Thursday Night LIVE

This week I went to Thursday Night Live at Art Street. I thought I should go support my fellow LLC-ers while they go up there to show what talent they may have.
It started out with a guy named Fresh playing guitar and singing three covers and one original song. He sang I’ll Follow You by Death Cab for Cutie, some John Mayer song, Cats in the Cradle, and his original called “One Year”. He is a great guitar player and has apparently been playing for around five years. As a singer he was sub-par. I would have much rather listened to him play his songs without singing them due to the fact he was always sharp. He probably had the longest performance out of anyone only because he chose to do standup comedy at the same time, which was also hard to bear.
Next up was a girl named Rachel. I’ve seen Rachel many times before but don’t really know who she is. Paris and Liz talked for five minutes about how she looks like a girl on the Suite Life of Zach and Cody. I told them I outgrew Disney channel TV shows while they both had seemed to hold on a little too long. We all laughed about it briefly as I tried to convince Paris to ask her if she was from Suite Life. We later decided it was a bad idea. Rachel sang Hallelujah by Rufus Wainwright while her friend played and sang the piano. They both talked briefly about being music therapy majors and how rad it was. It does seem like quite a fun major. If VCD doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll head that way… As for her performance, she has a nice tone to her voice but she was flat. Why is it that the one time I decided to go to Thursday night LIVE everyone is sub par. Rachel only sang one song (minus the duet she sang with Fresh previously).
Then there was Dave Zup from Cleveland. Dave and his friend mix beats and rap. His band is called Isomatic. Kind of reminds me of that Nas album Illmatic. Isomatic starts out with a Kid Cudi cover due to the fact he is from Cleveland. He was all right but personally, if I had to cover Kid Cudi, I’d do Pursuit of Happiness. His next song few songs were better because he actually sounded like a rapper.
I don’t mean to sound pretentious but I was fairly disappointed for Thursday Night LIVE. I love listening to live music and I love being outside so this was supposed to be a win-win. Instead I spent most of my time playing with grass unenthused.

Rike 3D

I am currently a Visual Communication and Design major here at UD. Basically, all my classes except English and Religion are 3 hour long art classes. I do a ton of art every week. Well, I guess I should say I work on a ton of art each week in order to get better and learn/hone new skills. Ideally I want to be an Interior Designer when I grow old, but that’s beside the point.
I spend each class and most of my free time in the Rike building. It is where I do my projects and talk to people about their work. For being such a grossly small and windowless building, Rike has a lot to offer. There are always exhibits there (right now Peter Losch’s Throughout the Years) as well as student work displayed around the hallways and classrooms. Everyone should take a look around if they have the chance. When I get bored of too much work, I tend to creep around the other studios to find inspiration to keep going.
In my 3D Design class, I am making a 18 in. model of a tape dispenser. Originally, the project was made for a cylindrical object (i.e. a lamp). Instead, I chose a non-cylindrical object and it has been nothing but torture. Firstly, we had to make a 180-degree model of our object. It is impossible to take 180 degrees of a tape dispenser. It is flat! Instead I just made a mini 360 model. Between all of the measuring and cardboard cutting I do, it is ridiculous how the work never seems to end. So far, I have made one ½ scale model of my object, and have a week to finish my full scale one. Then after the full scale, we are moving to 1½ scale. I don’t know how many more Xacto cuts I can make! The arts are beyond frustrating. It is all work… hopefully for a good outcome… right?
The beauty of art is that you love it. I find it ironic that in a way I don’t fully enjoy being in an art school program. Maybe it is because I find what we’re doing tedious and models and grids aren’t my style. I’ve always been more of an organic drawer. I love nothing more than the simplicity of a nice doodle. Hopefully, one day all my Xacto cuts and doodles will bring me to what I love.

Starbucks

This week I went to Starbucks a couple of times with my friends Liz, Olivia, and Court. Each time, all of us walked to Brown St. so we could get real non-dining hall food. I always love going to Starbucks just because it is always the perfect temperature and smells like whatever season it is/will be soon. It also makes me feel nostalgic from my massive study sessions there before exams in high school while sitting by the nice warm fireplace.
Each time I go to a Starbucks, I usually order an iced Chai Latte if it is hot out (and it was) so I got my latte with a spinach, feta, and egg white wrap. After we all got our food, we sat outside facing Brown St. at a nice iron table and chairs. My food was delicious and there is nothing like a chai latte to hit the spot (at least in my opinion). We listened to soft jazz and we talked about our lives, shared stories, and talked about the weather and Court’s predictions for a cold fall and winter.
It always surprises me how different it is to leave campus and enter the real world. It’s a nice change and an important change in my opinion. We can’t stay trapped in the Dayton bubble forever. I mean, really we have no real reason to ever leave campus unless we’re going home. We have food, shelter, and everything anyone could need there for us.
People watching is one of my favorite past times, but people on campus are all the same. It was nice to see puppies and families riding bikes throughout town and all the things we forget about while stuck in our dorms and on campus. The funny thing about going out into the real world is to see how different it is and how in a sense you know you don’t fit in there as perfectly as you used to. Each new adventure off of campus is an entirely new experience. Going to college is a lot like going to a summer camp in my opinion, but you get trapped in that bubble where sometimes it is hard to breathe. Once I got to Brown St. I could feel myself breathe again and it only reassured me how important it is for one to go places and do things with their life.