"The soul never thinks without a picture." ~ Aristotle

So, we have the rest of the pictures I tried to upload last night:

 This is my walk to Tempo one day around 3:45 pm... very dark but lots of Christmas lights (this house is totally better in real life... less scary and more pretty)!

 And cold snow!

I walked the long way back and went through some woods and saw this! 

 How adorable and romantic is this?!?!?

 More Christmas decorations (totally life size!)!

 The tree was hard to picture, it isn't crooked like it looks.  It was next to the one above.

 This is a Christmas soda... "like cola with Christmas flavor" Rosanne said...  I did not enjoy it honestly.  I pictured coke with cinnamon and cloves and that sort of flavor.. I have no idea what these flavors are but they are kind of gross.  I don't understand how my roommates drink so much of it.  Maybe you have to grow up with it?

Saturday night I went to a party in Pukeberg with the design students who are there.  Here we have a German, maybe another German and a Thai kid who studies in NYC playing a drinking game. At first everyone was divided but then a drinking game got going and the schools started to merge... some people sucked and stayed separate but the cool kids made new friends ;)

 This is the Orrefors crowd.  There were more of us, but these were the party kids!

Rosanne (orange hair), Bjorn, Haidi, Josephine and Bosse

Po had to drink the gross mixed drink at the end of some drinking game, it was a mix of beer, cider, water and something else foul.  I just loved his face in this picture! 

 Then we played Loopy Lou! It is a kids game where you spin this guy in a airplane and whoever looses must drink.

 Apparently, no design school is complete without a mangled skeleton! This totally creeped me out being all out of whack in the head like that!

Thankfully Po and Rosanne fixed it!

 General late night absurdities...

 And passing out on the couches at the school!  It was nice to party somewhere away from Orrefors and have a place to stay! 

We woke up this these killer icicles the next morning hanging off the school.   Then we all went back to Orrefors, climbed into our beds and didn't come out all day except to eat...  felt like I was back in College haha.

Here are some bowls I think I made on Friday, amazing similar in size for not trying. 

AND!!! Here is what I have been trying to make for WEEKS now! It is still not perfect but much better! 

 (Same one, different angle) Marianna (teacher) has been telling me that is super hard and normally 3rd year students try to do and sometimes don't succeed and that maybe I am spending a long time trying something I may not get.  BUT I AM GETTING IT! HAHAAAAA!

 (yes, still same one, but it is the best yet!) AND I made a even better one today!!!!

Maybe she is trying to use reverse psychology and actually inspire me?  Maybe?  Probably not.

 This is my double color piece.  Sadly I didn't get two good colors and you can barely tell they are overlaid on each other! I will have to try again sometime with better colors.  But it turned out very nice!

 I have some bubbles in it because the new furnace at the factory sucks and constantly has bubbles!

 And here is a much better picture of the plates I made.  They are both very nice and round... maybe not so perfect but I am pleased with my first real attempt and not just playing around.  One is very keep-able the other has a thin spot in the bottom from the punty getting stuck on it.

This is the keep-able one! Look at the nice curve at the edges and shape! Maybe I can make more after Christmas with a foot on them to raise it up off the table a little. 

 This is what I worked on today in the cold shop.  I am doing that flower cutting design in a tea pot and had to practice with this very tricky wheel so I made this design and practiced and cursed and practiced and cursed and finally got it pretty nice.

 I tried to make it so you can see it better but it was hard.  It is the same repeating pattern that overlaps a few times.

I am pleased to announce that I have gone to the gym two days in a row! And, today I was even sore from yesterday! I have finally gotten it to the point where I can do the same weight with the front of my arms as the back and all the other sides.  I have found muscles I didn't know I had, like under my arms around my ribs... I just feel bones but apparently there is a sore muscle there! Hooray progress!!

Tomorrow I am to spend the whole day in the hot shop.  I am not sure who I am going to work with as the first year students are going in the cold shop in the morning.  Now that we have moved to the factory all the time for hot working it is different.  The whole factory has a different feel and the furnace is very different too. It always has bubbles and never consistent heat.  Makes it tricky to know what kind glass you are going to get.  But I have a theory that if we can survive working with it once we get into the real world a normal furnace will be a delight to work with!  Also, we work next to the second year Nordic students.  They are not making us feel very welcome... they complain that their teacher helps us some, we have too many pipes, don't do things right, take up their space and bla bla bla and do it right in front of us! How can you complain to a teacher that is helping a student that the teacher shouldn't be helping them but helping the complainer when she is in the middle of helping the other student!?!? It is absurd.  I mentioned it to Rebecca who said she would mention it in their teacher meeting, but hopefully after Christmas they will have the place more organized and give us more space and designated glory holes.  Or maybe they will learn to stop bitching and moaning and just make the best of the situation... and that we don't really care if we are in the way.

But, now I am off to bed for some much needed sleep! All this gym-ing is tiring and my brain hasn't turned off once for days it seems... I can't believe how this month is FLYING BY!  Soon I will be at Eva's for Christmas then back in NC to see the family!