best of 2007...

I love this time of year. I love looking back through the past year of blogging [or lack of. seriously, only one post in july?] and thinking about how my life has changed. I blogged less frequently this year than ever before, but I feel like it's because I had more interaction off my computer. Some adventures and lessons you just can't put into words. Some happen in such quick succession that I barely had time to process, let alone describe. It's been a year of contemplation. It's been a good year.

[2007]
best planet: Venus
best airline: British Airways
best way to travel: Train
best short-term roomies: Lily and Danielle
best birthday: A Quiet 22
best new title: Barista
best book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
best book besides HP7: The Road [cormac mccarthy]
best series: Thursday Next [jasper fforde]
best grad: Joel's Grad
best city visited: Glasgow
best website: Pandora
best apartment: My Little Above-Garage Suite at the Mounts
best summer flick: HP5
best other flick: Enchanted
best tv: Scrubs
best guilty pleasure tv: ANTM reruns [season 7 is the best]
best espresso: Illy
best shoes: Wellies
best lost tradition: Bluegrass Night at the Wake
best betsy: Betsy Maynard
best band attempt: The Pardons
best waste of time: Music Hopping on Myspace
best suite: 344
best workout: Aqua-jogging
best hat: The Brown Slouchy Hat
best new talent: Extreme Apartment Makeover
best eats: Fall Break
best singing: Harmony
best activity: Collage
best purchase: Tickets to the Farewell for Now Tour
best house: The Notting Hill House
best hair: Holly
best boss: Cherrie
best park: Regents Park
best cd: Combinations [Eisley]
best friends: You
best foreign food: Halo Thai
best new career given up: Rock Star
best way: Hemingway
best beverage: Sweet Tea
best jeans: Skinny Jeans
best band: Nickel Creek
best roadtrip: The Coast Weekend with Cassandra
best pod: ipod Nano 3rd Generation
best ring: The Spoon Ring
best cards: Home Made Cards
best museum: Churchill War Rooms
best class: The Modern Novel with Somerville
best history: Modern Art History with Bushey
best ave: North Mississippi Ave
best card game: Bang!
best friend-date: President's Ball
best stress relief: Painting Walls
best vegetable: Beets
best thursday: Last Thursday
best starbucks: Fayetteville
best stamp: A Passport Stamp
best vehicle: A Golf Cart
best break: Breaking the Bed while Remodeling
best blog: Alisa
best parties: Senior Parties
best surrealist: Remedios Varo
best loss: The Birthday Settlers Game with the Garveys
best skirt: The All Purpose Khaki Skirt
best nash: Kate Nash
best modern art movement: Abstract Expressionism
best soup: Cherrie's Lentil Veggie Soup
best highlights: Auburn Highlights
best concert: Alison Krauss and Union Station
best children: Garvey Children
best most genius person alive: Victor Davis Hanson
best car: The VW Convertible
best funny music: Wizard Rock
best poet: Robert Frost
best engagement: Allison and Josh! Yay!
best word to sum up the year: Centering
best reunion: The Summer Intern Mini

reduction...

In case you'd like to see me in four letters...

gallery que...

I'm trying to be economical and love people with art this Christmas. I've spent most of the evening landlocked by paper and cardstock. I guess you could say I'm a collage fiend. I enjoy it for so many reason: it's surprising, redemptive, tactile, hilarious, free, and definite [explanations on request].

Here are the front-runners in the upcoming Favorite Card Primary:

"This pic is so Emo"

"Pin Me Girl"

If I have your address, one of these may be coming to a mailbox near you!

home sweet...

You know you're back in Portland when you walk past someone and get a huge whiff of coffee.
You know you're from Portland when you can tell what roast it is. [it was definitely starbucks espresso]

accidental art...

It's been a strange afternoon. One minute I was packing, and suddenly there was a huge mess and I was sitting in the middle of it working on a collage. Funny how that happens when you find sweet stuff in various envelopes. I think this is the start of my "travel collage" phase. I'll be happy when all my art supplies are in one state, though. It's difficult to remember what clothes/shoes/found objects I have at school and home.

I've been doing various things with this canvas for a while, frequently scrapping everything [ha ha, pun] and starting over. I guess all I needed was to find that envelope full of UK travel memories from last March. I'm going to hang it over my bed.

Now all I want to do is go back to Scotland. I guess that would require packing, though, so maybe not...

and some green...

I feel like I needed a contrasting color for the red in the last post. I have one final left and I'm currently avoiding writing the short take home essay about Duchamp's Fountain. At this point in my life, it's far more entertaining to play with my [cleaning out the fridge] dinner and turn up Kate Nash really loud.

darling, christmas is coming...

I went red for the season! [okay, so, i played with the saturation on this. it's not actually this red, but i had to add a little something to my ghostly michigan skin. it's for the best, trust me]

A finals box from my fam, with Cranberry Drop Cookie ingredients, good chocolate, and a Starbucks Christmas cd!

study habits...

[blame this posting frenzy on my attempts to ignore finals studying and catch up to my very low yearly posting average]

In case you were wondering, research has shown that, while very stress-relieving, kittens are not very conducive to studying. They have a tendency to attack your toes, freestyle climb up your jeans, and generally be way more fun to study than review notes.

stranger than fiction...

I'm sitting on the floor of my quiet living room studying for Art History, but really I'm wondering if, like Harold, I sit absolutely still, the story will still move me forward.

As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be ok. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true.

why i like modern fiction...

Pilon complained, “It is not a good story. There are too many meanings and too many lessons in it. Some of those lessons are opposite. There is not a story to take into your head. It proves nothing.”
“I like it,” said Pablo. “I like it because it hasn’t any meaning you can see, and still it does seem to mean something. I can’t tell what.”
[tortilla flat - john steinbeck]

now i'm all emo...

As I sit in Kendall 231 writing a short paper for my art final and listening obsessively to my new Kate Nash cd, my mind wanders over my day. Within one day, there is so much history and depth and connection. Conversations and considerations, public and private. I think too much [like a puppy, right hol?], but I can't help it.

Art, music, fiction, truth, having, abstraction, worship creativity, friendship, patience, love, contentment, moving, sin, learning, disappointment, dreams, losing, grace, strength, weakness, waiting, color, knowledge, humor, evangelism, heart, tradition, subtlety, sculpture, wonder... Words have far more meaning than we realize.

God created me with this mind and put an eternal question mark on my heart. I don't have to have all the answers, but I have to feed these questions.

All these puzzle pieces fit together, but I have no idea what the picture actually looks like. The more I know, the more I want to learn.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. [phil 3:14]

I am satisfied in the Pursuit.