Knoxville, TN

So I've never actually been to Knoxville...
Until yesterday (and today technically) that is-

After the week of horrific emotional, mental, and sometimes even physical pain that accompanied the completion of my course work for my degree as of Wednesday, I somehow conned myself into packing up some clothes, hard drives, and Alaska and pointing my tires North. Yes, folks, I actually decided to attempt the drive to Michigan to spend Thanksgiving with my family.
Originally the plan was to leave at 4am on Wednesday after finishing school Tuesday BUT, due to Tuesday's all-nighter, I decided that sticking to that plan would probably result in some sort of death and destruction of either me, or my car, or both. I decided to instead sleep Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and then finish a million and a half things that needed to get done :get car fixed, help move Angela out of the apartment, see some friends I won't see in a long time after I leave, etc... By 6pm Wednesday I was finally on the road home. By Knoxville, TN, I felt like I was going to pass out so I stopped and stayed the night with a newer friend of mine Jen V.

Let me tell you right now that Jen, although I know her mostly through my friend Tyler, is one of the coolest girls I have ever met. She rules. Her and Tyler were waiting for me at like 1am and let me crash on her couch. Even better, she didn't care if Alaska ran around all night.. this was AWESOME for me because Alaska did JUST that and then was tuckered out all day for the drive today. Awesome!

Anyway I got to see Knoxville a little, at night and in the morning. I don't know why but I wasn't expecting it to be so hilly! The entire place was just up and down and up and down. It was actually quite lovely and I'm glad I got a chance to stop.

I left Jen's at 7:30 am and drove for a half hour before I had to stop to eat... my stomach was killing me. I have NOT been eating right these past few weeks- so I decided to treat myself to a Thanksgiving breakfast at Shooneys! I had an awesome omelet there and potato wedges. mm. After that it was pretty-much smooth sailing back to michigan. The only traffic that I hit was outside of Cincinnati and between Detroit and Troy, Michigan... even then, though, even though it was bumper to bumper nobody was going under 60mph.

I made it home in about 9 hours counting my half hour Shooney's stop and right in time for Thanksgiving dinner. A highlight of this year? My Uncle Chris is in town and nobody EVER sees him... I haven't seen him in 3 years and my family hasn't seen him in probably more like 5 or 6. It was so awesome having him. I think we had 15 people in all this year... not too bad- smaller than I'd like but so awesome.

I stole my brother for a bit after dinner and went for a ride with him into Pontiac to see if we could find this car stereo place I heard about on the radio on my ride up today. On our little mini-trip we saw this doughnut place that was open. We were like huh? Open on thanksgiving?! So we stopped in and it turns out that we discovered a 24 hour pizza, doughnut, coffee, and stuff place on Telegraph on the way to Pontiac. AWESEOMeST THING EVER! AND on top of that it looks like a triangle-roof mountain diner and has sweet low round diner bar stools. The whole place is so chill... best part? The guy gave us both free doughnuts! We were mad full but we took them home anyway- looks like breakfast tomorrow won't be turkey thank GOD.
(pix will be added soon)

I miss Michigan a lot. I'm only staying here until Sunday night or Monday. I have so many people to see before then. I'm so excited to be back for a little bit. mmmmmmmmMIchigan. OMGOSH tomorrow I think I'm going to be able to go to the Cider Mill.. more on that later!

We could be closer than you know,
Chelsea

Last Day of college... ever... well at least undergrad.

Not that I'm planning on going to grad school anytime soon (or ever...)

It's 7am and I'm sitting in an editing lab at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I have been here since 11am yesterday and am still looking at about an hour or so to go until I'm (semi) done with the work I need to get done in order to finish my classes and turn in my final projects.

If I don't get this stuff done I don't graduate.
What the heck am I doing online typing out a blarg entry then? Well I can't do ANYTHING right now because the film I was up all night editing is transcoding and when that's happening I need to sit here and baby-sit the computer (and all my gear). I have everything else done that I need to do outside of this lab except print out some dvd inserts and press kits which I have to leave in order to do so I'm stuck. What better time to write a blarg entry than at 7am on a day when I haven't slept ALL night and am not planning on being able to get any rest until 5pm.
...my thesis film is premiering at the theater downtown at with a group of other films starting at 6pm. Peachy!

So needless to say, it was a pretty joyful night. No I'm serious! How can I feel sorry for myself when today is the day that I'm officially done with all my course work for my degree?!?!?! I'm only 21 years old and I have finished all of the work I need to do in order to get one of the most sought after degrees in the art world (Film) and from one of the best art schools in the country for it! Does anyone out there realize how amazing SCAD is? We have more equipment and equal opportunity provided for us than ANY OTHER SCHOOL in the United States! Seriously...

Anyway, this guy David who was helping me translate some of the "Stillmore" interviews was laughing at me because I kept trying to psych myself into being either ahead of my game or just generally joyful. He was exhausted and had to work at 5am but stayed up till 1am helping Mitch and me translate anyway. Sometime over the course of the night, during my realization that I was going to be up until the sun set again, I decided to let him in on all of my little secrets. He thought they were hilarious... or maybe he just thought it was sad that the only way that I could keep on convincing myself not to loose my mind was to make the good look overly good and the bad look overly good. haha. For example:

I didn't make a list of things to do until about midnight by which time I had already accomplished many of the things that I would have put on my list 4 hours beforehand. Instead of just omitting these accomplishments from the list I included as many as I could think of and made sure to cross them all of signifying the fact that I have already done them. haha. This way I can see my progress throughout the night and be able to cross things off the list only milliseconds after I write them onto it. haha. Talk about uplifting...
"write tutorial about how to transfer HDV into Avid Symphony Nitris" X'd OUT! woo!

I mean, nobody else is going to go out of their way to encourage me... I might as well do stupid things like that to encourage myself.

Anyway, all in all I am pretty much done. Sometimes it's the finishing touches, though, that really take the longest time. In theory it should only take about an hour to print a 20min film to tape: 30 mins to black the tape, 20 mins to print to the blacked tape, and 10 mins to compensate for any screwing up that will absolutely happen along the way.... in theory anyway. Does it ever really work like that? Yea, sure... but can you rely on it? no way



It really doesn't help moral at all when the room you are sitting in for umpteen hours is so freezing cold that you have to wear 2 t-shirts, a thick track jacket, and a hoodie with thumb holes and gloves and you're still shivering so hard you can't replace edit. I had to cut the fingers off of the gloves so I could be more efficient at what I'm doing on the keyboard... my little fingers are freezing! Ps- they keyboard you see here is an Avid Keyboard. It helps with editing... don't freak out.


LIST OF THINGS YET TO ACOMPLISH AFTER THIS PROJECT IS DONE TRANSCODING
1. Make sure whole project is saved to Terry the external Terabyte and pack everything up.
2. Go to the Dyson Dorm Lab and see if I can recover a file that contains my dvd label graphics on it that I somehow missed when grabbing all of my files the last time I as in there.
3. Upon *hopefully* finding that file, get over to Creative Approach and print out the JennyB Documentary Press kit and dvd cover/back, insert, and label *hopefully*.
4. Go home and give Alaska her antibiotic/feed her/clean the litter box if she needs it.
5. Email a document to Mitch
6. Build DVD Final Product to turn in for class.
7. Maybe sleep for an hour or so before my class at 11am?
8. Be in school again at 11am for Senior Thesis III class.
9. While in class make sure everything is turned in and then make sure every film is correctly printed to tape/make sure that you learn why you were having trouble printing to tape earlier this morning (now).
10. Hook up Terry and pull up Stillmore Project into Nitris and add countdown leader/ print to tape/export as a QuickTime file
11. Hand tape off to Hawk and Mitch a few mins before the class they have to screen it in.
12. Check to see if anyone actually read this entry/left me a comment or an email.

hahahaa... seems like a lot but I'm totally not worried. I've gotten over the VASSSST MAJORITY of the terrible work that needed to be done and I'm ready to just print all this stuff to paper AND tape and be done.

ONE LAST THING:
I took two quick breaks tonight. One to go to metro and get a personal pan pizza and a skim vanilla late and another to go to Wendy’s to get a bacon cheeseburger. Weird huh? I haven't had fast food or even meat that was nasty like that in months. It wasn't bad but my stomach is still killing me from it. Cool thing though is that when I came out of Wendy's I noticed that there were some cops bothering the two squatters and their dogs outside of the drive though. It's been getting much colder these past few nights, probably in the mid-forties, so I promptly drove by and made my way to the gas station down the street. I bought them hot chocolate and enough REAL farm-made Georgia beef jerky to feed them AND their dogs. Upon my return they had moved on and the police were still grumbling about them. I found them a little down the road and hooked them up with the food. They laughed and were very thankful. It was going to be a cold night... the least I could do was hook em up with some hot chocolate. hahaha.

I'll write a much more philosophical entry about being done with school and what not maybe later tonight after I screen my film or maybe tomorrow. I'm supposed to leave for Michigan on Wednesday early in the morning but after this all-nighter I'm afraid I may be either leaving Wednesday night and making it a two day thing by staying somewhere along the way or even leaving EARLYYY Thursday morning. Nope, that is NOT an option- I can't risk MISSING Thanksgiving dinner. NOWAY. It will most likely be Wednesday night- I'll go as far as I can, sleep, and then go some more. Oh my gosh I just summed up my life right there in that sentence.
Same thing I do every night, Pinky....

We could be closer than you know,
Chelsea

30 free songs by my fav michigan artist!!!!

Denison Whitmer has tons of free music and podcasts at this site

The Happy Birthday Denison web site is a place where Whitmer has put up a bunch of free music, podcasts, and writing, in order to benefit some charaties that he supports. You don't HAVE to give to the charities- the music on the site is still free (and amazing btw- if you know anything about Denison Whitmer you'll know he's a soothing folk artist who's music is beautiful)although he does ask for a donation if you are so inclined.

This is at least worth the click to check out. I suggest the song "Los Angeles" or "the 80's". LA is a song that seems to be written from the perspective of the Lord who is longing after the heart of a used-to-be-believer and "the 80's" is about... well... the 80's.

Denison Whitmer is by far my favorite singer/songwriter from Michigan right now and has been since I was introduced to his music by Kevin VanDuyne back when I was in high school. At least download a few songs and give him a listen! Enjoy!

We could be closer than you know,
Chelsea

4 weeks left :: VESPA RIDE

In exactly four weeks from yesterday I am getting into my jeep (or other vehicle depending on if I decide to buy a new one) and pointing my nose West. Rockies, here I come.... in 4 weeks anyway. It's crazy because that means I'm done with school in like less than two and a half weeks. DOES ANYBODY OUT THERE REALIZE HOW INSANE THAT IS? I'm only 21 and I'm done with my BFA (almost). Seriously awesome.

Speaking of awesome I chilled out with my friend Josh tonight and tottally broke down and let him take me on a Vespa ride. It was nothing short of hillarious and, well, definetly different form being on a motorcycle that's for sure. I couldn't stop laughing. We drove the 20 mins out to the movie theater only to find out that it was sold out so we went to Ruby Tuesday's instead and got *second* dinner. haha.

I seriously never thought I'd ever live to see the day that I'd ride on the back of a vespa. never. I guess I"m just not cool anymore? haha Josh, if you are reading this I"m so just kidding. Your punk rawk white vespa with the stickers and neon red underfoot lights rules. amen.





yes I did take pictures
yes it was 48 degrees out and we were freezing
yes we did do wheelies
what is happening to me///

we could be closer than you know (but hopefully not because i rode a vespa and you should never talk to me again)
ok i know- enough with the "i hate vespas jokes" i know... it really was a lot of fun and yea I'd do it agian. YAY josh.

-chelsea
ps> why does it take sooooo long to load images onto photobucket??!! why don't I just host them myself on my own webspace? what that heck.

Happy Birthday to my Cat Alaska!! haha

It's Alaska's Birthday! She's 1 year old!

To see some kitten photos and what not... scroll down to the end.

I know I'm so lame for posting this but I couldn't help it. Shut up you know you love it. Alaska's birthday is today (well, I'm not acutally sure when her REAL birthday is so I estimated it based on the day I stole her from Arnell's house. The date came out to be Halloween but I decided to make it the next day (today...er... yesterday since it's 1:30am) because the day after Halloween is All Saints Day, or All Hallows or Hallowmas ("hallows" meaning "saints," and "mas" meaning "Mass")... quick history lesson- Halloween came AFTER All Saints Day when it comes to the order of modern holidays. haha. The Eve of Hallows became known as Halloween much after the celebration of the saints.

ANYWAY, Alaska turns 1 today. Here's her story:

When I first saw Alaska it was last year during winter break while I was at Arnell's house. Arnell is a friend of my friend Eric and we all went over there for I don't remember what. Anyway, his cat had gotten pregnant by some stray and had a littler of kittens. They were all either black, brown, or black and white except this one sick little one who looked slightly siamese. My friends and I all fell in love at first sight but knew better than to just bring one home. The next time we found ourselves over there I had been thinking about taking the little brown one (bad me still thinking about having a kitten) because he was the runt and was really cute. I decided I should probably get a cat since I had just moved into my new apartment and in Savannah you REALLY need need something to act as "amazon bug control"... ESPECIALLY if you live in an old renovated place like me with holes here and there. Anyway I was thinking of taking the runt, but, when we went back there... I noticed that the little siamese hadn't gotten any better. She was really sick- to the point where she couldn't open her eyes very well and the other cats were picking on her. She was weak and having trouble getting around. I felt so bad for her that I just took her home without worrying anything about the others. She was just about 5 weeks old...She got better slowly over the course of the winter and adapted to my loud lifestyle and friends right away. One of my best girlfriends came up with the name Alaska for her after a few days and it stuck. Within a week of having her, she drove 16 hours back to Michigan with me into the cold weather. She's a survivor and a little firecracker fuzz ball. I love her like, whoa. That bad cat. The best part? As she got better she opened those eyes of her and she has the most beautiful blue eyes. She is a mix between a siamese, american black and white, and a tabby cat. This makes for a beautiful cream seal-point siamese coat with striped front paws and white tip toes.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALASKA!
Kitten photos!!!







Growin up...





And now!


<3<3
We could be closer than you know,
Chelsea