Private Leah, reporting for Summer B.

Ah, the beginning of a new semester. Day one, and already I have a shitload of unfinished business. I suppose it's thanks to my new major.

Today I went to Goodwill to get a sheet and some shitty shirts on which I could get clay and not care. But, lo and behold, when I picked out an outfit, I managed to pick out one that was really adorable and fit me perfectly. Damn my honed, automatic instincts. Now I can't wear it to Ceramics class.

Still, Rae saved the day when she gave me her "ALASKA" shirt. It is very excited about Alaska, but I'm not entirely sure why. It isn't advertising anything in particular about the state, except the neon yellow-orange sun and giant eagle and mountain. I guess if you want to ride an eagle into the sun and subsequently plummet in a burning heap into a mountain, it is where you should go.

B+ for Effort

Today you get my shitty Anthropologie ad for my Writing for Mass Communications class. Fun times! Color and pattern by Rae. She helped save my ass when I was napping out of exhaustion. On the other hand, I am now a drawing major, my Summer A class is done, and my Marketing exam is done.

Inside the Memory House

Today I worked on one of the plot ideas that has been sitting in the room filled with shelves up to the ceiling, near the room shaped like an egg. I took it out of its drawer, the drawer next to the one filled with the people who have no faces and speak only with their hands.

Then, Rae and I looked at it and sanded it a bit, adding or subtracting here or there. It is about a boy who loses a kingdom and probably won't get it back because he is a big jerk. Probably, anyway.

Art School Minutes

In case you don't remember why I haven't been posting for the last two days, it is because I drove five hours home and five hours back this weekend. The reason? To get slides, so I can get into the art department, so I can drop marketing, so I can take art classes, so I can build a portfolio, so I can apply to art school, so I can go to art school.

I gave the adviser the slides today, and she told me that she'd try to get it taken care of by tomorrow or Friday. She also gave me a petition form to fill out for Marketing. If I get it in by tomorrow, there is a good chance that I will be able to drop Marketing and be in art classes by Summer B. So I have a lot of homework, and a petition, to do.

Savannah College of Art and Design

I called SCAD yet again. Today I learned that I can apply without putting in my portfolio for a while, my Bright Futures counts as a $3,000 scholarship, and there is no major-specific portfolio. Also, it is easy to switch majors.

I Can't Brain Today

I'm still coughing up a lung, believe it or not.

Well, fuck.

I'm tired, so if you thought you were getting a good picture today, you can go and die.

Art School Minutes

Savannah College of Art and Design

I talked to SCAD again today. I'm actually super duper interested in the Sequential Art major and it's easy to apply for spring (my fee can even be waived), so I'm thinking it might end up as my number one choice.

I talked to the Art Department about changing my major, and after much running back and forth, I was told that I just have to submit a portfolio and if I am accepted, I can start Summer B. So here's to crafting a great portfolio. The main problem is, this weekend I am going to have to run down home to pick up slides, because my family isn't in town. God damn it.

I am so tired. But I'll try to draw something for a real post.

Fear

Something I read recently really made me think. Why are we afraid?

As someone who is young, I have the fear of the young: that my or someone else's actions will do enough damage to end my world.

Confronting a friend who has wronged you, picking the wrong college to attend, telling someone that you love them, and risking getting rejected - all of these are heart-wrenching, and seem like they could change your life forever. In some small way, maybe they will.

The fear of change is the fear I have most often observed in people, including myself. A fear that with change comes loss. I have become afraid that I won't change enough, because habits are too easy to keep, and my fear of rejection is strong.

However, as kids in our teens or early 20s, we always forget the most obvious, important things. We all have another 50 or 60 years to figure out that change happens all the time, sometimes beyond our control, and we should always think about it in a positive light.

Even though the little things seem big in the here and now, they will probably not matter next year, five years from now, twenty years from now, and especially when you are dead. I think a good measure of what to fight for is what will still affect you in the distant future.

As a result, I am trying to put my own fears aside. I am naturally high-strung, so three-fourths of them are probably imagined anyway. If I don't make an effort to become content now, I never will be.

I've also made a promise to myself that I will never be too afraid to talk about my life or my problems on this blog. If I ever leave something out, it is only because I want to be happy, and I don't want to let others take that away from me. Choosing your battles is not the same thing as being afraid to speak of them.

I'm not saying it's possible to stop being afraid, period. There has always been and will always be fear, since the first prey ran from the first predator. Bravery has always been and will always be courage in the face of fear, not the absence of it.

Art School Minutes

This isn't a real update. This is just "minutes" like meeting minutes, so I can keep track of where I think I'm going.

Savannah College of Art and Design
912-525-5100

• Largest department is graphic design, top three for animation.
• They have merit-based scholarships for arts and academics.
• Once you are accepted, then transferring credits is figured out.
• For a portfolio, send "whatever your best work is."

1. Do they accept bright futures?
2. Ask about whether you can apply for more than one major.
   

Ringling College of Art and Design
941-359-7526

• Number one animation school in the country.
  
• To transfer in for animation is more difficult than for any other major. Unable to transfer spring semester, would have to transfer fall. May be able to transfer to illustration for spring.
  
• Very limited merit-based portfolio-based scholarships, bright futures accepted.
• Recommended that I get a catalog.

Rhode Island School of Design
401-454-6300

• When you apply, it is to a specific department. It's better to apply for fall, rare for transfers to get in in the spring.
• Financial aid and scholarships are more abundant for transfers, mostly need-based but also have merit.
• Liberal arts department decides on what credits transfer.
• Every teacher is working in the field as well.
  
• Transfers submit 12-20 pieces of best, most recent work. Illustrations recommended for illustration department?

The Bloodmobile

The morning sun hits the Reitz Union lawn with the burn of a campfire that is too close to your face. A breeze fluffs the trees' leaves like a bird ruffling its feathers. Low brick buildings hem in the grass and scattered trees with their sullen, dark windows, reluctant to let in the morning sun. Birds chirp, but their noise is quickly squelched by the low hum of a machine off in the distance. Sidewalks cut swaths of concrete strips through the grass. All roads lead to the Reitz Union.

The humming motor is joined by the click and whirr of another one starting. This one is much, much closer. The Bloodmobile growls to life on the sidewalk, parked next to an unlit lamppost.

The Bloodmobile is awake now, but there is no one in the driver's seat. It is the same with the Bloodmobile that parks on the other side of Turlington, next to the clock tower. No one goes in. No one comes out. It is only when kids walk around campus with one elbow bandaged and a free "Local Hero" T-shirt in hand that you realize anyone donates at all.

The Bloodmobile is long and robust, with a small, white nose. Its stripes are red, white and blue to inspire the duty to help one's countrymen in the blood of passersby. The four black windows on its side are dim, and there is no door on that side.

Two girls walk right by. They don't look at the Bloodmobile even once. It won't snatch them from the sidewalk - this time.

Around the Bloodmobile, the grass glows with the morning sun. The dew is gone now, and only the soil is damp.

Now there is a man in navy scrubs standing by the side of the Bloodmobile. He leans over and scans the underbelly of the behemoth, briefly touching a bright metal box that pokes out from under its left flank, ignoring the other ones pressed together like giant, square scales. He finishes and vanishes around the rear. In the bright patch on the other side of the bus, his feet trudge towards the front and disappear, but there is still no one in the driver's seat, and none of the dim windows light up.

The Bloodmobile must have swallowed him whole.

Anxiety

Today I talked to my counselor about withdrawing from fall semester. He said it was easy: all I have to do is remove the classes I'm registered in from ISIS or whatever.

I'm still apprehensive about my decision, though. I guess I'm just a horribly indecisive person. One minute I feel completely confident, the next I am full of anxiety.

Rae Sketch

Quick sketch of Rae, at an awkward angle so she has no neck and looks fat (sorry Rae). Got bored with the hair; must fix chin and improve overall quality. Not bad for the first time in two years.

The Dedication

Yesterday was the last day of rest. Today is the first day of the rest of my life.
All my life, I have done nothing as much as possible, even when there is something that needs to be done that would benefit me personally and that I am, in fact, interested in doing.
By this time next year, I want to be enrolled in an art school. And that will take a lot of doing, because I am a college student and very near to being a grown-up.
I have had many intentions over the course of my life, most of which I have never accomplished. Here begins a record of my mission, made in the name of remembering failure and success when it happens. In the name of networking. In the name of great ideas. In the name of origami paper, butterflies, blue hats, and people that won't leave you alone.
In the name of summer rain, the dragons we made for us to fight, and the long sleep that starts on the last day.
In the name of red roses and big sunflowers and the first time you ever screamed.
In the name of friends and enemies and family, I don't want to become nothing.

I want to take responsibility. I want to do, move, make, shake.