A couple of paintings...and yes, talk of New Year, as promised

In spite of my overwhelming schedule at the moment - featuring all of my finals tomorrow, grading, curriculum design for next semester, grading, travel planning, grading, and so much more! - I've actually gained some free time... in the form of my girlfriend being *literally* half-way around the world.

What do I do when I am lonely, stressed, and busy? Procrastinate, of course! It's simply how I react to such situations... and yet, somehow, things always seem to get done on time, and done well. Sometimes I think there must be 2 distinct personalities in my head: one dead-set on doing as little as possible ever, and the other begrudgingly cleaning up its' counterpart's messes... and both of them trying their darnedest to spite one another...

So I worked much of today... but then the other side kicked in... and I decided to do some painting... er... coloring... I'm really not sure what to call it. I used sticks of oil-pastels... so it's somewhere between painting and coloring with crayons. Nevertheless, I think they've turned out quite nice so far, though I must stress that I really just beginning to figure out the methods of this kind of art.

This first one was based off of a photo I saw on cnn.com in an article covering the ongoing war in Israel/Gaza. Though the conflict itself is horrible, I found this image to be quite beautiful... and the juxtaposition moving. I decided to keep the lens-flare (those polygonal light spots you see in pictures) to keep that "real" feeling.









And I bet you can't guess who this is! That's right, it's Nancy. I missed her, so I took the only logical step... I made her, ála Dr. Frankenstein... well, minus the whole graverobbing bit. I'm saving that for February.

The characters are her name: 孙洁楠, or Sun Jienan. I thought it was a nice touch. Also, I'm not sure if they came through on the photo, but there's an underlay of yellow stars against the red background... so I wouldn't forget where I was :P



As for my New Years... well, what can I say? I said I'd talk about it "next time," and so here it is. It was relatively uneventful... boring, even. I went to the bar, where they had a big party going on. Met some people, re-met others... some of which were nice to see/ see again... but a surprisingly large number of them I actually rather not have to interact with again. Fortunately most of those people are down in Rui'an most of the time.

But - as seems to have become par for the course in recent years - the oft-vaunted holiday season loses its lustre when devoid of people you care about... or especially when a loved one suddenly leaves/leaves you right beforehand...

I guess them's just the breaks.
(CS)WC Out.

Remember. Whatever, it seems like forever ago.