Fashion has “gone green”

Warm greetings, my fellow dreamers!

It has been a while since my last entry. Summer is zooming by like a bitter-sweet dream. I’ve been busy basking under the sultry summer sky while trying to survive heat exhaustion on other days when it’s too hot to breathe. Work has been busy, which makes me sad that my visions of a vacation are dwindling from  “possibly” to “not likely.” Mini-vacation maybe?

I’ve been spending alot of time with my family, which is nice because I don’t usually see them once class is in session.  Still, I miss my extended family and am homesick for my “second home.” I miss boat rides with Ludy and subway trekking with Carla. I miss the pastel colors of the houses and viewing the lights in the city from the mountains at night.

Changing the subject to avoid tears

I like how the current economic status has redefined the fashion world. It has caused people to recycle clothing in “going green” and encourages more people to fashion their own style. More and more people are starting to make their own clothes instead of picking up  mass produced replicas. Some designers, in their innovation, started using eco and fair trade clothing, sticking to recycled and organic fabric in efforts to be “environmentally friendly.”  People are reinventing and discovering their personal style, which is music to my designer ears.

London Fashion Week

Speaking of “going green,” there’s a place in Australia that has recently banned the use and production of bottled water. Now, citizens have to fill up or refill their water canteens from fountains. I don’t know about this. It’s great for the economy and environment, but it also opens the door for terrorist capabilities, meaning terrorists can target the water source if they wanted (my conspiracy theory for the day).  Then again, they could have done so before with the bottled water, so let’s see how this plays out.

I’m really enjoying my friends and will be sad once school starts up again. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep normally until after grad school. Aside from my insomnia, other interests have kept me daydreaming, but that’s another story for another day.

Enjoy the week, friends and stay hydrated.

Peace, Love, and Photographs!

-Ari

Smile And The Whole World Smiles

Disclaimer: I have only had thirty minutes of sleep.

After having the worst dream of the year, I tossed and turned, woke up every ten minutes, and finally slid out of bed this morning. With one eye open and the other squinted, I got dressed and sluggishly drove to work.  Taken back by the air freshener, I peeled open one eye with one hand and started the ignition with the other.  Surprisingly, I’m very chipper,  as I update all of my five billion websites. Recently, I’ve been having one of those “horrendous months,” where it didn’t just rain on my parade but appeared to have a freakishly odd, torrential downpour  that did not cease to disperse. Oddly, I woke up this morning and EVERYTHING turned around completely. Everything that I was stressed over was suddenly taken care of.  All my problems just disappeared as if they never existed. I’m baffled and grateful. Thank God.

On this fine morning, where I would normally be asleep in my somewhat comfortable bed, I find myself catching up on my blog (That’s code for I’m too sleepy to do paperwork at work this morning and will push it off til Monday). No online shopping today, aside from that one book that I found for a good price this morning.

ON TO MY PROFOUND REFLECTIONS OF THE MORNING: I find it odd that the older we get, the more we regress and cling to toys and objects of the past. For example, I still love and sleep with my stuffed elephant (Mr. Effy, I will keep you FOREVER). I’ve kept all my favorite bedtime story books from my childhood and refuse to sell them. I STILL play with sidewalk chalk and draw mini-murals next to my car in the driveway. My co-worker made a profound statement that “as we get older, as each year passes, so the sense of age hits us and we realize that we really just wish that we can go back to our childhood days.”  I’m not certain if this statement is true for everyone, but it’s true for me. I’m not fearful of old age, I just wish that great responsibility didn’t have to come with growing old.  (TANGENT: WHAT’S UP WITH EVERYONE POPPING UP PREGNANT NOWADAYS? FIND A HOBBY OR GET FIXED! ) I feel that with my major “situations” in life, referring to trials and tribulation, I get by only by the grace of God. Is this really what growing up feels like? I feel like I cheat death on more than one occasion, or that I succeed when there’s clearly no possible way. It sends chills up my back. I’m amazed.

Enjoy your day, dreamers.

Love,

Ari

Café en el Café

Good evening dreamers,

I’ve been reading several novels lately. I always enjoy a good read and will one day retire just to have time to read all the books I want. All these novels have sent me traveling to my favorite coffee shop. There’s this one café, in particular, that I drive to simply because I find one of the workers extremely attractive, plus he makes one wicked iced latte. I’m reminded of Landon Pigg’s song, “Falling in love at a coffee shop.”  Wouldn’t it be nice to fall in love at a coffee shop. It sounds so romantic.  An, I know you’re already shaking your head. Coffee brings people together (decaf. in my case), truly.

I was watching the movie “Laura,” the other night while reading this mystery novel when I drifted off to sleep. I dreamed that I was in a reform school, a university. It was a Catholic school. This one priest was giving a lecture when a nun came to relieve him. In the dream we bowed our heads to pray. Being the full gospel person that I am, I remember being outraged by something that I can no longer remember. I was so taken by it that I began debating with the nun and even ventured off into a full blown argument. I started yelling at her until she scurried off, crying. I followed her down the corridor and continued making my speech. After she faded off in the distance, I sat on the marble steps that wrapped around a large pillar and wept. The next day a few nuns informed me that she killed herself. I woke up. How awkward is that?

Was this the coffee, the movie, or my sick twisted mind that caused this dream? I was jotting all this down in my journal at the café when the cute bartender walked in. I smiled and took my leave. It was too much of an abrupt change in atmosphere, from awkwardness to delight, in too short of a time span to formulate anything meaningful at that moment. I drove home in haste. I’m exhausted and pray that I don’t dream about reform school tonight.

Goodnight,

Ari

Recent Weird Obsessions and Odd birthday wishes

While avoiding this book that I’m reading for a book club that I’m apart of, I made a list of things that I enjoy, which might strike people as a bit “odd.” I recognize my eclectic behavior as a side effect of heredity; twisted genes skipping a few generations, stemming from the delights of my eccentric great-great grandmother. (that’s a long story, a novel that I’m writing. No elaboration at this moment)

• photographing bubbles. It makes me happy.
• driving, sometimes not aware of my destination
• waffles (no powdered sugar, please)
• I think that if the people from “The Big Bang Theory” were real, we would probably be great friends.

CAN YOU FIND ME?

• Dexter
• soy nut butter and all fruit jam sandwiches
• pretending that I’m from a different country (this gets interesting sometimes)

Odd Birthday Wishes

SPOCK BOBBLE HEAD

DWIGHT SCHRUTE BOBBLE HEAD

POLAROID 600 FILM

Granted the film isn’t odd but the bobble head obsession is. I’m adding a high grade waffle maker to my list. I wish I was also in a different country right now. In fact, I’ve been writing, planning, my escape to somewhere “new” for years now. I’m not sure when I’ll be executing this plan but it’ll happen eventually. Until then, I’ll be here teaching, working, and concocting conspiracies.

Peace, Love, and Photographs,

Ari

P.S. I wish it would just rain!!!!

Working with Kiddos again

I started this new job yesterday. (Is it considered “new” if it’s in the same place but different department?) I’m the summer advanced digital photography teacher for the children’s college, which, in my mind, is similar to a form of “dignified daycare.” I’ve worked with kids before but it has definitely been a while.

The class is fairly small with about thirteen students from the ages of nine to twelve. While teaching, I noticed the typical stereotypes of the students.

#1  The talker. This would be a girl named Kaia, who adds personal anecdotes each moment  I speak.

#2 The apathetic. I’d say it would be Brandon, the boy who is there because his “mom was trying to be cool like her friend and enrolled her kids in discovery college, like the other moms, to fit in.”

#3 The hyper-intense child. His name is Chris. Luckily my other assistant sparked an interest in him when he brought up the subject of online games.

#4 The know it all.  Ashish-the boy that thinks he’s king because he has a Nikon coolpix. Give me a break, kid! You are not Ashton Kutcher!

#5 The chatter boxes. That would be the rest of the class.

After brief  introductions, I stated that I “[was] going to be teaching  digital photography, not the old chemical process” when I was rudely interrupted by one of my assistant’s retort that,” old photography would just be boring.” It took every bit of patience to calm myself down and refrain from punching him in the teeth!

The class is definitely interesting. The way I see it is “no blood, no problem!”

A good day, I’d say.

-Ari

P.S. I’ll post pictures later.

The Man Who Knew VERY LITTLE

Yesterday was my day off, or so I thought. I was, obviously, wrong. Flying in under the radar about forty-five minutes late, dodging in and out of rush hour traffic, I arrived just in time to catch the lines of people wanting to change their schedules. It was the first day of summer school at the college that I work for, which meant a steady work load.

Luckily, the mob of people wasn’t as “angry” compared to years past, excluding this one obnoxious fellow.

A tall, thin man, with ash brown hair came in looking for his room number. He had registered for classes the week before but did not pay. To my misfortune, he came in without anything. He simply gave his name and expected me to find all his information. It would have been nice had he not had the most generic Hispanic name in the world. Three minutes into my search, he called his wife and chatted away in Spanish about how I didn’t know anything. “YOU IDIOT I SPEAK SPANISH! I CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’RE SAYING!” were my thoughts as he ignorantly became annoyed. Finding his name was like picking out a specific grain of sand; in my case one “Juan Whatever” out of a list of ninety people.What was worse was the fact that his shirt was unbuttoned and his chest was showing. As I was scrolling down the list, a pale piece of man boob was peeking at me. I wanted to die laughing, which slightly intensified his irritation. OH WELL…IF YOU WOULDN’T HAVE FLASHED ME I WOULD NOT HAVE SNICKERED! C’MON GUY YOU KNEW I WAS GOING TO LAUGH. I MEAN YOUR BOOB IS BASICALLY SLAPPING ME IN THE FACE! LOL

Such an odd day!

-Ari

Summer Summer Tra la la

I am too hyperactive for this summer down time!

With that said, I have decided to address this angst by blogging.

Let me give you a “run-down” of what all has happened in the past two days.

DAY 1 OF AVOIDING  COFFEE AND OTHER ADDICTIONS:

I…

woke up (three times…finally got up at 11:30), got banana icecream at marble slab (amy’s ice cream is better, I know), walked next door to buy three different shades of hair color, drove home, took a few pictures while waiting in traffic, prepared my books and journals for an outing at cafe, ate dinner, realized that LOST was on, spent 2 hrs watching lost, dyed my hair, got dressed again (it was 10:30), attempted to eat waffles, avoided coffee all day…SUCCESS! Slept at an unknown time.

DAY 2 OF AVOIDING COFFEE AND OTHER ADDICTIONS:

I…

Woke up before the alarm clock (six o’clock), got dressed, straightened hair, did 3 loads of laundry, ate cinnamon bread for breakfast, drove down to mother’s work for a visit, drove to post office, realized that I forgot documents (postponed the post office ordeal), drove home, watched “Mr. Hobbs takes a vacation,” ate eggs with onions, got grossed out by eggs AND onions, found color film in the fridge next to Lemon Lime Jones Soda, formed new addiction to Lemon Lime Jones Soda, ran a mile to break addiction, napped for an hour, ate a quick lunch, “fixed” eyebrows, got dressed for work, read a few chapters of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, couldn’t stop laughing, left for work early, stopped by cafe, ice coffee…FAIL (will start “no coffee” goal tomorrow), chatted with James about wild grass in his backyard.

THE END

I know, it was a pain reading all that. I need to figure out my passport issues so I can go home for a week or two. Summer is PERFECT for holga pictures, and medium format fun, JUST SAYING! Tee hee hee.

P.S. Crack down on kicking coffee addiction besides online shopping and daydreaming (apparently they aren’t working).

Have a SWELL day ladies and gents!

Love,

Ari

Block Review

Block Review, otherwise known as “DOOMSDAY,” came and went like a class 4 hurricane. After months of preparation, I’m glad that it’s finally over! I can’t say I’ll miss driving home at six in the morning, falling asleep at every light on the way, only to change and be back on campus two hours later for class. I don’t think I’ll miss splashing fixer on my face and breaking out the next day, or being stalked by the photobabies and other creepy muggers on campus. I’m pretty sure I won’t miss crawling out of bed during spring break while sick with the flu to shoot and be up at the lab. I REALLY won’t miss getting dressed in a hurry, forgetting my pants, and freaking out the neighbors as I strutted half way down the walkway in my skivvies.

I WILL miss the “SCARE REVOLUTION” that I started when sneaking up on Amanda, one late night, resulting in the loudest shriek I’ve ever heard in my entire life. I will definitely miss freaking out with Dawn when the heinous color processor decided to stop halfway through her print. It has been one LONG semester and I can’t wait til summer! One thing that I can walk away with is the fact that all our hard work that we put in was not in vain because WE MADE IT IN! Thumbs up night crew…you deserve it!

Love,

Ari

P.S. Waffles tonight?

Spring Breaks Me

Since I work for a college whose spring break is a week before all the other schools, I’ll have the entire week off next week. As much as this excites me, an overwhelming load of projects, projects, and more major projects puts a damper on my glorious parading. In between doing photo shoots and making these lame “color charts” for Color class, I’ve been searching for grad schools.

I definitely want to move to the east coast for a bit, oddly most of the schools that offer my degree are on that side.

HERE is my laundry list of possible choices:

Pratt Institute in Manhattan, New York

Maryland Institute College of Art and Design in Baltimore, Maryland (strongly considering this one)

Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia (eh…not my top pick)

Parsons the new school for design in New York

AND BACK-UP PLAN (if all else fails)  University of Texas in Austin, Texas

and so on and so on.

Definitely sad about the canceled trip to SxSW

OH well.

Toodles,

Ari

Online shopping

It’s usually on Friday afternoons that I do the most online shopping, especially at work. In between evaluating transcripts and answering random questions, I get up to date on current events and begin my “online retail therapy.” I find online shopping to be an addiction much like an addiction to cold medicine or some form of substance. It is the bright blue light that draws me in when I’m bored at work. Now, I’m not necessarily an impulse buyer. I can look at an object and be satisfied with just looking at it.

I made a list a new wish list and have begun my search for the following items:

Aside from purchasing the necessary photo supplies, I came across these things.

Epson Stylus R2880

C’mon you knew this was coming. Most of my life revolves around a photographic/artistic lifestyle. I need a new photo printer. This one runs around $800. I bet I can find it cheaper…it’s what I do on Fridays.

turntable

I’m not a DJ (although I probably would have the most wicked DJ name) but I need a new record player since my father gave away the two antique ones that my grandpa gave me. I really just want the old ones back but don’t have the heart to drive 13 hrs just to retrieve them. STILL they were antiques!

clear and turquoise umbrella

You know how much I love the rain! I just bought a black and white printed raincoat and want a new cute umbrella to go with it when I go puddle jumping. ( I know I’m such a big kid) This one is from Urbanoutfitters, which runs around $18.

Rene Burri

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, MY LOVES!!!

Enjoy the online retail therapy!

Love,

Ari