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.