All the Pretty Lights

Light exhibits properties of both a particle and a wave.

Usually I am able to pull in a good 6 hours of sleep a night. That's not too bad for a college student, at least from what I hear. It's enough sleep to keep you alive but slightly groggy throughout the week. Then on the weekend I sleep in and refill my nearly empty tank. Lately I've been getting far less than my usual 6 hours, and it's been taking a toll. I am far more tired and exhausted than usual, but additionally I am far more easily agitated. Not to mention my spelling becomes atrocious, perhaps the worst aspect of all. This sudden sleep shortage has come as a result of my previously single roommate becoming entangled in a relationship with a girl he recently met. Every night it seems without fail, my roommate either calls or receives a call from said girl originating around 1:00 am, and lasting several hours. The majority of individuals I have run across in my life have been the sort that usually would rather not have personal conversations with the opposite sex in the presence of another person. They would typically walk out into the empty front room to sit on the couch and discuss the ever important issues of who misses who more since seeing each other an hour ago, or who loves who more. Instead of utilizing the spacious, empty front room to pace and talk my roommate prefers the comfort of his bed and my unsolicited ears. I find it rather difficult to sleep to an ongoing conversation, whether it is in Spanish or not. The end result is an increasing level of irritation until I either fall unconscious or the conversation ends and I am able to compose myself and fall asleep, hours later than intended. Besides feeling zombie-like all day, I have also noticed that when I am sleeping and wake up during the night I am much more disoriented than usual, and prone to some crazy dreams.

I went on an art travel study trip this past weekend to Salt Lake City, to visit all the galleries and art museums in the area as well as a few other landmarks nearby. I was worried the trip was going to be an annoying waste of time and more than a minor inconvenience. Thankfully I was proven wrong completely. We stayed in a hotel downtown blocks away from the massive buildings that make up the skyline of the city. Outside the window flashed the lights of the buildings and signage advertising parking and midnight sushi. It reminded me of staying in Vegas where there are always lights flashing brightly outside of any hotel window, day or night. There is always something shining outside those large glass windows.

It was just after Thanksgiving and nearing Christmas time, and surprise surprise I was sick. Nothing saps the holiday spirit like having family around to visit for a short time and being too unwell to spend any time with them. Such was the case for me, and I was trapped in the dark and lonely isolation of my room  wrapped in the blankets on my bed hoping for sleep to save me from the current uncomfort of being conscious. I was drifting through a feverish sleep cycle when I was jettisoned awake by the unmistakable feeling of something or someone being on top of me. Still semiconscious, I realized what was taking place. My 2 year old niece had wandered into my room, "the fun room", and was climbing up onto the bed and on top of me. She was saying, "Lights! Lights! look at the lights danyo!" I pulled myself up and helped her onto the bed where she went to the window just above and began pointing to the recently hung Christmas lights glowing outside. I sat there and looked at the lights with her for a few minutes until her mom came in and pulled her away to let me back to my feverish slumber. It was a beautiful moment, topped only by my awaking in the morning to a surprise cup full of cheerios in my bed.

The End is Near

"Some say the end is near. Some say we'll see Armageddon soon. I certainly hope we will, I sure could use a vacation from all of this..." -J.M.K.

I spent all week working on a landscape painting for my Oil Painting class. I really loved the sky I had painted. It was a beautiful blue that shifted from a darker, deep blue to a lighter, less saturated blue. It was probably the one thing I've painted so far that I've actually been happy with and proud of. Today in class my teacher gave each of us a critique of our painting, but before walking around he had us each display our paintings so we could see how everyone else in the class was doing on theirs. Everyone propped up their paintings and we all stood there gazing upon each other's handiwork. The results were amazing. There were some incredible paintings sitting before my eyes, and then there was mine...

My painting was by far the worst in the class. It was so shameful in comparison to everyone else's paintings. I wanted to run up to the chalkboard and throw myself over my efforts, shielding my classmates from the horror like a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his comrades. After a moment of silence and the realization that I am by far the worst painter in my class if not the world, we went back to our easels to work on our masterpieces, or in my case failure. My teacher made his way around and eventually got to my section. His first question was "What do you like about your painting?" It may have been an embarrassing disaster, but I was still proud of that sky, so I told him. He didn't seem to agree. He then took my paintbrush, slathered it in purple paint, and splotched it all over my beautiful blue sky. My heart sank. He explained to me why he did that and why it was a good idea, but all I could hear was the voice in my head telling me to punch him in the gut for ruining my sky. Of course a few more strokes and the painting started improving, which is why he is the teacher and I'm the mediocre student.

I came home from a long day at work looking to melt my mind away into numbness and listless splendor. Naturally the best way to accomplish something some people pay drug dealers a fortune for is to turn to Facebook. I tossed off my backpack like a high school drama queen, threw my "dead of winter" coat off onto the back of my chair, and slumped down into my chair in front of my computer like an online gaming fanatic getting ready for a raid. I had only just sat down and gotten comfortable, and watched my news feed displayed before my eyes when I heard an unmistakable clicking noise. The screen flashed into the infamous Blue Screen of Death, and with it my hopes of a low level brain functioning afternoon. I tried to reboot my computer as any youngster within sight of their heart's desire would, and to my dismay was met with utter failure. My hard drive had crashed in a manner most befitting NASCAR legends, and it wasn't coming back anytime soon.

As I finally got up the courage to close my gaping jaw, I started to realize the impact of this moment on me. All of my Illustration scans were gone, all of my personal exploration assignments for the semester were gone, all of my photos, all of my funny cat videos, all of my post-it notes littering the desktop...gone. To say that this was devastating was an understatement. Perhaps the worst aspect was the unexpected timing of the crash. I had to at least make an effort to recover so many important files, so I went off in search of a Geek, or rather a squad of geeks to see what they might have to offer. I carried my massive desktop computer into the store, nodded to the sentinel guarding the door in his blue polo shirt, and walked over to Geek Squad central. I explained to the head geek my issues and asked for a possible plan of action. He took a look and decided it was just the video card that had malfunctioned causing everything to shut down. This was good news I thought as he shuffled off to get a new card from the shelf. He installed it and everything looked good. I paid the painful 80 dollars for the card and counted myself lucky it wasn't worse. But then it got worse..

The guy with the official looking name tag ran into a snag trying to boot up my computer. It seems the hard drive had failed. This was exactly what I had already known and explained to them upon entry to the clubhouse. I'm not sure how or why they decided I needed a new video card, or why they made me pay for it when it didn't accomplish a thing. Needless to say I was disappointed, and out 80 bucks. I made a special appointment to use the "mule" to attempt to transfer my files from the failed hard drive later, since it was all tied up at the moment...there is a joke in there somewhere, a bad one. Carrying my obliterated computer out with a flashy new video card in defeat, I headed home. Hope is somewhere on the horizon, a very distant horizon surrounded by black clouds. But it is there still nonetheless.