Personal Blog

Oh, bloody hell

By the end of finals week, I was fully rested and fully recovered, and a good thing too, for yesterday I got an email from an old high school acquaintance whom I hadn’t heard from since graduation. It seems her aunt was having a difficult pregnancy; they needed O negative blood and she found out from another friend that was my blood type, and asked if I could donate.

That was no problem (although I must say, it did kinda creep me out that old highschool friends know my blood type), so I put aside my Saturday plans to go donate. Us O- kids have to stick together.

Blood donations are somewhat up in the air for me, they can either be problem-free or really really bad, so it always makes me slightly nervous. One thing that puzzles me is how much the finger prick bothers me. It shouldn’t, logically, as I cut myself on a regular basis working with glass, it shouldn’t be any big deal at all. Strange.

Anyway, this time the donation went well, but I am always flustered at how slow it takes me. Perhaps it’s low blood pressure or low pulse, but two people sat down after me and finished several minutes before I was even close! Not fair!! Still, I was thankful that there were no problems this time.

And yet, a good donation does not get me off the hook, it still drains a lot out of me (ha ha!). Even after a good donation, I’m generally reduced to a shivering mass of protoplasm, unable to use the arm I gave out of for several hours. That doesn’t matter, though, as I fell asleep for at least 6. This is also quite unfair, especially when there are people like Nate, who can hop in, donate a pint, then go out and play a game of Ultimate Frisbee right away.

My dad suggested I look into apherisis, since I have such a problem with the donation affecting me, because you don’t lose any blood volume. He gives platelets quite regularly, so perhaps I’ll check that out.

At any rate, I’m still a bit drained and woosy, so I think I’ll go sleep for another day and a half. I am on break, afterall.

Personal Blog

Sweet Irony

Finals week is *supposed* to be a time of stress and worry for the average college student, I suppose, but this year it’s been quite the opposite for me. In fact, I’ve not been under less pressure the entire year than this week, how strange! I suppose it is because I get to sit still for once. No rush, no worries, no jam-packed schedules, just one spread out week to study quietly and take some tests.

I think I’ve spent more time in my own room these past few days than I have collectively over the entire term! At least, that’s what it *feels* like. My final painting critique was Sunday, and we cleaned the studio, and the glass 1 kids cleaned the glass studio on Monday. So, no art responsibilities. The one act plays are over, so no drama responsibilities. No comp sci projects, no work in the slide library, no glass blowing slots, just all this blank, free time. I have never been so pleased to sit and study, with plenty of time to stretch and take little breaks.

It’s somewhat creepy, in a way. I was terribly worried, because my illness and the general busy nature of life kept building and building and building…I thought this week would kill me! Yet, it’s worked the other way around, how ironic.

Anyway, I know there are plenty of people in quite the opposite case who are full of stress and pressure for finals, so I wish you all the best of luck!

Personal Blog

Christmas

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Thank you all for the kind words about Max, it really did mean a lot to me. I think I’ll be okay, though going home for Christmas will be a bit tough, I have to look after Vivi now (he loved Max so much, poor thing).

In the meantime, there is some good news. For Christmas, my group of friends did a Secret Santa gift exchange. Brendan drew my name, and look what he got me!!

About Me

Isn’t that awesome?? Of course, it just points to my other website right now, but now that I have a domain name, it means I’m going to have to get on the ball and make a decent site. Maybe that can be my Christmas break project.

Anyway, finals week ahead, wish me luck! And thanks again for the kind thoughts.

Personal Blog

…

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Last Friday night, when I was at home for break, my old cat, Max, climbed up into my bed to sit with me for awhile. It was no unusual thing, but he hadn’t done it all break until then, so I sat and enjoyed a quiet, intimate moment with my cat, whom I’ve had since the 4th grade or so.

It was the next morning when he started to get sick. It was sudden, unexpected, and very very bad. We tended to him all day, wondering if perhaps it was a day bug as he has had once before in the past, and on Sunday he’s looking *slightly* better. However, it was still an unsettling goodbye for me when I went back to school, he barely responded to my hand.

Back at school and full of school worries, and it lifts me a bit when my dad calls to say he’s taken Max to the vet, and that he seems to be doing much better. I smile, I suppose it was just a bug.

Until yesterday. I got the message on my phone to call my dad “if it wasn’t too late” around midnight, but those deeper senses urged me to call anyway. Max didn’t get better afterall.

Losing a pet is always a cold, wrenching experience for me, especially when I’m trapped far from home when it happens. I wish I could have been there to comfort him, or at least to say goodbye. But maybe it was Max that was saying goodbye to me last week.

I am cold now and lonely, and the tasks of the week seem to be breaking my body down again. I suppose I am sick or pushing myself too hard, but I think I just miss my friend.

Personal Blog

Home again

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The first night of returning home for a break seems to have become grounded in routine, ritual almost.

Upon arriving, I first spend some time greeting my cats, who I miss terribly and who are always happy to see me.

I then proceed to gorge myself on buffalo wings (oohhh, if only Danville were to build a BW3, my life would be complete), and then take a nice loooooong bath and patiently digest. This is usually accompanied by plucking up a book I’ve read a thousand times or so, but still enjoy for the sheer fact that it’s been so long since I had the opportunity or time to read for leisure.

Bedtime seems to always come around 10:00 that first night, as the previous few months rush to catch up with me in a matter of hours.

It is difficult, especially on short breaks, to re-accustom myself to resting. Every 7-15 minutes of every day, I mentally scan my schedule for the day ahead. I suppose it’s conditioning from a busy college schedule, and a way of keeping on top of everything that needs to be finished between the time I wake up and the time I crash to sleep. On break, it is even more difficult to convince myself that there really is *nothing* that needs to be done, and sometimes I have give myself filler tasks to satiate the need to plan (*ping* er..um…do laundry, update journal).

I need this break, I need to rest and let my body and mind knit themselves back into a functioning unit, but I have such a HARD TIME RELAXING! Sometimes I feel like I’m working as hard to chill out as when I’m busy, and I suppose that defeats the purpose.

Anyway, I must be off, I have to hurry up and rest! ^_^

Personal Blog

Healing

This weekend, I’m staying in bed most of the day, under the watchful eye of the drama department. The drama department, in spite of the amount of drama that goes on within, is a good group of people, and perhaps the best at taking care of one another. Perhaps it’s just me, or perhaps it’s a running trend among art majors, but I tend to neglect myself at times.

So, for the past two or three weeks, I shrugged off my drama friends’ demands that I go to the wellness center, attributing consistent body pain to “just being sore” from glassblowing or some such, or maybe carrying one too many heavy things, who knows.

It wasn’t until yesterday, when my bones felt like they were on fire, that the drama department took action and forced me to go to the wellness center (Matthew told me that he was calling up Sheldon to say that if I showed up to painting class that day, I was to be sent directly to the student health center, and Jeff made sure I didn’t escape, and walked me over there. I went, got a check up, pulled out of my glass slot for the evening, and have since been watched over and mothered about by Brendan and D Flo and whomever else, to make sure I stay put and stay rested.

As such, I’m sitting and fretting about the work I should be getting done in the studio, but am getting some needed rest. I really think there should be a Drama Department to Art Department caretaker program, because I know *I* really have a tendency to shrug off potential threats of bodily harm. I don’t even realize how bad it is, until Brendan says “when you’re in too much pain to ride your bike there’s something wrong, and it’s not just lifting heavy things.” No wonder there are starving artists, we probably just shrug it off until it’s too late to do anything ^_^;;;

I suppose it works both ways, I tend to have a watchful motherly eye myself, just not for my own sake. Perhaps it’s the entire college environment, to need to take care of each other, so it doesn’t kill us all.

Personal Blog

Dawwwww….

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They grow up so fast! *sniff*

https://www.wertle.com/gallery/d/665-1/choppi.jpg

According to my brother, little Choppi is doing very well. She likes to run and slide on the wooden floors, and enjoys walking on the piano keys (to which D Flo exclaimed proudly “we taught her that!” when I told him).

She goes to the vet today, I wonder if my brother will put Chopin-Matisse down as her name?

Personal Blog

Musica!

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D Flo is an awesome composer, and since I feel like showing off other people’s stuff today, I figured a plug was in order. Now, I used to play the piano (still wish I did), so I have the inklings of musical know-how, but the thought of *creating* a piece of music is infinitely perplexing to me (and the thought of how he mulls about in the music lab composing day and night like a phantom is infinitely+1 perplexing to me).

Anyway, here’s an impressive Sonata he wrote, and I can’t for the life of me remember who is performing it! Pity, too, I wanted to give her kudos (D Flo likes to write pieces that will make the fingers of any normal pianist shrivel and fall off, so anyone who can play one of his works has my admiration). Crank it up, it was recorded in an open room, so the volume’s somewhat low. So, with a little title addition by me…

Sonata #1 in D Flo Minor

I feel rather lucky that he said he would write a score for the cartoon I will create for this year’s student film festival. Muahaha!

Stay tuned for further showing off of other people’s stuff…

Personal Blog

Free at last

The completion of a good show always brings a wave of intense satisfaction, spiced up with some other emotions that I haven’t classified yet.

Then there’s strike.

Collectively destroying a creation that has taken months of hard work to build within the span of a few hours is always somewhat tingly. It’s like Tibetan sand mandalas, only the destruction process takes much more physical labor than the wind whisking it away, and as such, the crew is by that time too exhausted to experience any meditative catharsis.

It didn’t help, I suppose, that I spent most of this last show curled up in a corner of the booth, crawling to my chair now and then for this or that light cue. It was the culmination of about a week and a half of peculiar body pain, which has been attributed to everything from carrying too heavy of a backpack to other people’s stress. Nevertheless, Jeff was kind to me in my strike duties, and afterwards while picking whether to come in the next day from 12-2 or 2-4 to finish up, Matthew and Squirt shooed me into the “not at all” pile.

So, no cast party for me, but I was instead rewarded with a long-needed recovery sleep of 12 hours exactly. As I woke up, the unusual body pain had been converted to a normal soreness that one tends to feel after a heavy workout (granted, I was half-awake at 10, and had trouble rolling over and opening and closing my hands, but 4 more hours of sleep processed that away). Of course, it does feel like my latissimus dorsi is going to suddenly snap away from my ribs with every movement, but it’s not the sharp, throbbing pain that it has been for the past week.

Today, then, begins the “Day of 10000 things to do to catch up with myself,” starting *sniff sniff* with cleaning my room and doing my laundry.

Personal Blog

Will Johnston Can’t Pronounce Silent E’s…

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Opening night was a success! The actors were wonderful, the tech ran smoothly, and there was much laughter from the audience (the play is hilarious, but makes you feel terrible later. Our drama department favors those sorts, I’ve been hoping for a comedy, and got one, but not without a slap of socio-political depressive seriousness to go along with it).

I did have one minor crisis. 5 or 10 minutes after the house had opened before the start of the play, I was fiddling to plug in a snake light so that I could see what I was doing up in the booth. By accident, I turned off the power strip…which the lightboard was plugged into. The whole plot went black, and Lyle (sound board op) and I exchanged glances of terror. Frantically, I got the board back up and running, and light back on the stage. Phew! It was good that it happened early, I think there were only a few people in the house by that time.

Otherwise, things went wonderfully! Looks like I may survive the Week of Hell afterall!

Game Designer