Thursday, September 1, 2005 10:19 am  <|>
<230> My Mentality:How often can we really afford to take the time to consider all that is going on in our lives? To go one step further, how often can we do this and actually then DO SOMETHING about it once we come to some kind of conclusion? Everyone's life comes together in stages. It might seem that one thing flows into another, and it does for the most part, but when you look back on the cross sections, you realize there is a little more to it than that. Turning, tipping, breaking points - those all exist along with any number of other transitional moments in which the epiphany occurs and you change forever. It's happening all the time, to those around us and to ourselves. There is really no point in trying to stop it, for that alone could be a turning point too. Really it's best to accept this notion and keep moving ahead. The thing is, it's hard to move forward into something you can't see. Sure, we've all been known to jump blindly into the bright light ahead I'm sure, but still it's never been easy.

There is a lot of change happening around me right now and to me. My best friend is moving to another contenant for a year, in which time we'll be left with all communication besides real life, face-to-face. To me this is the case of plenty of my friendships, but she falls to the category of close friends in which this just has never been the norm. It will be an adjustment, but I'd like to think we'll be able to pull it off and be ok. Afterall, a year can mean a lot and it can mean nothing. So we just have to make the most out of it without it seeming too long. My solution to this is to think of it in parts of sorts. I'm going to get to see her for a couple days when we go over for Dan's sister's wedding, which takes place one month from today. Then I'm going to see her around Christmas. After that, I think it'll be the longest stretch, but it's too far off for us to worry too much about just yet. I know she's worried about leaving - it's a lot to leave things behind, especially when you signed on to something thinking you didn't have much to stick around for, only to find that there is more there than you thought. It's this tough situation that no one can really help you out of, so you are left to work through it, and you will, and will do fine... it just takes time.

As for changes with me. Well, I started pursuing my Master's in New Media... so I'm (sort of) back to the college life. Of course it feels a lot different when you don't have classes everyday, but I do have work to do and I'm starting to get the swing of doing it again. It was a weird semi-nostagic feeling last night when Dan was out with some friends and I stayed home to work on my annotated bibliography (which is due tonight by the way) complete with a trip to the store for Bagel Bites and Phish Food. Now that is what you'd call a college dinner combination! ;)

We've also moved on to the next stages of planning our wedding. I've actually researched somewhat seriously dresses, locations, and even attempted to look for wedding rings, but these are proving to be the most difficult. We have decided the date will fall within either June 2006 or October 2006. July and August are kind of skipped because we are having an outdoor wedding and we figure it might be too hot. September seems to be when everyone gets married... like my brother is on the 17th, following by Stacy (Dan's sister) on October 1st. We'll see what happens though I guess. We'll pick a final date by the end of this September I think. It's kind of nice to actually start planning the wedding with a sort of date in mind though. It makes it feel more real - and makes me get a move on getting things together too I suppose. It's not really planning that I mind - I love planning things - but then I have to look at the cost of things and that can be rather annoying. We're planning to pay for the wedding ourselves, I guess with a loan of some kind which I'm not sure we technically even qualify for because we both have student loans (me two times over now) and good, yet limited credit so far since we're still pretty young. My parents would help out if they could and I'm sure they will try, but they can barely afford their own stuff right now, I can't put too much on them. But just as I approached grad school, foolishly or not, I leave it to fate and just take it day by day, hoping I can work things out and still pull everything off. It's worked out so far for the most part, but it's been pretty tight already too, so I guess I'll just keep trying to saving what I can and planning the best I can for what I cannot forsee.

So I've been feeling some inspiration to get things done, which is good since I have an art and research project to be working on. Somehow because of the way events are falling within September I feel like it is going to fly by, and I'm probably right. So I really have to find myself some time to devote to my project and paper that has a draft due by the 1st of October... especially since we're leaving a few days before that resulting in me needing to turn things in even earlier. I'm going to attend the Semi-Permanent art and design conference on the 9th and 10th. I simply cannot wait... I've waited to go to this for literally years but it's always been held in Austrailia. I thought I'd never get there and then one night looking around the web while I was still in Austria I came across the annoucement for it. It worked out that some people at school were also interested and I got my tickets shortly after - at the student rate again woohoo! Ah yes, I'm going to like this student stuff for those kind of perks!

My to-do list is rather full these days, but you know me, this didn't stop me from recently registering a official company for myself finally. That's right -  in about a week MetaTative LLC will be official. Basically the idea behind having my own company is so that I can do official business through it - be it freelance / design work or running Sticky Art as a parent company. I thought to just register Sticky Art itself, which could still happen in some form, but I thought it might be better to create a company that acted as a blanket to any things I decided to take on now and down the line. I've seen a lot of artists do it, so why not join the band wagon? It's so easy to do now anyway. Go through the online interview forms, pay for fees, and there you are. I still need to look into a couple things and there is plenty of work to be done to move forward with it, but it officially locks me into a third subset of happening! (For those of you who do not read my ramblings regularly - I often find that my life falls to - and works best within - having three things going on simultaneously). For instance in this case - wedding planning, graduate school, and company development.

So where things go from here, I'm just waiting to see. Work is going alright. It's the same as it always was, though now timed and paid a little differently as I mentioned in my last post. But overall, it'll do for now and hopefully I'll find time to expand on my other money making (read: money taking) ventures sometime soon as well. Until more excitement comes my way, later!