Lost and Stolen Items

If I was an evil wizard, and had to have somewhere to stash pieces of my soul, I would put them in my art.

This is a weird way of saying that I pour my heart and soul into every one of my creative endeavors. I have previously blogged about my secretly Ginger art teacher who throws away art. My art. Today I had had enough. I wrote a descriptive list of all of my projects that I wanted back. I included their whereabouts, when I knew them. I said I wanted them all by Friday. I walked up and gave her the list. Her response to me was that some of them were "Gone." She didn't say that, instead of passing everything back like every other reasonable art teacher on this great green Earth, she had decided to throw them away. She simply referred to them as, "gone."

 But we could look for some of the other ones. 

 I found one, and she gave me a pass to get the others from their positions in the Front Office and Theater Lobby. I was fearless, walking up and removing artwork from the walls of my school without a second thought. I felt like an art-thief, but I wasn't. If anyone had attempted to stop me, I would have said that I was "reclaiming lost and stolen property." It felt very empowering.

Georgia O'Keefe.

This was done on blue construction paper with chalk pastels. This was not what she assigned, but this is what I did.

Again, not what was assigned. But I'm not an Elementary School student..

Several of my pieces are laminated because she had prepared them to use as examples for next year...without so much as a heads-up. Grr.

Anyway, I found this one.

I call it "dismemberment," In this picture is a little square of a magazine picture. The whole thing was designed  to camouflage it. See if you can find it!

As a side note, I would like to reflect upon the importance of inflection. (here, represented in italics.)

She came in and said, "oh good! You found one!"
"Yes." I said, "I found one."
I asked if there were any more. She said that "They were just too old. I couldn't keep them all."
I agree with her. She shouldn't keep them all. It is ridiculous.

Stronger

I was journal-ing yesterday. Something that I haven't done for awhile, but have a lot of things I need to record. It was tough, and sometimes felt like a chore, but I carried stubbornly on.
I wrote this paragraph. *

"Yes. It has been an extensively long period of time since I have written in my journal. This is due to the simple fact that I. don't. have. time. Perhaps it is more correct to say that I don't "take" the time, but it seems that for the past few weeks, my limited "free time" is spent trying to wind-down. I am perpetually busy, tired, and disappointed. I tell myself that it will get better when school is over, but that is only partially true. My life will never "get easier," it will just "go on."


By the time I had finished writing that, I had thoroughly depressed myself. I walked to my dresser and turned on my radio for some sort of distraction or relief. What song came on?
The chorus of "Stronger," by Kelly Clarkson.


"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, stand a little taller...."

I'll be fine.










*It will not be often that I share entries out of my journal. It gets rather tiring to write everything down twice, so this blog is for the fun stuff that won't fit, and the pictures. As a side-note, I recently journal-ed about my trip to / performance in the Smith Center, and found that it was so long, and took so much effort that I will default on my promise from a previous post, and NOT blog about it. I will upload the photos to Facebook, and you - if you care at all- can see them there and piece together a story. A picture is worth 1,000 words, and you can tag people in them on Facebook.

I'd call it Abstract.

When it's late, Sunday night, and I haven't yet gotten the chance to do anything artistic to pass off for my work of the week... I do a quick improvisation.

I 'd call it Abstract.

Children's finger-paint, 3-hole punch re-enforcers, paper, modge-podge, and a little imagination.

Week...18?

If I have counted right, this is week 18. 

Even I didn't realize how busy today would be, so I did this before breakfast. 

Well, here we go.

This is a picture of a bike in motion that a college sent me, and I thought was pretty.

This is my half-hearted attempt to re-produce that picture. They are both sideways, because I am too lazy to turn them around. So how about you turn your head a bit?

Ok. I didn't actually finish this this week... but I thought you might want to see the finished product. Just in case you care.

Here is a close-up of the best part of the painting

Now, off to be busy again.

Another Week

 My mother is very open about her hate for this day, designated to the honor of all mothers but despised by many. This makes for a very uncomfortable situation. She will never be happy, and we will never be able to please. I went to bed dreading it and woke up waiting for something bad to happen. The kids will fight, we will forget to do the dishes, or the TV will be on, and everything will be ruined. It has always happened this way, and always will.

So I thought.

Today wasn't that bad. We made breakfast and kind of did dishes. Dad talked in church (even if it was one of the talks that "makes all of the mothers uncomfortable," according to mom.), David passes the Sacrament, and Melissa sang with the Primary (or, more accurately, the Primary sang with her).

Mom also sang in a choir "Mass for the Children."
Eliza and I went. It was great.
So we started off sort-of happy. And surprisingly, continued so.

( I take that back-ish. Nothing lasts that long. Crap)

So. I made something. Mom thinks I'm creative, and she saw a necklace kind-of like this on our home teacher. Her daughter had made it.

So here is mine.

Are the beads our birthstones? Heck no. It's our favorite colors. Crap... I took the picture backwards. But you get the idea.

Anyway, it's almost over, and I think I'll survive.

Amanda and the Bee

This post doesn't include pictures.

But you should read it anyway.

Don't skim. It is worth it.

Ready? Here we go.

Our swim team meets at an out-door pool. Our already tiny-team has been further reduced to only those who have qualified for regionals... and not even all of them come anymore. We spend the first 10-15 minutes of practice laying around in the shade, sleeping, or chatting, waiting for the coaches to show up.

On Monday, practice began -as usual- with lazing around on the deck. I was sitting next to a girl named Amanda. A bee came VERY close to her, she jumped about a foot in the air, but didn't stand up. Perhaps this action caused her to sit on it, but at any rate, she was stung in the leg and VERY distressed. "I AM ALLERGIC TO BEE-STINGS!" she exclaimed.

That caught some people's attention. "Someone should probably go get a lifeguard." I said, while rummaging through my swim bag to extract the stinger. I found a packet of history notes, and used the edge to scrape out the stinger, which is what you are supposed to do (though a credit-card is more useful, if you have one around). Amanda starts grabbing my leg for something to hold on to.
"Take my hand, not my leg." I said," Hand, not leg."
Our swim chaperon was very impressed with the way I was taking charge of the situation, and commented on my "calming presence."
I didn't think much of it. I am a certified lifeguard. I'm trained to do this sort of thing though, truly, this the first time I've actually USED it in the "real world."
The lifeguards came. They weren't very helpful. They filled out the incident report, gave Amanda an ice pack, and told her that 'oh by the way, we called the paramedics.'
"WHAT?" she said, but I guess it makes sense. She did say that she was allergic. But upon further questioning. (What usually happens when you are stung? Do you have your 'shot thing' with you?), she admitted that she had, in fact, never been stung by a bee before. Well then, how do you know that you are allergic? She had a blood-test that said she is "most likely" allergic to bee stings.)

A few minutes later the paramedics showed up and got to work with some equipment. They took her blood pressure, and checked her heart rate through a fancy little clip that went on her pinky. Our Chaperon (an Asian lady who rides the bus with us and always wears shirts with vibrant color patterns and is impressed by everything we do) thought that this was great excitement. "I've never seen real medical people, just the ones off of T.V shows!" she exclaimed. My answer was, "Well at least these guys aren't actors." But I thought it was cool too.

The paramedics wore blue suits, were balding, and 'fatherly 'looking. One had a floral patterned armband tattoo. They already knew about the situation, and asked if she itched anywhere, "Usually in the torso area, depending on the degree of the reaction. You need to check if you can see any little red bumps."

She was wearing a swimsuit. She hesitated. But there you go, it had to be done. Immediately, if not sooner, apparently.

That part was awkward.

She started to itch, and saw the bumps. The paramedics said, very calmly, that all they needed to do was give her a little shot, and it would be fine. She recoiled and grabbed my hand again. Tightly.

Amanda is afraid of needles.

"It is just a little one." they said.

They lied. That needle would have made a seamstress uneasy.

Amanda started crying. I felt her nails in my hand as I used my "calming voice" to reassure her as they prepared the needle.

Coach Odom --who had finally arrived, but was apathetic to the whole medical situation of one of her swimmers-- decided to made her presence known.

"Alayna, you need to come and stretch. "

Ya, That wasn't happening. I couldn't have removed my hand from Amanda's grasp if I had wanted to. And I didn't. She needed me. I said something to this effect.

"You have one minute to get over here and stretch with the team." was Odom's reply. "Now's not the time to 'play nurse'."

I am trained to react in emergencies. I'm not "playing" at anything. I recognized the situation and took the first steps of action. I was the only person who stayed with Amanda through the whole thing, while the COACH didn't get within 20 feet of the injured swimmer. I was going to see this thing through, no matter what the stupid coach said.
The Chaperon supported my decision, and I stayed.

Bonus points go to the paramedics for being able to get that shot into Amanda. She was shaking violently and crying hysterically. I had one hand on her shoulder to stabilize her, and the other was acting as a stress-ball.

Eventually, things calmed down. The shot was in, the band-aid on, and the trouble past. The paramedics  left. The swimmers were getting ready to enter the pool ( each swimmer had their own lane. THAT is how small we are now.). Amanda seemed to be fine, so I patted her awkwardly on the shoulder and went to join the team in the pool.
Odom stopped me. "You need to stretch."
fine. If that is all you care about in this whole flipp'n team then.... "Ok."
"You should have followed orders the first time." she muttered as I walked off to stretch.

Dear friends. I hate her.

But that wasn't even all. I could write several dissertations about all of the things that Odom does that don't bode well with me. But to contribute to the closing of this post, I'll just include one.

Odom was trying to describe a backstroke drill I "needed" to do, but I didn't understand a word. "She knows how to explain it." Odom said, "Hey, 'What's-Your-Name', come here and explain the drill."

'What's-Your-Name' was Amanda. Not only did Odom not care about her medical problem that included the arrival of an ambulance. She couldn't come up with her name, when there are only 3 practices left in the season. (Thank goodness.)

What is the point of this post? I originally planned that it would sound more like, "I just had a cool experience where I was able to use my training to help someone who needed it and isn't that cool?" Instead, it probably sounded like, "Hey, I helped this girl who was totally abandoned by our stupid coach who always plays favorites and never gives a care what happens to 90% of her swimmers."

The way I feel is somewhere in the middle. But I am especially glad that I was there to help. Amanda is far from my favorite person, but when she needed someone, I was there. It is good to know that I can be that "Someone," whenever the circumstances necessitate it.
























P.S. If you just skimmed this whole thing, you can stop now. It's over.

I've Worked so Much This Week!

I am a very busy girl with very little time on my hands. What was REALLY my work of the week was this

These are the awesome colored poles that are in the Smith Center Park.

 I have spent a ton of time this week preparing for this day and the ultimate climax. The Performance of "The Lamb of God" at the Smith Center, with Rob Gardener, the composer, in the audience with us. There were times this week when I didn't go home or rest from 5:50 in the morning until 9:30 at night (both the beginning and end, coincidentally, occurring in the same building). This was a major time commitment, and requires more time to document it than I have right now. So the post about "The Lamb of God," will have to be put off for another time. Now I am just trying to keep up with my goal. My "Work of the Week."

This is TOTALLY cheating.

Although I did MOST of it this week, I didn't start it this week... and it isn't even finished yet.

This is my "tiger" project, for Bonanza's annual contest. They have a bunch of stupid new rules, creating a size requirement, and mandating that entries must be in "Landscape Format" (sideways)

My art teacher is.... inadequate. As are her supplies. The majority of the paint that she has is "tempera" which is "ideal for Finger/sponge painting" and "use on posters." In other words, it is crap. She has about 28 bottles of this stuff in White alone, and a bunch of others in weird colors. But no black. I managed to find acrylic (an acceptable type) paint in the colors of red, yellow, blue, and brown. No white and no black. I attempted to use the tempera white with the acrylic blue for the sky and wanted to scream. It barely changed the color, and flaked off at the edges when it dried. Like I said. Tempera is crap. My art teacher doesn't seem to know the difference between the two types of paints, so I couldn't appeal to her to get a better white, but I could at least alert her to the fact that there was NO black paint. Period. Her response was,

"Yes. I remember that now.... I'll just run to the dollar store after school and pick some up."

The dollar store? I groaned inwardly. Clearly, my art teacher wasn't going to be any help.

And then, miracles of miracles, I found two tiny tubes of black and white ACRYLIC paint while I was ransacking the supplies closet. And so, I painted this.   

.

From a picture I found in this National Geographic.

And now. I have finished a mini-rant (which I didn't even know I had in me), accomplished my goal, and outlined a future blog. Now I am done.