So This is Love

Valentine's Day is my third favorite holiday...after Christmas at number one (OF COURSE) and Thanksgiving at a slight number two.

Not because of the chocolates or the decorations or the TV specials, but because of what is stands for. Love.

People around me have probably heard me complain about the fact that, this year, Valentine's Day was on a Saturday. I have to complain because, being the single lady I am, I don't usually have a Valentine to lavish me with all the cutesy stuff other people get on Valentine's. But when I can go to school on Valentine's Day, I get to watch the girls carrying around teddy bears half their own size with bouquets of flowers, and the occasional couple, suddenly thrown back into the innocent blushing-and-crushing state their relationships all started with. It's adorable. :)
Not to mention the amazing treat of having Cloud Nine, our school's boy a Capella group, interrupt the class to preform a second-hand serenade for some girl, purchased by her boyfriend.

Luckily, Cloud Nine still went around on Thursday, and I got to see a few couples and a few gifts on Friday. We even got candy in seminary that I was able to share a bit throughout the day.. but I was still disappointed I'd miss Valentine's Day.

Saturday I wasn't going to be anywhere near couples, actually. I had NATS competition in Chicago, which could have lasted anywhere from 6 minutes to 11 hours. See, the competition is huge and awfully competitive. Soloists like myself prepare three songs, months in advance. We have the choice to meet with our accompanist before the performance. This year, for the first time, I decided to actually use that chance and we had a time set for 9 am with her.

We arrived at Northeast, the college hosting CCNATS about 8:30 to allow for warm-up and sign-in and whatnot. After my rehearsal, we just sat around. I did my nails, Dad watched LOST, and I sang mentally...a lot. My trulife performance was at 11:21, so around 10:45, we headed back to the hallway the performances were in (it was awfully small this year! Usually, CCNATS is on multiple floors or even multiple campus buildings) to warm up again.

The judges give you six minutes to preform. Soloist pick the first song of the repertoire to sing, and the judges then pick the next. Usually, that's all you have time for. My first song, "Du Bist Die Ruh" was my favorite of the three and I feel it shows off my voice best. The other two to pick from included "The Bird" and "Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind". "The Bird" is difficult, apparently, but I just thought it was boring. "Blow, Blow," however, is supposed to be easier. It's a Baroque piece, so my voice teacher put ornamentation into the second verse. It was a lovely, fun song, and I get to do some awesome things with my voice singing it. However, because it's boring and easy without ornamentation and there's no rule saying soloists must use ornamentation, the judges picked "The Bird".

After I finished, feeling pretty pleased but definitely not that I did well enough to advance, Dad and I went into Chicago. We got pizza at Gino's East, which was delicious but very time-consuming, and then stopped off at the Apple store and the Disney store. Success eluded us at both places...apparently, you need to get an appointment for customer service with Apple. I enjoyed my walk around the Disney store just fine, but didn't buy anything. Didn't expect to, actually. :P

We were actually late getting back to NATS for results, which was okay because I didn't advance anyway. For those curious, if you're in the top three in your division (split by age) you advance into the next round. The top performers chosen in that round win money and preform at a concert that night.

Later that night there was a multi-stake Dance for Valentine's Day....but I was absolutely bushed! Completely incapable of the energy needed for dances...so to the dismay of my friends, I opted to stay home and rest.

In honor of Valentine's Day, amidst all the hustle of getting Mom ready to fly off to Utah, we watched one of my (since no one else wanted to pick) very favorite romantic movies..."You've Got Mail!". For those of you who haven't seen this movie, you really should. It's silly, but so very sweet, and has a great sense of soul-mate-ness. It also happens to be the first chick-flick I ever saw, seeing as it's rated PG. So maybe I'm biased, but every time I watch it, I get swept off my feet right along with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.

So, my Valentine's Day wasn't what I expected, or necessarily wanted. I didn't get to see my school mates giggly over each other, I didn't get a fish tank full of pink socks and a DVD I really should be too old for, and I had to spend the majority of it at a competition that, although I promise I really did enjoy, made me tired of singing (blasphemy!) by today. But it seemed perfect in every way that evening.

I love this holiday because it stands for love...the love that holds together high-school sweethearts with little gifts, but also the love that holds together a family for eternity. Yesterday, I got to see my mother's face light up like a young lady in love when she read a card from my father. I got to watch my father pick out that card, the perfect display of flowers, and frosted animal cookies with a determination and giddy excitement that he only gets when he's hoping to surprise the woman who knows him best.

I got to sit on the bed with my parents as we watched a movie about my favorite (in case you haven't noticed) emotion and, even though it wasn't a very productive hour and a half, I could just feel so safe and loved. I got to text my sister in French, who was willing to try her hand at texting in French because she loves me and probably knew it would make me grin like it did. I got to feel so loved and so spoiled.

I have friends who call February 14th "Singles Awareness Day", but I think they're all not just scrooges...but blind. Valentine's Day is about love...not necessarily relationships. I may not have one valentine, a box of chocolates, or a bouquet of roses, but I get to feel just as loved as anyone else...and probably more than some. Sure, it helps that I see other couples walking around and think "oh, how cute!" as opposed to "why not me?", but I really believe that the holiday of love is meant for everyone...taken or not.

"So This is Love" can be found in Cinderella

Down in Africa, Gonna Take Some Time to Do the Things We Never Had

So this is probably a new record with my lateness. :D Not only is my next project already finished, but I've been OUT of Computer Graphics II for weeks now.

I'm still adjusting to being out of it, though. ;)

There's something extra-special about this picture. It earned me my first ~*impressive*~ award in art...a Silver Key Scholastics award!

As quoted from the School website, "The National Scholastic Art Competition, launched in 1923 by Scholastic, Inc., is the oldest student art competition in the United States with students from all over the country competing for awards at the regional and national level. These awards offer early recognition of creative teenagers and scholarship opportunities for graduating high-school seniors. The awards are national in scope and administered by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers."

There are three levels for Scholastics awards... first is Honorable Mention (Which I got(!!!) for an animation I actually created last year for Computer Graphics I and touched up this year when Mr. Gehl told me he wanted to put it in the contest. However, I don't have the animation file or the technology to get it again to post. Sorry.). The second level is Silver Key, which I received on this piece! Today, actually, I received my fancy certificate and a lovely pin in the shape of...guess what...a silver key. The third and top level is Gold Key. The students who advance to Gold Key level have advanced to nationals, held this year in New York City! My friend advanced 3 peices this far...but probably won't be able to attend the ceremony for monetary reasons. I hope she can, because she really deserves to go more than most people in my mind. If anything, she should get an award for sheer number of golden keys!

Back when the award-winners were first announced, my name was put (along with the artists of the other 22 placing pieces at Waubonsie) on the Marquee, as you may have read on Mom's blog. I got it on the marquee for reflections, too, but I didn't get to see it. This was really, really cool.

The names, since there were so many, buzzed by ridiculously fast. We're lucky we got a shot of my name, actually! It was on there once before, for reflections, but WVHS has so many awesome amazing people that they rotate the announcements frequently and I didn't get to see my name.

Uh. I should probably get to the actual PIECE now, shouldn't I?

You probably won't notice, but I'm actually pulling the link for this image from the school's "Winter Art Display" online site. It's always exciting when I get something up there. :D For fall, I had the New York Collage up there as well....maybe not as exciting as a gold key, but still. It's a fun experience; both humbling (because DANG the other pictures are amazing!) and something that gives me pride (because...well....DANG the other pictures are amazing!)

I named this project "Out of Africa". I really, really, like the pun. A lot. It's kind of sad, actually, how much I like it, seeing as it's not that funny.
I did this piece in Photoshop for a unit called "Out of Bounds". This technique is...really popular. People LOVE doing out of bounds because it creates a cool, dramatic effect and it's quite easy. You can google-image "Out of Bounds" and only get 1-2 sports images on the whole page...everyone loves doing this effect and especially showing it off.

I'm not going to go into lengths about the process because you can find it by googling easily, as I already said, and the majority of hard work on this project was NOT with that effect. Mr. Gehl requires us to use two "photos", much like this piece here. Actually, this one is really cute. :) No one in our class used clotheslines...almost everyone did classic "grey background, white frames, photo with interaction cut into two scenes with an action bridge". One guy used a television, and I used a book.

I'm pretty pleased with myself for going so above and beyond the expectations. The four cheetahs and middle gazelle are all from the "base" photo, but as I got my idea firmer, I knew ONE gazelle would look pretty lame for an entire page in a book about African animals. Especially if Cheetah gets three. One inferiority complex, coming up! Also, I added the tree and birds (and brochures)...but that was after the rest of the project.

The text and frames kill(ed) me the most. Honestly, I still have no idea how I could make straighter lines in our school's photoshop, since I needed to warp them to suit the book's curving spine. Likewise, that text...drove me crazy. I never did manage to line them all up with the correct perspective, but I taught myself to just let go. By the way, that's all legit text. The "canvas image"'s text was far too blurry and far too light for my liking, so I copied and pasted from wikipedia. If I had more pixels to work with (again...canvas image was tiny and not lovely, but the best I could find) you could see my hard-work better. :P

Once I felt close to done enough with the image, I showed it to Mr. Gehl. He suggested I fill up the top of the image and blah blah blah, and thus I decided to add the trees and birds. I have to admit, I'm quite fond of my idea with the brochures. :)

Once THAT was done, and I actually felt done enough for the class, I showed it to Gehl again. This time, he pointed out six or seven tiny details he usually never would have brought up. That made me really excited, honestly...because I knew that meant he was going to submit it. I think having my work submitted to scholastics was just as if not more exciting than finding out 2/3 pieces made it. That seems kind of weird and is hard to explain, but I guess...begin considered good enough to go up with the big dogs is what gives me the rush. I'm a pretty uncompetitive person (most of the time) so whether I win or lose doesn't change that much. But the honor of getting to that point...that's what gets me. Because I know I've worked hard, someone else can see that, and someone else thinks that its worthy enough to go up with TRUE talent. Hogeez....that's intense.

"Africa" can be found by Toto