Want to Read:
“Soul Pancake” by Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office) and “The Portable Atheist” by Christopher Hitchens which I bought for my birthday, but haven’t had a chance to delve into yet. I’m trying to finish the above two first.

T.V. Show Worth Watching: How I Met Your Mother because it’s amazing. I can’t wait for it to come back next week. It’s been particularly exciting this season, though I recommend watching it from Season 1 (it’s currently in 5). Don’t worry, it’s good enough that you’ll zoom through pretty quickly.

Movie I’ve Seen (in or out of the theater): Cashback was  surprisingly good.

In My Ears: Scala & Kolacny Brothers, they did this song used in The Social Network movie trailer. Also Ludovico Einaudi (awesome and chill piano music. And last but definitely not least, Jónsi the solo act of the lead singer from Sigur Rós. So gorgeous. By the way, I like really chill and beautiful music, especially the kind I can sing to. So there.

Items of Note: It was my BIRTHDAY on Tuesday. There was an awesome snowstorm that resulted in a snow day on Wednesday where I spent the whole time recovering from a cold. I’m feeling better now, but I wish I had time to o play out in the snow. I tuned 21, but I haven’t been able to go buy a drink yet because of the snow and being sick, but I’m okay with it. I’ve got drinking plans this weekend.

What I’m Looking Forward To Next This Month: Being able to go out for drinks with friends!! Finally! Also, I got a proposal accepted for an art exhibit… and my bedroom at my parent’s house is getting new paint and carpeting! That should be pretty. Then I get to decorate and accessorize! So fun. Now I just need my own house to put my stuff in and start all my entrepreneurial business ideas that have been so far impractical to do in a college apartment.

Today’s format brought to you by Piper of Love from Blithe Revival, (one of my favorite blogs), who stole it from Megan at http://www.sortacrunchy.net. Feel free to use!

It feels like the start to an AA meeting, but I have no shame here. Quite the opposite in fact. I am so much happier in my beliefs and I feel like I know myself better. I also have a new community of friends through Center for Inquiry on campus who are also non-religious whom I can talk with freely without worrying about offending them, or being as sensitive to their views as I do with those who are religious. It’s a great relief, and I am grateful to have that support system, since losing religion means you lose a lot of friends and you lose a big built-in community.

To be clear, I don’t condemn anyone who is religious, but I find that I cannot believe in the supernatural, god or gods, divinity, life after death, without empirical and scientific evidence. That isn’t to say it’s an absolute impossibility, just that it’s very unlikely. On the other hand, I would like to encourage other atheists, agnostics, to come out and help our community to grow. The stigma is that we are all angry people who hate religion and don’t have morals. I would like to help break that idea, since we generally do have morals, we don’t hate religion, and some of us are actually pretty nice.

If you have any questions for me regarding this further, please leave comments or send me a message. I’d love to hear what others think.

Thanks to @ellejohara and Jen McCreight of BlagHag boobquake fame for inspiration.

Other than that concern, my winter break has been pretty chill. Quite boring, but I’m not complaining. I’ve been sleeping in until noon, and playing the Sims 3 long into the night and being waaaay lazy. This is in preparation for what is to be another very busy semester with 13 class credits, 16 hr/week job, homework, sleep, and social life, not in that order.

That concludes my life for the past three weeks. Classes start on Monday, and I am pretty excited. Dreading the stress, but otherwise excited. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year! Cheers!

I’ll leave you with some giggles. I love me  some Josh Groban humor.

To make up for my absence, here’s a photo of my big stressful final project for my Image Studio class this semester. This was the thing that had been stressing me out for weeks recently. Here’s a little excerpt of my accompanying Artist’s Statement explaining the reason for doing this for my final project which was an open do-what-you-want project with no assignment or goal given by the professor:

“Discovering one’s personal identity is a continuous process, but lately I’ve come to a newer understanding of myself. I’ve gained a confidence and knowledge of myself that I haven’t had before. So for this project, I’ve explored my identity and arrived at a few statements that I feel I can say with confidence and truth which I didn’t necessarily have a full command of a few months earlier.” ~Ellen Lundgren

That’s right! I will be joining the student workforce! I start Monday in a web and graphics position. Wish me luck!

I have been back in the States for a week now, sleeping and recovering from my time away from home. I have to say, it was all utterly amazing and I hope to go back again someday. For the next couple days to weeks, this will be transformed into my temporary travel blog that will detail each week of adventure for your enjoyment and my own archiving. I hope you enjoy living vicariously through me for a little while.

(Photo taken while flying over Lake Michigan. Water is lower half, sky is upper half. Just amazing.)

I’m spending one month in Kingston-upon-Thames, (a suburb of London) at Kingston University studying British Culture at the university, and Art in London in the city with faculty coming with me and the other ~15 art students. That basically means I’ll be gallery and museum hopping, and sightseeing for a whole month. Yay!

After that, I’m saying goodbye to the group, and heading on to the European mainland on my own to backpack through 5 countries in two weeks. The plan is Paris, France; Arles, France; Milan, Italy; Zurich, Switzerland; and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. I don’t have a whole lot planned other than that. Just lots of train rides and city experience. My hope is to come back with notebooks brimming with inspiration, that I will post much of to my blog here. So look out for my return, granted that no more volcanoes or oil rigs explode. Though an extended stay in Europe wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to me.

So be on the lookout for tons of pics and journals when I get back! Adios for now!

So perhaps my proudest achievement is tackling my mom’s sewing machine. The last couple times I tried to use this thing, I felt like I had to fight it and I just ended up frustrated and swearing at an inanimate object. It’s been a few years, so I thought I’d try a relationship with the sewing machine again. And whaddya know?! We get along!! Mostly…. There are still a few rough patches, but with a little practice, the help of the instruction manual, and occasionally calling in my mother for an emergency rescue, I’ve completed several projects! What do you think?

Camera Case

SD Card Case

I believe in the importance of protecting out natural resources. I’ve always been a tree-hugger of sorts. I even gave $30 of my own money once in 4th grade to save an acre of the Amazon Rainforest. I was so proud, I was even allowed to do a special class report on it. Whether that acre of rainforest was actually saved, it’s hard  to tell. But I’m inspired by this initiative, I just might go out and plant a second tree on my own.

I only have two issues that keep me from starting now. One is that I don’t have the time or space to do any major projects. I have classes and homework to keep up on if I’m going to graduate in three years. (Yes, I’m going to be in college for five years total… stupid requirements.) The other issue is, I don’t have a steady address near a post office, and that is basically essential when running an online business where you need to send customers a product. If I lived at my parent’s house, that would be possible, since we live quite literally, two blocks from the post office. But I’m at college, where I change apartments once or twice each year, and tiny college apartments are not easy to work out of, trust me. Especially when you have to share that tiny apartment with a roommate.

Still, I love Etsy. I’ve found so many great things, made my first purchase, and met some great people as well. I love the seller’s attitudes on Etsy. They have a passion for what they do, and all things handmade, and love to support their community of artists and crafters. Hopefully I’ll be able to be a part of that someday as well. I mean, it’s making me contemplate dropping out of college. If that’s any indicator of my passion, I will have a shop someday! Haha!