End of semester crazyness

This week has been exhausting.  My school gets the entire week next week off for Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving, there are only two more weeks left in the semester! Since I will be at my vacation residence (my husband's apartment in The City) all next week, and two presentations immediately when I come back, I've been trying to cram finishing everything into this week. No such luck.  There is so much still to do.  I'm about to tear my hair out, and I've already given myself a stomachache.

I'm hoping to be able to work two good full days next Monday and Tuesday, and possibly part day Sunday, while my husband is at work. It would be *great* to have everything done. I hate end of the semester!

What else? I've finished watching the Assassin's Creed walkthrough. It was entertaining to watch, and I'm looking forward to when people start uploading playthroughs of the AC II game. From a watcher's perspective, I took issue with the main character killing his informants after beating them and interrogating them, and the fight sequences seemed repetitive. There's a copy of the game at the vacation residence, so hopefully I'll get to play it a bit. There's also been mention of sending me with a copy of the game (there's a Nintendo DS prequel), or a purchase of AC II so that I can play it over the break. Nifty!

I want to give a shout out to all those taking November to expand on your creativity. I know some of you are participating in National Novel Writing Month while others are creating scrapbooks, and others taking on art projects. I read once that we are made in the image of a Creator God...likewise we too, are creators. It believe that it is not just the "arts" that count as creativity, but any movement away from entropy should be considered an act of creation.

I've been feeling inspired, but I don't know where to begin. And I don't have time to begin until after the semester. I'd like to learn photography, and I'd like to learn to draw. They are both visual media, and there were be some overlap in learning, but I'd like to take things in different directions for the two media. For photography, at this point, I'm not interested in learning about lenses and settings and such. I want to know that given I had the most basic camera--single lens, non-adjustable, disposable--how would I take beautiful pics? Once I've mastered that, lenses and settings and such would just be icing on the cake, right? Perhaps I need to start my learning on art theory?

My desire to learn to draw takes the opposite direction. I can't draw a straight line without a straight edge, and my "circles" are a joke. I've had enough drafting classes to understand perspective and the idea of converting 3D to 2D. My deficiencies with drawing ARE technical.

Photography is capturing light in a box. Drawing, in my mind, requires physical skill, and the ability to convert shapes to lines, colors to shading. For example, the photo at the top of the post. I did nothing. I simply walked past the rosebush when the sunlight was at just the right angle.

Finally, as suggested by a reader, I will include an update on my penny. I found the penny on the sidewalk a month and a half ago. I picked it up, took it up the stairs, and instead of taking it inside, I placed it on my exterior window ledge, next to the door. Since there is a common walkway along all the upstairs apartments (think motel), I did not expect the penny to stay there for long, especially since some of the upstairs residents have young children, and the window is at their height. However, the penny remains.

I travel tomorrow morning, getting up at 3 am. I still need to pack.