Greetings from Sunny South Carolina!
In lieu of an actual update, I give you Riverbanks Penguin Cam. I spent half the day yesterday just watching these little guys running and swimming around. They’re so cute!
(This is only until July 6… after that, it switches to the White Alligator and then a different animal each month afterward.)
I made the mistake of changing the layout of this blog and ended up wiping out my blogroll. I had been meaning to update it for a long time, anyway, so I added a bunch of stuff — thanks to Oncee and his amazing WV blogroll. (I usually just go to his page to find cool things to read, anyway.)
I added a link to Delish, although it’s currently closed. I heard it’s going to reopen and that also, there is going to be a new place called “Cilantros” that offers fish tacos. I haven’t had a good fish taco in… uh… since I last made one, myself! They’re as rare around here as slaw dogs are outside of WV. So, yum! (Now, if someone would just open a good hot dog joint near CCHS, I’d be thrilled!)
So, I’m probably not going to make it to festivALL. I just got out of the hospital on Tuesday after fighting a nasty case of cellulitis (caused by the super-scary MRSA) so my Ma made me promise to stay home and read today. Which I probably should… because MRSA is nasty and I really wouldn’t want to overdo it and get sick again, halfway to South Carolina tomorrow. But I really, really, REEEEAALLLLY wanted to go to festivALL. If you read this and you have pictures from festivALL, please tell me, OK? I would love to be there.
festivALL starts today — YAY! A 3-day arts festival in my hometown? Yes, please! For years I’ve been wishing for some of those neato arts festivals like you see in bigger cities, and here we go — festivALL! I’ve heard that they’re trying to extend it to a week-long festival in the future, and I really hope they do. Charleston is really an exciting place for an artist right now — there are a LOT more opportunities than there were just 10 years ago. I am so excited to be getting back into it again, both as an art teacher and an artist, myself.
This is the fish painted by my students at the Charleston Catholic High School Art Camp. The theme is “Carp Diem” (get it? Carp?!?) and they painted the fish in bright colors with messages about ways you can “seize the day” all over the fish. They thought of some really good ones, like, “Call that guy” or “hug somebody”. My personal favorite is “leave your cellphone at home.” (I know I could get a lot more seizing done without THAT damn thing!)
I can’t wait to see all the fish en masse. Kind of like the Cow Parade, but wetter. 
See you there!
Zzzzzzzzzz….
Zzzzzzzzzzzz…
Zzzzzzzz….
Wha…whawassat?!?! Oh, hi, there.
Was I drooling?
Sorry. I’m still here. School’s out and I always crash really hard for a few days. All that end-of-the school year stuff wears me out. Anyone who thinks teachers only work from 8-3 and have all this time off can just take a long walk off a short pier — it’s hard work all year, but the last 2 weeks before midterms and finals are absolutely grueling!
My last few weeks have been spent cleaning and organizing the art room, which is crazy work. First of all, art teachers are notorious packrats. I don’t think anything’s been thrown out since 1975. I carried out TONS of boxes of papers, cardboards, old paint bottles with paint that solidified sometime during the Reagan administration… LOTS of stuff. Then I organized all the supplies into containers (which I will eventually replace with those nifty clear Rubbermaid thingies with handles) and kids will be able to keep supplies organized more easily.
I also moved furniture around and made work stations, and I’m not going to go into the boring details of that in here. (If you’re interested, my other, more detailed blog is at http://mamallama.livejournal.com.)
On top of it all, I’ve got some commissioned art that I’m going to be doing soon, and I had to work out the details for that stuff. It’s pretty exciting. More on that later.
But for now, I sleep. Lots. And be as lazy as possible. 
