Playing Catch-Up

     The last time I actually updated y'all with life events, I was going to Step Sing, making prints in the darkroom for the first time, still thinking about whether to go on a mission trip and where, practicing ukulele, reading, and watching a ton of movies. (All the super-exciting details here!) My, what a difference a month and a half makes!

     Step Sing was incredible. For those of you who don't know, Step Sing is a Samford-wide song and dance competition. There are different groups that come up with a theme for their show, then practice for 40 hours over the course of about 2 weeks before they reveal to the Samford community the fruits of their hard work. Each group makes a banner about their show, chooses their own costumes, arranges their music, and choreographs their dance moves. It's a huge chunk of work for the teams that lead each group, but oh so much fun. A new group this year won second place; they dressed as nuns and sang songs like "Living on a Prayer," "Fanatic" (Lecrae), and a couple from The Sound of Music. It was a hilarious show with great singing and choreography, and hopefully next year will be even better. :)

     We can now go into the darkroom on our own, which makes me super happy - I've got a lot of prints to make, and not a lot of time during class. I took advantage of this privilege on Saturday and did alright. It took me over 2 hours to end up with 2 contact proof sheets and 2 prints, though. Some perfectly good print paper was lost to my lack of attention, turned nearly black because I forgot to change the amount of light coming down. That paper isn't cheap either, which compounded my frustration. But, sometimes you just gotta learn the hard way. Now I know what to absolutely make sure I remember. (The prints came out pretty well once I got everything right.) We're going back in during class today, and I'm hoping to make another print.

     Along the same vein, I did my first ever photo shoot over Spring Break. The idea to use some of my dojo friends actually came from another friend's profile picture. My friend is in his gi (uniform), and it's a panning shot of him punching.

le example of ye olde panning shot

One of the prints we absolutely have to have is a panning shot, so I thought, "Why not get some of my friends with swords to go at it? I'll get a good shot out of that, for sure." And the photo shoot just evolved from there. We went up to Monte Sano state park and set up in the Japanese tea garden they've got. The story for the shoot wound up being pretty exciting, mostly because none of us knew how it was going to end. We started off with the idea that they were ninjas from different employers, but had been given the same task: retrieve the scroll. Obviously, only one can succeed. Which one will it be? (I ran out of film halfway through, so I used one of their iPhones for the rest of the shoot. Those photos are up on Facebook, and you can see them there if we're 'friends.')

     I didn't get any clear sense of which mission trip to go on - or even whether I should go - so I decided to focus on getting a job instead. But I'll be keeping my eyes and ears open, both for opportunities and for God's prompting.

     Ukulele practice goes as it has. I've got about 3 songs I can play pretty well, so I focus on those to practice that whole sing-and-strum-at-the-same-time thing. It's not too bad when I'm doing my own strum, but now I'm practicing other kinds of strum patterns, and it's almost like starting over. Plus I'm trying to transition away from using the pick. It's challenging, but I enjoy it and it'll be worth it. :)

     I haven't picked up Lord of Chaos since that last update in February, but I did recently start re-reading the Hunger Games trilogy. It's been over a year since I last read them, so I figured I'm overdue, especially after watching the movie and realizing how much I've forgotten. It's as good as it was before, even though I'm able to stop in the middle of crucial scenes now. (Seriously. Katniss was just starting to run from the wall of fire, and I remembered something I had to do, so I put it down and just left. No way that would've happened the first time through.)

     My Blockbuster free trial ran out about a month ago, and I just now got all 3 DVDs that were out sent back in. (I was still within the grace period, I think.) It was great watching them. Hopefully I'll have enough time to start another free trial over the summer, so I can finish out my list. In the meantime, I still have Netflix instant streaming, and there are plenty of movies on that list. But, the odds I'll watch them before summer are pretty slim; my suitemates and I are going through all 6 Star Wars movies (in order of release), and our schedules dictate that we only do one a week. So it'll be finals week before we finish them, if we keep that pace. (I'm hoping we'll get an extra one in every once in a while. Love those movies!!)
     And, of course, I went and saw the midnight premier of The Hunger Games. Definitely gonna have to catch it again as a matinee or in the dollar theater. Such a great movie, and it handles the book's details so well.

     Now that I've bridged the gap between a month-and-a-half ago and now, I can say a little bit about what's going on currently and toward the future! (Next week's update won't be so packed, I promise.) Today I sent out my cover letter and resume to a temp agency my granddad is connected with. This seems like a pretty promising door, so I'm excited to hear back. The plan for now is to work back home in Huntsville as an administrative assistant or technical writer (or something else, if a door unexpectedly opens), save up some money, and go to Nashville or Raleigh for an internship in a publication house in 5-10 years.
     Upon further thought, I've decided to not make a third blog just yet. Keeping up with two will be enough work as it is, especially as the semester starts to pick up speed and barrel in toward finals. So, if I have any poems or short stories, I'll just post them on my deviantART page; if you're interested in reading them, you can do so there. (It's mostly Dragonball Z fan-fiction right now, plus one recent poem. Yes, I'm a nerd. I embrace it.)
     The budo blog has been updated with bits from posts on this blog (those bits are now replaced with either brief summaries or links to the full post on the other blog). The first current, [hopefully] thoughtful post will go up on Wednesday. I have no idea what I'm going to talk about yet, so it'll be a surprise for all of us! :)

     One last random thing. I've decided I'm going to dress as Katniss Everdeen, heroine of the Hunger Games trilogy, for Halloween this year. I'm already growing out my hair; now I have a goal! And that should keep me from chopping it all off again. ...Maybe.

Peace out!