Spooky Spokane.

I'm chillin in Washington this weekend. Michael and I have done some pretty scary things to celebrate Halloween. The scariest of all was the poetry reading Michael took me too, but I won't get into that. We went to an obscure Mexican restaurant--quite the gamble.

 

The risk payed off...although it was no Cancun Cafe. Michael looks so excited to be posing!!!

We also put our relationship on the line by redecorating Michael's walls. Last time we were here I ordered a bunch of prints and this time we organized them. Have you ever tried to hang pictures with someone you love? It's almost as dangerous as discussing recycling or music (Switchfoot is not cool, Michael). We made it through. I think Michael's apartment looks much better than most bachelors'.

 

The flash it terrible. Just use your imagination...

Now the real terror begings:
Michael's mom sent him a care package with a haunted gingerbread house (obviously). It took the combination of all of our physical and intellectual faculties to keep the structure up long enough to take a picture. I think humidity + gingerbread + Michael and Sarah = danger. It was fun and certainly something I've never done before. We're all warmed up for Christmas family parties now!
We took some super spooky pictures:

Trying to hold it up. 

 Tootsie Pop flying buttresses became necessary. Don't worry--I'm totally an art history major!

 Oooh, the horror.

Armando got dressed up too.

We were trying to take a normal, happy picture but the west wall gave out forcing immediate action on Michael's part.

I'm not really looking forward to the return journey, but I do have Harry Potter on tape to keep me company. Apparently, I've been doing too much talking about Harry Potter though, because the predictive text feature on my phone anticipates "HP" before "is." That's probably a bad sign...

School is cool.

This quarter (quarter instead of semester...crazy) I'm taking a theory seminar, a class on Symbolism in the 19th century and, something much further from my comfort zone, Landscape and Garden in Traditional China. Because most of my knowledge of Chinese culture comes from Disney's Mulan, I was a little intimidated about this class. Luckily, my professor wears loafers. Loafers are a good sign in a professor when you have no idea what you're doing--loafers are willing to accept that you have no idea what you're doing and work with you.

Anyway, Prof. Loaf has presented a great overview to landscape and Chinese art in general. As a western art historian, I usually try to fit eastern philosophy and artistic tradition in a western model...and it doesn't work. My favorite example of this is inscription.

Most Chinese ancient art is on either a hand scroll (sometimes 400 ft long), a decorative fan, or a hanging scroll and almost all of the works we've studied have imperial seals (stamps) and "inscriptions" or captions. When the owner of a hand scroll, for example, thought that the painting was well done, he/she would write "wow, really good work" on the silk! Some of the translations of these inscriptions include "I like Li Cheng's use of mist, but I really prefer southern painters." In the western tradition this would be equivalent to walking up to an oil painting in the Louvre and writing on the canvas (gah!) and would even be considered an honor if you were a little famous. Sometimes the fact that an emperor wrote on a scroll is more important than the image (even if it happened 100 years after it was painted), and sometimes the words are larger than the images like this piece attributed to Ma Lin.

No wonder eastern traditions don't fit into western models very well. I'm sure I'd get arrested if I walked up to a Da Vinci and wrote "Great work, mate. I really like the clouds!" Maybe Chinese characters are just prettier than English printing...or maybe I just need to get a little more famous before I autograph artists' works.

School man, you gotta love it.

A day in the life...

I took a camera to school with me for your blogging pleasure. Don't worry I didn't take pictures of people while I was on the bus or turn the camera around for one of those "this is me...I am here" pictures. In fact, this is a pretty lousy "day in the life," I just took pictures of everything that made me happy on my walk to and from school--I am becoming quite the walker 1.5 miles there and back again.

 

It's usually foggy in the morning. I love it and so does my hair.

 

Sometimes,  it's really fun to be in an art building.

 

Paper bag mushrooms in the courtyard. 

 

The leaves! by the public library.

 

This is a tree right next to my apartment. Yes ma'am.

Everything is so pretty here right now. I love when trees still have some green left. I am a little nostalgic because I really do feel like I should be taking "family pictures" with my friends back in Logan, but it is pretty exciting to be here too. After all, it's raining on my skylight. What I need is a really fast plane...or the ability to apperate.

My parents came to see me!

My Dad picked me up from school on Thursday--that hasn't happened since elementary school! Such happiness. With all the Settling and Scrabbling I don't know where we fit in adventures around Eugene, but we had a good time. I got to introduce my parents to the train...and they bought me school spirit paraphernalia--I may become a Ducks fan, but I'll never cheer for the Trailblazers (except for Wesley Matthews).

Climbing was my priority. A few days after I moved to Eugene I took a walk around my neighborhood and discovered a climbing wall. Wha? I moved from a mountainous valley full of climbing glory, but I never lived within walking distance of a rock wall! So, Day 1 had a lot of basalt cracks. My dad didn't get the climbing memo, so he's wearing jeans--how embarrassing.

 I also took them down by the Willamette river (I have no idea how to pronounce this word and keep embarrassing myself in front of the locals). I'm really excited to go down here in a few weeks when green turns to fall colors. Moss and ivy growing on trees? Beautiful.

We went to the Saturday market. Every week, rain or shine, Eugene has three blocks of pottery and other art booths, food and veggies, people who play the mandalin and a lot of dancing hobos (in a good way). I love it. It's like the Salt Lake Art Festival every week, with free admission.

 

On Sunday we went to the coast. It was like a vacation within a vacation. Tide pools and sandy beaches? Yes please. Too bad the water is freezing.

 

Overall, it was really great to see my family (minus Laura and Rusty). Plus, I got a picture of an over-the-hill mermaid and of my dad, looking like John Wayne. I have to say my apartment feels rather large now with an empty futon.

Eugene, so far.

I should start this post by saying that overall my transition to Eugene has been pretty seamless. I love my program and the people here (after all, what other town has good old fashioned hippies with gray dredlocks?) but my first few nights in town were...difficult.

My parents offered to buy me a bed for my birthday (I know, not as exciting as roller blades or a puppy) so until this past week I've been sleeping on an air mattress. Air mattresses are cold and bouncy--a terrible combination. My first night in my new apartment I woke up on the ground. It was no longer an air mattress, but a sort squeaky tarp. I thought that I just hadn't plugged it correctly and blew it up again. A few hours later my feet were the only part off the ground. Grumble, grumble. Oddly enough I didn't wake up because I was deflating again. I woke up to a weird chirp. I started to blow up my bed again (just like Donald in that old cartoon) and I heard it again. My smoke detector decided to run out of batteries the night I moved in. Lame.

Normally a chirping smoke detector wouldn't be a big problem, but my apartment is sort of a loft and has really high ceilings. About 15 feet high in some parts. I did consider trying to jump up to hit it by bouncing on the air mattress, but ended up using my mad rock climbing skills and a broom to whack it until it stopped. This is my dramatic reenactment.

It took me a long time to get back to sleep because I live next to train tracks that cater to very noisy trains. Every few hours a big train yells "I'm HERE" complete with ringing bells and squeaky brakes. Needless to say, it's completely ruined Thomas the Tank Engine and the Polar Express. Maybe even the train at the zoo...

Luckily, I got a new air mattress and smoke detector the next day and my parents just bought me a bed.

Now all I need to do is master the one way streets (left turn on red? crazy!).

The first post of the rest of my life.

I'm a blogger now. I blog.

Besides being a healthy distraction from homework, I think this will be a good way to keep all the people who like me updated on my life (now that I've blown town). It seems like everyone is spreading out across the country or I've left them behind in Salt Lake and Logan.

 So far I'm just settling into my apartment and my program. I'll keep the posts coming, just wanted to say hello!