my first day

Ate some Hot Lips Pizza for lunch. The five of us (Mollie, Kat, Mel, Brendan (?) and myself) climbed up the stairs to the rooftop patio and ate overlooking the yuppie Pearl District. Love Portland, love the trees and the fact you can drink the water.

Having two classes makes for a nice day, not that much to clog it up.

I set my alarm clock wrong, but awoke at 6:03 with a charlie horse. It was like, "gah oh my leg! oh shoot I almost overslept, whew! Oh my leg...gotta get up and start my first day now." I set out my clothes and portfolio and supplies the night before so it was easy getting everything prepared. Had to make my lunch, which I ended up not eating (dinner/breakfast/lunch tomorrow, it will be nom nom nommed some how), and breakfast but that was pretty much it. Danced with Ibanez a little before heading out with Lindsay to start our exciting lives as art students!

Walked about 1/3 of the way there, then the streetcar caught up with us. My hands and arms were aching from the portfolio and I sure hoped they wanted us to use them the first day like they said. Some other PNCA people were on the streetcar, but we didn't realise until we disembarked.

Found my class, sat down next to Karen and Mallory. The teacher looks to be in his mid to late twenties, not the operatic nutter who gave us the presentation. Not much happened, just went over the syllabus and that was it. Forty-five minutes in he said, "Okay, you are free to go." I was a little slow to stand, in case he was pulling a fast one on us but it was the truth. He let us out at 8:45, and i had two hours, fifteen minutes to kill till my drawing class.

Mallory, Karen and I went to Office Max to get the supplies we needed for digital tools, got the heavy paper and a USB stick because, lets face it, no God-fearing iMac will accept my Creative Zen V Plus as a USB device. We parted ways with Mallory and Karen and I decided to hang around in the student lounge and play games. She whooped my butt twice at checkers, twice at Speed and once at go fish. I went to find my class and she left to check out the library. There was a little mix up in what I thought to be the class number, but I had enough time and ended up in 203 just fine. Read Crooked Little Vein while waiting for people to show up.

Drawing I has a few people I recognise and a lot I don't. But the people I met seem interesting and nice, seeing as how we skipped off to lunch together. One guy said he was majoring in photography even though painting was what he wanted to do. His reasoning was that he didn't want the painting program to destroy his love for it, which just seems silly to me. You gotta test your love, and hes just going to end up taking a lot of photography classes and shooting himself in the foot because he will be missing out on all the painting classes. Oh well, his choice. Another guy, Daniel, is almost thirty and going back to school for the first time. His wife is going to the Culinary institute, so they are both in the same education boat.

Arvie Smith, my drawing teacher, seems awesome. He was really nice and had a good laugh and good things to say about our work. We talked for the first forty-five minutes and then we took the campus wide hour lunch break. Returning, he assigned us all to do a self portrait in the remaining two hours. Some people are really talented, I feel right at home and cozy with them. And all are humble, which is nice. My RA Jennifer is in my class, shes photography major and isn't as adept at drawing but even she was excited by the work she did so that was great.

My portrait, which I may post later, ended up a little intense. The mirror I was using was tilted down so that is the perspective I was going with, the eyes aren't totally aligned, which is something I only noticed near the end when I stepped away. The further and further I stepped away the more the eyes drifted away from each other. But not so bad for a first start and two hours.

The art supply kit they wanted us to buy had pretty much everything I needed, save for some vine charcoal, which I picked up after class got out. Walked with Bryan and Danielle to the streetcar, which was pulling in right as we arrived at the stop. I was sweaty and feeling icky when I got back to my room, so I changed my shirt and started my usual habit of relaxing.

About thirty minutes into my relaxation there was a knock on my door. Daniel was standing there and loudly proclaimed, "Hey Neighbor!!" Caught up in his excitement, we clasped hands and hopped up and down together. He is moving from the Tower into the Plaza, and will be right down the hall from me. Yay! Sean and I helped him move his stuff down into his room, not all of it but a good amount. He (David)had to leave for a 6:30-9:15 class, so we all parted ways and I resumed my cooling off from the long day.

A good first day, though Visual Elements: Digital Tools was a little disappointing. Can't wait for tomorrow!

Oh and I ran into Vosse, who I met last summer.