alisawilhelm.com/blog

Found some red

alisa — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:57:02 +0000

Project Portraits

alisa — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:22:54 +0000

All but the second-to-last photo are unposed. Project Portraits has quickly become my personal favorite Flickr set.

Project Impact

alisa — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:25:49 +0000

I’m spending the summer in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, Colorado, with a group called Project Impact. We are a group of 30 or so people who all have the same goal this summer – to grow and strengthen as people, and to help out those around us. Because we’re all in college, we’re working full time jobs, and then doing volunteer projects in the evenings and weekends.

My mentor was a Project participant in years past, and she really encouraged me to go. I was a little apprehensive about participating, mostly because I didn’t know what to expect. We have two weeks to find a job that may or may not put a black scar on my crisp white resume? I will be moving in with a group of girls that I may or may not get along with? My family group of girls is going to be paired up with a brother group that may or may not be made up of immature boys?

Two late-night jam sessions, a couple home-cooked meals, and a set of clean dishes later, I’ve become very appreciative of my brother group. One-hundred business inquiries later (this is not an exaggeration), and I’ve been hired as a hostess at Johnny Rockets and Chili’s. Ten days later I can’t imagine not knowing the girls I’m living with. Everyone has been so honest and open; I feel like I’ve known them my whole life. Things that might normally be awkward to do to people you’ve only known for a couple days are totally fine and accepted. Case in point:

Early Summer Fun

alisa — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:33:16 +0000

Home

alisa — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:32:25 +0000

The semester is over.
My first year of college is over.
I can breathe for the first time in five months.

Spring Fling

alisa — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:32:41 +0000

Last weekend was Spring Fling, a carnival hosted by the students of UofA. It’s the largets student run carnival in the country.

In order for a student club to have a booth at the carnival, the club has to send some students to volunteer as cashiers. My club was participating, so I was like, “I can be a cashier, no problem!”

The cashier training consisted of a lady telling a group of 100 college kids, “If you show up drunk, your club will be fined $300, and you will be sent home so we will fine your club for an additional $150 for cashier absence. Also, once you start your four hour shift, you’re not allowed out of your booth to go to the bathroom. Do not use your walkie-talkies to ask to go to the bathroom. Good luck!”

Friday night I showed up to start my shift. I stepped into the cashier check-in line, picked up my little tin cash box, and then sat down in the waiting room. I was waiting to be escorted to my ticket booth. ESCORTED. I’ve never been escorted anywhere before in my whole entire life.

Finally, a group of escorts came into the waiting room. They all wore matching black backpacks and walkie-talkies were clipped to their shoulders. My escort found me and motioned for me to hand over the cash box. He slipped the box into his back pack, and started giving last minute instructions.

“You’re going to Ravenclaw 1, it’s the first booth after the entrance, so it’s going to be really busy. All of the boothes are named after Harry Potter houses; the home base is Hogwarts. There will be a list of codes posted in the booth. Use the codes when you need anything involving money or tickets. Let’s go.”

We slipped out into the crowd. I tried to look inconspicuous, but I couldn’t stop myself from humming the Mission Impossible theme. It just fit, okay?

Once we got to the booth my escort said, “Listen to my knock. Don’t open the door unless you hear this pattern.” I was all, dude this is pretty intense, then I went back to humming the Mission Impossible theme. And then my escort didn’t talk to me anymore.

The code words were different brands of soda. If you needed a Coke, then there was an emergency. A Sprite meant that you needed more tickets to sell. Asking for a Pepsi was asking to make a cash deposit (you can’t have $5,000 sitting in a little box with you). Over the course of the night, I could hear the other cashiers on the radio. They were getting a little worn and uncomfortable.

“Syltherin 2 to Hogwarts. What’s the 4-1-1 on the H-2-O?”

“Are you asking for water?”

“Yeah. I’m thirsty.”

“It’s water, you don’t have to use a code for that.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll be right over.”

–An hour later–

“Slytherin 2 to Hogwarts. We have a Coke.”

“Hogwarts to Slytherin 2. What’s your emergency?”

“Well, it’s kind of like a Diet Coke.”

“What’s your emergency?!”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Dude. No.”

–2o minutes later–

“Slytherin 2 to Hogwarts. Can I have a Coke?”

“Hogwarts to Slytherin 2. What’s your emergency?”

“I repeat, Can I have a Coke, over.”

“Do you have an emergency, or are you asking for a Coke?”

“Yeah, can I have a Coke?”

“So you don’t have an emergency?”

“No, I want a Coke.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“I’m thirsty.”

“Are you asking for a carbonated beverage to drink?”

“Yes.”

“Denied.”

I did figure out why using the code words were so important — I pulled in over $5000. That was just my booth, for just three hours. I’ve never handled so much cash in my whole entire life.

Friday, March 28, 2008

alisa — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:48:26 +0000

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!

Higher Education

alisa — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:48:05 +0000

The week after spring break feels kind of strange in Arizona. It’s cold in the mornings, hot in the afternoons, there isn’t any home work due, no tests to study for, and everyone just got back from a good week off.

Spring in Arizona means that it’s like 55F (12.8C) in the morning, and 85F (29.4C) in the afternoons. It’s hard to judge what to set the thermostat at. So, because UofA isn’t organized enough to keep the temperature in all of its buildings consistent, some buildings have the heater on still, and others have the air conditioning turned on. The least the administrators could do is keep it consistent.

The lecture hall that my psychology class is in has the heat on still. My professor (a doctor in her 40’s) came in from a building that has the air conditioning on––she was wearing a sweater.

“Whew! It’s hot in here!” She tugged her sweater over her head. Now, if you have a room of 500 undergrads who just got back from spring break in Mexico, you can guess what is about to happen next.

“Take it all off!” Multiple people yelled.

Dr. Bedford snickered into the microphone. ”I haven’t shown those off for quite some time.”

The boy sitting to my left nudged me. ”Ironic, considering she was just lecturing about social awkwardness.”

Photos from Prescott, Arizona

alisa — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:52:23 +0000

Took flight

alisa — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:10:08 +0000

So today as I was coming out of the Arizona Student Media office where I work, I saw an old friend and his roommate walking closer to my office building. I haven’t spoken to this friend in such a long time, since last year sometime, and he has never hurt me in any way, but for some reason I had this huge urge to duck for cover, and then run away.

So anyways, I was walking out of my office, and I spotted this friend’s roommate first. His roommate always has this goofy, crazy, mad scientist look in his eyes, and you can pick him out from a mile away. I literally did a one-two step backwards and whispered to myself, “No. no. nononononono.” I spun on my heels and jammed my fingers at the keypad to get back into the building, where it was safe from uncomfortable situations and full of things that are nice and predictable like Mac computers, gay guys, and every edition of the AP Stylebook since 1980.

“Hey girlfriend, didn’t I just see you leave?”

“Yeah, well, I’m back. There were some people out there that I didn’t want to talk to, so I am avoiding an awkward situation.”

“Ooohmigosh. I KNOW how you feel. I TOTALLY feel like that at least once a day.”

“That’s good, I’m not alone.”

“Would you like to read an AP Stylebook to calm your nerves?”

“Yeah. Are you using that Mac?”

“Weeeeellll, I’m done now.”

“Okay good. Would you bring me the the 1994 edition of the book?”