Tag Archives: School

School’s Almost Out, Life Goes On

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Oh how I can’t wait for school to be over, for good.  Alas, we all know Justin will never be graduating from college… well a least not this year, which is incredibly annoying/depressing/etc.  I’ve been in school for ages now, way longer than I should have been in school.

Of course, lots of great things have happened because of my extended college career.  I made so many incredible friends, realized engineering wasn’t for me.  Neither was psychology, pre-law, sociology, philosophy… you get the point.

I’ve “settled” on a sort of triple major.  I get one degree with an emphasis on three topics.  For me it’s Political Science, Gender Studies and Photography.  I love all three of those and it opens a lot of doors for me, especially with the PoliSci and Photography portions.

But first I’ve gotta get out of school right?

This summer I have the options of summer school, internships or traveling.  I want to do an internship in Europe but my parents moving to Saudi Arabia makes me want to see them a lot this summer, so maybe an internship in Houston… but then I’d like to get some classes out of the way so summer school?

Hate living like this!

Oh yeah, then there’s being away from Ryan.  I really don’t want to spend the summer states, much less oceans, away from him.  But I guess we can’t put our future together on the back burner so we can spend the present together.  The sooner I graduate, the sooner we can move on with our life together.

Get out of school and then let’s move back to California where I can be with so many of my amazing friends… Sean, Kevin, Mark, David, Kayla, Matt…

Until then, here I am, one class at a time.  I now live through another graduation season where I lose more of my friends.  This year I’m going to miss most Chase and Corey, moving to Kansas City.  Congratulations on them for moving on with their band, Scouts, which is awesome.  But going to miss my boys.

And worse yet, Karen is moving to St. Louis. Major sadness over that, first Micheal and now Karen. Blurg. What’s this city going to?

Luckily Phoebe, Joshua, Laura and Eric Cox etc etc are still here.  Ryan and I will stay sane for a bit longer.

Reluctantly Home

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I finally got home from the Kansas City airport.  It took four hours but I made it!

And of course I had to take a picture.  Note, this is not my home, just an apartment near me.

Now time to get back to reality and revise a paper that is due tomorrow during the final for the same class.

Oh, but don’t forget to check out my photoblog for quite a few new pics from San Francisco and even one new one from tonight!

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Another Busy Week

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Last week was pretty darn busy but this week… THIS week is going to be even busier.  But that’s ok, as long as I stay on track I should have no trouble getting my shit done and making some good grades.  So far nothing but perfect scores, though I am not positive what I got on my Photography project though I imagine I got an A though… haha

My next project is titled “Private”.  Last time it was “Public”.  For this upcoming project to I have been thinking something dark.  The setting, for all of it if I can, would be my bathroom.  It’s a pretty cool bathroom, all black and white so any color would really stick out.  Private moments, like…

  • Girl waiting for pregnancy test results
  • Suicide
  • Someone opening the door to the medicine cabinet full of RX’s
  • Someone with an eating disorder on a scale
  • Someone sick over the toilet
  • Someone crying

Those sorts of things… Any suggestions?

While you think on that, here’s the latest from PiczarPhoto.com

Time for bed. Yoga in the morning with Max.  Look forward to comments with suggestions!

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Finally, A Real Student

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The first week of classes is almost up and I just finally have a real schedule.  I’m taking 19 hours of courses but will have a surprisingly short time of actually being IN class.  One class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and just two on Tuesday and Thursday.  There are online courses and weekend courses and the ones on Tuesday and Thursday are 90 minutes and the other is 180 minutes.

Not that many actual classes but they sure are long!

So glad classes finally got sorted out.  Sad that I have yet ANOTHER year at Mizzou… They add a year for every year I’m here, I swear.

Tomorrow morning I get all of my books and can start doing my homework.  Oh, and I get to buy another calculator!  That makes five since starting at Mizzou.

Ryan got back in town today, he had been gone for what seemed like a lifetime.  It was wonderful to see him again, hold him and be all lovey dovey.  Oh how I missed him!

Now I guess it is time for me to leave Starbucks and get home.  There have been some really strong storms here tonight which kept me from wanting to plug in at home and was making my internet all sorts of unreliable.

Starbucks has a massive surge suppressor and the internet is battery backed up.  Sweetness.  The parking spot that I normally put my car into was pretty unfortunate tonight.  A huge oak tree was blown over and crashed onto the car that took my place there.  Wow, I avoided car destruction for once!

Here’s another storm shot from my window.

And with that, I’m outta here.  Time for some sleep, gonna wake up early tomorrow.  So far I’ve been really good about getting up and getting ready for class early in the day.  I hate being rushed!

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Craigslist, Hmph

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So, beyond being on a few missed connections, kinda funny really, I have never used Craigslist.  Today I did however and made a whopping three posts, whoa!  Oh and one bulletin board/forum post so I guess that’s four.

Yeah so anyways, I need to get back to my studying/reading/writing/brainstorming.

Photography Project

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I’m supposed to be working on this big project for my photography class.  The basis of it is experimental lighting to enhance a photograph.  I have done some quick and dirty examples of how doing some simple changes to your lighting and camera setting, you can turn a shitty picture into a great picture.

The first example is using a high aperture (f-22) along with a super bright light (650 watt) to light a scene versus using an automatic setting on a camera such as my Nikon D80.  First the auto setting shot.

All and all, it isn’t such a bad picture.  The problems are getting true whites and true blacks as you can see in the shot coming below.

Obviously better whites and blacks here.  Also, I manually set the white balance as opposed to the camera deciding what was white.

This next set is much more obvious.  I took a picture of my mother’s Aggie class ring on a mirror, a blush compact mirror at that.  With this shot I compared again, a 650 watt tungsten Arri light with the built in flash on my camera.  I again modified the f-stop to 22 on my manual shot.

As you can see, the flash blew out the color of the gold and the lower f-stop picked up all the light hitting the mirror.  It’s a plain old gross picture.  However, let’s see what happens when we set the aperture to f-22, pound the thing with 650 watts of light.

I swear, it’s like magic.  The silver mirror turns to black and the gold, which was previously washed to a pale yellow, is now a deep, rich 14ct gold.  Look at that reflection!

These pictures are just the foundation of my project, showing how small changes in light can totally change a picture.  I intend to include emotive portraits and many other genres of photography in this series.  Here’s to hoping I can make it happen and make it something special, unique and captivating.

New Rig, New Dig, No Job!

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I’m Back!  (Once again)

New Computer Setup

My family has finally left the building.  For the past two weeks I have had either my mom or my grandmother with me, taking care of me, etc.  It was great to have them over, they were of infinite help to me, but a little space sure is nice haha.

My family has been very concerned about my health as of late.  With the seizures and extreme changes in blood pressure and pulse, I guess they have some reason to their paranoia.  Still, I wish they wouldn’t worry about me.  Despite being put through the ER three times in a week and then being put on a “toxic” dose of medicine on accident… I have been doing ok.  I missed about two or more weeks of school, much of the time I don’t remember care of Keppra, Depakote and Ativan.  Yay for perscriptions.

I haven’t seen much of Ryan during this time which has been the worst part of it all.  You really don’t what you’ve got till family comes in town and it’s gone…  Something like that.

Alley Lights

Either way, a wonderfully good thing came of the visit.  I came out to my mom, for the fourth (?) time.  This will be the last, we talked openly and things just really seemed to work out.  She understands now that it isn’t a choice, that I didn’t hide it from her/the family because I wanted to have a secret and… well, it just is no longer that big ol’ white elephant in the room.

Speaking of rooms…  I have been doing some remodeling at the apartment.  I have much more to do yet, new chair, new couch, new TV, new coffee table, new dining table and chairs.  Once I change out all that to smaller, thinner, sleeker items, the large livingroom will appear full sized again haha.

As you can see in the top picture, I have done a little re-arranging of my workstation.  I added an Epson Perfection V500 Scanner, a Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet, two shelves for my photography toys and a new light.  The light made the biggest difference, I swear.  No longer do I get down sitting at the computer, it really, and literally, brightens up my day.

You might also notice the new laptop sitting next to the iMac.  Yep, I got a new Macbook Pro!  It’s so wonderful, I’m using it right now to write this post!  Got a stellar deal on it at the bookstore.  Chase and Ryan got one each as well!

Carnival

Now that I’m back to feeling better, hopefully I will be able to post more often and do more photography.  First, and unfortunately, I have to catch up on my class work and make my nearly thirteen doctor appointment.  Even more unfortunate is the sad story that I had to leave my job at the hospital in order to make these doctor appointments and catch up with my school work.

That means that I will be having a social life again, eventually, but also means I will be poor and won’t be able to buy all the things I’ve been wanting… Sad story!

But having friends and keeping them is more important that having fun toys, any day.

Time for bed.  Going to finish the load of laundry for Ryan.  He takes flight later today for Miami and then a cruise.  Lucky!