Wow, this month has flown by. I'm trying to think about all that has happened since my last blog, but it is kind of a blur. It seems like most of my time for the past several weeks has been consumed by a huge art project. The drawing is a scanned image of one of my scarves, a purple lantern, and some beaded jewelry from Africa from a South American country. We needed to have a theme, and I just grabbed some stuff from my room and headed down to copy works to create a black and white image on a scanner. Turned out to be all from other countries that had been given to me by Sarah or the Blessman family! I'm using ink with a bottle and nib and the technique of informal cross hatching for the first time. The drawing looks really cool because there is so much detail (I even used tiny dashes to show the weaving of the scarf's fabric,) but it was stressful and very time consuming.

Now that we have finished that project, we get to start a new one. Sigh, no breaks, I guess. Besides drawing, I've had a lot of tests, but they have been going well.

I received one of the 75 FHP leadership positions for next year, and this past week I received confirmation that I will be a Destination Iowa State leader for next fall's freshman. I also attended a lecture with some people about evolution and religion. It was pretty sweet because there were a bunch of posters on display to look at afterward, showing evolutionary research done by various professors at ISU. There were several posters with my mentor program professor's research, and it had my logo on it! There was also one about clams from the research my bio. prof. has been working on with river clams found here in Iowa.

This past week I scheduled a hair appointment with the Salon Professional Academy here in Ames for Wednesday evening. I haven't used the bus system much this year, but I was able to catch a bus out to city hall and get onto a new line to take me close to the facility. I made it there on time, didn't have any troubles with the bus, had a nice haircut that was super cheap. However, getting back was kind of an adventure! The hair cut took longer than I had expected because the students there don't want to make any mistakes (which is good), and I realized there was only one other bus coming out for the evening and I wasn't really sure where the bus stop was since the bus driver had let me off at the drive for S.P.A. instead of the bus stop. So there I was- cold, hungry, carrying my little backpack, frantically cutting through the parking lot of Lowe's under the dingy street lights (but with a very nice hair) when suddenly I saw the bus parked at the stop. And then I saw it head out onto the highway! I did not want to walk 7 miles all the way back to campus! I started running towards the bus, hoping he would stop. The door creaked open, and I jumped very gracefully on board. Fortunately, it was the same bus driver who had dropped me off and said he would take me back to my dorm even though he was finished with his route.

This weekend I am going up to Wartburg to see Ryan run in the conference indoor track meet, and then it is just two more weeks until spring break! Woot woot! Have a great weekend!

Oh, and by the way, my roommate and I have two pet rats, Cookie and Sheba. They provide a lot of entertainment!

Protists, Apples, and Football

The ice is melting and the people are rejoicing- no joke. The past two weeks have been going really well. I'm still really busy with homework and studying, but it seems better than last semester because I can anticipate the work load better and stay ahead of it. I have already had two tests and an art project due, and this week I will have a biology exam.

My art project was a still-life in graphite pencils of some lilies, leaves, and porcelain pot. With the hours in and out of class, I spent around 17 hours on the drawing. It wasn't like I was being pokey! In fact, I was one of the first ones done with the project. Our teacher is just very particular. When I decided what I wanted to draw off of the display our teacher had placed in the middle of the room, I thought organic shapes would give me some leniency, that I wouldn't have to have every little curve of the petal correct or the distance between two stems exact. I was wrong. It amazed me how I could spend an hour drawing a leaf, believing I had drawn it accurately before my teacher came by and within two seconds could point out a flaw. I shouldn't be complaining, though. This is going to make me a more critical drawer and able to create better pieces for my portfolio.

I was quite surprised this week when I found myself fascinated by prokaryotes and protists! My regular biology professor has been on a trip to Venezuela so his wife has actually been subbing in, and she is hilarious and awesome! She relates everything to real life either through an a weird belly button analogy of horizontal gene transfer or a quick look at how something like oomycetes caused the Irish potato famine which brought over a lot of immigrants which ended up changing the social/ethnic fabric of our nation. And it was all because of a protist. Crazy crazy. . .

Ahh, so besides school- I made some pretty sweet apple pies for an apple party (apple pie and the game apples to apples) last Saturday for the Anders house. It was a lot of fun, and people liked the pies. Sorry, Kelsey. I stole your idea. :p Instead of buying a sack of apples, I designated people from the house to collect them from the dining center over a week span. I had so many apples sitting on my desk with their sweet aroma tempting me while I worked at my computer.

This Sunday was the house Superbowl party. I borrowed a projector from the communications building so we could project the game on the wall in our kitchen/den, and everyone chipped in to bring some food for an array of classic American food- chips, chili, cookies, and pie. Don't worry, I brought some carrots and broccoli to expand the venue. haha

Have a happy Monday, and enjoy the Superbowl commercials!