Analysis of Completion (or lack thereof) of my resolutions from 2011:

1. Join a gym.
Check! I even actively utilized my gym membership for a while there.

2. Work harder.
Well, I got fired from the job I intedned this to benefit, but I'd say I'm a better worker than I was a year ago. And I'm much better at this job, I think.

3. Buy a new car (Get better at saving money...)
Yeahhhh, not so much. I did get a little better at savign up though!

4. Grow up a little.

5. Score a 28 or higher on the ACT.
31 BITCHES. :))))

6. Get into college.
Still technically working on this one, but I'd say it's safe to cross it off. (See #5)

7. Visit my dad.
Get to/Got to see him TWICE in 2011.

8. Give more.
:)

9. Express myself.
Maybe I lost a few friends for it, but I no longer have any qualms about saying what's on my mind. I also make a lot more art.

10. Meet new people.
Now that I think about it, this one was cheating. How could you go a whole year without meeting anyone new?

Update: I make stuff!

So awhile ago I made a post about some of my art, mostly it was all 3-dimensional stuff I think. This stuff is all on paper, straight from my high school Art II class. Hope you like it :)

This was the cover of my portfolio. My name (Lauren) is spelled out in the roots. :) Coloured pencil.

Silhouette scratchboard. Crayons, black spray paint, etching tools. I apologize for the glare :/

"Shattered image" A moose and maple leaves. Pencil.

One subject, three medium of a parrotfish. The third one looked kind of messy. Top one is watercolour pencil, bottom is oil pastel.

BIRTH Word Illustration. Kind of outlandish but this was my last project of the course and I wanted to do something different. Watercolor pencils.

Logo. My initials and three things that represent me. The leaf is a tea leaf. Coloured pencil.

Surreal collage drawing. Sharpie.

Mixed media stillife. Coloured pencil, oil pastel, sharpie.

Playing card collage. It's not as easy to get as I had hoped, but the theme is Ace of Spades - the apple of Eden. Construction paper collage.

Oil Pastel Pointillism. I'm actually very proud of this one. oil pastel is one of my favourite mediums and while the pointillism part was a giant pain in the ass, I'm happy with the way it turned out. There's a bit of a persepctive issue with one of the towers but oh well. :) Oil Pastels, Golden Gate Bridge.

Sharpie/Watercolor pencil. I want this as a tattoo but hopefully a real tattoo artist could make it look cooler.

Mother nature/father time. Oil pastel (belly), watercolour pencils (people), charcoal (background.)

Hope you liked them! Feedback is appreciated!

Dear women, shut up.

Hey guys, it's been awhile.

So, I went on a rampage today. (Not 'so' as in 'I mean to imply the previous sentence was the cause of the effect I'm about to describe,' but 'so' as in 'I'm about to tell you something that will make you roll your eyes and say "Oh, Lauren, what am I going to do with you?"') Someone posted a secret on the Postsecret app, saying something like "Men, YOU bleed from your penis for a week and then shove a melon out of your urethra and then criticize us." That's not an exact quote, I can't find the original 'secret' but it was something to that effect.

And, for some reason, it really set me off.

I have a serious, deep-rooted issue with women who say things like this. Please, do the rest of us a favor and shut up. Women who say things like this are usually the same women who demand expensive gifts and mope because real life isn't like The Notebook. Yeah, women have periods. We all know. Shut up about it. You don't hear men bitching about morning wood, or getting kicked in the balls, or having to pay for every stupid movie and festival and play you just had to see, do you? Rarely. And the ones that do are outnumbered 100 to 1 by women bitching about childbirth and their periods. And from my experience, women who talk about children/childbirth in the context of "shoving a melon out of your urethra" (which is a metaphor I have a problem with in itself, because the vagina and the urethra are COMPLETELY different openings with COMPLETELY different proportions) usually do not have children. My theory about this is that women who DO have children VALUE their children and are mature enough to understand that the pain involved in delivering the child is all art of the process, and that it is NOT ammo in the argument you are having with your high school boyfriend because he wouldn't do whatever stupid thing you wanted him to do. YES, women are the ones who have to feel the pain during childbirth. But women also share a bond with that child they birthed that no man will ever share with it. And not only that, but MEN have to put up with your crazy, pregnant ass for nine months. And don't even start, you know pregnant women are crazy. I'm pretty sure even pregnant women know pregnant women are crazy. And PLEASE don't start with the "Yeah but we didn't choose to feel the pain of childbirth, we just have to procreate and men don't appreciate how much it HURTS!" Actually, in choosing to have a child, you are choosing to feel the pain of childbirth. Don't wanna? Don't have a baby. Problem solved.

Now, I didn't go into all this arguing when I responded to the "secret" (which is what the posts on thsi app are called) but I did say that women like (the original poster) bother me and that being a drama queen about things EVERY WOMAN goes through is unnessecary. I offended a whole sea of people. One response in particular was a woman who said something along the lines of "Just because your period isn't bad, that doesn't mean no one's is."

Actually, I am diagnosed with (AND MEDICATED FOR) endometriosis. If you've never heard of it, it is a uterin disorder that causes the type of cells that typically grow within the uterus to form outside of the uterus. It causes abdominal pain, long/heavy menstruation, lower back pain, constipation/diarrhea, and possibly infertility. It once made me pass out. Guess what I did? I went to a doctor, and I got medication. And I don't whine about it to my boyfriend when I want him to do something. "BABBYYYYYY MAKE ME FOOOOD I HAVE ENDOOOO." No. That sounds stupid, and so would I. If you have cramps, take midol. If you don't want to feel the pain of childbirth, don't get pregnant.

But DON'T use your feminine problems as ammo against your boyfriend/men in general. They don't care and it makes those of us who handle our issues ourselves look bad.

Please and thank you.

☮

you care too much.

let it go.

Dangerously close.

There is a point at which empathy becomes love.

Where another person's pain begins to tear you apart at the seams.

Recent Creations.

Hand of Hamsa - Red/Black/White Batik

Basic rundown: I took a long strip of white cotton cloth (has to be an all-natural fabric for the wax to soak through), did an outline of my design in pencil, painted the parts of the design I wanted to remain white with melted Gulf Wax. Once I wa ssure the wax was compeltely dry and had soaked compeltely through the cloth, I dipped the cloth in red fabric dye and let it sit for approx. 6 hours. I removed it, let the cloth dry, and waxed the entire background (the part I wanted red.) Once that wax had dried, I scrunched it up in my hands to crack it and let it soak in black dye for approx 1 hour. (That's what gives it the tie-dyed look, and the black around the hand. Done as a project for my Arts & Crafts class.

I'm hoping to do a larger, more difficult batik sometime this summer - I'll try to remember to do a detailed how-to when I get around to it :))

Annnd some other stuff I've done recently;;

Jacob and I <3

Gel pen and sharpies! Haha. Drew this for him. It's hanging in his room :)

Mother's Day Turtle Mosaic

Part of my mom's Mother's Day gift. She's really into island-y stuff and the ocean, so I thought a turtle would be appropriate. I don't care too much for mosaic so I probably won't do a how-to on this one, but I'm sure Google has plenty! Also done as a project for my Arts & Crafts class.

I love art :)) I'll try to keep posting my best stuff on here. I'm hoping to get a lot of stuff done this summer! <3

More later! 

Laurenn.

Welcome to the Jungle.

This is the shelf I mentioned. I'm rather happy with the way it turned out. It was part of a "repurposed furniture" project I did for arts and crafts. It used to be hot pink, $4 at Goodwill. I painted it black, glued black and white cutouts of animals, drowned the whole thing in ModPodge, and WALA! Oh yeah, and Jacob helped.

Oh yeah, and that's my guitar. Which I do not play well. But at least I'm trying.
She wanted to be in the shot.

OH YEAH. And I have a record wall :)

Also, while I'm thinking about it;
since I talk about Jacob so much and you probably already resent him just because you keep having to read his name (sorry) I feel like I should give him a chance to redeem himself. He has a blog!
THIS IS IT! HIS BLOG! AREN'T YOU EXCITED?!

"You've got a smile so bright,

you know, you should have been a candle."


Our student body is truly incredible. Darick's memorial today and all the love and support that has been shown in his memory have been amazing to watch. It's bittersweet how much a tragedy like this can knit people together so tightly. I'm sure Darick would have loved it.
I've been thinking about his smile since I found out.
I truly regret that we weren't closer friends, and that we lost touch.
You never think about how much you take people for granted.
Darick had one of the brightest smiles of anyone I've ever known. It was always so genuine, raw happiness.
I didn't realize at the time how valuable it was. I wish I had. I wish I'd let him know how much he always brightened my day, even though we weren't so close. I wish we'd gotten to be close,
I send my love to his family, and to his girlfriend, and to his many other friends who are missing him.
<33
I really hope he's where he needs to be. And I hope all the pain he couldn't bear down here has left him. I hope he's smiling all the time now. If so, the pain we feel is completely worth it.

Balloon release for Darick; photo by Bree Burrell

I need a turn around. I'm starting to get that heavy feeling again.
Maybe summer will lighten my mood.
:/

Dear Prudence....

Won't you come out to play?

Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day.

The sun is up, the sky is blue.

It's beautiful, and so are you.

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play.

Dear Prudence, open up your eyes.

Dear Prudence, see the sunny skies.

The wind is low, the birds will sing

that you are part of everything.

Dear Prudence, won't you open up your eyes?

Look around.

Dear Prudence, let me see you smile.

</3

I'm gonna miss you Darick. I hope you're having fun up there.

You were beautiful and real and we all loved you.

Today was awful. 

Here's to hopes for tomorrow.

Look at the stars, how they shine for you.

I swam across, I jumped across for you.

Oh, what a thing to do.

You see, we're all yellow.

I drew a line, drew a line for you.

Oh, what a thing to do.

It was all yellow.

You're skin, you're skin and bones,

turned into something beautiful

Do you know, for you I'd bleed myself dry

For you I'd bleed myself dry.

Fleeting social life.

I highly suspect I may be codependent. I could google it and self-diagnose but I'm too busy laying in bed feeling sorry for myself because I lost all my friends because all I care about is my boyfriend. Basically, I suck. Oh well. Maybe I'll fix it this summer. (But probably not)

So I read something interesting today, on a site called Kensho (I stumbled it.) The post was called The Death Delusion and it really blew my mind. Not that it's all that hard to blow my mind. But still, the post was pretty cool. The guy that writes it basically spends the whole post proving that death doesn't exist, and we shouldn't be afraid of it. And his reasoning was pretty solid, in my opinion, but I'm a seventeen year old girl so my opinion doesn't hold much weight. (Which reminds me, I need to tell you about my interview with my mom...I'll get to that in a minute.) But basically he discusses how thoughts are just series of electricity, and that they are dependent on, but not limited to, the physical medium of the thinker's body, and that once you seperate the body and mind, the thoughts continue to exist, just not as a part of the body. He believes that death is not real to us, because we basically cannot experience it, since our experiences are relayed to us through senses, and our senses will not exist in death. That might not make any sense, but click the link up there and go check him out. It's a good read if you're in the mood for thinking.

Okay, the mom thing. So I had to interview my mom for school today about the 70s. I was kind of dreading it because, me being a teenager, talking to my mom is weird to me, especially about her high school life. But I thought some of the things she had to say were pretty cool. She talked a lot about music (duhh, it's the 70s.) and a little about the Vietnam War, but the thing that struck me most was what she had to say about rebellion and protests when I asked her. She was talking about how society tended to overlook young people, and how her generation was really concerned with making their voices heard, even when they were young. I can't decide if it's better now, since I don't really know what it was like to be a teenager back then, but I think I'm leaning toward a yes. I can usually enter an intelligent conversation without getting dirty looks. So mad props to my mom's gen for giving us that. Ha.

I'm making a batik in art tomorrow. I can't decide what to do. :[
Seven school days left.

Almost free <3