Sunday, February 26

Art Everywhere!!!



Hey guys!

This has been an extremely art-filled and energetic weekend, for myself and for a lot of my friends.

My graphic design buddies went to St. Louis on Saturday for this giant design portfolio convention where a lot of them were able to showcase their work and get their names out in the world. I'm hoping they got lots of good feedback, and hopefully even more good connections.

I was personally busy getting involved with an art form that's pretty new to me- fashion and modeling! A few weeks ago a friend asked me to participate in the Project Prom Fashion Show, and after two days of tech rehearsal we strutted around the runway in some super fancy prom dresses! I'll elaborate on all this when I get some pictures.

The really cool thing that happened this weekend was the Warehouse Theatre's success with their first attempt at a 24-Hour Play Festival. It's as scary as it sounds: they have 24 hours to write, direct, produce, and perform a series of plays, and let me tell you, they nailed it!! I was so impressed by the humor, depth, and level of production my friends were able to capture in such a short time period, and I really hope this festival becomes a tradition here on campus. 

My friend Danielle Wineman (a fellow blogger, by the way) put together this video that sums everything up. She did a pretty great job whipping it up in 24 hours, too!



love, rudi

Monday, February 20

Tid Bits of Advice

Most of my friends, and I assume readers, are creative types, so I want to share this with you all. I love Ira Glass, the creator and host of This American Life on NPR. If you haven't listened to it before, it is a program that I highly, highly recommend- it's like meditation and yoga for your mind. It's just the best.

Anyway, Ira Glass created this amazing new concept of a radio show and has done really amazing, great things with it, so I am more than willing to take any advice he has. And it just so happens that the moment I watched this video was a moment when I really needed to hear what he had to say.


I hope you like it, too :)

love, rudi

Wednesday, February 15

No Good Day.



One of those days, ladies and gentlemen. One of those days...
where you just want to cry and curl up, you're losing your kitties, the weather is too much to handle, an all you want to do is put on your favorite crazy patterned jammies, block out the world with your Dora hat, and munch on some candy. 











Of course, looking through all of the pictures you have of your baby sister throwing baby fits is sure to cheer you up, even a little bit.


Even if just a little bit.

love, rudi

Monday, February 13

Snow


We finally got hit with winter! 
And please note: while snow would normally make me sad, t
he only reason I'm slightly glad about it is because 
my first class got canceled this morning! And I really wanted that to happen!

Sometimes good things are disguised by bad things.

love, rudi

Friday, February 10

SUSHI FRIDAY!!





Just a quick word: 
Every Friday I somehow forget about the genius that is Sushi Friday until, like, 6:30 every Friday evening right before the cafeteria closes, and then I FREAK OUT because I remember that
IT'S SUSHI FRIDAY!!! 

AND IT'S ALWAYS DELICIOUS! 

ALWAYS!

love, rudi

Choosing My Choose



I took myself out on a little date night last night. I had several things to do- homework to finish up, cleaning, reading, sketching- but yesterday was important. Yesterday was my four year anniversary dating my boyfriend Truchi.

As excited as I was about taking myself shopping, I felt like I couldn't really share my special occasion with many people, and I contemplated for a while about posting it on the blog. I feel like talking about being in a steady, long term relationship and having a boyfriend with adults, teachers, or professionals lessens their approval of me. I feel like it, even subtly, cheapens me in their eyes.

It's this same reason that I try to avoid talking about my real future plans with mentors and other established adults. If I told a potential employer that I'm really looking forward to designing from a farm house between taking care of my chickens and adorable future babies, would I lose the integrity of being a capable, powerful Stephens Woman? Would they still consider me a valuable potential employee? Or would they snub me off and consider me non-commited and unprofessional housewife? Trying to be a female professional almost requires you to swear "I want to work for the largest company I can," or "I'll do anything for this job," and generally promise your life away. Letting on that you're not in it for the rat race, admitting that you don't want to treat your career like a giant competition against "the other guy", that, no, you don't want your work life to swallow up your personal life is sort of career suicide.

I'm by no means a feminist. I'm so neutral on most topics that I barely feel comfortable even assigning myself to a political party, but in this case I want to blame my shame for being in a relationship on sexism. Throughout the past men have easily been able to desire both a career and a family life and social life without much controversy, but how often have we seemed baffled by "Super Moms" who somehow seem to manage both a family and a job? There are TV shows, books, and movies about how hard it is for a woman to "juggle" her life.

I hate that. Of course I know that in reality it's very challenging to have a multi-faceted life, but I want to know why it seems so much more simple for men. I don't think women should have to choose between fulfilling their potential in their career fields and being a mother (or, more accurately to the stereotype, a "good" mother).

Screw that noise. Let me tell you what I want. I want to be a really good graphic designer, inspired and original and hardworking, just like I am now. I want to stare out of the window of my home office and watch my adorable pink-cheeked critter playing some adorable run-around-with-the-goose game in the yard, and take a break from the designs I was working on to run around outside with her. Then I want my funny husband to come in from milking the goats and give me a big messy hug. I want to be a big contributor to big and interesting projects, and I want them to be interesting because I made them that way. I want to meet with my impressive, interesting team of coworkers twice a week to talk about our next project, which I want to kick in the butt because I know I can. Then I want to have dinner with my mom at some great little Italian place where we chat about how dumb people can be, and how funny people can be, and how proud we are of each other. That's what I want.

My Mamaw Jan used to say, "You've got to choose your choose." That's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to choose my choose.

love, rudi

Sunday, February 5

The Game of Self Expression



I've been avoiding you. 

Blogging has been a battle in my brain lately. It's a puzzle to decipher what to write about- what's considered too much information, what's too little, what parts of my life I should advertise and what parts I should keep private. I'm in a peculiar position for a blogger because I see most of my readers every day, which makes having this online diary especially awkward. 

Blogging is also hugely about documenting the fun stuff you do and talking about it. The thing is, though, that I don't go to many events or parties, I'm not usually found hanging out with friends. 95% of my day is spent by myself. It's class, work, my internship, homework, and the ever-so-precious alone time that I depend on so heavily to keep myself together. College is such a temporary isolated type of living, I always feel sort of slopped together in a whirlwind of deadlines and running from place to place. It's a sordid mixture of being very, very busy and then suddenly having nothing to do, which makes for boring blog conversation.

That said, I spend a lot of time thinking about art, projects, and more than anything at all, The Future. Those things are so personal and specific, and not exactly good table conversation. It's a puzzle, then, deciding what to share and what to not share. I'm supposed to be recording my life, but my life is just a cocktail of homework and errands. In the meantime I hide inside my own head, stirring soups of inspiration and daydreams.

But how do I explain those things to you? 

love, rudi