31/01/2010 (Mark): nothin' at all

Boring day, boring photo.

31/01/2010 (Rosie): Candle in the Darkness

Today was, well, rather uneventful. I mean, stuff happened, but it wasn't like earth shatteringly amazing, or please can't I just die terrible. That's not to say it wasn't a good day, because I like to think of everyday as a good day, it just wasn't a stand out day.

I am rather happy with my picture though. I feel as though for the first time in a long time I had an idea, got together the stuff I needed to shoot it, and got exactly the result I wanted. :)

~Rosie

PS: Today is the last day of January, and marks the end of our first month. So much has happened this month, both good and bad, that it doesn't feel like it's been a whole month, if that makes sense.

30/01/2010 (Mark):

Ok, things I did today that WASN'T art- sleeping, eating, listening to music, posting on my other blog, taking a nice long shower in which no purple dye seemed to come out ( :) ), talking in chat windows. The rest was painting, drawing, thinking about art. Which makes this the longest art mood I've ever had. I hope it's a trend :)

30/01/2010 (Rosie): Violently Blue

After sleeping in till lunch time, having chocolate cake with cream cheese icing for breakfast, and missing out on shovelling the drive way by mere minute (I was just on my way out to help, honest!), I decided that since the driveway was completely shovelled, Daddy was out skiing with the puppies, and Mummy had just gotten back from a grocery run, I could safely go outside without anyone asking me to do something/go somewhere.* After putting on about a bazillion layers, so that I looked like the michelin man wearing a black knee length down filled winter coat, I ventured out into the snow covered yard.

I happened to find these earrings in my coat pocket, and I decided to try out some stuff with manual focus. I would have loved this picture, but I forgot to reset my white balance when I moved from the sun to the shade, so this picture was violently blue, and the earrings were the same colour as the snow so they lost some of their colour when I attempted to make the snow somewhat white.

~Rosie

* I think my run-on sentences are becoming dangerously long.

29/01/2010 (Mark): Painting

I used my art supplies, made 4 paintings. Justin just joined the army, so I took a photo with his gasmask on. I don't like it, but gasmasks are awesome.

28&29/01/2010 (Findlay): Yay parties

This is a double post.
I'm tired, and I've been busy so you get two posts in one day.


This is a stencil of, well, me, and my shirt from the Graffiti party tonight.
Enjoy!
-Fin

29/01/2010 (Rosie): ICING!

Despite an icky beginning (I had to get up at 9 am to go get a blood test done), today way AWESOME. I was a fairy princess today. That's right, hyperactive, insane Rosie is back. Prepare to be driven crazy. (Not that being crazy is a bad thing, I quite enjoy it.)

I decided to give into temptation this afternoon, and made cream cheese icing. Deliciousness!

Then I made some chocolate cakes to pacify my mother and apologize to my father, who I accidentally woke up at 12:30 last night.

~Rosie

(PS: I don't do drugs or anything like that, I'm just naturally giggly, hyper, and random. I think it may be a genetic fluke, but I'm not complaining! And if you think I'm only like this online, I'm not. You can ask Findlay, he can vouch for my insanity.)

28/01/2010 (Mark): Destruction

Photo/art supply buying expedition with Jessi, nap, endless talk about everything in the caf, drama with Justin, playing in the snow with Steph, Megan, Jonah, and Gingey. A good day overall, a couple not so good spots, but good. I just called it destruction because my last entry was progress, unfortunately I didn't destroy anything today. I'm gonna go and tag all my entries with "Mark post" so it's easier to sort.

I took this in CIBC, it's one of those security monitor things.

28/01/2010 (Rosie): Skipping Symbolism

Today was a good day. I slept in late, had a yummy breakfast, wore my sheepie sweater, and went for a walk.

And I took this picture. Like usual, I could go on and on about paths and that sort of thing, and like usual, I'm not going to.

~Rosie

27/01/2010 (Mark): Progress

Art, poetry, gym, purple hair really starting to wash out ( :( ), hanging out with people, longlong conversation about just about everything with Amy. The day was pretty good. Here's a photo of someone mixing plaster: my hands were too plaster-y to take a photo of ours.

27/01/2010 (Findlay) : Darkened places

This picture came about as a test of reflective surfaces over a white background. It's not the best, but it IS an interesting photo. I had a photo of my Global politics class today, but I forgot to put my memory card in the camera, so it's lost to me forever, effectively.
So instead you get Nick and Dom's flasks against an empty expanse of cupboards

In other news today was nice.
Rosie's photo was pretty awesome.

-Fin

27/01/2010 (Rosie): High on Life, the Universe, and Everything

I had my last two exams of the term today *happy dance*. Both were nervewrackingly* easy, but so were both of the courses, so I wasn't too surprised by that. The fun part of my day was lunch. We had a picnic! Inside (cause outside was all wet). I practised my stalker photography and took creeper shots of everyone.

I liked this one. I feel like it portrays what I consider to be the sort of "ideal" teenage life. It's vibrant, spontaneous, strange and just a bit difficult to figure out.

After that someone started learning a drum solo with their drumsticks and a school bag, the owner of the feet above lay down to sleep, and I fell backwards** announcing that I was completely and totally high on life, the universe and everything***. A teacher came a made whoever was playing "the drums" stop because some people were writing a history exam, at which point we realized that we too had a history exam in about five minutes, and all went off to find pencils, pens, highlighters, throat lozenges, glasses, the notes we were allowed to have in the exam, and whatever else might come in handy.

~Rosie

* I don't know if nervewrackingly is actually a word or not, but it is in my world.

** I fell backwards carefully, so as to not mess up my carefully styled "I'm not trying, my hair is naturally this amazing" do.

*** Exams always make me want to reread A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I always give in. After all, one shouldn't tempt destiny.

26/01/2010 (Findlay) : Groceries

I have to remember to bring my camera with me places.
This picture is of Dominic's new hair style.

Today, I went to the mall, got some sketchbooks and such, and then hung out with my cousin and Grandfather. He (grandfather) bought me groceries. They are delicious
A good day.

-Fin

26/01/2010 (Mark): blargmuffin

Today was... well, I got to see Jessi, which makes me happy, and I snuck into David and Allen's house and successfully blowdarted both while they were playing Mass Effect 2, which makes me feel epic. I took a bunch of pictures today, but my favourite is perhaps one of the most mundane.

26/01/2010 (Rosie): Listlessness

I felt somewhat listless today. I think it was the weather. (I could go on and on about the type of weather we had today, since I spent three hours studying for my science exam this afternoon after I finished my math exam, but it's quite boring.) Anyways, I took this picture while I waited for the bus to leave this afternoon.

~Rosie

25/01/2010 (Mark) Dagnabit!

My forgetfulness gets in the way sometimes. Here's the picture I took yesterday, I left my camera at Allen and David's.

Go accidental light trail thingies!

25/01/2010 (Findlay) : A zara day

I hung out with my sister all day, watching buffy, going to school, watching James Bond, hanging out.
It was nice.

SISTER :D -- >

25/01/2010 (Rosie): Revision is Boring

So, my first exam is tomorrow morning at 9:10 am, but I'm still surprisingly calm. I revised some, but I, for some strange reason, don't feel the need to study like mad. So when the science teacher gave us a revision period in class today, I took some time to take pictures.

Because it was either be a creepy stalker person and take creeper shots of my classmates or take pictures of my immediate surroundings. So I ended up with this picture of my purse/camera bag/emergency school bag. It's usually over stuffed, since I pretty much carry around my life in it. Well, my life except my computer, but most of my life.

~Rosie

24/01/2010 (Findlay) : mo' Hawk

I have a mohawk now. I've been wanting to have one for a while, so today I cut my own hair, and got my roommate and sister to help with the tricky parts. My sister also dyed it purple. I like it.

Then the concert, which we went to (Me, Dominic, my Sister, Mark, and friends Lisa and Marika) was also fantastic. My ears are still ringing.

-Fin

24/01/2010 (Mark): Concert!

Today was epicness. I went to Fin's, saw Zara, dyed my hair purple and went to a concert with music I liked for the first time ever. It was fun, and really intense. Originally I assumed I would use a picture that featured purple, but the intenseness made a larger impression. This is the last time I'll be using my webcam to take a photo, I got batteries :). The only bad thing is that I'm not sure where my jacket is.

24/01/2010 (Rosie): Light and Dark?

Just a quick picture I took of one of our dogs (We have four.) Not particularly interesting, I just thought the contrast between the light and dark was sort of cool.

~Rosie

23/01/2010 (Mark): Glitch?

Whatever, I totally told this to post. Anyway. Today was a pretty boring day, and my eyes hurt from my hangover for most of it so I didn't do much. I did catch up on some sleep though. This picture was also taken with my webcam, but I sorta like it. I captured how much the light was annoying me I think.

23/01/2010 (Rosie): Too "Right"

Do you ever have days were something comes out technically right, but you still feel like something is missing? I was having one of those days when I looked at the pictures I had taken. The white balance was spot on, the exposure was good, the framing was fairly good, they weren't blurry, there wasn't any camera shake, no grainy-ness. And yet, when I looked at them, I felt... emotionally unattached. They didn't have a personality, they were a list of boxes that were ticked instead of a creative process.

Which is why I am sharing this photo:

I had to bring the exposure up on the computer to show the inside of the culvert thing-y, but that made the metal in the sun too bright. A bit later, while working on a photo for my other blog, I figured out how to up the exposure on only a part of the photo. When I came back to this one, I realized I didn't want to "fix" it.

I think there may be a deeper meaning behind this, but since I'm not entirely sure about it, I'm just gonna leave it here.

~Rosie

23/01/2010 (Findlay) : Snowshoes and Pools

My family came up for a lovely day. We went snowshoeing and swimming at the hotel where my parents are staying. Then we came back nice for a lovely dinner. It was a good day all in all.

I borrowed my sister's camera again. I like having it, as it's much nicer than mine. It makes for some lovely pictures, especially when coupled with photoshop Lightroom. :D
The lighting is really nice on my family. From left to right, Zara, Dad, and Mom. :D

YAY FAMILY!

-Fin

22/01/2010 (Mark): No batteries = no camera

It's hard contributing to a photo blog without a camera, I must say. I decided to use my cell phone camera to take it, and I did. Except I don't know where my adaptor thing is, so for now it's trapped on my cell phone. So I didn't post here yesterday. I feel bad having an empty day though, so I just used my webcam to take a self portrait: because I'm the only thing around here right now really. I call it: My First Hangover. It's probably not ok to post the next day, but the thought was there.

22/01/2010

Pretty much a normal day. I volunteered at the multicultural fair, and spent a few hours moving tables. It made me oddly nostalgic for the flea market. I ended up moving the bulk of them since I actually knew how to carry them.

This picture is from the area I cleaned out of tables. Nothing really special about it. Today was just an average good day. :)

-Fin

22/01/2010 (Rosie): Continued Exploration

Lately I have learned a lot of new things about photography, so I decided I should probably figure out exactly what my camera can do, and that meant reading though my camera manual, pretty much cover to cover. Now, at home I am far too busy studying*, so I took advantage of my wasted** time on the bus to read it. At one point I stopped to try something, and that led to this picture:

It is sort of similar to this picture, but instead of showing the colours, I wanted to show how bright it was.

~Rosie

*By studying I obviously mean researching different universities where I could study photography/other random stuff.

** Wasted because I don't have internet, but it's too jolty to write.

21/01/2010 (Findlay): Negative Blacklighting

Today, I mostly puttered around and planned things.
That's about it.

Then, as I was about to go to bed I realized I hadn't placed a picture on here yet.
- OH NO-
So! I quickly thought, "What can I take a picture of?"
I decided to take a picture of my black light.

... It didn't look that cool.

UNTIL! I changed the settings to negative. This is what a black light looks like on Negative settings in an otherwise dark room.

No editing whatsoever folks.
Night!
-Fin

21/01/2010 (Rosie): Snow Flake Mittens

Many of my talents, I inherited from my mother: math skills, chicken cooking skills, language skills. One thing she didn't pass on were her knitting skills. While she has knitted up socks, leg warmers, and mittens, I have been stuck on the same leg warmer for almost a year. Her lasted project was completed last night, and I wore them today:

Other than that, today was an ordinary day (read: emotional roller coaster ride).

~Rosie

21/01/2010 (Mark): Boring into boredom

Today was the first in many days that wasn't super full and with lots of excitement. Which is great, because I had homework. Unfortunately, I FELT like adventure today, so I didn't, much... I had class, did some reading, answered some study questions, went to a Strax meeting and eventually went out for a photography walk after the sun was thoroughly down. Which wasn't as long as I would have liked, as the batteries started to die pretty quick. I like Lithium ion cameras better, thanks. But anyway, here's one of the pics:

I'm at Allen's now, things seem like things might get interesting yet.

20/01/2010 (Findlay) : Colourless Monolith

I had an art project due today. So I made this nifty monolith. The professor thought it was pretty awesome, and I'm glad. It had to use a point from something called the "Minus 12". I did "Uselessness: Monoliths without colour."

I had a really good day, for the most part. I was REALLY hyper after art, for some reason. I think I had a lot of nervousness about my art class that I let out just afterward. However, in Criminology we watched a really sad presentation, and my giddiness wasn't so fun. I'll live though.

I also got permission from my History teacher to do a Graphic Novel for my history class final presentation. Wish me luck, please, I start on it tomorrow.

-Fin

20/01/2010 (Mark): Poetry?

I'm kinda tired, so I won't go into my day in general. It was another full day though. I ended up tagging along with Frances and Meredith to a poetry workshop thing which didn't really have much in the way of poetry. Still, there were dogs, Ariel was there, and it was interesting. We did this thing that I'll probably post on my blog at some point. Here's a picture:

20/01/2010 (Rosie): Goodbye Blue Sky

As I was standing at the bus stop this morning contemplating how rude some people are, I happened to look up and notice that the sky went from cloudy to blue right above my head.

I could go on and on about the symbolism behind the clouds and blue sky and all that, but I'm not going to. I'm just going to put up this picture and let you make of it what you will.

~Rosie

(Side note: The clouds were moving towards us, and when I got home, it was snowing. Big, fat flakes of snow that land on your eyelashes snowing. That made me happy.)

(Side note 2: I'm really proud because I finally figured out how to use the manual white balance on my camera. I felt like such a n00b when I found out though. After all, I've only had the camera for over a year!)

19/01/2010 (Mark) : Strax and lazyart

So I followed Fin to Strax after he mentioned it and it was great fun. I look forward to it, it's fun. I was the only one with no piercings and I felt a little excluded there, but I figure I'll make up for it with dying my hair purple. After Strax I came to Fin's and made my art project: a cardboard box with sticky notes on it to the theme of militant laziness. I put a fair amount of effort into appearing as lazy as possible. The rest of the day I was tired, but learned and had fun.

I asked the members of Strax to gather up so I could photograph them, they thought I was a conservative spy :P

19/01/2010 (Findlay) : Strax and Monoliths

Tuesdays are usually very slow for me. Today was mostly the same, except for going up to Campus for the Strax open meeting. Strax is a student body organization that fights for social justice and all that fun stuff. My friend Mark and I went and became supporters. Interestingly enough, we were the only real people who DID go to the meeting.

Their recruitment posters have a habit of being torn down by other students 20 minutes after they go up for some reason.

I also worked on an art project, "Monoliths without colour" - It's a 2 foot tall black rectangle on a small base. It's what I spent most of my other time working on today.

The picture was from the walk back with Mark. I borrowed his camera as I have a habit of forgetting mine.

Happy Tuesdays,
-Fin

19/01/2010 (Rosie): Evil Baby's Head

Today was intense. I was in evaluations of one type or another all day, and I had a terrible cold. The cold was cured by a few little orange pills, a glass of orange juice, and some tea, but there was nothing I could do to make the test, presentation, exam, and project go away. So by the time I got home, I wanted nothing more than to collapse in bed and sleep until summer vacation, or march break at the very least.

I made myself get out my camera though, and decided to set my camera up in front of the wood stove and play around with shutter speed a bit. I'm not sure what I was going for, mostly I just wanted to get to know my camera better, but I'm fairly happy with how this one turned out.

Ok, so there is an evil baby's head in the fireplace, but I feel like it portrays the intensity of the heat well. That may just be because I'm sitting about a meter away from the fire, but I like to think that it's the picture.

~Rosie

18/01/2010 (Mark): Frustration and glory

Today was another wondrous day at STU, especially after Philosophy. My attempts at a photo was the one bad aspect of my day however, as my plans were continuously foiled. Originally I had intended to take a picture in Global Politics which had some of our row of friendship. However, I forgot my camera. Then later, remembering interesting pictures I took not long before I joined this blog, I decided to try some stuff involving reflection. This is one of the old ones.

The idea failed, and I had immense trouble trying to focus my camera right. I still have the problem and I don't know why. Anyway, I gave up and instead looked at a little figurine I got in Europe and broke yesterday. After which, I decided I like better this way. Here's the picture, positioned so you can't see the porcelain.

18/01/2010 (Rosie): Banana Split and Two Nail Polishes

So, while Findlay has been taking amazing photos, and Mark has been getting started on the project, I almost forgot to take a picture today. Why? Because they just started a new semester (Well, Findlay did, I don't know about Mark.) but I am rushing towards exams at a breakneck speed, and I can't seem to force myself to study. This is causing me quite a bit of worry, since I usually over study. It's not for lack of trying, but I have so much to study for that I can't concentrate.

Anyways, the result of my impending exams is that my usually very neat and tidy desk now looks like this:

If you look closely, you could find: shirts, hair elastics, three tea cups, two nail polishes, my agenda, countless sheets of looseleaf, the package my gorillapod came in, a medicinal banana split, three empty tea cups, the majority of my makeup collection, my iPod (rescued from under a sleeping husky), hand cream, a little bottle of paint, a pen knife, a tub of leather cream, a small part of my cat ears, the bottom half of a microscope, and of course my MacBook Pro.

And I wonder why I never get anything done...

~Rosie

17&18/01/2010 (Findlay): Double post

My internet has a horrible habit of randomly shutting off. It did this as I uploaded the picture and went to bed. Yesterday, this meant that my post didn't appear.
Silly Internet.

Anyway, Sunday was a super relaxed day. Some school readings, movies, kicking around with dominic. Very slack, very nice.

Today was a school day, so I had to do things, but I do love doing things. I may be able to do a graphic novel as my final project for history. I really hope I'm able to, as I want to do one on Suleiman's attempted invasion of Vienna. I just think that'd be neat.

Today's pictures (and yesterday's) involving odd lighting and stuff like that. Well, lighting effects.

17/01/2010 (Mark): Yay!

So I'm officially joining the project. It won't be the full year, but it should still be pretty super special awesome. I look forward to it! Anyway, I took a picture for yesterday but couldn't actually post it until today. So there'll be two posts today.

Yesterday was a pretty good day, minus the not doing enough homework. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an awesome movie. Towards the end of the day I made plans to hang out with Ariel today, and I was super paranoid about forgetting so I did this to remind me of the time. The messiness of my room is in the background :P

EDIT: By the way, if any of you become interested at some point, my other blog (Basically just an idea journal) is http://myarbitrarilyreigningking.blogspot.com/

17/01/2010 (Rosie): Nail-y Tree

Today, I was procrastinating. I DIDN'T want to study. So I went for a walk. When I go for a walk, I always take three things: 1. Cell phone (I never go anywhere without it), 2. camera (it too comes everywhere), and 3. My Gorrilapod, Spider Monkey. (I never have models/friends to practise taking pictures of, so I take pictures of myself). I then walk briskly until I feel I have taken a good amount of pictures. This varies depending on how cold it is, how tired I am, how hungry I am, and how good the lighting is. Today I walked quite aways before I felt that I had found something awesome, and then I found a tree. It was dead, and the top bit had vanished, but it was completely filled with nails. See:

I have no idea why it was there, or what it was exactly, but it was pretty cool.

~Rosie

16/01/2010 (Findlay) : Full Days

Today was one of those super full days where you talk about the day and realize: Hey! That seems like it was so long ago. Of course, it actually only happened three or four hours before.

This morning I woke up, and had breakfast. Some friends had stayed the night, and there was overcrowding, so the beds were given out, and as I was the good host I took the hardwood floor. I actually slept REALLY well. It was nice.

Then we had breakfast and talked. We played Settlers of Catan, Lisa made lunch, we played dutch blitz, people were all over the place. Then Meredith and Caleb left, and then eventually Mark and Lisa. Then our old roommate Beki dropped by and brought some friends, and we talked for a bit. Then! (Yes! the day continues,) Dominic and I watched some movies, and I made some late dinner (Chicken, I really like cooking Chicken). Then we hung out and talked and had a good time.

It was a good day.

Explaination of this picture :

At one point, both Meredith and Lisa decided they needed to get clean. So after Meredith takes a veerrryy long shower, Lisa goes in. There is no hot water left.

So! Using two pots and the kettle, we filled the bathtub with hot water over a 20 minute period. I felt positively pioneer. I missed not having a fire and a large black Cauldron, but one can't have everything one wishes for.

-Fin

16/01/2010 (Rosie): Meet Strider

Lovely readers, meet Strider*. He is an 11 month old eurohound, a cross between a husky and a german short haired pointer. His favourite hobby is skijoring (like dog sledding but on skis), and he quite fast. He doesn't understand why the humans put on so much clothing, but he thought he would try on mummy's buff, to see what all the fuss is about.

~Rosie

*We named him Strider because my mummy and I both think that Aragorn is awesome, but it's a bit strange as a name for a dog.

15/01/2010 (Findlay): Note to Self: this is why you don't drink

Today I had classes and all that.
I worked on this painting.

Then friends came over, and after a lovely and long and sometimes hard night I remember why I don't drink.
Have a good weekend everyone.
(p.s. I didn't drink, and that's why I am thankful)

-Fin

15/01/2010 (Rosie): Mummy Magic

Today, well, yesterday too, anyways, today, I discovered that mummy magic really does exist. Last night I was sitting here catching up with the world, when my mummy announced that she had just taken a batch of chocolate chip bars out of the oven.

This may not sound spectacular, but my day had been craptastic up until then. So I ate several (I'm a total emotional eater). Then I lay on the floor with my dog laughing for about an hour, leading my parents to question my position as oldest-daughter-who-can-do-no-wrong-and-never-does-anything-bad-like-skipping-school-to-experiment-with-substances. Had anyone but my mother made the squares, I would have asked what was in them, but I'm pretty sure my mum hasn't gone near any hash since she was my age, and that was quite a while ago, so I have to concluded that mummy magic is the source of the extreme happiness.

I was more careful with the squares today, since people tend to find it strange when a person is sitting somewhere alone laughing incessantly, but I did have one on the bus to cheer me up, since bus rides have become rather depressing.

It may look ordinary, but I swear, it's MAGIC!

~Rosie

14/01/2010 (Findlay): Innovation.

NEFARIOUS ACTS.

-

that's all I have to say about this photo.

I had a nice day today! I had taken a picture of my history teacher, but this turned out a lot nicer, and sums up the nice parts of the second half of my day.

I woke up at 9 to go have a meeting with my History professor, where I had a good hour long chat, and found that my mark had been wrongly calculated, so I got points for that. I also found out that for my final paper I am going to have leeway to use illustrations or oral parts on the essay. That's pretty nice.

Then me and Dominic hung out, and we ended up playing a bit of magic. I also got my 100$ Poli sci. textbook. Ugh. Textbooks are expensive. I got a deal on another book though and saved some money because of it. :D

good day in all.

-Fin

14/01/2010 (Rosie): Nap Time Reinstated

Today was mediocre. It was in fact, one of a long string of mediocre days. Which is bugging me, since I rarely have mediocre days. I have AMAZING days, or FANTABULOUS days. The main reason for the mediocrity of my life of late is the fact that on January 26th and 27th, I have my exams. And I have one in class next week. So I'm worried about those. But no matter how hard I try, I can't force myself to start studying.

I sit down with my notes every evening, and invariably get distracted. Today I was attempting to study for science.

I was attempting redemption, since I fell asleep for about half of science class today. I woke up when one of my classmates threw a heavy magnet across the class, and it landed with a crash about two feet away from me. I'm glad I did though, I woke up just in time for another classmate to suggest that nap time should be reinstated into the school system.

The day got better after that, since in French class I had a deep conversation with two guys I'd never really talked to before, by the end of which we decided to become anarchists. The conversation started with the language spoken by Charlemagne. Feel free to try to figure out how we got from him to anarchy.

~Rosie