Long Time No Post

Hey everyone! So let me see...where did I last update? I dunno, I suppose around the time my dad was here, huh? Yeah. Well, My dad left Ireland on the 15th, but I had to say goodbye on the 13th. :( I miss him! We had such a great time here, hanging out around in Ireland's lovely countryside! I get the idea that he really had a nice time, too. :) The last Friday he was here, he was able to come along with our group for our Irish Studies fieldtrip to a bunch of ring forts/fairy rings. It was entertaining for him to observe our group in that type of setting-everyone was climbing all over everything, acting like monkeys! He said to my mom in an e-mail: It was like a herd of Lindseys! lol so funny, I suppose in many ways, that is true, we are all very ADD and silly in our own ways and curious and just creative, i suppose! I think my favorite memories with my dad when he was here was the day we went to Kinvara. It was so fun to be silly, taking ridiculous pictures and roaming around in such a cute little town and theeen we got to explore in that cool old church/cemetary and in that little hobbit hole mound we found on our way to Kinvara. That was just a splendid day. :) We also went to Galway on that last Saturday I saw him. Galway was gorgeous and sunny! I was, unbelievably, able to lead us to the An Tobar Nua cafe that I had gone to with some friends a while ago (the little Christian place that I randomly ended up at! We have some family connections to the people that are associated with it) Theeen we wandered and found this great pub/restaurant (can't remember the name off the top of my head, I'll find my receipt...hold on...The Dali Bar!) It was so cool in there and I bought us both bacon cheeseburgers with "chips" and onion rings-dad got a mini Guiness lol I made fun of him. The Irish told us that a man should get a pint and not finish it rather than get a half pint, buuuut I suppose that rule doesn't have to apply to everyone! Anyways, that was nice. Then, let me see...I suppose we shopped for a while, which I think was pretty successful! I had to go to Penney's to buy some clothes for getting kind of dressed up when i go out to certain places, I didn't really have anything. Then, we went back to the little Claddagh jewelry place, where the guy working looked like Ryan Fennessy! I bought a classic Claddagh ring (that points OUT! My heart has not been claimed here, no worries!!!) Our walks by the bay was lovely, I'm so glad we had nice weather. Ummmm what else...yeah, I had to say goodbye to him after coming home and getting partially ready for the evening. :( I miss you, Papa! After he left, a group of us students went to Kinvara for a Mardi Gras thing that was a fundraiser, but it was pretty funny. Beforehand, Michelle and I ate a little bit at a pub and had some nice conversation, then we went to go dance at the location of the festivities. There were a bunch of little kids dancing (it was a costume party that none of us really knew about and there was a little girl dressed as a squirrel!) Hmmm what else has happened...I dunno, we've started watching episodes of Dawson's Creek, which is so hilarious! Brings back memories of my youth... Katie and I just lose it throughout the day whenever a Dawson quote comes up in conversation. hehehe so silly. Love it! Hmmmm.............I've been pretty stressed. Yep. I think a lot of us have been, but my motivation has been lacking and that's been frustrating and having the confidence to get things done has been hard to come by, as well. Today, I'm just staying home to try and get through some things, hopefully having a little break from the stressful atmosphere of school will help me. :) I am going to keep my chin up and push onward, because I'm a big girl and I can get through this! Yeah! Please be praying for me, I need any encouragement I can get! I love being able to talk to people on skype, it helps so much to see your faces when I talk to you. I can't imagine what it would be like if I couldn't do that. I am so far away, and every once in a while, it feels like much more than other times. Anyways, what it comes down to: I will be OK! Love you guys!

Critique & Kinvara!

Good evening! (Well...to me) This morning, I had my sculpture critique...it wasn't an amaaazing critique, but it wasn't horrible either, I got a lot of interesting and helpful feedback from the professor and other students. It reminded me of how I almost always get the same type of response with my sculptures: Very arranged/prop or stage craft/set-like...soooo it kind of made me think that I have been avoiding or trying to get away from doing those things, when maybe I should be embracing that artistic impulse and trying to do decorative or stage craft-like work...is interior design/decorating for me? or maybe stage set design or prop making? I don't know, but I have always loves decorating rooms and I love creating an aesthetic environment, even if it doesn't count as "high art," as many say. It just got me thinking about new ideas for my future career, so even though i wasn't highly praised for my sculpture this morning, I really learned a lot in a way, my eyes were opened and I think I may have needed that to take place :) Our next project will involve an installation piece, which is what I've been wanting to try out! So, I think I can really try the whole decorating thing more seriously, and I might use my whole studio for the project :) So, that is my art update :)

After lunch, dad came and met me at the school, and we went to Kinvara for the afternoon! Check out the pictures! There are so fun, we had a wonderful time walkin around and taking pictures doing silly and fun things-Neil Young even came on in the cafe! :)

Sculpture!

So, today...I really did a lot of work in my studio (well, technically, right next to it) and finished my sculpture for my class critique, which is tomorrow! I titled it "The Rustic Domestic" and it's actually a feminist type of theme, which is new for me, I think, but it's kind of open for interpretation and sort of shows different views of women's roles, etc... I won't get into that. But, I really loved collecting everything I used for it and assembling. :) I went out a few times and collected a bunch of moss, which was so fun to decorate all the rusty metal with, the colors are beautiful together, in my opinion-naturally complimentary! I now have a big open empty space in my studio, so I will need to fill it! Yay! fun fun! I also kinda finished the main part of my milk story this morning so that i could show Tom what I had and he gave me some ideas for brainstorming for illustrations, I'm excited to get going on those! Dad met up with me at the school's cafe for lunch and then he helped me with my sculpture, I had some difficulty getting some nails out, etc. :) He then stayed in my studio on my computer for a while as I worked and mace horrible crashing noises and hammering and so on and so forth, it was pretty funny. Then he left and I finished working, walked home, then met him later at Logue's for dinner :) So cool to just meet up with my dad in Ballyvaughan! Then we came back to the house for a while and used the internet and had tea and macaroons :) I later got really silly and hyper with Suzanne and Brittany in the kitchen, as we listened to dated music, mostly from the 90s I think...I got pretty nuts for a while...yeeeeaahhhh... Anyways! That's about it for now, I think! I need to add pictures, I know...that may or may not happen soon, we shall see :)

Papa and Linney in Ireland!

Hello! Dad is here!!!! IN IRELAND!!! It was so exciting to see him driving down the road towards me as I was walking to the college to meet him Saturday morning!!! I hopped in the car and we drove (on the left side of the road!) to the college, where I showed him around. He got to meet Robert, Kinji, Mary, and MARCUS! He seemed to really love the school, thought everything was so "me!" Then, I took him in the castle! After that, i showed him around the wooded fairy tale area, where I told my story to my Mixed Media class, then we went hiking on the "mountain." The day was so gorgeous! it could not have been more beautiful. :) After hiking for a while, we climbed back down and drove to Logue's pub for lunch. We both got children's menu hamburgers with "chips." So good! I, of course, have had that here before, but the waitress said that she had the cook make them a big bigger than usual, since we were adults. :) Kinda cute. It was hilarious to have the 2 of us eating burgers and fries together, because we went through so many ketchup packets! I, of course, took a picture of the ketchup packet pile lol :) After lunch, we went to my house, where I gave him the grand tour! And after thaaat, we walked down to the water (the Galway Bay), it was very pretty, I hadn't really been down there before, I also showed him Monk's pub really quickly. Dad said at once point, after noticing how many pictures i was taking of him, "Now, I know what Prince Charles must feel like!" I love my dad. After returning to my house after the bay, (I'm missing or missing up the order of some of these things, probably...just fyi) he gave me little gifts that he brought along! Including a lovely Valentine's Day gift bag from Mamacita with Riesens and brownie mix!!! (THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!) and he also got me normal American deodorant and mascara lol and measuring cups and a muffin pan/cupcake pan and BAKING SODA! Now, I can make normal cookies!!!!! Hooray! We ended up driving to Gort for the ATM and groceries at SuperValu...let's just say that the drive was interesting and life-altering. The most memorable point was when the back left wheel hit the curb and made a horrendous noise, causing my dad to turn around and look behind to try and figure out what happened, meanwhile, a motorcyclist was coming right at us, head on-so I, in my "Holy crap, we're about kill somebody monotone voice" said "Dad. Motorcycle." and he swerved over to the left at the last second! It was terrifying. We ended up just laughing out of tension and near death experience aftershock. We also saw a spastic magpie (bird) take a 2 second speed bath in a puddle on our side of the road, nearly committing suicide in the doing, I don't know what the little featherbrain was thinking... We did eventually get to Gort after making many wrong turns, since the signs here are so stupid and unhelpful! We ended up seeing the Burren group right as they were boarding the bus to head back from doing their grocery shopping! Dad met Brian, the bus driver, and Brian informed me that i had called him from my pocket at 11:30pm the night before...stupid phone. We got groceries and headed home! Today (Sunday) I met up with dad for church at 11:30, and Suzanne, Brittany and Janine came along, too! (Janine spent the night last night-we had so much fun laughing for about 2 hours about the "Super Bowl Club" that we intensely planned for in a ridiculously hilarious way!) Church was innocent as it was the time before and I introduced dad to the priest-so funny! The priest told us that I would be sad and no longer smile if I met a man! He basically tries to play matchmaker, but then says that men ruin girls' happiness. Not too far from the truth at times, I suppose! hahaha After church, our house made brunch and dad came and ate with us! (All of us, minus Brian, plus Janine!) It was delicious! Dad wanted to check out a hostel in Carran, so I went along with him for the ride-it was so beautiful, we couldn't believe it! We ended up passing a place where we had visited a wedgetomb on our Irish Studies trip (dad and I took a quick look) and it turned out the hostel was not open for the season, not surprising. We listened to 60s music on the radio as we drove and then the song "I Got a Feelin" from the Black Eyed Peas came on, I love that song, so happy! Then, I was dropped off at home. I finally got a bunch of stuff off my computer, or at least some, so I opened up some space!!! Thanks for the flashdrive, Papa! A few of the house family are attending the superbowl party tonight, i think (costs 10 euro for food and beer-I won't be attending for several reasons.) I think I might try and work on my Cow story for independent drawing and maybe brainstorm about some other things, who knows... Sooooo...let's see, I didn't update about Friday night festivities...pretty sure, anyways. We went to Monks, looking for live music, which they didn't have, so we went over to Logue's and sat for a while, then the 21st birthday party music started. They had an accordion player who played over a music track! So funny! There was Irish set dancing going on with the locals and then some students tried joining at a couple times, it was pretty funny. Ummmm...what else...hmmmm....I just ate soup and nan bread=deliciousness. That's about it!!! Thanks again, Mom, so the gifts of chocolatey love!!!! I love you wish you were here, along with the rest of the family!!!

First Critique!

I had my first Burren College of Art critique this morning. It went quite well :) It was for my Mixed Media class, with Aine (Anya) Phillips for the "Journey" assignment. I ended up taking the whole class (7 other students and the professor) on a walk to the middle of the fairy-like woods that I found. Once we got to the spot i had selected yesterday, I gave everyone a piece of plastic bag to sit on since the beautiful mossy rocks were wet from the rain early this morning :) Once everyone sat down, and I found my nice spot in front of a tree, I read them all a fairy tale that i wrote, called The Scarlet Flax. It was pretty cool to read it in that wooded setting:) Aine really enjoyed it and said my writing was lovely and couldn't think of how the performance could have been any better! It was encouraging, I wasn't sure what they would think of it, but Aine and I talked about the meanings behind fairy tales and my story/morals, etc. It was nice :) Theeeen I went to lunch and walked home. I found, to my delightful surprise, that brittany was also home already, so we are watching Finding Neverland, while cuddling up on the couches in our sweats! So nice :) I'm getting so excited for my dad to be here!!!

I hate computers!

So, my computer is not pleased with life. My hard-drive is full, so I need an external hard-drive-grrrrrrr so conveniently timed, was it not? Get to Ireland and blehhhhhhhhhh, stupid computer issues=awesome. Whatever! Today was a sleepy day. I was up until 3 last night, researching artists for art history. We had to come with artists that connect with what we're doing with out own art and then we need some type of topic/focus for the class-we will have presentations at the end of the semester. I am thinking of doing mine on full room installation art-like really cool cluttered spaces/fully decorated rooms. I have been enjoying decorating my studio with found objects and just making a space that is aesthetically pleasing to me, so I figured I would try looking into that more, research a lot, and maybe figure out if it's something I would be interested in pursuing. Decorating could be pretty cool, I think, just as long as it isn't too prim and proper/particular/formal/structured...I need creative elbow room, you see! I just like to drape pieces of fabric and use cool old branches and put rusty pieces of metal on the wall...ya know? :) Well...we had our Wednesday Session this afternoon, and Kinji was the presenter. Brian put together a slideshow for him, since Kinji isn't too computer-savvy (good for him!) Turns out that Kinji has done some really big time landscaping projects for school campuses and such-he's made a lot of benches that incorporate large rocks. Very expensive work, though. He is seriously the most adorable man. Seriously. He's like the Asian grandfather I never had! Oh my goodness, so I just remembered this...this morning, when we got to school, we found that Marcus (cat) had left a nice gift for Robert by the door of the art supply shop=a huge rat! That silly kitty, he goes and gets a big kill, then he doesn't even eat it, he just leaves it for Robert lol. Mmmmm that rain was beautiful this morning. :) :) :) I just went and stood in it for quite a while, so my hair was sufficiently fluffy today, kinda like a sheep :) Did I mention the baby cow that is in the field by the barn studio? I don't remember, but he is such a little sweetie! I want to hug him, but he's a cow and he always just stands there and stares at me all sweet, as if he were thinking "I know I'm cute and sweet and small...but what do I do?" I like him. :) I also had art history today=so hard to stay awake! I was so sleepy and then I had to go sit in a dark lecture hall and listen to a consistently going voice with a powerpoint slideshow...bad news for falling asleep! I stayed awake for the most part, but it was pretty painful trying to stay awake. During our break, Suzanne and I bought Twix bars to regain some consciousness. I ended up walking home on the Burren Way trail after class, we got out a bit early, so I got back to house at 4:45. I immediately changed into my pjs and crawled into my bed, where I casually drifted off to sleep for about 15 minutes-I even woke up without an alarm, so that was nice :) i got to talk to Muffin for a tiny bit on Skype tonight! Muffin (Hannah) is one of my dear friends at Bethel. :) I love her and miss her. Then, a few girls came over to watch a movie with us (Janine, Katie, and Maura). We watched the movie Harold and Maude, which was really nice, I enjoyed it. It is one of Suzanne's favorite movies, and I see why! The music is all done by Cat Stevens, so the soundtrack was even delightful. Tomorrow is Mixed Media day, so I am going to take the class out to that nice wooded area I found a while back and read them a fairy tale from my Grimms Fairy Tale book that I brought from home hehe, I'm looking forward to it, I think it will be a nice little adventure, or "Journey" as the assignment calls it. There's a lot of cow poop out there as of the last couple of days, so I hope the class won't hate me for demanding a walk through the muck...hmmm...oh well! We're in Ireland, gotta come prepared for these things! Oh! It was so cute, when I was walking back home after class, I passed a few women and their dogs. One of the dogs, a golden lab or something similar, came and was being all friendly, so I was petting him and then he jumped up on me, with his nice muddy paws-the women apologized, but I really didn't care, I just laughed and kept walking. But, as I was wiping off a little bit of mud that was on my jacket, I noticed that there was a perfect muddy paw print left on my jeans! It was so cute! I laughed a bit and then took a picture of it, so once I get those pictures up, you can see for yourself :) Dogs are funny. My dad comes on Friday! I won't be seeing him until Saturday, though...I'm really excited for him to see this beautiful place! It is so calm and cleansing here, I hope he feels the same way that I do about it. :) I plan to take him hiking around the school and to my house and such, gotta get him nice and muddy from the very beginning so he won't hold back for the rest of the trip, right?! :D Well, I am pretty sleepy...I should get some sleep...probably...maybe...hmmm... Well, I love you guys! I miss you Mom, Dad, Smatt, and Abbs! I hope everything is going well in the lives of you lovely Americans, who are still located in America lol. I am doing very well, I'm just temporarily located elsewhere :) somewhere greener and more remote and kinda far away... but, don't worry about me, I'm doing well, staying safe, keeping fed, and being as creative as I can! Love you :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD! :)

Hello hello :) So, today, I don't feel like I did all that much while I was in my studio, other than be silly and chatty with friends, but I ended up walking home around 1ish. It was actually to go on a walk on my own. On the way, I saw a couple really pretty horses, the brown one was standing at the gate and looked so beautiful with the old building behind it, but by the time I got my camera out, he had decided to walk away from the photo perfection location=Bummer. But, I still got some fun pictures of the white horse-he was friendly, I pet his face :) It's kind of cool, on the way home, there is a field with a turlough(sp?) (tur-lock), which is basically a lake-type body of water that randomly appears sometimes! It is, inconveniently, in the field that Marie's house can use for a shortcut, so when the water decides to be there, they won't be able to walk through the field...at least I'm fairly sure that it's in that field. Kinda funky. Anyways, so once I got home, I found that Michelle had been there all day, working on one of her art projects and watching movies, so I got there just in time to watch the movie Donnie Darko with her. I had never seen it before and I did think it was a bit strange, which is what everyone has told me when that movie comes up in conversation. During it, however, I conked out on the floor, wrapped up in my comforter, it was a lovely nap :) Wood floor can really be quite cozy! Theeen I made some food and I started reading some fairy tales and researching for artists I like--> both for class work I have to do. Michelle put in the movie Fight Club and a few other housemates joined the family room to watch. I ended up going into the kitchen to research and such and then got to talk to my daddy on skype! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!!! I also got to talk to the Turnwall guys on skype, which was fun-I introduced them to www.manbabies.com, which is a ridiculous site where they edit photos so that the man's head and the baby's head are switched, it's so silly, but pretty hilarious. Well, I think that's all I can really say for now, I'm pretty sleepy! Wednesdays are pretty busy: Wednesday Session+Meeting with Deborah+Art History=Whoa, man! Ok, goodnight!

Junk is lovely :)

Today, I had so much fun decorating my studio space! I decided to do that for my sculpture project, although I might just end up using the wall mounted stuff and the ironing board and such gathered below it for the project and not the entire space...not sure yet though. I think I'll end up painting some random colors that I love and designs and things on walls and pieces of drywall/doors, etc...but again, we shall wait and see! I am really hungry all of a sudden, gahhh! Gindi is getting angry! I realized that I have my Mixed Media project due on Thursday and I really don't know yet what I'm doing for that...hmmmm... a lot of us are in that same boat, thankfully, so I'm not alone in being clueless and artless! Well, I guess the majority of what I did today was decorate and be happy and laughed at Suzanne when she had a big piece of metal on her head and looked so silly :) I need to go make food! Love ya!