hit the ground running

Never a dull moment at art school… Also, this is post #200, in case anyone's curious. And I don't think the fact that this is my final semester has really sunk in yet.

Monday: I was in for a bit of a shock when I found out that my access card no longer worked on the Photo Dept. doors (any of them) due to the fact that I'm not taking any PHOT credits this semester. Needless to say, that completely threw me for a loop, as the Photo Dept. is my home at NSCAD. It completely messed with my way of working.

I have a feeling that I'm going to like Contemporary Indigenous Art, and I'm excited about what I'm going to learn this semester. The course will cover indigenous peoples outside North America as well as First Nations peoples and Native Americans, and cover other topics in addition to art. Because a couple of people said that Carla Taunton (who teaches two of my history courses: Contemporary Indigenous Art and Topics in Modern Canadian Art) knows a lot about indigenous peoples, I wanted to make the most of my time having her as a teacher. Since Idle No More started and I (finally) became interested in First Nations' history and what Natives have had to deal with since white people came to North America, I had been thinking about meeting with Carla to learn even more than what's presented in the course. That may or may not happen, because the course covers a lot. The description in the calendar doesn't do it justice: "This course on contemporary Indigenous arts will introduce students to the diversity of contemporary Aboriginal art practices (including video, photography, performance, painting, installation) contextualized by Indigenous theories of sovereignty, self-determination, and survivance."

I stayed until Photo closed at 10:30 that night. Alex and I left at the same time, and he came up with a few suggestions that would remedy my situation, including Reconfigured Image (done) or an independent project (AHA!!!). I went over my list of possible projects for APC, and picked the one that I felt was the best after the one that I did last semester. By the time I got home, I was 95% sure that I wanted to do it, and not just because it gets me twenty-four-hour access to the Photo Dept.

Tuesday: Right away, I could tell that Survey of Twentieth-Century Art was going to be different from NBCCD's FVA art history survey courses, as almost right away Jayne Wark was talking about Modernism. I'm looking forward to it, though.

That afternoon, I started jumping through the hoops necessary to make the independent project happen, and went to OSAS and made an appointment with Shawna (the registrar). I also emailed Adrian. I called Dal and made an appointment with Joan to continue what we'd started last semester.

Alex told me that evening that everything had been worked out. From an email to Mom:

"My access card will eventually work on the doors in the Photo Dept., as Chris (who's the top tech) and Alex worked things out. However, I still plan to do the independent-study, as I'm all excited about it now, have picked my project and have started jumping through the hoops. I was talking with Alex just a few minutes ago, and he told me that everything had been worked out and he didn't have to kick me out tonight. I told him that I still planned to do the project, and that by the time I [was almost home Monday night], I was 95% sure that I wanted to do it. I decided to sleep on it, and I'm now going for it. I also mentioned that right from the start, my goal has been to make the most of my time at [NSCAD], and this is a way of doing that."

And yes, my letter was published in the Courier (page A5, for anyone who reads that paper). As promised, here it is:

Due to the intensity of the week up to that point, I decided to start writing this post that afternoon and continued writing throughout the week, adding to it every day.

Wednesday: I was finally able to catch my breath (and catch up on my sleep) that day due to not having any classes, and while I had things to do, the list wasn't as long as it had been for the last four days. I ordered the course pack for Contemporary Indigenous Art (which is thick as heck and equally expensive--good thing I don't plan to buy the course pack for Twentieth Century Art, as almost everything is on reserve in the NSCAD library--the exception is an article from an art journal, which is available at the library, just not on the reserve shelf--or the book for Topics in Modern Canadian Art, which will soon be available in the NSCAD library) and edited some photos.

Adrian replied to my email, and unfortunately he can't take on any more independent-study students. He suggested checking at OSAS to see if part-time instructors like Steve Farmer can work with students who are doing independent-study projects. And he's available to meet with me on Monday.

You may have heard of The Dark Side of Oz, which involves syncing The Dark Side of the Moon with The Wizard of Oz. Well, apparently if you sync Amnesiac by Radiohead with the rest of the movie, it works perfectly.

Thursday: During Survey of Twentieth-Century Art, I found out that there were readings for that day's class--and that I should've done them. After class, I clarified that part of the schedule. I then went to OSAS and asked about regular part-time faculty (RPT--NSCAD's system of part-time faculty is kind of complex, as there are three different levels) working with students who are doing independent-study projects. They weren't able to answer my question, and referred me to Joanne Reynolds-Farmer. According to her, RPTs can't, except in the summer.

That afternoon, I had Topics in Modern Canadian Art, which was interesting, as we spent most of the class waiting for course outlines to be printed. Though Carla was able to give us the rundown of what's going to happen.

I picked up the course pack (and forked over an arm and a leg--while I completely understand why Kinko's has to charge copyright fees, as a student those numbers can really take a chunk out of my loan) and marked in the list of readings in the front which readings were for which weeks, just as I'd done in the course pack for Obsolescence last year.

Friday: It's ridiculous how excited I was for the weekend. I don't have class on Fridays this semester, and after the whirlwind first week, I was looking forward to not having class until Monday afternoon.

I still had things to do, though, including checking at Student Services to see if NSCAD had received the second bit of the money that I owed for this semester (on Sunday night, I discovered that the federal loan folks had put more money in my credit union account than I'd expected. While extra money is awesome--even if I have to pay most of it back: some of it is in the form of bursaries--I was concerned that NSCAD hadn't gotten all that I owed them. I checked on Monday, and at the time the school had received half of what I owed for this semester.). They had, and I mentioned that I would possibly be doing an independent-study project. If I'm successful in taking on the extra three credits, I'll be responsible for paying the school. I'm so glad I have a chequing account now and don't have to get a counter cheque every time I need to use that payment method.

I emailed Alvin Comiter and Bob and asked about doing an independent-study project with either of them and emailed Adrian again.

And I wrote my assignments for the semester in my planner. I'd planned to do the readings that I needed to do that day, but decided to do them on Saturday instead.

Saturday: I spent the afternoon in the NSCAD Library, doing the readings for Twentieth-Century Art, and managed to finish the first reading and start the second.

The Met played Die Fledermaus (The Bat). Sadly, I was photocopying the chapters that I had to read and missed the Champagne Song (because NSCAD has the book that's used for Twentieth-Century Art and it's cheaper to do your own photocopying, I opted to borrow the copy that NSCAD has on reserve and use the library's photocopier). I usually write the parts that I find interesting or important in my notebook, but this time they were taking too long and I could only have the reserve copy for three hours. Making my own copies meant that I could take a highlighter pen to the readings.

Because I was in the library, I wasn't able to hum along with the overture, which is one of those pieces that never fails to make me hum along (the Moldau from Ma Vlast is another).

Every time I watch the Wiener Neujahrskonzert, I can't help but notice that all the musicians are men, with the exception of the harpist. And they're all white. Thankfully, my favourite orchestras (the BSO, Met Opera Orchestra and PBSO) are a lot more inclusive (though as of the last PBSO concert that I went to, Americans still outnumber Canucks by about 7:1, and Trond mentioned that the orchestra needs more Canadian members).

I was introduced to that song by the Met Opera Brass and their second album, Waltzes, Songs and Festive Scenes (the Champagne Song is track eight), and it's one of my favourite tracks from that album.

Sunday: I spent a couple hours in the NSCAD library today as well, finishing the readings. The library might end up becoming the spot where I do all my readings, as there's a lot more space to spread out than in the photo dept. Sorry, Photo.

I had a look at the list of important dates, and it looks like Friday was the last day that I could add a class. So I might not be able to do the independent-study project (for credit, anyway--I might just go ahead and do it, as it requires participation from other artists and I'm in the perfect spot). :-(

Earlier this evening I found out that a family friend, my honorary grandfather (and reader of this blog), Stan Hart, died Saturday night. I'll let my Facebook status do the talking. RIP Stan.

prepping for next year

My university plans have changed again. And finals are just as brutal as ever.

Monday: Due to it being Easter Monday, there were no classes. I spent the day doing homework.

Tuesday: I returned the DVDs to the VRC and ended up discussing them with the woman in charge of the Collection (Rebecca, who's a NSCAD grad--Photography, Class of '99). I think Anna Leonowens and I would've gotten along quite nicely, and I love that she was a suffragette. Once again, I spent the day doing homework, including prepping for the next day's printing.

I'm determined to get an apartment next year: I've lived in a university residence for the last four years, and at twenty-four (twenty-five in July), I'm ready to truly start living on my own and be responsible for paying rent. So I visited a couple of apartment buildings on my way home. I didn't get to see any rooms, but I like the feel of both places, and they're close to pretty much everything.

Later that evening, I started to feel the telltale signs of a cold.

Wednesday: I woke up feeling like I could've slept another hour or two. By the end of the day, however, I was feeling much better.

That day was Printing Day. I spent a chunk of the afternoon doing final adjustments and then printed the photos.

Class was another group critique. I had some tweaks to make, but overall it went well.

Thursday: Here's where things get interesting. I went to school early to meet with Adrian Fish, who'll be my teacher next semester for APC, to talk about the course. I've been discussing it a lot with a student who's currently taking it, Mary Ellen, and I wanted to see what Adrian had to say. We went over the course outline, which he emailed to me. I also mentioned that I'd be doing all nine of my history credits (three courses) that semester. With APC that's a whopping eighteen credits, i.e., overload. Whenever I've mentioned this to my friends at school they've all said something along the lines of "that's a lot." And it is. But I'd gotten it into my head that I'll finish my degree in three semesters, and all my plans and decisions have been based around that schedule, so adding another semester was more than a bit stressful. Adrian said the same--in fact, he said that that was the most difficult way to go about finishing said degree. That did it for me. Because Adrian's awesome and I trust him, I figured he had to be right about this. I've been kind of worried, anyway, about doing it that way. Yes, it's cheaper, but while I'd save money, I'd probably end up racking up a lot of sleep debt (and this gal needs eight to nine hours of sleep a night. I can get by on seven for a night or two, but any less, or several nights in a row of seven hours or less, and you don't want to be me. Though I somehow manage to happily go through Christmas Day on about six and a half hours of sleep.). I'd also be stressed out of my mind, especially during finals, which are stressful enough at fifteen credits. And I'd run the risk of doing a crappy job on my APC project, and my expectations for that course are higher than they are for most other courses because it's the thesis course for the Photography BFA (and as I've gotten older and learned more, my standards for my own work and that of others have skyrocketed--and not just for photography, either: this also applies to other forms of visual art, dance and music). I won't accept anything less than the best. But because money is a big concern for me (I have a student loan for the first time, having gone through NBCCD with a university fund that no longer exists), I was concerned about the financial side of adding another semester. However, I'd rather go a little deeper into debt than sacrifice the quality of my work, my GPA--and my sanity.

After all that, I went to the SUNSCAD AGM--which didn't get underway until about 12:30. I unfortunately had to leave just after the new SUNSCAD exec was ratified due to class at 1:00.

The latter part of class was a working class, and I spent it tidying up the pieces that I'd done. During break, I went to OSAS to talk with them about the change in plan because I'd already applied to graduate and listed my graduation date as Winter '14. I have a couple of appointments to talk things over on Tuesday, which is going to be a ridiculously busy day.

Friday: The last set of presentations for Obsolescence. We also made plans for next week: because it's the last day for that course, we're meeting at ten instead of 8:30. Hello, sleeping in until 8:30!

Anna spent the class going over the structure and format of our final essays.

Saturday: Up and at 'em. That morning we installed the show on the second floor of the Port Campus, and my print is looking gorgeous. This is my first time mounting a photo using earth magnets, and I love the look. It cuts down on cost, yes (and I don't know if NSCAD has frames that I can borrow nor do I know who cuts mats well and charges an amount that's easy for a student to cough up), but some images are best when presented "naked". It forces the viewer to be confronted by the work and whatever idea the artist is trying to get across whether the viewer likes it or not. This is my first show outside New Brunswick.

Once the show was up, I went back to my place and spent the rest of the day studying, and I'm amazed at how much I got done--which is good news for Tuesday. I also dropped two courses from my Fall '13 schedule and registered for courses for Winter '14. I'll be taking APC and Survey of 20th Century Art in the Fall (twelve credits), and Contemporary Indigenous Arts and Topics in Canadian Art in the Winter (six credits, meaning that I'll be a part-time student--full-time status kicks in at nine credits). Since Friday, I've felt lighter when I think about the remaining courses: I don't have to worry about how I'm going to get all my projects done. Plus, if Contemporary Indigenous Arts is as awesome as I think it's going to be, I could treat it as an extension of my summer project on First Nations peoples, culture, history, treaties and treatment by white people (that's probably going to be the most painful part of the project).

Due to all the excitement, I didn't listen to the opera. This week the Met performed Das Rheingold, which is home to one of the most beautiful preludes ever. I don't care what you think of Wagner or opera--that thing's awesome. I'm not the biggest Wagner fan--I'm definitely not a Ring-head--but the Das Rheingold prelude is one of my favourite pieces. I love how it starts out simply and then grows and builds and swells, evoking the Rhine river. Here it is, as performed by the Met in the new Robert Lepage production. That's all eight MOO hornists you're hearing.



Sunday: Once again, I spent the day doing homework down at the Port Campus. Despite my rather late start to the day, I managed to finish much of the rest of my to-do list.

home stretch

Just when I thought finals couldn't get any more intense, they do.

Monday: If there's one thing I love during finals it's a working class. I spent most of it slaving away on one (rather difficult) photo.

Tuesday: I spent much of the day working on homework, including printing the first set of photos for my project for the WftA show.

That evening, we had a meeting to decide the next direct action. This one will be an outdoor party, celebrating the end of an intense year and letting the bigwigs know that the students are going to come back even stronger next Fall.

Wednesday: I spent much of the day writing for WftA and Obsolescence. I also registered for the last two courses that I'm going to take next Fall. In addition to APC, I need to take nine credits of art history. Two can be any level, but one must be a 3000- or 4000-level course. There weren't many 3000-level courses to choose from that hadn't already been waitlisted (which is nuts, considering that registration only opened a few weeks ago) and I don't have enough history credits to take 4000-level courses. Before registering, I went through the academic calendar and made a list of all the history courses that I was interested in. I then had a look on WebAdvisor (which is where you register for courses) to see what was actually available for next Fall. Only one of my choices was available: Survey of Indigenous Art, which is a 2000-level course. Most of the 3000-level courses that were available required prerequisites that I didn't have. The only courses that met my credit requirements were Craft and Design History 1750 - 1950 and Craft: Decor Arts of Ancient Rome. The first one (which lists 20th Century Art as a prerequisite) is the prerequisite for the second one. Whew! Thankfully, I already have four history courses under my belt, including the two FVA art history survey courses. I had to get permission from the prof in order to take the upper-level course (Decor Arts), so I emailed her. She emailed back within minutes, and off I went to school to print off the email, which I took to OSAS. Turns out I'd already been registered for that course, so all I have to be concerned about now is time-management for next fall. **gulp**

That evening's class was the shortest yet: all we had to do was split into groups, discuss each others' final projects, and then meet with Jeff individually and discuss said projects as well as any re-dos for the last project with him.

Thursday: I went to school early because I wanted to visit the Visual Resources Collection and see if they had any movies that I'd like to check out for the long weekend. I spent several minutes reading titles and nothing sounded interesting--until I spotted a couple of movies on the top shelf. Anna and the King and another, Anna and the King of Siam, which turned out to be the original--Anna and the King being a remake. I checked out both. I've seen Anna and the King before, probably around 2000 or 2001, meaning that I was no older than thirteen. I remember Tom fast-forwarding over some of the nastier parts (PG-13 rating, BTW), and although I understand why he did that--he's a parent after all--it's still frustrated me for over a decade. Now I can finally watch those parts: while I sometimes wish that I could go back to the carefree days known as childhood, being an adult has its perks.

Another working class. I finally finished the photo that I'd been slaving over. I didn't want to look at it for another day or so.

Friday: Hello, sleeping in until ten on a Friday!

I spent the day being as lazy as possible while still getting work done. I also skyped with my parents for the first time in forever and spring-cleaned my room.

Saturday: More homework--while listening to La Traviata. I think it's time I admitted that I love that opera. I can hum along with at least a third of the melodies. Having seen Moulon Rouge!, I wondered if the writers got ideas from the opera. Turns out, I was right. La Bohème and Orpheus in the Underworld (Offenbach) are also cited.

Anna and the King of Siam, which I watched that evening, is an okay movie, though overly-dramatic and Louis dies at the end when he's thrown from his horse. In real life, he married, his wife had a couple of kids, and he lived to be sixty-two, when he died in the flu pandemic in 1919. Also, in the movie Anna's surname is Owens, rather than Leonowens. Turns out, Leonowens is actually an amalgamation of her husband's middle and last names--and when he combined the two, her mom and stepdad were not happy.

Saturday night was far from dull. The emergency alarm went off at about nine and we all had to evacuate. It went off again at three AM for about ten torturous minutes and then there was yet another alarm at six AM, this time a one-minute test. I should mention that the alarm that the school where I live uses is not your ordinary alarm: in addition to the usual ring, they also throw in a high-pitched tone that tortures your ears. There's also a robotic male voice telling you what to do, which is the system's only redeeming quality.

Sunday: On my way back to my room from brunch at the meal hall, I found out that the three AM alarm had been a fire in one of the other two residences.

I spent most of the afternoon at the Port Campus, working on my Graphics final (a portfolio of my work, which I'm doing in a brochure layout). On my way back, it was so warm out that I took my coat off a few blocks from home. I had my windows open for a couple hours after supper. The evening was devoted to starting my final essay for WftA (1,500 words minimum) and watching Anna and the King, which is much better than Anna and the King of Siam.

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.

bring it, NSCAD!

This past week, I finally got around to registering for courses for next year. In the Fall semester, I'm taking three courses--about half of what my NBCCD course load was, which has meant that I've had to adjust my post-secondary education (PSE) mindset. I'm used to having most of my days filled up with courses, and taking six or seven courses per semester. This time, I just have classes in the afternoons on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with a morning class on Wednesday. Tuesday's and Friday's courses are the same one. Add to that the fact that the campus where I'll be spending most of my time uses several sets of letters: some of the rooms where I have classes start with D, some with G, and one with N. I thought they were all different campuses, but then I looked at the floor-plan: they're not.

And as I've been looking at courses, I've been thinking about how, if I'd gone to NSCAD as a Foundation student back in '09, I would've had to take my future plans into consideration when choosing courses. For example, one of the courses that I'm picking up from a previous year, Introductory Photography, lists Foundation Computer as a prerequisite. Of course, I would've taken Foundation Photography, but doing it NBCCD's way--sampling most of the studios through Media Explorations--really benefited me, and I gained an appreciation for different media that I didn't have prior to that year. And although I was about ninety per cent sure that I wanted to do photography, there was that other ten per cent that was eyeing metal arts. Also, at that time I wasn't thinking past 2010: a year or so previously, I'd decided that yes, I did want to go to college or university (between the ages of sixteen and nineteen or twenty, although I was very happy overall, I was very confused about what I wanted to do "when I grew up", including whether or not I wanted to go to college or university--and the fact that there were all these options available only served to confuse me even more).

All but one of my Fall courses are in the afternoon, so I'll have to force myself to get out of bed early if I'm to get any work done before class. Winter currently has a similar set-up: three afternoon classes and an evening class. One of those afternoon classes is at a different campus, but thankfully, the other campus is only 0.4 miles (0.6 kilometres) away, meaning that it's closer than NBCCD is to the place where I stayed in F'ton (that was 0.75 miles/1.2 kilometres). It took me twenty to twenty-five minutes to get to NBCCD every day with a full backpack, about fifteen minutes without the backpack, so I don't think it'll take me very long to walk from one campus to the other. I'm hoping to add another course that I don't yet have the required prerequisites for in the Winter semester.

And then there are the history courses... I need to do nine credits of art history--three courses--which I'll do in the summer semester. Most of the history courses require the same prerequisites--but those prerequisites list a foundation writing course that I'm going to do in the winter (the Fall classes are marked as "closed"). I'm going to talk with administration when I get to Halifax in September, and see if it's possible to do the prerequisite at the same time, as a co-requisite. If not, then I've picked out three history courses that don't require the prerequisites that my first-choice set does, as a worst-case-scenario plan.

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to being a NSCADian and NSCAD Photog. I'm looking forward to the overall experience. I'm looking forward to expanding my definition of "art" and my understanding of it. I'm looking forward to being the second generation in my family to go to that school (Mom was the first). I'm looking forward to seeing if I'll be as loyal to NSCAD as I am to NBCCD, and if NSCAD will be as important a part of my identity as NBCCD is. I'm looking forward to rocking two of the three campuses. I'm looking forward to exploring Halifax. I'm looking forward to going to lots of gallery openings (NSCAD has not one, but three galleries: Anna Leonowens Gallery, Port Loggia Gallery and Seeds Gallery, which is a commercial gallery). I'm looking forward to exploring the nooks and crannies of the two older campuses--Granville Campus and Academy Building--and checking out the creative mischief that my fellow students at all three campuses are getting into and seeing the art that is the result of said mischief. And I'm looking forward to the creative mischief that I will get into.

For the first time, I'll close this with GO NSCAD PHOTOGS!