today i finally bought a diva cup!  lately, i've become really interested in alternative, reusable menstruation methods.  it's all those bitches fault over at Ravelry's LSG group!  thread after thread about the benefits of menstruation cups and cloth pads has finally convinced me.  i'm ready to take the proverbial plunge.  i'm especially fond of the fact that they're reusable for up to 8 years of something.  the price is pretty cheap considering i won't have to go out and buy pads/tampons every month.
of course, i wouldn't have a store nearby that sells cups.  i got one sale at an ebay store.  i really hope it gets here in time for my next period.

for those of you who don't center your lives around trifling academia, 22 year old emma sovich was recently awarded a $67,481 literary prize from washington college.  good for her- this is the nation's largest undergraduate literary prize, and quite the pleasing end to a college career.  several of the newspapers made a big deal about sovich having a blog.  in fact, the washington times titled their article "literary award goes to internet blogger."  most of the news articles gave links to her blog the composing stick.  i am a huge nerd, be it literary or technological, so i was excited to see a "blogger"/poet/writer get this huge award.  however, i was upset when i realized that her blog was quite old, the last entry was in december of 2007.   yet here are all of these newspapers (aided, i'm sure, by the public relations department of washington college) calling her an internet blogger, and linking her blog.  "is she even aware of this?" i wondered.  i mean, with all of this inevitable readership, she could certainly post a new entry.

maybe i'm reading a tad too much into this, but it seems like a public relations spin gone wrong.  i mean, i'm sure that this girl's a wonderful writer and i have no doubt that she deserves her award.  but it seems as though the college realized she had this old blog laying around, and proceeded to pimp it out because it added to the "newsworthyness" of the press release.  inevitably, it also makes washington college seem as though they're in touch with the wireless age, trendy and "with it" if you will, because their stellar student is a big deal in the blog world.

when i think "blogger" i think of people like matt drudge, heather armstrong, jeff jarvis, or joshua micha marshall.  people who's blogs not only have a large readership, but also have something akin to internet power.  in my mind, simply having a blog does not make you a "blogger".  this is similar to my stance on the word "author", that simply writing a book does not make a person an "author".  in both cases, something has been written... but is it any good?  does it make some sort of impact?

the offshoot, of course, is that i don't consider myself to be much of a blogger.  i'm simply a person who happens to have a blog.  i bitch about random crap and share my pointless thoughts.  my blog does not change the world, but i'm not really anticipating world domination through this blog.  i just find it nice to have around.  i write things pretty sporatically; i post when i want to and i don't feel pressure to post so many times a month.

...although, if my blog was being pimped to the universe i would at least post a damn new entry.  

today i explored my yard.

i've been working on my new photography website.  it's not quite finished yet, but hopefully it will be complete by this weekend.  stop by and lemme know how you feel about it!

well, finals are over.  the seniors get ready to make their last bar crawl tonight.  the smell of freshly mowed grass is in the air, the taste of coconut and rum on our lips, and this, they tell me, is summer.  we're young and beautiful and lively simply because it's inevitable.  one can't help but be joyous for a moment, when the sun is setting, the neighbors kids are riding their bikes up and down the street, their laughter echoing through the quiet spring evening.

well, here it is:

i was going for kind of a pulp fiction in the 1980's kind of feel.  in a perfect world, my friend nate (the guy in her glasses) would have been holding a gun.  unfortunately, we couldn't find a gun on such short notice, and since this was for a class, i wasn't allowed to photoshop one in.  i thought that the colors came out fun though.

i have to shoot a fake movie poster tonight, for my photography final.  it's not due until tuesday, but my professor insists that we should get them all printed on poster board.   we don't have a kinkos around here, so that's not an option.  which means that i'll have to go to a printing house to get it done.  i think it's ridiculous because it's going to cost me a stupid amount of money to do. 

my english romanticism final is the only other one i'm worried about, mainly because it's all essays and we aren't allowed to erase.  yes, that's right, no pencils allowed, only pen.  :sigh: she'll just have to deal with my copious amounts of misspelled words.  other finals include a 5 page "living paper" (read paper with links, pictures, and movies) for my american realism class, and a take home essay final for my PR class. so next week should be interesting.

i'm not sure what i'm doing this summer, so my life is only planned till friday.  literally, i have no idea what i'm going to do after friday.  i think i'm hitting some kind of turning point; i need to make big changes soon.  i really don't enjoy the quality of the education i'm getting.  i constantly feel like there's no point to showing up to class (i do anyways) because i'm not learning or the professor seems to have just given up on teaching.  i don't think i want to drop out, simply because that sounds so unlike me.  i think i need to transfer, but i seem to be incapable of figuring out where to transfer.    

i also think that i need to find a new job.  part of my problem is that i feel like my education (english/comm major) is not getting me closer to what i want to do (photojournalism).  similarly, my minimum wage job isn't serving any purpose besides killing time.   during the school year, i don't make enough to pay my bills because i don't work enough hours.  my graphic design job is nice, but they don't need me in the summer.  i guess what would make me happy would be to feel like i was in the type of job that could further my career (even if it was a crappy job- something at the very bottom of the industry.  i don't mind working a crappy job as long as i feel like i'm getting closer to reaching my goals.)

:sigh: in a completely un-related note, i took these flower pictures while i was walking around campus the other day:

ever since there was this big debate in the "365 photographers" forum on ravelry, i've been meaning to post a before and after of one of my photos.  it always disappoints me that these before/after transformations are so rare to find. unless, of course, someone is trying to sell their photoshop plug-ins.  (don't even get me started on how utterly fail photoshop plug-ins are.  using a photoshop plug in is like using the white balance pre-sets on digital cameras.  there's a 99.9% chance that the lighting in your living room, regardless of types of bulbs used, is not the same "tungsten" used in the factory where they make the presets.  people just need to use a white card for god's sake.  similarly, they could simply learn photoshop instead of paying for plug-ins.  plug-ins make all pictures an hero. /rant/

i know, i know, i already posted the finished version of this once.  but i've been so busy that i haven't had time to post process anything new.  finals are next week, so all my spare time has been spent studying.  oh, the joys of being an english major.

i've been doing very good lately at the "be awesome and save money" game.  this still dosen't stop me from looking online, dreaming about the things i would buy if i had the spare $$.  it's sniffies that i'm trying to refrain from, they're my addiction. i may break down and get myself a possets bottle if i survive finals week : )

i'm super bored today, so i thought it would be fun to make a list.  maybe some of you out there in voxland will appreciate it : )

sniffies:
    black phoenix alchemy lab:
        bottle of tiki queen
        flotsam imp set from the tiki line
        dragon moon update- imp packs of the new steamworks and pharmacopoeia scents
        trading post update- i'd get a bottle of MVJBA and a whippoorwill's shirt

some shots of my friend cait, taken for a school project.  i'm not sure how i feel about them.