#i need to do stuff for a scholarship and like 3 different things to prep for graduation/final semester in the fall

[cappurrccino]

i was gonna make a list of things i need to get done today as a like. "hah! maybe if i put it where other people can see what i need to finish i'll be able to hold myself accountable to completing tasks" but um. there's. there's too many things, i think... :(

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

hi rachel!! i’m trying to figure out my schedule for next semester as a creative writing student and i was wondering what CW: fiction and CW: poetry classes are like? would it be a bad idea to take a fiction and a poetry class during the same semester? thank you xx

hello!! :)) for a second I thought your CW meant content warning and not creative writing and I'm now having a needed laugh because RELATABLE so thank you! happy to answer this!

I did fiction & poetry simultaneously my whole degree and I think it's relatively manageable (sort of...). So how my program worked is that in second year, we did a part A class that was an intro to workshopping, so I took that separately for fiction & poetry. Those classes were pretty rudimentary, just typical intro stuff with a small workshop element, and we wrote 3 poems I think. Fiction I wrote 2 stories for. Workshop for fiction was three other people and workshop for poetry was about 10 I think. We weren't critiquing much every week, though, as most of the class was lectured based.

In the second term, we actually had a workshop where for fiction I again wrote 2 stories, and poetry I wrote 4 poems. Workshops were bigger here, so it was about 3-4 critiques for fiction a week and I believe 8 every week for poetry. Fiction critiques killed me in second year, tbh, they'd take me the full weekend of non-stop work, but that's because I didn't understand boundaries lol. So don't do what I did & it shouldn't be as bad! Poetry also would take me hours but not as long, but again, I didn't really know how to critique.

Third year was........ oof. Two workshops a term (so 1 fiction 1 poetry in first sem, then the same thing in second sem). I had to write 2 stories and wrote 5 poems I think in first term and 6 for second term I believe. Four stories a week to critique and had to critique ten poems a week (on top of writing a poem every other week). Getting ahead on the critiques early was SUPER important. Again, I didn't have great boundary skills (which I can give tips for too if anyone's curious, since writing programs can be so self-directed). This was the absolute hardest year.

Fourth year isn't as bad because it's only 1 fiction workshop and 1 poetry workshop (both happen in the same term, but my fiction workshop is half the size than it was in third year--used to be 15). Only had to write 2 fiction stories again (I actually did 3 to hit the word count, but only actually drafted 2, 1 was an old story), but poetry was a bit killer this sem (wrote a poem every week and had to critique 10 poems/week lol, so I wrote 8 poems).

Okay so I know this doesn't look manageable at all, lol, so maybe I should revise my prior statement. Really, if your workshop doesn't do THIS much a term, you'll be okay. Also, I had a very different way of working during my degree because I had a scholarship to keep (so that could adjust things too). It's also very possible to do all of this if you're taking a lighter course load (I was taking 5 classes a term while doing this). If you have a choice, it might be less stressful to not do them together, but this is how my program works!

If you can/are allowed, prep work before! Most of my work was pre-prepped if the prof allowed that.

happy to answer other q's!

[ibuproffie]

snr szn ~ advice for high school seniors

it’s not gonna be perfect, and that’s ok. high school movies tell us that senior year is this amazing time in your life where you have all these formative experiences that shape the course of your destiny or something, but in my experience this is not really the case. my senior year was somehow both excruciatingly slow and very fast, and it had ups and downs just like any other school year. so if your senior year isn’t a wonderful collection of instagrammable moments, don’t worry. everyone else is finding “senior season” a little underwhelming too, even the people who seem to be having the most fun. quite frankly, you shouldn’t want your senior year of high school to be the best year of your life. 

college apps are important, but you don’t have to kill yourself over them. i know, i can say this because i just finished them, but it’s so true. applying to college is a horrible, tedious process that i’m going to attempt to break down in another masterpost. i went to a high school where people were fucking obsessed with getting into college, and it was sort of horrifying to watch people self-destruct over the process. even i (and i consider myself a fairly private, non-competitive, even-keeled person) went a little nuts towards the end. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, there is no reason on god’s green earth to apply to twenty or more schools. it’s expensive (most application fees are 60+ USD), time-consuming, and stressful. the only reason i can even see why you might be doing this is if you qualify for a bunch of application fee waivers, but even then, it’s just stupid. most colleges make you write secondary essays in addition to the common or coalition app essay, and that doesn’t even factor in scholarship applications, interview prep, and keeping up with school on top of everything. the best thing you can do for yourself is pick around ten-ish schools that you’re actually serious about attending and skip the hassle. you will get into at least one college if you apply smart. trust me. the people i know who went ham with applications were miserable all the time (even the smartest ones) and most of them didn’t even get into their top choice schools. when you’re churning out 3+ essays every month, it follows that they’re not all gonna be winners. additionally, know that life will go on even if you don’t get into harvard. relax. you have an entire life ahead of you. even if it doesn’t work out exactly how you planned, good things take time, ya feel? 

you’re still valid even if you don’t participate in every “senior activity” possible. “but it’s your last pep rally!!” “you HAVE to go to prom!!” “let’s go to every football game this season!!”  no. just no. you’re really not gonna remember a lot of this stuff. if large crowds of ppl aren’t your thing, if you’re stressed or tired, if you don’t have the money (a lot of these “senior only” activities are EXPENSIVE expensive or at least they were at my school), or if you just have no interest in homecoming or whatever, IT’S FINE. you don’t have to justify this stuff to other people. i let ppl guilt trip me into doing a bunch of shit for our “last high school memories” or whatever and uhhh i didn’t always have a good time. for one thing, i’ve never had a shit ton of school spirit or whatever and two, being around crowds of ppl is pretty draining for me. the only “senior activity” i actually enjoyed was prom, but i knew ppl who skipped out on that and ya know what? i think they were ok. i never bought a yearbook. it’s fine. you should shape your senior year around what’s mentally/financially safe for you + and what you’re actually interested in, not what people expect you to do.

you don’t really have to do extracurricular activities this year, so don’t do anything you’re not truly passionate about. i stopped doing a lot of stuff like model un and science olympiad this year because i just wasn’t interested in them anymore. and i don’t regret it. to be blunt, you already have the lines on your resume filled by those activities if you’ve done them for a long time. so if you’re not feelin’ it, don’t waste your time. just do the things you wanna do. i did a lot of theater stuff last year and had a great time. it was super rewarding and i had a pretty good time with my castmates, and i was glad i had done that instead of more “academic” activities like scioly. 

it’s ok to be unsure about your plans for the future. for some reason, this is the year, every adult in your life is gonna be like, “wHaT’s Ur MaJoR???” and “wHaT jOb Do YoU wAnNa HaVe wHeN u GrOw uP??” as a result, you can start to feel a lot of pressure around having an answer prepared, and if you are on the fence about what you wanna do with your life, you can feel like other ppl have their shit together a lot more and that you’re aimless and stupid. trust me, you’re not, though. i personally think it’s unfair that we expect 18 y/os, who in many ways are still kids, to have their whole life planned out. a lot is still liable to change even after high school, and I think you’ll be remiss if you don’t allow your dreams and ambitions to change with it. if you’re truly unsure about your plans but you know you’re going to college, i’d recommend making sure none of the places you’re applying to are going to lock you down in a major when you set foot on campus. i have friends who are going to large universities who have already basically declared a major, which to me seems like an odd system. if 4-yr college isn’t in the cards for you for whatever reason, try taking a year off, getting a job, or community college. a lot of ppl i know look down on ccs, but to my knowledge, community college can be a great start to figuring out what you wanna do with your life. you have time. don’t rush it.

getting sick of your school friends is normal. it sounds mean, but in my experience, it’s true. i mean you’ve gone to school with these people for 4 or more years now, and you’ve changed a lot. and that doesn’t mean you don’t like them and wish them well, but there can be days where you’re like “omg pls stop talking to me rn!!” especially in that lull after application season. don’t be mean to anyone ofc, but realize that feeling exasperated with your peers is just part of the process, and you’re not a bad person for wanting a little bit of space. in my experience, unless the issue is w regards to toxicity or people being generally shitty, ppl will be able to connect w each other much more normally after school is over. 

you will get senioritis to some degree, but you have to push through it. it must be great to be one of those people who literally never stops working. but for the vast majority of us, some kind of senioritis will slap us in the ass after applications are done. you will have no motivation to do coursework but! remember that coursework needs to be completed! to be completely honest, once you’ve been accepted to college, you really only need to maintain a C average to not get rescinded, and i knew plenty of people who screwed around more than i did and they didn’t get their admission rescinded. but like, you don’t want to be one of those people who somehow fails a class because you don’t “feel like” doing the homework. you need to graduate, you need to hold onto your scholarship, and you need to maintain your accepted status. quite honestly, you need to kick ur own ass and make yourself work, whether that’s by turning down invites to hang out, or putting your phone in a different room. also, don’t be that person who’s playing iphone games in every class. your teachers will think you’re an asshole, and that’s really not the move. 

you don’t have to take everyone’s advice. this is the year everyone wants to be an expert on adulting, whether that’s your peers or parents’ colleagues or school counselors. in the end, your are the only one who can decide what’s right for you based on your financial situation and what you are comfortable with. i’m not saying “don’t take anyone’s advice”, because i truly believe there are some people out there who have the means to help you succeed. but i think you should pick and choose because you’re about to be fed a deluge of information that may or may not be useful or relevant to what you want to do. for example, people told me that i was limiting myself by not applying to any ivy league schools or very many competitive universities, or that i should lie about my race on my application (!!) because of the bias against ppl of asian descent in college admissions (note: i actually wrote about my heritage in my common app essay so it wasn’t like it was some secret lmao), which were uhhh not helpful. do what feels right and don’t feel the need to humor ppl who don’t have your best interests at heart. 

don’t compare yourself with other ppl. it’s natural to be a little jealous of peers who snag acceptances to prestigious colleges on full-tuition scholarships or land dream jobs/gap-year programs right out of high school. it’s a bit of an ugly feeling, but i’m not gonna sit here and say i didn’t wish i was one of those people at a point. that’s disingenuous in the extreme. it’s ok to be disappointed if everything doesn’t all work out, but at a certain point you need to accept what’s happening to you and make the very damn best of it. wallowing in self-pity just because your classmates are succeeding is just stupid. also, recognize that everyone’s ability to achieve their post-hs goals is wildly different based on their own circumstances. if you are less financially able to pay for college, for example, your opportunities are more limited than someone with a six-figure college fund. it’s quite frankly naive to assume that everyone shares your experience. be happy for people who do well. be happy for people who are proud of themselves. don’t try to take other people down because you’re feeling bitter. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again-other people’s success is not your failure. 

take time to do some much needed self care. senior year can be hectic, and it’s important to disengage from stressful situations. take a walk. watch a movie with your friends. take a long shower. don’t think you have to be “productive” all the time. you won’t be, and that’s ok. 

[sketchesofsam]

The Illustration Master Class - A First Timer's Journal

This is a long blog post. It's mostly for my own purposes, but also for those who want an in-depth look at what being at the IMC is like. I have some pointers for first timers, things you might not think of and things to consider in advance. They'll be at the end of the article. I want to thank Dave Palumbo for allowing me to use a couple of his amazing photos too, he's a talented SOB. 

probably won't forget the moment my Facebook messages suddenly started pinging off. 'Congrats Sam!' 'Hey Sam, you won!' I distinctly remember thinking, hmm, what did I win? Did I enter another twitter giveaway or something? Then someone followed up with 'you won the scholarship!' It took me a moment. Then the chat I was in the middle of with my other half suddenly filled with lots of expletives and capitals on my end. Holy shit. I'd won the Muddy Colors scholarship to the IMC, something that had been a long-term wish of mine since I'd found out about it 5 or 6 years prior but hadn't ever had the funds to attend. So to find out that my entry to their scholarship program - through the generous donations of the Muddy Colors Patreon - submitted on a 'what have I got to lose' mentality that was still shadowed by the fuzzy sting of not getting into Spectrum, had scored me the full cost of the course. I'd honestly forgotten I'd applied. Let that be a lesson to those of you who hold back on submitting to things, especially the things that are free. It's always worth a punt. 

So what's it like to go to the IMC? I can tell you that winning the scholarship made the pre-IMC thumbnail assignment a lot more stressful than if I'd paid for it. The weight of imagining disappointing the people who had seen my work and voted for it - artistic heroes of mine -  was pretty heavy. It made me feel like I couldn't just go and do the same thing I'd always done, even if it had won me the scholarship. Before I started drawing, I reconsidered my influences. I'd started a secret pinterest board a few months back simply called 'Ho Fuck That's Good.' Stuff that gave me a gut punch when I looked at it. I spent a lot of time looking at those images and a lot of the others I had pinned. I stopped paying attention to work that I simply found technically impressive, that had awesome composition or great values. I looked for what moved me. Why it moved me. I started making notes about themes I found compelling or that cropped up a lot in my own work. I decided I wasn't going to do just a straight up realistic narrative Whaler Girl piece, I was going to try and make my own work be more like that which moved me. A risky, and perhaps somewhat dumb move, given those same realistic, narrative images had won me the scholarship. 

We were asked to provide 4 or 5 thumbnails, either of our own choosing, or from an assignment provided, such as an illustration to accompany a short story, the likes of which are often published on Tor.com. With themes like duality, death, grief and love in relationships crowding my brain, I created a lot of thumbnails. I wasn't going to take the first 3 or 4 that came out. I did about 20 in total and narrowed it down to the 6 I felt most attached to. Some of them even had hints back to The Whaler Girl in a very asbtract way. They'd come out better than I'd hoped for and I could see a tiny glimpse of the sort of painting I might get out of it. It made me excited to put them in front of my chosen faculty member. 

We were asked to pick a top 5 from the vertiable smorgasbord of faculty. That was hard. It turned out that most people got grouped with their top pick and that dictated who the other faculty were that would give you feedback. I suspect my pick would have surprised a few people. Kent Williams was actually the instructor I was least familiar with, but researching his work, especially his most recent work, it hit the same kind of buttons that my inspiration board had. His work felt emotionally personal and while I knew I didn't want to necessarily paint like he did, I felt he might be able to give good feedback on how to tap into that sense of the personal. Perhaps someone who could help keep me on track with the first wibbly steps I was taking with my own work. I count myself lucky to have landed in the group with Rebecca, Kent and Tara (McPherson). 

I wanted to make a good first impression, but there were so many approaches to the dreaded 'crit day'. Some folks brought only one or two finished colour thumbs, some folks just had small, traditionally drawn thumbnails, occasionally done on arrival the night before. Some brought photo mockups of the exact piece they wanted to work on. All approaches got good feedback. I'd been forewarned that crit day could be rough, but I think the Studio 201 guys were pretty chill. I did peek my head in on the other two rooms briefly. Donato, Greg Ruth and Scott Fischer were all highly animated and I've been told often argued with each other's feedback. Dan Dos Santos, Irene Gallo and Greg Manchess were part of the group that, from chatting to folks, seemed to get the most direct feedback.

I was a little surprised when there was no tracing paper used during my crit. All three faculty members responded favourably to what had been my favourite thumbnail, despite its weirdness. No direct suggestions other than resolving the shapes in my minimal, non-figurative space (that minor bit of feedback would come to haunt me by The Thursday of DOOM, but I'll get to that later). Inspirations like Inka Essenhigh, Hope Gangloff and Dorothea Tanning were thrown my way, I loved all three for very different reasons. It was safe to say inspiration was running high and I had a tonne of positive energy to run with. 

I felt like I was well prepped going into the IMC, but I wasn't. Choosing to go full traditional when having to fly internationally was a pain. I didn't have a lot of the stuff I needed and had to rely on the infinite kindness of my fellow students and faculty to see me through. Stephen, Annie, Chris, Julia, you were all lovely, I can't thank you enough. 

My Tuesday started with James Gurney sat at my breakfast table. That was surreal but awesome. He and his wife Jeanette are as lovely two people as you could hope to meet, full of insight and always taking notes. The previous day's lecture on photo reference was flowing through my mind and I dreaded having to ask fellow students. My figures were both nudes and that wasn't something I was comfortable with, though I thought perhaps I could take individual legs and arms and use a little online ref to fill in the rest. I wish I'd drummed up the courage to ask my fellow students, but that particular social step eluded me the whole week. I spent the day instead with many sheets of tracing paper, figuring out What marks were what. I had discussions with Greg Ruth and Donato Giancola about how to find those shapes and make them fit in my piece. You have to figure out who to listen to, and whose advice to stash for a later date. You get bombarded with advice if you go in as open-minded as I did. I'd thrown myself into a pool I should have been paddling in first, pretty much at the very public deep end. I'll admit I found ways to put off getting to painting, as it was only the 2nd oil painting I'd done in the last 20 years and the company I had in the room was stellar and a little overwhelming. Eventually, I chose to redraw via a grid so I could edit as I went along and I used some reference I shot of my own limbs to help flesh the drawing out. I left Tuesday feeling reasonably positive about the work.

Wednesday was a full day with faculty feedback, up to the first 5 pm lecture. Dan Dos Santos, who is perfectly lovely, but also very honest with feedback, stopped by my easel. Overall, very complimentary, he pulled me on a bit of weird anatomy, that after using a lot more photo ref with the rest of the piece, had begun to stand out. He suggested I grab Rebecca after our discussion. I'd responded best to her feedback, as she seemed to understand what I was trying to do, so I grabbed her after lunch. She immediately told me the leg and anatomy I'd had in the thumbnail had been working, and that if I liked the weirdness (which I did) to go weird with the rest of the piece to make the leg fit. Literally the opposite of Dan's feedback. Feedback is such a personal thing, every instructor has their own view of art and own journey. I'd probably tried to take a little bit of everyone who'd stopped by and given feedback and every little bit had nudged me slightly off the course I'd intended to take. Dan's feedback was spot on, if I'd been after something with a solid grounding in realism, but I wasn't. I was after an emotional feeling rather than muscles that looked like they fit where they were supposed to go. Rebecca suggested I just print the thumbnail out, mount it to masonite and paint on that. But resolve my shapes first. 

That led me to ask Tara for advice and after some back and forth, I thought I knew where I was going, and decided rather than be tied to the values I'd got in the thumbnail to start with, I'd trace down the printed thumbnail and resolve my shapes. All went well, I got the drawing on the board, and aware of the ever-ticking clock and my ability to get feedback on my painting process, I was keen to get started the following day.

I nick-named Thursday 'Thursday of DOOOOOOOM' in my sketchbook notes. With that many 'O's'. It started well, with my sketch on my illustration board, I figured I'd use acrylic underpainting to speed up the process, then seal with matte medium and start on top in oils. I'd brought a lovely lime green and violet with me, my underpainting was done in warm purple-reds as a counterpoint, and I was winging it. It felt good. I stepped away for a bit before lunch and came back after to the horror of a C-shaped warped board. A brand I'd not used before, I hadn't been heavy with it at all. I threw some matte medium on the back in the hopes it would pull itself out of the curve, but it only stiffened. I think panic set in at this point, I knew there was no point in doing more on the board, but I'd been stubborn over mounting the printouts I'd done. Old dog, new tricks and all that.

Distraught, I knew I had no choice. I slunk off to the back of the studio and tried not to blub my eyes out as I tried a totally new method of mounting with less than perfect tools. Flustered, my hair constantly got stuck in the medium, making me even more panicked that the whole thing would be a disaster and that I'd missed the last supply run and would have to face the very public shame of asking someone for actual help. If there's one thing I hate, it's not being self-sufficient. My fellow students would have happily helped out, but shame is a pretty powerful emotion, it tends to rule what you do. I prayed the mounted paper wouldn't need a 2nd sheet mounting on the back to counter the drawing mounted on the front. At best, in the blazing sun, this stuff would take a couple of hours to dry to the point I could paint on it. The wind did its best to prevent me from stacking the board outside and in my hours of deepest bleakness, I figured that maybe if it blew over into the dirt and insects, I'd say fuck it and make them part of the fucking thing too. It was also at this point I realised the printouts had cropped the two thumbnails I'd chosen to work with, altering their composition drastically. My own dumb fault for not setting the page size up properly in the printer. One more shame I'd suck up and live with. I wish I'd asked for help. I think knowing the pieces weren't what I'd initially intended broke my ability to give them my full attention and killed my mojo for the next couple of days. My anxiety rats, as Rebecca delightfully referred to them, were in full swing. 

While I waited for it to dry, I headed back into the studio and mentioned to Rebecca I'd given in with the curved board and mounted the thumbnail and would she have a look over what I'd chosen to do with the background. Rebecca is gracious and lovely and patiently listens to me explain what I've done. Then she points to some of the graphic elements I'd put in and gently says that they still feel too literal and forced, that the motifs I choose should be something I relate to closely and that it doesn't quite live up to the right hand, figurative side of the painting. I suggest a couple of other ideas, feeling a scrabbling panic bulding in me, only to hear her tell me everything still feels too literal. My logic brain knows she's right, but after a distraught morning, I'm clasping at any straw I have to salvage the situation. I don't know if it showed, and she saw that I was struggling with it or if it was just honest feedback for the moment, but at that point, she looked at me and said 'maybe this piece is a step too far for you right now, maybe you should do the other piece, if that's something that's more comfortable for you.' I think I agreed with her, nodded and extolled the virtues of taking a step back into my comfort zone, getting a painting I knew how to do done was a good thing, yes? But damn if that wasn't a kick to the gut at that very moment. 

She was absolutely right, though. I'd throw myself into a deep pool, with people who were olympic athletes at diving its depths, and in the course of a week expected to be able to at least dive a good distance with them. I'd been able to get my head underwater with my well-planned thumbnails, but in this overwhelming, information packed, inspiring, public test of artistic mettle, I'd punched above my depth, so to speak. Trying to shift gears artistically when you have your own space and the time to find your journey is one thing, I don't know if it can be done in a week, no matter how much amazing input you get from your artistic heroes. Chris, Erin, Annie, I'm sorry if my energy those next 48 hours was a bummer, it wasn't a place I was familiar with being. 

Kent Williams came to the rescue of my very bruised ego that evening with a talk about his personal journey through art. Indirectly, seeing the bredth and depth of his work over such a long time span, I confess to feeling a little idiotic that I'd expected to be able to make that leap in a week. Every faculty member who gave a talk like that had shown me that their journeys were long, and often fraught with failed ventures or periods of doing artistic things they didn't want to. I left the lecture with my tail between my legs, but a renewed sense that I would do my best with the hand I'd given myself. I did a couple of colour studies that evening, traditionally, inspired by seeing James Gurney's master studies in his lecture. I loved doing them, and wish I'd had more time to do more. But I found a piece online that had a palette I liked and did a couple of explorations of a similar theme. I finally, finally, 4 days into the escapade, managed to put down some oil paint. 

Friday and Saturday I painted as much as I could, but tentatively, I was making marks I'd never made before. I listened to the feedback being given around me and let anyone who wanted to stop and give me feedback, do so. I'm not sure I actively asked for it. I struggled as the ladies around me with their amazinly characterful pieces drew the attention of everyone who went past. I wondered if I was so far off the mark and weird that no one knew what to say about my piece. Maybe it was so bland that they couldn't praise or crit it. In retrospect, I recognise that my mood and lack of decent sleep was tinting my mood heavily, and I suspect I was giving off the same vibe, which is enough to make folks give you a bit of a wide berth. 

The theme of finding your niche and doing what you love came up in more than one lecture over those days. I went to bed at 2 am both nights, in an attempt to get as much done as I could. I socialised a little more, realising that was as much a part of the experience as the painting. If not more. I'm hugely thankful for the bonds I forged during that week, something I couldn't have done at home, no matter how much I painted. Those bonds were worth much more to me than the painting I half finished. I think I came to accept that what I wanted to do was going to be a journey that needed a little longer than a week to take. I wish there had been more 'round table' lectures with all the faculty, seeing them interact together on the business lecture was amazing. 

Sunday was chill. I'd had the intention of painting more, but clearing up took a while, and I felt good being relaxed. So I socialised more instead. Our final lecture with Donato was the perfect note to end the experience on and the open house was a chance to take in everyone's work, the standard of which was amazing. After a super tasty mexican dinner and strawberry margherita, the bar beckoned. After drawing I don't know how much hentai in people's sketchbooks and getting a badass Bill Nighy sketch from the awesome Bud Cook in my own sketchbook, alongside the weirdest pseudonyms and animal drawings ever, I crashed and burned as being under the influence after a week of mental stress and lack of sleep took its toll on me. Conan, thank you for making sure I got back safely that night, I really appreciate it, I suspect I'd have passed out in a dark corner of the bar otherwise. Sad I missed out on the late night partying that ensued, but damn, did I need that night's sleep. 

So there's one woman's view of what it's like to go to the IMC, to throw yourself at the mercy of the faculty and your own desires. To fail and not deal with it well, to realise that the painting was never the important thing. IMC was amazing. I can only hope this gives those of you who haven't been a teensy insight. I'm not going to cover what the lectures were or what faculty shared with us, that's a very specific IMC experience, that you really have to go to appreciate. I will say I am hugely thankful to Dan, Rebecca and all of those on Muddy Colors who made that experience real for me. It has enriched me in ways I suspect I'll only realise as my journey continues. Thank you to everyone who gave me kind words and praise and to those who tried to guide me on my way. If ever the opportunity arises for you to attend, I would say grab it with both hands and run with it. Even if your experience doesn't run as profound as mine, and it simply lets you have some time to paint whatever the hell you want, being in a huge room full of people going through the same thing is well worth the price, not to mention watching faculty paint in real time is invaluable. 

So, what if you've taken that leap, some months from now and you're going to the IMC? Here's a few pointers from someone who thought they were prepared and was woefully not. 

1 -  THE DORMS Are basic AF. I was somewhat prepared, but when the FAQ says the beds are firm, they mean it. Think springs wrapped in a bit of plastic tarp. The sheets are functional, but the blanket looked like someone had put used dog bedding through a shredder and mushed it out into a rectangle. I bought a spare blanket at the CVS store, cause no way was that thing touching my skin. I may be a little sensitive though. I affectionately referred to the whole set up as my prison bed, cause honestly, that's all I could think of. If you can bring your own bedding, I'd recommend it.

The dorm bathrooms are gender neutral, which means anyone can use them. I was fine with it, but it's odd the first time you wander into the bathroom and find the opposite sex brushing their teeth. I never had any problems taking a shower, though, they were pretty quiet. 

Morris Pratt Dorm was definitely the more social, I was very thankful to be on the 3rd floor, as a light sleeper, the partying into the wee hours would have kept me awake had I been on the lower floors. The box fans helped with white noise, but the doors are all pretty heavy, so unless folks are very delicate with how they close them, expect some noise. I found the box fan enough without the AC, even when it got pretty warm on the last couple of days. 

2 - FOOD. Having never been to a large educational establishment in the US, I wasn't sure what to expect with the food. Would I have to venture into Amherst to find healthy stuff, would there be much choice? The food was surprisingly decent. It's still a large facility, so it's never going to be amazing restaurant quality, but there were a few choices every day and a well-stocked salad bar. They even had a soft serve ice cream machine, that I managed to avoid until Sunday. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I had it on good authority that the coffee in the dining hall wasn't great. It might be an idea to bring a drinks container with you, as mealtimes are the only time you can get drinks on campus, outside of water fountains. Amherst is only a 10-minute walk down the road, though. 

3 - ART SUPPLIES AND STUDIO SAFETY. I brought paints, brushes and surfaces with me, with the knowledge I'd ordered a couple extra things for while I was there and that there was a supply run. If you work on specific surfaces, it's best to bring those with, Michael's wasn't super well stocked, and more speciality things like large clayboard weren't available. A lot of people bring extras and are happy to share, thankfully. I would have brought more old rags or kitchen towels and some tape. People often used walls to tape up thumbnails or other pieces of art.

The university runs a very strict number of safety policies surrounding paints, water and mediums. Bring some lidded jars with you for mediums and water. Everything has to be labelled clearly and remained closed when not in use. Even water used for rinsing acrylic and watercolours. All have to be disposed of carefully too. Same with anything you wipe paint or mediums on, so using something a bit more disposable like kitchen towel might do you better. They ask you to cover your oil paints when not in use, though that can be with a simple piece of palette paper. 

If you choose an easel, if you have space for a little extra table, you'll likely make good use of it. The chairs they supply are also very basic and not comfortable for long periods, so bringing a cushion is definitely a good idea.  Oh, and they say the studio opens at 8 am on Monday but I got there at 8 am and a lot of the spaces had already been taken, so if you want prime real estate, get there early! 

4 - SELF PROMOTION This sounds like a no-brainer. I brought business cards for the faculty and my portfolio review with Irene Gallo. I thought I'd sorted my work out reasonably well, but actually, my website would have been a better place to show off my work. I also wish I'd brought a physical portfolio to leave out for students and faculty to flick through, perhaps an example of finished work that was either nicely printed if I was doing digital, or one of my traditional pieces. The latter is tricky when flying. My business cards were on the pricey side so I wish I'd had some decent postcards or stickers, printed for the open studio, where folks were picking stuff up. You never know who's going to pick one up! The internet can be spotty in the building, so unless you have some 4G going on, it can be tricky to show off folios digitally. 

You might also be lucky enough to score a second portfolio review if the guests have enough time, I am so glad I could put my work in front of WotC's Jeremy Jarvis. It cheered my Saturday up no end! Make sure you check the lists when they go up and bag your second spot early. And don't puss out. 

5 - DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP I'm stubborn and British, so asking for help is the worst, but everyone there will gladly help you out if they can. Especially the assistant team, Daneen, Julia and Stephen and the 'honored easels' who've been in your situation. Take advantage of them, they are all lovely people.

And that sums it up! An amazing, tiring, exhausting, mentally demanding, inspiring, overwhelming experience that I wouldn't change for the world. I hope to repeat it in the next year or two. I count myself lucky to be part of the alumni and perhaps if you're reading this, I might see you there too. 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF PERSON

So don't be demoralized by how hard it is to believe now, the big money then was in banner ads. Companies ensure quality through rules to prevent employees from screwing up.1 Too much money seems to be a bunch of guesses, and guesses about stuff that's probably not your area of expertise. Sometimes inexperienced founders mistakenly conclude that manipulating these forces is the essence of fundraising. But that's not how any of the specific heresies it sought to suppress.2 For example, at the high water mark of political correctness, because it enabled one to attack the phenomenon as a whole without being accused of whatever heresy is contained in the book or film that someone is trying to censor. Time after time VCs invest in startups founded by eminent professors. So don't even try to bluff them.3 Since we all agree, kids see few cracks in the view of the world.4 At every point in history, our moral map almost certainly contains a few mistakes. There are two things you have to worry about.

But boy did things seem different. I was doing: sketching.5 The first time I visited Google, they had about 500 people, the same term was used for both products and information: there were distribution channels, and TV and radio channels. We tend to regard all judgements of us as the first type. That's ultimately what drives us to work on something interesting with people I like.6 The view of history we got in elementary school. The average startup probably doesn't have much to show for itself after ten weeks.7 Relentlessness wins because, in the sense that it sorted in order of how much money should they take and what kind of software that makes money and the kind that's interesting to write, and Microsoft's first product was one, in fact, but no one will work on a harder problem unless it is proportionately or at least log n more rewarding. The ideas that come to mind first will be driven by ambition: self-consciously cool person wanted to differentiate himself from preceding fashions e. Not likely. This applies to dating too. When there's something we can't say that are true.8

Related fields are where you go to college. It's a lot harder to create something people love and figure out how to connect some company's legacy database to their Web server. It's true they have a lot of people think they're too young to start a company to do something they don't want to take responsibility for telling 22 year olds to become mothers.9 But they work as if they had.10 And since success in a startup depends so much on motivation, the paradoxical result is that scientists tend to make their offices less sterile than the usual cube farm. So how can I claim business has to learn it? Then if things work out you can be pleasantly surprised. There is a threshold you cross. Usually their motives are mixed.11

So your site has to say Wait! I like. The best was that the three-month batch format, which we were forced into by the constraints of the summer, turned out to be 13: Pick good cofounders.12 The list of what you can't ask in job interviews is now so long that for convenience I assume it's infinite. When I left high school I was, I thought, a complete skeptic.13 The problem with the facetime model is not just that hackers understand technology better, but that you can stop judging them and yourself by superficial measures, but that they're driven by more powerful motivations.14 Last year one founder spent the whole first half of his talk on a fascinating analysis of the limits of the conventional desktop metaphor.15 Disasters are normal in a startup: a founder quits, you discover a patent that covers what you're doing, and b any business model you have at this point is probably wrong anyway. Backing off can likewise prevent ambition from stalling.16 Not intelligence—determination. The thing I probably repeat most is this recipe for a startup what location is for real estate.17 Sometimes judging you correctly is the end goal.

I found to my surprise that I was interested in AI a hot topic then, he told me I should major in math. Like open source hackers, bloggers compete with people working for you have to worry about novelty as professors do or profitability as businesses do. When I say business doesn't know this, I mean the structure of business doesn't reflect it. You learn to paint mostly by doing it, and gradually beat it into shape. I repeat is to give people everything you've got, right away. Subtract one from the other, and the most common reason they give is to protect them.18 Why didn't anyone think of that. A suburban street was just the right size.

Another way to be good. And Hewlett-Packard. In fact most aren't. Was it because the founders were bad at presenting, or because they're a way to work faster.19 The biggest fear of investors looking at early stage startups is that there is even something of a fashion for it in some places. I suspect the only taboos that are more than taboos are the ones likely to succeed in a startup.20 You don't need to. But more people could do it than do it now. There are worse things than seeming irresponsible. 2 2 is 5, or that we'd meet them again.21

So they invested in new Internet startups. Except our choices are immediately and visibly tested. We have some evidence to support this. So for all practical purposes, there is nothing so wrong as the principles of the most valuable things you could do in college. And since most of what big companies do is boring, you're going to stick around no matter what, they'll be more likely to get money. The median visitor will arrive with their finger poised on the Back button.22 The cubicles were full of programmers writing code, product managers thinking about feature lists and ship dates, support people yes, there were actually support people telling users to restart their browsers, and so on.

Notes

Well, of course, that alone could in principle 100,000 computers attached to the yogurt place, we found they used FreeBSD and stored their data in files. Or more precisely, investors treat them differently.

But the most recent version of everything was called the option pool as well, since human vision is the desire to do good work and thereby subconsciously seeing wealth as something you can control. I preferred to call them whitelists because it is. In either case the money is in the field.

It would be to say because most of his first acts as president, and instead focus on the other sense of not starving then you should be asking will you build this? I mean by evolution.

Unless we mass produce social customs. You should always get a sudden drop-off in scholarship just as on a scale that Google does. But the most abstract ideas, they tend to be low.

He couldn't even afford a monitor.

Thanks to Daniel Sobral for pointing this out.

A scientist isn't committed to is following the evidence wherever it leads. I learned from this that most people will give you money for other people think, but since it was 94% 33 of 35 companies that got bootstrapped with consulting. Mehran Sahami, Susan Dumais, David Heckerman and Eric Horvitz. Most new businesses are service businesses and except in rare cases those don't involve a lot on how much they liked the iPhone SDK.

For more on not screwing up. They have no idea what most people realize, because what they're really saying is they want it. One-click ordering, however, you can talk about the qualities of these people.

They may not be far less demand for unskilled workers, and there are certain qualities that some groups in America consider acting white. One sign of the things you like a headset or router. He made a lot of detail. People were more the aggregate are overpaid.

Obviously, if an employer.

And the expertise and connections the founders want to take board seats by switching to what you call the years after Lisp 1.

Some founders deliberately schedule a handful of lame investors first, and no one who's had the discipline to pull it off. Or a phone that is exactly my point. There's not much to say that was killed partly by its overdone launch. Cook another 2 or 3 minutes, then their incentives aren't aligned with some equivocation implying that you're small and then just enjoy yourself for the spot, so the best approach is to say that a company tuned to exploit it.

Advertisers pay less for ads in free publications, because any invention has a spam probabilty of. Put in chopped garlic, pepper, cumin, and Smartleaf co-founder before making any predictions about the origins of the products I grew up with an online service, and one didn't try to make money from writing, he found himself concealing from his predecessors was a good product. What you learn in college. It did.

This is, it would take Abelson and Sussman's quote a number here only to the option of deferring to a can of soup. Related: Reprinted in Gray, Donald J. I quote a step further. Vision research may be a distraction.

The air traffic control system works because planes would crash otherwise. If you want to trick admissions officers. The reason is that it had no natural immunity to messianic figures, just as it's easier to get the money is in itself deserving.

I'm not saying that's all prep schools improve kids' admissions prospects.

This wipes out the same intellectual component as being a tax haven, I use. People tell the craziest lies about me. If big companies to build consumer electronics.

They won't like you raising other money and wealth. Then when we created pets. A rounds from top VC funds whether it was actually a computer. VCs.

And yet when they talked about before, and since you can ignore. Whereas when the audience already has to be free to work like blacklists, for example. In fact, for the more effort you expend as much time it was wiser for them.

There are two very different types of studies, studies of returns from startup investing, but there are signs now that VCs play such games, but unfortunately not true!

Some of the rest of the War on Drugs.

Robert Morris wrote the ordering system, written in 6502 machine language. The first assumption is widespread in text classification. To be fair, the transistor it is probably part of wisdom.

[kiritheyoungblue]

Nothing like staying up past 3 am dealing with day-long mental breakdown over finances.

The entire thing was triggered by me going to campus and forgetting to prep lunch.  Which meant that by lunchtime, I was hungry, and then didn’t want to spend money getting lunch... but I wouldn’t get home until like 6 pm, and I had rehearsal to deal with in the meantime.

Cue me looking at my finances, realizing that because my job isn’t super stable, I might not make enough to pay rent once I move, knowing that I can’t add more hours because that’s the maximum I can handle without going insane, then looking up other ways to make income somehow with what resources I have available, also cue severe bitterness at my family, finally give in and get a cheap lunch... (all before rehearsal!)

This whole situation has made me extremely angry and bitter.  Long story short, my parents basically made some very, very bad financial decisions, which they refused to tell any of us about until my sister managed to tease it out of my dad, and the consequences of this are screwing up my life. 

It’s entirely out of my control, my parents put me in this situation, and the only thing I can do is find a cheaper place to live (in a city where average rent for a studio is around $1300) and basically live in poverty.

I’m trying to figure out how to live on $50 a month for food (boyfriend says aim for $100).  I’m already planning to sell a bunch of my stuff.  I’ve already considered giving up my dog to friends for the next two years as a last resort (got some very vehement ‘NO’s from my parents when I told them this).  I’m probably dropping my FFXIV sub.  I’m not happy about any of this.

I know I’ll need roommates; unfortunately, I have a mild PTSD thing from growing up that makes me get insanely anxious around roommates if I didn’t previously know them, and I’m always scared of someone bursting in through the door in a furious rage.  (I know it’s illogical, but it’s one of those PTSD things that I don’t think is ever going to go away at this point).  This is honestly the whole reason why I try to live alone, which I know is a luxury.  But I’m not going to have a choice, even though my mental health is going to be severely affected.

And that’s where I’m getting worried too - I am horrible at separating my emotional state from work or music.  Hell, I’m probably not sleeping at this point.  I know my mental health will suffer, knowing that I can’t afford attendance at any music festivals or major competitions, knowing that my family doesn’t support my leap towards music, knowing that there are so many opportunities and activities that I really enjoy that I have to drop because I won’t have time (because I’m working) or because I can’t afford them... music is going to suffer.  This is going to be a very rough year. 

I can’t ask my parents for help because I don’t trust them anymore.  I certainly can’t ask my sister (the one who makes six figures) because her answer will be “You’re an adult, deal with it”.  Yes, I’m an adult.  It means I’m in a different stage of life than all the undergrads I’m surrounded by.  I can’t spend all day and night on campus because all my tools are at home, my PC is at home, and my dog, whom I take care of, is at home.  It also means that I’m getting jack shit in financial support for school from my family; I’m going off my own savings and any scholarships/loans I have. 

And I am pissed.  My parents basically used me for a financial deal (that didn’t work out), in exchange for paying for my housing while I was in school (which they’re dropping).  They also felt a need to ensure that I wasn’t in a cozy 100 sqft place; I had to be in a proper apartment, so they moved me.  Now they’re in debt due to the myriad of bad financial decisions the last couple years, my sister is partially blaming me, and I’m sorry, I just wanted to restart my damn career into something I cared deeply about, and was paying my own way and was independent for 7 months before they butted in?

I want them to know that I’m upset, bitter, and angry.  My sister’s basically getting no contact from me other than occasional blunt, bitter answers.  They don’t care about my pursuit of a musical career?  They don’t have to know.  They don’t have to know that I’m entering the concerto competition, they don’t have to know that I got accepted into the composition program.  I’ll just focus on surviving.  Because that’s really all I can do at this point.  That and letting them know that I am very angry at them.

Really, the only thing I don’t regret about accepting my parents’ offer two years ago is that I was able to rescue my dog from them.  I won’t go into details, but my mom was putting her own paranoia above my dog’s well being; by the time I took him from them, he was covered in rashes, scabs, and blood, and my mom was justifying it all under the guise of ‘not getting bugs’.  He’s fine now.  I refuse to give him back.  I’m honestly scared to think about what his condition might be now if I hadn’t taken him.

At least I have friends who’ve taken care of him before and really love him, in the case that I can’t afford to keep him.

I’m angry at my family.  I’m in a stressful situation, I have to move (again - 6th time in 3 years), finances are shitty, and all those opportunities I was really excited about when I was at the harp colony?  Axed, because I won’t be able to afford them any more.  And no, the family doesn’t care about those. 

If anything though, at least I’ll be free from their financial drama, even if I’m literally living the starving artist lifestyle.  I think that’s about the only upside to this whole situation.

[canaryatlaw]

alright, I’m pretty tired so let’s get this post going. I’m not really in the best of moods, mostly to do with my upcoming trip to New York for spring break, and mainly that it’s coming so soon, being that I’m flying out Thursday morning. Idk what to do with all of these feelings. I think most of it has to do with me stressing out over jobs, with the NYC interview coming up Friday morning and I’m just feeling very unsure about all of it. If I get offered the job, which I think there’s a fair likelihood will happen at this point (I mean, I made it to the second interview, so that’s gotta count for something, and I know I’m about as qualified as one can be for an entry level position) I’m gonna feel like I need to accept it,  because it is pretty much the only application I have going on that is *actually* what I want to do, and not just somewhat related to it. but now I just don’t know if I want to end up in New York because I don’t want to be lonely. It might be the best job offer, but if I end up cooped up in an apartment alone and miserable, what’s the point? Especially when the other option I have, staying here, is no longer going to be that way for me, it hasn’t been since the start of the year and I’ve been having so much fucking fun. should I sacrifice a better job offer for a more fulfilling overall quality of life? (or Jess can just move to New York with me and solve all my problems) That’s assuming I even get a job offer in Chicago, I’ve applied to tons of places and it’s all been radio silence so far, though I know a lot of them just haven’t gotten to that point yet so it doesn’t mean I’ve already been rejected from all of them. And some of them I think I’d be really good with, special education or domestic violence, both things I’m fairly qualified to do, it’s just not exactly what I was aiming for. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know what I want to do. I very much know what I want to do- I just don’t really have many options on being able to do it because the office I spent a year interning in is in a hiring freeze and has 3 semesters worth of impeccable performance reviews for me sitting in a file somewhere that will never be read (and trust me, they’re gold, I have no doubt that I would be offered a job there if the freeze gets lifted). So yeah, this is more of me not knowing what the hell to do. I looked up when the late registration for the Illinois bar exam ends, and it’s April 1st, so by the end of the month I’ll hopefully know what my final decision is going to be, because if it’s still in flux I’d have to risk putting one thousand fucking dollars down for a test that I’m not sure I’ll actually be taken, and that’s a load of bullshit. I will say though, it makes me happy that of all the New York options, the one that’s panning out for me is the one that’s totally unrelated to anyone my dad or my brother knows, it’s one where I’m being evaluated on my own merit, not by what my last name is, and getting the position because I worked my ass off to get here and I truly deserve it, not as a result of some nepotism. my dad will never understand this, because he thinks he worked his whole life so he could give us a leg up, and my brother was more than willing to take it, but I’m not my brother and I never will be, I didn’t follow him to law school, I decided on going long before he did. I want my achievements to be my own. I’m already aware of just how much privilege I’ve had getting here, how fortunate I’ve been to have parents who are incredibly anti-student loan and willing to help make that happen (although a lot of that was possible because I got rather large scholarships that significantly cut down the price tag). I get that, and I want this to be something that I at least do on my own merit, even if I was very much assisted in getting there, I want it to be about my skills and my abilities, not some misguided nepotism disguised as “connections” and “who you know” (which my dad has been telling me is what matters literally since I was a very small child). I know he’s never going to get that, but that’s okay. I will be pleased to know that I got this job because of my own work, not his. Anyway. I should probably get around to actually talking about my day now. Woke up at 10:55, got ready and took the 11:20 bus to the DV courthouse, then just caught the train as it was about to leave, so pretty much the opposite of what happened last week lol, and of course now I ended up getting to the courthouse early, because apparently my only options are early or late, on time just not being possible (oh well). Got checked in, then sat with my laptop open, hiding my phone behind it reading the case I need to read for civil rights tomorrow, because the clerks go all power hungry and don’t want anyone using cell phones inside the area, even though I have explicit permission to do so as a volunteer, but it’s just not worth getting into a fight over, so I disguised it with my laptop so they couldn’t see (they don’t have wifi so I couldn’t just bring the case up on my laptop, or I would’ve just done that. I waited probably a little under an hour before getting on a case, paired with one of the newer volunteers as has been the case lately, and was assigned to do the affidavit, as the other volunteer hadn’t done the paperwork yet (the affidavit is harder, but learning the paperwork is complex and I sometimes still goof it up despite this being my third year working here). Client was a very nice woman who was filing against the father of her child, who had apparently stalked her back to Chicago from Florida, though it was unique in a couple ways, one of them being that there was a DCFS case going on in Florida based on domestic violence allegations (which is a whole other subject that I will not get started on because I’ll never shut up) where their daughter was actually removed and placed with her sister, but she regained custody, and said the father’s rights had been terminated, but based on some of the other things she was saying about his contact with their daughter being allowed made me somewhat suspicious that that might not actually be the case, nothing malicious on her end at all, I’ve just seen many parents get tripped up and confused with the process and just misunderstand what’s going on because it is very complex. so there was some interesting stuff there, there had only been text and voicemail threats since the last DV incident in 2013 (which was rather horrific so I won’t go into it, but it definitely endangered the child as well), so that kind of hurts the argument that it is in fact an emergency, but he had been sending death threats, and the court does not take those lightly of course. But we didn’t end up getting to find out what the court would say because the client ended up having to go because her ride had to leave, and she was going to return tomorrow morning to finish up and go to court. so we ended up being released around 3:30, which was nice. I took the blue line to the bus stop, and just missed the bus, it was at the stop down on the street as I got off the train, and by the time I got there it was gone. I wasn’t too pissed though because I had kinda been wanting to get an ice cream from the donut shop right there, so I did that and waited for the next bus, which came in about 12 minutes. So that was enjoyable at least, but the bus ride felt incredibly slow, and I didn’t get home until 4:50 or so. After i got home Jess came over pretty soon afterwards, and I started cooking. I was trying a new recipe, a garlic parmesan chicken lasagna bake, so that required a bit of prep. As I detailed last week I was using the rotisserie chicken with the hope that it would flavor it better, as has been my ongoing battle with trying to cook chicken in a way that’s not absolutely terrible for you and still somehow tastes appetizing, which I haven’t been terribly successful with so far. It took a while to assemble, but then it was in the oven and was ready just before The Flash started. The Flash episode was probably one of the better ones of this season, though that’s really not saying much because this season has been not great so far. It was a decent enough episode though, I enjoyed Jesse being back, and the format of the episode was interesting, even if their scientific explanations were somewhat hard to follow. Black Lightning was pretty solid, I totally adore Anissa and her desire to protect her neighborhood and fight back, and I would like to think that if I had her powers I would feel the same way. Gamby is obviously being super shady so that’s gonna be a plot that deserves exploring. Poor Lynn though, first she had to go through this with Jefferson and now with Anissa, while I do think they should go be saving people, I can definitely empathize with Lynn’s pain not knowing if her loved ones will safely return to her. The whole last scene with the Lady Eve ambush was pretty crazy, definitely can’t say it was what I was expecting, and it looks like Tobias will end up being the big bad this season after all, I had been hearing some speculation that it was ultimately going to be Lady Eve and Tobias was just a underling. So we’ll have to see where it goes from there. After the episode Jess headed home because she was tired from staying up last night and of course has to get up early for her *real* job. So I started season 2 of Game of Thrones, which I will admit was somewhat hard to follow. I get there’s obviously a power struggle going on with different people wanting to claim the throne as their own, but I’m somewhat lost as to who Stannis is and how he plays into all of this. I feel so bad for Sansa basically being held captive, and I have to continue talking about my love for Arya and how she’s such a little badass that escaped the fucking king as a tiny child. And I’m still not sure how Daenerys plays into all of this, I mean I know her father was the king who got overthrown by the king who just died, but idk what she’s trying to do now with her dothraki army and baby dragons (though I look forward to seeing what happens with them once they grow up). After that finished I didn’t want to start a new one since they’re rather long, so I hung out for a little while longer before starting to get ready for bed, including cleaning the rest of the kitchen because my roommate cleaned it really well over the weekend and I don’t want to mess it up when I’m just going to leave in two days anyway. And yeah, did all that good stuff and now I’m here. Got PT in the morning and then my two classes. Again, kind of tired, and it’s 12:45 am now, so I’m going to take that as sufficient reason to retire to sleep. Goodnight babes. Stay awesome.