Things I love

I just ordered the Autumn Film's new CD: The Ship and the Sea.  I like it. Check it out.

Other things I love that I think you would love too: podcasts.

This American Life

Radio archives available for free streaming online!  They take one topic and explore in one or several stories for an hour.  One of my favorite stories is the last 15 minutes of  #348 Tough Room

The Moth
Shorter Stories on various topics from their live storytelling series.

Radiolab
On our recent adventure to Texas, Kristen and I learned a lot from listening to radiolab.  They pick topics like sleep or memory, and then they talk to scientists and try to get to the bottom of how they work.  Other interesting topics: parasites, stress, laughter and probability of streaks in sports. Really cool. Or maybe dorky, but do you see me caring?

I recently submitted a piece to a contest with the theme of Faith and Culture. Here's what I submitted:

 

Old Oak

by Lauren Cunningham

oil on cavas

This painting was made in memory of my Bochie (grandmother), who had a wonderful large oak tree in front of her house.  The oak was special, partly because of the beauty in its vastness, but also because it was a part of us.  Everyone in my family has swung in its swing—high enough to see the edge of the world—and climbed among its branches.

            I depicted the tree in winter, a season when nothing seems to grow.  Grief is so similar. In the depths of winter it is hard to imagine the existence of the sun, and yet, springtime comes.  In life, when we see the last of many leaves fall from the branches in a loved one’s life, it surely feels like life is over.  But as Christians, we have hope that there is life within the tree and that in spring our hope will be realized. 

P.S. Thanks to those friends who helped me edit this. There is a reason that I am a painter and not a writer.

Yesterday, I met the teacher I will be student teaching with after spring break.  She seems great!  I will be teaching Photo I, sculpture, ceramics and jewelry.  I am a 2D person, so it will be good to get experience in all of these 3D subjects.  However, I don't really know how to go about planning lessons for these subjects that I don't know too much about. If you have any ideas or favorite sculptors let me know.

The elementary teacher I'm with now is a good teacher, but very disorganized.  She even admits to hoarding and a lack of ability to organize things. My first week, she did a lot of lessons in a spur-of-the-moment fashion.  Needless to say, I cannot teach lessons that way (maybe after a few years of experience I will be able to).  I am learning a lot though, elementary lessons are fun to plan. I just started a clay monster lesson with 3rd graders, and we prepared by listening to In the Hall of the Mountain King and prowling/hopping/sneaking about the room acting like monsters, a.k.a. awesomeness.  Sixth graders just made clay superheroes which turned out great as well.

I can't wait to have my own classroom!

Having clean laundry is like Christmas!

It's all folded into beautiful piles, and it's like you have all new clothes, except you don't have to try them on again, and you like all of them!

Bonus points for being warm when the come out of the dryer.

It's, it's and its

Ok, it may be just me, but I feel like "it's" and "its" should both be written "it's". I think that English speakers are smart enough to differentiate between the two based on context clues.

Point 1: Based on the normal rules of English "its" should mean: more than one it. What if I was writing about Cousin It and his relatives. how would you distinguish the Its (the It family) with "its"? Very confusing.

Point 2: Grammar rules generally suggest that an apostrophe+s is how you make something possessive. Are there any other exceptions to this rule?

Tell me, who is going to get confused when you write, "the dog couldn't find it's bone." Would you be confused?

English is ridiculous sometimes.

The other day I was thinking, when getting to know one another, people often ask what kind of music that person likes. I think it should also be a fair question to ask what type of art one likes.

You could answer in terms of subject matter: realistic or abstract, figurative or non-figurative. By media: sculpture, painting, photography, ceramics, etc. Or movement: impressionism, post-impressionism, cubism, pop art, icons, conceptual art, etc.

you know what I mean? It just seems a little unfair to only apply this type of question to music. I guess you could apply it to drama, poetry and literature as well. Possibly this is a question of why are we so caught up in music when there are so many other forms of art/entertainment to discuss.

I just don't feel like knowing what kind of music a person likes gives you a well rounded idea of who they are.

It's Fall!

Kristen and I have decided to train for a Thanksgiving 5k, so we are following six week plan to go from not running to a 5k. Today's workout included a 3-5 mile walk, so we decided to take some photos along the way. About 1/16th of a mile into the journey, I found a mirror in a trash pile. It was a nice mirror and rather large, so I decided to adopt it as my own. Here are a few photos from the day:

Our sidewalk


Sweet gumball


The sidewalk


Isn't my new mirror beautiful?


I couldn't turn this one.

I love fall.