic press, a ladel, a whisk, an espresso machine, and finally, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child. Then I also got a rain coat for my outdoor adventures and new socks! And of course, some moolah. Thanks everyone! I love you all!

Since then I’ve made many cappuccinos and one recipe from “Mastering…”, wonderful! Alesia made me a knitted hat, her first ever and it makes me very happy and keeps my head warm. We also got snow for Christmas, which was the first time I had ever had a White Christmas (call me sentimental), although it messed up our plans and we didn’t get to go see Alesia’s family :(

Anyway, like I said, we spent several days with my grandparents after an icy trip to their house, and then we came back to Stillwater and we’ve seen several good friends in the mean time! And yesterday I got a new tattoo! I got two constellations on my forearms, I’ll have to upload a picture and give a full description of them some other time :)

Also, update on Mr. Minolta: I took him to get fixed but he was dead-dead. The repairman was unable to fix him, so I’m in the market for a new film camera so I can have a camera devoted to black-and-white film. I’m thinking a Nikon FE, or maybe a different rangefinder camera, depending on what I can find. And on a similar note, our good friend Laura’s mom gave us two enlargers and some darkroom accessories! Woot! I cleaned them up today and I have a pretty good idea of their functionality and what I might be able to rig up for them. Of course, I have no intention of actually using them until I leave Stillwater and no longer have a wonderful public darkroom, so in the mean time I have a problem because they are quite space-consuming.

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Alright, and now to something completely different :D

The Big List of 2009

(1) The biggest of events of 2009 were with my Love, Alesia. We got engaged in July and I can’t wait to be married to her. Our life is the best and it keeps getting better :)

(2) We moved into the Hollow, our first rent-house. It’s drafty, musty, moldy, and too small, but it’s our house and I like it.

(3) I learned that I really enjoy cooking!

(4) Film is awesome! The darkroom is awesome!

(5) We finished “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan. It definitely changed the way I thought about eating and the food industry.

ok… I’m done with that. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some stuff, but I can’t really think of anything else. 2009 was great, I hope 2010 is better :D

Avatar

We went to see Avatar tonight. I guess I’ll just start with “wow.”

I had heard a few reviews on NPR for it and I had seen the previews, and I wasn’t really expecting much. The plot seemed corny at best. We were planning on going to watch it at the IMAX theater in Tulsa, but decided against it to save money. So we watched it in 3D here in Stillwater. As I sat there with my silly 3D glasses on, I had no idea what was coming my way. The movie started predictably enough from the previews, but somewhere in the middle I got totally sucked in by the story. Something about the grand beauty of the whole thing really started to get to me. I almost started crying several times.

Maybe it wasn’t the beauty or the great CGI landscapes… maybe it was just the intimacy of the characters, and their relationship with all the things around them. The Na’Vi people were strange at first, but by the end of the movie I was really wishing that I could be one of them. There was such a sadness in the background, and finally toward the end of the movie you learn that Earth has basically been destroyed of life… I guess that’s when I realized that it was regret that I felt, regret and sadness.

I guess it was kind of a “Wall-E” movie in the environmental problem thing (which I’m a sucker for anyway), but it had both a much more distant and more intimate effect on me. The emotions weren’t as close as they were in Wall-E, but they were more raw.

I don’t know… it’s hard to explain, but I thought it was really good.

Also… the 3D thing is ridiculous. Either watch it at an IMAX or just watch it in plain old 2D.

Thinking of Themes

So a couple of my mentors mentioned an art contest that is happening with a research symposium that I’m participating in during February. I would have liked to enter just because I like showing off some of my work (my other side, if you know what I mean), but there’s a few prizes available too, which just upped the ante. Two $2000 buy-the-piece prizes, and a few $500 runner-ups are up for grabs. Woo. Sign me up. Original pieces must be turned in by such and such date, blah blah blah…

So there’s an appropriate theme as well: “Indicative of the Sciences”

Pretty broad, but I’ve been trying to narrow it down and really think about a potential picture that I could take, develop, and print/enlarge. At first I thought I would do a standard biology thing, maybe a trip to the COV to take some skull pictures (which I might still do) or some other biological shot. But I’ve been thinking for a way to go beyond my standard, which really is completely “science” and go to the “indicative” part, which is something I rarely work into my photography. I usually just see a picture that I think would look good, and then take it. This time I want to put more into it, more thought and planning. I guess it’s just because I’m more of a realistic person, I don’t often think in the metaphorical… but that’s what I want to do in this project.

So in light of this, I’ve been giving a lot of thought into what I normally think of as ‘scientific.’ I’m hoping to incorporate those things into my picture. For example, cold colors, strong geometric shapes, parallel/perpendicular lines, and highly organized… I think these will go well in a photo that is meant to be seen as “indicative of the sciences.” What do you think, any suggestions?

Debut

So as I’m sitting here sipping my coffee, I was thinking, “what can I blog about?” What have I been thinking about here lately? Well, I have been thinking about the darkroom class I get to take in two weeks. So, I figured I would give a preview of the pictures I might be printing then! This is just a few of one roll of the two we got developed. I’m so excited, I hope you enjoy them!

Oatmeal!!!

I like oatmeal… well, I didn’t, but now I do. Here’s a fun recipe that I’ve been making for a while now (I even created it!):

Wyatt’s Oatmeal Delight!
1 cup water or milk
1/2 cup multigrain oatmeal
dash of salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2-3 tbsp brown sugar
a few almonds
half a handful of dried cranberries and/or yellow raisins
dash of ground cinnamon
1 tbsp heavy whipping cream (optional, recommended if made with water)

Add the water or milk to a small saucepan, add salt, bring to a simmer (stir frequently if using milk). Add the oatmeal, sugar, and vanilla and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, adding the other ingredients (except cinnamon) in order as you stir occasionally. Once the consistency you like has been reached, serve in a fun colored bowl with the cinnamon on top!

1 Serving

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Lol… I feel so proud of myself for this… really, this is just the instructions on the back of the canister of oatmeal, plus fun add-ins. Yummy anyway :)

Vegetative

That’s how I hope to be in a couple of days: in a vegetative state due to the amount of food consumed. I can’t wait until Thanksgiving. Mostly I’m glad for the brief break in school before the last rush of dead week and finals. So I guess a lot has happened since the last time I blogged… I don’t think I’ll go into all the details, I doubt you care much. However, I will share a few things that have made me happy and some stuff that made me think and I hope I can get some feedback.

So I guess I can start with the happy! The semester’s almost over! That’s pretty dang happy. Another happy: I get to take the “Weekend in the Darkroom” class at the Stillwater Multi-Arts Center. Alesia and I enrolled in the last two spots available, so we bought a few rolls of black and white film and two of them are getting developed right now! We’re going to learn how to make prints in the darkroom, I’m super excited. Hopefully I can learn how to develop my own film too (which I hear is super easy), and then I won’t be dependent on anyone else for black and white film!

And since we’re on the topic of film, I finally got to Pipkin’s Camera today and asked them if they could fix Mr. Minolta. They said they could for $88.50. That’s the cheapest estimate that I’ve gotten so far, and it’s in OKC so I wouldn’t have to pay for shipping (except for the gas in my truck). I’m still not convinced that it’s worth it, except that I really want it to be. What do you think? Should I shell out the money? I really like him and I think he has a lot of good qualities too, but is it worth it? I really should have asked more questions while I was there, but I always get nervous in situations like that and forget all of the things that I wanted to ask. For example, is there a warranty that it’s going to work afterward? Am I getting a general tuneup or just fixing the shutter? I don’t know, I should have asked. It’s hard for me to make a decision on it, especially since I don’t know if I will even enjoy using the camera. I never got a roll of film out of it, so I have no idea what it’s like. But I think he has good potential. I think he would be good to keep b&w film in all the time. I want a Nikon FE too, but I can’t find one of those! Well… you should weigh in and tell me what you think.

In other news, I also didn’t get the OSU nomination for the Goldwater Scholarship. I wasn’t too bummed out about it, but the longer I think about it the worse I feel. A long time ago I had set a goal to get this scholarship, but now my chance is gone. The scholarship is mostly based on GPA and research experience, which should be my two strongest points. But my GPA has slid a lot. I could have made A’s in most of my classes if I would have put in a few extra hours of work. My research has been lack luster, without lofty goals and ambitions for all of science to benefit from. I haven’t even tried to publish the research I’ve done, even though it had interesting results!

It just makes me feel like I’ve been lazy. But I wasn’t very surprised when Dr. Graalman called and told me that the committee didn’t select me to be nominated. That means I knew that I had been lazy. I haven’t worked hard to accomplish something in years. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve EVER worked really hard for something. I’ve always been good enough to get good grades in all of my classes, and now that I’m not, I just let myself get a B or C, just so I don’t have to work any harder. How could I dream of being so successful as a scientist but not work any harder than this? I can study harder, I can get in the lab a few more hours a week, I can read a few more papers, take some more notes, read the book, study for a test more than the night before… I could do those things! But I don’t. I tell myself, “It’s ok, B’s aren’t that bad.” What if I just chose biology because I have a natural tendency to memorize everything in biology with the utmost ease? But I do find biology extremely interesting! I love listening to people talk about they’re research, and I want to be like them. I want to make amazing discoveries, I want to find something new.

Ah. Now we’ve reached the point where I feel like everything crumbles around me. New. Original. Sure, I can memorize all day long, but what have I ever done that is truly original? I can emulate and copy and maybe even expand on other people’s work, but what can I really call mine? Even in my photography, I feel like everything I do and see in the photo is really just a copy of some other photo I saw and admired. I remember having this same feeling when I was in my first history class at OSSM. We were having a group discussion, and Dr. Hamel mentioned that he wanted to know what we thought and why we thought it. Now, I’ve come a long way since then, but I still have trouble with this. Critical thinking and creating. My Holy Grail in essence.

Rant: Clothes

So… In case you haven’t met me, I’m not “average” sized. I’m very skinny. We’re talking 28in. waist. Tiny arms. Thin neck. However, I’m above-average tall. 6.0′. 35in. inseam. Super long arms. And I have fairly broad shoulders. I might be intimidating to look at if I actually stood up strait (more like a spider or some really scary alien).

I LOVE my proportions though, I’m not jealous of “average” sized people at all. Tall is really awesome, and I’m not fat, which is even better. I love my size!

What I don’t love? The fact that I can’t buy awesome clothes. Nothing is made for my size. I know I’m not the only person in the world who is tall and skinny, so where are my clothes! I found jeans, which I’m very grateful. Yes, the Buckle is a ridiculous place to actually shop, but they occasionally have a pair of 28 or 29 X-Long jeans. And Lucky makes Long and X-Long lengths too (Slim Bootleg is the way to go!). So there are my jeans. The Buckle also has some nice khakis (but only go to the ‘Long’ length which is 34in…. a little short so I have to be careful when washing). Other than these places, I have no other options in buying pants, unless I go to Men’s Warehouse or something, where I can get clothes tailored (but I usually don’t like those clothes anyway).

Pants are one thing… but shirts are another. Especially long-sleeve shirts. I can get t-shirts. That’s not that big of a deal (I can deal with the short sleeves being a little too short). But I can hardly find any long-sleeve shirts that fit. And that extends to sweaters, jackets, and other outerwear as well. If it fits around my waist and chest, it’s way too short in the sleeves, and vice versa. So frustrating!

It seems that every clothing company makes all of their clothes by some magical proportion. What if I don’t fit that proportion?! I can’t go to big and tall, because they only have BIG and tall. I need small and tall. Where’s that section of the store?

So I’m stuck with a few clothes that I happened to find that barely actually fit. I wear them until I’m sick of them or they wear out, more often the latter. Then I go through this big long process of finding something that fits and then praying it doesn’t shrink in the wash. I thought it would get better once I stopped growing, but it hasn’t. I guess it could get better if my waist expanded, but I don’t want that to happen… I love being thin!

Anyway… it’s very frustrating, and it makes me sad that I’m so limited in my clothing choices. You all know how it feels to wear clothes that fit you. It’s really awesome! It makes you feel on top of the world! It’s such a confidence booster! I know that may sound lame, but you know it’s true.

Alesia has offered to make me clothes (which I’ve thought about doing myself), but I don’t want to be completely dependent on her. I just wish there was a company that tailored to me, without breaking the bank or looking like a spoon. *hint-hint any big companies out there reading my tiny tiny infinitesimal blog*

We’re Back And Taking Calls

I think Frou Frou’s “Details” album is my favorite ever. Every time I listen to it it takes me by surprise. No matter what mood I’m in, it wraps around me and pushes me along a wonderful ride of musical genius. It took me a while to really understand it, especially with the electropop sounds harsh to my virgin ears (oh but that intro cello to “Let Go” has always been captivating). Now I can’t stop. I’ve been listening to it for well over two years now, and my opinion of it just keeps going up! This is music I can get lost in. And so now… I’m lost.

And since I’m lost, I figured I would take this time to write a little on my blog, especially since it has now been a week since the last time I blogged (sorry everyone!). So much has happened since then, I don’t really know where to begin. I guess one of the biggest things that’s happened is that I learned that I’m essentially broke. Whoops. Not to worry too much though, I’ve got some back up money. I guess a lot of expenses took me by surprise. I’ve also gotten very VERY tired of school since then. I’m so ready for a break and this semester to end. My research doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere (b/c it isn’t), my school-work is just average, and all I want to do is sit around doing art. I want time to create… instead I don’t even have time to take the digital pictures off my camera.

But some really good things have happened since I last blogged too! Saturday was amazing! We went to the Myriad Gardens in OKC, and then afterward we had the great Semi-Annual Autumnal Feast. Ben and Lydia came over to the house and we all had a great time with various fall squash and pumpkin dishes.

Since then I’ve basically been working my tail off, trying to complete my plant collection and study for my Organic Chemistry test tomorrow.

Anyway… I’m off to wake Alesia up from her 30 minute nap, and then back to work for me. Sorry I couldn’t say more!

Listen

Sea Glass and Dead Grass

Wow! Today was fun. After taking my field botany test and arguing (nicely of course) with my philosophy of biology teacher this morning, we went on a photo adventure! Cameron, Alesia, and I decided we needed to get the cameras out and start shooting, so we took a trip to lake Carl Blackwell. Unfortunately, everything was dead and crusty already (boo Oklahoma!). Except for the persimmons, they were still neat looking.

I was pretty bummed out about the trip until we stopped by one of the beaches and found a whole bunch of sea glass… well, I guess technically it’s lake glass, but it’s still cool. In case you don’t know what it is, sea glass is glass from bottles, etc. that has been worn down by sand and water beating against it. We got some really cool pieces, some dark blue, lavender, teal, milky white, green in a few shades, brown, and lots of clear glass that has been ‘frosted’… really neat, I can’t wait to do something with the pieces.

We also went to the Stillwater Multi Arts Center… it’s the municipal arts center. I had heard they had a darkroom so I went to investigate. Indeed they do! And they offer all kinds of classes too! Photography, metal working, ceramics, glassblowing etc etc. They offer a ‘weekend in the darkroom’ class in December where I could learn how to print, dodge, burn, crop from b&w film. After I take that class, I can technically use the darkroom whenever I want, but they have a $10/week fee (but that includes chemicals and all the equipment needed in the darkroom, but not film and paper for prints… fair enough)… I’m sure I could just pay for the weeks I want to use the darkroom, and maybe Cameron, Alesia, and I can split up the cost and go in on different days or something.

Anyway, I hope I can get into that class and maybe we can start taking some of the other classes in the spring. I think we would all like to take the ceramics class. I was really amazed by the selection of classes they had available.

Oh, and this weekend we’re going to OKC to the Myriad Botanical Gardens with OSUBS. Afterward I’m going to take Mr. Minolta to Pipkin’s camera to see if they can fix him… and if so how much it would cost. Oh… and I noticed yesterday that his focus ring has become really stiff too… I don’t know when that happened though :( And we finished two rolls of 120 film this week, so maybe we can take it to get developed too :)

Well… I should be working. so… toodles