I found one of my favorite chocolate brands in the world today! While out Christmas shopping, I came across this little gourmet and expensive grocery store called Chalet. I just went in to look around and compare prices and stuff and what was staring at me from a little cardboard display? Endangered Species Chocolate! I used to buy it all the time when I was younger and then we moved, so I haven't had it in probably five years.

Each wrapper has a different endangered animal on it, and 10% of the price is donated to preserving wildlife. I was so proud of myself when I was younger and bought it with my own money. Now I have a bar of 70% cocao dark chocolate with raspberry pieces in my drawer. It's so rich I can barely eat more than one or two pieces. My needs for the day have been fulfilled. <3

Today was yet another one of those that have lead to dread and horror in the recent past. Final critique day. I seem to have a knack for clamming up during important critiques like these. My tongue gets tied, I accidentally use the "wrong" word in describing my work, or nobody gets it. So during my class today, Painting Practices, we were supposed to say a bit about our work and a little bit about it all together as a practice. I did that...maybe a little too specifically though. I'm influenced by nature and work realistically, but that word "realism" is what messed me up today. I was told that I should use the words "representational" or "observational" to describe my work more closely. Most of the critique was spent explaining this to me. I don't think I was wrong in using that word though...I was really close when I read the definition of the word:

re·al·ism n
1. a practical understanding and acceptance of the actual nature of the world, rather than an idealized or romantic view of it
2. in artistic and literary works, lifelike representation of people and the world, without any idealization

Then one of my teachers asked me if there was something I wanted to ask the class about my tiger paintings. I was put on the spot so I just kind of mumbled my way through...but the little bit that came out was something about how I think "realism" is something that's under-appreciated at this school and I think it should be held higher in accomplishment than it is...or than it had seemed to be. It kind of ended after that and I was so tired that I stared off into space for the rest of the day. I guess I'm glad that it was only our teachers talking, because if they left it open for everyone to talk, we'd never have finished.
Then, at the end of the day when I was taking all my paintings down, one of my teachers came over to me and said that she really hopes I don't feel alienated in our school. She said that she works in some similar ways to me and that I should continue in my traditional interests because there are more people here that appreciate than I've come across. She made me feel so much better. Another teacher started talking with us too and said that he thinks that I have strong convictions and I should stick to them...and if nobody else likes them, they can just deal with it. He also said that he thought I have a "very acute sensibility,"...that my paintings weren't "there" yet, but they will be. After all that, my wonderfully awesome teaching assistant from Russia talked to me too. I love talking to her! Hopefully she'll be a TA in another class of mine.
So from this morning when I felt annoyed and then completely unimpressed by painting in general, I was lifted back up in the afternoon and feel like once I get a little sleep and break from school, I'll be drawing and painting for myself again and not for school assignments that have nothing to do with me.
Plus, doesn't hurt that I bought a good photography book for myself on tropical-inspired architecture and interior decorating. Someday I will have a beautiful house that is exotic and tropical in a warm climate filled with sunshine! <3 All is good with the world tonight.

Last night was the most fun that's happened in our apartment in quite awhile. I'm so tired from being up all night, but it's like a calming, carefree tired. ... Which is a bit scary when I realize that I just don't care about the work I have to do this week for finals! Oh well...all is good tonight at this moment.

There were three people giving out free hugs down by the water tower today. I gave one to a lady and walked away with a huge grin on my face. It was so uplifting. There need to be more hugs in the world. particularly my little part of the world. hehehe I get multiple hugs everyday from my mom at home but zero here at school. It's a weird thing to get used to not having.

Kp's explaination about how she appreciates the little things in life. She's right...sometimes you need to just slow down and read those sauce packets...or fall asleep listening to both your roommate reading the whole list of names starting with Z from a baby name website and The Lion King soundtrack.

Dancing and singing penguins are so cute that my heart has been permanently melted into the consistency of sugar water.

20! I'm two decades old! It's weird thinking about it. Tomorrow/tonight we're going to see Happy Feet at the IMAX. I love imax, and I love penguins. I also love dancing and cute talking animals...and lots of other things. Waves for example. They were so rough today...I could see huge ones crashing at least a mile north of us on the beach. I bet they were 10-15 feet tall if I were standing next to them. It was extremely windy today...hence the waves, and it sounds so strong up 48 floors. I have more to say but can't remember it at the moment...other than the fact that I have to get up in 7 hours for class and I'm not even close to being tired. Oh well, it's the weekend, time to relax! I've got good music and my warm bed. When I listen to the song The Child(Inside) by Qkumba Zoo, it makes me want to animate whales swiming in the air past my window. Wouldn't that be a beautiful site...whales swimming amongst skyscrapers during sunrise? Ooo...I must convince Ruchy to go see the sunrise with me again soon...last time the clouds were blocking it. Okay time to subdue the thoughts and fall asleep...Goodnight moon! <')>)))>(

Water is amazing. I took a bath tonight. It's so weird...I haven't taken a bath since like...4th grade, or somewhere around that time...I don't remember because it's been so long! And here I am, having taken 3 in one month. The stress is so intense that I feel the undying need to submerge my head in warm water. It's the only way to be entirely alone for a moment. Although, it's a little weird because here, I can hear a creepy matrix-like mechanical humming underwater because our plumbing is connected to 56 floors of bathrooms above and below me.

Sometimes I feel like I think very logical and scientifically, but others are the complete opposite. My zodiac sign for instance. Now, I don't believe my horoscope very often, but the characteristics of the sign really fit me. Even if it doesn't show to anyone else. It's a water sign and my need for water is so primal sometimes that I feel like a fish gasping for liquid. Obviously I need to it survive health-wise, but I can't ever imagine living permanently in a place that doesn't have water to look at. Whether it's the ocean, a lake, or a little stream, I feel so uneasy and needy for it when it's not there. I really want to go to Oregon lately, the coasts are absolutely gorgeous. Tide pools and little caves and awesome rocks to climb are everywhere. Every beach has new things to hide, and the best thing is...there's barely any people! The water is too cold to swim in most of the time, but that's ok...there are other things that make up for it.

My neighbor Ryan wrote an email to me today and it made me want to cry. He said something like "Hi Andria, I can't wait until you come home! My treefrog died about 2 months ago." That poor frog...it's name was Mellow Yellow and I had to feed him crickets this summer while they were gone on vacation. My neighbor is 11. He's the best kid I've ever met...He's like me, but in a boy body. My thought process when I was that young is identical to his. He makes me want to become an ecologist or marine biologist, or a vet. Good for him, lets hope he sticks to it. Maybe I'll do that too sometime soon.

Only 7 and 1/2 days until I'll be on the train home for a few days.

My Benadryl is starting to take affect on my senses and my head is starting to swim in that peachy ocean in the clouds. Time to say Goodnight Moon once again.

I want to try studying abroad for a semester to get a break from this school. When it's good, it's extremely good...like tasting the most decadent chocolate ever. But when it's bad, it's like the awful sound of fingernails scratching a chalkboard, but times ten and mixed with nausea. I've never been out of the country, so how amazing would it be to learn amongst beautiful scenery and history? We'll see how it works, because the only thing holding me back is money, but money isn't everything, and it's an awesome opportunity.
On another note, I've decided that the only thing that really matters to me in the world is animals and nature. Protecting it and showing others how important it is for our souls. I'm going to make all my artwork about animals from this point on. I started tonight with some sketches of birds. Everything is good, and now it's time to sleep. The sun has gone down...goodnight.

Holy mother of cheese...my history presentation is done! It went pretty decent I think. I really don't care at this point...I know I did well enough to pass, and that's all I want at this point. I just want to finish the semester smoothly, doing regular assignments. Plus, I painted another beautiful tiger today. I love them so much...I think I'll hang some up in my room when I get home from school in the winter. All is well at the present moment and sleep is casting its shadow upon me. Goodnight Moon.

First of all, I must state that I need to try to keep this journal up. I'm on the computer so often that there should be no excuse for missing a day of typing, but here I sit with weeks in between.

Bad teachers are so bad. I despise them with a passion...but some people helped me discover a way around the suffocating atmosphere of a classroom with so much negative energy. I have to take what I hate about them and turn it into sarcasm, or just contradict what they want in the most obvious of ways. ... So my painting teacher thinks my work is empty and falls short in more ways than one. He didn't like my beloved tiger paintings that I spent 12 hours on, but he loved the paintings that consisted of three stripes on a plain colored canvas. I guess effort and time don't matter to him. I thought that the easiest way to survive was to b.s. my way through and comply to what he wants to make it easier on my nerves. I only have two weeks left anyway. But then I was given the idea to take what he didn't like and keep doing it in every single piece for the next two weeks. He didn't like my tigers because they were reminiscent of National Geographic (not a bad thing in my opinion but apparently realism is too cliche for his taste), so I'll somehow incorporate tigers into every one of my next assignments. Rub it in his face a little and force him to consider it. Shall I do it? I think so...Why not right? Nobody else seems to have much direction in the class. If an abstract painter loves the color yellow and they incorporate it into every painting they do, they get critiqued for having a specific direction. My idea is exactly the same. Being the worrisome person that I am, I'm skeptical about actually doing it because I have problems with clearly explaining my ideas out loud. It's quite intriguing though...So lets try this head-on and see what happens. The worse thing that could happen is that I would be remembered by m classmates as the girl that painted tigers...and that's not such a bad thing.

I just finished reading the fifth book of the Chronicles of Narnia..."The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." It was so good! The entire time I wanted to jump into the pages because everything happened on the sea. Nautical things make me so eager to be out on water...it's insane, like a bonfire burning inside my chest...yes.

I've been lucky this week to have two days in a row with storms. Yesterday there was a tornado warning and from 48 stories up, it was pretty freaking cool to see the clouds come in...even if we didn't see the actual funnel cloud. Today it's raining so hard that I can barely see the Hancock Center out our bedroom window. This all makes me really want to be down by the lake and on the water.

I discovered that I have no patience for contemporary art. The single worst thing I could tell anyone at this school, but what can I say? I like what I like and tough shit if everyone else thinks it isn't conceptual enough. Right? I guess the things that appeal to me are the simpler things in life. Yay for the north woods! My love for you is eternal.

I'm sitting on my bed drawing 3 different sticks I picked up in the park for an illustration assignment. It's perfect...I love drawing things like this. I also found an old mixed cd of country music that I love. This all makes me really really want to go fishing for some reason. I want to be somewhere outside and peaceful away from other people. Just sitting in a boat fishing on a cloudy day. Maybe I'll just imagine that the sticks I'm drawing are trees on a lakeshore.

I've just discovered a tastey little treat that I think some others might like as well:
*sesame crackers with cucumber and cheese slices on top. It's really good without the cracker too.

Two days ago was my first class in the Field Museum; natural history illustration. Our assignment was to render in pencil a certain number of different types of leaves from their plant exhibit. It's the most amazing class ever. Exactly what I want to do. Our assignment for next week is to draw 3 different types of sticks! So cool, I love it! It's like a breath of fresh air compared to this arrogant, conceptual shit we deal with everywhere else in school.
We were let out of class early so I took the opportunity to walk around the museum without having to pay, heehee. The evolution exhibit was filled with amazing things. There's an ancient deer from Ireland that can get antlers up to 12 feet across. And and and...right next to it was a skeleton of a giant land sloth. Holy mother of tea! I thought it was like a double-size grizzly bear sort of thing...it's hip bones were absolutely MASSIVE! Like two of my kitchen tables attached to leg bones! My jaw dropped.
But the best thing of all was the animal section..with all the stuffed animals from around the world. There were so many that I only had time to look at a fraction of them. It made my day even better when I heard someone pressing the bird call buttons for the common loon. It's one of the most beautiful and eerie sounds in the entire world. The second I heard it, I was swept back to my childhood in northern Minnesota. I think if I had to pick my favorite sound, it would be the cry of a loon across a lake while I'm going to sleep or waking up. Mmmmm....

I've made it a goal in my life to become amazing at watercolors like the painter Gary Spetz. Let's just say, paintings like his make me drool. I must start to train my mind to think backwards first though. That might be kind of hard when I'm in my oil painting class though...

I really wanted to go to the lake today, but I have a cold and no energy, so I just looked through a window as I relaxed and drank chamomile tea.

Tonight, while walking through Blick, one of my favorite songs of all time started playing. The Girl From Ipanema. It's one of the most relaxing and beautiful songs ever. I decided years ago that it will be played sometime during the day of my wedding.

I'm sick of school and Chicago and crowds of people. I want to go home. I'm more creative when I'm away from everything here anyway.

Today was my first day of classes this semester.
Art history: Cezanne and His Influence...looks like it's going to be complicated, but the teacher is really nice and we'll be in the museum often.
Science: Geology of the National Parks...I hope some people drop so there is more legroom in those crowded chairs. The teacher gets so excited about rocks that I get excited too.
The museum makes me forget all of my worries and sends my brain into a whirlwind. Geology is like a breath of fresh air to my brain...concrete learning with no critiques!

Geology joke:
1st geologist says: "Now that is a gneiss rock..."
2nd says: "No...that's a piece of schist."