Getting closer

I'm almost finished with Painting. Basically the only thing that I have left to do is show up to the critique. And then clean out my stuff on Sunday and collect my paintings. I finished my final painting today, and it really didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. Probably because there wasn't a whole lot of detail work. I mean, I could have made it photorealistic and I half intended to, but when I had my first couple layers of paint on and the trees painted in, I decided that I liked how it looked as it was. And then once I painted in all of the reflections, my mind was made up. The only really detailed elements were the frog in the foreground (which looks amazing and didn't actually take me as long to paint as I thought it would) and there's a turtle basking on a log that is kind of detailed but it's so small that there wasn't much detail area to cover. I decided to leave out the dragonfly (which probably would have taken a few hours to paint) because of focusing issues. It would be "zoomed in" but the background wouldn't be blurry, and since a painting is 2D the viewer's eye wouldn't make the background blurry just by looking at the dragonfly so I think it would have ruined the painting. And I'm sure that I could have worked on it more (I spent like 7 hours outside of class on it, and I suspected it would take me between 12 and 16), but even yesterday I kept looking at it and thinking to myself "this is finished." Even without the frog and the completed reflection of the weeping willow it looked done. But I didn't want to leave the frog out, and I knew that it would look better with the improved willow reflection, so I went back in today. I'm quite pleased with it. Even moreso since it took me so little time, and I actually enjoyed painting it.

So basically now I just have my GIS final project which I present on Wednesday and need to have the paper turned in by next Monday, the Vertebrate Zoology paper that's due tomorrow and just needs to be edited (hopefully not too much, as I haven't seen the sections that Liz and Meg wrote), the plant collection, and the finals in Vertebrate Zoology and Plant Systematics (which will be on the same day, next Monday). So my massive end of semester workload suddenly seems a lot lighter, and a huge part of that is because the painting went so well. Because in theory I could have spent the rest of today and most of tomorrow on that painting if I had to, and then I would have hated it and been quite pressed for time on GIS.

And anyone who actually enjoyed reading this entry is crazy because it's boring. Honestly now, who really cares about my last undergraduate assignments? Well, perhaps I'll look back on this some day and enjoy reading about it. Who knows. But probably not.

Ok, I'm done procrastinating now.

Last week of undergraduate classes

The last week of classes at Denison is almost over. Just thought I'd throw that out there. It hasn't really sunk it how soon I'll be out of here. That's probably for the better. My departure should be quick and painless. No need to get reminiscent. It'll happen eventually though. As soon as more of my insane quantities of work start to get done. Right now I haven't really been able to enjoy the nice weather, or enjoy the company of people who I probably won't see again for a good long while. But I think I've already spent much of this year processing the fact that it's almost over, so maybe it won't be too bad. There are a lot of things that I'm ready to be done with, and I do feel like I need to move on. Things have been stagnant this year, and last year as well to an extent. I would have liked my senior year to be better, but there's really nothing I can do about it now. And it hasn't been bad, necessarily. Just not the great "last hurrah" that was supposed to bookend my Denison career. Freshmen year was the best for me because of Morrow, and I guess I had this idea that because I needed to make the most of it this year would also be great. But alas. I guess it's just been kind of dull. I'm sure noteworthy things have happened, but there hasn't been very many defining events. I sort of wonder what a 5th year would have been like, if that were the norm, and I think that I would probably be thoroughly sick of Denison after that year even if everyone I knew stayed. But anyways, I think it's bed time. Enough tired rambling.

Birds

It's been an interesting few days. It's becoming more and more obvious how little time is left in the semester, and oddly enough I'm becoming a little more ok with it. There are a lot of things that I just want to be done with, as is usual, and it doesn't really matter that that also means that my college days will draw to a close. This place has done a lot for me, but part of me feels like it can't help me anymore, and that I need to move on to other things.

Yesterday was Relay for Life, and for some reason the energy of the previous two years just wasn't there. There were fewer people there, and everyone seemed to be less into it. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it wasn't the experience it usually is. Andy stayed for a while this time, and I spent a lot of time talking with him. It made me feel good about where I'm at in my life, and where I'm going. Grad school is definitely in my future, but first I need to just explore. Explore the world (or at least parts of it), my options, and myself. Because I'm starting to realize that I don't have as firm a grasp of myself as I thought I did. Which is a pretty strange thought, and I'm not sure how to articulate it so I won't say anything further about that.

Now on to the title of this post. I left Relay early because I had to get up early today to go on Dr. Schultz's bird walk. Well, I didn't have to, but I wanted to. It was at 8 (which is late for a bird walk). I didn't get much sleep because I had one of my weird dreams and woke up, unable to fall asleep for a good long while. I've been having a lot of dreams like it lately, where I create this task for myself in my sleep, and I wake up absolutely convinced that I'm supposed to get it done in real life, and that I've procrastinated it or am somehow on a really tight schedule and should figure it out so that when I wake up I can just get right on it. And they're absurd things. Like last night, I was supposed to count plants for DUBS. There were strips of grass and sod with little flowers in them, just laying on the ground in Mitchell, and Bridget kept telling me that I had to count the flowers. It didn't make sense to me why (it certainly didn't seem very scientific) but I felt like I really had to do it. But for some reason counting wasn't just a simple task. I'm not sure why it was so complicated, but it began to really stress me out. And then in my stressed out state I couldn't fall back asleep. I'm also not sure how much of this happened when I was fully asleep, in the dream, or half awake.

But I digress. Back to the birds. A good number of people showed up (5 students in all: myself, Meredith, Liz, Sarah, and Alice, and of course a bunch of people from Granville). There weren't many birds out (it was the morning after a storm and the temperatures were cooler), but that didn't really bother Dr. Schultz, who was really good at explaining the biology of everything that we did see (most of which was fairly common). There were quite a bit of tree swallows out, which are pretty common (they're utilizing a lot of the nest boxes that are set out) but they're one of my favorites anyways. And I found out that there have been SANDHILL CRANES at Dawes recently, and I would REALLY like to make it out there. That is a very rare sight in Ohio. Overall it was a good re-introduction to birds for me. I started learning my birds last year, but then never really continued that this year. I'm surprised I didn't try more over the summer. Hopefully this summer I'll work on it a bit more.

After the bird walk I helped Meredith check buckets, and there were a fair amount of salamanders (mostly males) leaving the pond. Unfortunately, a lot of toads decided to go back and forth as well, and they were not so fortunately toxic. Raccoons had raided many of the buckets, and there were a lot of mangled toad carcasses. The ventral portions were eaten and their backs were left, of course, because that is where their glands that produce bad-tasting chemicals are produced. And oddly enough, there were eggs scattered around, so when a gravid female was eaten the raccoons left the eggs alone. I'm kind of wondering why, as I would think they'd be nutritious and delicious. The worst part was that a decent amount of toads had sustained really severe injuries but were left alive in the buckets. The first toad that we saw was in one of the minnow traps (so I don't know HOW a raccoon managed to do this) and had the skin ripped off of one side of its body and a hole through the axial muscles so that you could literally see into its body cavity. And it was hopping around relatively normally, though more sluggishly than most toads. When I set it down on the ground and it tried to hop away from me, some intestines started poking their way through the hole. A lot of other toads had various organs spilled out, but were still alive (barely). There was one female with a large tear in her side and eggs and viscera were spilling out, and an (uninjured) male was in amplexus with her. She was still alive, but barely. Why the raccoons didn't just finish these toads off I don't know. But it was a little traumatizing to see the results.

And so that I don't end on such a gruesome note, I'll say that after checking buckets Meredith and I picked Liz up and we went to the indoor farmers market and I got some more grass-fed beef (only a pound this time, because it doesn't have to last me super long). I also got a delicious chocolate chip scone from the village bakery. And all of this was accomplished before noon. I actually kind of like getting up early, it makes me feel so productive. And I should probably get used to it anyways.

LOLZelda

I thought of this pun randomly earlier this week, and thought it would make a funny LOL for the (probably 3) people knowledgeable about both Zelda and Geo.

In case you don't get it, I'm going to be one of those losers that has to explain their joke. Gorons eat rocks. Apatite is a rock (or a mineral, or whatever it happens to be. For non-Geo people like me, it's essentially a rock). I'm sure you can figure it out from there.

Media Collage Painting

After the ridiculous workload that was the portrait projects, we are now starting on our media collage paintings in Intro. The way this works is that we chose images from the media and made a physical collage, and now we have to make a painting from that collage source (though we are free to incorporate collage into the painting or represent the collage in different ways on the painting). I've had an idea for this painting for several weeks now, and after collecting some choice images I was actually amazed at how well they fit together. I think my subconscious was intentionally searching for specific imagery, because I inexplicably visualized some of the key images (though not necessarily their relations to one another) from the outset. Anyways, Chris never got a chance to talk with me about the painting in class today, so he asked me to write an email explaining my thoughts on the project. So here is that email, just to give you an idea of what is going on with my painting:

Hey Chris,

So the basic theme of my painting is going to be media in excess and its negative
impacts on people/society. The generic excessive viewer of media is portrayed in the
center of the painting as a large, very bloodshot eyeball and a brain just behind it,
which will be dull, drippy, and ugly (not quite a "this is your brain on drugs" but
close). The brain will be entangled with two cords: one from a mouse and one from an
x-box controller. The brain imagery will also be enhanced by an MRI scan showing
hemorrhaging. Around the periphery of the central viewer, there will be various media
images.

Some specific media images related directly to each other. There is a CNN screenshot of
soldiers in Iraq holding up what looks like some kind of missile launcher. This image
will be obscured/blocked by a stormtrooper holding a gun (at the exact same angle as the
rocket launcher) and a screenshot from Halo. These fictional images cover the CNN image
to suggest that the fictional media world of video games, etc. is more real to the
viewer than real life. An image of Warcraft, a PC role playing game which has a
tendency to completely take over people's lives (I know a few), plays into that theme
more. Warcraft is essentially in its own virtual world, which essentially replaces the
real world for players (moreso than most other video games).

I'm also including images of popular TV shows, specifically CSI and Lost. The Lost
image is particularly important, as it suggests that the viewer has lost touch with the
real world, or is even lost among the many fictional media worlds. I've also included a
picture of Homer Simpson and the American Idol logo, both of which are popular TV shows
but the images also have a specific relation to each other. American Idol is spatially
right below/overlapping Homer Simpson, suggesting that this character has become the
ideal American (a lazy person who sits on the couch and watches TV all day).

Finally, I've included some popular internet media sources as well because it's so easy
to waste a lot of time on the internet. A picture of Potter Puppet Pals in Harry Potter
and the Mysterious Ticking Noise (the Snape, Snape, Severus Snape video, if you have
seen it) represents Youtube in general, and I've included 2 LOLcats. Which sort of
proved my whole point, as I spent easily over an hour looking through the LOLcat images
even after choosing two. One is a video game reference to play into that (it says Bad
Respawn, relating to the feeling of immortality and power that goes along with video
games) and one references models and negative self image (a cat is sitting next to a
thin cat statuette).

Some things I'm not entirely sure about are how drastically disgusting I want to make
the brain. A "rotten brain" seems a little too extreme, and I think that the
hemorrhaging brain MRI covers that aspect, so I'm wondering if I should just go with a
sickly looking color. Also, I'm not entirely sure of what to do with the background. I
know that I sort of want the images to blend into each other and/or a fuzzy or foggy
background to create a swirl of media chaos, or an ethereal plane leading to many
different media universes. I'm still trying to work out how to portray that visually.

That was probably a longer email than you expected, but those are pretty much my
thoughts on the painting so far.

*Brian*

So there you have it. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Hopefully I have the energy to make this painting as awesome as my plans for it are. Those portraits really did drain me though. As did other recent events.

Also, I could use some suggestions for my final painting (which is coming up really soon!). I initially wanted to do a pondscape with frogs and dragonflies and such just because I like wetlands and wanted to paint it. But I think that Chris will feel that it doesn't have enough meaning. It's basically just a realistic scene more or less copied from a few images. I like the scene, but it would really just be a pretty picture. So now I think I want to do something with anthropogenic environmental effects. I read an article on amphibian declines recently, and the title was Ghosts in our midsts: something or other about amphibian declines. That ghosts in our midst imagery kind of stuck with me, and I think I may paint some phantom frogs to comment on amphibian declines (because they're important, damnit!!!). And I think that in the distant background, I want to have a city. I don't want this to be an urban pond. I think that on the left side I'll have a cityscape, with a natural landscape on the right. So it's a pond at the threshold of human habitation. And I want to somehow portray urban expansion. My initial thought was some kind of creeping/groping hands (evil-looking, of course) pulling up trees in the background or otherwise engulfing the natural land. And the pond will of course look pristine and wonderful, but will be in obvious danger.

Anyways, if anyone has any brilliant thoughts on what else I could do with that/better ways to portray expansion, let me know.

More on the Smokies

I finally finished all of the paperwork and mailed it in today. There was a LOT of it. I originally planned on scanning it in the library and emailing it, but the scanners are slow and I couldn't get the file size to be reasonably small. Also, I couldn't figure out how to save the scanned images as PDFs. So I gave up, took the 20 minutes (and $3) to walk down to the post office and have them mailed. Glad that's over.

While I was filling out the travel grant form, I realized how much cheaper it was to drive than fly. I mean, sure Skybus is cheap, but they don't fly to Knoxville, and Chatanooga is 100 miles away, I believe. Plus Skybus doesn't have flights listed past mid-April. I don't know what's up with that. So I think I'm going to take Greyhound down there. That'll be interesting. It's even cheaper than driving yourself, if I'm remembering the rates correctly. And WAY cheaper than flying. I just have to do a bit more research (when I have less work to do) about luggage and such. Turns out I'll need to bring bedding and stuff, so that's more than just a backpack. And I won't have much room in my backpack for clothes anyways, as I plan on bringing all of my camping stuff (yay!!!!). And I'm sure that I won't be able to bring my bike, but oh well. Gatlinburg is 2 miles away from where I'll be staying, and even though it's pretty hilly a bike would be useful. Not sure how groceries are going to work yet, and I'll probably have to walk to Gatlinburg to go to the library (the nearest place with internet access unless I decide to buy a laptop and get a wireless card. Given my financial situation, that's not going to happen). And there's no TV reception there, so I'll pretty much be without TV. So I should probably pack lots of books. Plus I'm sure I'll get a library card there (which is funny, because I never even got a Granville library card and I've been here for 4 years). I guess I'll need the public library more this summer than I did here though.

It's really beginning to set in that I'm actually going to be doing this soon. And the more I've thought about it the more excited I am for it. It will be an adjustment, but it's not as remote as some of the other positions that I applied for. And I DID want something remote. But 12 weeks is a long time if I decide that I need to have some civilization every once in a while. I guess this will be a good position to test those waters. Hopefully it will be good for a lot of reasons. And I hope there are plenty of people living around me (based on the map there seems to be several buildings in the housing area). And (Julie should note this) every other week in my schedule I get Fridays off, so if anyone wants to come down and visit me, we could feasibly backpack Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night.

Summer internship

I have accepted a summer position in the Smoky Mountains. It seems like it will be pretty cool, and consists mostly of invasive (plant) species monitoring and removal. It wasn't my ideal position, but it's certainly good enough. I would have liked to get a 6 month position just to keep myself occupied a little longer, but this just means that I'll have to search for something else in the fall instead of the winter. In theory that should be a little bit easier. There was also a really cool 2 month position that paid really well, and I would be doing amphibian population monitoring, but I wasn't guaranteed that and I sort of wanted to be on the safe side. I was in the top third of their applicant pool, but not in the top 3, who were being contacted first. I was competing against people with more experience than me though, so I don't really feel super bad about it. I just wish I could be doing stuff with amphibians instead of plants and insects.

However, even though I wouldn't be officially researching them, the Smokies are pretty much the center of caudate diversity in the world. So I'm thinking that in my free time I will probably poke around and try to find and ID as many different salamander species as I can. And the actual work that I'll be doing will be good. GSMNP is one of the most heavily visited national parks in the country, and with lots of visitors comes a greater chance of introduced exotic species. And I guess in some ways it might be good for my first internship after graduation to be just for the summer. It will potentially be an easier transition, especially since it's closer to home than a lot of the other positions that I was looking at.

Anyways, I'm tired now and should have gone to bed a half hour ago (there was no reason not to) so I'm gonna do that now.

The icing on the spring break cake

So. Obviously, as anyone who has read my previous post knows, my spring break plans just did not work. At all. Well, I found out yesterday that the outing club DIDN'T LEAVE UNTIL SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Way to call me and let me know, Bob! Even if I HAD been able to go to my conference, I still could have left for Florida on Sunday!!!! And the fact that I WASN'T able to get to the conference made it worse anyways.

UGH!

Spring break rant

Wow, so for the THIRD TIME this year I've had spring break plans that won't be happening. Which is ridiculous. I feel like this year has just been so full of promise but then nothing comes of it. Winter break I was supposed to go to Texas, but that ended up not happening (though I do understand the reasons why Liz didn't want to go, and I don't hold it against her. It's just unfortunate that Texas didn't happen). And now spring break. Last year was the complete opposite, which is what I don't get. The Habitat trip happened over winter break, and that sort of got me in a "travelling" sort of mindset, and then Arizona was a huge success. And over the summer Bear Island and the Smokies certainly came together after some difficulties. Those successful trips just convinced me that I could pull together anything if I really tried hard enough. But I guess this year is a learning experience, in that I get to realize that it's not always the case. Sometimes it's just not the best option for things to work out.

So in case anyone is wondering what went wrong with spring break (and because I feel like ranting about it because it's so absurdly ridiculous), I will explain pretty much in full. So last semester Meg told me about this trip to New Orleans that Green Team was pulling together, restoring degraded wetland habitat. I went for so long assuming that it would be great and psyching myself up for it. And then the person who was organizing it was a loser and it ended up not happening. And I've heard no good reason why it didn't happen, because I think it totally could have if whoever was in charge of it would have tried. Damn, next time maybe I should just be in charge of things like that. Anyways, that was failure number 1. So after that realization, I decided to go on the Outing Club trip to Florida. 4 days of backpacking in Ocala National Forest, and then 3 days of canoing in the Everglades. Sounds amazing, right? Well I'm sure it will be. I got my defensive driving certification for that trip and everything. And then less than two weeks ago, I find out that MEEC (Midwest Ecology and Evolution Conference) is the FIRST WEEKEND OF SPRING BREAK!!!!! I'm (probably, but I'll get to that later) presenting my summer/senior research there, and it's been planned since the summer, and I'd already registered and paid and everything. I knew that it was in March, I just didn't know what the exact date was. But yeah, it's tomorrow (the first Saturday of Spring Break), and the outing club left this afternoon. Obviously these two events were not compatible, and since I was already all set up for the conference and I hadn't even turned in my money for the FL trip, I decided that I wouldn't back out of the conference. Once again, I had no spring break plans. And then, just YESTERDAY (the Thursday before break) I found out that Liz didn't have to drive to the airport for her Geo trip, and so she lent me her car. FINALLY, I COULD PUT SOMETHING TOGETHER FOR MYSELF!!!!!!!!! I planned on going backpacking solo, but mom freaked out and wanted me to at least try to convince someone to go. So I asked Dawn, and she was totally for it, and I planned it out perfectly in less than a day. I spent the morning packing, and I had the food worked out and everything. And then, of all times, an actual winter storm hits CENTRAL OHIO!!!!!! How often does that happen? NOT VERY!!! I mean, Granville schools get snow days all the time, but it's usually for nothing serious (central Ohioans don't know how to deal with snow). But this time it's apparently pretty bad. I70 is closed. Who closes an interstate, there's less than 6 inches of snow!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, anyways, that would be fine and all, except that tomorrow there is supposed to be a legitimate blizzard. And it better be a damn serious blizzard, because the third spring break failure is completely due to this weather. We were supposed to drive down to the conference tonight because the weather will be worse tomorrow, but on her way home Dr. Homan saw 2 cars that had gone off the road (she lives really close to campus) and decided that we'd wait until tomorrow morning and see what happens. Well, if the meteorologists are correct (and not exaggerating things), there's going to be a BLIZZARD tomorrow, so I'm not going to be the least bit surprised if we just don't go to the conference. So I COULD HAVE GONE ON THE DAMN OUTING CLUB TRIP IF I"D KNOWN THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the blizzard is keeping Dawn in Columbus (because 70 is closed), and I decided that I wouldn't go solo to the Smokies because gas would be too expensive if I was paying by myself, and it wouldn't be worth it for just 2 nights. So I looked at places that were closer (hell, I have winter camping exp., no big deal) but the trail I had in mind in OH is accessed through various minimally developed roads (some are forest roads), and if there IS a blizzard, then those roads sure as hell won't be maintained. I do NOT want to get stuck somewhere, and I want no harm to come to Liz's car. So that's out. And I looked at this place in West Virginia, but I would take 70 (which is CLOSED) to get there, and even that would be a lot of gas for just myself when I'm pretty financially screwed at this time.

So that was my rant. I'm probably going to stay at Denison until Sunday (after the blizzard), and then drive home. Three failed plans, what are the odds of that happening? And 4 if you count the conference that we probably won't be going to.

Ok, I'm done ranting now. I'm just sick of explaining this crazy situation so now people can read it to get the details.

A new semester

So the first week of classes of my last semester is over. As is the first weekend (pretty much). It is Monday, MLK jr. day, and we actually don't have classes for the first time since I've been at Denison! We usually have our three day weekend the week after the actual holiday, which is a bit silly. Anyways, this will mostly just be a brief retrospect of my initial impressions of my classes.

Vertebrate Zoology is ok so far. Nothing too exciting, and I think that it will be a fairly easy class. Our review paper (which is our major paper for the semester) only has to be 5-6 pages. The hardest part will be keeping it to 6, because we'll get POINTS OFF for going over. AHHH!!! I ALWAYS end up going over. Labs should be fun once we get our group project going. Meg, Liz, and I are doing a small mammal survey. Liz and I scouted out some locations in the Bio Reserve, and we'd like to do a "disturbed" location as well, most likely on campus or possibly at Dr. Frolking's.

Plant Systematics feels a bit strange at the moment. I guess I'm just not used to Dr. Hauk's teaching style. Class is laid back, but in a strange way. Maybe it's because it's just after lunch. Or possibly because it's in the same room as Animal Behavior and I sit at the stupid little "island" of tables in the middle of class. And it's moving a bit slow. I certainly don't know much about plants, but I DO know about phylogenies and I don't think we needed to spend so much time on them. The textbook is just so detailed, and the difference between that and the very watered down lectures (so far) is a little jarring. I think it will start to get fun when we learn more details about how to identify plant families and such.

Mapping only meets two days a week, and that is definitely a good thing. Our main "textbook" is basically an instruction manual for ArcGIS. It's dull. And our first little intro lab was also pretty dull. I think that the class will be boring, but at the end when I realize how much I can do with ArcGIS I'll be happy I took it. Besides, it's a good skill to possess.

Painting is going to be my most time consuming class, I think, but in a relaxing way. It'll be a little challenging to find large enough blocks of time to work (at least 2 hours at a time is probably needed). Today I only worked for an hour, but I also finished the painting that I was working on (a box still-life, painted in grey scale). In some ways I'm glad that I "waited" until senior year to take Painting. It's a nice change of pace. So is Mapping, actually, as it's pretty much a computer class and much more practical than other classes I've had. Having those two classes is nice, since last semester I had research and three science classes (physics, biochem, and wetland eco). I'd gotten into such a science routine, it's good to break free of that comfort zone a little bit.