Just Me(lina)

CHRISTMAS PART DUEX

2012-02-18T21:34:00.000-06:00

Don't forget to look at Part One!

Over break I also went Christmas caroling for the FIRST TIME EVA! It was awesome! I went with my friend Kaitlyn and her church. Kaitlyn also plays the ukulele, so they let us play along with the carols sometimes!

We wrote the chords on our arms so we wouldn't forget!

Also, I SAW SANTA CLAUS!

SEE! TRUE STORY!

Afterwards, we all went back to the church and had hot cocoa and homemade cookies and treats!

This is Kaitlyn's family. Alex did not want his picture taken, haha.

When we went to Kaitlyn's house, I noticed that they hadn't decorated their tree! Now I couldn't leave them there with an undecorated tree, so me and Kaitlyn decorated it with assorted objects including (but not limited to): bangles, a ukulele, scarves and a mardi gras mask.

It was so much fun! And it actually looked 1000x better in person! You can't really see all the pretty blue and purple bangles in the pictures...

Then before I knew it: it was Christmas eve! We set up a delicious treat table full of homemade chocolates, cookies, and other goodies!

A made a pipe cleaner reindeer!

We put out cookies and milk for Santa (my little sister insisted on putting out chocolate milk instead of white milk simply because 'chocolate milk taste better')

Obligatory Christmas morning photo:

And it was apparently a good thing we put out cookies and milk! I went up the street to see what all my cousins had got for Christmas and apparently santa had given them all coal and left this note:

Haha! Moral of the story? No matter how old you get, don't forget to leave out some milk and cookies!

And now I have FINALLY posted about Christmas!

Now we can move on to the other posts I never made... Like the one about Savannah Film Fest... -.-

Have a great night!

Delayed Christmas Post--er, CHRISTMAS IN JANUARY! uuuh... February Christmas Weekend?

2012-02-18T20:12:00.000-06:00

~~I'm sorry for being so late on the Christmas posting--I know I said I'd post the 26th, but the Christmas festivities spilled over a few more days!~~

~~Sorry again, life happened. Then I moved back to SCAD for Winter Quarter, and then of course the first week or two back is crazy.~~

I have no more excuses. It's now February.

BE FOREWARNED: this post is grotesquely obese with pictures.

MELINA'S EPIC LIST OF THINGS TO ACCOMPLISH ~~BEFORE WINTER BREAK IS OVER~~ ASAP!:

~~Fill at least half my entry for the Sketchbook Project~~ (I lost my entry! Sad, sad day...)
~~Create a minimum 3 illustrations/works of art~~
~~Finish redecorating/organizing/cleaning bedroom~~ (I did make it a good bit better, but I'm still going to have a lot of work to do this summer when I head home!)
~~Go to the movies at least once~~
~~Make a snowman.~~
~~Make Christmas cookies~~
~~Visit my friend Janelle at her college~~
~~Go to my old high school and talk about SCAD~~
~~Watch my favorite holiday movies~~
~~Go to Panera and get a Frozen Mango (the drink of champions)~~
~~Post videos of myself playing ukulele on Youtube~~
~~See Santa with some friends~~
~~Go Ice Skating~~ (Didn't get around to this one and there isn't a rink in Savannah...)
~~Apply to be an RA at SCAD~~
~~Do something rebellious.~~

WOO! Everything is done!

Now to all of the pictures and happy fun time stories about anything and everything that has happened since mid winter break!

I LOVE Christmas. I really really do. I love the sights, the sounds, the smells! Everything is all toasty and warm and cheerful! Our house looked lovely this year all decorated up. I bought mom a new tree for her Christmas present and it looked beautiful all done up with our ornaments...

And I LOVE to bake cookies! Here's the pictures of this year's Christmas cookies:

MORE SLEIGH COOKIES! YAAAAAAY!

FRIDA KAHLO!

Oh Frida. You and Mr. Asian make a lovely couple!

SNOWMAN JAZZ BAND!

UPSIDE DOWN?!

WOO! Christmas cookies!

CONTINUED HERE

BLOG OVERHAUL

2012-02-18T19:25:00.002-06:00

As of today I am doing a complete overhaul on both my facebook page and this blog! Bear with me as things on both pages get a little funky for the next couple days until everything gets as it should be. The upside? There's going to be a LOT of random posts. I mean LOTS AND LOTS of posts. Because I'm also cleaning/organizing my laptop files and so I need to hurry up and blog these pictures and random tidbits so I can delete them off of my computer!

Also: because I'm on an organization craze (partially inspired by my newly re-arranged dorm room), I'm organizing all aspects of my life--including trying to get myself on more of a schedule!

I know I've made many promises in these posts, but this time it's forreal. No excuses, just results. This shall be one of my new mantras.

So--that's right, you guessed it! SCHEDULED REGULAR POSTINGS! WOO! I have yet to decide the days/times, but I'm going to be posting once a week at first, and will eventually up it to twice a week once I get finished organizing myself.

Hope everyone is having an awesome day, and don't forget:

You're beautiful, you sexy beast, you.

Captain's Log: Stardate: 01.19.12

2012-01-19T17:38:00.005-06:00

I would like to say that I haven't posted in a few days in protest of SOPA/PIPA, but that would be a lie. The truth of the matter is simply that I have been swamped with school work. Namely this drawing which took 17.5 hours of my life away.

And would you believe it wasn't finished? At least it was complete enough to turn in...

Life has been exhausting. I'll make up for it this weekend when I FINALLY post all the posts I've been working on since winter break. In the meantime, if you haven't seen my newest uke video, here it is! I'll try my hardest to post new uke videos every Saturday. Possibly on Friday. Depends.

Either way, I'm heading to bed early tonight not only because I'm exhausted, but because I am soda-free as of today. I decided quitting cold-turkey is the only way it's going to work. So the lack of caffiene is also making me more tired than normal... Ugh...

And on the off chance you haven't seen ANY of my uke videos (or just feel like watching them again) here are the other two:

I'm a musician?

2012-01-16T10:51:00.000-06:00

Haha, nah, not really, but I am now posting videos of myself singing and playing the ukulele! WOO! It'll be a mixture of original songs (that are mostly lighthearted, silly things like The Hobo Song) and covers/mash-ups (such as "Baby, I'm Yours" and in case you want to see my terrible rapping skills, this would be the one to watch! haha)

Also if you don't follow me on twitter, you should definitely do that. Because even if I don't get around to posting on here, I try to keep up with my twitter. However, after today my huge drawing project will be done (the one I mentioned in my last post) and I can resume daily posting (or start posting daily... depending on how you look at it).

I'm currently writing a bunch of new songs as well as attempting to finish the few that I've been "working on" on and off for a few years now.

In semi-related news, I'm now officially taking voice lessons at SCAD! I'm essentially starting at square one in the vocal performance department, and so step one was to start building a repertoire. Currently, the songs that I'll be working on are "Climbing Uphill," (just a 16 bar cut of it) from The Last Five Years, "Simple" from the musical Nine and "Come to Your Senses,"from Tick Tick Boom. "Come to Your Senses" is definitely my favorite so far! I can't wait to really dive into them and work hard to get better!

Also, I'm still undecided about my major. I was so sure that I wanted to be an illustration major.. until I went into the illustration building. I hate it. I don't know what I'm going to switch to, but I don't think I'm supposed to be an illustrator. However, my vocal performance minor is definitely the right thing to do! It keeps me in the performing arts department by focusing on my favorite part of performing arts (singing/musicals/voice-acting) without having to practically commit suicide by double-majoring!

Well that's all I have time for today as I still need to finish that drawing as well as work on my color theory homework and read a crap ton from my art history book. And I need to go to Kroger. I need groceries!

Have a great day!

My drawing is killing me.

2012-01-14T19:48:00.001-06:00

My drawing HAS killed me. I am dead. And now I'm a drawing zombie.

More posts when I've been un-zombie-fied. I'm think Wednesday. In the mean time, check out my new YouTube video: http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-tYoZZJ0gcA%26feature%3Dshare&feature=share&v=-tYoZZJ0gcA&gl=US

And follow me on twitter. It's like tiny 140 blog posts that I can do on the go!

Houston: We Had a Problem. But Now It's Fixed.

2012-01-10T21:31:00.000-06:00

Hey guys I am so sorry about dropping off the face of the earth, but as many of you know I moved back down to Savannah over New Years, and sadly, when I returned to my dorm I found out I no longer had internet.

Luckily, today the internet was fixed and you all can expect daily posts yet again! WOOHOO!

Tomorrow I shall post the rest of the Winter Break posts I had been working on and hopefully by this weekend will be all caught up on posting about my life and everything that has been going on the past couple weeks!

For now: I'm off to read a crap ton of art history stuff and work on designing a color theory textbook cover [wish me luck?].

Winter Break Update

2011-12-23T18:11:00.001-06:00

I know I said I wouldn't be posting until the 26th, but I figured I'd update the list real quick to let you guys know what I've been up to!

MELINA'S EPIC LIST OF THINGS TO ACCOMPLISH BEFORE WINTER BREAK IS OVER:

Fill at least half my entry for the Sketchbook Project
Create a minimum 3 illustrations/works of art
Finish redecorating/organizing/cleaning bedroom
~~Go to the movies at least once~~
Make a snowman. (providing it snows while I'm on break)
~~Make Christmas cookies~~
~~Visit my friend Janelle at her college~~
~~Go to my old high school and talk about SCAD~~
~~Watch my favorite holiday movies~~
~~Go to Panera and get a Frozen Mango (the drink of champions)~~
Post videos of myself playing ukulele on Youtube
~~See Santa with some friends~~
Go Ice Skating
Apply to be an RA at SCAD
~~Do something rebellious.~~

Christmas eve is tomorrow! I'm so excited! In my family we have this tradition of opening one present on Christmas eve--I can't wait to see what it is!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 53
Days Until SCAD: 10
Days Until Christmas: 2
Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

It's Family Time

2011-12-23T12:03:00.003-06:00

As much as I'd like to post, I've decided I need to step away from the computer until after Christmas. It's family time and I want to spend every minute of the next couple days just partaking in Christmas activities.

I encourage you all to do the same and make some holiday memories!

I'm sure I'll have a lot to post you all when I return on December 26th!

IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME!

2011-12-22T16:52:00.003-06:00

Sorry that I didn't get around to posting yesterday, yesterday and today were filled with all sorts of crazy Christmas shenanigans! More explanation/pictures/videos later (tonight at some point), but I just wanted to let you know I haven't forgot about posting, just been busy with yuletide fun.

In my absence, please enjoy the following Christmas fun:

Why I Hate Spoons: or How to Eat Anything with a Fork.

2011-12-20T23:22:00.001-06:00

I hate spoons.

I really really really REALLY hate spoons.

They feel all awkward and uncomfortable in my mouth, food slides off of them, and the only way they make any sense at all is if you're using them upside down in which case you can't very well eat with it.

This is why forks are the superior utensil.

I swear by the fork.

It is a mighty tool that can accomplish anything.

To prove it, I decided to scour the internet in search of what people thought was impossible to eat with a fork, and prove them wrong.

Random Internet Picture that defines this post.

"Soup, corn on the cob and stew"
(http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Three_things_you_can't_eat_with_a_fork)

Soup is definitely possible. Because I eat soup with a fork on multiple occasions. The trick is to make sure you're eating creamy soups, bisque soups, etc that is thick enough to stick to itself a bit.

As for corn on the cob I have two options for this:
A. Stab the fork into it like a spear and use the fork to hold it while you eat the corn straight from the cob, or
B. Scrape the kernels off of the cob. But I guess that would be cheating since it wouldn't be on the cob any more...

Stew is the easy one: stews are generally chunky, meaning you can easily eat the meat and vegetables with your fork, then drink the broth. See? Totally do-able.

"Ice cream and porridge."
-My little sister.

I subsequently proved her wrong by enjoying a sundae. With a fork.

Both of these foods follow the same rule as the soup/stew above.

I stumbled across something call the "Fork It" Diet and found these "Spoon Foods" on their website:

-soups, stews (which we've already discussed)

-yogurt, cereal (yogurt is thick enough to where it sticks to itself and can be 'shoveled' via fork, and cereal is easy too, you just will get mostly cereal instead of milk)

-cooked fruit, ice cream, entremets (cooked fruit? well, i eat most fruits with a fork anyway, so I assumed I would also eat them cooked with a fork, and ice cream we have already talked about)

-béarnaise sauce, sour cream, gravy (since these usually go on top of foods, they'll probably be on the foods that you can eat with a fork)

Forks are just clearly the most versatile utensil (they can stab, cut, poke, twirl, etc. etc. etc.) and I would advise you all to give the fork a chance. Spoons have been in the spotlight for far too long my friend. Even going as far as to try to steal the fork's thunder by masquerading itself as a fork and calling itself a "spork." It's just unnatural. Like the way a spoon feels. Gross.

The only redeemable quality a spork has is its ability to transform into Batman.

You think you're cool, but your mother is still a spoon.

My name is Melina, and I am pro fork; because in the end, spoons are just pointless.

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 53
Days Until SCAD: 13
Days Until Christmas: 5
Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

Just a Quick Nightcap

2011-12-20T00:48:00.001-06:00

This isn't anything grandiose, just a quick nightcap of a post really. In fact, I'm not even taking the time to get out my laptop, but rather this is my first Post from my iPhone. So you'll have to excuse any typos in this as blogger is not yet very iPhone friendly when is comes to posting!

At any rate, I mostly just wanted to say that I watched the movie "The Help" tonight--FANTASTIC movie!--and to encourage all of you to go see it. Seeing the movie also inspired a post that I'll be working on and hopefully posing sometime this week.

Tomorrow I go to have lunch/visit/write with my good friend Cassie and I am so pumped about it! In fact, I plan to probably blog from there because I know every time I'm around Cassie I just get completely inspired to write! Have a great night and safe travels to any of you traveling for the holidays!

I'm a Hufflepuff: the Seven Days of Harry Potter and Some House Humor

2011-12-19T17:05:00.000-06:00

Since I shared with you all my love of the Food Network, today I decided to share with you another one of my deepest loves: Harry Potter.

Ever since the books came out, I was enthralled by the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I begged my big sister to read me the books when I was little (I was only five when the first book was published) and as soon as I was old enough to read them for myself (about two years later) I was hooked. I couldn't wait for each new book to come out and I devoured them, cover to cover.

I was equally drawn into each movie--despite their differences from the books. I saw all of them in theaters minus the Deathly Hallows Part 1--even dressing up for one showing!

Recently my little sister has been reading the series and finally fully understands how awesome Harry Potter truly is. In celebration of her completion of the series, we have decided to have the first annual "Seven Days of Harry Potter" during which time we shall watch one Harry Potter movie per day (two on the last day: Deathly Hallows Part One and Part Two), play Harry Potter games (Harry Potter Scene It, Harry Potter computer games, general wand-waving festivities) and all in all just take in the wonder that is Harry Potter.

Why are we doing this so close to Christmas? Well, why does ABC Family always play Harry Potter movies so close to Christmas? The world is a strange place.

At any rate, today is Day One of the Seven Days of Harry Potter, meaning tonight we shall get to see one again how it all began with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

This one is possibly my favorite simply because it is the original story and sets up the atmosphere for the whole series: a magical, eerie world of mischief and mayhem where life and death circumstances are off set by fantastical journeys and the very best of friends.

Now I just want to throw this out there: I'm a Hufflepuff ("Wtf is a Hufflepuff?" "We're particularly good finders!").

The Hufflepuffs don't really have much of a role in the series, the only notable Hufflepuff characters being Cedric Diggory and Nymphadora Tonks, however, I take pride in my house and proudly call myself a Hufflepuff.

Fun fact: SCAD and the Hufflepuff House have the same colors: Yellow and Black.

That being said, I also can appreciate some Hufflepuff humor, and decided to share with you a few of my favorite house jokes.

A blind wizard walks into a pub. He says to the barkeep, "Want to hear a Hufflepuff joke?" The pub goes completely silent. The barkeep says, "Sir, I am a Hufflepuff. I'm used to handling a rough crowd alone. I have my wand drawn. The wizard to your left is an auror with his wand drawn. He too is a Hufflepuff. The witch on your right has her wand drawn. She is a dueling champion and also a Hufflepuff. Are you absolutely certain you want to tell that Hufflepuff joke?"

The blind wizard says, "Gods no! Not if I'm going to have to explain it three times!"

(from Top Ten Best Harry Potter Jokes)

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 54
Days Until SCAD: 14
Days Until Christmas: 6
Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2----possibly more. Admittedly I think I've gained a few Holiday pounds... I should buy a scale, lol.

Masquerade Ball: Part Two

2011-12-17T21:41:00.002-06:00

So once I had my costume all together, it was time for the ball! We went really early and waited in line for over and hour to get in--they only let a certain amount of people in at a time--and when I left some people were still waiting to get in, so I'm glad I went early!

I wish I had better pictures but all I had on me was my iPhone and it doesn't do too well with night shots, haha. Anyway, here are some of the awesome costumes that I saw and what not. Plus more Doctor Who fun!

My friend Chris is a "hipster" haha.

My friend Megan was a Pink Lady--does she
look awesome or what? This girl has curves for days! <3

Beam me up, Doctor? Haha. This is when we
were waiting in line.

1,000 points to whoever guesses this costume correctly!

Scooby and the gang were there!
(Photo cred: Megan Phillips)

And a bunch of my friends went as animals in kigurumis--
they were the most adorable things there!
(Photo cred: Megan Phillips)

Calling the TARDIS
(Photo cred: Megan Phillips)

This was right inside the door where you swiped your SCAD ID

I don't remember it being this red... But this was my
attempt to show the awesome decorations! There
were acrobat decorations hanging from the ceiling!

Someone came as Eff Yeah Art Student Owl!
(Photo cred: Megan Phillips)

These guys are awesome, they cosplay as Jack Harkness,
Martha and the Doctor all the time. And they're awesome.

Secret Doctor meeting.

And he wasn't the only Doctor there!

BEST. COSTUME. EVER. Or as Megan would say,
"KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!"

It was definitely an awesome night to remember--however scarred I was from my simultaneously awesome and terrible popcorn shift experience (my helper never showed up, but on the bright side a really really cute upperclassman stayed and helped me for a while!).

I can't wait to go again next year! I need to come up with an even cooler costume! Summer project? I think yes!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 54

Days Until SCAD: 15

Days Until Christmas: 7

Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2----possibly more. Admittedly I think I've gained a few Holiday pounds... I should buy a scale, lol.

Masquerade Ball: Part One: Meet the 12th Doctor

2011-12-17T21:33:00.000-06:00

I just realized that way back in October I promised pictures from the SCAD Masquerade ball and I never posted any! So I decided that I should post some ASAP!

This year's theme for the Masquerade Ball was Twisted Cirque, a creepy and enchanting world of tricks, treats and magic. And it did not disappoint!

Considering I go to art school, I knew I needed a pretty cool costume. No generic "princess" or "witch" nonsense. So, inspired by my love of the best show ever, Doctor Who, I came up with the idea of being the "12th Doctor" as my own personal prediction of what the next regeneration of the good Doctor would be like: a ginger, and a girl.

the inspiration: Matt Smith's 11 Doctor costume

So, I bought some suspenders (I was going to wear jeans that I already owned, as well as a pair of chucks because admittedly David Tennant is my favorite Doctor), bought a cheap tweed-esque blazer from the local goodwill that I altered to look a bit more like the 11th Doctor's (I even added elbow patches! Woo!), and made a t-shirt which read "Finally a Ginger" (Dr. Who joke).

The shirt I made. Hahaha.

The bow tie took FOREVER to find. And in fact, it's not an actual bow tie, but rather a hair barrette that I attached a chain to so that I could wear it around my neck, haha.

Also, since no Doctor is complete without his Sonic, I got myself a sonic screwdriver--River Song's future sonic screwdriver to be exact. I figured if I was supposed to be a future Doctor then I should have a future screwdriver too!

SONIC SCREWDRIVER!

I played with this thing forever, haha. It drove my roommate up a wall!

photo cred: Megan Phillips

my sad attempt at the 11th Doctor's dance from the Pond wedding, haha

I look ridiculous. Bahahaha

I'm the Doctor.

And that, my friends, is my 12th Doctor costume! I got SO MANY compliments on it! Especially since there's a huge population of Whovians that attend SCAD!

My next post will have all the pictures and stuff from the actual Masquerade ball, haha. Have a lovely night!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 54
Days Until SCAD: 16
Days Until Christmas: 8
Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

Poetry from Yesteryear

2011-12-17T19:07:00.000-06:00

The end of the year always makes me start reflecting on the past and what all I have accomplished. When I started looking at my writing, I came across a few things I wanted to share with you.

First, however, I want to present my day as a haiku:

Slept in really late,
Watched Disney movies all day,
Breakfast for dinner.

And now a selection of poems and lyricism from the past few years. Remember: all writing falls under my creative commons license.

PassiveAggressive: Poems of Teenage Angst:

Them:

Ilove the smell of

Cigarettesmoke

Inthe morning;

Plumingfrom the bathroom

Stall;fresh air

Isoverrated

Anyway.

Ilove the blaring

Screaming

Teeming

Demeaning

Shoutsand calls of the wild

Beasts

Inthe hall,

Weknow them as students.

Andhow

Ilove the names;

Sosweetly brutal

Theylay upon my ear;

Ihear.

Me:

Thestrict mistress

Everbrutal

Nothingpleases

Neversatisfied;

Measuresaround

Neverup;

Alwaysbeneath

Neverto rise

Themistress merely

Livesinside.

Mybest friend

Andworst enemy

Eachlie

Within;

Somehowthe same

Yetseparate, being

Mastersof their

Art;

Linger:

There’s nothing sweeter

Than the linger

Of sweethearts in a school hallway.

The imminent bell

Threatens tardy slips

But still the lovebirds stay.

Young lovers true—

Small sacrifice—

Of being late to class,

Yet seconds more

To hold her hand

Is worth an ‘unexcused’ pass.

Their eyes meet—

Those children sweet —

And they know that they must part,

Yet still they linger,

Seconds more,

Then slowly drift apart.

Feathers and Wax:

(Inspired by the story of Icarus)

Mortals desire their own demise,

Be it forewarned or by surprise,

Their hopes take them to the skies,

Their downfall lies behind their eyes,

Always seeking,

Always curious,

Heed not the warnings,

Ignore the pleas—

Just fly higher,

Enjoy the breeze!

Take your flight,

And don’t look down—

Soaring high,

Homeward bound!

Man and bird,

Seeming one!

Arms outstretched,

Towards the golden sun!

Feathers and wax,

But wait, take heart!

Don’t get too close!

They’ll fall apart!

Heed not the warnings,

Ignore the pleas—

Just fly higher,

Enjoy the breeze!

Let sunbeams dance across your face,

It seems at last you’ve found your place,

The wax gives way,

You fall to the sea,

You ignored the warning,

Ignored the pleas,

Were you not content to roam the skies?

Yes, mortals desire their own demise.

My Dearest:

I’ve decided I must let you go,

But not because you told me so,

It hurts me so to let you free,

It hurts much more you don’t need me,

My heart aches,

But my brain knows,

If you love something

Let it go.

Rhythmic Epiphanies:

I wonder how people perceive me:

Do they read me?

Do they deceive me?

Do you believe me?

How would you receive me?

Achieve me?

Would you grieve me?

I realize you'll leave me;

Time flies when you're having fun.

A Game of Strategy:

Supersize me,

De-emphasize me,

Criticize me,

Traumatize me,

Surprise me,

The greatest risk in life is not taking one.

Well I hope you enjoyed the poems and I'd love to see some of your own! Send them to me at melinarty@gmail.com and I might feature you on the blog!

Hope everyone is having an excellent Winter Break (that is, assuming you're on Winter Break) and looking forward to Christmas--I know I am! I'm trying to work on consistency in posting (consistency is one of the things that I struggle the most with in case you haven't noticed, haha).

Be looking for a Harry Potter-related post tomorrow morning!

What I've Learned from the Food Network

2011-12-15T12:27:00.002-06:00

I am an avid lover of the Food Network. I can be entertained for hours on end just on that one channel. I love the different personalities of the hosts, the chemistry between the Neelys, I love Paula's pouffy white hair--I love every bit of it.

How could you not love this woman? Well, minus her Stepford-Wife-esque smile...

And as I was sitting there this morning watching Paula whip up malted marshmallow white chocolate royales and Ina Garten's friends decorating the tree while she whipped up a Christmas surprise for her friends, realized that I have learned a few things from the food network.

1. Cooking is more fun with friends

Don't get me wrong, I love Giada At Home as much as the next girl, but whether it's Down Home With the Neely's, or when Paula has her boys or husband in the kitchen with her, there's just a different air to the show. You can tell they're all enjoying themselves and their joy brings you joy!

I've also experienced this one first hand. I love to bake and cook, but my favorite cooking memories are those when I wasn't alone in the kitchen! And the food always seems to taste better when love goes into it, so why not add the love of multiple people?

I've made plenty of peach pies (it's a family favorite) but the best one I ever made/ate was one me and my friend Jake made together. And the year my Mamaw taught me how to make her famous yeast rolls--a roll had never tasted so delicious!

2. You Don't Have to Eat Food to Enjoy It

Now this may be just me, but I know I get just as much enjoyment out of watching people make food, or making/cooking food, as I do eating it.

Heck, I eat vicariously through the food network on a daily basis! There are so many foods that I've seen made on the food network that I'll probably never get a chance to eat in real life, but somehow watching someone teach me how to make them, or hearing how they taste from a panel of judges, is enough for me.

It looks so good I can taste it... Mmm.

This also applies to making food for your friends. If you make them a dish they really enjoy, and give it to them, knowing that they're enjoying it makes you feel good too!

3. Use Room Temperature Ingredients for a Smoother Custard

This is just mostly to cover all of the actual cooking advice and techniques I've learned through the food network. I constantly scribble something down, or bookmark a recipe, or type up a quick note about the things they teach. I also love how a dish that looks so complex can usually be made fairly simply--provided you follow the recipe of course!

4. Shallots Provide a Nice Onion Flavor, But are Milder and Sweeter so They Won't Overpower the Dish

This might as well be a food network catchphrase.

I kid you not, any time shallots are used, I guarantee you that someone on the show will say a variation of this phrase.

SHALLOTS!

5. Giada is like an Italian Natalie Portman

Okay, so I didn't technically learn this form the Food Network, but it's a true observation nevertheless.

I'm not the only one who thinks so.

6. Adding Alton Brown = Instant Awesome

Good Eats, Iron Chef America, the Next Iron Chef, that Welches commercial he was in--all awesome. Why? Because Alton Brown is a nerdy cooking god.

7. It's Always a Good Time to Watch the Food Network

With the variety of shows, hosts, and subject matter (well, as much variety you can have when it still has to relate to food) it is ALWAYS a good time to watch the Food Network. Unlike other channels, I know that I can always flip to the Food Network any time, any day, and something good will be on. I mean, of course there are shows that I like more or less than others, but I know I'll still enjoy and learn from whatever is on.

Admittedly, I also use the Food Network as a buffer against things I don't want to (or shouldn't be) watching. This is a trick I learned from my friend Kaitlyn. If a 'scary' commercial comes on--flip to the Food Network. If something extremely inappropriate and/or something that makes you feel uncomfortable comes on--flip to the Food Network. It's like a beautiful land of endless joy and rainbows where life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter. Literally.

8. Cook with Them, Learn with Them, Laugh with Them, But It's Also Fun to Laugh AT Them.

Basically, Food Network Humor is just as good as the Food Network.

Also, Shrimp can be sexy.

Oh, baby.

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 54
Days Until SCAD: 18
Days Until Christmas: 10
Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

The Wright Brothers

2011-12-14T21:45:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine sent me the link to a blog topic generator along with a joke about how I could use it to write all of those make-up posts I still owe.

So I decided I might as well use it.

And what did this blog topic generator give me to talk about? The Wright Brothers.

And what's even better than the Wright Brothers? The next topic it gave me was airline failures.

You can't make that up.

Anyway, the Wright Brothers were pretty awesome dudes. They lived down the street from me and their names are Herald and James. Herald enjoys long walks on the beach and building model cars. James is a musician, he plays piano, marimba and the didgeridoo. His music sounds vaguely like this:

They lived rather normal lives. Their mother was a psychic and their father was an onion farmer. Every morning their mother made them drink four glasses of bitter milk (the cows on the farm would occasionally eat the onions, giving a strange flavor to the milk they produced) and eat six eggs each to help them grow up big and strong.

Throughout their teenage years the two dreamed of one day being the first men to walk on the moon. A dream they soon forgot the day the Greene twins walked into physics class.

It was love at first sight; James fell in love with Marcia Greene and Herald fell in love with her twin sister, Jan Greene. However, Jan soon realized that she was more into the rockstar type and became insanely jealous of James and Marcia's relationship. She stalked James for three years, sending him messages like "here's the story, of a boy named james: HE DUMPED HIS GIRLFRIEND AND DATED JAN!" and "Dump dump dump Marcia Marcia Marcia."

Jan eventually went crazy and attempted to kill her sister, Marcia, forcing Marcia to go into witness protection. The Wrights, fearing for their own safety, moved to Alabama.

Jan aimed for her neck, but only got her hair.

Despite living in fear that Jan would find them, James and Herald graduated top of their class from Monroe County High School and went on to go to school at Bennington College in Vermont. Herald majored in anthropology and James double majored in music and environmental studies.

It was after graduation they went their separate ways: Herald moving to northern Alaska to reconnect with the native culture (after all, the Wrights are of Tsimshian descent) and James moved to New York to pursue a career on broadway.

Neither made it very far.

Herald ended up catching pneumonia that following winter and dying cold and alone in a hut in northern Canada. In the brief time he spent in New York, James became hooked on sex, drugs and rock'n'roll and eventually overdosed when he mixed acid, cocaine and alcohol at a crazy rave on New Years' Eve.

Both brothers had their remains cremated and placed in coffee cans and the two brothers were finally reunited high in the Himalayas, completing the last item on their list, "Witness Something Truly Majestic."

Er, wait. Wasn't that a Morgan Freeman movie?

Anyway, that, my friends, is the story of the Wright Brothers. Not what you expected? Well, sometimes history gets skewed through word of mouth.

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 54

Eat the Ugly Ones

2011-12-14T17:34:00.000-06:00

Today I made Christmas cookies... sorta.

Usually when I say I'm making Christmas cookies, it takes anywhere from 1-2 days of baking and another 1-2 days of decorating. However, this time I was full on making twelve different kinds of cookies and decorating each and making sure each is up to par and beautiful like a professional.

This time, I was in a rush, made only sugar cookies (oh, and most of my cookie cutters had mysteriously vanished) and chocolate chip, and instead of using regular frosting and utilizing pastry bags and frosting tips, I used glaze and plastic bags.

The objective: to create Christmas-inspired sugar cookies and make chocolate chip cookies to put inside of Christmas treat bags that will go inside of Christmas mailboxes to be given to my mom's co-workers as Christmas gifts. That's a lot of Christmas to fit into one cookie. Not to mention that I have never decorated cookies with glaze. And let me tell you: it is not easy!

It took me FOREVER to get the right consistency of glaze, and I ran into the problem of my ziploc bags bursting mid-decorating, BUT, I feel proud of my work. Especially since I stuck religiously to my favorite cooking mantra: eat the ugly ones.

Yes, only the 'pretty' cookies make it to the light of day. The ugly ones end up in my stomach so no one will ever see them! So without further ado, I present Melina's Christmas cookies!

First, I made these round cookies and decorated them green/red with snowflakes (nothing impressive, but the glaze was hard to work with, and this is about as detailed as I could get!)

I also made these cute little Christmas trees. Some with green sprinkles, and some more "classy" versions with silver dragees.

And of course it wouldn't be Christmas cookies without a few cookie people!

And probably my favorites are these kawaii-esque little sleigh cookies!

I definitely learned a lot about decorating with glaze and it also gave me a 'taste' of what my big Christmas-baking week is going to be like!

I have several new ideas now for the official Christmas cookies and am looking forward to much more holiday baking in the days to come. Not to mention I can now mark this off the list! Haha!

MELINA'S EPIC LIST OF THINGS TO ACCOMPLISH BEFORE WINTER BREAK IS OVER:

Fill at least half my entry for the Sketchbook Project
Create a minimum 3 illustrations/works of art
Finish redecorating/organizing/cleaning bedroom
Go to the movies at least once
Make a snowman. (providing it snows while I'm on break)
~~Make Christmas cookies~~
~~Visit my friend Janelle at her college~~
~~Go to my old high school and talk about SCAD~~
Watch my favorite holiday movies
Go to Panera and get a Frozen Mango (the drink of champions)
Post videos of myself playing ukulele on Youtube
See Santa with some friends
Go Ice Skating
Apply to be an RA at SCAD
~~Do something rebellious.~~

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 55

Days Until SCAD: 19

Days Until Christmas: 11

Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

Dr. House Makes Me Feel Inadequate

2011-12-14T10:31:00.000-06:00

I just finished watching an episode of House wherein the patient was a dedicated blogger. And by dedicated I mean she literally blogged about everything. Multiple times a day.

I take this as a challenge for me to blog more often and about more things.

One thing I've been meaning to talk about for a while is the lack of comments on my blog. Don't be afraid to comment, people! I like comments, I like having feedback!

I want to know what you guys would like me to blog about. You can either comment, or you can shoot me an email at melinarty@gmail.com

Today, my day will consist of a crazy amount of cookie-making/decorating as I am in charge of getting together the gifts for my mom's co-workers. She's at work all day, thus never had time to do it herself. So I'm in charge of the cookie-making.

Not that I really mind--I love baking! However, it also means I have to clean the kitchen. Which I also wouldn't normally mind, except for the fact that I seem to clean it every day, and then my mom and sister come home and wreck it. I guess that's life.

It seems the older you get, the more of a responsibility you have in your house and you start to feel like you have to parent your parents. I mean, I try not to---honor thy father and mother, etc, etc--but sometimes it's like they just need you to stand up to them and present your opinions. The surprising thing is that you're usually right, and that sometimes they'll even admit you're right!

As much as I love my parents, I'm still not cool with being the live-in maid for six weeks!

I'm pretty excited to be going back to SCAD in a few weeks--especially since it looks like Janelle will get to go with us when they take me back so she'll get to see my dorm and perhaps meet a few friends of mine and such. An 11-hour drive with my best friend? HECK YES! I'm pretty pumped about it!

I'm also pumped about January 6th because I'll be attending two pizza parties, a movie, and (I'm about to express another level of my un-coolness) that's also the day the Wizards of Waverly Place finale airs!

I'm a huge fan of WOWP and am both excited and sad that it's finally come to the wizard competition and the series is going to end. I'm thinking Alex is going to win and be the family wizard. Or at least I hope she wins.

At any rate, I better get back to cooking/cleaning (my inner feminist is not happy) hopefully I can finish these cookies tonight and keep the kitchen clean for my than a day!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 56
Days Until SCAD: 19
Days Until Christmas: 11
Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

"A Video from Melina is Like a Hallmark Card"

2011-12-11T15:47:00.001-06:00

Recently me and my best friend Janelle, author of In My World, took a few trips to the local hallmark store.

The original purpose was to purchase one of these awesome things:

They had ornaments for EVERYTHING.

So, naturally, I started playing with them.

Anyway, another reason we went to the hallmark store was because Janelle wanted to buy Christmas cards for people. I was not allowed to stand next to her because she didn't want me to see the cards she was picking out since one of them was for me.

So I decided to look at cards too.

(please turn up your volume as the audio on this one is reeeeeally quiet)

Then I found a card that I should have included in the video. So it got it's own video.

Hahahaha. Well, hopefully you enjoyed my sleep-deprived stupidity.

And you should all know I love you. Because it literally took all day to upload these videos, haha!

Have a lovely week!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 54

Days Until SCAD: 22

Days Until Christmas: 14

Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2--I feel like these last two pounds aren't going anywhere until I get back to SCAD. In fact, I've probably gained weight back, haha!

Hallmark, Pizza, Car Wrecks, and Rio (otherwise known as my trip to CU)

2011-12-11T15:00:00.000-06:00

I have now officially crossed two more things off my epic list of things to accomplish over Winter Break:

MELINA'S EPIC LIST OF THINGS TO ACCOMPLISH BEFORE WINTER BREAK IS OVER:

Fill at least half my entry for the Sketchbook Project
Create a minimum 3 illustrations/works of art
Finish redecorating/organizing/cleaning bedroom
Go to the movies at least once
Make a snowman. (providing it snows while I'm on break)
Make Christmas cookies (this will be an ALL DAY thing!)
~~Visit my friend Janelle at her college~~
~~Go to my old high school and talk about SCAD~~
Watch my favorite holiday movies
Go to Panera and get a Frozen Mango (the drink of champions)
Post videos of myself playing ukulele on Youtube
See Santa with some friends
Go Ice Skating
Apply to be an RA at SCAD
~~Do something rebellious.~~

If you read my previous post from Wednesday then you know roughly what I said to my high school about SCAD. Of course, I didn't stick exactly to the script and there was a bunch of stuff not in that post that I also talked about. I also went into detail on all the things on the lists as well as had a powerpoint presentation full of pictures that went along with it.

I feel like it went really well. The kids seemed to enjoy hearing from a student rather than an admissions representative, and I loved getting to talk all day about my favorite place in the world! Everyone seemed especially interesting in Humans versus Zombies and Savannah Nerf Underground!

I gave my presentation six times (once per class period except for the teacher's planning period) and boy was I exhausted by the end of it! This is why I'm not going to school to be a teacher! As fun as it was to blast dubstep between classes (only the three songs I had posted here of course, lol) and be there for kids to ask me any questions they wanted (some of my favorites included "Are there black people at SCAD?" "Are the parties good?" and "Are there weirdos?"---yes to all of the above just in case you were wondering, lol), I don't think I could do it every day.

The reason I didn't post Friday or Saturday was because I trekked across Kentucky to visit my best friend Janelle (visit her blog by clicking the Kirby --> <(-'_'-)> ) at college. And we had plenty of adventures in that 24 hours we spent together!

Firstly: COMMUNITY BATHROOMS.

SO GLAD that SCAD doesn't have them! It's slightly irksome to have to leave your dorm room just to pee. And I'm also glad I never have to witness any of the reasons these signs had to be put on the stall doors!

I mean, the chartreuse sign should be common sense, right?

Also, I find something odd about the little green chairs in front of each shower stall... I realize they were technically in the changing area, but still.

it's like the chair is just WAITING for a show... pervy little green chair.

The dorm rooms themselves were really nice though! Except of course that Janelle needs some wall decor! (I plan on sending her posters and such)

Friday went to Wal-Mart where we battled with lightsabers, searched for wall-decor, contemplated buying disney paraphernalia, tried to ride bikes that were clearly WAAAAY too tall for us to ride, and did other shenanigans, and later we watched Rio and The Fantastic Mr. Fox (both movies are fantastic by the way, in case you haven't seen them). We also went to Hallmark (which will get it's own post, haha).

I also decided to roll the windows down and drive around Cambellsville blaring Beatles music.

Sadly, no one was phased by this.

On our way back to the dorms from Hallmark, we ended up being stuck in traffic because of a car crash (which hopefully no one was hurt in, I have yet to find out any details on said crash...) and it was really kinda scary because there was broken glass everywhere and it was right where we would have been driving if I hadn't decided to use a different exit. One car was on its side and there were tons of police and ambulances and we had to wait until a policeman could come and direct traffic.

We also played ukulele and bass together (Janelle is an excellent bassist!) and that was SUPER AWESOME! It's great to have other instruments to play along with besides merely me sitting around strummin' my uke all day!

Saturday morning we visited the geological center of Kentucky...

the dead center of kentucky. and a piece of gum.

...and I also got to eat brunch in Winters Dining Hall with her and her friend Emily where we discussed the proper way to make french toast and how surprisingly delicious eggs were with syrup.

the correct way to make french toast

this french toast IS A LIE!

We returned to walmart (there's not much to do in Kentucky, haha) and also took a second trip to Hallmark where we acted even crazier than we had the night before--partially due to lack of sleep and partially due to caffeine I had downed in hopes of counter-acting the lack of sleep, haha.

We also went and got Little Caeser's pizza for lunch. And then tried to give away the leftovers as we both wrote about our adventures.

I really enjoyed seeing her again and getting to meet some of her friends and also found out I apparently have lots of friends attending CU! It was so weird! Janelle said, "I think you know more people at Campbellsville than I do!"All in all I had a BLAST hanging out with my sister-by-heart and look forward to all the crazy (mis)adventures we'll get into when she's finally on winter break!

Then, on the way home from Cambellsville, I ran out of gas... FAIL. But luckily I was literally five minutes from a gas station (my gas meter apparently is off a good 1/4th a tank, so when it says 1/4th a tank, it really means "Hey, your car is about to stop running.") so mom brought me a gallon and that was enough to get me to the station to fuel up.

It was actually kind of fun camping out in my car on the side of the road for an hour!

Since I was on my way back from CU I had all the things I could possibly want with me: iPhone, Mac, ukulele, blanket, pillow, etc. Haha. So I cranked up the radio, got comfy, and played ukulele along to HOT 96, haha!

All in all it was an adventurous, fun-filled weekend! The only grey cloud was the fact that my family decorated the Christmas tree without me, but at least it looks really pretty---I only had to rearrange a few of the ornaments (art student problems).

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 54---this number never seems to shrink, does it? Haha. I should get on that...

Days Until SCAD: 22

Days Until Christmas: 14

Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

And that's all she wrote.

2011-12-10T22:51:00.001-06:00

Eventful weekend.

Too tired to finish the posts.

Lots of fun being posted tomorrow.

Pre-Presentation Jitters: my Hometown Heroes Presentation

2011-12-07T20:54:00.001-06:00

Tomorrow I go back to my high school to tell the current art students about how awesome SCAD is.

I have no idea what to say.

So naturally, I turn to my blog where I can think things out via blog post and get my readers' opinions. You know, those of you who end up actually reading this before tomorrow, haha.

WHY SCAD IS AWESOME: my first semester at SCAD

Hi! For those of you that don't know me, my name is Melina Taylor. I graduated from here last year and am currently attending the Savannah College of Art and Design. I'm here today to talk about why I love SCAD and to encourage you all to consider it in your search for a college.

I already sound extremely lame.

REDO!

Hey, for those of you who don't know me, my name's Melina. I'm an art student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and I graduated from here last year. I'm participating in a SCAD-sponsored program called Hometown Heroes, and am here to talk to you guys about my experience at SCAD and to encourage you all to consider SCAD in your search for a college.

...they both sound stupid... oh well... moving on...

SCAD has four locations: Savannah, GA; Atlanta, GA; Hong Kong; and Lacoste, France; as well as a online elearning program. I'm mostly going to focus on the Savannah campus as that's where I attend.

(as i type this, i'm downing caffeine and hugging a barrel of pretzels... it's like i'm back at SCAD ;'])

I'm majoring in illustration with a minor in vocal performance. Your first semester at SCAD, however, you are not permitted to declare your major because they want you to get to know the university and all it has to offer before committing yourself to a certain program.

The typical semester at SCAD consists of three, 2.5 hour long classes: two studios and a lecture. Your freshman year you generally look to take foundation studies in order to get them out of the way as most are pre-requisites for classes in major studies, and you also required to attend a once a week first year experience class which is basically an extended orientation throughout your first quarter at SCAD. The classes I took this past semester were Drawing I, Design I, and Public Speaking.

Now at first you might think "Just three classes? Two words: cake. walk." However, I want to make perfectly clear that just because we have fewer number of classes per quarter than most college, the workload is not lighter, nor is the course load any easier. One reason, is that SCAD operates on 10-week quarters. The average university operates on 16-week quarters, and trust me when I say that SCAD packs in more than 16-week's worth of class into that 10 weeks, making the coursework very rigorous, but extremely rewarding.

You'll have anywhere from one to three hours' worth of homework a night per class, but to be complete honest most of us let it pile up until the night before a project was due and were pulling almost-all-nighters. Guys, you do not want to do this. Sure a late-night portfolio party is fun during finals week, but not if it is the night before the portfolio is due and everyone is stressed that they won't finish it in time. I learned around midterm week to work on my homework a little each night--or in some cases actually working ahead in the syllabus--can make your week 1000x better. And it is so great to know you're getting a few hours' more sleep at night than your roommates! Haha.

Another great thing about the rigorous pace of SCAD is how quickly you notice improvement! To better illustrate this I wanted to sort of walk you guys through my drawing class so you guys could get an inside look as to how a class at SCAD works and to show how my own work improved and evolved over the course of the semester.

(for this part I have a powerpoint showing my work throughout the semester and will be talking about each piece. since i can't show a powerpoint on a blog, i'll skip over this section, haha)

I had a blast in that class as well as in my others. But as fun as SCAD is in class, it is even more fun outside of class! There are TONS of student-run as well as SCAD-sponsored events constantly happening throughout the quarter, as well as multitudes of groups and clubs--many of which meet weekly--for you to take part in.

Some of the events I went to/participated in this semester are:
(I have a picture from each on a slide and will explain each a little as I go through them, but for blog purposes I'm going to simply list them)

Movie Buzz (Rango, as well as Rio)
Fall Fest
Gesture Jam
Moon Festival
S'mores and More
Gender Bender Ball
Harvest Fest
Masquerade Ball
World Food Fair

I also volunteered at the Savannah Film Fest where I got to see some awesome upcoming movies and meet and attend workshops by famous actors such as Roger Bart, Lily Tomlin, and James Marsden.

I also am a member of several clubs and groups including

Student Activity Council
Service Opportunities for Students
SCAD Disney Club
SCAD Quidditch Team
Bookbinding Club (in fact I've brought one of the books I made for you to see)
SNUG and HvZ

Campus housing is awesome--I highly recommend Turner House--and one of the great things about SCAD is no community bathrooms! The only people using your bathroom is you and your roommates! Also, the rooms are really spacious, and you meet tons of awesome and interesting people from several different countries all around the world.

The food is also really great! SCAD has two main cafeteria's: SCAD Cafe and J.O.'s, then they also have several small diners and eat-ins around campus that accept both meal plans and dining dollars. And in case any of you are vegetarian or vegan, both main cafeteria's have both a vegetarian station and a vegan station. I personally eat vegan almost every meal at scad because I really love the different options there and everything just tastes so fresh and good for you.

I think my absolute favorite thing about SCAD is the personal relationship between the university and the students. I can tell you firsthand that SCAD genuinely cares about its student body and works hard to prepare each student for a successful career in the field of art at an individualized level. They offer several workshops throughout the year covering everything from writing resumes, to building portfolios, to simply choosing a major for those who are still undecided. In fact, the SCAD mission statement reads that "The Savannah College of Art and Design exists to prepare talented students for professional careers, emphasizing learning through individual attention in a positively-oriented university environment."

SCAD offers a multitude of different degrees spanning several majors ranging from Historic Preservation to Sequential Art to Fibers. And, for every major at SCAD there is a matching minor, as well as several additional minors.

Applying is really easy if you just visit the scad website: scad.edu and click in the upper right hand corner where it says "apply."

If possible for you, I encourage you all to visit a SCAD location, SCAD Day Savannah is on February 18th and SCAD Day Atlanta is January 28th.

College tours in Savannah are Monday through Saturday. 9:30am and 2:00pm; Atlanta they are Monday through Friday at 11:00am.

They also have several pre-college summer programs such as Rising Star, SCAD Summer Seminars (which I myself participated in the summer before my senior year), Art Smarts, and Art Educators' Forum Summer Conference. All of which you can find information about on the scad website.

And to answer the question I'm sure has run through someone's mind already: yes, SCAD does offer an extensive list of scholarships. The full list is available on the scad website.

And probably the best reason to come to SCAD? To meet all the crazy awesome weirdos and interesting people like these lovely folks and myself. Haha. (show a slide with pictures of my weirdo friends, hahaha)

Then I will ask if there are any questions, do my best to answer said questions, and wish them all a good day. TADAA! Let me know what you guys think! Oh, and wish me luck!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 54

Days Until SCAD: 25

Days Until Christmas: 17

Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

When It Hits You

2011-12-07T15:04:00.001-06:00

Today was one of those days.

You know what I mean. That day when you stop and think about your life the past couple weeks and realize you have accomplished NOTHING.

Then you kick your butt in gear. And get stuff done.

I was sitting there on the couch where I've been sitting for the past two weeks and realized that my Winter Break was half over and what did I have to show for it? Next to nothing.

So.

I made a list. Because I like lists and I'm good at making them.

MELINA'S EPIC LIST OF THINGS TO ACCOMPLISH BEFORE WINTER BREAK IS OVER:

Fill at least half my entry for the Sketchbook Project
Create a minimum 3 illustrations/works of art
Finish redecorating/organizing/cleaning bedroom
Go to the movies at least once
Make a snowman. (providing it snows while I'm on break, haha)
Make Christmas cookies (this will be an ALL DAY thing!)
Visit my friend Janelle at her college
Go to my old high school and talk about SCAD
Watch my favorite holiday movies
Go to Panera and get a Frozen Mango (the drink of champions)
Post videos of myself playing ukulele on Youtube
See Santa with some friends
Go Ice Skating
Apply to be an RA at SCAD
~~Do something rebellious.~~ Check! I cut my hair. I know it's not really that rebellious, but I'm counting it anyway. So HA. Check out the pics below!

BEFORE "OMG MY HAIR IS SO LONG!"

AFTER "OMG SHORT HAIR AND BANGS!"

Well, that's all for now folks! More posts later tonight!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 54

Days Until SCAD: 26

Days Until Christmas: 18

Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

Trevelyn and the Ridiculousness of my Previous Post

2011-12-02T12:28:00.001-06:00

Okay, so yesterday I took the day off from pretty much everything and just played my ukulele (Trevelyn) practically all day. It was awesome. And I made some serious improvement and by the way my fingertips ache today I know I got in a good amount of practice.

So I return this morning to my blog because today I am focusing on blogging by finishing the draft posts I've been working on and I reread my post I Hate Dubstep. With Exceptions. and literally was laughing out loud from the dubstep, meme, transformers ridiculousness of it all. If you read that post and still plan on reading my blog---mad props to you! Personally, I can't believe I photoshopped that Revenge of the Roids poster, haha. And don't get me started on the memes.

Anyway, I've decided that I'm going to start making videos of myself playing/singing Disney songs on the ukulele. Why? Because I love Disney, and I love ukulele, and I'd love to be a singer for Disney someday.

I've been working on a few songs, but I thought I'd also take suggestions/requests from my readers. What disney song would you like to see me sing/play?

I plan on posting the videos here on my blog, and depending on the reaction from my readers/the ukulele facebook group I'm a member of's reaction, possibly just putting them out on youtube for the world to see. But to start out they are simply going to be blog-exclusive. So you should feel special, haha.

On other ukulele news: I'm finally getting a legit tuner! For the past three months I've just been tuning by ear, but my mother said she is going to get me the Snark tuner I wanted for Christmas! And better yet: a gig bag! So I can finally feel better about carrying around my uke everywhere I go, haha.

Fun fact: carrying around a ukulele makes you instantly popular--providing of course you know how to play I'm Yours and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. These are legitly the two most requested songs I've been asked to play. Oh, and Tiptoe Through the Tulips. But we're not going to talk about that.

Something is just inherently fun about a ukulele. It makes people smile! So if you're walking around campus playing one, chances are people will stop and say hi to you. Then ask you if you know I'm Yours or Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Lucky for you, to play both songs you only need to know five chords! WOO!

So in case you were wondering how to play these songs and become instantly popular, the chords are C, G, Am, F and Em. The strumming pattern for both songs is really easy. I just do down/up down, twice per chord and repeat the chords C G Am F for I'm Yours (I'm assuming this would work fine on others instruments too such as guitar, banjo, bass, but seeing as how I play the ukulele, it is the only instrument I can guarantee this for, haha).

For Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the chord order is C Em F C F C G Am F. You use the same strumming pattern from I'm Yours, and although you can just use that same chord progression on repeat, you can find the "correct" way to do it here.

Learn those two songs and voila! Instant uke-induced popularity!

Don't forget to leave a comment requesting what disney song you would like to see me play/sing (non disney requests will also be accepted!)

More posts later today!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 50

Days Until SCAD: 31

Days Until Christmas: 23

Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

I Hate Dubstep. With Exceptions.

2011-11-30T12:26:00.001-06:00

Alright. It's about to get real.

I hate dubstep.

Now everybody freak out.

Now sit back down, and let me explain.

First of all, I had never even heard about dubstep until I went to SCAD. Or if I had it just wasn't significant enough where I live to matter. Apparently everywhere else in the world, dub is a FREAKING HUGE DEAL.

One of my roommates LOVES dub and would frequently blast it in our dorm room. There was this one song in particular that really just made me want to rip out my hair and run screaming out of my room, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites by Skrillex. It sounds like this:

But to me, it sounded like this:

Yeah. I passionately exclaimed that it was just sound effects, not music. Even at one point going as far to call dubstep an abomination to the music world. That's how much I hated it.

My roommate, Rachel, would play the song every now and then, and I would always make fun at it, singing along with my best transformers impressions and making sure to emphasize the "KIDS, OH MY GOD!" And one day she played this song called Gold Dust. And I was like, "Hey, I really like this." And Rachel was like, "This is dub."

my face at that moment

At that moment, I realized. There are two types of dubstep: good dubstep, and bad dubstep.

Good dubstep usually sounds more like a weird techno remix of a song, whereas bad dubstep sounds like Transformers on steroids.

admit it. you would totally go see that movie.

Anyway, so during my semester I came to learn I do like a few (and by few, I literally mean three or four songs maximum) dubstep songs. Thus, I feel obligated to spread the love for these gems in the bucket of crap known as dubstep.

Oh, I do, however, LOVE the way some people can dance to dubstep. Like the guy in this video. Because he's flippin' legit.

So now you know how I feel about dubstep. Have lovely day.

Oh, and on a totally unrelated note: (warning, profanity)

I just think it's hilarious. You know, because she's so cute and tiny and whatnot, haha!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 49

Days Until SCAD: 33

Days Until Christmas: 25

Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

Creative Commons License

2011-11-29T14:03:00.001-06:00

I finally got my creative commons license up! Now I can feel confident about posting my work here because it is now protected! Woohoo!

What does this mean exactly?

The creative commons license allows people to share any of my writing/art/etc. that I post on this website, provided they give me credit for being the one who created it.

What does this mean for you as a reader?

This means that you will get to see my artwork and read some of my writing and anything else I feel like posting! And as an art student/writer, believe me, I have plenty to post about!

Want to learn more about the creative commons license?

I don't blame you! It's a pretty nifty little thing! Just go the following website and learn to your heart's content! There are even different types of licenses that allow different things---best of all, it's free. So I implore you that if you are posting any artwork or writing on the internet, please protect it with a creative commons license!

http://creativecommons.org/

I can't wait to share my work with you!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 49

Days Until SCAD: 34

Days Until Christmas: 26

Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

Getting Back on Track

2011-11-29T12:35:00.001-06:00

My oh my have I fallen off the track! If this were hiking I'd be lost in the middle of the woods at this point! But no sense in lamenting lost time! Instead, I'm back to my blog. And with renewed willpower and energy! Why, you ask? Because I'm two pounds away from reaching my weight goal!

Yes, if I lose just a mere two more pounds, I will have officially lost 14 pounds since I started school (September 9th) and have reached my weight goal of 160! I don't know whether or not this is the first time I've mentioned my actual weight on here or not, but yes. At my "heaviest" I was 174lbs.

I still have a lot of inner turmoil when it comes to losing weight. I always have this part of me that doesn't want to lose weight. Part of me that doesn't want to change. Sometimes I let that part win me over and I go back for that second piece of chocolate pie. But why do I let myself do that?

I pride myself on trying to be as self-aware as possible. I don't want to be one of those people that thinks they know who they are and how they work, only to find they've been in denial for years and that everyone knows them better than they know themselves. I also pride myself on being honest on my blog. The honest reason I always hesitate about losing weight? I don't want to lose weight because my father wants me to lose weight. Part of me has this idea that I can't lose weight until he accepts me as I already am.

The remarks about my size, the diet books for Christmas---just thinking about it all brings tears to my eyes. And I know I've probably mentioned it before, but I can never ever forget about the day when I told him I was happy as I am and he asked, "Why?"

Internal scars take a long time to heal. And can impede moving forward. As much as it pains me, I'm trying desperately to forgive my father, and not let his opinions interfere with my life. I'm always terrified that he'll decide one day to read my blog and be offended or hurt by the things that I type here. But I also know that you should never be ashamed of how you feel. And perhaps in some twisted way, this blog is also a way of telling him how I really feel. Since I can never seem to bring myself to do it in person.

When I went to SCAD, I decided that I wasn't going to let that stop me anymore. I decided that I wanted to lost weight for me. And I didn't care what my father thought. And lo and behold: I lost 12 pounds! That's the real secret to weight loss: you have to do it for you!

I'm continuing my ongoing journey to become a better, healthier, happier person, inside and out. I'm still keeping the make-up post counter. I have a lot of catching up to do! You all can can look forward to multiple daily posts--think of them as early Christmas presents from me to you!

Remember that you're all powerful and beautiful and can do anything you set your mind to!

Phillipians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me."

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 50

Days Until SCAD: 34

Days Until Christmas: 26

Pounds to Lose Until Current Weight Goal: 2

Ode to no free time: or a few poems to explain myself

2011-11-01T23:50:00.000-05:00

There once was girl with a blog,
And her life she quite wanted to log,
Her life was so busy,
It was making her dizzy,
So she took a nap instead of writing.

my life is hectic
something to do each minute,
i think i'll go sleep.

Don't worry, I'm not counting this towards the counter... I feel like a post this silly and short would be cheating to count as a real post... more soon. I promise.

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 22

Days Until Winter Break: 17

Film fest shifts left: 4

Celebrities I may possibly meet: 3

Epic fails.

2011-10-31T00:04:00.003-05:00

I failed to post today/yesterday. Add one to the counter... Fail. I'll post more tomorrow/tonight.

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 21

Days Until Winter Break: 19

Drawing Assignments left to do before my 8am: 6

Estimated hours of sleep I'm going to get: 3, tops.

Laundry Day Part Deux

2011-10-29T14:10:00.000-05:00

So that whole "people leaving clothes in washers/dryers for obscene amount of time thing" that's happening right now... my clothes could all be in dryers right now if it weren't for these people leaving their clothes in dryers... and now their clothes have been dumped on the floor (not by me, by the girl in line behind me who i guess has "had enough..." hrmph...

well at lease i still have Dr Horrible ;D "laundry day, see ya there, underthings, tumbling..."

hopefully i will have my clothes in dryers soon... meh. college life is great except for little inconveniences such as these... i hate to be a terrible person and take their clothes out of the dryers, but this is slightly silly... times a lot... YES! little asian dude is taking his clothes out of the dryer! FOR THE WIN!

YAY!

(i'm not counting this towards my make-up posts, lol. it's too short)

Laundry Day

2011-10-29T13:44:00.003-05:00

I decided to do laundry until I work my shift this afternoon. I feel like laundry day is simultaneously a great and crappy time in my life. College laundry (at least at SCAD) has a number of pros and cons.

Pros:
-Clean clothing (DUH)
-That fresh laundry clean smell warm clothes have coming out of the dryer (yes, i really love that smell in all actuality)
-watching laundry is hypnotic and a great de-stresser (no, i do not stare at my laundry, but i do look at it for a while
-i listen/watch Dr. Horrible's "Laundry Day" song and sing it about a million times while doing laundry ("it's not an death ray or an ice ray that's all johnny snow...")
-i fantasize about dancing with a cute guy around a laundry room and eating froyo while sitting on top of a dryer (i blame the above bullet)
-laundry can be a social activity. examples: group laundry, epic pokemon/other card game battles, meeting new people
-occasionally you find you and your friend decided to do laundry on the same day! (like right now my friend Mal just joined me. woo!)

Cons:
-It takes a minimum of two hours. Even for just 1/2 loads. Why? Because you have 100s of people trying to all wash clothes in two little laundry rooms. But hey, you can do homework while you wait (i usually do that) or you can blog or whatever...
-The laundry rooms are gross. This is due to laziness by certain people who throw lint on the ground, leave trash and hair and crap. I mean really people, we're in college now. Pick up after yourself!
-you have to babysit your clothes. otherwise people will steal them. sad but true.
-even babysitting them, you risk them being stolen. especially if you have loads in both rooms (as it always seems that i do)
-people may dump your clothes on the floor if you don't get to them in time to put them in the dryer. once again, sad but true.
-people leave their clothes in washers/dryers long after they're done, holding up other people. which is usually why the above starts happening.

As you can see, the pros about equals the cons, so each day is different. I'm hoping I can get my loads into dryers relatively quickly because i really need to take a shower before five, but we'll see... My washers are about done so I'll blog more later--love you all! Happy laundry!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 20

Days Until Winter Break: 20

Number of loads of laundry I need to get done today: 5

Number of loads of laundry I'll actually get done today: 3

Midterms Killed Me. I am now a Zombie. A zombie who meets famous people.

2011-10-29T11:45:00.000-05:00

Sorry for this three week hiatus (i think it's been three weeks... my sense of time is completely gone at this point) but midterms week literally killed me. I was dead. But I'm back now, so it's all good. It just took me a few weeks to recover. I have a lot of info to dump upon you all so I know I'll have plenty to write about and as promised I will be making up for the daily posts I missed out on so at the bottom of my posts I will have a "Make-Up Posts Remaining" counter to verify that I make them all up.

It's Halloween weekend! WOO! I went to Masquerade ball last night (pics coming soon) and it was pretty fantastic. The best part about going to a Halloween party at an art school? Flippin' legit costumes! Mine was more idea-based than just being spectacular to look at (you'll see what I mean when I get around to posting pics later) but some people had costumes that I know they spent hours on! Super awesome! My roommate Rach went as a Slytherin, and today we are trying to find her a gold bikini top to go with her gold short-shorts so she can be a Sexy Snitch today (she is Harry Potter obsessed, lol) we're even going to Henna some snitch wings onto her back (because everyone knows costume wings get in the way of partying)! It'll be pretty awesome. I'll be sure to get pics if it works out well ;D I was something Doctor Who related... and there was a like a whole horde of awesome DW costumes! Oh my gosh it was epic! Today I'm going as an art student. Because I work today, lol.

Today starts the Savannah Film Festival which is a huge star-studded week-long event filled with upcoming movies and short films and student work. It's pretty awesome. Indeed. And as a performing arts kid (vocal performance minor to be exact) of course I'm volunteering. Today is my first shift but because I couldn't sign up early (I was in a mandatory midterm study session when the shiftboard opened... I tell you, midterm week is hell. an awesome artsy hell, but hell nevertheless) I didn't get any of the glamorous jobs like VIP escorts or Airport greeter, so most of my shift s consist of concessions (which is what I'm doing tonight) and ushering and ticket-taking. Which isn't terrible--especially since there is a really awesomely good chance that I may get to meet LILY FREAKING TOMLIN!

Speaking of famous people, guess who I met? Roger Bart. Name sound familiar? How about his face:

Yes. I met him. Still need a bit more coaxing? HE'S A REGULAR ON DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. and a tony-award winning broadway star, and my personal favorite: voice actor for young Hercules in Disney's Hercules. Yeah, "Go the Distance?" That was him singing. And I met him. I shook his hand. And he told me to go for my dreams. It was a beautiful moment in time. I told him about my dream of voice-acting for animated films and he said that it was awesome I had something that specific to work towards. He is epicly cool. Jussayin'.

However, this is all I have time to post right now because I have a crap-ton of drawing homework this weekend and I have to be at the Trustees Theater at 5:30pm for work tonight, so I need to get crap done before then. Mostly laundry and drawing. Perhaps a bit o' design homework too. And cleaning up my part of the dorm. Because it's getting pretty messy. Indeed.

Well, hope you all are having a fabulous (and safe!) Halloween weekend and party like the animals (or vampires or witches) that you are!

Make-Up Posts Remaining: 21

Days Until Winter Break: 20

Number of loads of laundry I need to get done today: 4

Number of loads of laundry I'll actually get done today: maybe 2

We are temporarily closed, will return after midterms...

2011-10-11T18:29:00.000-05:00

I'm going to continue my daily postings (including extras to make up for the days i skipped) but most likely not until Sunday night as it is midterms week here at SCAD and stuff gets crazy. On the real.

On a separate note, I have some prayer requests:

-My friend L
His parents recently died in a car crash and he needs all the prayer/support he can get right now
-My friend J
He is severely depressed and is not wanting to get the professional help he needs
-Me
I realize this is selfish, and my need is not as great as my friends', but I have midterms this week and art school midterms are crazy intense. Just for my drawing class I have a written test, midterm drawing, and a slide id where I have to know a crapload of drawings and be able to tell the artist and the title of the work... yeah. That's just one class...

Hope midterms are going well for any of you out there doing your midterms, and if you decide to pray for my friends, THANK YOU!

A Post from an Apologetic Cheater

2011-10-07T23:36:00.006-05:00

So, technically I'm posting.... so this counts I guess.... but I'm mostly just posting to say that I'm too tired to finish the post so instead I'll double post tomorrow.

I'm sorry, I've just had an extremely long day and am completely exhausted.

Please accept these youtube videos and internet memes as a peace offering:

Stress and Dealing with Roommate Confrontation

2011-10-06T16:26:00.004-05:00

Stress.

No one thinks well when they are stressed. You need to take a deep breath, and just chill out for a second.

Unfortunately, if you have roommates, like me, sometimes it's the roommate(s) that are stressing you out. And you can't always just say "Hey, you're bugging the crap outta me, please leave me alone." Especially if you both need to be in the dorm doing something or other. So every now and then you might snap at your roommate.

It's a sucky situation for both parties. One feels guilty but is still too mad/hurt/whatever/doesn't want to talk about it so stays silent. The other feels hurt/mad/confused/thinks the other one is overreacting or being retarded so they stay silent too. Then that awkward silence hangs thick in the air, suffocating both of you, waiting to see who will crack first.

A word of advice: be the one to crack first.

It's just not worth screwing up a relationship with someone you are forced to live in the same room as. Especially since they have access to all of your crap 24/7 and revenge is a dish best served cold.

I know they hurt your feelings, or you feel like they shouldn't have snapped at you, but people can't help how they feel about some things. Not to mention you never know someone's background, so something that seems stupid/trivial to you may be a huge deal to another peson.

Never apologize for how you feel, but DO apologize for how you reacted.

If you were the one who snapped, then say something along the lines of "Look, I'm sorry I snapped at you, I'm just a bit stressed, and I know you didn't mean to, you were seriously pushing my buttons." Then explain why whatever was said hurt you so that way they understand where you're coming from. Communication is KEY! I know that sometimes you don't want to talk about how you feel and/or why you feel that way. I completely understand! It's hard to be vulnerable like that, but your roommate(s) is(are) less likely to keep pushing your buttons once they understand what those buttons are.

If you were the person who was snapped AT, then you should probably apologize to. Even if the other person isn't willing to discuss it, chances are you really hurt them/aggravated them in some way. It's not your fault, it isn't anyone's fault--after all, you're still getting to know each other--so it's only natural to eventually cross a line somewhere. Just say something along the lines of "Hey, I'm sorry what I said bothered you," or "I'm sorry for bugging ya--wanna grab a soda later?" Or something to that effect. D

DO NOT: pester the other person to talk about it if they don't want to! If they want to talk, they will. Be grateful when/if they do, and if they don't, just let it slide.

Also: LET IT GO!

I realize this is probably the hardest step, but look at it this way: would you rather obsess over something that makes you feel like crap for hours, possibly days, before you get over it, or would you rather let it go, and use that time for something useful such as shopping, having fun, or homework (I realize homework isn't fun, but it's gotta be done sometime!).

Roommates may not be your best friends, but you can at least learn to be friendly towards eachother and make the most of your time spent together. And who knows, if you learn to resolve these little issues, then you might even become actual friends!

Best of luck with whatever roommate problems/issues you may be having, and if you ever have a topic you'd like for me to post about, or a story you'd like me to comment on (I'll change names/places for security purposes, so you'll be anonymous! ;D) send me an email at melinarty@gmail.com

Have a wonderful day!

(PS be on the lookout for an epic zombie post within the coming week or so)

SCAD Fall Fest

2011-10-05T14:03:00.004-05:00

Every year SCAD has this thing called Fall Fest where every club/group sets up a booth and you can get information about what they do, how to join, etc. And it's like one giant party! There's live music, food, belly dancers (from the SCAD belly dancing club of course), zombie-hunters galore and even Doctor Who. It is extremely epic. Here are some videos I took during the event, however, they can not even fully represent the amount of awesome that is Fall Fest.

Once again I apologize for the horrible camera skills. I can do photography, but once the pictures start moving my mojo is WAAAAAAY off.

SCAD-vannah Bee-logs

2011-10-04T17:49:00.004-05:00

The bee-logs are the short vlogs I've been posting to facebook and I figured I might as well post them here too. This blog seems to have no direction and is just random crap right now, so throwing out some more random crap surely couldn't hurt, could it?

However, with that said, I'm trying to focus in on my blog and figure out just what the hell I want to do with it. It seems as though I will just have to continue talking about my life on a whole. However, in that case I need to write WAY more frequently to make much sense at all. So I'm going to begin blogging nightly. That's right. You read that correctly. NIGHTLY. As in every night. The goal is to have something posted by 11:00PM EST every night.

Mostly it'll just be short little videos and some pics of whatever I encountered that day and of course--commentary on said subjects. Also I'm going to post a weekly "Artistic Endeavors" post talking about what all I made that week or should have made, but this is not only limited to visual art, in these posts I'm also going to be addressing my writing (gearing up for NaNoWriMo as we speak!) as well as my musical adventures.

More importantly, however, I'm going to focus a bit more on God. College can ruin a girl pretty quickly and I've built up some nasty habits such as cursing. (I know I've thrown a few cuss words in posts before, but I've never cussed out loud until I moved to SCAD) and I think a big part of why I started falling so quickly is because I forgot about God. So I'm going to talk a bit about God on here every now and then. I realize this may turn off some readers, and if you're one of those people I'm sorry, but I gotta do what feels right and Jesus feels right to me.

On that note, I've been attending this awesome church called City Church Savannah and I'm thinking about making it my SCAD-vannah church home.

Be looking for some interesting posts coming up soon and eventually a conclusion to my summer series as well as what I did the first few weeks of school!

And now to the videos!

MORE POPCORN!

And then we made "real food."

Also tonight I'll be posting my videos from fall fest (I'm not technically counting them as Bee-logs, they're more like a weird tangent...) and they are definitely worth coming back and watching!

Also, yes, I am aware of how bad the cinematography of these videos are. I am not a film major. However, I'll work on improving the quality of Bee-logs to come. Just because I love you guys.

teaser: i'm working on an epic post about... zombies!

SCAD-vannah 0.1 (PICTURE OBESE!)

2011-10-04T16:19:00.002-05:00

I've decided that I'm going to have to start blogging or journaling every night because way too much awesome stuff happens at college for me to remember them all vividly with no outside help, haha.

Luckily I've been taking TONS of pictures!

I guess I'll start from the trip from good ole Kentucky all the way to Savannah, GA.

True to my nature I procrastinated about packing, but still managed to get almost everything packed up and ready to go the night before we left. However, I still was grabbing stuff last-minute and throwing it into my bags or the back of the car. But eventually we van was all packed up and we were ready to go!

Please excuse the horrifically terrible travelling hair. I just wanted it all away from my face, haha.

I took along with me my new ukulele, Trevelyn, and we had many adventures together on the ride as demonstrated by these silly pictures courtesy of my sister Madison.

Now remember, this is a TWELVE HOUR DRIVE we were embarking upon, with BOTH my parents and my little sister. Let's just say we ran out of conversation topics pretty quickly, and since I was FULL of energy being pumped about heading to SCAD-vannah and all, things got pretty weird and crazy. And thus I present to you some of the random pictures that were taken along the way.

For whatever reason, I really love this picture, taken by my little sister, Madison

Halfway down we stopped in Chattanooga and ate lunch with my sister and my adorable nephew, X-man. Isn't he the cutest?!

Luckily HOTlanta traffic was surpsingly hospitable. This is a first.

I MET/SAW AN HONEST-TO-GOODNESS HITCHHIKER! He's the only person I've ever known to seriously hitch hike. And he had a red retriever with him that you can't see in the picture. Oh, and he had a frying pan on his backpack!

DELICIOUSNESS.

We finally pulled into Savannah at around 10pm that night (Sept. 8th) and me and mom ran to the Wal-Mart to get the things I had realized I had forgotten. We then turned into bed at our really awesome hotel room (it was a Hilton branch!) and I could hardly sleep! I was so excited about moving in the next morning! AH!

The next morning I picked out a super cute outfit to wear for my first day, and got all prettied up for a day of awesomeness!

And it was indeed EPICLY AWESOME! I thought the freshman-o stuff would be boring, but most of it was actually pretty cool! When I checked in there was this huge arena filled with booths from different organizations and I got lots of free stuff which is always good. I like free stuff. And most of it was useful stuff too! But then the best part of the day of course was... MOVING INTO MY DORM! I met RA, Sam Long, and she is super nice and a really cool person. After getting my room key and my mailbox key, me and mom raced off to find my room and it was surprisingly easy considering all the RAs had decorated their students' doors! After moving all of my stuff in, we all went to the many freshman-o activities and such.

Look for a continuation of this within the coming days! (and i have a quick question, would you guys rather see pics or videos? Considering throwing some vlogs on here... reply in comments!)

The Seven-Day Surge and Pre-College Jitters

2011-09-16T09:23:00.002-05:00

(The following is a draft of a post I started a week before I moved here to SCAD. Even though it's mostly irrelevant now, I decided to post it anyway for your viewing pleasure.)

Seven days until I move into SCAD. Seven days to finish packing, saying goodbyes, cleaning my room, making sure my life here is in order so that when I come back for Winter Break I can just pick up where I left off. Sounds pretty simple, right? WRONG.

Firstly let me explain that for about the past year, my bedroom was converted into a storage room, thus making me a hobo in my own house. So now I'm faced with the task of kicking other people's junk out of my rooms, sorting through a bunch of stuff that I have no idea how it even got into my rooms, and excavating my own stuff and then finding a place for every thing so that perhaps my room will finally be clean. This will probably take me a good three days. I'm not exaggerating.

Secondly I need to point out that I'm having to pack for college while simultaneously doing this, so I'm constantly picking up things going: "Will I need this? Do I have room to take this with me? Have I even worn this in the past year?" This only slows down the process, making it take even longer. However, I am confident that once the deed is done that it will have been completely worth it.

I'm having a serious case of pre-college jitters though. I'm worried about packing, and about a thousand silly what-ifs, and I have this constant knot in the pit of my stomach that I've been self-medicating with obscene amounts of ginger ale. I'm sure it's just nerves, and I know I'll probably be fine once I'm down there, but nonetheless I feel rather... anxious.

Well, I Can't Sleep, So I Might as Well Blog

2011-08-31T23:45:00.001-05:00

Firstly: It is freaking freezing cold in this house right now.
Secondly: I had an epic moment of "holy crap, I'm leaving a week from tomorrow morning"
Thirdly: I am full of too many emotions and thoughts right now to sleep.

I'm not kidding about the freezing thing. The thermostat is proudly proclaiming that it is 74 degrees in here, but I'm pretty sure it's lying because I'm currently in a tee and sweatpants, swaddled inside of a microfiber blanket (it's got Spiderman on it!) and I still feel like I am FREEZING. But that's beside the point.

A few short minutes ago I was lying in bed--and by in bed, I mean on the couch--when I realized: I leave a week from in the morning to go to SCAD.

This is a big friggin' deal.

I've never been away from home longer than a week before. I rely on my mom for everything (I know it's bad, but she's my rock, okay?) my little sister and I are JUST NOW finally starting to form a close relationship this past summer and to top it all off we just got two new kittens. Needless to say I'm not really wanting to leave right now.

It's just that I've spent the last four+ years of my life preparing for college, making plans for college, saving for college, trying my best to get into a good college, and now that my time to leave is drawing near, this time I've been looking forward to and hoping for and wishing for these past few years is just around the corner... and it terrifies me.

I'm an honest person.

And I'm honestly terrified.

I don't quite know specifically what I'm afraid of, I guess it's just the unknown. I'm sure I'll make friends, and I've talked to my roommates on facebook and they seem really nice, and I've already got almost everything I'll need to take with me, and I've been told my professors are great ones to have, and that the weather's been great and it seems to be all sunshine and roses--so why am I feeling so depressed about it?

I've come to the conclusion that for every beginning there is an end, and as I'm beginning this new stage of my life I'm ending another. I'll always be a kid, but tonight I'm saying goodbye to my childhood. From this night on, I'm a young woman. Not a teen, not a high schooler, not that girl with the voice or that kid with the paintbrush--I am woman, hear me roar.

I'm actually already feeling loads better just by blogging about it and getting it all out there and into the open and all.

My dad and I are having one last father-daughter day this Saturday and I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to have that big heart to heart sit-down talking-to chat with him like I mentioned a few posts ago... We'll see.

Tomorrow I have a big day ahead of me! The To-Do List roughly goes as follows:
-clean bedroom/studio
-pack for college
-write
-make a cake for writer's group
-go to writer's group

It may not seem like a lot, but I'll be going all day believe me! Hopefully my fears about college are completely normal--although me being abnormal isn't much of a surprise--and I hope everyone out there is having a nice night!

Hopefully I'll post again tomorrow night, if not, then definitely Friday morning!

Miley Cyrus Wants Me to Have an Eating Disorder: This Blog Just Got Real

2011-08-31T21:28:00.002-05:00

Now before a bunch of Miley fans and PR people jump down my throat, let me clarify that this title is meant figuratively, and refers to her clothing brand, not to Miley herself.

I'm moving to Savannah, GA in nine days to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and figured I should probably buy a few more pairs of shorts and few tank-tops before I head down there. So I traipsed over to the local Wal-Mart and was over-joyed to find pair after pair of completely adorable Miley Cyrus Max brand short-shorts on sale for five dollars! As a girl who wears a size 13 jeans, however, I was skeptical that they would even have my size--especially being on clearance--but they had 11s, 13s, 15s and even 17s left!

I decided it would be best to go with the 15s--I'd rather have them be loose when I tried them on instead of grabbing "my size" and them being too tight. So I grabbed three pairs or super-adorable shorts, practically ran to the dressing room and beamed ear to ear as I stripped off my own blue jean shorts and took the brand new pairs off of the hanger--I'm pretty sure this was the first time I had been excited to try on jeans since I was a size 5 (and yes, I was a size 5 once...). So I'm sure you can imagine how my heart sank and tears welled up in my eyes when I slipped the new shorts on and saw this in the mirror:

They were a good TWO SIZES too small! Horrified, I convinced myself that perhaps I read the label wrong, and I quickly peeled them off and checked the label.

They were most definitely 15s. Praying to God that this pair was just sized wrong, I tried on the other two pairs of shorts--each fitting exactly like the first pair. Trying not to give into the depression that was building inside me, I simply put the shorts back on the rack, and grabbed a pair of 17s to try on. To my dismay, even they were way too small.

Thus, I have concluded that the Miley Cyrus Max brand at Wal-Mart wants girls to become anorexic. Call me paranoid, delusional, in denial, but there is just no way that I am a 17. As I mentioned before, I wore my 13s today, and they are even getting LOOSE on me and I have fit back into a few of my 11s that were in the back of my closet. To show a comparison, here is a pic of me in the jeans I wore to Wal-Mart (they are L.E.I. brand)

And to prove I'm not lying about that number either, a label pic:

However, I'm glad that this happened, because I had an epic revelation: there is no such thing as "my size." Brands are sized so differently these days, that the women of America can no longer simply go into a store, look for the items with the same number, and they magically fit them. It just doesn't work that way. And with the revelation, came the key to overcoming my depression. I may have had my heart ripped out by a pair of size 17 shorts, but instead of buying my usual RC and Hershey bar on the way out of the store, I bought myself a Snapple Apple instead.

The only thing about this huge sizing difference is the effect that it has on the self-esteem of young women across America. I mean, this clothing line is geared at ages 12-18 when girls are the most impressionable and can be most easily ripped apart. And as earth-crushingly terrible my dressing room experience was today, I can't help but think about the hundreds of other girls who will try on Miley brand clothing and get just as depressed as I was getting. And not only the 'bigger' girls like me trying to fit into clothing two sizes too small, but for the tiny little things that normally wear size 3-7s that are now slipping into double digits--what if they misread that as that they're getting fat? I have an cousin that became anorexic and was wearing 00 size jeans from the mall, and she fit into size 3 Miley Cyrus Max jeans. That is a THREE SIZE difference! I'm sorry, but what kind of message is that sending teens of America?

And as much as it pains me to say this what with Wal-Mart being the only clothing store in my county, from this day forward I will no longer be supporting Miley Cyrus Max brand clothing. I can't bring myself to support a clothing brand that I know it damaging girls' self esteem. My little sister who wears 10/12 LITTLE GIRLS size jeans is so excited that she fits size 3 Miley brand jeans and can shop in the juniors' section, but how is she going to feel in a few years when she realizes that "her size" is too small? I know several people will argue with me about this article, and please, post your comment or shoot me an email at melinarty@gmail.com and I will gladly discuss it with you.

Hopefully Miley brand clothing will someday realize the error of it's ways and sell clothing in normal sizes, but until then, I guess I'm going to have to drive an hour away to buy my clothes.

HT(F)ML

2011-08-27T18:20:00.003-05:00

I wish I knew html code. Because as of yesterday and today it is the bane of my existence. I apologize if at any point the blog looks kinda funky because I am trying to implement a new format and background and the like, but it's taking longer than expected to work out the bugs. Not to mention for whatever reason it screws with the way my posts are formatted sometimes which is uncool... but hey, it's whatever.

As for my personal life, it seems to be on hold for now. Those of you who knew about my little summer romance, that has officially ended (for the better in my own opinion) and I've said my goodbyes to almost everyone.

I'm heading out to my old high school this week to "job shadow" my old art teacher and say the last of my goodbyes to my buddies still in high school hell. This week I'm focusing on getting my house and room clean and organized and will begin packing towards the end of the week.

I'm not sure where I was going with this post... AHYES! This blog will be changing a lot, and I'm experimenting with several new ideas, and I'd love to hear your opinions on the changes, so feel free to comment on any of the posts and speak your mind!

Love always and God Bless!

Sorting Out My Online Life

2011-08-26T11:25:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I went on an online de-stress de-clutter de-activation spree and removed myself from all of the account I no longer use such as IMVU, GaiaOnline, old email addresses, etc. I even switched this blog over to my new gmail account! It felt great knowing that I didn't have all of these loose ends throughout the internet. I encourage all of you to do the same sometime: just go through and delete all of the account you never use. Especially if you have any old email account--people can hack them and use them to their own advantage.

Anyway, while going through and deleting my old accounts, I came across a very old blog that I had started many many years ago. There were only two posts on it, so I figured just for kicks I'd post them on here. Keep in mind these were written a few years ago, haha.

"Well, recently it has come to my attention that men tend to believe that women try to control everything. I strongly disagree and am going to explain how it appears as though MEN "control everything:"

First, I turned to my dictionary to find out what exactly a "man" and a "woman" are defined as. My dictionary had several choices to choose from, therefore I am going to give you the first definition, as well as which one(s) I would've picked:

man: an adult male human being

OR

man: a piece used in board games such as playing checkers

OR

man: an employee or worker

woman: an adult female human being

OR

woman: a person who is in control of a household

My view on men is best reflected in these lyrics from Mary Poppins: "though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they're rather stupid." And although women are making huge gains in equality, we still live in a largely patriarchal society. For example, just look at all the words in the dictionary that start with 'man:'

manacle, manacled, manacling, manage, manageability, manageable, manageableness, manageably, management, managemental, manager, managerial, managerialism, managerialist, managerially, manages, managing, managed, Managua, manaia, manakin, Manama, manana, Manapouri, Manaslu, Manassas, manat, manatee, Manaus, manche, Manchego, manchester, manchineel, Manchu, Manchuria, Manchus, manciple, Mancunian, Mandaean, mandala, Mandalay, mandalic, mandamus, Mandan, mandcap, mandapam, mandaps, mandarin, Mandarin, mandataries, mandatary, mandate, mandating, mandator, Mande, mandi, mandible, Mandingo, Mandinka, mandir, mandis, mandolin, mandorla, mandragora, mandrake, mandrel, mandril, mandrill, manducate, Mandurah, mane, maneuver, maneuverability, maneuverable, manfriend, manful, manga, mangabey, Mangalore, manganate, manganic, manganite, manganous, mange, manger, mangler, mango, mangsteen, mangrove, mangy, madhandle, Manhattan, manhole, manhood, manhunt, maniac, maniacal, manias, manic ....and on down all the way to manzanita.

In conclusion, "man" is controlling most aspects of our world. I believe women are equally awesome, but that there are sometimes when men excel where women can not. I agree that there are situations where a man should lead. However, there is no need for a man to ever disrespect a woman especially just for being a woman. Just learn a little bit of respect."

And here's the second one, entitled: "Nothing Important to Say"

"Yeah... as the title suggests, I don't really have anything significant to say at the moment... But I decided to post something anyway:

What is up with Lindsay Lohan?

Although I do not want to make this one of those celebrity-trashing blogs, I have something to say about this woman.

Anyone remember the Lindsay Lohan remake of "The Parent Trap?" I do. I saw this in theaters when I was like, 5. It was "soooo cool" and I wanted to be as cool as Hallie and Annie. I find it slightly depressing that one of my childhood idols has become someone who's google searches result in rumors of her being a porn star and some less-than-flattering photos. Just sayin.

On a different train of thought: swimming pools. A lot of people have them, but how many people really use them? I'm determined to use mine a LOT this summer. I may even invest in a vintage flowered swimming cap (so my hair retains it's not-wetness). However, I am a slight germ-aphobe and do not like seeing things floating around in the water with me, so by the time I get it all skimmed out and "clean" I've been in the pool for hours and haven't done any swimming... Maybe I should just buy myself a big float and drift around...

Well, time for a ham sandwich. Hope you enjoyed this pointless post and my horrible blogging skills."

Hope you enjoyed that little blast from the past and be looking for a LOT of blog updates soon!

And by the way, I move to SCAD in two more weeks! WOOHOO!

When you're standing on the edge of a cliff, and God pushes you off.

2011-08-04T22:43:00.000-05:00

Today I found out I'm too fat for indoor skydiving.

Anyone under 5'6" must weight less than, or equal to, 160 lbs.

I weigh 173.

13 lbs away from indoor skydiving.

I've had enough.

Literally, I have had enough of people making fun of me, laughing at me, telling me I'm too fat to wear short-shorts, telling me I should've lost weight before graduation because that gown made me look fatter (no, really, and this was from a relative), I'm tired of people looking at me and not seeing me, but whale-girl. I'm sick of it! It's not okay, it is NOT acceptable, but apparently the only solution is to starve myself, and over exercise, and essentially be completely UNhealthy, just so I can lose weight and become "pretty."

I am not obese. In fact, I'm not even close to being obese! Admittedly I wear baggy, unflattering clothes because I'm lazy and they're comfy, but when I wear clothes that fit correctly, I have a pretty freaking sexy body! I have curves in all the right places! So tell me, why is it, that because I'm curvy and admittedly are a bit thicker than most people (Although, truthfully, I highly doubt even if I were skin and bones that I would be 'thin.' They're called hips, people, and they exist. In fact, big hips make for easier and less painful childbirth, so ha!), why do people assume that I'm just so huge?

I don't think that way about people! I have friends a lot bigger than me, and I think they are beautiful, sexy, amazing women and men---why is that so hard for other people to see?

Moreover, I had a dream the other night.

In my dream, I became a vegan (I don't think I could go vegan in reality, but I am highly considering going vegetarian after looking deep into the big brown eyes of a really gorgeous cow the other day), went to college, lost tons of weight due to the fact that I was strictly vegan and thus didn't have many food options to begin with, and then was sitting on the beach, proudly showing off my thinner body in a bikini.
Then, a really super cute boy comes up to me and says some ridiculously cheesy line about how sexy my body was. You think I'd be flattered, right?
But I had seen him a few minutes earlier making fun of a girl just barely bigger than me who also was wearing a bikini.

The really sad part? That happens in real life EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Honestly, I don't want to be skinny. I don't want to lose weight. I want people to accept all 173 lbs of me, and love every inch of me.

And yet, that is never going to happen.

And that, my friends, is what God told me when I read that skydiving sign. He said something along the lines of:

"Melina, my child. Stop trying so hard to make others accept you. I accept and love you just the way you are. I love you at 173 lbs, and I would love you if you weighed 373 lbs! It's not worth your pain and suffering to make them try and accept you. Just be you. I made you perfectly. And I will always love you the way you are. Do not put your faith into the way other people perceive you. I know you from the inside and out, and will always accept and love every last molecule of you. I even love your failures and your flaws, however, I love you too much to leave you that way."

And that, my friends, is when I jumped off a cliff.
(disclaimer: the above phrase was meant in a strictly metaphorical or cosmic sense; no cliffs nor bloggers were harmed in the making of this post)

It's sad and pathetic that the world can't see the beautiful, amazing, phenomenal woman God made me, so I guess I just have to show them.

I guarantee you I will lose 13 lbs or more before Christmas.

It's go time.

Endless Summer: Part 2; Alice Cooper is my friend

2011-07-29T22:12:00.001-05:00

Some of you may be wondering why Alice Cooper is in the title of the post. And to you I would say, "You disappoint me." Because this post is about the end of school! WOO!

[disclaimer: this post may be sporratic, make time jumps, not make sense, take forever to actually post, cause intense confusion, entertainment, or dissatisfaction due to the fact that I am watching one of my favorite movies while posting it (Disney's The Princess and the Frog) and will be taking frequent breaks to sing along, thus derailling my train of thought]

Alrighty, I last left off with prom. Prom was April 30. Due to some crazy flooding that caused us to miss more than a week of school, school wasn't out until June 3rd! And graduation actually came before school was out! I didn't really mind that too much. Especially since in the end it all worked out and the people I was worried couldn't come still were there to support me. But I'm getting ahead of myself!

The last month of school is crazy. Like, rip-all-your-hair-out-and-glue-it-to-a-sock-monkey crazy. There is stress, stress, and more stress as deadlines creep up and the blissful reality sets in that in matter of a few short weeks, summer will FINALLY be here--which in turn makes your brain turn to summer mode which can only cause more stress and trouble as summer brain makes in incredibly difficult to get anything accomplished (rather like watching your favorite movie while writing a blog post!). Either way, in all honestly the last few weeks of school are mostly a big blur of emotions that I'd rather not travel back to, so I'll pick up at honors week.

Honors week consists of two major ceremonies, but for me, it consisted of three: honors night, the band banquet, and graduation. The band banquet was super fun like it is every year as we give out band awards, talk about all of the fun memories from the past season, and generally just talk and have fun and make jokes. It's tons of fun and I always look forward to it every year even though I never win an award, and my friend Jess wins all of them, haha. I don't mind though. Because she legitly deserves most of them. And she may have needed them to get scholarship money since she's going to be a music major and stuff. I'm a visual and performing arts major with a minor in creative writing (as of now, lol) so although a few extras awards would have been nice to put on my college resume, they didn't particularly apply to my area, but I digress. I put on a pretty dress--borrowed from my friend Kay--and then fixed my hair all pin-up style and felt pretty freakin' hot, so that made up my lack of awards! Haha.

[diiiiig a little deeper! yeah, you forgot what I was watching while doing this, didn't you?]

Since I'm getting tired, and I want tot turn off this movie before it gets to the creepy part as it's late at night I don't want to have dreams about creepy voodoo creatures hiding in the shadows! So I'll finish this up tomorrow (or perhaps not, as I have a date, so if all goes well, I won't be getting in until pretty late ;] but I promise that I'll finished this post soon!)

Endless Summer: Part 1; Prom, Parties, and People

2011-07-28T11:31:00.000-05:00

[For blog purposes, my "summer" is everything from prom until I leave for SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design)]

April 30th was prom, more aptly known Grindfest 2011 due to the, erm, "dancing" style, haha. And it was SO much fun! My best friend, Nelle, got to come this year (Nelle went to a different high school than me) which made is ten times more awesomer than last year! And... I made my own prom dress!

Originally intended for the Johann Own Your Look prom contest, I made a convertible dress (see pictures below). It was a pain in the butt to make, and I literally finished it right before walking out the door to go to prom, but I'm so glad I finished it! The best part was when people complimented my dress, and I got to say "Thank you! I made it myself!" Their faces were priceless! People simply just could not believe that I had made it! And I won't lie--I felt super hot in it!

Sorry about the bad pictures, lol. It's not this janky in reality, I promise! And that pattern on the skirt petals? Yeah, that's handpainted.

This was when my hair was still really long! I've cut a good 6 inches off since then! Haha, I didn't realize until now that it is on crooked... I promise that zipper is not that janky!

I partied and danced the night away--in case you were wondering, I did not have a date. My prom date lived on the other side of the world in Penang--hung out with my friends and yes, I did grind on people... I mostly danced with three of my best guyfriends, and slow danced with several different guys and girls. Everyone's dresses were beautiful, and I never will get over how much more attractive a guy gets once he throws on a tux! Instant hottie!

After prom, my friend Nessa had an after prom party that I went to. But we were all very tired, so it mostly consisted of us laying on top of eachother on the couch, eating pizza, and playing neverhaveIever. It was definitely the best prom ever! I wish college had prom every year, but hopefully there will be some sort of formals at SCAD! I love putting on beautiful dresses and dancing!

Oh my gosh! I almost forgot! At my school, we have this tradition where the seniors do a waltz at the beginning of prom. My partner was my friend Mitch, and it was so much fun! The first half of the dance was a pretty waltz, then it switched over to a rap song and we did a "modern" dance followed by a soul train in which every couple got their own freestyle! In out freestyle, I ran forward, ducked down, and Mitch jumped over my head. It was really cool--except he lost his shoe! It was still tons of fun and I'm glad I did it!

Well, that's all I've got time to post right now, I have a whole list of chores to get done today, and a TON of college prep to do! I'm leaving September 8th--I'm so pumped! I'll move into my dorm on the 9th, and then classes will begin that Monday. Hope everyone out there is having a great summer, and I'll keep you posted on mine more later!

Summer Ate My Life

2011-07-27T22:12:00.001-05:00

So... I haven't posted all summer... Sorry... But I have good news! I am going to resume my blogging at least once weekly and probably a lot more than that within the next few weeks as I have a LOT of catching up to, and even a few vlogs to post! Woohoo!

Since I've been away, I have:

graduated high school
won a microwave
had a short romance
made a convertible prom dress
been hired to make a book cover
been to a week-long sleepover
had a grandparent pass away
learn several very important lessons
grown taller a little
grown up a lot
rearranged my house
traded in my van
started playing guitar again
stopped playing guitar again
lost weight
gained weight
lost weight again
had my first real kiss
had my first art show
sold several works of art
passed AP Studio!
bought a swimsuit top i feel awesome in
have yet to find bottoms i feel equally awesome in
stolen my friend K's bottoms, dress, and hat (i should probably give those back...)
and more!

All of these and more to be explained in greater detail in the next few days! My loyal two followers will have more posts than they know what to do with!

Fat Girls Don't Wear Short-Shorts

2011-04-10T09:52:00.000-05:00

Last night, I was "Just Dance"ing with my little sister and had quite the workout! We danced nonstop for two hours doing the "high sweat" songs--and boy did we work up a sweat! I got so hot and sweaty that I had to change out of my pjs and into a tank top and short-shorts.

It was then that I remembered something a 'friend' of mine had told me once. She said, "Fat girls shouldn't wear shorts. It's just disgusting." I was good ten pounds heavier then, and this just crushed me. I loved wearing shorts! The summer before that I had worn short-shorts all summer long! Now I felt disgusted and ashamed of my legs in shorts, and I didn't wear anything shorter than knee-length for a long time.

Then one day, I was looking at my legs and just out-of-the-blue though, "You know... I really like my legs. I think they're beautiful." And with that realization, I started being comfortable in shorts again. This was further affirmed a bit later in my senior pictures--I have the legs of a plus-size pin-up model!

The moral of the story is that it doesn't matter what other people think about your body, just so long as you remember to love what you have. Would you rather have "fat" thighs and "cankles" or no legs at all? I realize that's a bit extreme, but hopefully you see my point.

And just for smiles, here's what a post I read on Six Billion Secrets said (that site's a real downer though, I don't suggest reading it as non-depressing posts are few and far between. However, Gives Me Hope is an excellent site when you're feeling blue): the post said, "This is to all the chubby girls in bikinis: I like it when you wear them more than the skinny girls. Thanks for being brave."

It's Getting Better All The Time

2011-04-06T23:20:00.000-05:00

Positivity. I'm not very good at it. But hey, let me just start this post by saying hi, my name is Melina, and I like life.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? But to be honest, it's not as simple as most people think. In fact, most people take liking life for granted. I would know. But that's a different story. I'm here to tell you about the ups and downs that made of the roller coaster of today--and believe me, there's a lot of them.

I'm making my own prom dress thus year so that I can enter the Joann Own Your Look prom contest and have a (slim) chance of winning $50,000! Yay! However, I made the rookie mistake of using blue tailoring chalk on my lovely white fabric, and now it refuses to come out, leaving me with big blue marks, forcing me to redo everything I've already done. Almost needless to say I did not take this news well.

On the brighter side of life, this boy I've liked for a while now likes me back! For those of you who have ever had a crush, you know how I feel. I can't stop smiling every time that I think about him, and I'm looking forward to our date (which still isn't for some time as he currently lives literally on the other side of the planet), and now that it's out there that I like him, I just want to tell him everything, but I'm afraid because...

Why am I afraid? I guess it's partly rejection. Which is silly because he already said he liked me back... And then there's that whole "broken home syndrome" thing which is also ridiculous because once upon a time my parents were deeply in love, circumstances just changed. And I know what love looks like...

Love is giant magnifying glasses and being a bit uncomfortable everyday, but knowing that she is happier with you there than if you had gone to a nursing home. Love is supporting your artist granddaughter even before her own Dad would. Love is a million 'dear john' letters and love is a positive TB test. I've seen it. I know it existed. I watched as it grew old, and still bloomed just as brightly, and I have seen how even after the petals have fallen, the bush still grows until it too has come to pass.

I think my biggest fear is being "too much." I tend to skip the shallows and jump in the deep end, which scares the crap out of most people. I've never really been in love before. There are times where I thought I was, but afterward realized I hadn't been, but I've never truly been IN love. I just feel things very deeply and just have emotions out the wazoo which is quite frequently too much to handle. I'm "too emotional" "too intense" and the most terrifying at all, "not good enough."

I've said that last phrase to myself more times than I could ever count. Which is where we come back to the whole positivity thing. I'm still working on focusing on the positives, keeping my head held high, and always remembering--as a certain English rock band once so lyrically put it--it's getting better all the time.

Spring Updates

2011-04-04T22:59:00.000-05:00

Well my friends, excellent news! In the past TEN DAYS I have only had 1 and 1/2 cans of soda! Woohoo! Oh, well, and a cup or two of punch, but in my defense I had forgotten punch had ginger ale in it until after I had already drank it...

Anyway, Meatless Mondays still not really working out, but I switched to Vegan veggie patties instead of burgers! That's gotta count for something, right?

Blogging weekly is going strong, but I keep forgetting about twitter updates! And I haven't been journaling at all, but I'm going to start tonight because I have a lot on my mind that I need to sort out. Especially since I may or may not have done something stupid. I have been working harder for a more routine day, but I'm also on Spring break, so I'm a bit out of routine at the same time, so it almost defeats the purpose, lol.

And as for saying one nice thing about myself daily.. I'll admit I kinda had a bit of a break down today... I'm making my prom dress this year, and made the rookie mistake of buying the pattern thinking the sizes were the same as store sizes, and when I found out I wasn't a 12, but a 20 in dress-making sizes, I sort of flipped out. I'm so used to hearing my dad hint about how out of shape I am, and how I should lose a few pounds, it's ingrained into me that I'm this huge gross blob that doesn't deserve to be called pretty. I know my father means well, but his constantly buying me diet books, and hinting about what I'm eating or how I don't exercise enough really tears me down. I am a curvy woman, God made me that way, but that doesn't mean I'm obese! I love my curves most of the time (although admittedly sometimes I don't like the attention that I get for my, er, chest) but it's hard to keep that mentality when I hear comments about how large I am. And I'm sure my dad didn't mean it, but I can't forget this one time, about a year and a half ago that I told him that I am happy the way I am... and he said, "Why?" I don't mean to start a rant by any means, and I love my father dearly, so I don't want anyone to get the impression that he is a monster or anything like that, but be careful what you say to people, because you can't take words back. And sometimes, they stick forever. I mean to confront him someday and tell him how I feel, but I'm not strong enough yet. Someday, I will tell him how his words hurt me and left a scar on my heart, and tell him that I forgive him anyway because I know he loves me and only was doing what he felt was best.

Change #4: Set things right with my Dad.
-I need to tell him how I really feel about a lot of things, and tell him I forgive him about most of it. I need to just set things straight once and for all before I go to college because I love him and I know he loves me and it's the right thing to do.

*Sometime over the summer, I want to sit down with him and just talk. Talk about everything I have wanted and needed to say to him for my whole life and have his full attention and have him just listen to me. I don't know if I can face him by myself, but I don't know of who I could take with me to be my support person, so hopefully God will provide for me or give me the courage to go in alone. I hope that God grants me the strength and courage to explain and not to condemn, to forgive and not to grudge. It's truth time.

*I'll make a list before I talk to him about the things I wanna say, just so I don't chicken out or forget anything. And I'll plan ahead so I know I'll have the whole day to talk with him and hopefully he will hear me out and not be mad at me.

On a lighter note, I'm making my prom dress this year to enter into the Joann's Own Your Look prom contest, and if I win, I get $50,000! I'll post pics as well as post pics from the upcoming senior art showcase soon!

CH-CH-Changes: weekly update no. 1

2011-03-27T21:20:00.000-05:00

As of this very moment, I have been caffeine-free for roughly 48 hours! So for those of you without calculators or brains, that my friends is TWO WHOLE DAYS! WOO! I feel awesome and awful at the same time. Allow me to elaborate: I had more energy today than I have in the past few weeks, but I also am a tad moody as I am--for lack of a better word--detoxing. On to the updates!

Change #1: Goal is to be soda-free by graduation. Graduation is 64 days away, and I believe I am making excellent progress! I have been 'clean' two days! I will let myself have a soda on special occasions, but as for the whole 'I NEED A SODA' every morning thing--that was old Melina. And new Melina drinks tea. And crangrape juice.

Change #2: Yeah... the whole Meatless Monday thing? Not really working out... I am going to keep trying though.

Change #3: In all honesty, I had forgotten about my Penny Changes! Blogging weekly is easy, journaling every night not so much, but I'll try a bit harder this week. I have been working on getting into more of a routine though! And as for saying one nice thing about myself everyday, I'll stick a post-it note reminder on my bathroom mirror.

Now on to the good stuff! I GOT ACCEPTED TO SAVANNAH COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN! Yeah I did! WOOHOO! So I've kinda been ridin' that high all weekend. Also looking forward to the senior art showcase that I am going to be in on April 14th! Well, I am exhausted, so I will post more later! And I promise I will start tweeting more, I've just been insanely busy and forgot I even had a twitter account if that tells you how busy I've been!

Ending the Month-Long Hiatus (Change #3)

2011-03-18T19:53:00.000-05:00

Well, after about a month long hiatus from blogging, I have realized a few things about myself:

I REALLY need a daily routine
I need better motivators and bit a bit more willpower
I am WAY too busy
I am overly stressed
I can do better

   I really do need a better daily routine, and I am going to start trying harder to stick to one. As for the motivators and willpower, I am upping the willpower and keeping the motivators. As for way too busy? Well, I am saying no to things. It sucks, but I just don't have the time to do everything that I want to. As for overly stressed? Well... breathe in... and out... breathe in... and out... And I am going to start keeping a journal. I figure putting my thoughts on paper and out of my head should help put things into perspective and keep me from feeling so overwhelmed.

     I can do better. End of story. I started tutoring some middle school flute players, and I came up with the motto "No excuses, just results." And when I thought about it... I give myself excuses all the time: "I need another soda because I'm going to be up late," "I don't have time," "I can't." So I am going to start taking my own advice!

     Okay, now it's truth time. As for Change #1: I followed it for the first two weeks, then lapsed terribly. However, I realized we all make mistakes and lapse occasionally, so I'm trying not to be too hard on myself and am just starting over.   One a day, then every other day, every two days, all the way down to once a week or just on special occasions. And Change #2? Well, I followed it the first week. The second week I followed it for lunch, then was offered prime rib and HUGE shrimp for dinner (for FREE at a school thing I was at), so I ate meat. A lot of it. And I forgot about it the Monday after that. But I am still going to try to employ the carrot/stick for that as well as for sodas and MAKE myself stick with it!

     Change #3? Well it is more of a collection of small changes. I'm going to call it the Penny Change! (small change, get it? I love lame puns!)

Change #3: Make Several "Penny" Changes
   -I'm going to make time to blog once a week to talk about my progress, I will start writing in a journal nightly, I will start sticking to more of a routine, and finally, I am going to start thinking positively.

*Well, this is pretty straight forward: blog weekly, journal nightly, routine. And I am going to say at least one good thing about myself every morning, and if I start feeling bad, make a list of things I love about myself or my life.

*As for accountability, the blogging thing will speak for itself, as will journaling. Routine-ing my life is just going to take time, and for positive thinking I am going to post one nice thing on someone's facebook wall every day--pay it forward, ya know?

Hopefully I shall be writing again soon, and will have better progress reports!

P.S. As mentioned in Change #1: I really will start tweeting my progress via Lose It! as well as posting how many sodas I drank that day.

Meatless Mondays! (Change #2)

2011-02-21T18:19:00.000-06:00

    I am not a vegetarian. Been there, done that, like meat too much to actually stick to it. However, it has been proven that being a vegetarian has its health benefits, such as lower blood pressure, better cholesterol, better skin, better digestion, it can even lower your risk or some cancers! Thus, my second Change is to implement MEATLESS MONDAYS! Today was my very first meatless monday. I skipped breakfast (shame on me); enjoyed yogurt, Sunchips, and a PB&J for lunch, and I am about to head to Subway to purchase a meatless sub. And in case you're wondering, yes I do feel silly ordering a meatless sub at Subway, but in my defense, I can't order the Veggie Delight because I don't like tomatoes and the VegiMax Patty is way too sodium packed for my tastes (lame pun intended).

     Basically all I'm doing is not eating meat on Mondays. Now, that may not seem like a big deal, but let me put it this way: let's say that I have a serving of meat (6oz.) every Monday. The average 6oz. steak is about 480 calories, 146mg cholesterol and 16.7g of fat! Not to mention that there's probably at least 150mg of sodium. Now, let's say that instead of eating that 6oz. steak, I opt for a veggie patty (no bun, just the patty) and an apple. A veggie patty and a apple is about 200 calories, ZEROmg cholesterol and 5g of fat! That's a 280 calorie difference. Now times that by about 52 Mondays in a year, and that's 14,650 calories! Which in case you were wondering, is the equivalent of about FOUR POUNDS!

     Are these numbers inflated? Probably a little, but the health benefits are there, and meatless Mondays do make a difference. So ha.

And in my Change format:

Change #2: Meatless Mondays!
   -Um... see above.

*I am not going to eat meat on Mondays!

*Carrot: a healthier self, and the feeling of doing a kindness to my animal brethren. Stick: Burn off 500 calories for every serving of meat I ate that Monday.

It's Never Too Late to Begin Anew (Change#1)

2011-02-20T11:35:00.000-06:00

Hello again! Today I was reflecting on my goals before college. One reason I am starting this blog is because I'm also starting a new chapter in my life. Since I'm starting college in the fall, I plan on making several changes in my life. So I guess it's honesty time. In an effort to best explain the changes I want to make, I will be stating them in this format:

Change #: Goal
-Explanation of goal/habit/change as it is right now

*How I plan to meet this goal

*How I plan to keep myself accountable

Change #1: Kick My Soda Addiction
-I have a horrible and self-destructive addiction to RC Cola. I know that sounds like a pretty tame addiction, but it's horrible, believe me. All that caffeine in my system and the empty calories... Not healthy. As it stands now, I'm probably drinking anywhere between 12-36oz. of RC Cola a day. Yes, you heard it here first. I DRINK THREE CANS OF SODA A DAY MOST DAYS! Whew, feels good to have that off my chest...

*I'm going to first start by limiting myself to ONE can a day, period. No more. Then cut back to one every other day, then one every two days, etc. etc. And anytime I want to drink another soda, I'm going to make myself drink 8oz. of water instead to promote a healthier habit of drinking water to keep myself hydrated. My goal is to be soda-free by graduation (which is 93 days away as of today!).

*To keep myself accountable I am not only using the "Lose It" program on my iTouch to keep track of what I'm consuming each day, but at the end of each day I am going to Tweet how many sodas I drank. I also love the "Carrot and the Stick" method of rewards and reprimands. plan on treating myself for every week I stick to my plan/goal by sticking $5 in a jar in my room (Carrot). 93days = about 13 weeks, so if I stick to it all thirteen weeks, by graduation I will have SIXTY-FIVE DOLLARS to spend on something nice for myself! So the more I stick to it, the more money I'll have to spend on a reward! For every week I DON'T stick to the plan, I'm going to make myself run a lap around my subdivision every day for the next week (Stick).

More Changes to come, but for now that's all I have time to write! I'm mostly just trying to change my life for the better! And am using this blog to help keep myself accountable! Woo! (Yeah, that excitement? That's the caffeine talking, lol).

We All Start Somewhere

2011-02-19T11:53:00.000-06:00

     Well, I figure it's as good of a day as any to start a blog. I often come across interesting blogs of crafty people such as myself and think of how I'd like to start my own, and here I am! I have tried to start a blog once before, but only wrote in it once or twice before I forgot my password. Yeah. Anyway, so now I'm beginning anew, and am just going to see where it leads me. So I guess I would just like to begin by introducing myself.

     My name Melina. I am currently a senior in high school and wondering if there will ever be a day when I am not in high school. I spend most of my time there as I am involved in several extra-curriculars. I play the flute, march the bass drum, pick out a few songs on the guitar, taught myself piano, and I am currently learning jazz piano. I currently don't know where I'll be going to college, but my hopes are set on the Savannah College of Art and Design. My life unfolds before my eyes a little differently everyday, but I try to make the most of the time I've been given. I've wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember, and so I want to share some of my creative exploits with the world--whether that be simple crafting or fine arts.

    I think a lot. Sometimes my thoughts are original, inventive and worth sharing. Other times they're not really worth listening to, but if anyone wants my thoughts on a particular subject, I am more than happy to oblige. Just drop me a line in the comments and I will discuss what's on my mind.