Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! 

I hope all of you are having as great of a day as I am. I absolutely love Halloween. It's my favorite holiday. I love how into it people get, including google!. This year I painted my face like a Day of the Dead Sugar skull because I was lacking costume ideas and I was researching it anyway for an art project. After work and class today, I continued my movie marathon by going to see What Happened to Baby Jane? with some friends at a local independent movie theatre. And I got dinner at Boloco because I had a coupon for a free burrito because of the hurricane and they had discounted pumpkin shakes! Both of which were delicious! Now that I'm in for the night, I'll be watching Vampire Diaries and the Nightmare Before Christmas with my roomie until I'm too tired to keep my eyes open.





How did you spend your Halloween? Did you dress up? Tell me all about it in the comments or link to your Halloween posts below!

 

Links of the Week || 003

1. Modcloth. I'm guessing you've heard of, drooled over, purchased things from modcloth but if you purchase something through this link you'll save $20 on a $50 purchase, for new members only (until October 31st, after that it goes back to $10). Totally worth it!

2. Romantically Apocalyptic. This is one of my favorite webcomics. The story is funny and really well written but I mostly read RA for the artwork. Seriously beautiful. Dark and well drawn, this comic is amazing.

3. Pictures of Scared Bros. This pretty much needs no explaination. So hilarious.

4. Rape-free Horror Movies. Joey Comeau of A Softer World features a list of rape free movies on his horror movie review blog, I'm into survival. Some good suggestions of you like your movies free of sexual violation and torture porn. 

5. Your beautiful eyes. An amazing photography project. Eyes are fascinating and Suren Manvelyan's extreme close ups are mind blowing.

6. HotDOG. This photo is the cutest thing in the world.

Halloween Week Movie Marathon

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love it. Because it is on a Wednesday this year, i figured I'd take advantage of its mid-week position by celebrating all week. So I'm watching as many horror/thriller/scary/creepy movies as I possibly can. Here's my marathon schedule as I watch them. Are you doing anything for Halloween week?

1. Rear Window. 1954. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Starring Jimmy Stuart and Grace Kelly.
     A man with a broken leg spies on his neighbors through their open windows. He sees suspicious activity in one of the apartments that suggest a murder has taken place. An amazing classic Hitchcock film. Also who doesn't want to watch Grace Kelly sneak into an apartment in heels?

2. The Perfect Host. 2010. Directed by Nick Tomnay. Starring David Hyde Pierce and Clayne Crawford. 
     A criminal on the run takes refuge in a house where his host is having a diner party with his imagination. This film is so carefully constructed and full of unexpected twists. A really interesting take on the psychological thriller. [netflix]

How School Took Over My Life

I'm being dramatic (big shock,right?), school isn't actually taking over my life but it sure feels that way. Junior year is crazy. My classes are crazy. The amount of work I've already done this week and the amount of work I need to do this week is crazy and slightly overwhelming. 

I know this sounds like I'm complaining. I am, sort of. I do love what I'm doing though. My work is for either an art or English class, both of which I love and are my majors. It's just so much work. There's always photos to take and sketches to do. Or chapters of literary theory and papers to write. It's a lot of work but I love every second of it. I'm not sure what I want to be when I grow up but right now I know I do love what I'm doing. 

Life lesson time. When you're working on something (or somethings) that takes a lot of work, know why you're doing it. Do what makes you happy. If I didn't love my classes I would be a lot more bitter about staying up until 3am doing monotypes. I don't have any kind of long term plans, but I do love this period in time where I can be creative and analytical. It's overwhelming sometimes but worth it. 

[image credit]
[paragraph from Lacan's "Topic of the imaginary"]
 

My Top 5 Fall Drinks from Starbucks

I most likely have mentioned my love of Starbucks a few hundred times on this blog. Yes, I feel like I'm a snob for being a "regular" but I can't help it. I'm a caffeine addict. And their coffee and espresso drinks are just so good, especially in fall. Just in case you don't spend your life at a Starbucks (like I do), I'll give you a couple ideas for Fall drinks that I really like and the correct translation in Starbucks-enese for your order. (p.s. I order all of my drinks with soy milk because that's what I prefer but you can drink whatever milk you like.)

1. Sweetened Vanilla Rooibos Latte with a shot (or three). I love this drink. It's made from vanilla tea and sweetened with simple syrup and I get a shot of espresso in it because everything is better with espresso. 
How I Order it: "Vanilla Rooiboos soy latte, half sweetened with a double shot."

College Confusion

I, like many other college students, have no idea what I'm doing with my degree after graduation. I'm only a junior so I have another year and two internships to hopefully give me insight, but it's still scary. I'm almost an actual grownup. I'll no longer be a teenager in two months.

I may not have mentioned it before but I'm a double major in graphic design and communication and media studies. I feel as though I'm either going to be a designer or work in advertising because those are my favorite options for my gd and comm degrees, respectively. However, I'm not sure I'll be able to integrate my creative and analytical sides into one career.

It would be nice to have a job where I can do both but I'm not sure how to get there. It seems like people expect me to be an "art person" or an "English person" and I want to be both. And more importantly I want to be good at both. While both my passions (and majors) are entwined, it seems like I'm not going to be able to have the best of both worlds for much longer and I'm going to have to decide which person I want to be.

I'm not looking for answers or anything like that. I'm just trying to get out my anxiety over being an adult and having to make "major life choices" and such. Is anyone else going through a similar struggle or dealt with this while they were in college? Can you find me a dream job and make my life easier? If you answer yes to any of those questions (or just want to say hi) leave a comment.

My Weekend: Tattoos, "The Room" and working

This weekend was a fun one. I got another tattoo. Yes I know I just got one but you only live once right? And tattoos are something I love and I always knew I'd be covered. This time I got a skeleton key on my bicep. I'm pretty happy with it and I'm suffering through the gross healing process now. This is my biggest tattoo ink-wise and my first piece with color. Molly, my roomie, also got one on her forearm and we took a picture with our "battle wounds" in the T because people kept looking at us with these giant bandages on our arms. 

In addition to the tattoo, I went to see a midnight showing of The Room. If you haven't heard about this movie you need to Youtube it IMMEDIATELY! It's probably the worst movie ever made in history and I've seen some shitty movies. I can't even explain it. Other than The Room and my tattoo, I've been working a ton. A lot of my coworkers went home for the long weekend and I picked up a bunch of shifts. That's my fancy name tag.
 

Ten Goals Before Turning 20

On December 4th, I will be turning 20 years old. Twenty. No longer a teenager, two decades old. It's pretty crazy that I'm actually an adult. Someone should be concerned or something... Anyways, I've made a list of ten things i'd like to accomplish before I turn 20. I have two months. I can do this. Once I complete something, I'll change the color to something else and link it to a post where I do said things. 

Here's the list:

1. Watch Gone with the Wind. This is a classic film that I haven't seen yet but I'm guaranteed to love it so I should probably just set aside three hours at some point so I can watch it.

2. Draw something not for class. I love to draw and pretty much the only time I still do it is when I'm assigned to. This needs to change.

3. Visit somewhere in Boston I haven't been to. I live in an awesome city and there's a lot I haven't seen yet, so I need to get on it.

4. Open an etsy shop. I want to sell cute paper goods on etsy and I should do it soon.

5. Get two tattoos while I'm 19. I like tattoos a lot. And I need to keep with my pattern. I got one while I was 18 so I will get two while I am 19 and so on. I never said I wasn't crazy. 
[one] [two]

6. Eat as much sushi as possible. I love sushi. With a burning passion. I need to eat more raw fish. It's good for me. [so much sushi]

7. Use my fancy camera for something other than photo class. I haven't used my beautiful DSLR for anything but my photography assignments. I need to get out there and take pictures with that bad boy.

8. Go somewhere on a whim using public transportation. You can pretty much go anywhere on public transportion (not completely true). I need to take advantage of living near bus and train stations.

9. Buy a designer piece of clothing. I love fashion. So this is a necessity (false). It's just something I want to do.


10. Write an A paper. That is do a good job on a paper and not procrastinate doing it so that way I can get an A. Also, I want all A's in my English classes. [go Kristen!]

Do you have anything plans before your next birthday? Leave me a comment!

Links of the Week || 002

So I sort of haven't been keeping up with sharing my favorite links of the week... But let's change that!


1. Debbie the Cat Lover Song. This is hilarious. Every time I watch it I get hysterical. So get on it. Right now, especially if you haven't seen it. 

2. Jessica Mascitti's website. Gorgeous tattoo artist. This photo of her is perfection and she's so talented.

3. Papercut Art by Tina Tarnoff . These are just amazing. I want everything in this shop.

4. This list of Packaging Design.  I love great packaging design. And yes, I've already blogged about Hanger Tea but it totally belongs on this list! Another favorite is the juice boxes. 

5. This article about Thomas Czarnecki's photography. Some seriously amazing stuff. He has a series about dead fairy tale characters. Hauntingly beautiful.

6. Wind map. This is fascinating. Probably useless but I could watch it for hours. Hours.

7. @NietzscheQuotes. I like to have my daily dose on nihilism on my twitter feed.

8. The Worst Things for Sale. So fucking hilarious. Omg. I can't even handle the amount of ridiculous things that you can actually purchase. 

Dear Fall...

I have a bone to pick with you. Where are you? It's October and it's barely cold enough for a sweater. I still keep the air conditioning on (I've never had air conditioning before, it's really exciting for me!). I still get iced beverages at Starbucks. I've worn boots like three times since I've been back in school.

So what's your deal? I live in New England. Do you know what that means? It means I want some color changing leaves. Everywhere I look is green. Everywhere. I want sweaters and boots and hot chocolate with espresso. You are my favorite season and now we are in October and the temperature has barely dropped. You do your stuff but know I'm waiting for you.


(photo source)