Happenings.

So in the past month or so quite a bit has taken place. For one thing it's pretty much no longer fall. We have definitely experienced some winter weather recently and even had snow flurries during kiln building class.

So yeah, all those beautiful yellow leaves are history.

We had the symposium. It was one of the most exhausting whirlwind weekends I've had. It made me feel like I was back in China.

Master Feng demonstrating overglaze technique.

Keith from NCECA sketched Master Feng while he was working. I loved his sketch. That's one of the things I love about being around artists. One of my goals is to have awesome sketchbooks full of fun drawings and sketches.

And if being around the Chinese artists wasn't enough to make me feel like I was back in China seeing the 8 foot vases hanging out behind the ceramics studio certainly made me feel like I was back there.

In addition to the Chinese artists who came in to demonstrate at the symposium Professor He also came back this year to work on an sculpture for our school. He was a wonderful addition to the studio. He left this past Sunday to go back to China and those of us students still at school before break joined our professors and other faculty and their families and had a goodbye dinner with him. It was wonderful. It combined two of my very favorite things: ceramics and China/Chinese. I will miss Professor He. And Bangmin is leaving in December. I will miss him too. Anyway, the dinner was so similar to the dinners we had in China. Great food, everyone was hanging out and having a good time. I felt so incredibly blessed and content to be right where I was. This semester has had its share of ups and downs but overall I am so grateful to be at my school with the people I know and to be doing work that I love.

I am taking Chinese 1 this semester and through my class I got a language partner. She is really fun and I'm glad we're becoming friends! She's from Hong Kong and speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and English. I found out recently that Bangmin speaks 5 or 6 different languages- most of them different Chinese languages. I'm so impressed with these folks who learn to speak so many different dialects and languages. I have actually decided to stay at my school for one more year to get a second major in Chinese studies. I enjoy it so much that I want to learn to speak the language and understand the culture. I'm really excited about it. I love my Chinese class a lot. The teacher is great and my classmates are too.

The roomies and I had a little Thanksgiving dinner party and invited all our local siblings and friends to come over. It was a good time. My roomies and I love to have people over and we like to cook so it was a good combination for us. I volunteered to make the potatoes and appreciated my roommate's comment on the board. I love those girls.

And now it's late and I'm tired. So I suppose I'll stop here and get some sleep. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Goodnight!

more greenware...

at least I finally like these pots. After quite a few panicky weeks where I hated pretty much everything I made I finally made a couple of things that I am happy with. They're a start at least. Hopefully the ideas will develop into something better that the originals.

There are more pieces, but this is all I've taken photos of recently. I made some small and large bowls that I like as well.

My pottery has become quite feminine lately. I think it's a compensation effect since I've felt so dirty and messy all semester. I make up for it by wearing skirts and dresses whenever possible, going swing dancing and making girly pots.

You do what you have to do I guess.

Give Thanks

So once again it's been over a month since I've posted. In my absence though I've been busy busy busy and simultaneously hating and loving it. I'm now visiting with my family and trying to remember how to take it easy and relax. Funny how I get so used to being in a really busy routine and then all of a sudden it stops and I become very anxious. I don't think that's particularly healthy.

Since we're about to celebrate Thanksgiving I think I should say a few things that I am grateful for. In no particular order:

• my health. Despite being really busy and not maintaining a normal eating/sleeping cycle each day I've made it through the semester with a cold and that's it.
• Safety. And for the guys who got me a knife, flashlight and a can of mace for my birthday. And heck, for that matter I'm thankful for all the nice guys I know who I could call on if there was a problem.
• My classmates. The people I spend more time with throughout the year than anyone else. As cheesy as it sounds they are a family to me and I love them dearly. I'm pretty broken-hearted over the fact that so many of them will be graduating or returning to China within the next month and semester. I'm so grateful for the community that we make up and for what they each contribute to the studio.
• My church. I don't think I've ever been a part of a church that God has used to teach me so much. Their desire to serve God and see Him change lives and save people is hugely encouraging and inspiring. Their love toward me and so many other students has meant a lot too.
• My family. For the fact that they're safe and healthy and that they love me. For the fact that even though we're spread out we're all doing well and busy and close.
• For technology, so we can all keep in touch more easily.
• For my roommates. I live with 3 lovely, godly young women who are wonderful friends.
• For my unborn nephew. Due in March! Yay for little boys!
• For my Bible study group. Getting to know other people and studying the Bible with them has been a highlight of the semester.

And for many other things. I hope everyone else has a great Thanksgiving!

midterms

This past week was pretty wild school-wise. I had a critique and 3 tests to take as well as a project due in production. It wore me completely out. Friday was such a huge relief...I took most of Saturday off and hope to take most of today off as well.

I would say the past few weeks have completely worn me out. It seems like there is just never enough time to do everything I need and want to do. I've had a couple of days these past couple of weeks where I realized I hadn't eaten a meal in over 24 hours due to the busyness of my schedule. Needless to say, this lack of eating has resulted in me being pretty hangry at different times. I feel like my patience levels have dropped a lot the past few days and I feel rather despairing at times. I had a few moments this week where I was ready to crack. I was at school till midnight on Monday and having horrible luck with what I was making for my critique on Wednesday and I was so miserable. I wondered why I had to pick a major that made me feel so incredibly bad about myself. I sometimes equate being a ceramics major to being in a bad relationship (which I've never been in so this comparison is only based on what I've heard) where you do all the giving and ceramics does all the taking and it's never enough. Nothing I do is good enough, nothing works out the way I intend it to and I feel like an unappreciated failure. You might argue that I'm taking this too seriously. I probably am. My sister told me I'm a workaholic, but are you still a workaholic if the whole time you're busy you don't want to be working? Cause seriously, all I've wanted to do this week is sleep and watch movies in my bed and eat fall-ish foods.

The whole week wasn't awful though. Aside from being really stressful and exhausting I've had quite a nice weekend. On Friday I went to a friend's apartment and watched Inkheart and Stardust which was fun. And yesterday I had lunch with a friend and walked around Old Navy and the went home and napped and watched the Lion King with 2 of my roommates and some friends. It was so relaxing and nice to be with the girls all weekend. I'm really sad that the weekend is almost over and I still have Chinese homework to do. :(

I think I need to make it a point to get out of the studio more and relax on weekends. I feel guilty and irresponsible if I don't spend all my time working on things and I think I need to lose those feelings and realize that rest and down-time are important. I feel so much more refreshed and ready to go back to school when I make time for fun. I've been trying to convince my professors to start a school-wide "Professor skip day" so we can have a long weekend. It's not really working, but maybe if I suggest it enough they'll jump on it. Especially with the symposium happening this week...maybe they'll be so tired they'll want a break next week.

On top of all that I find other things to worry about. Family, school, future, etc. It gets me really down and I feel like I bottle things up and it just makes everything worse. I've been doing a Bible study that has been really good and helped me with my perspective and also kind of teaching me how to deal with stress and anxiety (cast your cares on Him for He cares for you). It's a work in progress, of course.

Anyway, so that wasn't a very interesting or light-hearted post, but it's what's been up lately. I'm hoping for a calmer week ahead...the symposium starts Friday morning, so I sort of doubt it will be that much calmer, but at least I'll get to see all my Chinese professors and watch them do demos and give lectures. It should be fun. :)

new recipe...

My roommate, Mandy, made gluten-free peanut butter cookies for us one Sunday and they came out really well! I was surprised to find out that there was no flour in them at all.

Basically they are made of 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 cup of peanut butter, one egg, 1 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp of vanilla and chocolate chips. Sooo healthy, right? :)

Bake at 350*F for about 10 minutes.

Super easy and actually really good.

Sneak peek...

Porcelain...with slip...awaiting bisque firing and glazing. Keep your fingers crossed that this turns out better than my last firing did!

Hopefully I'll have more successful results to show soon!

Wood kiln and pottery stuff

We fired our wood kiln last week. It went much better than any other firing I've been a part of, but it still didn't work out perfectly. I think I'm a curse to the wood kilns. You know how it was considered to be bad luck for women to sail on ships? Well I think it's bad luck for me to put work into a wood kiln because every firing I've been involved in has never made it to temperature all the way.

Anyway, we still got some good stuff out of the kiln. Most of my work was ruined though because I dipped almost all my pots into a bisque slip before I glazed them and did not know that glazes don't adhere to bisque slip very well so almost everything I made has big crawling spots on them. Some of them have glaze cracking right off them. See exhibit A:
Bad, right? Can you hear the sound of my heart breaking? All that work and almost all of it was RUINED! I think we're going to try to fire the wood kiln again in about 3 weeks. After all that trouble I still feel like I should try again. Maybe someday I'll figure this stuff out. I managed to get some sort of decent work out. These are my more successful pieces.

I threw some more little things and am trying some new decorating ideas on them. I've got the slipwork done, but I want to trail some glaze in the slip work and then allow for flashing and other glazing around the painted stuff...I'm having fun thinking about it. :)
I've also been trying some new handles. Tom gave me a little handle-making demo which was pretty cool. I was given the book 500 Cups before I left NC this summer too and that has been quite inspiring also and I'm getting some fun ideas from that. I'm really hoping to see a lot of improvement in my work this year!

Tonight was the first night of our Bible study with our church. Next week we will start hosting it at our apartment. I'm really looking forward to it! I think it will be really good!

Okeydokey...I'll end here tonight. I am going to try to get to the studio pretty early tomorrow to work on some pieces before my class so I should probably get to bed soon!