Extravaganza!!!

Hm...I've decided to post some of the working's in my sketches on here. I've noticed that I don't really discuss my art much even though it is a huge part of my life now as I work towards my degree in Illustration.

It's only *slightly* important.

Here goes!

Pastel Self Portrait for Heads, Hands and Facial.

*I look so bored!*

Portfolio Collage I did for a song I like.

"Bleed American"

Current Sketches:

Cartoon CharacterSketch for a Comic Strip Panel Project

Bunny! Sketch for Black and White Clayboard Project.

(i should add fangs no? make it a monty python reference?)

Poster I created to promote a Stargate show about Ancients (like that'd ever happen).

Photoshop!

PHOTOSHOP MADNESS:

And just for kicks, an OLD color pencil drawing I did back in high school. :-P

Love Redux

Well, it's just plain strange when these moments occur.

I am talking of course, about those moments where the lines start to blur and you start to question if this is appropriate or not based on the relationships you have with that person.

It started out as a normal fun dinner/tv night in my dorm room that ended in us pinning each other down on the roomie's bed, sweating, panting and practically pressed to each other. Normally, I'd enjoy this as a regular bout of wrestling but this was with my ex-boyfriend. My most recent ex that is going to college with me and I still find myself having feelings for. The problem is I have no idea where I stand with him. He's the king of mixed messages between not saying anything in terms of how he feels about me most of the time, being distant, being like a friend and then turning around 180 degrees, which means him hugging me, telling me he loves me, and what not. There's no kissing, no actual physical show that he would have feelings for me other than the "i love you's" and hugging. Oh, and let's not forget the ass slapping.

It's just I don't know what to make of it and it was no more apparent that I still felt something towards him when we were staring at each other after having wrestled for some time and we were trying to regain our breath. It was so intimate that I was caught off guard. He hesitated too but it could just be me.

Regardless, the lines need to be redrawn, in some way, shape or form because I cannot go on like this. This constant game of affection, of crossing these borders because how can I move on or how can he expect me to move on when I'm constantly being sucked right back in?

I just wish I knew if he was doing it intentionally or not.

Ugh. Men.

"As the city is my witness, I am who I want to be"

It's the start of a new college for me.

I've officially moved to Rochester to begin my new life as a full time student at RIT, home of the Tiger. *rawr*

So far, it's been an interesting experience, one full of emotional highs but I am enjoying the ride. I've been trying to immerge myself into the campus experience and sure, it was hard the other night when I didn't know where I fit in but I cannot let it stop me.

I feel like I do not belong in any group. I'm not either entirely Deaf or entirely Hearing. I'm a "bastardization" of the Deaf individual. I depend entirely on my hearing aids to hear and they restore up to 80% of my hearing and I was raised to learn how to hear and communicate verbally. I cannot imagine a world without music, speech and sound, which is ironic. As a result, the purely Deaf community on campus is a little leery of me because most of them were raised to embrace their cultural difference and that being "forced" to hear (like I was) is a horrible thing to do to a child. On the other end of the spectrum, I'm not entirely like those that can hear 100%. I can relate them to much much more and they are who make up most of my friends. As a result, I fall in the middle and I'm really learning how to deal with this at the college where there is this huge division between the Deaf and Hearing.

I'm proud to say that I can hear, speak, sing, play music and communicate verbally because to me, being hearing impaired was just something to overcome. It is inherently a part of me; a part I will never lose sight of but it does not define me.

So, I am trying to keep an open and positive outlook going which will only help me reassure and define my own identity as I attend RIT.

I am definitely very excited because I am determined to not let myself limit what I feel I can or cannot do, such as certain clubs or activities I'd love to do.

We had a Club/Activities Fair on campus today and I signed up for my two passions in life:

*The RIT College Radio and learn how to become a DJ.

* The RIT Players. It's a theater group.

I've always wanted to be involved in the college music scene and I thought what better time than now to try my hand at it? The people from the radio said I had the voice and personality for it and that if I can finish the DJ training sessions, I'd be more than welcome to be a part of the radio crew. I cannot wait to see what they entail. Music, people, and talking are some of my favorite things in life.

As far as the theater goes, I've always had a love for the theater. In the past, I've always held myself back from being involved in the whole theater group because I felt that with my hearing, I wouldn't be able to give 100% of myself in a performance. However, I've gotten two theater classes under my belt and I feel more confident. Also, I'm interested in the production that goes into putting on a show such as the Directing, Costuming, Producing, Lighting, Set Design, etc.

Who knows? I might end up just committing to one club and being amazingly happy at it but how will I know if I don't at least TRY?

Once again, here's a virtual toast to my new life at RIT!

Zach Attack!!

This is Zachary Thomas.

My friend Kim's baby boy. He's approaching 9 months and getting the cuter ever still.

Thought it would be fun to see how he would look wearing my ex-boyfriend's glasses.

Adorable!

"say hello to good times"

Good Grief!

I had been absolutely locked out of my blog for quite some time. I'm glad to be back and able to rant/rave/babble online once again.

Life hasn't changed quite so dramatically since I last updated. It's just been a hazy, warm experience for the last two months with a few spurts of activity worth mentioning. That's pretty much how summers go. Overtly uneventful with rare but memorable occasions that you (if you're anything like me) make sure to capture on your camera or cell and then update them online to your social accounts because you want to make sure the whole world can see what a blast you are having. HAH!

It's been the usual gamut of emotions. All of the fun highs and lows. Oh joy!

But I am overdramatizing. It's been a great summer and I'm sad to see it come to a close so quickly. It truly does not seem so long ago that I was driving down an interstate in April, enjoying a warm sunny day, thinking, "Man. I cannot wait for summer to come." Now, 4 months later, it's almost gone! All of those plans, vacations, trips and hours of work have all come and gone.

Ironically, it's now, as the very last wisps of summer are coming, that the days are finally hot enough to bask in the sun, go swimming and feel as if you were truly in the midst of the season. It had been so cold and rainy for the last few months. Unseasonably so!

I will miss all of the fun and stressful opportunities that summer provided me with but I would be lying if I said I was not looking forward to the fall. I start at a new college and finally, I feel as if I am nearing that much nearer to my goals of finishing my education. It's been a long 4 years and I've got 2 more years to go but it feels attainable now. Not just a fartsy dream.

I remember thinking most of this summer that I was upset to not have anyone in my life, romantically, but now as the fall draws ever close, I am glad I did not meet anyone. I want to have the opportunity to start fresh at college and get to know new people and maybe, if the circumstances call for it, meet someone (whether they be from my past, present or future).

So, let's sit back in our plastic chairs, watch the fireflies blinking in the night sky and raise a chilled toast to the season of summer: You were a good friend and I loved all of our good and bad moments. I will miss you like an old friend, (the kind that you always remember fondly but never too clearly) but here is to the Fall and to a new chapter of this year!

Bleeding Hearts

I've always wondered why these flowers had the kickname of "Bleeding Hearts." Does it come from its obvious physical resemblance to a bleeding heart (the most likely explanation) or did some forlorn woman look at the plant and see her own heart manifesting itself in the flowers? Her own heart "bleeding" from the heavy sharp wounds of love and pain. Perhaps it is a Victorian sentiment but an intriquing one nonetheless.

The downward curve of the flower indicated an almost weary expression of life. The heart growing heavy and no longer light. Then as if to further excerbate its "death" the flower buds spill open on the bottom, the contents of the "heart" exposed for all of the world to see. It is a heart that has been wounded and bleeding, all of its inner feelings, desires, and pain tumbling out. There is nothing left for it to all hold together and one by the one, each flower splits open and the plant itself becomes the perfect botanical representation of the most basic and powerful human emotions: love and loss.

All in all, the little, "Jane Eyre" book educated girl inside of me, will still look at this flower and wonder with a wistful sight, "If only....if only."

Her own bleeding heart carefully concealed.

Check please?

I never realized that being single would ultimately define me until I realized in the midst of driving listening to a song on my mp3 player that I was wishing I could share the music with someone else. How sad is it that your own happiness, which should be derived from your sole pleasure in the enjoyment of your favorite songs, movies, television shows, etc, becomes obsolete until you gain the opportunity to share it with someone else?

Granted, my emotions have been all over the place as of late and I am working on a step by step program to get it all straightened out or at least, rationalized. Yet, I cannot obsessing on the fact that there are so much I cannot have or know I should not have because of circumstances beyond my control. My mind is just overrun with these thoughts about people, I love, loved or would like to love and I cannot make it stop. It's a constant soap opera running through my brain, and not even a good soap opera (but really, are they all really any good?).

The definition of who I am has just become such a faint shadow of what it used to be that I'm constantly running around trying to fill it in with a marker and make it darker, more solid and more me. Independent.

I am failing miserably. I hate emotions and I hate men. I don't even think it's men in general. If I were gay, I'd be hating the women. It's just the gender of the sex I'm attracted to that I hate. Yet, I love them so much that it's a constant source of my aggravation. It's like that splinter that just got embedded under the skin on your palm. You'll forget about it for awhile, go about your way and then you'll slam your hand just a little too hard on that table and it'll sting. It will come back and aggravate you.

Well, there is this one particular "splinter" that I just cannot get out from under my skin and it keeps stinging everyday, as if it were a fresh wound. I should not even be feeling this intense about this person. It defies all logic and reasoning. By all rights and accounts, I should be able to just forget this person and move on with my life. There is nothing connecting me to this person that would make me always think of them. The strand that connects us is like a fishline. Thin and flexible when it needs to be but too hard for me to really break, as much as I may want to.
This person haunts my dreams and if I allow myself to dwell on this person, I will smile for a second at the brief flash of memory. It would be an image, a word, a smile, a moment in time and I will smile but then I will look around, see where I am in my life and it will just all come crashing down on me.
I love that person but I also hate that person with every fiber of my being because I hate what it is doing to me and I just want to go see them even if its just to torture myself. I would gladly allow myself to be tortured just for the sake of a minute of happiness.

A house of cards. Each suit representing a facet of my personality. All precariously perched upon each other and awaiting that gust of wind to just knock them all over into a red, white and black mess.

Like I've said to some other people in the past, I need the "I'm a Mess" pin.