The Contributor

This newspaper is doing great things.  If you see a vendor on the streets, pull over and get a paper ($1).  Maybe even learn their names and ask how they are doing.  This is Renee.

(old photo, shot with Justin Wright's camera)

Preview: Haley

It's kind of sad that when I find out I have to answer an interview question on my intellectual life, I have to look up the meaning of intellectualism in the dictionary, google it, and wiki it.  Clearly, my intellectual life is not thriving.   

So right now, I am sitting on my sister's couch in Culver City, trying to make some last minute preparations for my interview in a couple hours.  I'm not really sure how I got invited to this scholarship weekend in the first place, so I guess I will really need to stand out at my interview, because there's no way it's because of my stats.  It's weird how much weight thirty minutes of your life can hold.

This is Haley, the current Miss Nashville.  We danced together for a couple years, and then didn't see each other for another couple of years.  I wish I was her in the picture right now.

Dinnertime!

Superbowl Sunday

     Jimmy told me to put the camera away and push him on the swing some more.  Annie wouldn't even let me take pictures of her (as you can see), and kept nagging me to jump on the trampoline so they would bounce really high.  Bobby was the only one who happily said "cheese" when I pulled my camera out, but of course got bored by the time I pointed it at him.  Clearly my camera is not very popular around these kids, but with their adorable faces, I just couldn't help myself.  I wasn’t going to make a full post of these images, but I just love these kids too much not to.  Enjoy.

Leaving.

I read a lot of blogs.  Most of them involve pictures.  Donald Miller's doesn't.  I still read it.

"And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.

I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."  

— Donald Miller (Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road)

Southwest.

I bought my plane ticket to LA the other day.  I'm going in less than a month!  Quite possibly my favorite city in the US (that I've been to).  Sadly, I'll be spending most of my time at a college there, but hopefully we can squeeze in some Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, attend Reality LA, and of course, spend some quality time with the big sis.

Want to purchase a print? Click here.

On another note, I am hopefully going to be making some very big (and very costly) changes to my "business" soon that I'm really excited about!  I'll keep you all updated.

I Need More of This

...please snow please snow please snow.

Wise Ol' Dumbledore

"A word of caution: dementors are vicious creatures. They will not distinguish between the one they hunt and the one who gets in their way. Therefore I must warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. It's not in the nature of a dementor to be forgiving. But you know happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light."

-Professor Dumbledore

It's been two days and school is already quickly sucking my soul away.  Like a dementor.  Vicious.  Half of my waking hours are spent as if I am Imperiused...if only I could blame it on that.  My first grade of the new semester was a whopping 60.  Good predictor on what the rest of the year will be like..

Well it is now 8:40pm.  I'm sitting on my bed listening to Kanye West (not my usual, don't worry) and sipping water from my Butterbeer souvenir cup, about to start on homework.  And even though I don't understand anything I'm doing in any of my subjects and am well into my senior slide, I am determined to take Dumbledore's advice and remember to "turn on the light."  Especially because it's one of my goals.  Anyway, there's only ninety school days left, and hopefully at the end of it, I will be on my way to one of the following cities:

Los Angeles

New York

Washington D.C.

Btw, got some awesome prints and things in the mail today from my kind friend Wesley Kirk.  Highlight of my day.

Cate: Part I

Today I had to write down the date.  12....oh wait.  

So I slyly inserted a dash between the two numbers and reluctantly added "/11."  I'm always a little reluctant to accept a new year.  Instead of being optimistic, my feelings tend to resonate more with Switchfoot's song "The Blues."  But alas, I cannot deny the obvious.

It's interesting to me how every day is a new day and the transition from 12/31/__ to 1/1/__ is no different, but somehow the new year is so hyped up that we are all tricked into believing that this is when we change.  Last year is in the past and January 1 is the start of a clean slate.  So we make resolutions, we make promises to ourselves most of us never keep, we believe, if just for a little while, that we can be better.

I guess it's a good thing, really.  So I told myself I wouldn't do this but since when did I listen to myself anyway?

A couple of my new year's resolution a day late:

- challenge myself.

- meditate (engage in contemplation) daily.

- exercise more, eat better.

- patience.

- get up to date in the news.

- read 5 nonfiction books.

- be happy wherever i end up.

- listen to myself more.

Here's to challenging myself pre-2011:  I never shoot indoors because I always assume the lighting will suck but I've realized that's just a huge cop-out, so when I shot Cate a couple days ago, we started off in her room, with just window light and a lamp (I know this kind of lighting is not recommended but I thought it gave a pretty sweet effect).  Let me know what you think!

A Very Potter Christmas

This Christmas, Nashville experienced it's first White Christmas in over a decade--what would've been the second White Christmas in my life and first in my memory had I been in town.  But no regrets for me as I'm no fan of snow and anyway, I was celebrating Christ's birth in short-sleeves at a much more magical setting (literally and figuratively)--Harry Potter World.

I must admit when I heard about the creation of the HP theme park, I was a little skeptical, especially of the rides.  But I needn't have worried because the rides, which we experienced first, were awesome!  We were welcomed into the Forbidden Journey with a "Welcome, Muggles!" complete with a terribly fake British accent, but they made up for it later since the ride was so cool.  We would have ridden it again but when we returned, the wait was 75 minutes.  Then we rode the hippogriff ride which was less exciting but heey, I rode a hippogriff?  And last but not least, there was the Dragon Challenge.  We rode this one twice to experience the ride from both perspectives, and both got an Outstanding in my book!

After the rides, we headed on over to Honeydukes and Zonkos, then Dervish and Banges and Ollivanders (the stores were connected), and finally dined at the Three Broomsticks/Hogs Head.  It was pretty much just a huge money-making extravaganza, but executed well enough to make even me, an extreme cheap-o, break out the cash.  Sadly robes were $100 and wands were up there too, so we had to pass on those.  But we did buy plenty of food, which was the coolest anyway!  My sisters and I got frozen butterbeer, regular butterbeer, pumpkin juice, and a cauldron cake!  Everything was delicious.

Here are some mediocre pictures of our adventure:

Four Days Until Christmas!

I don't think I have spent so much money in so little time before in my life.  Luckily, my week of nothing has allowed me to take three jobs, so I have a little bit of income to lessen the pain.  I also spent over an hour trying to sell some clothes today, all for a measly sum of $6.  And then I shopped some more.  There's just so many sales going on right now; I can't resist!  I do have some things to save up for though (like a wand from Ollivander's), so I decided to cut my outing short and spend my afternoon at home, finishing up my college essays.  Two more to go!! (....and then a bazillion more for scholarships/honors programs.)

I'm starting a new project currently entitled "Nashville" which will be explained later with more photos, but in short, it's going to be a collection of photographs illustrating my perception of and experience with my hometown.  Here are two I took today.

Just Kidding

Well I've realized it's pointless for me to post a photo a day because everything I have been posting is already on my website, etc. and I don't do enough fun things/have enough time to take a new photo every day.  So I'll just be posting who shoots every once in a while instead of random little snapshots every day.

Next week, I will hopefully be photographing my good friend Cate so here are a couple random shots from our last shoot.

Working the Mocha Club table at the Dave Barnes show tonight instead of the usual babysitting gig...looking forward to listening to some happy Christmas tunes and getting excited for Christmas in Hogsmeade!!

I'm Lame

I definitely thought about posting my picture yesterday but I was too lazy to get up from the couch AND find my external hard drive soo to take the place of that, here's a video of something I've been a part of for the last semester.

www.livefashionable.com

www.mochaclub.org (go to my "About Me" page to join my team!)