Monday, September 20, 2010

"Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water." ~WC Fields

Today... I would like to say I hopped out of bed and felt like... OK, I have no idea... something really great and springy... maybe a daffodil...  But I didn't.  I don't know why, I have had a million hours of sleep this weekend.  Maybe it was due to the large amount of wine I drank while making meatloaf... and spending the evening in the kitchen with my roommate listening to Finish Christian Rock... her favorite band is The Rain if you are interested.  I don't think they wanted their listeners to turn to the bottle when they hear the music... but with all the head banging, hair swooshing and Finish I was left with no choice but to drink more wine...  Don't get me wrong, I didn't drink a ton, nor am I an alcoholic but I needed a little help touching that much raw meat... eating lobster loaf and listening to Finish christian rock... who wouldn't?! 

So, in the morning I was in the hot shop and got to make more bowls with the glory hole! I was to help teach Mia how to do it since it was her first time.  She is an older student from Norway who is in the same program as me.  She gets easily frustrated I think and easily frazzled which makes her a little difficult to work with.  But she is a great lady and I wish she could get it a little more easily for, well, all our sakes.  I think I was able to help keep her calm and the fact that we had to take turns helpd so when she needed a little break she could take one to relax and calm down.  I made a bunch of bowls, some big, some tiny and some lopsided... but bowls!  Mia even made some really good ones! It was a good morning I would say.
Here is a picture of the bowls that I made on Friday:
This is the one I think that was just the right size to put my thoughts in! haha
Some of these may be good for something like salt... tears... one serving of butter?
The ones today were pretty similar in size and style... but I think they were getting better.  It is so much fun at the end of making it you get the rim really hot and then you spin it quickly and it opens up to a bowl or mostly a bell shape! Yay centrifugal force!  I don't know why it is such fun but it really is!!  I will grind off the punty marks in the cold shop so they will sit a little more straight... prob still not totally straight.

After lunch I worked in the cold shop where I got to do my deep cutting on the crystal piece! If you have never picked up a piece of crystal and then picked up a piece of glass you probably wouldn't have noticed that crystal weighs about 4 times more then the glass.  It is also more clear and beautiful somehow... well I know how... it is chock full of lead.  I think they make it without lead now-a-days but the traditional crystal (like the kind I am using) still has lead in it.  Here is the piece that I worked on:
Isn't it clear and beautiful!?  I made those X's you see on each side.  Next we will put it in an acid bath so the X's are shiny like the rest of the glass.  I can't wait to see how that will look.  I don't know why we can't do it right now but they said hopefully soon we could make the acid bath. 
 I also did this bowl:
Those are called olive shapes... I don't know if they have a more official name but that is what everyone around here calls it.  At first it looked really lame but when I finally finished it I was really pleased and think they look pretty cool.  You use this really broad cutting wheel and it is very tricky to make them 1. straight, 2. the same width and length and 3. hold the bowl to make 30 freakin' olives!  I was so pleased when I finished I was thinking maybe I should carry it instantly and carefully back to my shelf so as not to drop it and smash it into a million pieces! You can use this technique to make overlapping layers of olives that look really cool!

Then after school I had my daily video chat date with Sam which was very nice.  It is always nice to talk to him and to see him but some days it is nicer then others for no real reason... just makes me smile more.  I am very thankful for technology in that respect! I think I would go crazy if we couldn't talk so often! 

I had agreed to go on a long walk with Rosanne... then it started raining... a lot.  So I thought we wouldn't go and she shows up all dressed and said "I think this should be a walk and jog what do you think?"  I said "ITS RAINING!"  but she convinced me to get dressed and I convinced her that since she wanted to jog also that we must take the shorter trail (luckily I know the trails better then her so I knew how short!).  I have been trying to jog some to keep in shape but have developed some pretty painful shin splints.  So I have stopped running and just walked but they were sore even in the hot shop at times... So I have hardly been walking either... until today... I did both! In the woods! In the rain!  We had a lot to catch up since she had been gone all weekend... it was busy weekend for both of us!  I have never been one to jog and chat... how can people do that?!? I can hardly jog and breath most of the time without tripping and falling down!  I sort of managed... mostly I made her walk a lot while I talked and we jogged while she talked.  But I did feel a little better afterwards... now I am tired and think I will sleep very well!

We did also have a very classic college moment here in the student home.  I had just gotten in the shower and soaped up after the jog when the fire alarm went off! I rinsed (leisurely) and then got a towel and stuck my head out of the window and saw that no one was standing in the rain to avoid the fire so either it was a small fire or no fire and someone just burned more food.  The fire alarms here are very sensitive and have gone off several times already.  So I got back in the shower and finished up and by the time I was done people were returning from trying to stop the alarm and laughing about the burnt chicken Jonatan had made.  That really reminded me of Sweet Briar! Why in my life are there never hot guys standing around outside due to fire alarms like this.... 
old spice hot guy isaiah mustafa.jpg
haha selling Old Spice!

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