If Larry Busbea can condense Adolf Loos’s essay “Ornament and Crime” to “Everyone who likes decorations is a sissy-baby,” then I can make my design history essay’s outline look like this:

Rise of Industrial Revolution
Eminem (Marx + Morris)
Loos bein’ a hater.

Things I did today:
Researched and took notes on banks’ websites at my internship.
Went to classes.
Thought it was neat that I know everyone in my classes.
Read about typographic history in “Graphic Design: A New History”.
Said hello to my roommate.
Chatted with Adam.
Ate potato salad, coleslaw, and fries at a BBQ joint, with friends.

Today wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.

My internship with The Caliber Group starts tomorrow. I feel like I don’t know how to do as much as they think I know how to do. I guess we’ll get to know each other.

School starts Wednesday. Courses include: Design II, Typography II, Contemporary Drawing, Design History, and Contemporary Art History. Today I spent 5 hours working on the first assignment for Design II, and I’m only a quarter finished with it. It is due on the first day of class. I’m going to die.

A photo diptych I made will be in the Four Seasons show in February and March. The show features art about women made by women artists (just in time for Women’s History Month). Last November I completed a series of diptychs that explored the differences between how a woman is viewed and how she would prefer to be viewed, so the show came up at the perfect time. It is a juried show, and I still don’t know how I feel about juries, but I think the show will be really great. Four Seasons will be in a couple different galleries and there will be a panel discussion and opening parties and such. I’ll let you know more about that later.

In the last podcast of the semester, Arizona Daily Wildcat podcaster Kate Saavedra explains that the Arizona Board of Regents is forcing Arizona’s public universities to increase class sizes or face budget cuts. This is resulting in lower standards for SAT scores. Start the podcast at 01:54 to witness evidence of the dumbing down of the student body.

Note: This is really long, and a type-out of a journal entry. It’s not extremely interesting, and there are no photos, charts, or graphs. Just a day in the life.

Note #2: Normally, my journal entries don’t look anything like the following. I blame it on the changing of the seasons.

0600 Wake up

0630 Leave by bike to school

0645 Arrive at art building. Two people are there before me.

0700 Wait

0730 Wait

0750 Jump up when I hear noises on the other side of the door.

0800 Door opens

0801 Found my name in the stack of registration sheets.

0805 Registered for Design Studio 1 , Illustration 1, and Art History: Pre-history through Gothic

0810 Bought Dunkin Doughnuts Dunkachino. Never again, it’s not nearly as good as I remembered it to be.

0815 People watch.

0900 English class. Learned about artist Maya Lin. She was 20 when her design for the Vietnam War Memorial was selected to be built.

1000 Psychology class. Some TA was talking, and it was the most boring thing ever (even though that particular TA is the best of the bunch that are in that class). Played tetris on my phone with Mark Wilkinson.

1100 At Christian Challenge building. Wrote a witty response (in binary) to the statement, “There are only 10 kinds of people in the world–those that understand binary and those that don’t.”

1115 Traveled to Chick-Fil-A on Oracle Rd.

1130 Ate meat for the first time in over a week.

1145 Met with Chick-Fil-A marketing representative to discuss the company’s sponsorship of Christian Challenge at Spring Fling. Create a logo that is a hybrid of Chick-Fil-A’s famous cow spots and the Christian Challenge logo.

1400 Fill-in member of the board of interviewers for Arizona Student Media. We interviewed candidates who applied for General Manager of UATV and General Manager of KAMP Student Radio for 08/09 school year.

1500 Started working on RedBlue Magazine things. It’s production weekend.

2240 Stoped working on RedBlue Magazine things.

Things I Thought About Today:

1. I’ve had Wire Tap Pro for a very long time now, and I just realized this morning that it can record anything that can be heard. No really, it can. I’m not pirating music any more… I’m spying music. I can’t believe that it took me this long to figure this out.

2. I want to participate, with my camera, in an anti-war protest someday.

3. What would it be like if there was a draft? How would walking around on the street feel if there were no men my age there? Who would occupy the fraternity houses? Would all universities involuntarily become girls-only universities? How would this affect learning?

4. I feel guilty killing bugs. I killed a moth today, and after I smacked my hand against it on the wall, I was absolutely appalled with myself for such destruction and violence. It’s a weird thought for me to have, because I thought that only hippies, Hindus, and Buddhists had those kind of thoughts. I’m not one of those people. I know that I ate meat today, and I didn’t really feel guilty about doing that. I mean, I feel a tinge of guilt every time I eat meat, but that guilt was much easier to deal with than the guilt I felt after killing the moth. I am totally sure that if I ever saw an animal slaughtered to be eaten, I would never eat any kind of meat again. Maybe this is a sign that I should be a vegetarian for real.

5. During and after today’s interview with the man now selected to be KAMP’s general manager, I realized that I love being involved in mass media production. Even though I feel like being photo chief for RedBlue Magazine next year is something that I shouldn’t do (it’s just not a good job for my personality), I really do love being involved with the media. It makes me feel special to know that I can ask questions and put myself in situations that would be unacceptable for normal people. (For example, going into the bathroom with a virtual stranger and photographing her applying make-up.) I like that, I just don’t like the stress that goes with it. I am never happy with the photos that I take when people ask me to take them. I am only happy with my photos when I have specifically taken them for me. I have yet to learn to bridge that gap between the work mindset and the nonchalant mindset. Maybe it’s a bridge that will never be built. Maybe it’s never supposed to be built. I don’t know. All I know is that my two types of photos are noticeably different (one sucks and the other doesn’t).

6. So, I still want to be involved with the media, but not with UATV, and not with the Daily Wildcat (too many bad reputations), but maybe a little bit with RedBlue and/or KAMP. Some of the vision the new General Manager of KAMP has for this next year includes raising community awareness of the importance of KAMP Student Radio. They really do have good programming, just not a whole lot of outreach. I would like to come alongside KAMP to help raise awareness of KAMP programming and special events. So I would design all of the posters and fliers, create the album art for the recordings they cut of in-studio recordings, take photos during the artist interviews to use on the internet and elsewhere, act as a representative during UofA orientations and other public events, and maybe even maintain a blog with photos and descriptions of events and concerts that KAMP was at. I don’t really know what title this job would have, but it’s a combination of all the things I like to do.

7. OMMMGEEEE!!!! I’m taking GRAPHIC DESIGN and ILLUSTRATION classes next semester! Also, I should be able to have my Fridays school-free next semester. Three-day weekend, every weekend!

I am no longer a Journalism major.

A couple weeks ago I was looking over the classes that I would be taking for journalism, and I realized that the only classes that interested me were Photojournalism and Advanced Photojournalism. Ethics and Law? Boooooring! I mean, I’ve only heard good things about the J-school here at UofA, and being a journalist really does interest me, but I believe that the classes you take in college should be interesting as well. I realized that the only thing keeping me in the journalism department was the photography classes.

Next I had to answer some questions:

1. What would I major in that would give me a good job with security as well as something that interested me?
2. How would I be able to take photography classes?
3. What do I want to be when I grow up?

Despite the fact that all the people I know tell me I’m a scientist at heart, I don’t want to deal with a science major. I don’t want to take chemistry classes, I don’t like physics, I’m horrible at math. That left some type of liberal arts degree.

Communications?
- Ehh….. no thanks

Psychology?
- I think someone told me that was the most popular major at UofA. On top of wanting to stand out from the crowd, I don’t know if I want to be a doctor in anything, and anything short of that wouldn’t give me the career that I want.

Art?
- The poor starving artist isn’t an over-used stereotype for nothing. Also, I suck at drawing.

Art History?
- I don’t want to work in a museum until I’m at least 75.

History?
- I hate memorizing. What would I do with that degree anyways? Be a high school history teacher? No thanks.

English?
- That might work out. I just never thought that I’d major in English before. Never once did I think of that.

I looked within the English department for different options. The department offers B.A.s in English, English Education, and Creative Writing. So I changed my major to Creative Writing. More specifically, creative non-fiction. The difference between and English major and a Creative Writing major is that with Creative Writing there are a few less literature classes and a few more “producing an original work” classes. Go see for yourself.

My new advisor told me that a lot of journalism students switch over to creative writing. I went non-fiction (instead of fiction or poetry) because I would still like to work in the media field, kind of. I’d really like to be a book editor or a columnist, or maybe even one of those people who help to compile literary journals.

I was still left with the question of the photography classes. The art department offers a lot of photography classes, but they’re stingy with who they allow in. I met with some people from the art department and asked them, “How can I take photography classes and make that into a minor?” They told me about the Studio Art minor. Basically, you take any 6 art classes that you want and call it a minor. The minor fills up really quickly because it’s “easy” but since I have a purpose and theme, they let me in.

I went home and made a 4-year plan. That’s a misleading name, because for me it turned into a 3-year plan. Taking only 15 credits per semester, and none in the summer, I’ll be able to graduate in 3 years. I will be 20.

The other change in my life? I was promoted to Photo Chief at the magazine that I work at.

[Phone transcription] 

Me: How would you like me to get these photos to you?

Photo Editor: Could you email them to me?

M: I shoot in RAW.

P: So can you email RAW?

M: That would be kind of hard. Each picture is like 3 MB.

P: … oh. Well, can you shrink them?

M: I’m not allowed to do post-processing. That’s your job.

P: Call the editor and see what she says.

M: (banging head on desk) Okay. Will do.

Two fridays ago I was hired to work as a photographer for RedBlue magazine (a student production about student life). I’ve waited to post this until I could get a better feel for the job, and well, I’ve been busy reading The Odyssey (I read the first half in two sittings, and I plan to read the last half the same way this week).

I’m really excited to be paid for my photos. It’s not a whole lot of money– $20 to $30 per story, but it’s better than not being paid at all… Or is it?

I’ve been a serious photo hobbiest for two years now. I’ve been able to do whatever I want with my photos–publish them wherever, edit them however. But now I don’t have the publishing rights and I don’t get to edit. Editing/post-processing, with a computer being the digital dark room, is almost half the fun.

But now this has me wondering. In most newsrooms, do the photographers get to do the editing, or does the photo editor (who assigns shoots and selects photos to be published) do the editing?

Today at work I drew this on a post-it note:

At the attorney’s office, we use a program called JustWare to search for people involved in crimes.  If you pull up a person, say Johnny Looloo, then there is a screen with basic info about the person that comes up.  On that screen there is Johnny’s social security number, his birthdate, his ethnicity, thing along those lines.  At the bottom of the screen is a color coded bar.

White = normal
Yellow = head’s up
Red = crazy person alert

I wish I had that program available for outside of work.

The city hall where I work is infested with mice.

Julie, the city prosecutor, is the third least tidiest person in the whole world. Seconded by my teenage brother Eric, and trumped by my little sister who only has to look at a room to make it messy. One day I was searching for a file on Julie’s desk. Among the random string of chips, gum, chocolate bars and paperwork, I found the file. I also found a little mouse turd. Right next to the package of cookies.

I went to hand Terri, my boss, the file I found. “Terri,” I said, “there is a mouse poop on Julie’s desk.” Terri grabbed my wrist for support, and drug me into the office to show her exactly where this mouse had pooped.

I think it’s funny when Terri is mad. I don’t try to make her mad, but I am an intern after all.

“That is so gross! There is a damn mouse pooping all over everything! We’re all going to get a disease like rabies or something!” Terri hugged herself tightly and stomped her feet. “That’s it. All of this shit has to go. I’m telling Brett.”

Brett is the city attorney. I think Brett likes it when Terri is mad, too.

“Alisa! Show Brett where that thing left a poop on Julie’s desk!” Brett looked at me. I looked at Brett. We looked at Terri. Terri was washing her hands frantically.

“Yes. That is definitely a mouse dropping. I’ll put in a work order to have mouse traps set,” Brett concluded. Brett was playing along, because really, we work for the government. Work orders are thrown in a box in a storage room somewhere never to see the light of day until 10 years go by. Then the work orders are terminated.

Terri huffed, “It’s because Julie leaves all this damn food just sitting around! What does she think is going to happen but have a mouse come and poop all over her stuff!”  Brett and I nodded in agreement.  I tried not to smile.

A couple weeks later Terri gave me a stack of files to go through.  I had just sat down at a computer when Terri called me.

“Alisa!”

Micromanager strikes again.  “Yes?”

“Come here and look at something.”

I plodded over to Terri’s desk.

“Is this a mouse turd?”

I leaned in to look closer.  “That is most definitely a dead cotton beetle.”

I lied.