Things done whilst at work

At this point I still had like 70 juice boxes, but it was becoming a bit structurally unsound and I had to go do other work related things.

Only a partial slacker

It's official. I suck at blogging. I've had this blog for approximately 157 days and this is only my ninth post. I suppose a post every 17.4 days isn't that bad, but even so, none of it has been entirely spectacular.  My only excuse for sucking this badly is that in the 157 days I've had this blog I've been extremely busy. What have I and have I not been doing, you ask? Let me tell you.

I have NOT:

been blogging very much (clearly)
invented anything life changing
contracted any deadly diseases (that I know of)
graduated
managed to walk in heels without looking like an idiot
learned to play the harmonica
found a place as awesome as pinkberry in minnesota (even though I did try a number of promising alternatives)

I, however, HAVE:

been a complete overachiever in my studio classes

discovered that I own a tambourine (who knew?)
asked my roommate heidi how to spell things in approximately 1 out of every 10 texts I send
created massive amounts of prints and photographs

such as this nifty monotype that I made at like 2:30 am the day of my final critique, that I only have this ridiculously discolored photo of

been a complete slacker in my generals (which I feel completely fine about)

played the barbie game more than I ever thought I would

been chained out of my room by my roommates

managed to get four pieces into the student art show at my school

won best of show for one of my photographs in said show

seen here behind chris, who claims he is standing suspiciously far away from us because he didn't want to cover up my photo, but in reality I'm pretty sure he just didn't want to associate with us non-medal-winners

had four jobs at one time

purchased a bow-tie

helped somali adults learn english

read both The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Tunneling to the Center of the Earth in the last five days

spent extended periods of time at royal grounds trying to de-stress

done an entire series of photographs about fruit

THAT'S RIGHT. I wasn't a total slacker. Only a partial one.

I have somewhat nerdy hobbies

I've done absolutely nothing productive today. Here's what I did do though:

That's right. I arranged my books by color. I mean, that's a totally legitimate use of my time, right? Notice how I don't have any bookends, so my books are flanked by candles and a camera. Classy. I need to invest in some bookends, I'm thinking either these or these are freaking awesome.

I sort of love books. A lot. When I'm older I hope to have a huge library. Something Beauty and the Beast-esque. Growing up I was always surrounded by an abundance of quality literature. My mom used to have a business buying and reselling books, so I went to an extraordinary amount of book sales, bookstores, antique stores and garage sales looking for books with her. Since then, she has been slowly paring away our collection to only the very best, but every time she wants to get rid of something I protest. I feel like there's always a chance she could get rid of something I'm going to really want to read in the near or distant future.

In reality, I will probably never read a good number of the books we own. I have this problem where I get books and then never read them, or I only read part of them and never finish them. Of the 29 books in that photo I've read somewhere between 4-6 of them all the way through. Pitiful, I know. In my defense, since these are the books I have at school, a lot of them are books for classes that I only had to read part of. I also still have some books for a class that I went to once and then dropped. Yeah, some of those I haven't even cracked open.  I'm probably going to read them someday. Just maybe not soon.

You may not believe it, but I do actually finish books sometimes. I have been known to do nothing but read for days on end if I have a good book. It's one of my favorite pastimes. (I actually hate when people ask me what my hobbies are, because they all sound super nerdy. "Ummm... I like to read... and sew and knit and stuff... and make art...") Because I was homeschooled, I had to be really self-motivated, and I remember getting in trouble a lot because I would spend too much time reading when I was supposed to be doing other schoolwork. How sad is that? Who gets in trouble for reading too much? Me, apparently.

Failstruggle.

There are a number of things I feel like I should be good at, but I'm really not. For example:

1. Flower arranging.
I mean, how hard can it be? You just throw some flowers in a vase, cut the stems down and done, right? False. I have yet to understand how this can be such a struggle. Even when I buy those really nice bouquets that look fantastic in all their wrapping, when I get home and put them in a vase, they look unfortunate, no matter how much cutting and arranging I do. You would think that this would come naturally, since I'm an artist, but no.

2. Parking.
Yet again, how hard can it be? I'm a fairly decent driver, but when it comes to parking, I'm sort of screwed. Especially if I'm driving a large car. Parallel parking is just a mystery to me. How did I pass my driving test? I don't know.

3. Comforting people.
This is the worst. Inevitably people will come to me and relate some tragic story and then start crying. At this point I'm just lost. What do I do? Do I say something? If so, what? I usually just end up awkwardly hugging them and saying something ridiculously lame, like, "That's so lame!" Exactly. I suck at this.

4. Making small talk.
I have this problem where if I will never see you again I don't feel the need to get to know you or really talk to you. I don't actually care what you do for a living or what you're doing next weekend. I will most likely forget it all in about 10 minutes anyway. I know, I know, this sounds horrible. I suppose it is. But are we really enriching each other's lives at all? What are we gaining from this awkward chit-chat? Nothing, I say. NOTHING! This view on life is probably all due to the fact that I am horrible at making small talk, especially at college. Once you get past the "What's your major" and "What classes are you taking" questions, I get stuck.

5. Spelling
I used to be good at spelling. Somehow I lost that skill. I'm not really sure how.

Apparently, writing blog posts is also not one of my strong points.

In other news, yesterday I was wearing a name-tag at work that said "Sam." It took a good amount of time before I actually noticed.

He may deny it, but he really is a hipstotter

Recently in my printmaking class, we've been making lithographs, and our assignment was to create a modern day bestiary, or an animal that illustrates some moral. My solution to this problem was to make a hipster otter, or a hipstotter. Of course, no good hipster would admit to being a hipster so he's actually an "(i'm not a) hipstotter". (Also, as a side-note, this is an interesting and slightly life changing article about hipsters.)

I think he turned out quite well. Of course, killing myself making a seven color print wasn't enough, and I decided he needed to be put in some different situations. 

"Did someone steal my fixed gear bike?"

"Nevermind. Here it is."

"I liked this artist before he even started making art."

"You probably wouldn't understand my art, it's really conceptual."

Yep. That's pretty much it. 

All work Copyright 2011 Sarah Lee

Things on my Camera, or The parts of my life worth documenting

I sometimes leave the photos on my camera for a very long time. It's like a visual documentation of my life, but only the certain parts that were deemed worthy to be captured on camera. Here's a snippet of my life:

1. Pierre and Harriet (And Brian, I guess)
or
While Christie was getting instructions from some kite enthusiasts

2. You don't even understand how much I love my roommates
or
I'm glad you at least like me

3. Why would I need to prank my roommates when this is a common occurrence in our apartment?
or
There are remnants of my last apartment consuming paper project reflected in the mirror

4. How sketchy was that Super 8?
or
Surprisingly, there were still people in that room

5. Pierre returns, this time in a much nicer climate

or

I need to work on my tan

 6. Half an hour into having half of every duo
or
Solution: take a photo

5. Every time I see these photos I laugh
or
Peace and blessings, PEACE AND BLESSINGS

6. Azusa Pacific
or
If Bethel Put This On Our Buildings I Would Consider Transferring

7. Lion Dances, NOT Line Dances
or
40 Minutes before Willis Tried to Learn to Dougie

 8. Huntington Beach
or
How is Rachael so Damn Sexy?

9. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
or
Apparently Ad Reinhardt Owns My Soul

 10. No longer on my camera, but you know it deserves to be here anyway
or
How could you ever resist that winking man in a snuggie?

I'm working on my social skills

I sometimes feel insanely socially awkward. Actually sometimes isn't quite right, it's more like a lot of the time. I blame it on my parents. (I've found that I can blame a lot of things on my parents.) They're both introverts, and somehow thought it would be a good idea to homeschool me for 12 years. Yeah, that's right, 12 years. That's like 57% of my life. I'm slowly recovering. However, I also have this brother (actually I have 2, but the other one is not as relevant to this conversation). He was only homeschooled for like 37% of his life. He's also one of the most likable, outgoing, and friendly people I know. Ridiculous. How did I not get these genes? Did my years of homeschooling make me this awkward? I'd like to think so. Sadly, I'm fairly certain I have no one to blame for this but myself.

I was going to relate a story that I thought illustrated my utter social awkwardness, but in reality I'm not sure it does.

Whatever, it's still a good story.

I once had a best friend. We met when I was in 3rd grade and she was in 2nd. We were inseparable. We hung out all the time, played with our beanie babies, formed secret clubs, and talked about boys. We were friends into middle school and junior high. Then it all changed. We were on a church skiing/snowboarding/tubing trip. And, like most jr high girl's conversations, the topic was boys. This friend had a crush on a certain boy, and asked me a question. If this boy ever asked me out, would I tell her? This boy was clearly not interested in me, and the chances of him ever asking me out were slim to none. As a 15 year old, I was lacking the wisdom I now posses and told her I would not. At the time I thought my reasoning was sound. I didn't want to hurt her feelings and this whole situation was preposterous, so why would I tell her? Wrong decision. She became exceedingly angry that I would ever keep this hypothetical event from her. I'm pretty sure that fight lasted for a while. I remember a bus ride where we passed notes back and forth about it. Yep, we passed notes. Apparently having an actual conversation was out of the question. After that, our friendship just kind of died off. At least that's how I remember it. I think if I asked her she would have a completely different version of the story, and probably doesn't even remember this conversation/fight. I'm pretty sure it's my fault we're not friends anymore.

I don't talk to her now. She goes to my school and every once in a while I pass her in the hall. At first I didn't acknowledge that I knew her, but now we nod and smile feebly. I always think about how we used to be best friends, 6 or 7 years ago. If we met for the first time now would be become friends? Are we totally different people than we were 7 years ago? I'd love to ask her, maybe go to coffee or lunch sometime, but I'd feel too awkward about it.

Strangely enough, I'm still good friends with that boy. He never asked me out.

Maybe I'll tell him this story.