Juilliard Dorm

Ok so the Juilliard dorms are not, in fact, posh and luxurious like the one in yesterday's post.

Thank gooodness!

After being gone for three weeks, Daya came home for about 16 hours before moving into the dorms.

It's done, she's there.

The move-in was really easy and fast.

Apparently yesterday, the main move-in day, was hectic and crazy so it's probably good we did it this morning instead.

I gave Daya her Pebble-Painting and she likes it. :)

Even though she's basically still home, Daya wants to act like she's not so close to home.

(Even though she said already she's going to be stopping in...)

There are 3 bathrooms in Daya's section which are shared by 9 people.

Her room is small and cramped as dorm rooms are.

Her roommate seems pretty cool.

Now my job is to leave her alone unless she contacts me.

Oh, and pay for more dorm stuff that she needs.

She's got a great view.

Not as good as mine was my second year at Pratt, but still pretty good.

Her high school, LaGuardia, is in the bottom right of this picture.

She can actually look out the window and see into her high school dance classrooms on the top floor.

Daya's room is on the 26th floor.

Small common area for the floor

Large main common room area.

I'm glad she's there. It'll be a good experience to share close tight space with someone else and rough it.

It will also be so much easier for her this year without having to commute.

I'm so very deeply thankful it all worked out.

Soap Box, Because this is My Blog and I Can.

I write this post 13 hours before I move my own child into a posh too-expensive college dorm.

HOWEVER I am personally paying for $0 of the dorm expense.

(Due to an extremely generous housing grant plus my kid saving money from working working working.)

******

Look at these pictures.

They are from Boston College, my friend's kid is moved into this dorm suite.

THIS IS AN UNDERGRAD COLLEGE DORM.

***************

Soapbox 1: THIS IS WHYYYYY THE DORMS ARE SOOOO STUPID EXPENSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!

(it was NOT like this last century 1995-1999 when I went to a private elite college!!! Which made it more accessible to EVERYONE... I literally have my career because of Pratt (have been specifically told that) and I am the second person in my family to go to college. Daya is the third.....to this day.)

I do not come from money of any kind.

In my college experience with my own child it was the housing costs that made certain vital things inaccessible.  LUXURY COSTS MONEY and now people expect luxury as the basic standard.

In my college years housing was not actually a significant expense at all.

And believe me, the standard of living would probably result in lawsuits today.

And no one thought twice about it, you just dealt with it bc IT WAS COLLEGE.

Tuition was the problem.

And that was only 25 years ago.

It's not that long in the past.

Soapbox 2: Young adults absolutely NEED and REQUIRE a phase of "roughing it" for character and perspective development, ESPECIALLY WEALTHY KIDS but also everyone.

COLLEGE DORMS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SO FANCY I guess unless you are private ivy school elite. Which most people are not.

I have so so SO many problems with this.

Rant over.

Thanks for reading, if you did.

Feel free to tell me to fuck off or otherwise in the comments.

The Pebble-Stare Painting

Daya returns from Vancouver and moves into the dorm this weekend.

I have been planning a gift for her on move-in day- a small painting of Pebbles so Daya knows Pebbles is ALWAYS watching her.  You cannot ever escape the Pebble-Stare.

So, over a month ago I planned the painting.

Small, 5x7 egg tempera.

Should have been an easy no-brainer painting. 6 hours tops.

Except it just about killed me.

I think what happened is I was fighting for mental focus when I started it, and that carried over into the whole thing, then we had some heatwaves and I couldn't do anything and it started taking way too long and hanging over me and stressing me out and.......

It's FINALLY finished and I am so happy it's DONE I could cry.

I'll get a frame and give it to her on Sunday.

I hope it stares at her in the middle of the night.

*********

In no world should it have taken me OVER A MONTH to do a simple stupid pre-planned 5x7 cat painting from a reference I have actually used previously.

Oh also: I experimented on a different surface- Canson hot press illustration board. (it's archival)

Since egg tempera does need a rigid surface, I cut 2 5x7 pieces of the board and glued them together with acid-free glue. It's a fine surface to work on, but I do think for safety's sake it needs to be doubled up and that's extra work. I might stick to Claybord.

Progress shots of this painting looking ugly pretty much until the last 20 minutes:

 

Statue of Liberty, from the 58th Floor

Facilities doesn't mind if I paint in the office on weekends.

Today, the shades were up on most of the windows and I didn't have to touch anything.

It was peaceful and quiet and...

grey and overcast...bummer!

Well, we work with what we have to work with.

This painting would NOT photograph.  I'm not sure why.  Sometimes paintings just will not photograph properly no matter what.

I thought I could do better at home but nope, the on-location picture is still the best.

Even with the wet painting next to me looking at the photo in my calibrated graphics monitor.

The painting looks way better than the photo but whatever.

9x12 oil

This painting took about 2 1/2 hours, maybe a little more.

It really was very gray outside; I was hoping for more color.

Next time.

Almost 30 Years and I Still F*** it Up Sometimes

Wow what a weird night last night! Er, this morning too!

I had a late-evening hotline shift.

We have a new training class from June that is HUGE and I have never seen the schedule so full!

In fact, it was so full I was not on it.

What???

I know I had a scheduled shift last night; we book a month in advance, it's actually all very strict and required and I am extremely good at keeping my schedule properly because I really care about the hotline.

Turns out they were going to see if I could move my shift but forgot to actually tell me about it.

It happens, we're all people, it's ok.

I stayed for my shift.

*******

When I checked my phone after my shift, Daya had texted me some... stuff.... that stressed me out and required further conversation.  (She's ok. It's future stuff and premature planning.)

She wanted to chat.
It doesn't matter how tired you are, when your kid needs to talk, you talk to them.

I stayed at the hotline to talk to her about her overwhelming day and her thoughts and feelings.

Good thing I was still in Hotline Mode!

She needed to talk for almost 40 minutes.

11:40ish pm I left to go home.

IF the trains are running and IF I am smart about my route it takes just under an hour to get home.

Neither of those things happened.

And maybe it's also important to know I was reading a VERY good book..............

The E is running on the F line late nights which meant I couldn't take the 6 to the E which is very close and pretty fast.

The R stops after 10pm so you have to transfer to the E. 

I was going to just walk to the F and take that allll the way home, easy.

I should have just... done that.

But I took the R.

And was feeling quite clever about it.

We don't know what that weird thing was but no one sat next to me!

I got off at Queens Plaza and waited........... BECAUSE I FORGOT THE E IS RUNNING ON THE F.

While I was waiting for nothing, I texted this picture to Daya,:

To which she replied with a terrible joke that, inappropriately, I thought was hilarious:

Nothing is too dark for me.
We are both awful, I know.

******

Then the station worker reminded all the idiots waiting (I wasn't the only one) there is no train service, take the shuttle bus to the F.

By now it's about 12:30am and I DO NOT want to take a shuttle bus to 21st St Queensbridge which is a very bad area. Another woman on the platform was walking with me and we were looking for the bus, then she had the brilliant idea to just walk to the 7.  Good thing my terrible Spanish is mostly-functional because that's what she spoke! I should have thought of this but my train-smarts were completely broken, and it got even worse.

FUN FACT: you will still not get a seat on the 7 train at 12:30am.

Ok, Phew, I was finally at Roosevelt to get my train home.

3 minutes for the next E train. Yay!

Except that didn't show up either.

Well, 9 minutes later it did and I got on it and several stops later (remember I was reading a VERY good book) I realized I WAS GOING BACK TO MANHATTAN!!!!!!!!!!!

I got the heck OFF that E train, crossed over to the opposite platform.

By now it was exactly 1am.

Daya actually offered to call me an Uber but the train was arriving in 1 minute and also I'm way too cheap for that.

And I didn't want to go back outside.

It was good to get home.

Honestly, almost 30 years taking the trains and I can't believe how I can still mess up like that.

The Oyster Phobia

Sometimes I help teach classes at the boathouse.

Tonight was our Kayak 102 skills class, where we teach towing, patrol equipment, radio use, self-rescue, and assisted rescue.

Last time I taught this class my reason for needing to be towed was being seasick- and then the very next weekend I really actually had to tow in someone who was seasick!!

So today I needed a new reason: which was a phobia of oysters!

As part of the Billion Oyster Project, there are oysters in our embayment.

I like to be stupid and ridiculous for some parts of the classes, because it makes the info stick and it's just more fun.

Let's see if I now encounter an oyster phobia during the public program!

__PRESENT

My new studio assistant!

Please welcome my new studio assistant!

Yeah I know.

I should have had one all these years.

I have been looking at getting one for about the last 15 years (!!!) and almost did it 4 or 5 times.
The thing is... this fireproof trash can costs $80 and I could never bring myself to spend that much on a trashcan.

Although I am well aware of the fire hazards of oil painting, and I have always made sure my rags are spread out to prevent spontaneous combustion, I do put palette paper in the studio trash. 

And sometimes I do worry about it. 

My only trash from plein airing is 2 pieces of palette paper.  

That's it.  

And I NEVER dispose of it in public waste because of the fire hazard.

In the cold months I don't worry too much about it, especially since I do keep my apartment on the cold side, but these heatwaves we have been having have been pushing my fire-trash-anxiety up a lot.

I can feel that background anxiety disappearing- one less thing to have to worry about!

So anyhow now that I actually did it, I'm ridiculously excited about my new trashcan.

Well this will be interesting

Due to a very generous Juilliard housing grant and Daya saving saving saving money from working working working, she's moving on campus! Yay! I can't believe how the money worked out, but it did.

It is literally a miracle.

I am purchasing everything on her dorm list except the $278 mattress topper she wants.  She can pay for that herself.  I'll get everything else.

(It's REALLY nice to have a kid who works and makes a significant enough amount of money that I can say that to her and she's cool with it.  I am so obnoxiously proud of her!!!!)

So we are all set with everything for dorm move-in except.... the kid.

Move-in is Aug 24th, ending at 5pm.

Daya's plane LANDS at 1:30 and she wants to stop home first.

THIS WILL BE INTERESTING......

Well, I'm here to help, it's her problem to work out!

Deck Boat Shenanigans

Tonight there was a deck boat class at the boathouse and I was the only student!

This was fabulous because I learned a ton and we all got to do weird things with the kayaks.

This summer I had a goal of learning about deck boats- mission accomplished!

Deck boats are different than the sit-on-top ocean kayaks we use for the public program...they are trickier, tippier, and involve more gear. Also they will fill up with water which sucks.

Now I can self-rescue and also assist-rescue in them, but I don't think I will be taking one on a trip any time soon..... or so I say now...