Can you get a headache from sleeping too much? Is that possible? If so, then I think I am getting one. Apparently, graduate school has made my body want to function on six hours of sleep and how it is allergic to more sleep then that. (sigh) Christmas vacation won’t be any fun unless I can snooze all the time. Hmmm…need to retrain the body.

So I have two weeks of blogging to catch up on. Think I am going to try and do that all in one long, long, long rambling novel of an essay. That should chase away anyone who decides to read my blog. No one wants to read miles and miles of type. All my schooling has taught me this. (journalism and design school.) okay. Let the rambling begin.

Monday, nov. 24 – we met with warren to go over our final book projects. I am going to send out eight disposable cameras to various friend/artist that I know and have them shoot 20 words that are hard to take pictures of. (ie-addiction, patriotism, harmony, infinity, etc.) I too will also shoot photos and then package the entire thing in a book with a disposable camera included so the reader can shoot along too. Warren approved the project. I stayed late and came up with the words, booklets and packaging that will be sent out to the shooters. Everything looks pretty nice. Now, I just need to figure out how to make it into a book that works and isn’t’ too static and boring.

Tuesday, nov. 25 – sent out the cameras. Yea!! One final started. Showed steven g. my final project for the last time to get his observations on it. He said it looked great. Now I just need to design the booklet/cd case for the project. (the project is the one where I made instruments and recorded them.) everything is going into this lovely little square cigar box that I found. There will be a booklet with picture that explains everything and the cd. Under the cd, there is a false bottom and below that are two mallets that I created out of super balls and sticks. This is so the person getting the cd can use the cigar box as an instrument and take the mallets and play the box like a drum. Spent the rest of the night working on the design for the cd booklet.

Wednesday, nov. 26 – came into the studio for a short bit to grab some of my projects to take them to phoenix to show them to my parents. Left for my long flight to Arizona. Got there around 2am east coast time. My parents were waiting for me in the airport. It was great to see them. My mom almost cried.

Thanksgiving holiday: going to condense all the days down. Spent two days in phoenix and then went up to Sedona with my parents. My brother and his wife were there along with his wife katie’s parents, sisters, sister’s husbands, sister’s children, her aunt and grandmother. Total there were fourteen of us. Four from the sorton clan and ten Fedor clan. We ate thanksgiving dinner at a lovely country club. Good food. Rest of the day was spent drinking and watching tv in super comfortable clothes.

Went to Sedona. Stopped at the Cubs winter home so my mom could take pictures. (like all true Chicagoans she is a die-hard cub fan.) Sedona was as beautiful as I remember it. It wasn’t so breath taking this time around though. I guess one can get used to the power of the beautiful towering red rock cliffs. Weird. Spent time hiking with the family in different state parks, ate lots of good Mexican food and sat under the stars on our last night huddled under Mexican blankets and heat lamps trying to deny that it was cold in Arizona. Good to see my brother and his wife. We made plans to come next spring and hike from the north to south rim of the Grand Canyon in two years.

Sunday, I headed back to NY. Started at 8am. Took a van, two planes and one cab to get me back to the studio at 10pm. Worked some more on my box cd packaging.

Monday, Dec. 1 – wow!! It is December. So weird. Spent the entire day designing my cd box for the box class. The book class was cancelled.

Tuesday, dec. 2 – shot a ton of photos for my sagmeister project. I am making a short movie. I have two days to put it together. Eiiiiiieeeee!!! Scary. I hope I can do this. Presented our box projects to steven. Super cool stuff. I am amazed all the time at what everyone comes up with. It is so cool to be surrounded by so many smart, creative people that all thinks so different from me. So inspiring. Worked the night on milton’s project. Never found any poetry that I want to illustrate so I did a song lyric from jets to brazil. I tried to do an illustration. It was fun.

Wednesday, dec. 3 – shot more photos for the sagmeister movie. Photo corrected the photos and got my Milton project printed out. People liked the illustration. Milton didn’t seem in love with it, but he did say it was a super strong image. I liked it. Turned out better then I thought it would. Worked all night on the sagmeister project. Finished everything at 8am.

Thursday, dec. 4 – eric Zimmerman of game lab came to speak to us. Fun stuff. He is super interested in the philosophy of games and he speaks about them almost like a sociologist. Good stuff. Saw everyone’s design finals for sagmeister. Amazing. Chris ritchie’s was my favorite. Our project was to touch someone with our design. He made these beautiful books about a friend of his that was killed in October and included stories and pictures from his buddies that grew up with this guy. He then sent the booklet with a tree to each of the guys so they could plant it and remember him. Natalie and Chris did a can food drive. Thomas did trading card for his friends back home with these beautiful illustrations. Araba (well, I can’t tell you yet.) Lauren tried to design a symbol that the median in the Palestine/Israeli conflict could wear. And on and on. I can’t reveal what I did. Maybe next week. Worked on my web homework after class.

Friday, Dec. 5 – Did more webhome work. We are having a bit of a snowstorm, but nothing too crazy. It is super beautiful. The snow makes me happy. I love to walk around in it. Something about fighting against the elements and feeling the cold flurries fall over your face. It just makes me smile. Maria Kalmann came in today to talk to us about her class next semester. We get to go to a nursing home and hang out with a person and then tell their story through design. Neat. I love stuff like this. Journalism and design. I have realized that I love to tell stories. In my books, cds, movies, flash movies, I try and tell a story. Web class was fine. Learned some neat stuff. Worked the rest of the night finishing my sagmeister project.

Satuday, dec. 6– took the day off from design. Watched the news. The newscasters were freaking out about the blizzard and I was laughing. It wasn’t that bad outside. They had only got about six inches in the last 24 hours and everything was closing down. (Cosi coffee places, bars, the NY city library). The newscasters were telling everyone to stay home. I called my parents and told them how big of wimps New Yorkers were about the weather. In Chicago, this “blizzard” wouldn’t have been anything. Nothing would have closed and people would have gone on. Now, 2 feet. That is a blizzard. I realized that Chicagoans have a different idea about snow. We except that snow is just part of winter and that we have to live with it. I think we see it as a challenge. “I don’t care how hard it is snowing. I can go to work in it. I am not a wimp.” While New York, just seemed to throw up their hands and say, “okay, this is too much. I am taking a snow day.” Called Becky, another Chicagoan who lives in Brooklyn, and talked to her about the snow craziness.

Trekked out in the snow. It was snowing pretty hard, but the wind was nothing like Chicago. It was beautiful out. No one was about and everything was covered with swirling, dancing snow. Great!! Took the 1 up to 95th street to meet jeff, eric and fred to watch kirosawa’s hidden fortress. It was wonderful! Funny and good. Fred told me later that star wars pulled a lot of its story from it. Went to Chinatown and had dinner with becky. Then we went to motor city for drinks. Good to talk to her. We discussed relationships, school, life, Christmas break, etc. went home and watched the odd couple. Never really watched it before. Pretty funny.

Sunday, dec. 7 – slept in. worked out. Ate lunch. Watched a terrible mindless movie on the WB. It was the jungle book, but it was some Hollywood version with actors and live animals. Totally cheesy in a weird self-indulgent way. Came to the studio. Procrastinated some more. Worked on my book for warren. And now I am writing my blog.

I am not too tired, but I should go to sleep. I need to get myself off of this crazy staying up to 3am and getting up at noon schedule. Need to go to bed at 1:30 am and get up at 10am. That would be much better.

Good night!!