It's crazy but midterms for this semester are already here. Our shorter semesters are nice but it's crazy how fast they fly by. By the time we get settled into our schedules we're out of here (or on to a completely different routine).
Just in case you think all Cody and I do is sit around all day here's some things we've been up to:
-Valentine's Day-
Since this year it landed on a Sunday we felt low-key V-day was best. I had a "special meeting" in my stake (wasn't a ward or stake conference, just a special meeting with Elder Costas of the Seventy) which was very good. Our stake president is a wonderful man and we got to hear from the Rexburg Temple president and matron. Cody just attended his regular meetings which was nice because it gave me time to get things ready. The previous day we had bought steak and lobsters (that were on sale!) and some asparagus for a quaint fancy at home meal. And may I say it was delicious! We exchanged hand-made valentine's cards and Cody lovingly got me a heart box of chocolates.
-President's Day-
I drew this. See if you can name all the presidents.
-Peking Acrobats-
A couple times a semester we get a couple big name shows that come to our school. This was by far one of the neatest shows I've seen here at Rexburg. When I was in China I saw the Beijing Acrobats so it was awesome that I got to the see the other company. They did some ridiculously awesome tricks that scared the crap out of the audience and left us sitting in our chairs with jaws dropped. If there's one thing Chinese can do well, it's put on a good show.
a little racist but we couldn't resist doing our best chinese face
-Cody's Birthday-
Long story short we went to the Hard Hat Steakhouse (best place for prime rib) for Cody's birthday. His mom had called ahead and arranged that we be brought virgin daiquiris and she gave them her credit card number to pay for it. We went and they had our reservation but didn't bring the drinks and didn't have her number down, but it was no big deal, because it was still a good meal. Well Cody's mom was really disappointed because she wanted to do something for her son's 21st birthday so she called and talked to the manager who apologized and said that it was a communication error. He told her that he would send Cody a $50 certificate and call and set up the whole deal to be done over correctly. Cody got a very nice and apologetic letter from the owner and we called to set everything up. Well we arrive to a pre-set up table (table cloths which no other table had) and in a private room. The whole night we were treated like stars. We had our own waiter, and the owner checking in on us constantly. He kept insisting on us getting appetizers, salads and after our meal dessert. (He really wouldn't let us say no.) At the end he told us that the meal was on him and we could keep the $50 dollars for another night. All in all is was the best dining experience of both of our lives. We were so grateful and were very appreciative to the owner who really didn't have to go to such great lengths to please us lowly college students. (sorry that wasn't that short).
and last but not least, the thing I have been getting crap for the better part of the last month the fruit of my labors:
The studio classes I'm enrolled in this semester are Creative Perspective, Figure Drawing and Ceramics.
Ceramics: This is the first piece I've been able to take home. I missed the 2nd day of classes because of a brain mix up thinking that I didn't have class that day so I had to whip out two pinch pots in an hour-ish. Craftsmanship isn't that good but oh well. Instead of glazing our teacher let us do this cool thing with our first pots which is called Raku. This is where you take your fired piece straight from the kiln and put it in a metal garbage can (or any other large metal container) and drop it into a pile of sawdust and cover it in sawdust. The wood ignites and causes the ash to stain the piece. What you're left with is a neat matte black ashen look as seen below.
Creative Perspective: This was our first assignment called Dream Studio. We could be literal or take a more fantasy approach. It was a one point interior space. Naturally being a northwest-er I came up with this:
Figure Drawing: I'm sorry this is a lot of pictures. But that's what we do. For 2 hours and 45 minutes we draw two minute poses, three, five, ten, fifteen, twenty and forty (with a break in between). The best way to get it down is just to do it a billion times.
