what to do when there's nothing to do

I'm home for three weeks! 'Nuff said.

Monday: Because I didn't have any homework that day, I spent it packing, cleaning (desk and fridge), and working on some other stuff.

Tuesday: I went back to the Seaport Farmers' Market, but the place was a ghost town. Note to self: the best market days are on the weekend.

Wednesday: Because I'd finished everything for Book Arts, I was free to do whatever I wanted--so I decorated my final project.

Bob had given us the option of installing our final projects over at the Academy Building that evening if we wanted to. Because my project was so big (the paper is 36" x 42") and therefore difficult to manage, I decided to take advantage of the extra time. I went home after class as, again due to the size, I had nowhere at NSCAD to store my print so I had to pick it up in my room. After more putzing, I grabbed the print and went back to the Granville Campus. I'd posed for my classmate/friend Ken's final project for Intro, as had the rest of the class and Adrian, and Ken had made prints for all of us, so I had to pick mine up before the photo department closed for the break. After I squeezed the box that housed the print into my backpack, I had nothing to do for another half-hour, so I spent it hanging out with the studio techs and any passing students and enjoying some of the goodies that were laid out on a table in the studio.

I then headed over to the Academy Building with my print and hung it with the help of a classmate (pinning a photo that big is nearly impossible if you're doing it solo).

Thursday: Crits. All day. We didn't discuss the technical quality of the prints so much as we discussed the ideas and concepts addressed by the project that we were critiquing. My crit went extremely well.

An installation shot of my project.

After all that, we went out for beer at a pub that's a block from the Academy Building.

Once I got home, I grabbed supper, did some last-minute things for the next day and got to bed as early as I could because I had to be up at 6:00 the next morning (5:00 EST).

Friday: Homecoming Day. I was surprised at how awake I was that morning: I'm usually a zombie before 8:00 AM. I packed the last of my stuff and putzed some more because I was half-an-hour ahead of schedule (how did that happen?). My roommate helped me carry my stuff down to the front door of the residence where I called a cab.

Once at the bus station, I got my luggage tagged and then waited some more--this time for my bus to be called. I then dragged my stuff to the bus, got my two non-carry-on bags stowed, chose a seat and settled in for the ride. I spent most of the journey reading, though I called Mom at Truro, NS with an update about needing to transfer buses (when I'd checked on the Maritime Bus website, they'd said that there wouldn't be any transfers for my route, but the bus driver said that anyone headed past Moncton, NB would have to transfer. This confusion is pretty much expected because the company had only been in operation for two weeks as of Friday).

Mom greeted me with a big hug, and we drove the rest of the way home.

I'd been offline all day, so when I logged into my Facebook account, I was greeted by news of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. I couldn't believe it: who would even think of deliberately killing little kids? As I read, I could almost feel my heart break. Sometimes I can barely think about the shooting without sobbing.



Saturday: Mom's birthday. Once I got going that day, I didn't stop. I spent the afternoon cooking for her birthday dinner while humming along to the Met's performance of Aïda.

Sunday: We put the tree up, and I did most of the decorating while listening and singing along to Christmas music.