Resolutions would be great if you stuck to it;

“New year, new me”

Goodness gracious how many times I have heard this, read this or whatever. It’s been ten days into 2012 and I have no resolutions. I have goals to accomplish this semester, things I want to see and do this year, but no resolutions. Besides most university kids have a tough time sticking with it… they keep “restarting” their resolutions. It makes me laugh.

This semester of school will be a semester filled with little free time. In fact last night I had 4 hours of free time and I spent it relaxing and reading. I am only two days into this semester; that being said I have gone to each class once, gotten the course outline and of course received our first assignments. Don’t get me wrong, I love photography but I’m beginning to think along the lines of everything in moderation.

To accomplish my degree I have to take a 2D design class, it’s full of drawing, painting and everything in between. I don’t want to say I hate drawing; I don’t want to say I love it. I will however say I hate being told what to draw. Generally speaking I hate being told what to do, my parents can vouch for that one. Haha! This course is two days a week for a total of 5 hours in class time. On top of this all we are expected to spend 4-10 hours of our own time each week working on various projects. 4 hours is what reflects a C grade, 10 is reflective of an A grade…so he says. The worst part about this class is its all graded on ability. Yes you get graded for putting effort and thought in but like my instructor said “Some things you’ll be good at, others you wont be, not everyone is amazing at each project we do. I don’t expect to give out very many A’s in this class”. Great, superb, fantastic… I wanted to be graded on things I suck at. Sorry for the abundant amounts of sarcasm, clearly I am not excited about this class. My goal for this class is a C, and to not miss a single class of it. That way I have the extra points for attendance to at minimum boost my grade.

My intermediate photography class looks like it is going to have more of a creative freedom to it. We have projects, but we really have freedom to photograph whatever we wish. Guidelines are set but creativity is endless. I think I’ll really enjoy this class and my instructor is the one from my intro class last semester. He is good at what he does and has a lot to teach. Now that it’s intermediate I think I will get more out of the class. In this class alone we are expected to take 550 photos a week starting 4^th week of semester. Generally speaking they have to be themed, so that in itself causes difficulty and forces you to find 550 different but similar things. I am aiming for an A in this class.

Photo Lighting Techniques is my class that meets twice a week on Tuesdays & Thursdays for 5 hours total/week. I think I will really enjoy this class, it has a lot to teach and I have a lot to learn. This class is mainly based on photography in the studio; setting up lighting situations. Basically I have to think up images and then craft them. It should be interesting and I have the same instructor as I did for my darkroom class. She is awesome, a really fun personality, but also the type of instructor that is your biggest fan whilst still being your biggest critic. It’s a good thing I think, she gets a lot out of her students. I hope to achieve an A, but not sure how tough these assignments are going to become…We’ll aim for an A but a B+ I think would be acceptable!

Art portfolio is a class that meets once a week for 2.5 hours. It’s a class that is taught collectively by my 2D Design instructor and my Photo Lighting class instructor. They should be a good duo. I look forward to this class. It will definitely help me decide how exactly I want to build my portfolio. Help to show me which artists will help influence me to be a better photographer. It should be a good class but I feel like since it only meets once a week I’ll have a tougher time staying on top of things… procrastination has never been that good to me! I think a B+ or an A seems achievable!

Lastly I am taking an online course just for the extra credits, GPA booster. It is a woman’s health class. It looks fairly simple, but guess I’ll have more of an opinion after I finish the first assignment and get my mark back. I think it’ll also be interesting to read about all the health problems out there. I am shooting for an A!

Anyways that’s my class load. Those 4 classes are all considered studio classes; meaning I am expected to have to work on my own time for 4-6 hours outside each class. Sometimes more, sometimes less! Looks like I will be getting 24 hours in on homework a week. Stressed is how I feel about that!

As for my goal with this blog, I would like to post more often than I have in the past. I think a goal of 4 blogs a month seems reasonable. A blog once a week seems achievable. Expect more about school, and more about my sleep schedule. My sleep schedule shall be interesting! Haha.

Side note, if you’ve commented about getting in contact with me over facebook or over email and I didn’t reply to your comments or I did and you never saw them… I will say this as a general statement. I prefer to keep my facebook off limits, I don’t check it nearly as often as I use too. My email however may be used. If you wish you contact me, or have questions… sarahbeaulieu@live.ca

Have a good week

Sarah

Welcome 2012;

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I hope 2012 brings you nothing but positive energy and some great naps.

I am sorry it has been so long!  I have had some serious home time that has allowed me to see the friends, family and loves till 2 am and sleep till noon. My bed has never been so comfy. I am dreading having to go back to that single bed in Minnesota. Home sweet home, seriously. You don’t realize how much you love something until you are forced to be apart from it for months at a time. I am forever grateful for my family and friends and this beautiful city I call home.

My Christmas has been amazing. It’s been a few years since we’ve been home for Christmas. Last year we did the hot Christmas in Beautiful Panama; just near Costa Rica. My goodness, beautiful place! I am however happy that this year we are at home! I missed my house; I missed the free food and laundry. Anyways Christmas Eve’s Day was spent on the bathroom floor due to my error in not fully understand pacing yourself. That evening however I went out to family friends, finally allowing my body consumes food. It was wonderful to see the family friends, have a few laughs and then hurry home to get to bed before Santa arrived! My parents were super generous this year, and by that I mean Santa got me just what I wanted/needed! My parents were happy with their gifts, as well with my brother. Seriously I love giving gifts and having the person receiving it get all happy! I got my mom a Coffee Mug with out family photo in it, and then 2 charms for her Pandora Bracelet. I got the father a Flask that had “Learned from the Best” engraved on it. The brother got 6 shirts, the plain v-neck ones that he wears everywhere. Assorted colors of course, and the reason for 6…Urban Outfitters had a stupid awesome deal I couldn’t resist! My grandma always talks about the arts and crafts I did when I was little; painting flowerpots, drawing, painting little statues…anything artsy! Well seeing as she made a comment on how I don’t make those things anymore I took myself out to the crafts store. Bought myself 2 Christmas ornament statue like things. Got some paint, and spent my afternoon having fun proving her wrong. I love painting artifacts. She adored them of course and thought I had bought them already painted! ;)

As for what I received the list is wonderful! I got a pair of Ugg boots; they have got to be just the comfiest things out there! I got a new belt; I desperately needed a new brown leather one. My dad happened to find a perfect one! My brother got me this amazing blazer that I have wanted forever! It’s really cute; it can be worn with dressy clothes or with a pair of jeans. I adore it and am looking forward to wearing it! I also got a bracelet; it’s of Pandora type style and idea but a lot less expensive and really cute! I like it, and my mama put on a few charms; soccer ball, camera, heart, peace sign, luggage. It’s really quite cute! It was a successful Christmas morning and next was my favorite part… DINNER! I love my mom’s cooking’s, and I love my mom. I helped her here and there in between watching television with my brother, skyping with my friends and all that good stuff. Finally 5 o clock rolled around and dinner was served. Another amazing meal, for free and with the loved ones! I am so thankful for my family and being able to be with them over the holidays!

Well school starts up here in a week and with a 3.5 GPA from last semester I am happy to start the next! I am looking forward to more photography, more excitement! However I do kind of wish it was closer to home. I love the idea of travelling, but I don’t like the idea of living this far away from home. I don’t love the city enough to have that desire to be there. I will make the best of it though because miserable days make the time drag on! American spring break is Middle of March; a few of us have been talking about FLORIDA! The guys live there; so we’d have accommodation and the beach is 10 minutes away! What’s not to love about the situation! My dad even offered to allow me to dig into my “education fund” for some help with finding the money. I have the funds for it, but my excitement lies in the possibility of me doing a Europe trip in May! My dad however believes Florida would be a great idea and a great experience that is part of college. He said I shouldn’t throw Florida out the window just because I want to do Europe. I should compromise and do both and he’s willing to help. I love my father for that. The fact that he enforces me to travel and see things, do things is awesome. He’s travelled the world with work and he has come to find that it is the quickest way to learn about yourself, learn about the world and to learn to adapt at quick rates! I look forward to all the travelling I will be doing in my future.

Europe is on the agenda for leaving 3rd week of May. My friend is from Scotland and was going to go back for a visit. I thought, why not turn it into a trip!? We have discussed briefly on where we want to go, what we want to see and how much we want to spend. We will do the UK (Scotland, England) for about a week, visiting his friends/family. Next we’d get into Netherlands and travel through 4 countries. Hitting up the following cities; Amsterdam, Bruges, Brussels, Paris, Bordeaux, and ending in Barcelona. Of course we have room for hitting other cities but those are the main places we decided on getting too. We’d be gone for 4 weeks, and I have thoughts about staying another 2-4 weeks. I want to get to Italy & Greece. The places I want to see are endless, too bad my funds aren’t!

Well Narci needs a good nights rest! I’ve been getting a serious 10-12 hour sleep every night I’ve been home. It’s been amazing; I love the holidays! Although I did get Strep Throat, I managed to get antibiotics and get right back out there as long as I was on my Tylenol and Advil! I couldn’t risk staying home any days and not seeing my friends with the limited time I have! Also oddly enough my naps have been next to none, I’ve just had so much energy! I’ve been going to the gym as much as possible, trying to stay in shape with all the baked goods my mama has been feeding me! Hopefully my energy level sticks around for one more week! I got friends to see and things to do!

Good night all and have a good week!