Final Finale Finally

First semester of MATX is officially over! And I'm back in the land of the living!

After a week of very little sleep with dreams in PowerPoint slide design, I'm proud to announce that I got A's in both classes and passed the Pass/Fail Practicum.

Final projects were:
Cut-Ups are For Everyone: The Appropriation of Found-Footage Filmmaking and Media Culture - a pretty straight-forward paper on found art, collage and filmmaking. Focused on issues of ownership, authorship, copyright and fair use by looking at four cases. Ties with with the Surrealist movement, culture-jamming and new media. One of my favorite papers ever. I'll be entering this into the VCU Dept. of English Student Writing contest!

Textuality and Graphic Novels: Identity, Influence and Adaptation in V for Vendetta and Beyond.This project really pulled me out of my comfort zone - not a standard paper at all. I composed a multimedia/hypertext in PowerPoint and then Christian helped me with the online version. It's fun, it's funky. I quoted MCP. I put in a picture of Wilson. I've entered it into the Electronic Literature Organization conference as of an hour ago. First conference I've ever submitted to!

Even though I'm thoroughly hungover from the overwhelming amount of red wine I drank at Melinda's party last night, my confidence level is pretty high. I feel...smart.

Retail Therapy

After a shitty day complete with teary-eyed meltdown in the middle of class and crucial sugary Starbucks peppermint mocha injection, I still needed more to bring me outta the practicum induced funk.

So, Christian and I went shopping and out to dinner at our favorite restaurant in Richmond, this tiny little Mexican place called Su Casa on W. Broad. Best tacos I have ever had. I crave them. I dream about them. And my dreams came true last night for a total of $24.00 w/tip.

Then it was off to Marshall's, for guaranteed cheap clothes. I have purchased new clothes 3 times in the past year: in January I bought some socks. In August I bought some shorts. In October I bought a sweatshirt. Ladifrickinda. It was time to do some major damage and revamp my wardrobe.

Marshall's purchases: 1 pair of jeans, 2 pairs of pants (one casual, one dressy). One cashmere sweater (zip up with hood, my favorite). 3 pairs of knee high socks. Two pairs of patterned tights. One scarf, one pair of gloves. Total: $202.00

Next, Target. Something's up over there - they must have a new fashion buyer. The clothes were kickass cute and actually tailored to fit. I bought six tops of a variety of styles. I bought two black dresses, a belt, a pair of earrings and a hat. Some Burt's Bees balm. And two bottles of red wine. Total: $200.00

Then I came home and sent out my Amazon order:
One 4 Gb jump drive. 15 rolls of 35mm film (various speeds and styles). One battery for the Canon. One battery for the Minolta. An essay book on photography by Susan Sontag. Total price: 130.00.

And I felt so much better when I finished blowing my entire two-week stipend payment in one evening. A thousand times better. Maybe it's also because I've been so starved for new clothes after getting rid of so much when we moved to Richmond. Maybe it also has to do with the 15 bonus pounds I'm carrying on my gut and ass that's making me not fit right into what I have. Who knows? But retail therapy works, and I am proof.

After it was all said and done, we opened a bottle of merlot, sat on the couch, snuggling with each other, the dog and the cats, and watched A Beautiful Mind. And I thought I had problems...