Stephens is my Valentine!!

Yay!!! Valentines Day was so sweet this year! Stephens took so much care of me this year- and it's a good thing too because this might be my last Valentines Day alone for a while- graduation means a big girl apartment in the same town as my boyfriend! 

Also- don't know if you guys knew this or not, but it turns out the real meaning of Valentines Day (especially at this girl's school) is cookies.

Yep. Cookies.

Well, plus these amazing cupcakes we decorated ourselves thanks to our baker, Micah. He spoils us, can't you tell?

Also note the genius of Carolyn. She filled chocolate...with chocolate...genius.

Also note the majesty of Arianne's cupcake decorating skills!

And then after cupcakes I was gifted with cookies from the camera supply closet! 

BUT OH MY GOSH THEY WEREN'T JUST COOKIES WERE THEY?

NO THEY WERE NOT! 

THEY WERE DR.WHO COOKIES! 

WITH TARDIS'S ON THEM!

And then we had bubbles in class! 

And then, well, did I mention cookies?

Yes. Yes I think I did. 

Happy Valentines Day to all of you lovely ladies!! 

(and to George, who reads my blog more regularly than I do! I miss you!)

love, rudi

Distractions

This month's lesson is about distraction.

Which is probably the worst timed lesson I've ever had, because this is my last semester in college and there are things to do. All of the things to do. All of them. And I have until the fourth day in May to do them.
But I tell you what's odd. For the past three years I've been so focused, so channeled onto goals and working and the future that distraction has been a very small concern in the past, and I'm not exactly sure how to deal with this.
But also never before have I been newly 21 with way too many friends inviting me to way to many great parties and game nights and gallery openings and 'hey let's go grab a drink and brainstorm' date nights.

Hey, that counts as practicing networking skills, right?

On the positive side, I am carpe-ing all the diem Columbia seems to offer. On the negative side, I maybe didn't finish that diagram of the anterior torso exactly on time. Another semi-plus side, though, is that I never turn in late work. I'm just cashing in my 'bad student' chips while I'm still a student.

love, rudi

Goals: Accomplished!

Before pulling together my new years resolutions, I thought it would be wise to go over those goals that I set for myself at the beginning of this semester. Remember that post?

1. Keep up the good work!
    I think I've done a great job preventing myself from burning out, and I came out of this semester with several portfolio-worthy pieces! Not to mention I conquered three of my biggest fears- learning Photoshop, drawing, and attempting to paint. Not too shabby at all!

2. More pictures!
   This goal may never truly be accomplished- you can never take too many pictures- but I do think that I could still do a better job. I have been really good about carrying my camera around everywhere I go, so that's a solid start. I give myself a B for this one.

3. Watch less TV.
   Okay. This one was going to be the hardest from the beginning. In fact, I'm watching an episode of Portlandia as I type this. I'm still addicted to TV (starting Dr. Who didn't help), but the reason I wanted to cool it on the Netflix in the first place was to make sure I got out of my room and got a good start on goal 4, and since goal 4 was accomplished despite my TV watching, the addict inside me is wondering if I could just keep my vice.

4. Find my people.
    Totally accomplished this one! I've really connected to people that I wanted to be closer to, and I've taken some big efforts to get to know my acquaintances better. I've even got a weekly girls night tradition started up!

5. Lose the cynicism.
    It's amazing what a change of perspective and a few new people can do for you. My headspace has been so much more positive since the beginning of the semester, and it happened at just the right time. Who wants to graduate and start life with a bunch of gunky, negative thoughts in their head?

I'll be back soon with some updated goals! Do any of you have suggestions or resolutions of your own? Please leave me a comment about them!

love, rudi

Animal Halloween!

Did you know dogster.com rated Stephens as the Number 1 Most Pet Friendly College in the nation? We've also been on the Today Show for our pet-friendly policies. 

I've been cursed with cat and dog allergies, but that certainly doesn't stop me from getting a little puppy love whenever the girls are walking their dogs. Around Halloween one of our dorms held a pet costume contest, and it was 'TheBestThingThat'sEverHappenedToMe'. I'm just going to show you all the pictures and let the adorableness speak for itself. 

 This is Lily (the dog) whom Allison (the human) dyed blue to be a pond!

 Look at that worried look!

And this princess fairy missed the party, which is almost as sad as it is cute.

Just wanted to share this with you guys. I hadn't squealed so much in a long time.

love, rudi

The goat and the Lion

Kappa Delta, one of the sororities on campus, is hosting a contest asking girls for photos of them and their best friend and write a little about why they give you confidence. 

So my friend Crystal and I submitted this entry, and I liked it so much I thought I would share it! 

love, rudi

Into the Wild!

For the past two months or so, my friends and I have been getting more and more excited about fall because to us, the word 'fall' actually just means 'camping'. As soon as we felt the first chilly breeze we started planning, and this past weekend we finally went! 

Morgan graduated over the summer after the Okoboji Summer Theatre, and I can't tell you how nice it was to see her again, be able to talk with her, and get my fill of hugs. She's one of the most comforting people that I know. I just feel happy around her.

Unfortunately we got to the campsite too late to take any good pictures, but the next morning we were all smiles. The hood of my car took this picture- he's so talented!!  Our trip was double fun because we took my friend Grace's dog Gillian with us. He's such a sweetie! Plus he totally won the hot dog eating contest.

Here's an update: Morgan and Joel are still the most adorable couple ever. Just like they were last year. And the year before. 

The morning after Handsome Joel took us into town to the most adorable little cafe any of us had ever seen, where we got delicious homemade sandwiches and bowls of fancy homemade soup and cups of warm tea and cinnamon. I really love me some nature, but I can't express enough how much I love good friends and good food. It was such a love fest.

And I know people are probably so over seeing pictures of other peoples food, but this soup tasted exactly like soup my grandmother used to make. It almost brought me to tears.

I for one feel so energized and refueled. Friends, if you're reading this, I really appreciated being with you guys. I can't tell you enough.

love, rudi

Jumping, Falling, Flying

   I heard this quote during one of the most important and exhilarating experiences of my life. It was in the middle of high school, and I was right in the crux of deciding what sort of person I was going to be. I ended up decided to be an artistic one, and it was a real risk that ended up making high school pretty difficult. In the end, though, it turned out to be worth it.

  I've loved this quote since I first heard it, but I keep forgetting that jumping and taking risks doesn't always mean I will fly. Today I got some disappointing news- I ran for a leadership seat in a club on campus but found out that I didn't get the position. It's hard to be confident and ambitious. When you really work hard at something and truly believe in yourself, the failure is just more disheartening.

   But, while I have to remember that jumping isn't always flying, I have to also remember that it isn't always falling, either.

love, rudi

The After

   Remember a few weeks ago when I talked about donating my hair? I never showed you guys an after shot! So before going out today I snapped a few shots. I lost about 8 inches and was left with this nice little bob. It's a little Katie Holmes in a way I don't love sometimes, and it drives me crazy not being able to pin it up, but I'm so glad I did it. 

   Somebody made a video of the hair cutting event, and when they release it I'll be sure to share it on here. From what I hear it's got a few great scenes of me bawling my eyes out- it was sort of a sad reminder of my grandmother's death to breast cancer a year ago. But it will be nice and cool when summer heats up around here.

love, rudi

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

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

Open House with President Lynch

Last week the historic President's home was opened up for display! 

For those of you who aren't familiar with the situation, the President's home has been on campus since the beginning, but had recently fallen to ruin and extreme disrepair. The roof was caving in, the walls were rotten-- all sorts of bad stuff. President Dianne Lynch initiated the Home Again campaign to save the building, to preserve the integrity and history of the school and recreate the space to the beauty it once had. 

After lots of fundraising and hard work, significant changes have finally been made, and the house is almost completely livable again! 

Dianne (who, with her family, live in a small portion of the upstairs) decorated the house up in holiday cheer and invited campus to come have a look-see! The house was beautiful, the snacks delicious, and the experience heartwarming. It stirred up a lot of school pride to see that Stephen's is working hard to bring back the hospitable traditions that go along with the President's home. I hope the house is finished soon, so I can be a part of them before I graduate next year.

Also, the old-lady nerdy part of me appreciated how much the reconstruction focused on being historic and keeping the old charm of the building. I die for a good hard wood floor or an adorable nook-and-cranny. 

Plus, a big kudos to Dianne Lynch for owning Florence and the Machine in vinyl. 

Super hipster points, P-Lynch. Super.

love, rudi

Diversity Week

This has been quite a week to talk about!! Stephens just finished up Diversity Week, and I got to attend a good majority of the events.

Diversity is a subject that's be slowly becoming a bigger and bigger point of discussion on campus over the past year or so, and I think the Diversity Week and it's events gave us all a big relaxing deep breath. It's like everybody secretly wanted to say something about diversity on campus the whole time, and now we finally had a conversation about it. I think a lot of people benefited from the events, it was very cathartic.

Karith Foster and Adam Lehman were the big guests of the week. Karith is a Stephens Alum who now does stand up and all sorts of other entertaining things in NYC and LA. She and Adam are touring with their new program "Stereotypes 101", a half stand-up half heart-breaking-discussion about, well, stereotyping. Karith and Adam shared stories from their own lives about race and sexuality, and after that event students started talking, too. That's one thing I love about Stephens-- ripple effects work here.

(This picture was taken from Karith's website)

If you guys were in attendance at any of their events, or are interested more in Stereotypes 101, or just want to jump on the Diversity wagon, check these guys out on Facebook! They were extremely inspiring, and a complete joy to have on campus.

Did any of you attend any of the Diversity Week events? What did you find to be inspiring?

love, rudi

Collected Stories

Hey everybody!

I can't remember if I told you, but for the past few weeks I've been assistant stage managing a show in the Warehouse Theater called Collected Stories.

We open tonight! Everyone should come! The show starts at 7:30 and we run through Saturday night. If you're a Stephens girl, tickets are $6, and if you're not one of those lucky few they cost $8.

I'm super proud of this show! No promises on pictures of the set until after the show- you'll just have to come and see it yourself!

Here's the set of our last show, All My Sons, just to feed your theater hungry eyes!

Gorgeous, ain't she? One of our apprentices, Brandon P.T. Davis, did the set design and Emily Swanson designed the lights. I think they both did a marvelous job!

I hope you all get a chance to come see Collected Stories! I'm very proud of the cast and crew- I can honestly say I'm a big fan of the show.

See you there!

love, rudi