Dear dummies

I have a long held belief that there are only three kinds of people in an art class.(They intersect at some points, but there we go.)
1. Kids who are good at art. (these are few and far between)
2. Kids who have no other elective choices.
3. The dumbest kids in the world.

One girl asked me, "Is honey a dairy product?"
She was serious.

 "Is Obama our first Democrat President?"
No, I said. He's our first black president.
"Oh, that's right."

"Obama is my favorite President, because he hangs out with so much celebrities."

"You can mess with him until you get a boyfriend, but don't go too far."

1. " How do you know so much about relationships?"
2. "I watch the Spanish Soap Operas."

I'm just now starting to pay attention to what they say.
This class is about to get a whole lot more enjoyable.

But seriously now.

Blogs need a way to "search" through posts. So many posts accumulate, it's impossible to keep track of it all. If anyone knows how to do this... enlighten me.

If I was ugly

So I was assigned to do a realistic and abstract drawing of a bunch of gourds and stuff.

This is the realistic one

This is the abstract one (though not the greatest picture). It is a gourd.
People tell me it looks good, but ugly.
That was rather the point, so I'm cool with that.
My art teacher asked me why it looked so sad.
 I told him that if I was ugly, I would be sad too.
That's it.

I also helped with a wedding, which might have counted for something... but I forgot to take pictures. So there we go.

I'm THAT kind of girl now

Only ONE person has ever texted me more than once in a single night, and that person is Emily... and we were trying to coordinate rides.

Earlier today, I gave a girl named Tanya my number so that we could coordinate rides to a field trip tomorrow.

Tonight I went to a concert at the Smith Center tonight, and while they were announcing stuff... my phone vibrated.

It was a guy in my math class, asking if I had plans tonight. 
For many reasons, that was a shock.

Against all of my musical training and concert etiquette ... wrote a reply.

I've heard that the Smith Center jams all phone frequencies in the building.
Guess what? That stuff actually works.
So my message didn't get through, and he would have to wait.

The concert was over, and I pulled out my phone again.
I guess he didn't wait very patiently, because I had 5 new text messages.

Yep. He was getting pretty desperate .... because he needed help on something in math. We have a test tomorrow.

By the time I texted back, he "didn't need help anymore."
I felt a little guilty.

And then something strange happened.
I had my first "conversation" via text.
And it was with a boy.

I also had a few texts from Tanya, figuring out the carpool.
Melissa's plans for a movie night spilled over a few texts too.

Which brings my grand total texts received tonight to ....
16

Dear Alayna, welcome to the new world of communications.

Saintly Macbeth

Mr. Mast hates creative projects. (He feels bad having to lower grades for sub-level creative endeavors).

This is why there is only one creative project a semester.

He gave us a laundry list of things we could do.

Some people were instantly let-down, because they didn't think they could do any of these very well.

And then there is me... I wanted to do 3 or 4.

Being talented is tough.

Anyway, my friend was pretty desperate, so I decided to do a Newspaper with her.

It's pretty perfect because I can be creative, write, and draw... all in one assignment.

I wrote two pretty fantastic articles and several obituaries ( it is Macbeth, after all).

I almost counted those as my work of the week. A picture may be worth a thousand words... and I definitely wrote more than that... so wouldn't that qualify as a picture???

Anyway, I drew stuff, so it officially counts.

This is the body count as of Act II, which is when our "newspaper" takes place.

 Oh and by the way, I spent 10 hours at the Smith center for a concert called "Saints and Soldiers."

I call this "Creative braiding."

Basically, keep braiding until you don't have any hair left, and find some way to stick it all together.

Side note. It is incredibly difficult to get a good shot of the back of your own head....

Face Painting

I don't actually have any pictures of it, but this past weekend was Youth Conference.
I spent about two and a half hours painting faces at a carnival that we put on for some mentally challenged adults at a community home.
I started by doodling on napkins (because we didn't have paper) so that they would have something to choose from. If they wanted something else, I could do it... but for those who couldn't function that highly, it was really helpful.

One of the guys, Jerimiah LOVED the face-painting. He had a Batman symbol on one cheek, a butterfly on the other (an EXACT copy of the one on the napkin), a flower on his forehead, a lightning bolt on his neck (THAT one was tough), and a horse on his hand. He also insisted that the kids escorting him through the carnival get matching face-paints.

I was constantly busy. I worked hard, and my work was artistic, therefore it qualifies as my work of the week.

Someone went around taking pictures of the carnival, so if I get some of those, I'll add them.

So. Since you are denied the great pleasure of seeing my face-paintings, I am posting a picture of something that OBVIOUSLY took longer than a week. But it is impressive, and I like to show off, so here it is.

Don't mind the wall in the background... it was the only way to fit the whole paper in the picture.

This is the original. She's an old movie star named Myrna Loy.

 This post is now over.

Liebster awards.

So my dear sister nominated me for the Liebster award.
This basically means that I must answer 11 random questions and tell 11 random truths about myself.
I'm also supposed to nominate people but... all of the other bloggers I know have already be nominated, so I'm skipping out on that.

11 Random Things about me.
1. My favorite color is orange. (No surprise, I'm sure) I don't remember ever consciously choosing it, but it is true. 

2. I have an extensive mental database of movie quotes, song lyrics, plots, characters, and random facts. All of which are nearly entirely useless.

3. Relating to number two. I live to make my extensive knowledge relevant in daily conversation/ life.

4. I am an extremely tolerant person... up to a point. I can put up with a lot of crap and still be ok with something/someone until someone pulls a final straw. Once that happens, there is no going back. No worries though, it doesn't happen very often.

5. I like deep stuff, and I love understanding stuff that isn't easy to see.

6. That being said, I LOVE the song "Call Me Maybe" and WILL sing and dance along with it when I hear it, no matter where I am, what I'm doing, or who I'm with. And that song is ANYTHING but deep.

7. I am emotionally attached to characters in TV shows and Movies... and even more so with real people. Though I don't always show it.

8. I'm an avid book reader, and I still like "children's" books. If I ever need to wind down and read something, my go-to book is either "Ella Enchanted" or "Princess Academy."

9. The more I grow up, the more I realize that the things I wanted to be "when I grew up" as a kid are actually good ideas.

10. I could choose any number of quotes from my massive database to be my life's motto, but if I had to choose just one, it would probably be this. "There is no happy medium."
You can't stay in the middle ground, and you can't stay still for too long. In this life you will have moments of great happiness and moments of extreme sadness. But life is still good, and the happy moments outweigh those of heartbreak and despair. 

Questions I have to answer
1.  Do you like your hair up or down (may be substituted for long vs short)?
I go through phases. Seriously though, I have donated 10+ inches of hair three different times. It's long and beautiful and I can do stuff with it, then it gets in the way and I cut it. It's short and free, but I can't do much with it. So I grow it out again. And so the cycle goes.

2.  If you knew you could not fail, what would you do?
Play chess verses the computer. I ALWAYS lose!
Just kidding though. The real question is, what wouldn't I do?

3.  What actor would you like to play the lead romantic role in the story of your life?
Romantic role? Hmmm... where to start?
James Marsden, Ryan Reynolds, Chris Evans (Captain America), Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies), any of the (good) guys in Jane Austen Movies... the list goes on.

4.  Do you ever get lost?
I think that Aria put this one in there just for me. I am ALWAYS lost. The major reason that I don't have my Drivers License yet is because I never know where I am going. The only sense of direction I have is my internal moral compass, which always points due north. ;)

5.  What is your favorite kind of toothpaste?
Crest. I'm not that picky though, as long as it's minty.

6.  Right.....*now*......are you happy with where you're going?
I know that I'm heading in a good direction, but I'm not moving very quickly and I'm still pretty uncertain. But I don't really want to switch paths so I'm fairly content.

7.  If you could live in a foreign country......
I wouldn't. I feel very "Kermit the frog-ish" I would like to visit the moon but I don't think I'd like to live there. Travel? Sign me up! Move? No. America has problems, but it's home.

8.  Did you watch the Presidential debates?
I watched the last one (the most BORING ONE EVER) and clips of the other two. I watched SNL skits of the debates... does that count?

9.  What is the one thing that you are best at?
Oh.... it's impossible to say. I'm good at sooo many things, to choose just one is cruel. (As you can see, my self esteem is wholly intact.)
To be fair I will say creativity. There. That covers art, writing, language... and I'm set.

10.  If you could re-live a day in your life, which would it be and why?
This presents an interesting question. If I could re-live a day to return to a time when I was really happy? Or to re-live a day to fix something I did wrong? I would re-do the day that I took the drivers test.... and NOT take it. That was seriously one of the worst days of my life. 

11.  What song would you like sung at your funeral and who would sing it?
No one mourns the wicked.
Just kidding. I think I would like some kind of arrangement of the song "For Good" from Wicked. I'd like to think that by the time I die I will have had a positive affect on enough lives to make this song relevant. If I die tomorrow or something crazy like that I would want Eliza and Aria to sing it. If I die much later on, I'll have kids/grand-kids sing it.

Since I'm not nominating anyone, these questions are free reign. Answer them in your own blog if you love to answer questions, or answer them in the comments if you feel like it. 

1) What is your favorite color, and when did you know?

2) What is your worst elementary school memory/experience?

3) What is your favorite accessory? How does it help define you?

4) If you could skip over any day of the year, which one would it be and why?

5) What is the first thing you ever did that you were truly proud of? It can be the first thing that you remember, or  something really important; an accomplishment, a project, etc.

6) Have you ever had a pet OTHER THAN A FISH!!!? If yes, what was it? If no, why not?

7) If you had the power to change the world in any way you could how would you do it? What would you be?

8) If you could mix the qualities any three movie characters to create the perfect man, who would they be and what are the qualities?

9) Why do you blog? Or if you don't, why don't you blog?

10) If you could meet any living author, who would it be and why? 

11) Why do you read my blog?