Joyful and Triumphant

Yesterday marked the end of the 2008 WVHS Prism season. It was the eleventh prism I've attended, the third I've been a part of.

Prism concerts are something...out of this world. I love them so much and they're one of the reasons I'm not excited to have Christmas away from Napauroraville.

So what is Prism? You see, WVHS has one of the strongest music programs in the area. The pinnacle concert of the year brings together the band, orchestra, and choir students in a two-hour concert of streamed music fit for the Holiday season.

Of course, WVHS is a public high school with a music program run by conductors who live for all kinds of music and all kinds of beliefs. So it isn't 100% Christmas music...there's some classical, some Hanukkah, we were originally going to do a Kwanzaa song for Mosaic (trust me, the new one was much better), and there's some folk holiday songs from around the globe. Of course, these non-Christmas songs are never audience favorites, but I bloomin' love Prism so much, I don't really care.

I've been eager to be a part of Prism for years...since the first few concerts I saw, I think it's safe to say. Freshman year, the first thing I did when I tried on my robe for the first time was pumping it into the air for "Jingle Bells". Heh...at least I got to do it once. : I quit curricular choir after freshmen year, and since the freshmen don't preform at Prism, and only curricular kids get the robes, I never had my robe to fist-pump with. And I'm never going to stand in the front of the audience, holding the hands of Varsity kids. I will get that Santa hat, though.

See, for those still reading and confused, Prism is steeped in tradition. The concert itself has been a WVHS tradition for...geez, I don't know how many years. We put on four shows because it is so popular and so well-loved by the community. My personal highlight every year is the Finale, the Creme de la Creme, the pinnacle moment- the Christmas Festival.

This song brings together all the students in Prism and has been with the concert for years. Almost every year, the special effects team adds a little something more, so viewers old and new can feel that rush.

It begins with a swelling timpani, and immediately, audience members know magic is happening. The lighting moves from hyper-focus on the conductor to the stage, filled with talented musicians. In front of you, behind you, and all sides are choir students, robed in green (or donned in Black for the mosaic-only kids like myself). Dotted through the room, students sport Santa hats. These are the seniors...the ones most likely to cry. Unless you're Alaina Hendricks. Then you cry every year. ;)

The first song of the medley is "Joy to the World", and it sets the mood immediately. Smoothly, it moves into "Deck the Halls", and with a minor transition becomes "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen". The smooth song picks up pace into the high, exhilarating "Good King Wenceslas"...the bane of all freshmen, the only one whose words they don't know. Once that song ends, the transition slows for the moving and angelic "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". Then, the cellos solemnly set the stage, mirrored by the literal setting of the stage as the lights dim and the scrim lights up, Christmas lights putting on a faux starlit sky perfect for "Silent Night". The song of heavenly peace ends with the chipper and immediate switch to "Jingle Bells"...fit with snow, real fake snow falling from the catwalk onto the audience. After one verse, everyone takes it down an octave and fist-pumps that "Hey!" we've all been waiting for. Once that ends, the back curtain open wide, revealing a full hidden layer of brass, trumpets flared towards the audience with a beautiful winter scene behind them and a hanging wreath to top it off. The band and orchestra on the stage, combined with the additional brass with the power of a thousand angels pick it for the powerful and truly impressive "O Come All Ye Faithful", fit with impressive "accompaniment" that I can't help but conduct along to. It sweeps into the impressive chorus, powerful music ever-swelling and moving, far past when the choir quits. The cymbal crashes signifying the end are just as amazing as anything, especially as this year they were mirrored with flashes of colored lights. After that final note, the audience rushes in the applause they've been asked to withhold, offering a standing ovation to the thrilled performers. The applause is so much that we always offer an encore of that amazing "O Come All Ye Faithful"...this year, tripped up a bit (on purpose..."tripped up" is just as positive lingo as it is negative) with an extended drum roll between cymbal crashes.

You know Prism's over when the seniors toss their Santa hats into the air...their last Prisms and the end of something much bigger.

There's a reason WVHS passes out limited number of tickets to a concert that we offer four times.
There's a reason seniors cry when they preform their last performance.
There's a reason I cry (just a bit) of gratitude each time "O Come All Ye Faithful" begins.
There's a reason they preform the same finale every year to the same reaction every year.
There's a reason new audiences show up and gasp at the starlight...the snow...and the performances throughout the entire concert.
There's a reason I've wanted to be a part of this show more than any other thing in WVHS.

And until you see for yourself...you'll never know that reason.

Then again, people do walk out of the show muttering about how few Christmas songs there were, how long the rehearsals are, how off certain performances were, and how horrible the traffic to leave is. But for every Grinch has a heart that can grow four times, and I seriously believe that Prism helps tap at that Christmas spirit.

After all, what is Christmas about? Family? What better family to celebrate the gift of music with than the WVHS Music Department family, that gives its hours, nights, and weeks to the advancement of its students?

Giving? What better way to give than through the gift of music? To touch the lives and hearts of those around you and remind them of the power of a song? (There's also donations to be accepted out every door...;P)

Christ? As much as our school censors religion and asks for separation of Church and State...Prism does celebrate the Reason for the Season. What better way to celebrate Him than to sing Hallelujahs and Noels of His miraculous birth and mission...and to share that in the secular environment of schools?

Love? How can you better spread love than through song...both the teaching of and the sharing of? What better way to express your love than to support your students, friends, and children as they do what they love for whom they love? More teachers cried this audience than I've heard of in awhile. :)

Togetherness? The music students are infamous for our stereotypes...the dirty Band Geeks who hate the nerdy Orch Dorks and the elitist Choir Nerds who ignore them all...but for this one concert...for that one song...we all come together and push past all of that to spread that message and that joy of Christmas. What better purpose to come together than for this holiday season with more power than any other time of the year?

I LOVE PRISM. In case you can't tell. And I cherish the opportunity to sing with some of the most talented people I know for the best purpose imaginable...even if I can't wear that green robe I've dreamed about.

I believe in the power of Prism more than I believe in the goodness of Santa Claus.
And geez, you'll be hard-pressed to find a seventeen-year-old who loves Santa more than me.

"O Come All Ye Faithful" can be found anywhere this season...yes, including during Prism.

Enjoy the Humor of the Situation

Today started out normal enough. I have English first period, and we were supposed to start watching "A Knight's Tale" with Heath Ledger. It's based (lightly like woah) on Canterbury Tales, which we just finished. Also, it works for a three-day break for those who would rather not get homework as Prism (our big Christmas Concert) and Finals approach.

So we turned on the movie and it was just a few minutes until we got an announcement from a very frantic, very frightened-sounding Principle, alerting teachers that we were "in a hard lock-down" and this was "not a drill". Trulife, friends! Google it!!

So for those first few minutes of being cramped and sqeezed against the wall with lights off in silence, we were all terrified. At our wits ends. After a few minutes, we started to make jokes and lighten up a bit...but the majority of us were still just trying to ignore our fear. Mrs. Bello assured us that she's never had a real lockdown in her WV career, and they're very frightening things...especially when we realized it was a gun threat that put us in our spots. We could hear cop cars (and see them out the window) and all knew it was very possible there was an armed threat walking around.

Just a bit longer and we had loosened up a bit (physically) to the place where no one was any longer sitting on top of people. We turned the TV on mute to see if we were on the news. We got to CNN and the screen showed cop cars, fires, and explosions. The room went silent as we were all wondering; is that US? But it only took a few seconds for us to read the caption.
"Anarchy in Athens".
No one could do anything but laugh.
By this time we had already decided that someone should write a book about this, if not a movie.

We kept flipping channels and Janesh (the kid who is sort of our designated class techie) settled on a commercial of a fairly heavy-set african american woman advertising Tylenol. Mrs. Bello (my teacher) asked what he was doing on that channel and he answered, "it's the closest I could find to Waubonsie!" It's not hard to say that, again, we were laughing.

Easily, the most amusing part of that first hour or so was with Lauren's lunch. She was one of the very few in our class blessed enough to have packed her lunch that day, and first she shared her pretzels. We warned her against wasting her rations, but she always assured us "don't worry, I have a banana and a sandwich!". At this time, as it was still that half hour or so of laughing to mask our fear, we had planned millions of ways to protect ourselves should Gunman walk in. Mrs. Bello had already volunteered her ice tea, we had plenty of kids ready to chuck books, chairs, and printers if needs be. Eventually, when Lauren pulled out her banana, we found our best protectator yet. You know those lovely "Chiquita" stickers on the bananas? Well, our class's patron hero had one of its own, reading "The Food that Fights for You". The banana was passed around the class, perhaps sharing our first true laugh. Mrs. Bello promptly tied it to the overhead pully-string, drawing chalk arrows on the board to remind us of its constant protection.

Eventually, Mrs. Bello decided it was a good idea to put on A Knight's Tale on mute, as we were all cramped under the TV anyway. So, for the next two hours or so, we watched it. Very funny movie, but I've been assured the best part is the music/voices, so we missed out. Plus, only about four people paid attention to the TV. Most were chattering, laughing, or playing games in our tiny uncomfortable corner.

Hours went by. The movie finished, and Mrs. Bello decided to teach. NOT COOL, BTW. IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING. In case you forgot, Knight's Tale is supposed to last us three days...Today, Tomorrow, and Friday. Then, Monday we have for Finals review and Tuesday is our Multiple Choice final. Real finals go from Wednesday-Friday. The lesson she taught us is supposed to be for after break. We got that homework she promised to never give us for Prism.

During Mrs. Bello's lesson, the police finally came in. A few hours before (it was quarter after eleven by this time; hour four of lockdown) we had recieved information (through secretive texts, as our classroom was one of the few not allowed to text or use our phones openly) that the police were "searching" from the third story down. Our classroom was on the bottom floor, so it was a good sign we were close to being done.

They had us line up and searched all our bags and frisked every student. Our officers were pretty nice and Mrs. Bello even chatted with them a bit. She was thrilled to introduce them to the banana that had protected us that whole time.

The officers told us we could leave our lights on and sit down as the threat had passed, but that we were to remain quiet. They also assured us that bathroom escorts were just behind them. Hours in one class is NOT fun...we were all missing passing periods where we drink and use the bathrooms, not to mention our lunch periods. Lauren's pretzels were long gone.

Mrs. Bello had us do homework and seemed to be even stricter about quiet than she had when the threat was still intact. That threat, by the way? It was revealed to be a bebe gun. Yup. And that movie I said would be written about the incident? I decided right then...it had better be a comedy.

After five hours in first period, our principle released us. Everyone was hoping and hoping and hoping we would be sent home, but instead we were told that the four lunch periods (3, 4, 5, and 6) would be for thirty minutes. Also, NOT COOL.

The remainder of the day wasn't bad, except for the fact that I was still at school. Genetics was pretty much spent looking up online articles about the lockdown. AP Art History we actually had class, but lunch and gym were really just complaining with friends.

Every class had a different experiance...some were awesome (the teachers that let them play games or text all they want), some were horrible (the kids who peed in bottles and trashcans, or the teachers that made them sit against the wall in total silence all five hours), some were funny (Mr. Lui getting a gun pointed at his face when he entered the classroom during their frisking from their 'pee room'), and some were sad (the girl who fainted).

Every individual had a different experiance, too. One girl trapped in the locker-room played hide-and-seek and made tons of new friends while Kathy, in that same locker-room, was without any friends and without her phone, homework, or our journal to write in and bored out of her mind. Jenny, who unfortunately can't seem to survive without laughing, realized how dangerous that can be. A girl in her class was flipping out whilst being frisked down, and Jenny laughed. The cop immediately pointed a gun at her vand yelled, "IT'S NOT FUNNY."

I know people were scared...both in and out of the school. But the longer we were trapped, the safer we knew we were. We had the Aurora PD with us as well as the Dupage County PD. Heck, we even had US Marshalls! There were dogs barking in the hallway, but really...that's just drug busts going down. Besides...we had that banana with us!

Lockdowns aren't joking matters. It's DEFINITELY not cool to bring a weapon to school...real or replica. And it's really not fun sitting in a corner for five hours, then going to other classes when you know you're not going to do anything productive.

But overall, the thing I learned most about this experiance?

I love Waubonsie. :)
"The Humor of the Situation" can be found by Barenaked Ladies

Angel of Music, Hide No Longer

This is old news, actually.

I've finished a completely new project since this one...but I've been lazy, I suppose, in updating about this one.

I'm quite, quite pleased with this one. But remember how the last one came out better on paper than on screen? Heh. The printer, for this project, decided it liked purple more than any other color. So the version anyone has seen at home is FAR too purple, and the version you all see now is FAR too not-purple so that the final print would be a nice medium.

If it gets to Fine Arts Festival or whatever, you can see the correct coloring there. It's a lovely rose, by the way. ;)

The prompt of this project was to create an object out of objects...much like the last project was a design out of letters. We had suggestions like a rasterbated image or inspired by nature or design shapes...whatever struck our fancy. One girl in my class was working on a BEAUTIFUL image of a woman in a dress of autumn leaves, far superior to the second example I gave you.

Originally, when the project was daunting us all, I wanted to just make an image, say I made it out of pixels, and be done with it. (hehe I'm so funny!) But one it hit me to use music symbols, I was on my way LONG before anyone else in my class. And honestly, all those music symbols are just from a font that types musical stuff. Which is MUCH EASIER than finding them all online...

In the original picture, the angel is surrounded by a horse and foliage. Neither of which were going to be accomplished through musical symbols...not in my lifetime, at least! Mr. Gehl had me ask another art teacher downstairs for her opinion and she suggested the treble clef "harp". LOVE IT, by the way. I eventually decided the classic cloudy-looking-angel's-heaven worked, so I had a LOT of fun with that. It's actually a double layer of the image, top layer "cut out" as seen in the example over here. Then, I used different levels of opacity to erase in places, giving me a look I just love. I wish I had spent a tad more time on it, though. Would have been splendid. Also worked with the sponge, a tool that saturates and desaturates the colors.

This was an interesting project. Once I figured out what I wanted to do, it was really more a matter of finding shapes that fit the lines on the original image. It was one of those projects I just relaxed and popped out...definately fun. Not exactly OH MY GOSH SO EXCITING but still, I enjoyed it, and I REALLY enjoy actually being happy with the turnout.

"Angel of Music" is from Phantom of the Opera, by Andrew Lloyd Weber

1 Thing 2 Say, 3 Words 4 You

So here are the rules of being tagged: list 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 surprising facts and then tag 5 other people.


3 joys
Christmas Music

My Family

Creating Art

3 fears
Getting my fingernails or toenails ripped off (no joke...biggest fear ever!)

Losing my family

Losing my pets

3 Current Obsessions/Collections
Giving myself french manicures

Lois and Clark's relationship

Disney Classics (I have a group of friends coming over today to watch movies for 9 hours straight...though I seem to be the only one who can make it for all 9 hours)

3 surprising facts
I've never seen A Christmas Story

The large majority of my art that turns out good is done during AP Art History

My favorite city is NYC

I tag these 5 people:
You, The one reading this, The one over your shoulder, Whoever hasn't done it yet, and Mom


"1, 2, 3, 4" is by Plain White Tees

My Dreams Are on You, Kid

The following comic is based on a real experience from Wednesday, as can be read (and most likely better understood) on Mom's Blog.


This week has been QUITE an experience. Tuesday afternoon was spent amongst friends-a new boy moved into the Fourth Ward and I followed Tiffanie, Jenny and Kyle, Josh, and Christian to a Chinese restaurant, the mall, and my house for Rockband to help welcome him. Later that night, we had mutual at our house to play yet more Rockband. I swear, no one's enjoyed Mom's birthday present more than my friends.


That evening, history was made as Chicago's own Barack Obama was elected to be President. The huge party and avid listeners (Mr. Meyer's described their attentiveness as pin-drop silence) in Chicago were described to look just like America; minorities and majorities all joined together in patriotism towards our new President.

The next day at Waubonsie I witnessed similar jubilee. Though many McCain supporters (such as my seminary friends and morning locker group) were both sore and sour, I've never seen more WV students wearing shirts that circled the same theme before; no, not even on WV/NV game days. President Obama won our school mock election with 68%, and although that stairwell experience was the only one I had like it, you could tell...for a day, there were no boundaries between races, no boundaries between friend groups, no boundaries between grade levels. I do not know who I would have voted for (I didn't look far enough into the politics), but to Waubonsie have such an underlying sense of connection...at least, with the exception of those who were on the losing side...I wave my American Flag high for our new President.


If President Obama can unify our country and our government system the way he's unified his followers, I think that's exactly what we need. The people of America need hope. Obama's ideals are lofty, and many of them are controversial and disagreeable. But that hope he inspires in America and inspires us to have in each other is a hope we need.


I'm just praying he doesn't get assassinated.


"One Last Hope" is from Hercules

Easy as ABC

We've finished yet another project for Computer Graphics! And this is perhaps the first this whole class I've been genuinely proud of...plus, it looks better on paper than on the screen. That's never happened to me. :)

Higher Res (and proper format)

We call this project (Computer Graphics II's most infamous) the "Font Design project" because, if you can tell, everything in this image is made of letters.

Our examples are absolutely beautiful...I remember last year I had one (that ended up going to Fine Arts Festival) hanging over my computer, and Christine and I would stare at it and play look-for-the-letter when we were at a loss for ideas in class. They tended to be designs like this or this or this but made of letters (and not henna on immodest ladies, either). There were countless other kinds, but Google Images isn't being very helpful (and searching "[various word] design") is proving to be VERY addicting and "oooooh lets go follow this link instead of being productive".

Regardless, I went this way with the project because!

1. Cursive is way easier than print on this project (it connects very artistically)...yet the spindly cursive works better for the designs like the second example
2. I fail at abstractism and this is the closest I could get...I like my rough drafts, and this kind of organic create-as-you-go project doesn't really like those
3. I like colors (as you can undoubtedly tell)

When we first started, Gehl went around as he does and really liked mine because "it's like six designs instead of just one" and something else and something else that he couldn't seem to put into words that ended up as "no one's EVER done ANYTHING for this project like THIS! :DDDD". So...that's pretty cool. :) I like being apparently creative. It's almost as good as when I get that artistic rush that makes me dance in my seat.

The worst part was trying to get the drops looking fluid. I'm not sure how I could have done much better though, so I'm cool with it.

And when I was done with the flat layers, I wanted to add something. I decided it was missing a shadow, so I spent a period and a half figuring out a way to grab each drop as one layer (I was working in Adobe Illustrator, which is very different and certainly not my favorite program) and add a drop shadow. Eventually, I ended up liking it with each letter given a drop shadow, which took me about five, ten minutes tops. C'est la vie....

To wrap it up, this put me in a much better mood than Justice League Crosses the Delaware EVER had. And I'm even on better terms with Illustrator...Christine can attest that Illustrator is not my friend.

"ABC can be found by Jackson 5"

Home

Well, I'm finally over at missalainius.blogspot.com! It's much more comfortable here. :)


ALSO

I have a bit of plea- could someone tell Grandma and Granddad and aunt Karin that I would love an invite to their blogs?

Thank you kindly!

(Why yes, this was a short entry. But I don't really have much to say today...)

"Home" can be found by Michael Buble

Fix You

I've always been irked by the mistake I made forever ago with having this blog at the web address "Missalainus". Miss-Al-ay-nus has no punny effect at all....it neither relates to the slighly uncommon but nonetheless quite wonderful English word, nor the quite uncommon but nonetheless slighly wonderful American girl.

But I figured out how to fix it yesterday. :)

Now, I'm going to fix it SATURDAY. So please be aware....all your links to this blog or in your favorites will lead to nothingness unless you change it to missaliainius.blogspot.com quickly!

(um...."editor"'s note. I wrote this YESTERDAY (and then realized all the links were corrupt to missalianius) so I edited the above blurb, but everything else is remaining as written. So please read all "yesterday"s from here on out as "monday the 13th", it makes for a much cleaner read. <3)

WHY YES I DID HAVE OTHER REASONS FOR POSTING TODAY.

Yesterday was my birthday!! It was fantastic!

I went to see Ghost Town with a few friends....a very funny and excellent movie. I highly reccomend it...it was very clean for being PG-13 (cleaner than my high school ever gets!) and very funny. I have one friend, Jenessa, who has told about seven of her friends one short scene and still cannot get through describing it without crying of laughter. (It wasn't really that funny of a scene, but....) Also quite unexpectedly cute and well-done with characters that almost all developed through the course of the movie and plot-points that carried well and had good themes.

Michelle, a friend of mine who works at Nova 8 Cinemas (and got me in for free!) said that they've had to refund LOTS of tickets for Ghost Town because people walk in thinking it's a scary movie. Guys. Don't be fools. At least look at a promotional poster before you decide the word ghost=scary.

After that, Mom and I were going to head out to get ingredients for lasagna, but that ended up not happening...because we went to the petstore to get me a replacement fish! See, I got a goldfish named Finnigan when I was asked to Homecoming and when I was putting him in his new tank this morning, he died. So, since I was promised a fish a long time ago anyway, AND yesterday was my birthday, Mom decided it was a good time to get one. We talked to this very smart petstore man who helped us pick out a beautiful Fancy Goldfish who I've named Fernando and a snail "companion" (read "maid") named Chiquiquita, as well as some plants, appropriate food, and a bubbler to keep Fernando from suffocating when he goes up for oxygen.

It took awhile to set them up, but Fernando and Chiquiquita fill up the tank ever so nicely, and it looks and sounds lovely. I may be a nerd, but I LOVE the rumbling sound of the bubbler, and going to sleep to it is absolutely heavenly. Waking up to it, however....let's just say it'll keep me from falling back asleep. However, I'm supposed to feed Fernando three times a day, and his water is already clouding, so I have improvements to make, such as not giving him as much food. ;) Also, the petstore guy said that fancy goldfish like frozen peas and orange wedges; you heard me right! You better believe it, 'cause my friend Killian had a goldfish she won and kept for several years who ate cheerios as voraciously as Papaya...but that's a blog entry for another day.

After that, we had no time for homemade lasagna, so we went to Luigi's House for dinner and dessert. My lasagna was absolutely fantastic, but I was way too full to finish (seconds for tonight! (note: actually....no...lunch for Mom and Dad.)) and their chocolate cheesecake has liquor in it, and it was too late to go buy some more. We're going to get more later! I also got to open my gifts...besides the shoes my friend Christine bought me (there's a lovely story behind them I'll tell someday), and Fernando, I suppose, Mom and Dad bought me a BEAUTIFUL (and on sale) pearl necklace. It's absolutely stunning...I'm just a not allowed to wear it to school. But that's cool....it'll make it even more special. I also got an adooooorable (and much needed) bag from Mark and Em with an iTunes card! I'm so excited to pick out my music. :)

I realize the majority of this post was about my birthday, but knowing me and my tendancy to skip over important days and events, I think I'll keep the title "fix you", as without my thrill in fixing that little domain name, I probably never would have gotten around to this.

"Fix You" can be found by Coldplay

If I Go Crazy, Will You still Call Me Superman?

Sooooooo we had another project for Computer Graphics finished awhile ago.
I would have posted it way long ago, but I kept forgetting it to resize it to make Imageshack happy.
(Again. If you REALLY want to submit yourself to the image, click it.)

Higher Res Here

Background information on the prompt! There are these two art competitions going around, so we got to choose which one (or both!) to participate in. One was Reflections, which the contest theme was "WOW". Reflections is a competition that children are encouraged to participate in all schooling years, usually getting the most participation from Elementary School kids because it's HIGHLY SUGGESTED to participate. This is honestly the first year I've been involved in it. Reflections always requires an artist statement, which are fun for me anyway. :)

The second art competition presented the challenge of modernizing a masterpiece. I don't remember much at all about who's presenting this part of the deal, but they didn't require anything but a modernized masterpiece....examples would be (these are some done in our class) Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" with McDonalds food on the table, Vincent van Gough's "Starry Night" with Chicago, Piet Mondrian's "Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue" with iPods...the list is endless. Origianlly, I was going to do Cassius Coolidge's "Bold Bluff" with Dungeons and Dragons...which I soon realized I knew NOTHING about and thus wouldn't work...but option two, playing the Wii, would require me to pretty much redraw the entire thing, which I didn't have time for...and playing Monopoly grew to be irritating and really stupid looking, not to mention the modernization elements were tiny details that just looked...well...stupid.

So, I somehow figured I should do Emanuel Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" and the Justice League. Honestly, the thing I'm MOST proud of with this project is the alterations I did on the painting itself, getting rid of that GARISH color and moving oars and whatnot around.

I spent days and days looking for images of all the heroes in suitable poses, (Poor Vixen is a combination of three different Vixens...she's probably the coolest hero on that boat after Superman and Batman, and she has the most depressing limit of images!) and had WAY not enough time to work on the elements of blending them into the image.

They look SO SHOPPED. It makes me cry a little. The only ones who look sucessfully integrated are Black Lighting, Hawkgirl (who looks like a creeper staring at the viewer, doing NOTHING to help the struggling crew), and Black Canary, who looks all emo with the discoloration underpainting gave her.

UNDERPAINTING OH GOSH. If I could redo this project, I would in a heart beat, starting after I found all those images and cut out the heroes. I wouldn't waste my time finding them all again, but I made the mistake of underpainting them all individually RIGHT AFTER I put the picture in its place on the boat, instead of doing it all at once. Thus, when I saved, it sealed in the horrible curse I laid upon my heroes. WHAT IS THIS UNDERPAINTING BUISINESS, you may ask. "Underpainting" is a photoshop filter that takes the image and applies an effect to mimick a canvas. Thus, it was supposed to blend the heroes into the true canvas they're on, but I was on way too high a resolution (who would have thought such a thing was possible?) and so the canvassing pixels were way off base and did naught but blur the images.

WHAT IS WITH THESE EMO DARK HUES, you may ask. Well, it was all part of the process in blending the image into the canvas, which was dark and blue from me transforming it away from that ew yellow color. But it did nothing for me, again, but make everything emo. Except for Superman, who I kept saturated for effect but ended up just looking sloppy.

OH GOSH ALAINA, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU LIKE, you may ask. Yeah, actually. I'm quite pleased with The Thing, The Hulk, and Spiderman I stuck in the background in place of horses. :) I also really like my artist statement (did you forget from above already? We had to have one for Reflections). Gehl decided to make the statement required for all students, as to not make anyone choose the Modernize Masterpiece one over the "Wow" one on the pretense of "cool no artist statement". So I wrote mine just on the piece, and then realized I should probably merge it into "Wow"-acceptable so that it could be double-entered.

Do I think this peice is gonna win me anything? PSH no. The artist statement, however, I'm pretty dang fond of. :)

---
Centuries ago, Emanuel Leutze immortalized Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River during the American Revolution with his oil painting, Washington Crossing the Delaware. To those of the still young country, this painting represented the finest of American heroes. They exemplified the American spirit of bravery, of resisting oppression, and of patriotism. Additionally with the awe-inspiring men, the events of crossing the frozen Delaware river in the middle of the night to bring to pass a crucial step towards Independence for America, the painting and all its subjects were all worthy of a wow.

In our modern times, though we still honor and revere President Washington and his fine men, the idea of what is worthy of a wow has changed. Superpowers, saving the world, and flashy costumes now gain the attention of the mesmerized peoples. Likewise, the idea of bravery, resistance against oppression, and patriotism has often skewed to these modern American heroes of less historical accuracy.

I feel I have been successful in capturing this drift in the American view of heroism and “the wow factor” by placing “The Justice League of America” in the place of the original American heroes. These new reincarnations of heroism still hold fast to these same traits of hard work, resistance against oppression, bravery, and even patriotism, and are as much ideals of these positive traits to Americans of today as President Washington was to the Americans of the 1850’s. The view of a hero has changed in a way that when observed brings one a “wow factor”. And these American heroes alone, whether they be historical or fantastical, uphold the values of bravery, resistance against oppression, and patriotism and deserve for themselves a resounding wow.

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For your information, after this project I really, really get why people like comic books so much. I had to read about the characters in search of images and WOW are they ever interesting. This project has freelz changed my look on super heroes...I'm seeing them all over the school a lot more than I used to. On T-shirts, backpacks, notebooks (why yes, I AM in High School), and the craziest part? I can name them all now.

"Kryptonite" can be found by 3 Doors Down.

Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now!

I'm finally answering that tagging you gave me, Mom.

1. Where was I 10 years ago?

I was a first-grader, and had just moved into our new house. I was best-friends with Leah Jennings and Timmy Matthews from church, and Brittany Metallo and Killian Ross from Indian Plains Elementary School. My teacher was Mrs. Saul and she had a big thing for apples. Every time we did a good thing, we got an apple to put on our chart and a three-apple-day awarded you a treat or sticker or toy at the end of the day. I almost always got a 5 apple day and ALWAYS chose a Tootsie Roll. Mrs. Saul also really liked writing and I wrote upwards of twenty stories that year, including "Batty and Spotty (Get Lost!)" which won the Young Author's award that year and was preformed hilariously by the WVHS drama club. (As a high schooler, I can promise that's one of the VERY FEW things club members actually do. Well, that and fundraising.) I had short hair, no glasses, and buck-teeth.

2. What's on my to do list today?

Do Homework and go to mutual. The rest is really just on my "to dream of doing" list. We're making "Boo Blocks" tonight. :)


3. What if I was a billionaire?

I'd go to college! :D
I'd buy Adobe Flash Animation Program or perhaps hire someone to find me what really is the best in animation programs if that's not.
I'd buy everything for my Lion King collection.
I'd buy a heifer or two to donate...or a thousand. :)
I'd go on a cruise, go to France, go to Canada, or do all three.
I'd plan my future.
I'd go Christmas Shopping!


4. Places I have lived:

1. Naperville, Illinois
2. Aurora, Illinois.

OH YEAH BABY, I'M LIVING IT UP.


5. Snacks I like:

You kidding? I'm a Hendricks girl! You'd be hard pressed to find a snack we don't like.
I'd probably put anything with chocolate or cheese (seperate, thank you very much...unless it's cheesecake!) on the list though.


6. Three bad habits:

1 - Having ridiculous lists of productive things and then getting too distracted to actually do anything about it.

2 - Forgetfulness

3 - Procrastination

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WHAT WHY AREN'T MY WORDS ALL COLORFUL?
Welll.....they could be. But then I would never do my homework, see, as that question about the to-do list reminded me I do NOT have all hours to do it today.
(However, that means there may be more typos, as coloring at the end also serves as a lovely form of proof-reading.)

And with that, the actual post-with-a-purpose I had for today is being put off, yet again. :)
"Mama I'm a Big Girl Now!" can be found on the Hairspray Soundtrack

Famous

Well.....
Googleable.
But that's not a song, now is it?

http://www.ipsd.org:80/newsevents/news_item_detail.asp?id=19716

It's not even a real newspaper...just a little blurb on the district website...but still. I think it's pretty cool. C:

The journalist who wrote that article is Mr. Gehl's friend and asked him to help her write the article. I'm not sure how much exactly he wrote, but I gave him some help thinking up things to write about on the class and that quote.

It's a horrible quote, by the way. Usually, I'm pretty good at coming up with cohesive, smart-sounding and occasionally enlightening phrases. But when you're standing there telling your art teacher that his paragraph is accurate (it's actually not completely anymore...the stuff s/he added after about it being chornological is only slightly true.) and then he whips around and says "Now I'll need a quote, please", thinking on your toes gets pretty hard.

I'm sure I could write a beautiful blog or even just rant about that class. It's very good. It really brings the art of the past to life, making everything seem simple, necessary, and influencial on our world. I see similarities bridge from civilizations thousands of years ago into our everyday lives, see how religion, lifestyles, geography, and ruling classes changes art, and see how art changes art. It's a fascinating course and taught brilliantly by two teachers who care very much. Miss Rose is CRAZY and so enthusiastic about this class. Mrs. Thrush is a bit more...mature..? but equally thrilled to teach.

And although it's AP, they honestly do the best they can to make sure we're not failing, to make sure we understand what's going on, and are constantly asking for class suggestions. They didn't see the F's on our second quiz and say "kids, study harder- this is AP. Also, that's normal." They saw the F's and said "What went wrong? Let's talk about this...do you need more specific homework? Should we warn you of the quizes farther in advance? What parts were hard and should we fix?" Of course, a big part of that is that this is the first year it's being taught so they literally need to know how to improve for next year, but seriously. This is not a merciless AP class...it's a merciful one. And a daggum fascinating one at that!

It's probably my favorite class.
And saying "the class does a good job of bringing the history of art to life and making it fascinating and understanding to our generation” doesn't do it justice at all.
"Famous" can be found by Puddle of Mudd

Come on, Come through, New York, New York!

I'm in a class called "Computer Graphics II", which is a wonderful class. My teacher is the fantastic Mr. Gehl, as it was last year, and since I'm in the second of two one-semester classes, I'm one of only 14 people in the school taking it this semester. Which means our class is small, but pretty fun.

We finished our first project, and since these are all digital projects, I figured I'd keep you guys updated. It sure is easier than scanning...even though that's not that hard either. :P

The point of this project was to work with at least 20 layers in Photoshop (a layer is comprised of an image, text, a texture, etc) with 10 of them being varying opacities in incriments of 10 (so there's 10%, 20%, 30%...through 100%). Sort of a heavy call, but it was a lot of fun.

Mine's themed (hopefully, obviously) around New York City and was a lot of fun. I like working with Mr. Gehl and although I don't have any friends like I did in CGI (hahahhaha I never realized that written out it looks like CGI the animation style...heh), I still get to hear every once in a while what other kids like about it.

I'm a little tired of looking at it, as I always am, so the end of a project is always the best. When we flatten it, raise the contrast and darken the hues (or vice-versa, if you're going for a washed-out look) it seems to come to life and the original is always crazy ugly. No exception here. But I'm sure I'll like it more in a few weeks, now that I'm done resizing that lion or adjusting the filters on the background images or messing with the gradient on the lyrics.

Oh, and if you click on it (I'm not sure the image is even showing up...) you get a better res. Which artists always prefer. c:

One of them Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Days

"It happened on one of them Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Days. Now that's the kind of day where you can't open your mouth without a song jumpin' right out of it!"

This actually isn't a post about my wonderful feeling, or my wonderful day. But rather my wonderful friends...I guess you could say that, at least.

In case you've never realized this about my draw to Disney, I'm not interested by just the fuzzy animals, or simply the animation, or even the vast array of characters. One of the reasons Disney has and always will capture my heart is its music...now, that is just ONE of the reasons, and the other three I mentioned alone could probably span multiple posts. But this one takes the cake for today.

My friend Christine lent me her "Classic Disney Volume 1 and 2" CD's, and they were beautiful companions to my homework and my favorite songs are going to feel right at home amidst my already purchased Disney songs. Although MOST of the songs I adore on those CD's are already part of my array of music, there are some songs, like "Candle on the Water", "Best of Friends", and "Dance of the Reed Flutes" to name a few that are not only some of my favorite songs, but also impossible to find on iTunes. And, no offence, Pete's Dragon, I don't want a CD of background music or 50's Disney Music.

That's right...I dare to admit that I'm not a fan of the earliest of the Disney songs. For pure purposes of listening to them, the live-action musical songs tend to have voices and sound-quality that only work with the matching screen visuals. I watched most of Summer Magic whilst babysitting, and I really did enjoy it. Burl Ives was a big treat. However, listening to "Ugly Bug Ball" when you're trying to find the quantity of square root of x-1 multiplied by the quantity of the square root of x+1 to equal 2 times the square root of x-3 isn't exactly pleasurable. Probably an easy question, but it certainly isn't under the circumstances. Speaking of that, (not math, the music) "Let's Get Together" is an adorable song...but the singers...are more adorable on screen. D:

I can't feel too guilty, though, because I grew up with songs like "I'll make a Man out of You" (oh, how ironic..."Ugly Bug Ball" just turned on) and "Be Prepared", so songs with dialouge or dance breaks, scratchy music, or random choirs don't thrill me as much as they could.

I also have to mention that I heard pretty much ALL these songs before in Emily's car, on the way up from Logan with them. It's absolutely wonderful to have a sister who finds similar thrill in Disney (and their music), and also absolutely wonderful to have a sister-in-law who can get my brother to sit and watch and ENJOY these movies. I think my favorite part of watching Jungle Book at your house was knowing you guys loved it, too. And Mark, your comment about the animation being beautiful before the movie started solidified my week as a good one.

Now, even with these CD's I still don't have many of the songs I would love, but since everyone I know only has the first two volumes (apparently 3-5 are hiding from society in shame) I'm probably going to have to scrape through iTunes for some odd songs. And, I'm going to have to go and find the Hercules soundtrack and the Oliver and Company soundtrack...because those two are completely filled with 90's-licous songs I just love. C: Since I'm on the topic, it's worth noting that Oliver and Company was one of the most "artistically" inspirational movies of my childhood and one of the reasons I prefer cartoon dogs over any other cartoon animal. Plus its music is addictive, FUN, upbeat, and just plain good. And Hercules isn't the coolest cast of characters, plots, dialouge, or animation, but the music is simply FUN, and the artistic design of modernized Greek pottery designs was simply inspired brilliance. Delicious. Or, you know, someone could get them for my birthday. :D Please note the working hyperlinks. ;)

As much as I enjoy these CD's, I don't think I'll be looking for 3-5 anytime soon. I found the list of songs online and those that I don't already have that are even remotely interesting number three or four on each CD. Volume 3 seems pretty interesting, and I might actually enjoy the majority of them. But none of them are songs on my MUST HAVE list, except for "Little April Shower", which has been hanging out on the "meh...only if I find it and happen to have a spare buck some bored Saturday" side of the spectrum for years, it seems. A summary of 4 seems to be as many of the 60's and 50's live-action/themepark themesongs as they could pack in, with a few really random songs from things like A Goofy Movie to trip you up from catching a theme. And then 5...poor, rejected Volume 5 seems to hold all the songs at the bottom of the barrel. Yes, many are from my beloved generation, but even these seem out of the mix....seriously.

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Now, on a very unrelated note...Happy Birthday, Emily!!

I have something in the works for you that, apparently, I thought I could finish by today.

Heh.

Heheh.

Expect it by the month's end. ;) And with it, a proper Birthday greeting. I'm sorry for waking you and then ending up to never call you, I feel like I should finish your 'gift' first or something.

He Doesn't Get It

I suppose I should be making a post about my classes, but I seem to skip these "important" posts like recent events and changes in my life and all...maybe I'll improve as I get on and filling in the gaps will be an entertaining sport much like the Olympics.


Initially, coming out of French class, I am in a very good mood. I happen to really like French class, see, and today we spoke much French. Very pleasant. French is also my last period, which is always a relief, so I was practically singing on my way to the bus.

I leave the school through the choir hallway because 1)it is very convient from my French class (but won't be from my locker, which I'll start going to tomorrow) 2)it has notices and occasionally people from the choir world that I need to keep in notice with 3)it's right by my bus 4)it's how I got outside last year and I am a woman of habit. Yesterday, on the first day of school, the choir hall was absolutely packed with people. Today, however, there was ONE (I swear, how does that happen??) person in the hall...the ONE I didn't want to see....a guy named Matt.

To spare you and myself the long, excruiating, and embarrasing story of how I met and grew to highly dislike Matt, I'll give you a quick summary. Matt is my personal creeper...it's an unfortunately common occurance for HS girls, apparently. And to exemplify his level of creeperness, within twenty minutes of learning Matt's name, he said the four words I have grown to cringe and squirm at since- "So, First Kiss Time?"

Ladies and Gentlemen, never, ever say those words. There should never be a reason to. Ever. Unless you've been dating until engagement and still never kissed and its a joke or something. It's awkward, unromantic, CREEPY, and just bizarre. But, if that still doesn't deter you, at least don't say it WITHIN TWENTY MINUTES. THAT'S JUST SICK AND WRONG.
...and yes, I did have some unfortunate responsibility in "leading on" Matt within those twenty minutes, hence the 'embarrasing' part. But regardless....he's the creeper, I'm just a bit spineless when FREAKED OUT OF MY MIND.

Okay, back to TODAY. I saw Matt in the hallway and found myself pretty much stuck. Although I've been avoiding him all summer (easy) in hopes of getting his attention off of me and tried to avoid him all yesterday (difficult, as he seems to be part ninja), all I really accomplished was realizing he's still a creeper. and cue Michael Jackson's "Thriller"! Thank you, shuffled iPod! Unfortunately, this was not an opportunity for me to avoid him. I pretty much HAD to walk down that hall, and as he was alone, when he saw me and put out his arms spreading out to eternity, looking for a hug with his chipper "Alaaaaina!".

I was not as clever or quick-thinking as Christine suggested I should have been, by just high-fiving him and running off, ducking under his arms. It wouldn't have been difficult as he's practically double my height. However, I just managed to smart myself into trying to force the hug to be one-armed. After that, I quickened my pace, trying to have as small of small talk as he would allow. Some guy caught him and started talking, and I was almost at a run. The bus was so close!

Not close enough, apparently. I was halfway to my bus when I heard him shout "Alaaaaina!" at a volume not even I am deaf enough to pretend to ignore. When I turned around, he hit me with "Do you want to go to Turnabout with me?"

No, ladies and gentlemen, that was not a typo. Shall we make a numerical list of why that's a million layers of crazy? 1)Turnabout is LADIES' CHOICE. Hence the name Turnabout. 2)Turnabout isn't until winter! I haven't even seen people around school aking eachother out for Homecoming and that's in the next month! 3)I've talked to this kid a grand total of...what...five unfortunate times? 4)You aren't supposed to ask people to dances that casually anyway. 5)Can we multiply 1 and 2 by a trillion?

So I told him I didn't even know if I was going, he gave me 'time to think about it' as if I needed any got on the bus, called my 'daughter' Jenny, and freaked out. Jenessa decided that she wants to get a posse of 'tough' mormons to indimidate him away from me, namely Phil; my tall, slightly-intimidating senior friend, Josh; a big black kid and friend who 'used to' like me, Jenny; my daughter who looks like she could break all your bones; and Jenessa, who likes to pretend she is black. Christine, who has always wanted to tell this kid he is a major creeper, wants to either join them or be my cue cards holder for my confrontation idea.

I'm hoping I can tell him, straight up that he was really creepin' me out that one day (when I met him) and that no, I do not want to go to the dance with him. Because I am thinking any other answer like "I wanna go wif friends" or "it's ladies' choice, so I'm pretending you never asked" wouldn't deter this crazy kid. Kathy doesn't think I'll have the guts to follow through and a part of me agrees with her but we're all hoping I can do it.

Cause this kid is right underneath homework and Standardized tests that I was not looking forward to for the school year.


To let you know, the song the title is refrencing is actually SHE doesn't get it. These are the other song choices I questioned for my title-
Help!
Dream on Dreamer
It's not Over
Under Pressure
You Don't Know Me
Ladies' Choice