My Time on Earth

Our pets

2010-10-19T13:31:00.001-07:00

This is the first little guy we got. It's a Giant Sequoia (baby) from the gift shop at Muir woods. The entire time we were walking through those woods Misha kept looking for a pine cone, or some seeds, or even a little sequoia tree that he could take home and grow himself (technically illegal, but there really wasn't much of that to be found on the paths anyways). Luckily we found that they actually sold these baby trees as souvenirs. It seems to be turning brown at the bottom though and I don't really know why. I've gotten so much conflicting information on how to take care of these that I really don't know what the heck I'm doing.

This is the Coconut tree we picked up at IKEA. I just thought it was cool because the tree is growing right out of the coconut, plus it's a good size to have on the floor of our bedroom.

This is the orchid plant the Misha got me for my office. At first it had a bunch of really gorgeous flowers on it and more buds that were about to open. Unfortunately, I didn't know any better and watered them way more than they are supposed to be (orchids apparently only need about as much water as a cactus) so all the flowers died off prematurely. Now all that's left are the long green leaves and since I've stopped watering it it's doing just fine.

Now, the garden center in my neighborhood was selling carnivorous plants in the spirit of Halloween, so I got pretty excited when I saw them. Venus Fly traps, especially, are damn hard to grow, especially from seed. I remember one time Philip got a growing kit as a present because he was enthralled by the idea of them. We followed the instructions exactly, even keeping that big "terrarium" in the fridge for months to simulate the necessary dormancy period. But not a singe seedling so much as hinted at sprouting up outta that dirt. These ones were already pretty big as far as Venus Fly Traps go. I also got a bunch of the North American Pitcher plant because it looks nice in the pot. These eat bugs by luring them in with secretions that bugs are attracted to. Each plant is like a tube with some wind of water at the bottom, and once a bug falls in, escape is impossible and the plant digests it (somehow).

My office

2010-09-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

I love my office! It's awesome. I can honestly say that I feel happy in this space, even though it's a work space, which I usually wouldn't like. As soon as I saw this awesome yellow desk in West Elm I knew I had to have it. My big external monitor (another thing I've never had the pleasure of having before) is attached to the wall so it doesn't take up any desk space. On my desk I have space for a keyboard, mouse, and of course my Wacom tablet, plus a lamp and my beautiful orchid plant. The chair (from EQ3) is quite comfortable and ergonomic so I can work all day with getting major back aches like I used to, and underneath my desk I have a sheepskin rug which is SOO soft and fluffy under my feet. I have ample shelf space in arms reach for all my drawing supplies, books and files. Seriously, this space really couldn't be more perfect for me, I think it really shows my personality quite well. Here's a picture:

Just encase you were wondering, here's also a picture of my kitchen (well, at least our dining table) and bedroom. By the way, memory foam mattress+pillowtop cover= super comfortable, you sink into it like a down pillow, but it still gives you plenty of back support. Seriously mom (yes I'm talking to you since I know you're one of the only people that actually reads this stupid blog! hehe) you've got to try one of these pillowtop mattress covers on your bed. You won't regret it!

I'll post pictures of the living room/ rest of the apartment later.
Love you guys!!

The Beginning

2010-09-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

It's my 12th day in San Francisco and I'm doing quite fine. the first day I got here was apparently the nicest day it had been in a long time, and it stayed that way for a couple days, which is a small miracle around here. I guess I just brought the sunshine with me from Texas.

As soon as I got out of the car in front of my new home I was immediately greeted by a most wonderful smell I can't say I've ever experienced in any other large city before. It reminded me of many happy days at Grandma's house in Minnitonka when I was young and had not a care in the world. I cannot explain where this scent might have been emanating from, but the sense of warmth and welcoming it gave me was incredible.

The next couple of days were filled with non-stop preparations, shopping, organizing, putting furniture together. It seemed that we were getting at least 20 packages a day, and like a child a Christmas, I was eagerly opening each one, finding silly things like a lemon squeezer, a package of 60 Bic pens, and even, to my delight, slides and scientific instruments to use with our newly acquired microscope.

I have settled in quite nicely and even have my own office space with a wonderfully cheery yellow desk from West Elm and a sheepskin rug underneath which is incredibly soft and nice for digging my toes into.

I guess in all the relaxing and vacationing of the summer, spending 2 weeks mostly sitting in a car for hours on end and then stopping by one restaurant after another for each meal, I have gained weight. I don't really see it, but it's quite evident every time I try to put on a pair of jeans and they just don't quite fit. So, I stepped on the scale yesterday and indeed had my worst fears confirmed. So, the fervor of my dieting has been renewed and I am completely determined to lose at least 12 pounds by Christmas, which shouldn't be too hard if I just use these steep hills as my gym.

Speaking of the hills, I have never been more scared riding in a car while going down hill than I am here. Some roads are so steep that even as you sit on the very edge of the road before it slopes off, you cannot see the road in front of you. I just can't get used to it, it feels like you are driving off a cliff.

It's a strange feeling living here right now. Not too unlike my time in Rome. It's hard to explain, but I can already feel that, like Rome, my creativity will flourish here and I will find a new sense of artistic yearning, something that was unfortunately lost during my last year and a half a RISD. (I know how strange it sounds that I have to get out of art school to find my passion for art again, but thats just the way it goes sometimes)

Overall, everything is great, and this is just the beginning.

Life goals

2009-11-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

learn how to drive
graduate from RISD
get my first car
join an artist residency program for a year
get a job as a designer for a while
be an RA for the EHP program
join the Peace Corps.
get my own studio to work in.
start my own design firm.
Become a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome
settle down
raise a child
buy a house
design something that makes a positive impact on the world
travel the world
make people happy
never loose sight of God
be joyful

The Hayloft, 1968

2009-04-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

Dust floats through the air in the quiet cool of the hayloft.
Up here we build our thrones and castles out of the golden bales.
Tucked away from the watchful eyes of mom.
Pieces of straw stick out every which way.
Poking at my skin and making it itchy.
Deb and I kick off our shoes and lift ourselves up into the rafters.
Breathing in the sweet smell of the wood and hay,
We carefully move along from one beam to the next
until we are way beyond the edge of the upper loft.
We tiptoe along a thick balance beam,
Standing in the middle, I am scared to look down.
It never seems this high up when you are standing way down there.
Deb grabs my hand tight and looks at me,
a smile creeping out the corner of her mouth.
Ready Panda?
My heart beats faster as I look away.
One. Two. Three. Jump!
I shut my eyes tight and take the leap.
Landing butt first in the large mound of loose hay below.
“Again, again!” I laugh, with straw covering my entire body
and sticking out all over my two long braids.
“Hey Debby look! Now my hair looks like yours! Haha!”
“Mleeeh” she says, as she sticks out her tongue at me.

2 hour exercise

2009-04-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

I walk under the bright blue sky. Sun in my eyes, cold wind in my face. In the park I spot a falcon sitting up in the trees. It’s piercing eyes staring down at me. It swoops down and makes a quick and determined course towards a large group of pigeons, who take off and try desperately to avoid his hunting path. I doubt he’s trying very hard because he doesn’t actually catch any one of the easy prey and presently lands on a tree branch on the other side of the park. Quit playing games with me falcon! You might have actually had me for a minute there but now I can see that you never really had any true intention of going for it.

As I open the door the sweet smell of coffee and sugary syrup hits my nostrils and I am instantly transfixed. I’m normally not a coffee drinker but today I could use the extra boost. “Give me something mochalaty” I say to Patrick behind the counter. “Mochalaty!?” he says in confusion. “So I’m guessing that you DO want something with coffee in it? I’m just going to go ahead and be inventive here.” Great. Patrick always seems to know how to please me. I sit down at a small table by the window as more and more people start streaming in. Strange, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this place quite so busy. What exactly happens on a lazy Saturday afternoon that makes people suddenly feel the need for a coffee break? The large windows make this particular establishment quite excellent for people watching, though I could honestly do without the constant stream of mall traffic passing by. Along with the usual suspects hanging out in the corner, two rather scruffy, scrawny looking men are sitting in the high-backed wing chairs by the fireplace, warming up and trying to get comfortable, avoiding drawing too much attention to themselves and getting kicked out.

Mort Goldblum is a slinking sort of man, tall and old, looking almost fragile. His white hair travels down to around his mouth and chin, long slender arms and legs looking all too much like my own grandfather’s. He most often wears the same thing: worn blue denim jacket with a stained white shirt underneath, brown slacks frayed around the ankles, thin brown socks and faded brown loafers with a hole torn out of one of the toes. He is an obviously intelligent man, never to be seen without a book in his hand. And yet he too has somehow ended up on the streets, forced to brave the cold along with a group of mostly-crazy old men who often engage him in mostly asinine conversations about events that have never taken place and dreams that will never come true. This is his 7th year and he has miraculously managed to retain his sanity.

Ms. Danquith enters and sits down in front of me. She retired long ago but still enjoys the going down to the local Hope Street School and volunteering her time as a substitute teacher. She had taught 7th grade English for 38 years and never once forgot the names of her students. The kids she sees now really don’t appreciate her as much as she deserves, but then again what kid does appreciate women as ancient-looking as she is, perpetual grimace plastered across her face? Both children and adults also can’t help but notice that she always seems to be wearing any one of an array of strange hats. Today it is a bubble-gum pink fuzzy thing with rather large ear flaps, no doubt warm but far too bright and bubbly for the rest of her personality.

Nick Hoffledorf is a grumpy, incorrigible old homeless man whom I quickly learned about when I first started coming here. He’s rather strangely lumpy and is always seen wearing a brown leather jacket, black sweatshirt and black baseball cap with tufts of wispy white hair sticking out the sides. He comes in here every day and sits slouched way down in one of the soft leather chairs in the corner in order to stare angrily at people whom he feels are getting a better deal at life than he is, which, considering his situation, is pretty much everybody. On many occasions he has been known to try to flirt with some of the many pretty young girls who also frequent this place. Since they undoubtedly will ignore him and start talking to Patrick instead, he glares at them ever more incessantly until he can’t stand it anymore and goes to complain to the manager about how unfair it is that these girls don’t want to talk to him. Jane is a very patient woman, but sometimes his special kind of craziness is just more than she can take.

A white limo pulls up to the curb just outside, exciting a group of little girls who jump up on top of the window sill couch and press their faces up against the cold pane of glass, certain that anyone who rides in such a car must be somebody important and interesting. A bunch of bride-grooms carrying suits and a rather large, white wedding dress, ever so carefully wrapped in layers of protective tissue paper and plastic, step out and hurry on into the Biltmore next door. I guess everyone gets their special day when they get to be considered someone important and interesting by random strangers walking by. Maybe someday that will be me, but the closest thing I’ve come to an actual relationship in the past couple of years is my rather new, yet almost daily stint with Patrick, who will not only make me a mean cup of marble-mocha-frappa-macchiato-cino whenever I’m in the need, but who also does a great job of filling up the extra space on my already too-small bed on nights when the both of us should probably be getting in some much-needed sleep instead.

Maybe next time around things will be different. Maybe someday I’ll find someone who will give me the kind of emotional connection I really need, but hey, I’m still young, right?

Anyways, these 2 hours are just about up and my coffee’s getting cold. Time for a refill!

Computer-rendered watercolor

2009-04-18T08:13:00.000-07:00

perspectives

2009-04-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

1st Person
I hang from my mother, dying with the onset of the cold. Born nearly five moons ago during a time of much rain and wind, I have grown much.
Day by day I watch the winged beings (“flyers”) come out of the great blue above me and land all around my home and family, hopping around and singing many sweet melodies every morning. Here also are the furry grey creatures, which I have lovingly named “gatherers”, scampering about the world and leaping gracefully across my family tree and sometimes landing on my mother with such force that it sends wild shivers through my veins and threatens to rip me clear of my mother’s grasp.
Now in my old age I am not the color I once was. I have grown brittle and dry and I feel my grip on my vast home weakening with every new gust of cold wind.
Today I am finding happy amusement in the antics of the numerous gatherers below me, who are playing a game with the black pole that is sticking out of the ground, where the flyers often gather in a harem of feeding and happy banter all around. The gatherers are, as always, attempting to gain access to the many colorful little seedlings which are somehow stuck in to the very top. They seldom make it up there before sliding back down to the ground with a soft ‘thump’. But today there is something new in the yard. A similar black pole now stands a short stretch apart from the first one, but this one has some sort of strange vine attached to the top and about 2 gatherer’s lengths down from that is attached a stalk covered in mostly yellowish kernels.
Suddenly I hear a great clattering not too unlike the noise that comes from the sky when a storm comes and bright streaks of light flash across the sky. There is only a streak of grey as one of the gatherers leaps across the air towards this new treasure. With amazing accuracy, the small body hits its mark, but it doesn’t stop there. He continues downward and then with even greater speed, snaps back in the opposite direction towards me.
Closer and closer it comes as I realize that I too, am in a collision course with this ill-fated creature.
I am suddenly ripped away as I feel the whip of air and fur from the passing projectile. The air creates a current under me and glides me gently downward, swaying to and fro as the green, spiky looking ground looms closer and closer. When I finally land, I find to my great relief that this bedding not the terrifying deadly spikes I thought they were, but actually provide for me a fitting final resting place.

3rd Person
He sits there waiting anxiously, pondering on what the best move for him to make this time might be. All attempts at the bird feeders this morning have been futile as the wrought iron shepherd’s crook holding them a good 5 feet up off the ground had recently been slicked down with a rag and a jar of petroleum jelly. Each attempt to climb the pole in this state by either him or one of the other squirrels had resulted in a humiliating slide back down and often even a sore rump from hitting the ground with such force.
While they would normally turn dejectedly from this scene and settle for food foraging the good old-fashioned way, there is a new challenge for him to set his sights on this morning. A rather appetizing-looking fresh ear of corn is now hanging from a bungee cord, which has been tied to the top of a recently placed wrought iron pole a few yards to the side of the bird feeders.
It always takes a bit of trial and error before they can fully master any new contraption and figure out how to overcome all of its obstacles to obtain the tantalizing morsels of food set out there, as if solely for the purpose of taunting them.
This ear of corn seems simple enough to obtain. It is merely hanging there with no apparent other obstacles in the way. From a higher vantage point one could easily take a jump to land directly on the corn. But just as this thought came to his head, so too, it came to another one of the squirrel’s heads.
The race was on.
In a flash he took off to around the other side of the house, scaling a small tree that was oh-so-conveniently placed along one of the walls of the back shed with seemingly no effort.
The perusing squirrel caught up with him as they both tumbled onto the thin metal roof of the shed, but, startled by the sudden loud clashing noises upon the roof, this squirrel fell behind and came to a halt on the edge as the other squirrel leaped gracefully off and landed right on target.
The squirrel quickly realized that it had been a trap as he sunk down to the ground with his claws grasping tightly into the corn kernels holding on for dear life. In an instant the bungee cord snapped back and he was catapulted into the air at a sharp upward angle; landing about 8 feet away, stunned.

Creative Writing 1

2009-02-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

Creative writing essay:
Life Story, 1 page, no sentence can be longer than 3 words.

It’s dark here. Out I came. Light, thump, cough. Born in May. Parents both teach. Their fourth child. Siblings crowd. House is loud. Go.

I am Rachael.

It’s hot here. A border town. Don’t know Spanish. Don’t really care. No que voy. I am alone. School is rough. I am tough. That is all.

I grew up. I got taller. Away I went.

Off to RISD! Crank it out. Art is crazy. Whirling, swirling paintings. Rainbow colors mix. School is rougher. I am tougher. That’s not all.

I grew older. I got wiser. Away I went.

Rome is home. Ruins are nice. By the slice. Nero’s cats stayed. It’s good here. I speak Italian. Va bene! Gelato means yummm. Ruins crumbling. Can I stay? Mother may I? No, you can’t. Away I went.

It’s cold here. I am freezing. Longing for sunshine. Seeing only rain. Where are you? I cannot see. It’s dark here. Who am I? Blind man’s cane. Punch-out Braille. Touch the world.

God is great. Bright, shining light. Lead me forth. Until the end.

Love.

Remix: cut and paste words from other people's essays to make a new story.

Mother may I touch the blind man's cane? No, you can't.
I just stared. Bravery left me. Just like you, I was young. I was scared.
So uninspired. He missed home. He missed safety. Working 3 jobs. Mom was angry, he just drank. They kept fighting.
Always yelled. We watched ruins crumbling. It hurt my ears.

It sucked. Then I changed. Took a while, but I changed, va bene!?! It's good here.
Now I'm punch-out banjo singing beatboxing. It's nice. Can I stay?

Away I went. The cats stayed home.
It's cold here. I am freezing.
African herdsmen played in the snow, froze their feet.
I kept quiet.

Please, don't worry.

A Story of My Heart

2009-01-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

I finally managed to get myself to enter the shiny new Case Center building today to see the new location of the RISDworks store and see if I couldn't find myself some cool new Fred products. What I found instead was a book by David Macaulay called "Rome Antics." Now I know that Macaulay was an EHP'er himself during his time here at RISD, so I was interested to see how his own experiences in EHP would play out in the book. Following a homing pigeon flying through Rome to deliver a message, It book is full of the usual suspects of sites and scenes from famous landmarks around Rome, plus a few lesser-known, more intimate Roman sites. Now where would this homing pigeon's final destination be for the author/illustrator? Why it was unmistakably the beloved Cenci, of course. It was neither named nor labelled, but I know the place like the back of my hand from the door to the rooftops, and for me, as for David Macaulay, it is the place where my "inner homing pigeon" will fly. The final scene of the book is where the pigeon finally reaches his recipient, the author himself working at his studio in the top floor of the Cenci, who opens the message which simply, and aptly reads "yes." You should have seen how my smile just spread across my face and my eyes neary brimming with tears of joy as I felt the final connection with Macaulay and the true meaning behind this story like very few people in this world can. For me it was more than just a childrens book about a bird, or a book about places around Rome, but rather it was the story of my own heart, going back to the place that I will forever call home.

Moving On

2009-01-25T14:25:00.000-08:00

I seem to have disappeared for the past 2 months, I know, but so much has happened within that time frame that I couldn't possiably go back and explain it all. So I must to to the furture instead! Or at the least the here and now.

I'm back in Providence, where I brave the cold winds and slushy, icy sidewalks every day. Things are pretty good. Though I seem to have a lot of time on my hands lately which is rather disconcerting. I am trying to fill my time with other stuff such as jobs ( I now have 3 of them), extra-curricular stuff and what not. Yesterday I went with about 3 or 4 other RISD students and volunteered at a Soup Kitchen downtown for a good 3 or 4 hours. It was fun, but sad at the same time, because I know that the 100 and more people that we served were having to live out in the cold and could hardly afford to feed themselves while I have always had the good fortune to have a warm bed to sleep in at night, as much food as I want, and more. Poverty affects all kinds of people, from old war veterans to the well-educated, the disabled, and even young children I saw come in for a hot meal. Hopefully I will be able to go volunteer there more often, because they could really use more help.

A couple days ago I got a banjo in the mail from my grandpa and have been practicing it as much as I can. I'm actually kinda amazed by how much I've learned about it already. Hopefully someday I will be good enough to play a song for people.

Well, the new group of EHPers arrived in Rome about a week ago and I am totally jealous. I miss it a lot. A LOT a lot. But, I hope the new group is settling in nicely and having as much of a good time as they can considering how much it has been raining there lately. Someday I will go back, this I am sure of.

This morning I took a Cappoeria class, which was fun. I had never done that kind of martial art before. Of course, since it's been so long sense I've really worked out like that, I am now quite sore and my poor feet have formed huge blisters. Next week I tackle fencing. Wish me luck!

long overdue

2008-11-27T03:56:00.000-08:00

Ok, sorry for the lack of posts this month you guys. I seem to have found less and less time to be able to take away to do more writing. Much has gone on this month, but mostly I'm really just trying to concentrate on my final project, which is due in a very short 2 weeks. Unfortunatly that means that I have also had to seclude myself from the outside world and often despair at the end of each day when I find that I have not left the Cenci to go outside all day, save for the occational trip to get a few more groceries at the store down the street.

On a sadder note, I have just now learned of all the chaos going on in Mumbai. When I first heard of it, my immediate reaction was "Oh Dio, e' purtroppo! Cos'e brutto!" (which roughly translates to 'Oh God, how unfortunate! that is horrible!') And I dont really know how else to react to such a thing, Mumbai feels like it's a world away from here, and yet I have well learned by now that this really is a small world, and just because I can't see it doesn't mean it should be any less important to me. Please pray for all the victims of this violence, and pray that we may one day have peace on the earth.

Today being Thanksgiving, there is much preparation going on in the Cenci for our dinner tonight. We are having another pot luck for Thanksgiving, just bigger, more formal and planned out than our previous pot lucks. Each person is responsible for making a specific dish for the group. RISD has provided us with the wine and the turkeys, which are being cooked right now. We are trying to make it as traditional of a Thanksgiving meal as possible given what ingredients we have available here, but it should be good.

Lord God I praise you and thank you for all the blessings of this life. You have provided me with everything I need, every day. May I remember to give thanks to you always and everywhere, not just on Thanksgiving day but every day. Thank you for my family and friends who love me and support me no matter where I am. Thank you for the oppourtunity to come to Rome, where I have grown in body, spirit, and knowledge of this wonderful world you have given us. Fill us all with your great love, lift us up by your Holy Spirit and protect us from harm and the trials of temptation, now and forever,
Amen.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Happy Thanksgiving! I love you!

Gli Storme

2008-10-26T03:35:00.000-07:00

There, all of a sudden, a new presence in Rome that cannot be overlooked. Small black birds, which I have learned are Starlings, have taken over the skies and are now demanding every space on every tree, power line and rooftop. I do not know where they came from. Perhaps they are just passing through on their way south for the winter, but as the evening approaches it is hard not to notice their swarms filling up the sky. Even through my small viewable piece of sky I can tell that there are thousands of them at any given time.

The Romans refer to them as "Gli Storme," which is a term only used to describe this particular occurrence. The really special thing about this flocks of Starlings is in the unusual way they fly. I guess you could call it "in-formation" because they all fly together as a group, but there really is no particular formation in which they fly. Rather, the mass is constantly moving and changing shape as if it were one body of liquid, swimming through the air and changing simultaneously along with the breeze.

Swirling up and around the warm currents of air, each group looks as if it is performing its own ballet. They come from all directions and merge into each other, as different colors may swirl together in a bowl, never fully mixing but nevertheless affected by the other.

I become entranced watching this intricate dance pay out in the skies above, and it becomes hard to tear myself away and focus on more pressing matters.

When the sun has finally set, it may be experienced by anyone venturing outside, especially along the Tiber, a loud ruckus coming from the treetops up above. The almost deafening high-pitched twittering of the hundreds of birds resting among each tree should be enough to make anyone wary of walking underneath the wide canopies, but if they cannot be avoided for your destination of choice, it would be wise to have an umbrella handy.

The Grass Grows Through It

2008-10-21T03:13:00.000-07:00

The cobblestone streets of Rome are filthy. Dirt, trash, cigarette butts, dog poo, and dead birds are seen on a daily basis. Broken stones stick up everywhere and you have to constantly be watching where you're walking so you don't trip and fall, or step on something you'll regret.

And yet, through all these atrocities, the rain comes down, washing away the surface and seeping down into the cracks. Then, in a short amount of time, up through dirt springs new green grass, giving the streets a fresh look and new life. You see, without all the dirt and filth, the grass would never be able to grow, and while the streets would look a lot better if they were perfectly ordered and clean, they would remain lifeless.

I like to think of this occurrence as a sort of metaphor for what God's good grace does to us in our own lives. So long as we live in this world we are all subject to temptation and sin. Try as we might, we alone cannot rid ourselves of the dirt that covers our hearts and souls, and it accumulates. So, we come to stand before God covered in dirt and filth and beg to be washed clean. By His mercy He rains His grace upon us, washing away our sins and seeping down into our souls, where, because we have humbled ourselves before Him, a new life springs forth from the dirt, filling up every crack in our being with fresh green grass. The dirt of our temptations roots us down and makes us permanent, for though they may be troublesome and grievous, in them a person is humbled, purified, and instructed, and through the intervention of God the grass will grow through it.

Be wary my friends! Take care not to trample the new grass which has taken so much to grow. Protect it and do not take it for granted by continuing in your old ways. It is still frail and must be taken care of to get stronger. Christ can be your constant gardener, and you need only to invite Him in.

Thank You Lord for your constant streams of love and mercy. We are but the dirt under Your feet and You, in Your infinite kindness bow down and raise us up, giving us a newness of life and restoring our souls. Lord I pray that when we stray from Your path, like the Good Shepherd You may find us once again and strengthen our convictions in You, that we may follow You now, until the end of time.

Amen

The Feast of Saint Francis

2008-10-07T08:47:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday was the feast of St. Francis. To commemorate the occasion of my favorite saint I decided it would be a good time to make my pilgrimage to Assisi and see all the spots that I have come to know about through books and such. Being the lone traveler that I am, I went by myself. But have no fear, I was I good hands. For the 2 days and nights that I was there, I stayed with a very hospitable host family who has taken in RISD students in previous years when the students would do a week of organized home-stay time as part of the EHP program. The hard part for me though was that my host parents didn't speak any English, so I could only speak in Italian for the entire weekend, which in retrospect is a really good thing because it forced me to use what I have learned in Italian class thus far, and quickly learn what I didn't know yet.

On the feast day, I went into Assisi around 11:30am and found that it was quite crowded. I could barely get into the Church of San Francesco because there were so many people streaming in and out! So instead I decided it would be a better plan to walk around outside and do some exploring around the area before confining myself within any particular space. Though I had a map with me, I didn't bother taking it out because even if I had known where I was, I wouldn't have known where I was going, except for as far away from the crowds as possible.

On the rural roads climbing up Mount Subasio, I saw a pen with a family of donkeys in it, including a tiny little baby donkey.
I named her "burrito" which in Italian means little butter. hahaha

Shortly thereafter the wind picked up and it started raining/hailing, luckily I had brought my umbrella, as small as it is, but I was not prepared for the cold that followed the hail, so I didn't stay as long as I had planned. When I got back to the house, I found that my host mother had baked dozens and dozens of cookies while I was away! For dinner (my first truly Italian meal!), she made pasta shells in tomato sauce, and then we got slices of tomatoes, prociutto cotto (cured ham), fresh mozzerella, and bread, and then for the last course we just had some lettuce with vinaigrette, which is meant as a sort of palette cleanser.

After getting my bearings around the town, I went back the next day with a bit more of a plan, as well as my sketchbook and drawing materials, which I had left behind the day before. After attending Sunday church with my host parents, I went back up to Assisi and went to the church of Santa Chiara (St. Clair).

Later, on a trek to the church of San Damiano, I passed by a beautiful olive grove and couldn't resist sitting down in the middle of it for a while to sketch the landscape.

San Damiano, which is where the Franciscan Sisters lived almost from the very beginning of the order, was such a quint little place. Situated down the hill from Assisi, the Sisters who lived here were in peaceful solitude, and the area has remained as such. The only other being I saw with a house close by the convent was a goat, who lived in a rather small house under a tree.

By the time I got back to the house at the end of the day, I was well worn out. I was again treated to a wonderful dinner of stuffed tortellini in a chicken soup broth, followed by baked tomatoes with bread crumbs and beef, followed by a plate of green grapes. Even though I only stayed with this family for 2 days, I still feel it was a very insightful experience into the lives and culture of a typical Italian family, which ended up reinforcing some known stereotypes, as well as disproving others.

I'm so glad that I took this journey and I look forward to coming back again sometime and seeing more of Assisi. I am also glad that I discovered this method of staying with a host family, and I now want to find other families in other places that I want to go.

Peace and Good,

~Rachael

Cinque Terre

2008-10-07T06:27:00.001-07:00

Le Cinque Terre is a chain of five remarkably picturesque towns on the Italian Riviera, covering about 7 miles of beautiful coastal territory which is punctuated by cliff top olive groves, grape vineyards, striking geology and azure water below soaring cliffs.

In the morning we took a train to Riomaggiore, the southernmost town in the chain, and arrived at around 10:30 in the midst of pouring rain. Due to the rain throughout the day and the previous night making the trails muddy and dangerous, our main hiking journey that we had planned was cancelled and we were left free to do whatever we wanted. Our lodging for the night was in the form of apartments that were interspersed throughout the town. My favorite of these apartments was tucked away in the uppermost part of the town and to get there, one had to climb an old stone trail, with the hills rising immediately on either side, which reminded me greatly of the Hobbit land in Middle Earth of the Lord of the Rings books. Even the quaint little stone apartment house, with the large round doorknob placed in the center of the door, and just enough room for 4 people to sleep, seemed as if it had just come right out of a children’s picture book. People in my group were planning on going down to the shore for a little swimming and possibly some cliff diving, but when I got outside and saw these stone steps which looked as if they hadn’t been travelled in 50 years, I just couldn’t say no to climbing them and seeing where they led to. Since I am never one for letting a little rain and cold stop me, I ventured out with no idea as to where I would go or what I would do once I got there, but the beauty of the trail ahead was calling to me and telling me to move forward.

Along the trail, every path that I saw deviating from it was another opportunity for exploration. Traveling like this I often found myself at the top of a hill overlooking a garden, in the middle of a grape vineyard, or stuck in the thorns of raspberry bushes. By sight or sound there were no other people. It was just me and the earth, getting to know each other. Slowly but surely I was making my way to the top of the mountain

Higher and higher I went until I realized I could see the ocean and the small town of Riomaggiore leading up to it. Towards the top of the mountain the vineyards gave way to forests, with traces of ancient walls for some long-forgotten purpose scattered throughout. I just
keep on walking, feeling as if I am searching for something without knowing what it is yet.

Taking the opportunity of the silence and state of peace with the earth and sky that I was in, I start singing hymns and songs of praise to God for the supreme beauty of this world that He created. I pray for the land and the people here. For the energy to carry on and for the wisdom to know when it's time to stop. For guidance in God's chosen path for me, and the strength to follow it.

No matter how grand people can build a church. No matter how much gold and silver and jewels and art can be put there. No matter how well designed a cathedral can be. No man-made thing on Earth could truly "house" God. I believe that if God were to choose any place on earth to reside it would be in the pure and natural wilds. Nothing a human could ever make could be as beautiful and complex and perfect as what God Himself has created. It is for this reason that I seek the Earth in solitude, for it is here where I can feel God's presence most strongly, and know that He is here with me. Here away from the eyes of others I can be my true self, an imperfect child of God. I within Him and Him within me.

As I walk along the top of the mountain, more and more of the world below starts coming into view. Eventually I come upon what appears to be the end of the trail, and the start of a couple more trails around a small field. From the side of the cliff here I can see the entire coastline and the vast ocean stretching out miles and miles before me.

I feel as if I have reached the ends of the Earth. Way far out in the distance I can see a barge out in the ocean, alone in a vast, never-ending sea of beauty. My spirit is transported to the place where the ocean becomes the sky and I know that although I too am out here by myself, I am not alone. I have carried with me the spirit of all adventurers who have come here before me, as well as those who have yet to come. The only thing that could have made my joy more complete is if I could have shared that moment with someone I love, but I knew that they were right there with me, thinking of me as I was thinking of them, in the place where the ocean becomes the sky.

Northern Tour- Day 5

2008-09-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

After a restful night's sleep in my own private hotel room, I get up early in the morning for the 45 minute bus ride into Genova for the day. There are obvious signs of the rain showers that were passing through all night long, and now the storm clouds threaten to rain upon the morning as well.

Driving along the coastal cliff sides, I can see from the bus window these dark clouds over the ocean. The clouds themselves are displaying some beautiful contrasts in color and shade, and a temporary break in the clouds allows the sun to suddenly burst through in magnificent rays of light, highlighting a spot of the ocean below as if God himself is touching the water and making it holy. This rare scene along the coast was so beautiful that it had everyone on the bus completely entranced. One girls behind me, upon waking up from a short nap could barely believe what she saw before her, just laughing and saying that it was "too ridiculously beautiful to be real."

view of Genova from the top of this weird "elevator" thing we went on.

Genova, which one of the major port cities in Italy, is also home to the largest aquarium in Europe and, looking for a different experience today, we all decide that this is one opportunity that we cannot pass up. It was cool, and I really enjoyed watching the dolphins and penguins, but I think that I have definitely been to at least one or two bigger aquariums in the US. Plus, I accidently mis-read my watch and got out of there a good 45 minutes earlier than I had to, and could not get back in because we were not issued actual tickets. So instead I went to this glass shirical greenhouse called the "Biosphere" and sketched for a while. Luckily, since I was the only one in there for a while, I got to go in for free and was able to do whatever I wanted.

One of my favorite sights of the day was when we got a special tour of the Teatro Carlo Felice, which is Genova's theater and opera house. This is the most complex stage set up I have ever seen. The ceiling is 100ft high from the stage and the floor is 100ft below the the stage, which allows for immensely complex scenes to be raised and lowered throughout the performance, on 3 by 5ft panels that can move together as a whole or individually move up and down, or even pivot in any direction. I got to see workers building the set for the next Opera to be shown there and was amazed by the depth and precision they go through to make a stage set that will just be torn back down into scraps after a few performances.

After a full day of touring we head back on the bus to our hotel in Varazze.
Some rainy weather has once again left this place in a blanket of fog, rising and moving along the mountains as if some magical force were acting upon them.

Of course! I say to myself.

This is the place where clouds are born! Why didn't I realize this before? It seems so simple now, that a place which has captured the hearts and imaginations of artists and writers for centuries would also be a nursery of the sea and sky.

Back in Varazze I have a lot of preparing to do. This was actually the last day of the official tour and tomorrow we are all (minus Ezio, Tom and Susan Mills, and the bus) going to take a train from Genova to Cinque Terre for a weekend of mountain trails, cliff diving, swimming and hiking.

Northern Tour- Day 4

2008-09-27T11:20:00.000-07:00

After spending the night in a nice hotel in Bologna, we eat breakfast in the hotel before setting out for the day. For the record, this hotel has the BEST hot chocolate I have ever had. When I asked for it, they brought me a small pitcher full (about 3 or 4 full servings worth) of a thick, rich and creamy hot chocolate that tasted like they had just melted a fine semi-sweet chocolate bar and whipped it together with some cream for just the perfect amount of richness, but enough of that.

Bologna is perhaps the most "Americanized" urban cities that I have seen in Italy thus far. This is largely due to the fact that it is, in large part, a college town. Bologna University, with a student population of around 30,000, is actually the oldest university in the western world. (above) The leaning tower of Bologna

It was officially founded in the year 1088, which just astounds me when I think about how Columbus didn't even discover the Americas until a few hundred years later. But despite it's age, it really just feels like any other typical college town anywhere. During the tour we stop in to see the University's Museo di Anatomia Umana Normale, which is an anatomical museum of wax pieces made in the 18th and 19th centuries, a large part of which is dedicated to the study of baby delivery, which was the first of its kind and highly advanced for its time.

After a visit to the Giorgio Morandi museum, we head over to Le Corbusier's Pavillion de L'esprit Nouveau (the New Spirit), built for the Exposition des Art Decoratifs held in Paris in 1925, but torn down the following year. In Bologna they have built a faithful replica based on the original plans in 1977 for the use of study by architecture and design students. It is an exhibitional building: a standardized housing project designed according to Corbu's "purest" manifesto which shapes social habits and philosophy of living spaces rather than following previous social models. While I don't agree with Corbu's "ideal" living standards, and shudder to think of how horrible it would be if he had been able to carry out his plans for an "ideal" city (think of those massive standardized housing projects built in communist Russia), I still appreciate his design skills in being able to build a very inexpensive house made completely out of cement, but still with open spaces which are opened up to the outside world and have a lot of natural sunlight filtering through. My favorite part of the house is a very small outdoor pavilion that has a tree growing in the middle of it, which is poking through a large hole in the cement roof of the pavilion. The only thing I would have changed about this space is to have grown some grass in the ground instead of putting in the cement tiles it has now.

Once again we get back on the bus and head out on a 3 hour plus journey, crossing the Appennine chain again, and enter a small region called Liguria, situated in the narrow strip of land between the mountains and the Mediterranean Sea. Traveling along the "Riviera di Levante," a road that was rediscovered by English travelers, such as the poet P.B. Shelley, I find myself amongst a beautiful landscape, ever changing and never getting old, mountains and hills on my right, coast and sea to my left.

Finally we reach our destination, Varazze, a small, quite coastal town where we will be lodging for the next two nights. After dinner I head outside for a stroll in the cool sea air. Though it is only 9:30 by my watch, the sky is already pitch-black and I only see a couple of other people out and about. The beach is completely deserted, but the moon and the few buildings in town that still have their lights on give me just enough light to walk by, so I go and climb out along this boulder jetty jutting out into the ocean. Shrouded in the darkness, I stand there in quite solitude, absorbing everything around me and contemplating on all the things that had passed before my eyes in the last couple of days. I thank God especially for all the blessings of this life. For being with me everywhere I go, and I pray that He help me to grow in wisdom, understanding, humility, grace and above all, love. Love for friends and enemies alike, love for family and love for strangers on the street. It is love which connects us all and binds us together with a chain 10 times stronger than any act of hate could ever be. Through this love I can feel the presence of all my family and friends standing behind me, keeping me company in this cold, dark landscape in an unwavering wave of love and support. Looking out into the darkness at the vast ocean in front of me, I too am reaching out my hand to all my loved ones back home, sending out all my love and happiness across the seas to reach you, wherever you may be.

Northern Tour- Day 3

2008-09-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

After another night in Siena, we departed early this morning for Firenze (Florence), about an hour and a half away by bus. Firenze is a bustling tourist city absolutely full to the brim with rich, elaborate Renaissance art and arcitecture. Indeed, Firenze is the gem of Tuscany. The city of Medici. The city of the Renaissance. From Giotto to Michelangelo, from Dante to Boccaccio, from Machiavelli to Galileo and Leonardo DaVinci, Firenze gave Italy her greatest artists, writers and scientists and out of her soul was born the whole of humanistic aesthetic. Vasari attributes it all simply to the purity of Tuscan air, which is probably as good an explanation as any.

the Firenze duomo, Santa Maria del Fiore

During our short excursion through Firenze, we go to the Convent of San Marco, which was completed in 1445 for the Dominican monks at the expense of the Medici family, who were wealthy bankers and art patrons. In each cell of the convent there is a different fresco of a devotional image painted by one of the monks who lived there. Though the rooms are roped off to prevent people from entering more than a foot or two into the space, Tom Mills, always the advocate for getting into places for artistic purposes by any means necessary, defiantly goes into the roped off are to sit down and draw his favorite painting. At on point the security guard walks over and peers into the room to see what is going on in there but says nothing about him actually being in there, which just astounds me. I am beginning to see how, in this country at least, artists are regarded with a certain reverence and often are able to gain privileges and access to places that are closed off to the general public. I really like this idea and I wish the concept were a lot more wide-spread, especially in the US where artists struggle to gain any sort of respect for their studies.

Loggia dei Lanzi in the Piazza della Signoria

The last place I stop by to see while in Florence is the Piazza della Signoria, where they put all of including the Perseus; the Rape of the Sabines, Donatello's Judith and these famous sculptures, Holofemes and the copy of Michaelangelo's David, placed in the same location in front of the town hall for which the work was originally intended. Of course, being an art student in Florence, I, as well as a couple of others in my small group, fell it the properly stereotypical thing to do to pull out our sketchbooks and attempt to do some studies of these masterworks. Such a world-famous work as the David can be rather intimidating to even attempt to capture when it is standing right in front of you, and in doing so it is important to accept the fact that your sketches will never be able to do the work justice. Instead, they are meant to be used to study the form and proportions of the body in hopes of gaining an understanding of what it is that gives the David its power and life force. It is rather surprising to note how big his head and hands are in proportion to the rest of his body, which in my mind is an anthropomorphic style meant to symbolize the surety and strength of his hands with a rock and sling, as well as his intelligence and sharpness of mind.

With about a half hour left before we have to meet up with the rest of the group and head off to our next destination, I decide to sit down on the floor of the piazza right in front of the David and continue doing sketch studies, accompanied by Chris, who was working in water colors. Being that there was a constant stream of tourists and large tour groups coming into the piazza, we found ourselves in a rather awkward position to be situated, and if I hadn't had someone else to do it with me, I doubt I would have had the courage to keep it up for very long. It's an interesting feeling when any artist is doing his own work in a public setting such as this. Chris,who has done this a lot more often than I, tells me that he has always felt that whenever he is doing any sort of sketching or painting in public, he feels as if it almost becomes like a performance piece as well. No matter how much you try to ignore the people around you watching and commenting on your work to their friends, you must realize that you are inevitably making a spectacle of yourself, and do your best to try and not let that effect your work. Indeed, the entire time I sat there, already being fairly self-conscious about my rather rough sketchwork, I had to hear tourists behind me making comments (probably not realizing that I speak English and could understand everything they were saying) and it is rather funny that of the few times I turned my head to look around me, I saw people taking pictures of the pair of us working just as much as they were taking pictures of the David statue.

Florence is a beautiful city, and a wonderful place for any artist or art historian to go and study, but it is all together too touristy for my taste. One girl in my group actually lived here for about a year as a painter's apprentice and she says that she never really had to learn any Italian the entire time she was here because the mass of the tourist industry makes it so that all the Italians living here must learn how to speak English for their benefit, which in my mind is a rather sad stae of affairs for the people, the culture and thehistory of this place. At 5:30 we leave Firenze and, crossing the Appenine chain, we reach Bologna, the capital of the Emilia-Romagna region, where we spend the night.

Self Portraits- series #1

2008-09-25T06:42:00.000-07:00

I'm starting a series of self portraits that all represent some aspect of myself

*note*
yes, I did take all these pictures myself, but if you can't tell, all the better

This series I call "Spaghetti Western"

I think this is my favorite picture in this sort series

the name "Spaghetti Western" came from a bunch of western style films that were made in the first half of the 20th century by Italian directors. Often using Italian actors (except for the main "hero" character who had to be American) and filming in parts of Italy that resemble the landscape of the American West. Except for the main American actor, the actors would often say their lines in Italian, and then it would be dubbed over for the American audience.

obviously, I applied different effects to these pictures in order to get a different feel from them. Kind of just playing around to see what sort of stuff I can do with the image to get a different reaction to each one.

for this one, i juxtaposed the image of myself with the images of my bedroom wall, which has pictures of my family and friends, as well as other objects, who are an integral aspect of myself. even though at this point many would hardly recognize the person in the mirror as being me, the wall, in a sense, represents some of the things that got me to where I am today, even though I sometimes cloak these things in a protective, but still fancier, "jacket and hat"

Ok, seriously, enough with the BS "artist's statement." Truth is I just like how the image of myself looks on the wall with all my other pictures, because you almost don't even notice that it's actually looking into a mirror at first, like it could just be a wall poster or something.

Northern Tour- Day 2

2008-09-22T03:45:00.000-07:00

We spent the first night of our tour in a modest hotel in Siena and awoke early this morning for our tour with Ezio. I had been looking forward to this return since we had come here for the Palio in mid-August. This enchanting city has quickly won the hearts of the entire group. According to legend, Siena was settled by Senus, son of Remus, twin brother of Romulus, the mythological founder of Rome. It played a significant role in the history of Italy especially in Medieval times, for its convenient position along the pilgrimage road called Francigena, in the middle of a hilly landscape called Crete. Its buildings and lanscapes, as well as traditions such as the Palio di Siena, are still very much unchanged since Medievel times, and its strong sense of community ties and responsibilities has led to the city being able to boast the lowest crime rates and the lowest drug addiction rates in the entire country. Luckily, since we got to see the Palio a month ago, we were able to see these community ties at their fullest and experience the true spirit of Siena rather than the small glimpse the average tourist take away on any other given day. Thus far, if I were able to choose any place to live in Italy for the rest of my life, it would be a close tie between Siena and some more remote coastal/mountain region.

a small side street in Siena I went to to draw,

it was surprisingly peaceful, the only sounds coming

from small birds chirping above me.

In the late afternoon/evening we had plenty of free time to use as we pleased. After a short nap I ventured out by myself to explore around the town and perhapsdo a little more shopping for special treasures to bring back home to family and friends. After much searching and deliberation with myself I finally picked out 2 beautiful cashmere and silk scarves and a cranberry colored wool fedora hat for myself. Together with my other purchases of the day, as well as what I bought yesterday, I have already spent an alarming amount of money so early in the trip, though I don't regret a single purchase and am rather pleased with my wares.

At night I go out to get something to eat and on the way pass by an old man begging on the street. I am always torn in these situations because I don't really like just giving money to people when I don't really know what they are going to use that money to buy. And though I would really like to help them out in any way I can, I also must realize that I don't have the resources or the money to help every begger I see. I turn back around anyways and go to ask the man (in Italian of course) what he would like to eat, be it some pizza, a sandwich, pasta or something like that. He tells me that he would simply like a piece of some cheese pizza, which I am happy to oblidge, for I was just going to get some myself. I leave him there and go to this pizza place that has some truly excellent pizza that I had tried the night before that is much like the American style pan pizza, only better. I get a slice pizza margherita (cheese with tomato sauce) for him and a slice for me with salami piccante (like pepperoni, but bigger and spicey-er), which wipes me out of all the money I had brought with me for dinner. Heading back, I inevitably get lost amoung the darkened streets and by the time I find my way back to where the man was standing, the pizza is barely still warm. We sit down together on the side of the street to eat our pizza and we talk about life and what I'm doing in Siena and such. I am rather disappointed when I learn that he doesn't much like the pizza I got because he has a hard time digesting the bread of the thicker crust this pizza has on it, though he is still rather pleased that I got it for him and am keeping him some company for dinner. Though I am sorry that I can't do more for him, I am glad to see in his eyes the spark of joy he got from someone reaching out and treating him with dignity and respect. I am sad to think of how much he reminds me of my own poor Granny and Grandpa and the hardships that they have gone through with their living situation. I can only hope and pray that this man finds happiness and blessings for the rest of his life, for surely he doesn't deserve having to endure such pain and hunger living here on the streets, he is just as good a person as you and I.

When I get back to the hotel, I turn on BBC World News and hear of nothing but economic crisis-es sweeping the American, and in turn, World, economy.

Don't I know it.

Northern Tour- Day 1

2008-09-22T01:42:00.000-07:00

Traveling through the hills of Chianti to Siena, I make an attempt to read my book for Art History, but it's impossible. The views I am passing by are just too beautiful to keep my eyes focused on anything else. Here was the second short stop on our Northern Tour. Amoung these lush hills and valleys lies the small town of Greve, which is renowned for being the most important Chianti wine trading center in the world. Annually, they have a wine fair called Rassegna del Chianti Classico with wine-tasting, wine-blessing, and lots of festivities. Today we came just for that reason.

For 10 euro you get a wine glass and 8 samplings of any wine of your choice. Not wanting to drink quite that much wine, I decide instead to observe what other people are drinking and hope to find something special to take back home to the States with me. The first one I try already seems to be a good choice. I swirl around the deep red wine in the glass and observe how the legs form and smoothly drip down, then I stick my nose in the top of the glass and take a deep breath, inhaling the rich aroma of the wine and getting a feel for the make-up of it. Finally, taking a small amount into my mouth, I swish it around a bit and let it settle on my palette before swallowing it down. This one is fairly light, stable, with a hint of fruit and a nice, almost peppery aftertaste. Good for a romantic dinner or a New Year's toast but perhaps too spicey for a late summer/early fall dinner wine. I have found that I actually have a very sensitive palette for these things. Now I will be the first to admit that I don't know a heck of a lot about different wines, but I can still easily detect different flavors and "punctuation marks" (my own term) in the wine that many other people dont really notice. I don't actually drink wine very often,(usually only on special occasions) but perhaps this fact actually increases my sesitivity to all its various flavors, I don't know. One notable wine I tasted today is called "La Futura." It is a very robust, deep red wine that's rather hard to describe in terms of what they put in it. As Tom Mills (a wonderful RISD drawing teacher who is here on sebbatical for the next year and a half) rather aptly put it: "It's like drinking the blood of the cow." And indeed, it really does have an almost bloody taste to it, kind of like eating a rare steak, and just as pricey at 40 euro($60) a bottle. I try other rich wines that are quite good, fruity, but a little dry for my liking, and one which has a rather surprising taste to it that is remakably different than any other red wine I've ever had. I don't quite know how I feel about it and others in my group are quite divided in their likings to it as well, some liking it so much that they purchase a bottle for themselves and others hateing it so much that they grimice and say it's the worst Chianti they've ever had. Another variety, which I had never seen before and am sorry I didn't get the chance to taste for myself, is an bright amber colored wine that is apparently made from honey, though I am told that, while it does have a very strong honey flavor, it isn't actually very sweet like I would have thought it would be. One of the last wines I tasted is also quite good (I only remember that it was a #44 Chianti) and I immediatly got the sense that it was the type of wine that would perfectly complement some fancy pre-dinner bread and cheese. Deciding that this would be a good type to bring home at Christmas time for my family to try, (for surely my Grandparents will be visiting and they never seem to fail in bringing some excellent breads and cheeses for us to try) I set about trying to find a store in town that was selling it. Alas, after searching store after store, including the quite large Greve Museo di Vino, I could not find this particular wine model and I settled on a lesser quality, but still comparable Chianti. I will continue to look for this model elsewhere in hopes of finding a bottle sometime before I leave Italy.

Earlier, we had gone to Cortona, a small town in the moutains just south of Greve, to see the Museo Diocesano, which holds a small collection of paintings, with a few true Renaissance masterpieces. Sadly, this is just one more beautiful little town with a rich history that seems to exist purely through tourism, although they are quite well known for the high quality leather products that come from there, as well as their own special way of curing prosciutto (ham). Before leaving Cortona I stopped by a little antique store where the antique dealer, a nice old man, was more than happy to converse with me about all of his various treasures, and I was happy to further work on my Italian speaking skills since he didn't seem to understand a word of English.

Though it had been drizzling fairly all day, this did not dampen our spirits and the cool moutain air was a welcome reprieve from the heat and humidity we have endured in Rome. Now coming down from Greve, the sun is just peeking out of the coulds and a deep fog is rising from the valley, enhancing depth perception beautifully, while at the same time diffusing light and masking parts of the landscape. As the writer Goeth so nicely puts it: "Even when one object is only a few steps further away than another, the difference in depth is clearly distinguished by a different tint of light blue. . . . I no longer saw Nature, but pictures; it was as if some very skillful painter had applied glaze to secure a proper gradation of tone." Snaking around the hills and valleys of vineyards, these "earth clouds" produce a most enchanting effect, I don't believe I've ever seen anything else quite like it and I hope that it is not the last time I get to enjoy such a sight. It all just takes my breath away.

Una Storia di Villa Pamphilli Park

2008-09-09T06:06:00.000-07:00

We are explorers of the world. Out on a journey of discovery.

Provisions: Lanterns, water, sketchbook, and the ever-present

digital camera/camcorder.

Destination: Adventure.

The park is situated just a couple of miles away. Across the Tiber, through Trastevere, and on top of the 8th hill of Rome. It's quite peaceful up there. The grass is quite dry for lack of rain but the more desertic plants are thriving and keeping it overall, green. Situated at regular intervals along the trail are life-size sculptures of various dignitaries and nobles from yesteryear, though most of them have already been decapitated. Coming upon the grand palazzo, with its piazza of elegantly cut maze hedges, we take a different turn, towards a large fountain which greatly resembles a giant sand sculpture, its walls formed seemingly by dripping wet sand so that each drop freezes where it falls, as well as the sculptures of mythological sea creatures guarding the inner heart of the fountain. This being one of the only dry fountains I have come across in Rome, we step inside to get a closer look.

We can tell that the center part of it is an old well from which the water was probably originally drawn. Peering inside, lo and behold! There is a staircase spiraling down into it! One by one, with lanterns in hand, all 6 of us gingerly climb up and in, disappearing from sight as far as the rest of the world can tell.

The bottom of the well, dark and cool, houses the large pipe once used to bring in

the water, after the well dried up. And the pipe continues on into a deep, narrow tunnel, which seems to absorb all the light emitting from our lanterns, soaked up by an inky darkness. There's no telling where this long forgotten passage underground leads to, or at least where it once led to, for unfortunately, about 50 feet back, though I could hardly see anything at all, the pass came to an abrupt end, only allowing the pipe to continue on.

After the darkness of the well, the sun seems to be beating down on us especially bright and hot, and we yearn for the cool reprise we know awaits us deeper into the park.

Eventually, we come upon it. Another fountain, on the edge of a small cliff, full to the brim this time with remarkably clear, frigid water spewing out the top into a pool abut 4 and a half feet deep, and draining down the center to cascade down the cliff and into a man-made river, which, after going through another series of waterworks and falls, deposits into a large pond, teeming with little red-eared slider turtles, ducks, and even a family of swans.

While others strip down to their underwear and dive into the fountain's pool, I sit on the edge and stick my tired legs and feet into the water, where they soon become numb from the cold. Though not wanting to fully immerse myself, for I had no towel or change of cloths with me, I submitted to the heat and took off my shirt so that I could submerge it in the frigid water and then put it back on my over-heated body. What a sweet reprise it is to have such an effective cooling agent out in nature! The only thing we had to worry about is making sure no park police are around to see us, for swimming in a public fountain, as we were told by another man who had come with his dog (a cocker spaniel named "bimba," which means baby girl) to swim, would land each of us a fine of 200 euro, or about $350.

Afterwards, we went down to the river and, wishing to cross it, decided it would be a good idea to scale across the statues, plants, and waterworks at the head of the river where the water was pouring out. With much care and effort we all managed to get across unscathed (save for a few cuts from large thorny bushes) and without damaging anything.

Moving right along we finally came upon our final destination of the day.

Wild fig trees.

Growing fairly short, with low, wide-spread branches, these trees are very easy to climb and pick their sun-ripened fruit. Soon enough we had gathered a significant pile of the fresh fruit and were trying to find ways to transport them all back home without getting too much of the plant's milky sap everywhere, which tends to irritate the skin.

Crossing through a large field where these unusual Italian trees grow straight and tall, only branching out at the very top, where they always seem to form a perfectly shaped canopy, we exit the park. Promising a happy return later to further explore its outreaches and see what other surprises still lay in store for us to discover, but in the meantime, we sure do have a lot of figs to eat.

Happy trails,

~Rachael

(Photos courtesy of Aiden Vitti, using her Nikon D60)

all of my pictures for you to see

2008-08-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

Just so you all know, I just got a Flickr account to store all my photos onto and so that everyone can see them easily.

The address is: www.flickr.com/photos/rachaelrudnik

I just finished uploading all of my pics from the Palio di Siena, which was AMAZING, so I definitely suggest you check those out.
If you want to save any of the pictures onto your computer all you have to do is click on the thumbnail of the one you want to see, then at the top left hand corner of the bigger picture you click on the icon that says "available sizes", which will give you a larger size, and if you want the original size, which is even bigger than that you just click on that link, which is on the right most side of the "Available sizes" list at the top of the page, then of course to save it you just right click on the image and select "save image to my computer"
hope this helps!

~rachael

So I'll Find a Cave

2008-08-25T05:07:00.000-07:00

The other day I wanted to have some cereal that I had just gotten for dinner, it was Special K with peaches and apricots (do they have that in the states?). Anyways, I put some sugar on it because Special K usually needs at least a little bit of sweetener, and then then I take a bite. Realizing that I just put a mouthful of very salty milk and cereal in my mouth, I immediately run to the sink and spit it out, much to the pleasure of those lucky enough to witness my folly. I couldn't believe it! I had just put a spoonful of salt all over my cereal! The box wasn't labeled clearly enough, for sure, but at least I wont be making that mistake again. Thing is, I had been using that box of salt for the past month thinking that it was sugar! Putting it in tomato sauces and the like to try to bring down the acidity of the tomatoes, when in fact all I was really doing was increasing the iodine. Amazingly, I didn't even notice until this incident that what I was using was salt, I believe there was only one other time that I did that and thought that I had put too much salt in the dish, but in that case, not only did I add the "sugar", but I also gave it a few extra shakes from the salt shaker! LOL. How glorious it is when you realize that you are the most ridiculous person you know! Though I hate to think of how much salt I've actually consumed since I got here. I'll try to take it easy on the salt from now on.

I've been reading a lot about St. Francis lately and feel even more drawn to him than I was before. (pretty much only because I liked those statues of him talking to the birds)
He was devoted to the ideal of "Lady Poverty" and a oneness with the earth and the land, equality with all creatures and everything he considered to have a spirit of its own (i.e. "Brother Sun, Sister Moon") What Grace he had! A pure and simple heart, but an intelligent and humble mind. I hope that someday I too will be able to go out as a poor pilgrim and connect with God in the wilds of his creation. But the land is not as it once was in Francis' time. The wilderness has been mostly tamed, and it would be very difficult to find any significant amount of landscape leftover from what Francis traveled through, so I supposed that if there is any hope for me finding such a place, I'd better look now, before the wilds of Italy become extinct. Who knows? maybe I can even find myself a cave to sleep in while I'm there, just like the cave Francis went to to talk with God!

Not Much to say

2008-08-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

Umm, I dont really have much to say with this one. This past week was pretty regular comparatively, so I'm going to try to make plans to travel somewhere next weekend, havent decided where yet though, there are so many places to choose from. top of the list though are Assisi, Pompeii, Venice, somewhere along the beach, or somewhere in the mountains where I can (hopefully) get back to nature, maybe go camping or something (yes I have a tent, but no sleeping bag) I have been saving my money for far too long and I feel like it's not getting me anywhere to do that so I'm just going to forget about being such a saver and just go out and have some grand ol' adventure.

"Just Because You Love Me" Wish list:
1. Food and a good pair of shoes for all the children of the world
2. a Walcom tablet, or a good sized Bamboo tablet

that is all

Day of the Assumption

2008-08-18T23:16:00.000-07:00

I have been living here for about 3 weeks now and I have only just started to realize how Rome has captured my whole being, just as it does to the millions of people who come here every tourist season. For me at least, Rome is called the eternal city because time doesn't really seem to exist here. There is no on Roman history, but rather many histories, piled one on top of another just like the many layers of plaster and paint upon the walls of the ancient buildings, which seem as though they are all leaning against one another for support. In this place I feel as if I too could just live on forever, with everything staying as it has always been, and me never growing tired of it. One must always approach this city with a sense of adventure, plenty of time to spare, and a good pair of walking shoes. In the maze of these streets it is often best to just forget about a map (for they could never site all of Rome anyways) and just walk wherever the spirit leads you. There is perhaps no better surprise than that which you get by happening upon places such as Campo di Fiore, Porta Portese, the Pantheon, Largo Argentina, the Spanish steps or the Trevi Fountain quite by accident, as if it just appeared out of nowhere, and you begin to feel in your heart that you inherently knew the way all along and were led to these places by some magical force. Trying to plan routes around this place becomes obsolete once you finally realize that the shortest distance from one point to another is not really a straight line, but more of a figure 8. With all the times I've gotten lost in this city I have never once regretted a wrong turn, leading me down a new path of discovery. I hope that my ability to get completely lost in this city never fades, for I means that my time here is still quite young.

In the mornings I wake up just before 7 to unlock the studio doors and prepare myself for the day ahead. I eat a light breakfast in the downstairs kitchen while listening to opera or classical music, relishing in the peace of the morning and the short period of cool fresh air that blows in from the large French windows before the sun gets high and hot. I then go outside for a morning stroll and inevitably find myself gravitating to Campo di Fiore, where there is a fresh fruit and vegetable market every morning. The sizable chunk of watermelon I get for a mere 1,15 euro is perfectly ripened and sweet this time of year, grown in patches just a short distance outside of Rome. Today I walk along the Tiber in Trastevere. Being the 15th of August, which was originally the Feast of Emperor Augustus, but is now celebrated as the the day of the Assumption of Mary, it is a national holiday, which consequently means that the entire city has been deserted and you would be hard-pressed to find a single shop or cafe' open. The only people I pass by are the lonely stragglers and lost tourists, who were left unaware of the day's significance, and now wander aimlessly around searching for some place that has remained open. I come to realize how there really is no need for a watch when walking around, first because there is bound to be a church or basilica nearby which will ring its bells every 15 minutes, and second because such tight schedules should never exist here. The serenity of this place and these people are enough to make even the most time-organized people forget where and when they are, further adding to the timelessness of Rome. Serenity. Yes, that is possibly the best way to describe it. Not just today but every day it can be felt. The Italian word for serenity is serene, which means to be completely contented with one's life and surroundings, no matter the situation. It would seem as though this is the collective mindset of all Roman people, and indeed, it is quite easy to become contented here. I don't have much here, and live quite simply with what I have, but all of those things which are not available to me seem to be luxuries now. I realize that they are quite unnesessary in living a full and beautiful life.
Truly I am blessed, and I pray that you may be blessed as well.
Love,
Rachael

My Independent Study Projects

2008-08-14T02:54:00.000-07:00

Since I have been here I have felt inspired everyday for projects that I want to do during my time here. Before I got here I had been planning on working on product design for people who are blind or visually impaired, but the more that Rome influences me, the more I desire to step away from product design and pursue projects that I, till now, have not been able to experience within the confines of my major.

For the first half of my independent study, I plan on working on combining animation and sound to create a video which shows what a person with complete blindness "sees" while traveling through the streets of Rome using a white cane. Using line, color and sound to represent all of the senses (except sight, of course), I aim to show how we can "see" the beauty and grandeur of Rome, without even using our eyes.

For the second half, once I have had more experience being in Rome, I plan on making either an artist book or an exhibition display. Through the use of tactile representation, I aim to give a kind of "tale" about Rome and it's history. This will be a sort of "sighted guide" guide book, specifically for people with complete vision loss.

This is just a very short, rough trial clip showing the type of animation I could do. Though the final will hopefully look way more refined, and will be richer, visually.

Out of Context

2008-08-13T06:53:00.001-07:00

Word for the day:
Enthusiasm
derived from the latin word "enthios"
"en"-meaning "in" or "with"
and "thios"-meaning "God"
Therefore, when we say we are enthusiastic, it means that we have the spirit of God in us.
I really like this definition. Thank you Ezio for your wisdom.

Today, for our art history tour we went to one of the branches of the Museo Nazional Romano, which is inside of an old power plant. It was quite strange to see these ancient sculptures in this industrial setting.

It makes for a very interesting relation, but I can't help feel that it is not really doing these works any justice by completely separating them from the context that they were made for and putting them in such a foreign environment. I know we couldn't truly get the real feeling for these pieces and it was hard to imagine what sort of world these relics originally belonged to, but I enjoyed it non-the-less, and I was actually somewhat even more interested in all the old machines that still remain in the building.

On another note:
Grapes here are huge! They are seeded, but its really easy to take the seeds out. And so very sweet and purple! what a difference it makes when you have native produce that has been grown in the same region it is sold in the outdoors farmer's markets, instead of being packaged and shipped hundreds, or even thousands of miles to a grocery store.

"Here was Rome indeed at last; and such a Rome as no one can imagine in its full and awful grandeur!" ~Mark Twain

Things change

2008-08-11T03:31:00.000-07:00

But why do they change? That is the question.

Do things really have to change through some force of nature or the pull of the universe, or is it only through the discontented nature of human beings that we will always long for diversity. Shying away from true stability in the interest of "growth" or "adventure." But how much can a plant grow if it keeps on being moved from one garden to another? Truly, it is only when the plant is given a stable home and a permanent place in the ground that it can really take root and thrive, bearing fruit year after year.

What will happen when stability is lost?

If you take out a column from the piazza(house), will the apse and lintel(roof) fall?

Or will the remaining columns be sufficient in holding it?

Surely, the building remains stable, as it has always been, but if you were to look closely you would find cracks and strains, permanent scars on the structure which could not be mended even if the missing column were to be returned to the place it once stood.

Do you get what I am saying here?

You Are Beautiful

2008-08-05T04:55:00.000-07:00

You are beautiful my dear.

I just wanted you to know.

You are beautiful in spirit,

You are beautiful in soul.

Adventurous and bold,

Courteous and kind,

Never one to fret,

You always keep your mind.

Always humble and gracious,

With your love for others showing through,

You never stray from God,

He is everything to you.

And you ask Him for guidance

In everything you do.

For this reason you are blessed,

I pray this always be true.

You are beautiful in body,

You are beautiful in mind.

Your eyes always sparkle,

While your heart always shines.

Your smile and your laughter

Affect all who are near.

For God made you who you are,

And you are beautiful my dear.

Nature and science,

Music and art.

Life is your venture!

Quick to learn and quick to start.

You are beautiful my dear.

I just wanted you to know.

For God made you who you are,

And from you he'll never go.

~Rachael Rudnik

*this poem was written with a couple of people in mind, whom I hold so dear.

I thank God for you, my family, my friends

I wish i had photos for this one

2008-07-31T12:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so my wireless access here is very limited, which is why I'm having such a difficult time uploading pictures and stuff that I take.

I've been meaning to write a whole lot more but I've found it difficult to find a time where I want to be just sitting inside writing, when I could be outside exploring all the magical wonders of this place.

Oddly enough, Rome feels more like home than providence did, Except for all the ancient buildings, of course. Same climate. similar vegetation (I had no idea they had palm trees here!). and of course, a very similar sense of language barrier, especially since Italian and Spanish are quite similar.

I am doing fantastic, so no worries. I start Italian classes on Monday and art history classes on Tuesday, and I haven't even begun to think about working on my project that I'm planning to do, which has changed a bit but is still the same sort of audience, but that will all come in time.

Italy has a much different pace than the US. Everyone seems much more relaxed here. they have more patience (except when it come to driving) and they put their own happiness and their family before work. It seems that because of this, Italians are just much happier overall.

It's nice to lead a very simple life, all this technology and consumerism today just makes things a heck of alot more complicated and really adds very little to ones own quality of life. Encase I haven't told you yet, my new goal is to learn how to play the banjo. I just need to find one first. So far, I have had zero luck finding one in Italy, not that I've actually looked that hard, or even expect to find one here, but wouldn't it be cool if I did?

It's always beautiful in Rome

2008-07-28T22:16:00.000-07:00

Forecast Conditions: Rome, Italy

High °F Low °F Precip.
Chance

Today
Jul 29

Sunny 89° 71° 20%

Wed
Jul 30

Sunny 89° 71° 20%

Thu
Jul 31

Sunny 88° 70° 10%

Fri
Aug 1

Sunny 86° 70° 20%

Sat
Aug 2

Sunny 89° 70° 0%

Sun
Aug 3

Sunny 89° 69° 0%

Mon
Aug 4

Sunny 88° 69° 0%

Tue
Aug 5

Sunny 87° 68° 10%

Wed
Aug 6

Sunny 87° 68° 0%

Thu
Aug 7

Sunny 86° 68° 0%

Last Updated Jul 29, 7:13 AM Local Time

I did not save a life today, but I did the best I could

2008-07-11T15:42:00.000-07:00

Winding along the country road.
Up a hill I walk, the weight on my back and bike to my side a non-hindrance to the beauty of the wooded land around me.

Just as I am about to hop back on the bike for a quick run down the other side of the hill, I notice out of my peripheral a struggle happening just on the other side of the road.
I drop my loads and approach the small male Robin, looking as if it is somehow tethered to the ground, in an eternal struggle to sit upright and fly away.

Ever so gently I gather it up into my arms, carefully checking for injuries. Nothing seems hurt or broken, but the robin, unusually content to be wrapped up in my hands, is twirrping in alarm, occasionally throwing it's head back and looking at me in distress.

I place it gently back onto a soft bed of dried leaves in the woods, hoping for some improvement from its previous state, and walk back to retrieve my things from the side of the road.

But I cannot go.
I hear the poor robin's shrill twirrping and its struggle to get up from where I left it.

It is calling out for help. It is scared about what is happening to it.
I approach it once again.

Convulsions from its small, light body prevents it from getting to its feet, and as it struggles against the seizer wrecking through its body it lunges forward and flips over onto its back, where it chirps and stares at me in distress. it would seem that it is unable to use its feet, but I bend down and reach out to it. With it's mouth stained red from whatever poison berry it had sampled earlier, the Robin grasps onto my finger as it lies there on its side and it seems as if even this small gesture helps to calm its nerves.
Afraid it's going to injure itself in its struggle, I pick it back up and hold it close, preventing the seizer from taking over, while trying to calm the little robin. Not really knowing what else I can do for it, I sit on a rock and just hold it, stroke its back, calm it down. It continues to chirp and twitter, and every once in a while it throws its head back and just stares into my eyes.

I do not know how long i have been sitting here trying to give what little comfort I can to the poor thing. 5 minutes. 10. Maybe more.
This robin is going to die in my arms, I realize, as I sit there on a rock in the woods on the side of a road.

I am dying, he tells me. Thank you for staying with me.

Then the seizers stop. He is calm. His head slowly drops into an eternal rest.
There is no reviving this tired bird's little heart.

I gently fold up its wings and, with its body still warm, lay it down on the earth beneath a large mother Oak deeper into the woods.
I walk back to the side of the road and continue on down the hill, along the long and winding country road, cool and peaceful this time of day.

Coon' Island- day 1

2008-07-10T05:41:00.000-07:00

ok, so here's a excerpt from my memoirs thus far. A few things have been changed from the original version in the interest of internet privacy. Also, I have no experience or training in story writing, so I'm sorry if my story-telling ability kinda sucks.

Coon' Island

The grand escape started out innocently enough.

Stealing out of the house.

Moving South.

Pad Tai for two and one lost shoe later and we were on our way.
Down the highway.

But the clouds overhead had already decided that this would not be made an easy journey for us.

Soon enough the heavens opened up and poured fourth a mighty rain that beat down upon us like a ne'er ceasing native drum. The world was dark save for the flashes of light that streaked across the sky and turned, if only for a moment, the night back to day.

The mighty river washed the world away and we struggled to see what lie just ahead, finding our old guides lost to all sights, instinct and hope was all that was guiding us across the now invisible path. Eventually we came upon the lake and were ferried across to Coon' Island, where the warm cabin lights shining through the night beckoned us in.

I hadn't been to this place since the winter retreat, when the cold winds drove a snowy blizzard across the then frozen lake and drove us all inside to huddle together by the wood stove. The floor was piled high with mattresses, pillows, sleeping bags and blankets upon blankets in lou of a bed. With the frost seeping through every crack in the 100 year old lake house, we spent the short days and long nights singing songs and telling stories in our den while one of the men sat in the rocking chair by the stove and whittled himself a small pipe.

What a difference those few short months had made! Though the sun was already long gone from the sky, a bunch of the guys, dawned in the wetsuits they found drying in the downstairs bedroom, decided to go out for a midnight swim in the lake and play games off the tippy dock. While I myself wasn't so keen on diving into the cold dark water after spending those long hours cooped up n the car, I went out to the boathouse to catch a breath of the cool night night air and soak in the wonderful place that I was blessed enough to find myself in once again.

All was dark on the island.

The storm clouds that had followed us here had all vanished, leaving the moon-less night sky to the power of the stars, which had splattered themselves across the vast black canvas. Through the darkness I could just make out the thick blanket of fog creeping across the lake, rising up like steam off of the water and dissipating into the atmosphere. Over the sound of the water gently lapping up against the dock that wrapped around the boathouse, I could just make out the splashes of water and shouts of laughter coming from my friends attempting to throw each other off the tippy dock in the distance.

Back in the cozy lake house, those who had opted out of the midnight swim were settling in nicely.
A couple of the guys had started a game of chess while the rest of us caught up with all that had gone on in our lives since we last saw each other, silently missing those dear friends who could not make the trip here, but who no-doubt were still doing well wherever they happened to be at the time. It wasn't until the wee small hours of the morning that the house finally grew dark and still, while we all drifted peacefully off to sleep, where I dreamed of beautiful white swans, once frozen, encased in ice with their great wings outstretched in preparation for flight in the icy lake, now thawed and resurrected to grace the sunny island waters once again, and of all the adventures that awaited me in the morning.

my bunny

2008-07-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

so there's thing design that I did for my final in Presentation class., and when I did it, it was pretty much just to show my drawing and rendering abilities, as well as good layout for presenting the idea to a group, and it had very little to do with the design or the idea itself. Never-the-less, my boss at Incase really likes it, and has been telling me that I should get it produced and marketed since I got here. For that to happen, I just need to define all the math and science in the piece (meaning that I need to give orthographic views of everything for an engineer and pattern maker, define all the inner components, joints and electrical components, and give samples of the fabrics)
He thinks that this thing could sell big on QVC, though personally I'd rather see it sold in a store such as Target and Toys R' Us. I've never had any of my designs actually manufactured before, and it seems that I'm having a hard time grasping the fact that I might actually make this dream into a reality. I find that I'm doubting myself and my own ability to make this happen. I will push it as far as it can go, and who knows what will become of it?

What do you think of the design? could you see this being sold in stores nation-wide?

IDSA RISD

2008-06-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

IDSA RISD: CONNECTING STUDENTS AND PROFESSIONALS
Just encase you were interested in what sorts of things go on in Industrial Design at RISD, and around the world.

pre post

2008-06-23T05:40:00.001-07:00

Wow, this weekend was wonderful. I'm sorry that it's over, but it's time to get back to work. I will expound more on this later as I am working on writing a more creative sort of prose about it in my memoirs, which I shall share once they are in a more completed state of being. My muscles are so sore and I have small injuries in many places, but I still feel great having worked muscles that I haven't really used like that in a very long time, and all the injuries I have just add up to one really great story for a weekend.
more on everything later,
Rachael

random post

2008-06-19T13:52:00.000-07:00

I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything.

Lia's house last weekend was great! thanks!
This weekend I'm going on retreat! yay! I'm excited.
time to go swimming in the lake!
God is Great and he has provided me with everything!

but I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye.
I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with every thing

Hopedale

2008-06-04T05:18:00.001-07:00

parting is such sweet sorrow. But I often find that unexpected surprises await me at every new turn in life.
Once again, God has provided for me in magnificent ways. I had been worried about this big move, but I'm actually really comfortable where I am.
The house I'm living in is great because the family treats me like I'm part of the family now the first few days when I wake up for work Jackie has helped me with breakfast, made me a packed lunch and has driven me to work, and she is there waiting for me when I get out of work to take me back to the house where we sit down and all have dinner together. I realize she is just trying to get me used to my schedule and my route before I am on my own, but still, it's just one of those little extra surprises that have made my experience so much better than what it could have been.
there is an awesome swing in the backyard that is really long so you can swing really far out.

Work is also good. I have my own office with a desk and a drafting table, I'm doing pretty much the same sort of work I have been doing at school this past year, except the major difference is that I can stop working at 5 and not have to think about my work for the rest of the day. It's really strange, actually, I always loose track of the time and have the innate urge to keep working through the night like I would have to at school. Could I do this sort of thing for the rest of my life? Probably, yes. But I have higher aspirations than that.

farewell

2008-05-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

The end is coming near, the year is drawing to a close. People are leaving or have already left. Tonight was the last RISD Christian Body meeting of the year, and it was rather bittersweet. Worship and glorifying God is always a joyous occasion, but when you must say goodbye to loved ones who are graduating and moving far away, and I know that it will be 7 months until I myself can come again into this wonderful community, I can’t help but be really sad about it. I love these people. They are my brothers and sisters, best friends and support systems. You can feel the love of God pouring fourth amoungst them and through them. For those who are leaving, they will not be lost and certainly never forgotten. They will live forever in my heart and in my prayers. I am grateful for those who have decided to stay in Providence after graduation, happy that I will see them again next winter. For those traveling far and wide, I shall miss them dearly, but I must remember that this is not goodbye. I will see them again someday, and I must hold fast to that belief. In the meantime, I know that they will go on to do great and wonderful things, they will make a difference in the world and they will continue to touch people's hearts and people lives as they have touched mine. For all of this I am incredibly thankful.

miss you,
Rachael

written on May 20th

crash

2008-05-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

Just as I predicted. I crashed.
After spending night after night working non-stop trying to get all my finals done on time my body just flat out refused to function anymore. My eyes literally could not focus on my work and i was practically falling asleep standing up, or at least I would have been if I had been able to stand up.
I crashed for a good 8 hours and I missed my final for Presentation class. OOPS
theres not much more I can say about that.
But it's not yet over there is still much more to be done and so little time to do it in.
This coming week is going to fly by like crazy, I just know it.
Pray for me. Pray that I get all my stuff packed on time and that I have a place to sleep when i get back after Jeff's graduation. Pray that my job and my housing in Massachusetts all works out splendidly. Only the grace of God can save me now.

loves

Just Keep Swimming

2008-05-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

oi ve, last week was rough, and it doesn't look like its about to get any easier from here on out. I had to pull an all-nighter (only my 3rd of all time, which is still pretty good by RISD standards!) on Wednesday-Thursday to get my packaging model done on time, in my opinion, it turned out looking like crap because the methyl-chloride turns the plastic cloudy white when I needed it to be clear. And then in my crit, they complained that I didn't take enough artistic liberties with the design and that it was not creative enough, which i had already known, but when you're making something that could feasibly go into mass-production then there is a lot more you have to think about than how different it looks or creative it is. I did my research. I knew what was doing probably more than most everyone else, but such knowledge can sometimes be too much of a restriction in the design process. Then Thursday night I started on my exploded-view drawings for Presentation the next day. Most people just got blueprints off the internet, traced them and then colored them in, but I took the time to actually take something apart and draw each individual piece by hand which took me all night and the next morning. I was still drawing by the time class started and so I wasn't even close to being done, while everyone else who traced their shapes had finished their presentation boards long before I. I don't know why I do these things to myself. Maybe I wanted to get more out of it. I think I did in terms of learning how to draw exploded views but in terms of sleep, they definitely got more than me. Friday night I finally slept for a normal amount of time, but when I wonke up on Saturday morning I was quite sick and had to cancel all my commitments for the day. I have 1 more week to finish my metals project and I haven't even started yet, I don't even really know what I am going to do. I'm not too worried about CAD, but my next DP project is redesigning a common gardening tool to make it more ergonomic, so I'm trying to research that. As well as starting on my renderings for Presentation on Friday. I still have a cold, though I'm feeling alot better than I did on Saturday, and I can't really talk very well, but I make do with what I've got.
Wish me luck!

Weather or not You Care

2008-04-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

it's raining, it's pouring
the old man is snoring
he bumped his head and went to bed
and didn't wake up in the morning

hmm. how morbid. it's strange how some of those old nursery rhymes have gotten started. Just think about "Ring Around the Rosie" Children are so cruel, playing the Black Plague off like it was some sort of game. (haha, just kidding)

It's been raining all day. cold. dreary. wet. Typical Providence. Last week was so nice, I heard people saying that they felt like it was going to stay that nice and warm for the rest of the semester. Wishful thinking. If there is one thing you ought to know about Providence weather it's to expect nothing and plan for everything. Growing up I had always heard the typical elementary school rhymes such as "April showers bring May flowers" but I had never understood it because back home it hardly ever rains in April and come May, all the flowers have pretty much bloomed and are dying away due to the extreme heat and drout. Now I see that all those typical rhymes that stereotype the seasons come from New England and therefore should not be used to describe South Texas weather. Perhaps a better rhyme for us would be something like: "Rain and gloom cause ebony trees to bloom" or perhaps better yet: "The much needed rain makes mosquitos go insane, which will cause you great pain, with very little gain" hahaha.

I need a better raincoat. The one I have, while I enjoy wearing it because I like the way it looks, is not actually water proof. Crazy right? Who in their right mind would make a raincoat that's not completely water proof? They call it "water-resistant" which pretty much just means that anything more than a light drizzle or a couple of minutes walking outside and the water will start to soak through the fabric and make me feel cold and damp. I saw a really nice one the the Eddie Baure outlet store during Christmas vacation, but even on sale it was too expensive for my budget, plus they didn't have the right color in my size in stock. I also really need to get a new umbrella. Mine is partially broken, which happened literally the first time I had to use it. plus there are some spots on the cloth from rusting metal and what could very well be the beginnings of mold. Though I probably won't buy a new one until this one is no longer able to keep me fairly dry.

Ever notice how people's attitudes change along with the weather? Everyone is so joyful and cheery on bright and sunny days, but on days like this, simply looking outside seems to cause people to become tired and bitter with the world. Did you know that statistically speaking, there are more car crashes on really beautiful days than at any other time? Apparently it's due to the fact that people become so happy with the world that they get distracted by the clear blue skies and the beauty all around them while driving instead of paying attention to the road. I can see how that would happen. Last week while walking to studio I almost walked right into a tree because I was so enjoying the walk and trying to take in everything around me that I really didn't care where I was going, lol.

happy birthday Sergio!

~Rachael

Pictures of Spring

2008-04-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

Spring has Sprung

2008-04-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

Spring has sprung! last weekend was beautiful! I got to finally spend some time lying in the sun, got a little bit of a tan. It was needed greatly. The flowers are also beautiful!. Daffodils, Lilies, Tulips, even the trees are blooming! The Dogwood trees have lots of while star-shaped flowers all over them, while the cherry blossoms are pink, I have even seen some yellow and purple trees around Prov. I don't know what kind it is, but there is a tree outside my house that has very large rose-like blossoms all over it. No leaves, just flowers. I can finally go outside in shorts and a t-shirt and not be extremely cold. The return of good weather has also meant the
return of the mounted police. I think they are around during the winter, just not as active. I love seeing these massive horses trotting down busy streets all around the downtown area. It reminds me of olden-days, not that I was alive during olden days, haha, but think I would like to go back there anyways.

There is a white swan that likes to swim along the canal. Also to be seen in the canal is the Brown crew team, apparently they are the best in the country, though they don't look like their going THAT fast. There is a man who, dressed in a business suite and carrying a breifcase, rollerblades down the sidewalk in front of my window on his way to work every day. It's a joy to see that. Finals are coming up, though it doesn't really feel like it yet, wish me luck with that. I dont want this year to end. It means that a bunch of very loved friends are graduating and moving away. I truly hope that we will never lose touch, because I will miss them all very much.

Happy Birthday Sarah!
~Rachael

Roads Less Travelled

2008-04-12T16:00:00.000-07:00

Things don't always turn out how we expect them to.

So I got into EHP. . . . .

Yeah, I know.

But I got in for the fall class, something I never even considered a possibility until about a couple days before I got the notice.

I am not yet prepared.

There is so much to do, to think about, to consider before I leave. I have an internship in Massachusetts over the summer with a packaging design company. A well-paying internship, which is something I am desperately in need of as I have suddenly found myself pretty much broke for most of the month.

"Three months," I told them. Well now if I go to Italy that time will be cut down to less than 2 months. I haven't told the company yet.

I was supposed to have a meeting with them last week, but then they had to cancel it at the last minute. So again, I was supposed to have a meeting with them on Friday, but yet again they had to cancel at the last minute. So I'll try to go on Monday, because I'm seriously running out of options and come finals, I won't have any more time to be doing this.
I also need to find a place to live for two months, as close to work as I can get seeing as how I don't have a car to drive.

I never even saw this coming.
When I read my acceptance letter you never would have been able to tell what it said by the look on my face.
Open and ready for whatever fate was to befall me, my first thought was plainly, "OK....What do I do now?" The decisions I had to make were just one more burden to bear.

I set to the task of calling those people who have followed along with me on this journey, unsure as to whether I was delivering good news or bad news. Perhaps it was news of no real meaning or conclusions at the time, but significant news none-the-less.
As of yet I am going about as if I am definitely going.
Why should I not be? This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I would be remiss not to take part. Plus, I can't even imagine telling them that I am turning it down, that I don't want to go live in Italy this year. I might not have a place to live when I come back to school in January, but I do believe that everything will work itself out in due time.

I go where the wind takes me. Not really knowing where it will blow next, but still assured that my final destination will be exactly where I am meant to be, and that I can do many good works along the way. Of course I still worry about how I will live and such things, but I am learning.

Learning to trust God for all that I need.
It's amazing, how thus far everything that I have worried about, prayed about, asked for, has been provided for me, often in really unexpected ways. I often find it hard to pray for my own concerns, since there are so many people in the world in greater need than I, but I have been praying for guidance and reassurance in my plans for the summer, before EHP was even on the horizons. Maybe this is my answer. Sometimes it's hard to recognize where God is leading us. Our own wants and emotions get muddled up in the message, but this is the path that has been set before me. So I must go and follow it to the very end. Who knows? Maybe this could be even better than I ever could have imagined, or maybe it could fail. One thing is for sure, I will certainly learn a lot about the world and about myself along the journey.

Pride

2008-04-01T13:39:00.000-07:00

Rain rain go away
Come again another day
Or don't, whatever

Oh Providence! How your weather perplexes me!
Everyone was looking forward to the forecasted weather for today. The high was supposed to be 60, the warmest it's been probably since early November. Of course, being Providence, the sky decided it would rain today, as if on a whim. At least it's still not very cold. Who knows!?! Maybe it actually IS in the high 50's. It's not like we can really enjoy it. I don't mind the rain, I really don't, but I sure would enjoy the sun peeking it's head out of the clouds for a while. Perhaps long enough for me to be able to wear my new sun dress? No? Ah well, such as life. The time will come soon enough. Soon enough for what!?! HA! Heck if I know.

I've been reading C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity." It's good, very informative and helpful as a sort of guidebook for leading a Christian life and interpreting what the Bible says about how we are to live and act daily, both in our own personal life dealings and in how we view and interact with others. In the chapter I started reading last night, Lewis talks about the worst trait for a Christian to have in their heart. Pride. One of the 7 deadly sins according to the Catholic church, but apparently deadlier than the rest according to many others. Our culture today perhaps doesn't condemn this characteristic nearly as much as it should, in fact, there are many instances that I can think of when we feel that either ourselves or others should be rightfully prideful. Should an athlete not be filled with pride when he is presented with a Gold medal at the Olympics? Should a young child not have pride about accomplishing a big goal? One teacher has told me on numerous occasions that I have done well on one thing or another and should be very proud of myself. Should I? Really? Maybe pride is not the right word. Pleased, perhaps, would be better suited to this situation. Not with myself thinking how wonderful I may or may not be, but with doing something well that makes others happy. I can be pleased that my teacher liked my work, certainly. But when does that cross the line into pridefulness? It's hard to tell sometimes, especially in trying to see that in myself. Sometimes it is so much easier to see faults in others than it is to see faults within your own actions. I try to think back to recent conversations I had with people and I can't help but wonder if I was speaking out of pride for things that I have done, or pleasure from what good things God has worked through me. I certainly hope it was not the former. I certainly didn't mean to sound as if I was boasting about such events, but I am afraid that that's how others could have potentially seen it. Maybe I shouldn't be worried, I know my friends would not think badly of me, but still, I must remember to take a step back sometimes and try to see how I am really acting towards others, or what words I am using to try to communicate clearly to my peers. I realize how important it is to be introspective before I can truly hope to improve my character. Thanks to some really great friends, people I greatly admire and can only hope to emulate, I think that I have made some great strides this year in improving how I interact with and talk to people, in being more of a humble servant to God and to others, and in opening up my heart to try to love more and see goodness in everyone, even those whom I often struggle to get along with. I feel that I still have a ways to go, and there are certainly times when I slip up, but I also must realize that I will never be perfect and that this will be a struggle for me for the rest of my life, but I must keep pressing on towards the goal.

Humbly Yours, I love you all,

~Rachael

Art for Food

2008-03-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

Spring break is nearly over and I am feeling quite refreshed. I stayed in Providence and did art all week long. Now for some, this would seem like a terrible spring break, since I already go to art school such a thing would not really be any sort of break at all. On the contrary, I was able to do art that I haven't been able to do in a very long time. Painting and printmaking and drawing whatever I wanted. No deadlines to worry about, no requirements, and no critiques or competitions with other people's work. It wasn't even like it was art for the sake of art. No, this art had a cause. A purpose in life. To help others less fortunate than myself....... Art for Food. Henrik, being the wonderful person that he is, started this alternative spring break program last year, and they managed to raise a couple thousand dollars all through auctioning off and selling the work that was created during spring break and by works donated to the cause after Spring break. The money was donated to Heifer International, an organization that gives livestock to villages in developing countries. I was more than happy to help Henrik out with this endeavor in any way possible.

At first, we were worried about getting a gallery for the auction night. Apparently the gallery that was used last year was no longer available. Of course, God provided for us in magnificent ways. Within less than a week, 4 other galleries offered their spaces for our use. By the end of the week Henrik had narrowed it down to two choices, both of which we will use to hold gallery nights and auctions. The first gallery night, which we will have in late April to raise money for Heifer Int. is the the beautiful 17 Peck gallery. The owner of this gallery was especially excited to help us out with this apparently because when he was younger his Grandmother had given him a Christmas present of a donation of a couple of chickens to Heifer Int. in his name, and he felt that this was one of the best presents he had ever received. Not only did he offer us the gallery for the night, he also offered to provide us with all the frames for the artwork (he apparently owns a framing store as well), advertising for the event all around the city and to his long list of clientel, and to provide all the wine and food for the gallery night.

The second gallery, which is part of a Methodist church downtown, is a large space that we will use to host a second gallery/auction night in early May to benefit Pali House (pronounced "Polly"). Pali House, named after the Senior in ID who started it, is a house for a small group of teenage girls in Uganda who were former child soldiers and who, though still children themselves, have had children of their own after being raped and beaten in the war. All the money raised from this auction will go to helping to put these girls through school while providing them with safe housing, food, water, and medical care for them and their children.

As well as the galleries, God continued to provide for us and others came forward to help us out. After making an announcement about Art for Food at a Student Alliance meeting, the owner of the RISD Store came up to Henrik and offered to donate art supplies to us. So on Monday, after sharing a wonderful lunch down by the canal, Henrik and I went to the RISD Store to pick up the supplies. Well, the person there told us that we could pretty much pick out whatever we needed, and even took us down to the basement where he showed us a room full of supplies that had some slight water damage. We were able to pick out a bunch of large canvases and rolls of paper, paints and pastels. Later, they delivered all the supplies to us in the Waterman Building, which the Foundations Studies office had allowed us to use for the entire week, including the Nature Lab, plus a bunch more supplies that the owner wanted to give us. We had been given more than enough supplies to last us the week. The manager of the Watermark Cafe' also came by and gave us a box full of huge burritos, which provided us with lunch for almost the entire week. I am so grateful to everyone who came forward to help out. While there was only a few of us who stayed consistently working throughout the week, equally important were those who found out about what we were doing and decided to come and help us out and make art for a couple of hours one day, and those who chose to give their time outside of the studio to make something they could donate to us.

Easter Sunday was different for me this year. I was really excited about it coming, not because of candy or Easter baskets or anything like that. But because it mark the resurrection of our Lord. I greatly looked forward to being able to say "Hallelujah, Christ is risen!... The Lord has risen indeed, Hallelujah!" But this year, for the first time ever, I did not celebrate with an Episcopal church service. I thought about it, but in the end I decided to go to Renaissance Church because I have pledged myself as part of the covenant there and because I did not want to spend Easter alone. It was different because it was less than I expected for an Easter service, though I suppose that I am just used to all the pomp and circumstance of the Episcopal church. I really had no plans for the rest of the day, and was really just expecting to go back home and make myself some lunch and lay around by myself until Sanctuary since my roommate had gone to Boston for the weekend. Well, after church I was invited by a friend (whom I had barely just met) to come to his house and have Easter dinner with his family. 4 other friends from RISD were also going, so I decided to and have fellowship with them. The dinner was wonderful, and so was the company. Though I didn't know anyone in his large extended family, they all made us feel quite welcome there and I felt like I had become part of this family. The spirit in the house was wonderful and I experienced a family togetherness quite unlike any that I had grown up with. Dinner began with a reading from the Bible of the resurrection of Christ and eating a piece of manna with some grape juice in remembrance of him. After dinner the kids took part in an Easter egg hunt all around the house and the older kids (meaning me and my friends) went outside and played soccer. I am really grateful to this family for inviting me into their home and sharing with me the joy of Easter in the Christian community. At 6 we picked up a couple more people from RISD and drove to Sanctuary, which, as always, was the perfect end to another wonderful Sunday.

I am also really grateful that I have been able to spend a lot more time with friends that I barely see once or twice a week during the semester, and we have grown closer because of it. I even finally got to spend some time hanging out with my roommate. In fact, we had the house to ourselves the entire week and we used it to do a lot of cooking, to watch movies in the living room and just have a good time, which is rare for us since I have to spend so much time in the ID studio during the semester, getting back home most nights after she has already fallen asleep. All in all, I feel that even though I was "working" most of the week, I feel more rested and rejuvenated than I would if I had just gone back home to Texas and laid on the couch watching TV all day by myself. I realize that my family missed having me home, as I miss them, but I am still happy I stayed here, and I look forward to what more good works God can provide us with in this project, and seeing how much we will be able to raise for these great causes.

Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done
In this city

I Love you all,
~Rachael

Providence Sunrise

2008-03-16T15:07:00.000-07:00

This state is lyin'
It isn't an island.
It's capitol's tryin'
To be a bigger place.

It's mall is gigantic.
It's paper towels electric.
It's streets are all septic
And fill the river with waste.

The water's on fire,
And terrible drivers
Are spinning there tires
At a big city pace.

To keep it appealing
The streets are all healing.
Named after good feelings
To keep bad ones erased.

Your destination is on the Providence sunrise.
Baaaa.. baaa ba ba..................

Ode to the Nilla

2008-03-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

Nilla wafers are SO good. I can't stop eating them! It's amazing, really, considering how simple they are. A perfect studio snack. But what could make Nilla wafers even better?.........

Chocolate chips? NO

other flavors? Definitely Not

Shapes? Colors? They speak for themselves

No, they are perfect the way they are, and hopefully that will never change.

p.s. Dried apricots and banana chips are also quite delicious and wonderful for those long nights in studio. MMMM......... I need to get me some more of those, I ate all mine.......

My Little Blue Bird

2008-03-11T19:36:00.001-07:00

So I was inspired by some of the poetry that I heard during RCB's performance night, so I decided to try to write some myself, though I'm not very good. Pretty much the only thing I know about writing poetry is trying to make words rhyme, so this is going to be quite juvenile compared to what *you* can do, but oh well, I tried. So this is dedicated to *you.* Thanks for the encouragement.

My Little Blue Bird
I turn the corner, and there you are.
You seem so close, but way too far.
You see so far little blue bird,
Your focus is so clear.
Do you even realize that I am standing near?

My happy little blue bird,
Your colors shine so bright.
Go show them to the world,
And the world shall treat you right

Don't worry little blue bird
Your time is not yet near
One day you will be gone from me,
But you should not have fear.
And If you would come back one day,
I shall be waiting here.

Now go into the wilderness my blue bird.
Explore with all your might.
If you ever lose your way,
God will be your guiding light.
And if you would come back one day
I shall greet you with delight.

I love my little blue bird
I fear it loves me back.
For I may never have this blue bird
And a little bird, I lack.

dreaming of EHP

2008-03-10T16:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm done with my European Honors Program application, I have been for a while actually, and I already turned it in about a week early. I've said that it doesn't matter to me whether or not I get in because theres good things about staying here as well as going. That's a lie.
Truth is I'm really looking forward to going, have been for a long time. In fact, I can't even imagine not going, like my mind doesn't want to accept the fact that there is a chance I won't even get in. I even had a dream about it last night. It was rather strange.

I see my name on this list for new members of the European Honors Program, before they actually tell everybody who got in or not.
a couple days later Julie* finds out that she got in, but Laura* was rejected for some reason.
Julie* tells me that she has already picked out her room in the Cenci in Rome, I wonder why I haven't been asked to do that yet, Julie* says that she didn't see my name on the list of people who got in.
"But I did get in! I saw my name there!"
ok, fine.
they show me pictures of houses in Italy.
"The Cenci is about this big, only less castle-ly"
I fly to Rome with my mom. They drop us off right in front of the Cenci. It is blue, and alot smaller than I expected.
We go to the back of the house where there is a large field and a big colonial-style mansion to the right. I see little creatures running around through the brush that I have never seen before. Italian wildlife, of course.
"I think that's a rabbit over there." as it bounds across the field in front of the mansion, I notice it has rather short ears to be a rabbit.
As it comes closer I see that the animal is in fact a curly-haired cat, which is chasing the little wildlife critters around.

Then I started to wake up and was surprised to find that I was not actually in a grassy field in Italy. What a disappointment.

So I'll find out in about 3 weeks whether I got in or not. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the time being.

*names may or may not be real people, I don't know, it was a pretty weird dream.

The first of hopefully many

2008-03-07T13:49:00.000-08:00

THEY ARE TEACHING US HOW TO COLOR!!!
This is like every little kid's dream. I never could have imagined that this is what I would be doing when I got older and went to college. It's sort of surreal when I think about what I am doing here every day and what I will be doing in the future, compared to traditional liberal arts college students.

And yet......... I'm still killing myself working so much.

No free time for me.

I have no more laundry to wear and I have been wearing the same grimy pants for the past week and they are literally tearing apart. If I had a free day I would go to the park and lay in the sun for a while. I have also been meaning to go grocery shopping, not so much for myself but so that I can have some good food to make for my friends. weird right? Well I guess the way I see it is that as long as the people I love and care about are happy, than I'm happy, and if I can somehow be the cause of their happiness so much the better.

Spring is coming and it is glorious, I love feeling the sun lightly upon my back, and hearing all the twittering birds that have come back home from from warmer places. God is shinning His blessings upon every morning of the spring, promising a fresh start, new beginnings and rebirth, not only for all of nature but also for my own soul and spirit. It's too bad I don't get to see how the rest of the day usually turns out, as I am to be found in the studio, working away towards some unforeseen goal. Sometimes I just find myself staring out the window towards the murky canal, nevertheless glittering in the sunshine.

Mid-day the sun beats down through the window panes and the bright warmth soaks into my skin. I become drowzy as my body is reminded of better days back home when I had the luxury of coming home from school and just sitting outside under the sun with my dog, watching my garden grow as a slight cool breeze stirs the air.

As the day wears on a cold wind blows and grey clouds cover the sky.

Still I am working.

People ask me how I do it, how I manage to stay so calm in the chaos of looming deadlines, working seemingly without rest . "Only by the grace of God." I tell them. I have a prayer taped to the bottom of my desk drawer, and periodically pull it out when I am in need of a reminder as to why I am there and what I am ultimately working towards. Every day is a new day and I just keep pressing on. This past week has been a no-eat, no-sleep kind of week, but the weekend promises to regain a least a little of what I have lost.

Philippeans 3:13 says that "I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has mad me his own." Indeed, Christ has made me his own, and in doing so he has given me new life, and I am fulfilled by him. It is for Him that my work comes to a halt, and I leave the studio. Forget about food, for Christ nurishes me and I am filled with the Lord. Forget about sleep, for God grants me peace and my heart rests in Him. No, I must not stay for my Lord is calling me forth to come and be in His presence. So I must give over everything to Hime, for what more do I have? I would sacrifice everything to Him, but still it could not compare to what He has sacrificed for us. I don't believe that God asks much of me compared to what I have gotten in return.

The sun is gone from the sky now and there is only an inky darkness overhead. The moon and the stars are hidden by the smog of city life and clouds attempting to hold back their rain, but my soul is filled with His brightness, and His light makes all things beautiful.

Goodnight