September: Back to the Grind

I started school again last week. As usual, I managed to fill up nearly all of my time with work, class, and tutoring, so I've been seriously slacking on posting lately. I did make some time to hang out with friends, before I become an overworked zombie by December.

 
Upon entering my car this morning, I realized that I am going to be camping out of it for at least two days a week between classes and tutoring sessions. Today was my first day back in the Anatomy lab, but if Thursday is anything like today, it looks it's going to be a busy semester. I only made myself available for ten hours a week, which seemed reasonable at the time, since I didn't want to take more days off of my reliable, yet thankless and redundant, day-job than I needed to. But that was before I was asked to also tutor Human Physiology. It was also before this morning, when a handful of students asked me for more information on seeing me as a tutor outside of the Anatomy lab. Honestly, though, I hope that entire ten hours fills up - I need the extra money and I love tutoring.

Visit my Anatomy blog here.

Digital Photography II started last week and my first Children's Lit class started this afternoon. Between the two, I'm pretty confident I am going to be happily swamped with creative homework assignments. I've recently spent too much time immersing myself in biology classes as part of Nursing prerequisites and in the process I started losing touch with my artistic side - the side everyone, including myself, has known for much longer than the one frequently seen now.









One of my first assignments in Digital Photo was to pick ten photographers' bodies of work that I am in some way inspired by and identify the unifying characteristics of their photographs. While I am pretty sure this is the result of the art department deciding that the students in fine art courses have too much fun and don't spend enough time "learning," I figured I would share it anyway. After letting my creativity grow moldy for a while, it was a nice exercise to get myself back into the swing of things.

1. James Brandenburg - Wildlife and landscape photographer for Nation Geographic for over 30 years.
2. Wendy Given - Visual artist with lovely and macabre still life work.
3. J Scott Peck - Floral still life photographer and painter who uses light manipulation constructed backgrounds.
4. Andy Ilachinski - Physicist by profession, photographer my choice who does a lot of abstract work. His blog can be found here.
5. Victoria Ryan - Abstractions of nature and creepy constructed images.
6. James Balog - Documentary style landscape photography about environmental conservation.
7. Jessica Auer - Documentary style landscape photography describing the relationships between the landscape, history, culture, and modern tourism.
8. Charles Hedgcock - Biological/scientific photography of insects and other small creatures.
9. Chema Madoz - Black and white still-life photography with a sense of humor.
10. Kenneth Gregg - Travel and nature themed photographs with emphasis on detail and texture.