Livin in the Nasty Nati

Alrighty, so here's my post.
I am currently living in Cinci for the summer in an apartment I share with two girls. The one girl is living at home for the summer, the other lives with me (Caitlin - I have lived with her since freshman year). We are still settling in since we moved in like a week ago, but it seems like it'll be good. I work at an art gallery downtown in an area that makes me miss home like no other. It is an unpaid internship, and I work there three days a week. Its really cool because its not just an art gallery, the artists who show there have some kind of disability (it is connected to a non profit agency that helps people with disabilities find all kinds of assistance etc...). So yeah, thats cool. I would like to say that the majority of my job is designing stuff for them,, but honestly this past week it was more stuffing envelopes and licking them till my tongue fell off. Mental note - buy one of those wet sponge thingy majigs. Butyeah, I've been working there for a couple weeks, and they really like the designs I do for the shows (I do the posters, flyers, postcards they send out etc...). Even though its fun it gets frustrating when I am starting a design because the director has so much input that I struggle with putting myself into the design instead of letting it just be his ideas executed. So yeah, that gets really frustrating and I can already see how thats gonna be a problem for me when I get a real job. Is that bad? That I am already seeing a problem with my future job? Who knows. Fuck it, too late to turn back now. And I love every other aspect of it. Oh well. Anyway, if you want more info on the gallery - www.artbeyondboundaries.com
My other job is working at a coffee shop. I LOVE THIS JOB. I have worked there since august. I just got a fifty cent raise! Woo. Pretty much, I am one of five employees (including the owner). Its the tiniest little place, but its awesome. Its not your typical cutesy coffee shop, its owned by a guy in his thirties who is obsessed with coffee and has little decorating sense but made this place pretty damn cool nonetheless. He is awesomely laid back and all the employees are awesome to work with. Hannah works with me on saturdays and she is a 16 year old. We exchange high school stories, mine reminiscent and hers fresh from living them yesterday. Then I tell her about college and she talks about how she cant wait. I always tell her to wait. As fun as college has been and is, I do still miss parts of highschool. Like free periods where you end up running as fast as you can up the driveway so you can sign in before the damn minute hand on the clock ticks. Or chowing down on nachos at contact time and bitching about the politics test. Or always being a set of lockers away from friends. Sigh. Anyway, the other woman I work work on sundays is named Paula. She is a thirty something mother who got pregnant in college and dropped out (even though she was on a full scholarship to a really good school - I cant remember which) and now has twins who just graduated from high school as well as a 5 year old daughter. She is about to start the process of divorce with her husband. She is really cynical about life and marriage and honestly, it scares me. A lot of her stories seem like they are about missed opportunities or settling for things which turn out to be mistakes she regrets for years (ie marrying her husband in the first place). She gives me the same advice i give hannah. wait and enjoy. Is that what the rest of life is? Wishing for yesterday? wow, that got depressing quick. Anyway, the fun part of working with her is that she is hilarious. We gossip the entire time since our boss isnt there, and the regulars love us. Sundays are hilarious. The regulars are awesome. They make the job worth it for me. The little bits of conversation I have with them every weekend are really fun. Next week I am gonna start working on thursdays and fridays as well. So basically I won't have a singe day off, but its alright. Most days I don't have to get up till 11 anyway.
I am still an art major. Well, technically, I am a fine arts major with a concentration in Graphic Design with a minor in Gender and Diversity studies. The minor was one of those random ones where I looked at my classes and was like hmm.... i only need one more class for this minor. oh hey, I had to make a portfolio website this semester, so if anyone wants to see that - http://student.xu.edu/~fortunek/portfolio.html I had to make it totally from scratch, so yeah. that's fun. I wanna redo it sometime this summer because I feel like you can totally tell it was my first flash website, but its cool anyway.
ok. This last semester was the hardest I had ever had. I took printmaking, graphic d 4, art history, euro history 2, philosophy 300 level and theology 200 level. just a word of advice, never take four classes that are all about reading and essay writing in one semester. I worked on homework every day from the moment I got out of class until 3 in the morning. It sucked. But I still found time to go to the bars of course. haha. Oh, and the art department decided to screw me over this semester. So, my thesis is to do a gallery show at the school. Usually, we are paired with one or two other people in the show. However, if you have a 3.77 gpa in the art classes, you can do a solo show, which is really presigious etc... So I had always hoped to do that. This semester I realized that I had a 3.75 in the art department, but I figured that they would take this semester's grades into account and I'd be fine. So I declared my intention for a solo show (aka checked the box on a piece of paper saying so) and turned the paper in. A couple months went by and I heard nothing and I got so busy I didnt have time to deal with it. So during exam week, I remembered and asked my teacher. For some reason, they all thought someone else has told me - no, they don't take this semester's grades into account. I missed a solo show by .02. That really really sucked. I was pretty damn pissed about that. Oh well, I'm over it. And since I'm talking about it, you are all invited to my show next year. It'll be sometime between march and may. I'll give you details. I know you guys most likely won''t be able to come etc... but I'm inviting you anyway.
Life in cinci is kinda weird right now since everyone is out of town for the summer. There are some people in town who I hang out with. Most of my nights are spent just chilling at home, or at my friend's apartment watching movies and smoking hookah, or heading over to the college bar, which is practically deserted or filled with townies since its summer, and drinking a beer and relaxing with friends. No boy at the moment. Although there have been a few faint blips on the radar, most have turned out to just be the kind that never call you back etc... So whatever, still flying solo.

Wow, that turned out a lot longer than I thought it would. oh, its 11:!1 - make a wish. and kiss the clock.