Classes and food and money and Neil Gaiman and other extracurriculars.

Good morning; I just woke up. Naps are pleasant and refreshing, and should be taken at least twice a week.

It's bizarre. I love sculpting - always have - but I have severely mixed feelings about my sculpture class. While I'm not there I dread going, doing the homework, sitting through the six hours. But when I'm actually there, I love it (most of the time). Sculpting has always been my element. I think now things are evening out more for me, which is good! I've never loved drawing more, and I hadn't tried graphic design until my digital imaging class, and I can definitely see myself animating for a career. I guess I'm just not really getting anywhere with sculpture, so that's why it's not exciting for me. I still love it, though. Part of the current project we're working on involved sculpting an object in earthenware. I chose my hand. Professor Baron told me privately that if it had been anyone else, he would have suggested something else. He knows, as I do now, that sculpting hands is fucking difficult. But it's so satisfying when you get it right.

My wavering dislike for the class probably is the result of a heavy schedule. It's on Thursdays in a building half an hour's walk away from my dorm room, and most of the time I find myself carrying sculptures back and forth. So it's probably not the class's fault in itself.

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I'm getting sick of pizza. I really need to go grocery shopping, get some vegetables and meat and cook a real meal for myself. The pizza is cheap and good and right next door and comes with a free can of soda, but I find myself craving something genuine. I will buy food tomorrow after class, or some time tonight.

It's funny how being here messes up my eating schedule; I don't really have one anymore. The thing that is most certain is that on Wednesdays and Thursdays I will have breakfast, as long as I'm not late for class - there's a Starbucks right across from the building, and their multigrain bagels are convenient and have raisins and sunflower seeds and grainy bits in them, which I like, and the girls behind the counter recognize me. Breakfast on other days is iffy, and usually skipped just because I'm not hungry before I get into class. Lunch is whatever I can get my hands on (though I need to buy some bread and meat and cheese and lettuce for sandwiches, because chicken fingers and Subway are getting on my nerves), and dinner is something I cook or something I buy, and usually takes place some time between nine in the evening and two in the morning. On Saturdays I usually go to Flushing to have dim sum with my mom's parents and her brother's family, and then they buy me some yummy Chinese pastries from the greatest bakery ever, and these last me several meals.

I just ate a Snickers, one of those 'fun size' things. I don't know what's so fun about them.

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So I just found out that the reason why Neil Gaiman was in China this past..weeks, or something, is that he's researching for a new book! Which makes me very happy indeed. Well, okay. I knew a while before today that it was for a book, because Amanda Palmer's tweets told me so. (I love her. I love how they both blog and are both on Twitter, so I can read their thoughts. It's cool.) But I just found out what he is writing about. Sun Wu Kong, the Monkey King, is amazing and kicks ass. I don't know that much Chinese folklore, but I know him. Apparently Neil Gaiman is also writing a nonfiction book about China. Which is also very cool.

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SVA had a drama club until a few years ago, when everyone who cared about it graduated. My friends and I have started a new one. I'm treasurer; Danny, one of my classmates, is president and director. I wanted to be a part of it to help organize and support it. We have an amazing group of people, all fun and fantastic. Some of them are really good actors. Our first play, for which we held auditions last Wednesday, is Dog Sees God. It's a really fucked-up version of Peanuts; the characters are grown and in high school, and everyone has problems. I was extremely hesitant when Danny first told me about it, and when I started reading the script, but it's really a very good play. It's a small cast, four guys and four girls, and casting was easy, seeing as four guys and five girls tried out. Danny and the co-director, Mike, were two of the people auditioning, so I also sat in as another opinion, and a female voice during cold readings.

I really like this club. I cannot get on stage because of my insecurities, my lack of self-confidence and my poor self-image and I don't even know what; the excuse I give is stage fright, and I guess it's also that. But the readings were fun, and last night we did improv exercises. The group right now consists of maybe fifteen people, and we keep getting more each week. Mike, who led the activities, wouldn't let me sit out and just watch. I'm glad and grateful that he didn't. It was nerve-wracking but ridiculously entertaining, and I didn't freeze like I thought I would. I still don't want to get on stage in front of a bunch of people - I had vaguely considered auditioning for the play, but didn't in the end - but I'm really happy I'm a part of the group. I'm excited for next week.

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There's this guy I know, and I haven't seen him in a while, and I won't see him for a while more, and I miss him.

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I got a brand-new-shiny Macbook yesterday, my prize for winning SVA's Halloween party's costume contest. Well, technically I came in second, but the guy who won doesn't go here, so he was disqualified. I should post photos of my costume; I was Judith, one of the monsters from Where the Wild Things Are (which is a beautiful movie that everyone should see at least once). I will probably sell it. I'll try eBay, or maybe someone around here will buy it off me. TM, my drawing teacher, says that he'd buy it, but for a greatly reduced price. I mean, I don't blame him, they're really expensive. But I want money. We'll see.

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My Friday class is computer animation, from two in the afternoon to seven in the evening. Most of the time I start my homework Friday evenings and finish it up the next Friday in the morning. (That's usually why I don't eat lunch on Fridays until four; I go to the lab and work, telling myself that I'll go down to Moe's Cafe in the basement if I finish with enough time before class, and then I get caught up in the details and have to work extra time to make it as perfect as I possibly can, and then it's time for class. But it's alright, because the important thing is that my animations look nice, and Eric gives us a break at four for food.) That means that I don't have anything to do tonight. Perhaps I will write something and perhaps I will sculpt something and perhaps I will draw something, or perhaps I will do a bit of each. Perhaps I'll even practice piano, which I haven't really done for real in over a year now. (Playing in bits and pieces out of my Dresden Dolls book and then accidentally breaking my keyboard and not being able to play it until going home a month later and getting my dad to fix it and then playing in bits and pieces again doesn't count. I gotta sit down and actually learn something.) Ta.

Perhaps productive,
Olivia