Home is where the art is

Hey everyone! It's been a while. I did a design project to procrastinate today and I wanted to share it with you!

First, the finished product:

This is a digitized version of some hand lettering I did to pass the time this summer. 

Below is a picture of the original drawing:

I took this image with my cellphone and then brought it into Photoshop to crop it, get all the letters lined up and centered as best I could, and change the contrast so it would be super easy for me to trace in Illustrator:

Then I traced each letter with the pen tool in Illustrator to make the linework as close to the original as possible, but with cleaner lines. I added some horizontal lines next to each "is" to bring the piece together and make it feel like a whole. Et voilà!

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you'd like me to make you a poster or something similar out of your favorite quote!

ALSO I designed and coded my own portfolio site (which I need to update over Thanksgiving break), which you can visit HERE!

Thanks for looking! Hopefully I'll be back soon :)

Life Update! Yay!

Dear readers,

So I still suck at blogging. That didn't really change at all. However! I have a tumblr now and I'm far more obsessed with that than ever writing things on here, so you should check that shit out! I'm going to try to make it a point to blog every week, like on Friday or something, so hopefully that works out. I'll set a reminder on my laptop. I don't have classes on Friday (yay!) so I just spend the whole day doing Differential Equations homework (not yay!), so blogging would be a lovely interlude. 

That's all for now I guess. I don't really have much else to say so sorry about that :\

Lovingly,

Beesweezy

What a Twist!

Guys guys guys, I'm doing it! For reals!

In a surprising turn of events, I've actually stuck to my resolutions! Of the resolutions I listed last time, I've been following 1-7 almost entirely, and it's the end of January! That's actually a record for me.
The only discrepancy is that I have been drinking coffee and tea in addition to water, but still no soda! I've been going to the gym like it's my job and eating a lot better. As far as sleeping goes, I've been doing a lot better but not perfect. However, I've been keeping up with my schoolwork like never before, which is probably because I actually like my classes this year.
My thesis course, Graphic Design for Corporate Identity, is actually super interesting but it's going to be a crapload of work. At least I really like doing what we're doing. For our first project we were matched up with a partner and are working on designing a logo for them, which is really exciting because that's what I want to be doing in real life. I'll post the final here when I'm done but I'm pretty proud of what I have so far and the ideas I've come up with.
Tangential thought: It might be time for me to start adding photos to my posts again on a regular basis. Surprise again! Lots of text is boring and you probably hate reading so much with no break. Sorry, kids.
In other news, Differential Equations is way harder than I anticipated but mostly because I took Calc 2 in Fall of 2010 and haven't looked at an ounce of math since then. Everyone in class is casually deriving and integrating the crap out of things and I'm just like, "Oh god oh no, where did that e come from????" Hopefully eventually I'll figure out how numbers work again. At least I take pretty notes.

It's always interesting to tell someone I'm taking DiffEq because this is literally how it always goes down:
Me: [Listing classes]... and DiffEq.
Engineering Student: Oh, do you have Boudjelkha?
Me: Yeah.
Engineering Student: You'll be fine, it's super easy.

Me: [Listing classes]... and DiffEq.
Arts Student: WHY!??!?!?? SWEET BABY JESUS, WHY!??? JUST TAKE GEOLOGY!! YOU'RE GOING TO DIEEEEEEE
Me: Thanks.

So I think for my own sanity I'm going to believe the engineers. Hopefully the fact that I went to a math and science high school will let DiffEq seep into my brain and just hang out there and I'll know everything eventually. I can dream.

Now for something completely different: I've finally jumped on the tumblr wagon! I'm just using it as a place to post design stuff that I love so if you're not into that then don't click on this link: http://beesweezy.tumblr.com
If you're into funny things and college and haikus then click on this link: (a collaborative project between me and my friend M)
http://thecollegehaikus.tumblr.com

That's all for now I think! Later potaters.

Resolution and Resolve (or the Lack Thereof)

So resolutions kind of suck.

I make them and I don't think I have ever stuck to a single one I've ever made in my life.

For example, this year I was all, "Oh yeah I won't drink anything besides water!" and before I know it I'd downed two cups of coffee and a soda before 3pm January 1st. Good job sticking to your guns, kid! It's not that I'm consciously neglecting my resolution (in this case), I'm just running my life in autopilot and didn't realize that it actually takes work to consciously change the things that I do by habit every day. SO, here is the list of resolutions that most likely will not last me until next week. I keep telling myself that I haven't started them yet to make myself feel better, but let's be real, I just have no inner strength. Which brings me to my list:

1. Get some inner strength and motivation to do things I don't want to do.
2. Similarly, STOP PROCRASTINATING (I'm the worst).
3. Actually go to the gym. (Having G as a partner will really help this because she can kick my ass and already goes to the gym like a good person.) This includes eating better.
4. Don't drink anything besides water. (This one has some exceptions, like birthdays, including my 21st. Include a less-than-excited "woo".)
5. Get a normal person's sleep schedule. (Harder for me than it sounds. The whole sleeping from 4am-4pm thing isn't going to fly when I have three 8am classes this semester. Oy.)
6. Actually care about school work and do my best on them instead of taking the easy way out most of the time.
7. Related: build up my portfolio.
8. Get a summer internship!
9. Graduate. (This one is kind of a freebie since it's already pretty set up. Only 11 more months!)
10. I can't think of anything else right now but stopping before 10 would've killed me.

So as I said before, these haven't "officially" started yet, I guess going to school is my new year starting-point. Some of these things are reasonable and some are not really so much. Anyway, I'm going to try to stick to them and hopefully eventually they'll just be habit and I won't have to physically stop myself from eating really crappy food all the time (pretty difficult in college but we'll see).

Good luck everyone with your resolutions! However plausible they may be. Hopefully by this time next year I won't be such a lazy child. And will have a degree. And a job. And be spectacularly toned.
I've already got the wishful thinking part down.

Farewell, 2012!

You'd have to say it like "Farewell, two-thousand twelll.......ve" for it to really work but just go with it.

So, like I said I would yesterday, I'm getting back to you about Mindy Kaling's book "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and Other Concerns)". It was wonderful! SO many of the things she said I really connected with and now I feel like I'm best bros with Mindy, so that's pretty cool. For example, she has always had an aversion to athletic things and would rather read on the bleachers than ever participate in gym class (my life), she (obviously) loves comedy, and just doesn't know why we can't have a standard definition for the term "hooking up" (a conversation I've had with my friend G numerous times), and we have the same definition for the aforementioned term. I won't tell you what it is though, so now you have to read her book! HA! But really it's great and it's fairly short so no one has an excuse.

In other news, it's the last day of 2012, which I think is pretty great. This year was kind of weird and it'll be nice to move to a year where I can start all over, sort of. The only stupid ting is that 2013 is the grossest number ever and I'm mad that by graduating early I've moved from Class of 2014 (isn't that such a nice looking, respectable number?) to Class of 2013 (ew. just look at that 3). Aesthetics of numerals aside, I'm super pumped to be graduating a semester early. I don't know really how it happened, where I transferred and everything, but I'm certainly not complaining. Fingers crossed for jobs and other cool things!

I think that's about it for today's update. I'm cleaning my house like a madwoman trying to ring in the new year in something not so much resembling a pig sty, but one can only do so much.

Adios, friends. Adios, 2012.

'Sweezy's Back!

Woah. Okay. So. I haven't written in over a year and there are some good school-related and some not-so-good procrastination reasons for that. So overall, sorry. My b. I suck at this.

Yesterday I read Tina Fey's "Bossypants" and it was absolutely everything I hoped it would be. Ms. Fey is one of my role models and reading her story in her own words was amazing. As my family can confirm, I spent all of yesterday curled up in a chair in the corner of my grandparents' living room giggling to myself. While reading. I wasn't just sitting by myself giggling at nothing. Thanks. Anyway, read that book if you haven't already, it's great. Tonight I'll read Mindy Kaling's "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)" and I'm super excited about that too, so I'll let you know. I had to stop writing halfway through that last sentence because I realized I had left my Kindle in the car and I needed to get it before I forgot again and had to go out into two-foot snowdrifts at 3am to get it. Maine.

Anywho, things are different nowadays, I'm going to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York now, which I think I said in my last post, but that was over a year ago so who can say.
Well, turns out that by taking a second to look through my post history, I can say. I did tell you, so stop asking about it. It's fine, and I'm graduating a semester early so *yaaaaaay* to that. I don't know anything about my major, but c'est la vie. Speaking of French, I suck at it these days and I'm mad. Boo RPI for having no language classes. Luckily Duolingo exists and is beautiful and I love it (They recently added Portuguese and Italian in addition to the German, French, Spanish, and English they already had as learning options! Freakin' sweet!). 

Other news: 

• The MacBook Pro I ordered is coming tomorrow and I'm going to flip a biscuit, I'm so excited.
• ALSO it's New Year's Eve tomorrow, but you knew that, you're a smart person. You also probably own a calendar and, unrelatedly, are glad the world didn't actually end last week (and if you're like myself you never thought it would in the first place, but dream on, dreamers). 
• I just finished "A Dance with Dragons", the fifth installment of George R.R. Martin's beautiful A Song of Ice and Fire series (should I put that in quotations? hmm). SO MUCH INTENSITY I CAN'T HANDLE IT. And I can't wait like six years for the next one to come out, so speed it up, Georgey. 
• My current internet addictions: Amazon Mechanical Turk, Neopets (don't judge me, I'm bored and my 10-year-old self needs to get a game trophy), Pinterest, Designspiration, and Netflix.
• My sister got Just Dance 4 for Christmas so that's entertainment for the whole family that I would highly recommend. (Part of the entertainment is watching your family try to figure out hip-hop dance moves.)

That's all for now, I think. I can smell garlic downstairs, so I'm pretty sure that's my cue to go eat a bunch. I'll be back soon. Probably in 2013 but hopefully not as late as December  :)

Sweezy Summer Update

So I'm officially the worst blogger in the history of the blogosphere. Sorry to everyone who is even still reading this that I never update at all! Excuse time: I've been working six days a week and nothing super interesting happens to me in the time between.
Anyway, here's an update on my life:
I've transferred from BU to RPI and I'll be starting there in the fall so I have to think up a sweet new name for my blog. I'm now an Electronic Media, Arts, and Communication (EMAC) major, which means that I get to learn graphic design, animation, communication, management, and design in bits and pieces, but my main specialization at this point in time is graphic design.
Last month I bought a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet that I'll need for my classes, and I've started playing around with it every once in a while. I've been putting my favorite creations on my flickr. Here's a little preview in the form of a pig from Minecraft:

Piggers (original on top)

Aside from tablet-ing, I've been wasting the days away Stumbling in the Food/Cooking topic, and have become obsessed with foodgawker.com, a brilliant and delicious little waste of time that has allowed me to build up a large folder of bookmarked recipes. As you may have noticed, I've also been experimenting with adding links into my posts (or post, I should say). Oh, what one can learn when one actually opens one's eyes!

This post was going to be a lot longer and ended up being more like pulling teeth than blogging for fun, so here we are. Once the school year gets back up and running I'll probably be able to blog more often (a factor of procrastination rather than productivity in any sense).  As for tonight, I'm absolutely exhausted and I need some sleep to power me through my next six-day work-week. It'll be the second-to-last, though, so that's a bittersweet thought!

Next up on the blog's agenda: either a post raving about eggs and how freaking wonderful they are, or a back-to-school special. Time will tell.

'Til then, adios! :)