Art Museum

Jeremy and I went to visit an art museum last weekend and to see the exhibit "Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur". They were treasures indeed. Intricate and costly jewelry, make up cases, boxes, bowls, statuary, instruments, all about 4,000 years old. Seeing these nearly perfect and stunning pieces of everyday life from so long ago really drove home to me how little people change and what a myth it is that the farther you go back in the past the more primitive the people are. I mean they had tiny, precise gold tweezers and eyeshadow cases! The tomb itself was a pretty gruesome find. Ur is now part of Southern Iraq and this excavation took place as a joint venture between Baghdad, London, and Philadelphia in the 1920's. Down in the tomb they found a number of dead women, children, men and animals who were all killed to accompany the Queen into death. They were killed down in the tomb after everything was arranged. I'm sure there are celebrities today that would be delighted if they could legally make such arrangements for their own deaths. The St. Louis art museum is massive and contains art from some of my favorites Zurbain, El Greco, Eitel. . . I didn't spot a J.L. David anywhere which saddened me. Jeremy and I didn't have time to visit the arms and armory, furniture, Asian, or American art. We breezed through the contemporary due to time restraints. We'll be going back, though. My souvenirs? Photos. A postcard. Oh - and I had a cup of coffee. . .

On the way back we stopped in a small town and visited a living nativity complete with a camel, multiple goats, sheep, a llama (of all out of place things), donkey and live actors. It was a nice little church. Driving around the town we spotted some great locales for future photo shoots for my artwork. 

Photo Shoot 2

Some of the highlights of the fall have been going on photoshoots with John Daemon (aeontriad on deviant art).

We took him down to the Empire in late November. Unseasonally warm weather has been plaguing the area for some time (although as of now we do have snow). But it was perfect weather for photos.

So we got shots of Drake (the wooded, creek filled farm area we own), The disused pottery factory and its surrounding grounds, and some of the old houses. It was great fun for hours of walking around oustide.

Someone had been trespassing on Dad's land and had erected a deer stand. We had a lot of fun taking it down (read destroying it).

Oh! And we found a huge old well (at least 110 years or more) that used to be utilized when the farm was mined for clay. John bravely climbed down to it and we threw lots of sticks and osage oranges in there to try to determine it's depth. The consensus? Deep. 

New Job

"We'll have to cut out your tongue" Quote- My Trainer

Right now I'm training for my new job. I hate training. It's like being in highschool. Girls around me glammed up and talking about who they slept with on this day and that. Older girls (40's and 50's) giggling non-stop. People are already saying things like "She's smart because she wears glasses" But I don't even talk during the class!! Most of them are nice though and I did get some compliments on my scary "I'm an anime Lolita outfit" Once the training is over I'm sure the job will be fine, but the training is for six weeks and then several months of transition.

So I've created a list of things about my job. If you're reading this consider yourself tagged to do the same for your job/school/housemaking, etc. Don't feel obligated to do this, though.

WHEN I HEAR MY TRAINER SAY THESE TERMS MY BRAIN BLEEDS AND I RETCH:
1.tushie
2.prozac
3.inspirational
4.FYI
5.BFO

WHEN I HEAR THESE TERMS I PERK UP IN INTEREST:
1.suicide bomber
2.Hell
3.babykillers
4.Jesus Time
5.Darth Vader

TERMS I HOPE TO HEAR THE TRAINER SAY IN THE NEAR FUTURE:
1.m*f****
2.basal metabolic rate (as in, mine has slowed to death levels from sitting)
3.Absinthe
4.Holy Spirit Time (hey, we've got the big J, already)
5.Excrete

BENEFITS OF MY JOB:
1. UNION
2. Paid Time Off
3. Getting Bitched At
4. Watching co-workers
5. Hiding from co-workers
6. Smelling alcohol that some lady's been drinking the bathroom
7. free coffee
8. A cubicle to decorate (yes, fear me!)
9. working with :aeontriad:

SATANIC ELEMENTS OF JOB:
1. Training (okay we need it and I appreciate the efforts and the humour)
2. No Coca-Cola products for sale within at least a mile of building (pepsi has wheat and I'm deathly allergic to wheat, more on that later)
3. Discouragement from using the bathroom outside of breaks (training thing)
4. Getting up (hopefully ONLY for now) at 7 AM

PEOPLE OF INTEREST (in my training class):
1. Awesome Christian Punk Dude who was formerly a TOMBSTONE CARVER.
2. Chess and Tae Kwon Do Master
3. Former Prostitute (okay I made that one up)
4. Two Hurricane Katrina Refugees

MY WORK PHILOSPHY IS:
-- To get the job done right the first time, to attempt humour to make people's days go by faster, but remain somewhat anti-social and mysterious amongst my co-workers.

WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO:
- - Save up money to go back to school and get my P.hD and teach your future children. And subvert their minds with (rather than the usual rampant Marxist or Postmodern or Buddhist philosophies of most of my professors) the stylings of a terribly complicated and hopelessly devoted JESUS LOVER! AHAHAHHAHAHA

Music Foundation

This fall the brother and I spent a lot of our time working with 4-8th graders through his Music Foundation. The music foundation is financed through the United Way and generous donors. We were able to use the performance and practice space in a local college's art compound, so that worked out beautifully.

We had several workshops. The kids learned to sing new music, learned dances popular from diff. decades (including the full Saturday Night Fever dance), we taught them to write songs, and we had performances for their families. Our activities got noticed for two decent articles on the Front Page of the local newspaper, so that really made the kids days.

Next year in the spring we'll have a children's choir and a musical for them to perform in.