Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Summertime (200th post!)

So this happens to be my 200th blog post!  My 100th post was a reflection post as well, so it seems fitting that I do so again....especially since I've been completely silent in blogging over the past couple of months!

Summers in the Bay Area are odd to say in the very least...at least in the Sunset District.  Temperatures have been steadily overcast, foggy and near the low 60s for the entire months of June, July, and now going into August.  Often enough, I find myself reaching for an extra sweater and blanket instead of the typical set of sandals and sunscreen.  So it does seem surprising to me that two months did indeed fly by with a blink of an eye and that we are now heading into late summer/early fall.  Wait!  Late summer?  EARLY FALL?!  I feel robbed!

But that is how the summers are here and I'm slowly adjusting. (Even after the two years that I have lived here already.)  Thankfully, San Francisco usually sees it's warm and sunny "summertime" weather during the late August, September and October months, so I am looking forward to that.

I suppose this post is more of a recap of what elapsed during this cold summertime.  And so much has happened!  With the start of my last semester, I quickly got caught up in the double-paced speed of summer classes.  I learned to write code in HTML and CSS.  (I can make a website!)  You can view proof of that work here.  For my final assignment, I had to make a survival kit of sorts, creating it using only HTML and CSS.  Rough, hack-jobbed, and barely viewable in IE, it's up and working.  I'm proud of it, at least as much as I can be for my very first website.



Along with the web design class, I also took a business for fine artists class.  I cringed when the predictable advice for film slides and slide carrousel came up (Yeek!) but other than that, I feel that I met a lot of great artists outside the realm of photography.  (Many of the other students were painters and sculptors from the fine art department.)

With the two classes I was taking, I also began my second semester teaching three classes at the Art Institute.  I will just be honest and say this:  Lesson plans, curriculum, syllabi might have been finalized an hour or two before the classes typically began each week.  Needless to say, I survived those weeks by the skin of my teeth!  NEVER again.  Ever.  On the plus side, my students seemed very receptive and pleased to find my efforts forthcoming and responsive, even with all the madness encompassing me each week.  I couldn't ask for better students.



And if that couldn't be enough (because honestly, is there ever such thing as enough?) I had presented my final thesis at the end of July.  I am beyond happy and enthralled to say that I passed with soaring marks.  I believe that it was the stress of deadlines and printing that made this task so hard.  If I wasn't doing homework or creating lesson plans, I could only be found doing several things that surrounded one main thing: printing, pre-printing, post-printing, and re-printing.

And now that I have passed, I am proud to say that I have obtained a Masters degree is Fine Arts and I will be having my first solo show this September in San Francisco.  I will make a post specifically to the details, dates and times soon!








Even with everything going on, Thom and I managed to find time for ourselves. Thom learned to brew his own beer and we both began canning.  I'm pretty much hooked now and love the idea of preserving my own food.  Have you seen that skit from Portlandia on pickling?  Yeah that's me in a nutshell these days.  (View video below) I've made jams, dilly beans, and bread & butter pickles.  I got this book out from my local library at the beginning of summer and I'm pretty sure I'll have to buy the book since I keep renewing it.  There are so many wonderful recipes and all fairly successful too. (At least the ones I've tried.)  It does seem that you can can pretty much anything but I'll definitely leave the band-aids, jewel cases, and dead pets out!



1 comment:

  1. haha, I love Portlandia! Congrats on your Masters too!

    ReplyDelete