SNOOOOOW!!

It snowed today! 

:)

This is the view out of my window.

Quick Blog

So... it has been about a month since the last time i wrote. Sorry about that, I'm sure all of you daily viewers were wondering what was going on up here in northern KY. Truth be told, not a lot lot of anything.  I'm just going to make a quick list of each week that has passed. I will update better soon. I'm hoping i have a little time during Christmas Break. Only 8 more days! Thank goodness, I'm ready for a break. 

Ok so lets see...

On November 8th, My dad and Katie came up to spend the day with me and go to the UofL vs. NKU basketball game. We had a good time, and the game was good too.

November 21- I came home so I could lead a retreat in Brown County, IN with St. Michael's (the church i go to Guatemala with). We had a lot of fun, even though it was freezing outside, we were able to hike through a few of the trails and enjoy music, s'mores, and good company around a bonfire Friday and Saturday night. This was the first retreat i have been on where i was a leader, I really enjoyed myself and I hope to be invited back for more retreats.

Then Came the very short Thanksgiving Break- More like a tease than a break. We had an awesome Thanksgiving meal at my Grandma and Grandpa's house, and had some fun acting crazy after dinner. We played a game called Encore? (I think that is what it was called.) It is a game where you have to sing bits of songs to try and beat the other team. We played kids against the grown ups, and let me just say.. the kids kicked butt :)

Then in the blink of an eye it was December. It kind of snuck up on me. I knew it was right around the corner, but I didn't think it was this close. Can you believe there are only 21 more days of 2009? Where did this year go? 

December 5- we went to the infamous Nutcracker with Grandma. I LOVE the nutcracker. I don't think i will ever get tired of going to see it. After the nutcracker we enjoyed a nice fancy dinner at... you ready for this...... Waffle House. Only the best for us. We figured it would be one of the only places open after the ballet.

December 6- Mom, Katie, Grandma, Donna, Denise, Kayla, and I went to a Christmas Tea at Fern Creek Christian. This year, instead of a speaker talk to everyone, there was a choir. The choir did a great job. The people in the choir are people from Wayside Christian who either work there or are a recovering drug addict or alcoholic. A few of the ladies in the choir sat at our table and they were very nice. I would like to buy one of their cd's. 

Donna- i think you should look into that...

So now we are all caught up.. The only thing currently going on is the ton of homework and stress of finals this week and next week. I can't wait until Christmas Break. I just wish it would hurry up and get here.

Halloween 2008

This year for Halloween, my roommate and I went all out. We signed up to hand out candy Norse-O-Ween, an event where kids can come and safely trick or treat in the dorms on campus.  We also participated in a door decorating contest that was held in our building. I'm not sure who won this contest, I haven't heard anything about the results just yet.  Below are some photos of our decorated door and common room. Enjoy. 

The top of our door.

 

Here is a full view of the door from an angle. 

This is the "kitchen" in our common room all lit up by the black light we put up.

 

This is a little dancing skeleton we had on the wall glowing in the black light.

 

The "kitchen" in regular light.

 

This is a view of our spiderweb ceiling. It stretched all throughout the common room. 

Landscape Photos

Here are the results from my last photo project. 

The pictures are a little different printed out, the colors are much more saturated and intense. On here they look very flat and dull. Sorry about that.

Sunday October 19, 2008

On Sunday, October 19 after church Katie, Erica, and I hung out for most of the day.

The Day Started out with Lola, we played with her and took her for a short ride in the car. 

Then it was off to Qdoba for lunch. After lunch we went to the mall and walked around and played in the Halloween store. 

Here I am as a Chinese Alien...

Of course we had to stop for ice cream! Here is a photo of mine and Katie's chocolate dipped cones.  We took our ice cream to the park to eat :)

I was photo-stalking Katie as she was eating her ice cream, she finally noticed with two bites left, I got a photo of her realizing what I was doing. 

Pres NAHS Comes To Visit

On Friday October 17, Sue brought 5 of her National Art Honor Society (NAHS) Students to NKU for the day. I kind of acted like a tour guide and talked a little bit about my art classes. After touring the Art Department we had lunch in the student union, then we left campus and went to Eden Park. 

This is a photo of the view from Eden Park, I really like the sky in this picture :)

Cool Tree in Eden Park.

After we went to the Cincinnati Art Museum, We went to the Krohn Conservatory, I had some fun playing with shutter speed while we were there.  

Waterfall in the conservatory. Taken using a slow shutter speed.

Close up of a cactus. Sadly, I didn't see the cactus man on this adventure to the Conservatory.

Some pretty purple flowers in the Orchid Room.

Fall colors!

After leaving the Conservatory, we went to LaRosa's Pizza for dinner. After Dinner, we went to Newport Central Catholic High School to take some photos. This high school is on top of a huge hill and you can see all of Newport, Covington, and Cincinnati from the parking lot.  The Photo above is the view we had of Cincinnati with the cool sky above. 

Pit Fire

On Friday October 11, I went to a pit firing behind the Ceramics Building. 

Loading the pit. You can see lots of ceramic pieces already in the pit. 

This is a close up of the pit. Once all of the pieces are in and arranged, Sawdust, newspaper, and a number of other things are put around all of the pieces. When these burn, they will make different colors and designs on the clay. 

The next step is to put wood all around the artwork for protection. 

Next long strips of wood are added to the pile. 

After all of the wood has been added, the time comes to start the fire. 

The beginning.

Throughout the night, The fire grew. I took a few photos of the fire to show how big the pit actually is. 

While we were firing stuff in the pit, we were also raku firing. To raku fire something means to heat it up in an outdoor kiln. When the pieces reach a certain temperature the lid of the kiln is raised exposing the ceramic pieces like you see above. 

The pieces are then moved to a chamber of sawdust, sand, and newspaper.  As soon as it hits the newspaper, it will burst into flames. Once all of the pieces are out of the kiln and into the chamber, the lid is shut and the pieces will smolder and cool. After letting them cool for 45 minutes or more, you can open the chamber and see your piece.  

This picture is of the pit the next morning. You can see all of the pieces with ash all over them.

In this picture, you can see my pot that I put into the pit fire. It is right in the center laying on its side. 

Here are some of the pieces that came out of the pit.

Here is what my finished pot looks like. 

The side that it was laying on turned out black and the side that was exposed has some deep red colors, a little blue, a little green, and a few others. I am pretty happy with how my pot turned out. I wasn't sure what to expect from the whole process. It was very fun and I am glad I was able to be a part of it.

I Love Art

I have turned my dorm room into my very own personal art studio for the time being. I have a lot of ceramic projects that need to be smoothed, burnished, and glazed. I took a few pictures to show you how I have transformed my room. :)

This is my pit fire piece. It is a big pot, I'm not sure what urpose it will serve after it's been graded though. Maybe a nice flower pot for Grandma's patio? We'll see.
Here is a photo of my makeshift art studio. Bottom left you can see my duck bowl, with a little owl sitting on the side, and you can see my pit fire pot on the upper right. 

I have built seven pieces so far in my ceramics class, two pinch pots, a closed form, 2 imaginary fruits, a duck bowl, and my pit fire piece. All of these pieces are due October 15th, complete with glazes and everything. 

Now to change the subject, the sky recently has been so pretty around here. I just wanted to share it with everyone. :)

About a week ago, Hurricane Ike hit Kentucky. Northern Kentucky was hit pretty hard with half a million people loosing their power, but I think that Louisville was hit much harder. I lost power at school around 2 pm and it came back on around 10 pm. Just long enough for NKU to call school off on Monday. We were back at school on Tuesday and everyone was talking about how they still didn't have power. My first class Tuesday morning started out with 8 people. Most of my classes were pretty small this past week. All of my tests and due dates were pushed back too, so that was also pretty exciting. 

The weather here has been crazy lately. With earthquakes and now hurricanes? Luckily, Our little house is pretty strong, The hurricane winds didn't cause any major damage. Just a few shingles out of place and one of our fan thingys (not sure what they are called) on our roof blew away. My father however, suffered some damage. He thought he heard something hit our house in the middle of the windstorm, so he decided to go out and see what it was. As he was coming back inside a part of our neighbors tree broke off, flew over our roof and hit my dad in the head. My mom was standing at the back door and her side got all scratched up from part of the branch. My mom and Katie took him to the hospital where he got ten staples in his head. He didn't suffer any damage other than a headache. 

I came home this weekend to visit friends and to see my family. It is also my Momma's birthday :) So HAPY BIRTHDAY MOMMA! I LOVE YOU! (If you ever figure out to get on here and read this.) We are supposed to be having a family brunch type thing tomorrow, that I am really looking forward to. 

I took some photos around my neighborhood to show a small part of the damage at our end of Louisville. 

This is a down tree at the house diagonally behind ours. 

This is the giant tree branch that hit my dad in the head and sent him to the hospital. No worries though, he is doing alright. Just complains of a headache. 

Five telephone poles were snapped in half at one of the entrances to my neighborhood. Above is a zoomed out shot and below is a zoomed in shot.