School Days, Booklust

So on Monday I started school again. Well, kind of. I'm taking an online French class and will be doing some work (hopefully, a lot) on my thesis. I don't have to actually attend classes on campus, which is awesome, because going up to campus totally kicked my ass last quarter.

Actually, the whole quarter kicked my ass, which makes me wonder if I'm just a bit crazy for continuing on with this school thing while being pregnant. But if I could graduate with my MA before Bunlet is born, that would be awesome!

I'm not going to kill myself trying, but it's something that I would like to see happen. So wish me luck. And while you're doing that, have a gander at my gangly toenails that desperately need a pedicure:



Now that you're done staring in awe at my toes, hop on over to our Amazon store to check out some of our wares. We're not even close to done with putting all the books up for sale. It is such a huge project and will take awhile to get each title listed. I'm happy to say, though, that we've had about twenty orders since getting started last week.

We are so not in this for the money. We just want to get rid of these books. So feel free to buy one or seven if you've got the urge. I will personally call you up and sing, "I Will Always Love You" (Whitney Houston style) if you do so.

When hard work pays off

I checked my grades today, and I almost fell over when I saw that I ended up with an A- in the class I just finished. I did very well in the class up until the end when I turned in my final paper late and a few pages too short (due to extreme insomnia). I was really afraid that it would ruin my GPA, but apparently my professor saw that I was having a difficult time and decided to cut me some slack.

To be honest, even though the paper was late and not long enough, I worked really damn hard on it, and I feel that I really earned the A- in the class. I really appreciate the fact that my professor took my circumstances into account, because if he hadn't, I might have ended up with a B or something (which isn't really all that acceptable for grad school - or my program, at least).

So yeah, this week is shaping up to be much better than last week. Potential crappy GPA crisis averted!

180

Remember this post? Remember how I said I wanted to bottle my feelings of happiness because I knew that I wouldn't always feel that way?

Well, mere days later, I've done a complete 180, and I am a sleep-deprived, pimply, stressed out ball of my former (happy) self. And it's all my professor's fault. How dare he assign us a 20 page paper for our final project? Why didn't I work on this over the weekend?

Oh, that's right. Because I was sleeping for most of the weekend. Because I was/am so sleep-deprived that I feel like I'm losing my mind. Because my husband snores and our cats cry and I'm supposed to be sleeping on my back at this point in my pregnancy but it's just not comfortable. Because our (full-sized) bed is probably not big enough to accommodate both of us and the mound of pillows I need to stay on my side so that I don't cut off Bunlet's blood supply.

Attending graduate school while pregnant = so not recommended.

Where is that bottle of happiness? I need it.

What would you do?

School is set to start this week.

Here's a bit of background: I'm slated to graduate in June. I only really need one quarter of a foreign language and thesis units to graduate. Of course, I also will have to write the thesis itself. Most of this year will be dedicated to the thesis, since I have hardly any coursework left.

I have been given permission to enroll in placeholder units this quarter for various reasons (which means that I wouldn’t have to attend actual classes or go up to the campus). I did this for several reasons, mainly because I wanted to simplify my life by spending less time in the classroom. But I am currently still enrolled in the two classes I originally registered for: a graphic novels seminar and German. I'm definitely going to not take German (as I will be taking an online French course in the winter), but I keep wondering if I should keep the graphic novels class.


Pros to taking the class:

My thesis is on a series of graphic novels, so taking a seminar on the subject would be very beneficial, not to mention extremely relevant.

Taking a class would help keep me connected with the university, which would be very helpful in completing my thesis proposal and beginning work on the thesis itself. By this, I mean that I will probably hold myself more accountable for working on the thesis.

The class is on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6-8 PM, so I wouldn't have to get to work extremely early on those days.

It's only ten weeks.

The class is taught by one of my thesis readers, which would give me instant access to him.

Taking classes, while extremely draining, usually keeps me pretty inspired.

It would also keep me from thinking about our reproductive issues so much.

It will probably be fun.


Cons to taking the class:

Taking a class (even one) is greatly going to add to my stress level. I have a real desire to keep my life simple right now.

I'm burned out, and the last thing I want to do is take more classes.

This class could interfere with time I need off from work for testing and/or treatment for reproductive issues.

Taking a class will keep me so busy that I may lose track of everything else in my life, including my photography, the thesis itself, and all those other things that I enjoy having the freedom to work on.

I wouldn't be able to take a job out of state if one came up.

The class is going to take a lot of work, as all my classes have.


So tell me what you'd do if you were in my situation. Please note that even though there are more pros to taking the class, the cons are huge. But I can't deny the fact that I probably won't do a lot of work on my thesis proposal and/or unless I'm attending classes regularly - unless I just give myself a giant kick in the ass day after day and make myself do it.

Dropping out of my program is not an option. My heart is definitely not in this anymore, and I seriously doubt that I will end up in an academic-oriented career. But I cannot justify dropping out after three years of extremely hard work and tens of thousands of dollars spent. I have to finish this damn thing, and I have to write the thesis. I'm trying to figure out the absolute best way to keep myself engaged enough to make this happen.

With all this in mind, what would you do?

General Monday Randomness

-I normally can't stand summer, but this year in particular I am very grateful for it. The evenings are long and peaceful instead of rushed like they were during the school year.

-Day 1 of the cleanse is done and went well. The hardest time was lunchtime and the afternoon. I got tempted quite a few times, but I managed to avoid most of it. I did have a bit of peanut butter with my celery when I got home, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it. At least I didn't eat the pan dulce in the break room at work.

-This is my new favorite song. It is amazing. I listen to it over and over. The whole album is worth checking out.

-I started reading this book. I'm not one for self-help, but this one called to me last week.

-I meditated tonight. Actually, I have no idea if I did it right. It felt a lot like I took a short nap. Is there a wrong way to meditate?

-I got my grade in my fairy tales class: A-. The perfectionist in me is not happy with this grade, especially because of what happened before. This is my third A- in grad school. I got two last year, but I earned them rightfully. I really should have gotten an A in this class. I busted my ass. Apparently I didn't deliver. I emailed her and inquired. We'll see what she says.

-At least I got an A in my internship.

-Roy and I went for a walk tonight. I haven't really been inspired to take any photos recently, because I've been in kind of a funk. But I decided to bring my camera along on our walk, and here are a few things we came across.







Yes, that's a headstone for a person with Shrimp as his last name. Talk about random.

Celebrating Me

I started this post awhile back and am just now getting around to finishing it. Normally, I'd just let it go, but since it was my birthday weekend (June 6-8), I figured it's worth writing about.

Anyway, my birthday weekend had all the elements I wanted: fun, friends, family, and relaxation. It was also a wonderful way to kick off summer, which hadn't officially started yet, but I was pretending it was.

Friday:

Work as usual. My friend Jessica bought me a present (some candy, sunscreen, a candle, and a beautiful card) in this lovely blue bag:



Crazy Daisy featured me on her blog in a weekly meme she's doing called Pay It Forward Friday. She had some very nice things to say about me, which made a good pre-birthday gift for me. Thank you, Crazy Daisy!

A group of us went out to lunch at the Gourmet Pizza Shoppe. I took a few pictures with my point and shoot, but they are really bad quality due to the fact that I had to use the flash. I'm too lazy to edit them. So, here you are: really bad pictures of some of my unnameable homies from work.



After lunch, I got some bad news. I found out that the graduate committee had not passed my thesis proposal. Naturally, this did not make me very happy and thus warrants a hopefully short tangent.

Begin tangent.

Hearing the news that my thesis proposal needs revision really kind of blew me away. Yes, I did not put a lot of effort into it this past quarter, but a lot of work went into it in the quarter before. I am very disappointed in myself for not working on it continuously throughout the quarter, because by the time I submitted it to my readers, they only had a short time with it before they had to let me know whether or not it could be sent up to the committee.

However, I am trying to be too hard on myself, because I busted my ass each and every day this quarter in my internship and fairy tales class. It's not like I was just being a lazy mofo. I was giving 150% to other things, which caused me to neglect my proposal. And to be honest, my proposal was good. It really was. From what I understand, the committee wants me to approach my subject in a different way. And well, no amount of good writing can make up for the fact that I'm not a mind reader.

The worst part? Because of this, I will not be able to resubmit my proposal until the fall. (The committee doesn't meet during the summer.) That means that I won't graduate in December. This has been very hard for me to accept. A week and a half later, I am finally beginning to come to terms with it. But I won't lie - it's upsetting.

End tangent.

After work, I went to get a massage. My back, neck, and shoulders had been giving me issues all week, so I called up my massage therapist Reuven and had him fit me in. I hadn't been to see Reuven since the day before my wedding (almost a year ago), so it was good to catch up with him. I am supposed to get monthly massages because I have a mild case of scoliosis, but as insurance does not cover it, sometimes I have to skip them.

As usual, the massage was wonderful, and I drove home feeling all wiggly.

A little later on, Roy walked me to Mandy's for a night of Bunco. Bunco is this really fun dice game, and Mandy is a member of a couple of Bunco groups. She was hosting the get-together for the month of June and needed a replacement. That's where I came in.

The theme of the get-together was "The Honeymoon's Over," pretty appropriate considering Mandy's recent wedding. Mandy served "moldy" wedding cake for dessert and put pimple cream on her face. This photo whore took a lot of detail shots:








But once the game started, I put down the camera and joined the party. I had forgotten how loud and screechy a big group of women can be, but it was screechiness I enjoyed. I had a really great time playing. I even won a prize for being the second highest scorer!

Paul and Mandy walked me home after the game was over. Roy had gone out for the evening but returned soon after me with a bag full of birthday goodies. It was about 11:00 PM, so I was able to rationalize opening my gifts before my actual birthday.

I was absolutely thrilled to see that Roy had bought me a new iPod. My old iPod was a third generation dinosaur that hadn't held a charge on its own in a couple of years. Now I have a brand spanking new 80GB iPod classic that I have named Silver Bullet. Silver Bullet and I are already great friends.




Saturday (my birthday!)

We woke up early (as usual) and went to the Farmer's Market with Mandy and Paul later on that morning.



I found a cool box from 1955 at an antique shop nearby.



After we were done, we went to Mandy and Paul's to see the dog they found.



Our original plans for the day were to spend the afternoon at the Huntington Gardens, but as we had plans for that night, we decided to stay local. I had developed a headache, so I spent the afternoon resting and watching our recent Netflix acquisitions.

Later that night, we all (me, Roy, Mandy, Paul, and Jake) piled into my mother-in-law's van and drove out to Orange County for murder mystery dinner theatre. I have been wanting to go to one of these events for quite awhile. It was loads of fun. On the way there, this was our soundtrack. (Just click it. You won't be sorry.)

We hung out in the bar for awhile before they let us into the dining area.



I noticed this man's very interesting hairdo.



I didn't take many good pictures during the dinner production. I was preoccupied with all that was going on, but here are a few shots (including the best one I got of one of the cast members):




All in all, I really enjoyed the performance and would recommend that others go and enjoy themselves. The dinner was good, too, but they piled all of the food together, which made me kind of lose my appetite. (Food phobias will do that to a person.) It was a really great way to celebrate my birthday, though. We even got to take a picture with the cast members.



I already have forgotten what we did on Sunday, but I seem to recall that it involved my being very, very lazy.

So that was my birthday weekend. It was a really great time - and a wonderful way to ring in the last year of my 20s.

What's that noise?

It's me. Screaming with joy.

School's out.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Teaching, Learning, and the Spaces in Between

I have school-related updates galore! As I'm writing this, I'm feeling sort of guilty because I need to be doing research, but whatever. Things need to be said, dammit! And because I am so long-winded, this is going to be one hell of a long entry.

For starters, I want to talk about my teaching day a week ago. Holy crap, I can't believe it's already been a week. Anyway, the big day began with my waking up at 4:30. Yes, 4:30. I wasn't nervous or anxious about the day ahead; I just had to pee. But once I was up, I couldn't fall asleep again. So I started the day on about four hours of sleep.

I went to work and stayed until 2:00. I was pretty useless for most of the day due to nervous energy and fatigue. I felt very prepared and centered. That's because I had an epiphany the day before about my anxiety. I realized all of a sudden that what was making me so anxious about teaching was the very real possibility of silence.

(Let's talk about silence, briefly. Ours is not a culture that appreciates silence, and we certainly don't know what to do with it - hence our tendency towards chit chat. Silence in the classroom is equally nerve-racking, especially after someone poses a question to the class and no one responds.)

I decided that I was not going to give into the anxiety and worry of dealing with silence. In fact, I decided that I would embrace the silence and take it as a sign that I should either reframe my questions or comments or just give the students more time to think and respond. Once I had this plan in mind, I immediately relaxed. I was shocked to realize that I was ready.

Once I got on campus, I did a crapload of running around, trying to get things with my thesis proposal tied up before the English department office closed for the day. I met with my second reader, tried to meet with my first reader but had to wait for about 30 minutes, got everything signed, got my letter of approval from my first reader, ran to the library to make copies, ran around the library getting cash so that I could buy a copy card so that I could make copies, ran back to my building, made six different packets of info for each grad committee member, ran upstairs to drop off said packets, bought a bag of Doritos, and then went to class to begin teaching.

Being as I had just turned in my thesis proposal (the product of two years of thinking), I was elated. I channelled that energy into class, and it worked - and I got tons of positive energy back from the students. We started class by workshopping the poetry of three different students. Before I knew it, we had blown effortlessly through all three poems and were ready to move on to the discussion of their final assignment and the reading I'd assigned. Again, we just sailed through the discussion of the assignment and the reading. And believe it or not, it was fun. I couldn't believe it. My professor had told me that I would have so much fun, but I didn't believe her. But she was right on the money. It was a blast.

The best thing? The exchange of ideas. Oh, this is what I love about college classes: that we all bring something different to the table and that it's all valuable. And the next best thing? Seeing in some students' eyes that I had reached them. Little ol' me! I made a difference - maybe not a huge one, but a difference nonetheless. It was thrilling. I almost wanted to cry. I have never felt that kind of wonderfully positive power.

I thought the day couldn't get any more amazing. And then I went to a reading hosted by our campus literary journal. I sat and listened to some amazing work by local authors, and all of it was so touching and funny and poignant and sad. During the reading I surveyed the room and experienced the distinct feeling that I was exactly where I should be, in the midst of all these beautiful words and this supportive community. Everything made sense.

That night, I couldn't sleep because I was that excited. And ever since then, I've been considering the unthinkable: me, a teacher. Yes, it could happen. But before then, there might be me, the MFA student. Yes, that could happen as well. It's all up in the air right now, and it's all really new, so I'm not sure what I'll decide on. But I will say this: it feels damn good to have options. And it is the most wonderful feeling to have achieved something that I didn't think I could do. I have felt a grander sense of purpose for the last week because of this experience.

But right now I remain in the trenches. My fairy tales professor vetoed my second idea for my research paper as well, so I sat down with her and figured out a workable topic. The bad news? I have to resubmit another abstract and annotated bibliography by tomorrow, and I haven't started either. Am I worried? Nope, because I know it'll get done. Am I irritated? Hell yes, but I will jump through these stupid hoops in order to keep my GPA up.

Today was the last day of my internship. Well, sort of. It was the last day of class, but I still have work to do. I'll be helping the professor review all of the students' process scrapbooks, and I still have to write a paper based on my internship experience. This internship has been a hell of a lot of work, but it has been so rewarding. The students in the class are nothing short of incredible. I can't believe how talented, smart, and insightful they are. They taught me so much, and I am so grateful to have had this experience. And I have gotten strangely attached to them. I am sad to see this class end, for real.

But I am happy to announce that my smart husband passed his comps and will be graduating this month with his Master's degree in Rehabilitation Counseling. Congratulations, behbehs! I am so very proud of you.

And if that wasn't enough news, tomorrow the graduate committee is meeting and will decide the fate of my thesis proposal. I really want it to pass so that I can get to work on the thesis over the summer. But even if it doesn't, I'll still be working on the thesis. Let's just say that I really want it to pass because I'll be slightly humiliated if it doesn't. Okay, really humiliated. So keep your fingers crossed for me. I think I'll find out the outcome in about a week.

Whew, that was a lot. Thanks for hanging in there. I'm glad I got that out; now I'm off to do tons of research.

In the Trenches

Well, after riding high for the past few days due to my awesome teaching experience, I am now back in the trenches after my fairy tales class last night.

I have tried to like this professor. Really, I have. Despite the fact that she began each class for probably the first half of the quarter by reading to us from some paper she wrote, I still hung in there, even though I had no idea what she was talking about or why she felt the need to read to us. Despite the fact that she assigned a 76-page story for us to read two days in advance (in addition to other reading), I still managed to complete the story (and the other reading). I even managed to read an entire novel while finishing a paper due on the same day, even while knowing that she had given us entirely too much work to do. Even though she's taken entirely too long getting most of our assignments back to us, I gave her a decent review on her evaluation form. After all, she's knowledgeable, nice, and even funny sometimes.

I'd like to redo my evaluation form now and tell everyone how much she sucks.

Last week I submitted an abstract for my term paper, a paper in which we are to focus on what really interests us (regarding fairy tales, naturally). I came up with the idea of exploring Sex and the City as a modern fairy tale and how the characters in the series do or do not fit the typical female fairy tale stereotype. It's the perfect paper topic for me, as I love exploring the unexplored.

But this paper obviously wasn't meant to be. Last night the professor handed back our abstracts, and I got a C and a veto of my paper topic. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Okay, first of all, I don't get Cs. Secondly, I have never had a professor veto a paper topic.

I spoke with her after class, and apparently, since Sex and the City is not a literary text, I can't use it. Also, she said that we haven't made the jump from texts to film yet. (Really?! So the whole quarter when we were talking about Walt Disney's bastardizations of the fairy tale, we weren't talking about film?!) And lastly, she's concerned that there's very little scholarly analysis on this topic.

I just don't understand. As controlling as she's being with this topic now, she placed very few parameters on the paper topics when she handed out the assignment. Also, one thing we've been taught in our program is that everything is a text, and everything has its own language and set of meanings that can be analyzed (including film/TV). And isn't it a good thing that I didn't pick an old, tired topic? Yes, my Sex and the City topic is a stretch, but all my best papers have been based on stretches! I like stretching!

I am really irritated about this (obviously). Yes, I will pick another topic, but I will do it resentfully - especially because it will require me to do even more hours of research. The research I did for my first topic is obviously worthless.

Here's hoping for a happily ever after to this situation.

What happened to May?

It seems like May was eaten by Mandy's wedding, many challenges, and lots of homework/school-related stress. I'm happy to report that I did complete project red, but I did have to cheat some due to time constraints. Oh well, at least I finished. Here's the finished product:



Too bad there was an odd number of days this month.

June brings with it the end of the school year, my birthday, a trip to see my family (hopefully), a photo shoot for our anniversary with our wedding photographer, a yard sale (hopefully), some rest and relaxation, and a potentially good outcome for my thesis proposal.

I have some catching up to do on this here blog. I still hope to talk about Mandy's wedding and my teaching experience, as well as some other things going on in my life. Well, we'll see how timely I'll be with these things, as I still have quite a bit to do for school in the next couple of weeks.

Double Exposure #5

Howdy and happy Friday! Today I'm going to bypass the photography again and talk about a couple of other blogs I like to visit.

First up: Indexed. This blog is awesome. It cracks me up. Here's why:







Hilarious, yes? I definitely think so.

All righty, the next blog that I must tell you about this week is The Dairi Burger. The writer of this blog re-explores young girls' favorites such as Sweet Valley High and Baby-Sitter's Club. It is yet another die-laughing blog (written in the same satirical vein as BSC Headquarters) that you (yes, you) must visit.

Perhaps the best part of this blog is that she sometimes makes LOLcat-type captions for book covers. Check it out:



Because of this blog, I've started stocking up on Sweet Valley High and Christopher Pike books for summer reading. Let's face it: I can't be bothered to read anything difficult for fun this summer. It's just not going to happen.

Oh, and my teaching today went totally fabulously. I also turned in my proposal. For the time being, all is right with the world. I hopefully will have some time to blog about the experience this weekend. It really had a wonderfully positive effect on me. Thanks for believing in me, interpeeps.

Tomorrow = Big Day

Tomorrow marks a pivotal day in my graduate career for two reasons:

1) I am teaching college seniors for a full class period.

2) I am turning in my thesis proposal to be reviewed by the graduate committee next week.

I am stoked, tired, anxious, elated, and relieved all at once, and I know I will be even more so come tomorrow evening. Despite the fact that I've been working towards completing these two tasks for almost three years now, I didn't think I would ever get here. And now, well, I'm here (almost).

There are still quite a few things to do before the end of this quarter:

1) read two novels for my fairy tales class
2) write my research paper on a fairy tale-related topic
3) finish commenting on student work for my internship
4) lead the class presentations on the last day of class
5) write my paper about my internship experience
6) catch up on my posts on the internship message board

But all those things are small potatoes compared to what's coming tomorrow. I can and will handle them all. I might even do it successfully.

Happy May Day!

It's May! Summer is on its way, along with oppressive heat, no rain in sight, and hopefully a lot of downtime for yours truly.

But before the downtime come the challenges. May is going to be full of them.

I am going to give my HOH toast in front of 100+ people in a little more than a week. I am a little nervous about doing this, but I'm also happy for the challenge (and I am totally stoked to show Mandy my love). It's just one thing to add to my list of "things I've accomplished that I was scared shitless to do at first."

I am going to give a presentation in my fairy tales class. This is really no big deal. I have to give presentations in each of my classes. And each time I get anxious. So here I am, being anxious again.

I will be teaching a full class period at the end of this month. That's about 1 hour and 40 minutes of teaching. Me, in front of the class, showing off my mad teaching skills. This is the biggie. I am so nervous about this. I am so afraid of being revealed to be a fraud, even though I know logically I am not a fraud.

I have been putting off finishing my thesis proposal and annotated bibliography, so May is the month to complete both of those and submit them to the graduate committee.

By the time June rolls around, I think I will have learned many new things about myself based on the above experiences.

So, yeah.

Firebird

There's this painting that I've had for what feels like forever. Like all pieces of art, this one has a good story behind it.

Back in the summer of 2005, my friend Genevee and I went to the Riverside Art Museum to check it out. Neither one of us had ever been there before. I immediately fell in love with a painting by Gegam Kacherian that was in the front lobby. It was so gorgeous! See for yourself:



I loved it so much I considered throwing down my credit card to buy it. But I didn't. (And I won't lie - sometimes I wish I would have.)

After checking out the downstairs part of the museum, Genevee and I made the trek upstairs, and it was there I noticed a very interesting exhibit called Childish Things. Here are a few of the pictures we saw:




I was totally intrigued by this collection. Some of the pictures made us laugh; some made us cringe and feel uncomfortable. I was pretty impressed with the whole exhibit. (And yes, those are toys. So wonderfully strange, indeed.)

We went back downstairs and made our way even further downward into this single room filled with all kinds of pieces of original art sitting up against the walls. I found out that these were for a silent auction to be taking place the next weekend. I found one piece called "Firebird" that I thought was beautiful, and I told myself I would come back.

Interestingly enough, I also found out that the creators of "Childish Things" were going to be at the museum the same night as the silent auction, as there was some kind of gala planned. I found a copy of the book version of Childish Things in the museum gift store and snatched up a copy. I already knew that I would be back for the silent auction and gala.

Fast forward to the weekend, and Roy and I showed up at the museum. There was lots of schmoozing going on, which was totally gag-worthy. I think we caught a glimpse of Davis & Davis, the creators of "Childish Things," but they were surrounded. So we didn't get a chance to talk to them.

I did, however, go bid on "Firebird" once the auction started. I was soon outbid by a small amount, and I felt defeated. Roy and I decided to leave, and in typical Leslie fashion, as soon as we were out the door I began second-guessing my decision to not bid on the painting again. We had walked all the way down the street and gotten in my car when I decided to go back and bid again. We hauled ass back to the museum - Roy dropped me off and I ran back inside and bid on "Firebird" again with about two minutes to go.

And I won! (I think I won it for $150.) I came back to the museum later on that week and picked up my painting. Roy and I immediately took it to Aaron Brothers and quickly found out that it was going to cost more to frame it than I actually paid for it. Discouraged and not wanting to throw down the money, we stashed it in the closet to be framed in the future.

Warning! Here comes a long tangent.

Soon after this whole experience, I started graduate school. I took a class called The Western Rhetorical Tradition my first quarter. Our entire grade was based on our final paper on something rhetoric-related. One day I had a rare stroke of genius and ended up writing my best paper ever (still, to this day) on the "Childish Things" book and exhibit. My class loved it. Hell, even I loved it! Later on that year I submitted an abstract on my "Childish Things" paper to a local graduate conference, and it was accepted. I began putting together a power point presentation of some of the images, and then I felt like I should email the artists (who are a husband and wife team) to make sure they were okay with my using their images.

So I emailed them, and they responded back, giving me their blessing. They asked if they could read my paper, and once they read it, they responded back with high praise for the work I'd put into it. We exchanged a few more words, and a few weeks later, I went to the conference and presented my paper.

I was really shocked when I was approached by one of the artists of "Childish Things" after presenting. It was so awesome that he took the time to drive out here. He even signed my copy of their book, and we went out to lunch. It was so cool.

End tangent.

Anyway, we finally got "Firebird" framed - almost three years later. We picked it up last weekend, and it looks so beautiful. Already it contains so much history. Here's a detail shot of it:



So that's the end of my long, drawn-out story. Man, I'm really long-winded. I try to be economical with my words, but for some reason, I'm all about back story. So there you go: here's more than you ever wanted to know about my love for art. I have managed to avoid doing homework in favor of writing this post though, so I consider this post an absolute necessity.