looking ahead

We're officially in Finals Mode.

Monday: Elections for the '13 - '14 SUNSCAD executive were that day, Tuesday and Wednesday. I voted on Monday.

We talked about our final projects for Reconfigured and Bob made some suggestions as to how we can take them even further.

Tuesday: My registration period opened at noon and I registered for my first course (Survey of Twentieth-Century Art, a mandatory 2000-level course) half an hour later. I also started the process of registering for Advanced Photo Critique (a.k.a. APC), which is a 4000-level course and, like Twentieth-Century Art, is mandatory. APC is an independent-study thesis course. I've been talking with a couple of friends who are taking it this semester, and I think I've finally wrapped my head around what's involved. Said independent project is a semester long, which is more time than I've ever had to work on a project (projects for Peter's courses were seven weeks long). I'm still so used to just having seven weeks to do a project that an entire semester almost feels like too much. But having an entire semester means that I have the time to do my very best.

I spent the day studying at NSCAD and doing prep for APC registration, which started with a stop at OSAS, then being directed to the administrative assistant, Joann. That's when I started to get a bit stressed: because I'm one history course (three credits) short of the nine required for that course, she doubted that I would be able to get permission and would have to do APC in a fourth semester. I'm hell-bent on finishing my degree in three semesters, so that was a bit scary. I also want to finish with as little debt as possible.

That evening, SUNSCAD held a meeting with the students, FUNSCAD and Friends of NSCAD in the student lounge to talk about what's next now that we don't have to worry about FUNSCAD going on strike (woot!).

Wednesday: I got an email late that morning telling me that the division chair, David Clark, would be in his office that day as well as Thursday. I immediately emailed back and called a cab. Once I got to the university I headed for Joann's office. She told me that David was in his, which was next door. After going over my audit sheet, chatting about New Brunswick (seriously, the world keeps getting smaller), discussing my history situation and what I covered at NBCCD, I filled out the APC form. David added a note saying that I'd be doing my last history credit concurrently and signed it. I took the form back to OSAS, filled out a course add/drop form, and then both were taken to the registrar's office. Done. One of the things I love about NSCAD is that as long as administration knows that you're going to take any missing prerequisites, you're good to go.

After all that excitement, I spent the rest of the day studying.

We presented our logos. I'm to redo mine for this week. Jeff introduced the final project, which is a portfolio of our work.

Thursday: We discussed two readings that were handed out a couple weeks ago.

Friday: More presentations--and this time the walk to school was uneventful. I presented this week. I'd spent the last few weeks doing a ton of research. Bob's suggestion: keep it personal. In other words, screw the research. We'll see what happens--I have two thousand words to play with, making this essay (which will be on humanity's relationship with technology, both the good and the bad) the longest one that I've ever written for school. I may or may not use some of the research.

I checked Facebook when I got to the Port Campus and found out that one of my friends got into NSCAD (although she's graduating from NBCCD with a diploma in photography this year, she's decided be an Interdisciplinary major at NSCAD). I was--and still am--ridiculously excited for her. It'll be wonderful to have another NBCCDer flitting around NSCAD, spreading her own brand of awesome. I love both schools, and I love having my alma mater represented at my second school.

That afternoon was the final presentation (on graffiti) for Writing for the Arts. Throughout the semester, each presentation group has had to come up with a post-presentation activity or writing topic. This time, newsprint had been wrapped between two posts, and we were allowed to draw or write anything we wanted on it. I wrote "NSCAD ROCKS!" As I said to a classmate, this is why I love art school.

I spent part of the evening working on my project for the show.

Saturday: I got an unbelievable amount of work done.

That evening my floor's RA and some friends observed Earth Hour. We played Pictionary in near-dark, using an (unplugged!) iPhone flashlight.

Sunday: I spent the afternoon at the Port Campus doing Graphics homework, and I'm just about finished.

Next weekend is Easter weekend, which means that I'll be staring six unstructured days in the face. I'll get to sleep in on Friday (wonderful!), and then, because Canada likes to squeeze an extra day out of that weekend in the form of Easter Monday (which I just found out is a religious holiday in Orthodox Christianity), I'll have yet another free day. I don't have class until Graphics on Wednesday evening. I plan to spend those days getting work done and relaxing--maybe even exploring Halifax some more, which I've missed doing and won't have time to do next semester (two words: eighteen credits). Sometimes I'm tempted to move here for a year or so to work and experience Halifax with only my latest photo project for homework.

Earth Hour 2009 a success!!

From Earth Hour Canada:

"Earth Hour was a huge global success with 3,937 cities and towns turning out their lights, across 88 countries. With almost a billion people mobilized, Earth Hour 2009 was the biggest environmental demonstration in history!* Millions of Canadians took part all across the nation, in more than 288 cities and municipalities along with thousands of businesses, helping to make our skylines go dark.

"People were inspired across the country and around the globe as monuments such as the CN Tower, the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Acropolis and the Empire State Building went dark. This year we welcomed new participation from people in countries such as India and China, and welcomed back the countries that celebrated Earth Hour in 2008."

*Emphasis is my own.

Wow--the biggest environmental demonstration ever! I'm really glad I got to take part and make some serious history and noise (with my violin ;-) ). **gives Earth a hug** So... Who's going to contact Guinness?

I wonder what the numbers were for Human Achievement Hour...........

YA-HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Earth Hour 2009

What a wonderful night last night was!

My observance of Earth Hour actually started at about 9:00 because my mom and I were at an open house to celebrate a family friend's ninetieth birthday (some of the stories told were extremely funny to the point that I was bent double with laughter). When we got home most of the lights had been turned off (thanks, Tom!).

I took some photos for the Earth Hour Global group on Flickr (I cranked the ISO up to 800 and made sure I used a tripod in case of long exposures. I also avoided candles at all costs because that subject had been done about a million times before.) and then I decided to grab my violin and play something in the dark. I started out with some easy pieces and then moved on to more difficult ones like Beethoven's Minuet and Trio in G, and The Two Grenadiers (once I got to the second half of that one I just blazed through it).

Some of these pieces I hadn't played in a while so it was wonderful to dig them out and dust them off. Sometimes I played in total darkness, but when I hit a piece that I had trouble with I turned the stand-light back on again.

We kept our lights off until about ten--half-way through Earth Hour in the Eastern time-zone (I have quite a few friends who live in that time-zone, including two in Toronto, so that was rather cool).

When I write it out here, it doesn't seem like I did much. But it felt like a lot last night.

Earlier I noticed that on the Earth Hour website it seemed as though there were more people who were using the forum to state how they were going to turn everything on in participation of a so-called Human Achievement Hour then there were people who were going to turn everything off. Hmmmmm........ What's wrong with this picture? If all our "achievements" (fossil fuels, clear-cutting, polluting the rivers and streams, etc.) end up destroying our home is it really an achievement? Yes, this species has done some wonderful things (the civil-rights movement, composing beautiful and moving music), but by turning everything on and calling it an "achievement" I think it's celebrating the worst of the species. Okay, I'm done.

I hope everyone--from Canada to Vietnam--had a wonderful Earth Hour.

From CBC.ca: Canadians douse lights to usher in Earth Hour 2009

From CBC.ca: From Antarctica to Pyramids, lights dim for Earth Hour

Here's a video that really tells what Earth Hour about:

Even more articles

From TIME.com: Can Earth Hour Galvanize the Fight Against Global Warming?

From CBC.ca: Sydney first major city to mark Earth Hour 2009

In case you haven't noticed, I'm obsessed big-time!!! Three hours, ten minutes to go!

the list.....

Here's a list of capitols and landmarks that will be participating in Earth Hour.

Happy Earth Hour, Rome and Athens (8:24 PM and 9:24 PM, respectively)! St. Peter's Basilica is one of the places that's set to go dark, along with the Colosseum and the Acropolis (which is almost finished).

Earth Hour, part 2

More stuff. This time, some articles:

From the AP via the COP15 website: Lights out in 84 countries for Earth Hour

From the CBC: Lights out in several countries for Earth Hour 2009

From the CBC: Earth Hour: Making a difference?

From the National Post: Pacific switches off for Earth Hour

From the National Post: What's the point of Earth Hour, anyway?

From the last article:

Should every person feel compelled to take part in this because it's the right thing to do, morally speaking, or because it feels good to make a green statement? [I say: both] Is there a concrete way to measure the effectiveness of Earth Hour? [I say: the numbers of people who sign up to take part, and the effect that it has on COP15--keep your fingers crossed, everyone!] Should it be limited to just lighting, or should we be trying to reduce all forms of energy during this time? [I say: even though WWF just focuses on the "lights-out" aspect, I say YES!!!!] And must those who refuse or are unable to take part be admonished for doing so? [I say: yes for those who refuse, no for those who are unable to join in].

Even though WWF doesn't stress it, I'll be turning off and unplugging my laptop (and anything else that I can get my hands on) during the hour, so no blogging Earth Hour for me.

Take a look at the Earth Hour Flickr group. I'll make sure to take some photos during the hour and upload them afterwards. They also have a photostream showing celebrations worldwide.

Earth Hour really is a beautiful, powerful thing: you get send a message to governments worldwide, and it's like one huge party (especially in cities like Toronto). And this year it's an election with no minimum age.

I still don't get it: why do people insist on clogging up the comments area on the Canadian Earth Hour site with comments saying, "I'm turning every single one of my lights on, I'll have the sound system blasting, the TV on, etc., etc." What do people think they'll accomplish by doing that? And why are they doing it in the first place? Come ON, people--Earth Hour is COOL!!!!!!!!!

Eight and a half hours to go--yaaaaaaaaaay!!!!

Gearing up for Earth Hour (8:30-9:30 PM local time)

Do you really want to harm Her?

Tomorrow night is Earth Hour, and this blog will be going dark--literally (I'll change the template to Minama Dark).

What bugs me is how many people (Republicans? Conservatives?) still--after all this time and with the evidence doing a striptease in front of them--believe that global warming is a hoax (and that scientists back that claim up). It's at times like these that I want to scream so loud that everyone in the world can hear me: global warming is REAL and we need to really step up to the challenge. To those who say that turning off the lights for an hour couldn't possibly help, I say otherwise: I read in WWF-Canada's enewsletter last year that during Earth Hour 2008 Canada's power bill nation-wide was, in fact, reduced by a significant amount (I can't remember the exact figure, but it was a lot).

Also, if enough people participate it sends a very strong message to the government. With the climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, this December that message is extremely important (as Greenpeace keeps mentioning).

Our mother--our home--needs all the help She can get. Let's help to bring down Her fever.

To those who say otherwise: SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!!