Happy Halloween!

One of my favorite holidays! It absolutely feels like fall, with leaves all over the place. My window has a crack in it (and it will be repaired soon) and you can hear the wind blowing like in an old haunted mansion. It's really beautiful! Can't wait to see the little kids running around. I hope everyone has a good night!

Rain, rain go away...

The weather here is very interesting. Storms roll in and out of town in minutes. Today it was misty and cloudy all morning, noon was clear and by four it was pouring rain and lightening. Now it is kinda warm outside and smells like fall.

But I would rather have damp shoes and frizzy hair than a frozen nose and bleeding lungs. Yes, that's right. Apparently it gets so cold here your snot freezes in your nose and the air is so cold it causes you to cough up blood.

Are you warm in California, friends?

Love my new bike. Slowly breaking it in! Very slowly. The ride to school is only ten minutes but I am leave three minutes before school kind of girl. Riding in the cold is not so bad as riding up hill and riding uphill is not so bad as riding downhill! The hills are steep here and I am afraid of killing someone, myself or just not stopping in time and riding into oncoming traffic.

But still. My bike is pretty stylin'.

Study.... learn.... REPEAT.

Busy, busy, busy! Since the start of October things have really gotten underway. The hardest part would have to be that I still don't know the city that well. I don't have to just take a bus and roam around and I don't have the money to do so either. Which is fine because I like making artwork. I am either at the school or home. Always. I didn't come here to discover the city... I just wish I could discover some things like the best place to shop for groceries or where to buy paper. I had been driving a mile down the road to a horrible grocery store when just last week we found out there was one three blocks away that we didn't know about because we never go that way. Crazy.

I was also accepted into the Art History program so I am officially a double major!! It will mean more work each semester but I really believe I can do it.

Wait a Minute Mr. Postman...

Thank you to everyone who has sent me packages, postcards... car keys, beanies and letters. It really means a lot to me to get stuff in the mail that isn't a bill. By the way, if you are reading this and not related to me I need your address. Jan, Jules, Betty, Silla, Candice (I closed out of the chat before I wrote it down,) Marc and so on....

So send them!

Featured in a Tribute to Yellow...

My yellow teacups from years ago (back when COS still rocked the waterless lithography) was picked to go with the theme of yellow. The artist wrote a nice little blurb about how the pieces should get more then a hundred favorites from other artists.

Surprising to be included. Here is the link if you want to look at the other pieces and my piece is on the bottom of the "traditional" group.

http://news.deviantart.com/article/74715/

We All Scream For Ice Cream....

So working at Murray's has been really fun (except for the carpul tunnel I get from scooping ice cream.) And they saw it will get worse. But I finally snapped a picture from outside and thought you might like to see it!

Moving Right Along...

I have been crazy busy with work, school and homework. So let me go in update order. I miss everyone like crazy.

School is amazing. I really do love my classes. I only work four days a week but it feels like eight. The shifts are really long and the work is really hard, but in the best way. I have pulled muscles that I don't even know how they were used! But it's good. And the ice cream is amazing. Carrot cake is my new favorite.

Some of the assignments are weird but I am getting along. I don't quite feel at home in the lab either because most of my classmates have been together for years and love to stick to themselves or the fact that the lab is just different. Really different. I miss C.O.S!

I couldn't figure out how to post picture with text next to them so if you scroll down you get to see the sights I see everyday!

My Favorite Class Takes Place in this Building!

The Most Amazing Library!

Museum Three Blocks Away...

Spray Paint Project!

Our first assignment was a group project that involved stencils and even though our group sucked our piece looked way better than it should have.

I love my classes!

I thought I would post some pictures of the lab but it's hard. My camera phone is not that good and it's hard to get a good angle that doesn't look crowded.

If you look at the picture with the windows you can see the gray day. I would be so happy about the pretty little lightening and thunderstorms if it weren't so humid.

Kansas City... Probably the Midwest's Best Kept Secret

So I have been very busy between work and getting ready for school. By the time I get home from work I'm just so tired I go to bed.

Luckily though, things are starting to slow down so now I have time to update. First of all, this city is amazing. The houses alone are enough to make me crash into the car in front of me from trying to stare. There are tons of free things to do, beautiful rivers flowing through the city and a million statues. I really do love it. I keep saying it's like San Fransisco because I see so many similarities.

My job is really great, everyone there is really nice and this guy kinda yelled at me for measuring out the ice cream and the boss told him to be nice to her employees or beat it... and he shut up and bought the ice cream.

Some of the people at work have invited me out several times and today I finally went out to try some Mongolian BBQ. Despite budget setbacks I have tasted a lot of different BBQ. After we had lunch they took me on a tour and showed me all the places that a broke college student should eat.

Matt the other transfer student is amazing! At first we stuck together like scared kittens asking what classes we have over and over but we went out to dinner the other night and I am really, really lucky to have lucked into transferring with someone I most likely would have been friends with if time had allowed.

I absolutely love the school. I mean it is amazing. I get as many stones as I want to draw on and the teacher said I could have free reign. The first night of school a fellow printmaker gave me demonstration on how to use a press I had never used because he overheard me telling someone that I wanted to learn how to use it but the class was not available to juniors. The library is amazing with hundreds of books on any topic you could imagine and all about ART.

The best part of my day is a tie between switching out of a class I wasn't sure I wanted to take and getting into a class I KNOW I wanted to take or meeting the most adorable little professor on earth. He is forty and hilarious and really just wants students to discuss art. This summer he decided he wanted to live in France for a while so he flew over, rented a car and drove until he found a small little village that had a house for sale. He also has a handlebar mustache and talks with the funniest emphasis on words. I am going to post pictures of the classroom because it is in an old house on campus that is "haunted" and is just downright adorable.

The people are nice, the weather is beautiful, the school is amazing, I like my job and even though I miss my family, Casie's constantly talking (oh how I miss it) and talking to my mom in the morning, my dad joking around when my mom isn't smiling, my aunt and uncle standing in the street getting ready to go somewhere and my crazy grandpa calling as soon as I walked in the door. I miss sipping on wine with Jan, Silla listening to anything, I miss drinking coffee with P, David's laugh (by the way David, you laugh funny)Justin sighing about something, Katy smiling because someone said something stupid, Matt making weird noises, so many different things. You guys are with me all the time.

And I miss Michael more than words could ever say.

Rainstorm tomorrow! Wish you here.

Our House in the Middle of the Street...

There is the view from the front window. Kitchen little. The smallest stove I have ever seen (when it grows up I'll be able to cook two things at a time on it!) and my bedroom. It looks just like a dorm would.

So I think it's safe to say our house is set up (as much as it can be). Everything is done save the living room and a few bags of clothes I need to hang up.

Eventually we will get a couch for the living room or maybe just a big dining room table that we can eat at and use as a desk to study.

Adventure #1

Tonight Martin made dinner which was magic until the fire alarm went off. But all in all, it was great.

We decided to look up the free events in the city and found out that the Nelson Atkins Museum has free events on the second Friday of every month. They were playing music (my kind of music) and serving drinks, which of course we did not partake. But we got to walk around for an hour and only pay five dollars in parking which we could of avoided if I had thought ahead.

But still! Free art work at night with beautiful views of the city and constantly changing exhibits? Amazing.

Help Wanted....

Determined to find a job and having no luck on the internet I decided to go to the hotel where my parents were staying to apply for a job there. As luck would have it the entire road was blocked off preventing me from getting inside. This was numerous setbacks from the day. Woke up late (thanks snooze button), waiting for the gas man to come and hook up our gas, waiting for him to come back and fix the shower so I don't take anymore ice showers, losing my keys (in an apartment with eight things total) and getting caught by the friendly but talkative maintenance man. Once I saw the flashing lights blocking the hotel I knew I couldn't apply today because the the interviews ended at three.

So I drove around trying to look for "help wanted" signs and finally found one. They asked me to come back at five forty five and by seven I had the job! I'm really excited. They make handmade ice cream, like students and are super busy.

From having nothing to do all I am suddenly super busy. I found a promotional work job for Martin and I that takes place Saturday from 9-4 (and pays well) then we have to figure out where our classrooms are, Martin has to go drop off his applications and I start work on Sunday!

The part about the job is they close down during December because nobody eats ice cream when it's freezing outside. So that means I will be able to come home for Christmas!!!

Happiness!

Before/After.... Minus the After

I guess my little apartment is not photogenic. It looks small and ugly in photos. Here is the "before"...

First Night In My New Apartment....

Very strange. Creeks and stomping. Let's just get the horrible stuff out of the way. The neighbors above me have a dog that must have parvo by the way it drags it's body around the floor and I saw the owner of the dog get out of the car today and he stomped the lawn and up the front stairs. Which explains the loud thumps at night.

But at least it's not haunted! Other than that, the floors creek, the smoke filters through our vents and I now have a creepy middle age man who wants to holla at me the minute Michael and I break up. Watch out baby, he almost won my heart today when he coughed cookies on my face as he asked about where I am from.

Now that the venting is done... the apartment is shaping up. We have food. We have locks and we have beds! But we don't have anything to do. So Martin kept me company tonight while I put away books, clothes and artwork.

I can't wait for school to start.

Tomorrow night we are going to go out and explore the city. Many free events on Fridays and I can't wait to go see some more of this city.

And I am going to find a job in T-minus one week.

I really miss everyone in California and you are all on my minds.

On the Road Again....

It feels like I have spent the last month traveling all over the state and country. Frogmans in South Dakota, San Fransisco and Kansas City all within a month. It's pretty tiring but beautiful none the less. The best way to learn about your country is to go out and experience it. But I would recomment avoiding New Mexico because it's lame.



The weather is absolutely insane! There are never storms in California so it's shocking that people carry umbrellas around with them in August. Casie was amazing and drove through a severe thunder/lightening storm! It took us one day, two hotels and a couple of tourist traps longer than we thought to get here but we made it!

Goodbye Party!

Thank you for everyone who came to my going away party. I wouldn't have had it any other way. Friends, family and my friends who are family. It really means the world to me that everyone came and said goodbye.

Home Sweet Home...

It is almost that time! I am ready to go and then again I have nothing lined up and too many people to visit before I go.

Surprise Party

Casie easily fooled me into showing up to the bar for what I thought was a normal night. It actually made me realize how much I am going to miss my friends, which you always know you are going to miss them, I just didn't know how much.





Thanks you to everyone who came out to celebrate.

Martin and I have decided to move into together.

Acceptance Letter

Congratulations you have been accepted.... Fall 2009... scholarship...

This time I have the money saved and I am ready to go. I just can't imagine leaving California (my friends, family and everything I have known) for Missouri... even if the school has impressive credentials.

I wanted to blog my experience from acceptance letter to who knows when? This is for my family and friends who want to see what is going on in my life via the internet.