Pictures taken a the Jehovah’s Witness Hurricane Relief Center, Mobile, AL

I like tea.

My younger sister, Nicole, working in the Rooming Department.

Natasha from Philadelphia teaches signs to Linsey. That particular gesture is “name” in saying “My name is. . .”

I like the movement in her hand.

Sister Smith looking her cheerful self. I believe Nicole took this photo.

Brother Smith (Sr. Smith’s husband) looking stressed. He’s not really. He and his wife came down from northern California to help out.

And last, the wonderful David. He’s the IT guy. He’s from New York.

All in all, a spiritually fulfilling experience.

I tend to have really vivid dreams when I sleep. Sometimes I remember them, sometimes I don’t. When I can’t remember all the details, it’s because I was in a very deep sleep when I was awakened. All I remember is that I had a dream that I wished I could remember. I’m left with this feeling. Then, when I eventually remember something from the previously unmemorable dream, it usually comes in the form of a very unsettling feeling of deja-vu.

So, I took a long nap today, and when I woke up I immediately remembered the dream. It was quite disturbing to me. It involved some romance, some death, and then some resurrection. I guess the resurrection was the disturbing part, because the person was brought back by kid who used a video game to do it (It’s a dream remember). I vividly remember the feeling of my heart dropping when I found out that the person what dead, and the shock of finding out they had been brought back to life. I knew they weren’t supposed to be alive that way. It had been too long (like 30 minutes), and something in me told me that they should have just been left dead. But I didn’t want them to be dead, because we had just shared a momentously special moments only minutes before.

It was weird. I was totally going with the irrational events of the dream because the emotions I was feeling were the only thing happening that were appropriate. So, I felt I should try to articulate all this in an entry.

It is a comfort to know that my dreams do not foreshadow anything bad that’s going to happen. I know that it’s just my brain reorganizing information from that day, so I have a pretty good idea of where the general plot of the dream came from. It had to do with my present concerns, which involve someone leaving, and I guess I’ worried about the possibility that I may never see them again, or at least for a very long time.

I don’t know if I’m happy or not that I did remember this particular dream. I’m going to be thinking about it for a while; I know that.

Ah well. C’est la vie.

I just got home from the movie night.

Only one person we invited came, who happened to be Kevin. He’s awesome. He’s going on a road trip in two days, so hopefully we can hang out more before then.

I’m so tired. I’ve been up since 6 AM, with no rest in between.

Serenity was awesome for the fourth time. Kevin liked it too, which was cool. And he wore the shirt I made him. That was nice, too.

I wish I was more articulate right now, but my thoughts are pretty random and basic. Yeah. I just wanted to say that I had a good day. Lots of bonding and meeting nice new people. I even have pictures. I guess I’ll post them later today.

+ listening to: an instrumental from some Dave Matthews Band song

For now, anyway.

Yesterday was my last day going to school for the semester. I had lab clean up in photography, and I also picked up my portfolio. I passed by the skin of my teeth with a C. I have never been more relieved to get a C in my life. I really need to get on it with my grades. In the end I know that I stressed way too much over that class, worrying about my concepts and what I was going to shoot, in the end turning my assignments in late. Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson.

But all is not lost. I made a B in my web design class. I’m not gonna begrudge that grade, because I know I could have put a lot more work into my site. However, I really was struggling with the programs in the beginning, so I’d only work on my site when I was in class. Then, at the end, all the information I had learned came together, and I finally knew what I was doing with the flash animations and how to make them work, but time was short. I do want to use my new skills to redesign my website over the break though. I’ll be shocked if it actually happens.

I’m hungry. . .and a bit sleepy. I stayed up til around 3 a.m. last night, then my dad wakes me up at 6 a.m., saying that I spend too much time in bed. Maybe I do, but I stayed up late last night because I wanted to wash my hair before I went to bed, because I wouldn’t have time to do it in the morning. Whatever. I’ll sleep in the car I guess.

Serenity is out today and DVD. We’re having a movie night with some friends to celebrate the end of the semester and just chill. I’m looking forward to it being lots of fun. I haven’t hung out with a big group of people in a while.

So last night I was in a crafty mood and decided to make t-shirts.

Recently I’ve become a really big fan of the TV series “Firefly.” I’m a bit of a sci-fi geek already, and that show is awesome, so it was a natural progression. I had seen advertisements for the movie Serenity, but I thought it would be really cheesy. Then I happened to see a rerun of the show Firefly, on which Serenity is based, and was pleasantly surprised that it was actually good. So I went with my parents to see the movie, and the rest is history. I eventually bought the entire series on DVD. There were only 14 episodes, 11 of which were aired, before the show was canceled by FOX. It’s an awesome show, and the cast is amazing.

So, I got the idea to make a shirt for my sister that featured her favourite character, Jayne (Adam Baldwin). I had some t-shirt transfers that I bought a while ago. I went to Hobby Lobby and bought 4 t-shirts for $3.99 a piece. I had also gotten the idea to make a shirt for Kevin to thank him for modeling for me.

I like buying colorful shirts with novelty sayings on them. However, since I am a graphic design major, I figured it would be much more practical for me to create my own shirts, since I have all the tool I need.

There are some design flaws to the shirt that I feel I should mention. One thing is that I used a highly overused font called papyrus. The only reason I used it was because it was the same typeface used for the Serenity movie title. When I saw they had used this typeface, I was somewhat confused, because the movie wasn’t low budget at all, and yet they had this really generic, unoriginal typeface for the title. So when Kevin saw my shirt (I was wearing it when I took him his), he pointed this out. He’s also a graphic design student. The problem is, that the quote I used for the shirt (“Time for some thrilling heroics”) was actually from the television series, and not the movie. So I probably should have chosen a different typeface. I was just being lazy I guess.

Ah well. My shirt still rawks. ^_^

Serenity comes out on DVD this Tuesday, December 20th. Rent it or Buy it!