graduation

I did it! Graduation was yesterday afternoon. I graduated with lots of pretentious honors: Summa Cum Laude, 4.0 GPA, two departmental honors, six honors societies, 183.5 credits, the United States History Award, not to mention three majors and a minor. The program had an insert with blurbs about some of the graduates with exceptional accomplishments and/or plans, and I was included. All in all, I feel rather proud of my accomplishments!

One of the coolest things about the graduation was that I was the very last person in the entire graduation to receive their diploma. First, all the graduate students received their diploma in alphabetically order by last name, then the undergraduates without Latin honors, then Cum, Magna, and Summa, and I was alphabetically last for Summa. I think it's the perfect spot to be -- everyone cheers for you and there is no anti-climactic wait afterward for 300 more people to receive their degrees.

So now that I've graduated, my summer begins. I will spend some of this week unpacking and consolidating all the ridiculous stuff I've accumulated over the last four years, and I'll go right back to work on Monday. My summer class starts this week -- I'm taking an acting class for fun and to help my performance skills as a singer. And I'm hoping to get right back to my voice and piano lessons!
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My iTunes: Procession of the Nobles by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (this was our processional music!)

photoshoot: friends: take 10

Today is graduation day -- fun, fun, fun!

photoshoot: friends: take 9

At the close.

Oh, so retro...

photoshoot: friends: take 7

Getting ready for the close up...

photoshoot: friends: take 6

On the steps of the library.

photoshoot: friends: take 5

...jump!

photoshoot: friends: take 4

Ready, set...

photoshoot: friends: take 3

Thus commences my week of pre-posting while I am away! Enjoy!

photoshoot: friends: take 2

Another shot from my most recent photoshoot. And much as I would love to write more, I have a lot of packing to do before 8:00 tomorrow morning, and a final to finish studying for. Ugh.
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My iTunes: Dippermouth Blues by King Oliver's Creole Band

photoshoot: friends: take 1

I had a quick photoshoot yesterday. Some friends of mine were raising some money for a silent auction to provide scholarship money for people to go to the retreat next week, and I donated a 30-minute shoot for them to auction. The girl who got it decided to ask her friends who were graduating to do the shoot with her. It was a great idea and I think everyone had fun getting to know each other better, because they weren't all from the same core group of friends.

I'll probably share more of these over the next week or so. Since I won't have internet access while I'm away, I'll most likely put together some pre-posts and use the lovely post-ahead feature in blogger :)
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My iTunes: Gente, Gente. All'Armi from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro

photoshoot: the station: take 4

One good shot of syrup deserves another I suppose. I am officially done with my undergraduate course work. I actually skipped my last class on Friday to spend time with a three-year old. It was a day well spent. I finished my last paper yesterday, and all I have left is polishing off my senior seminar paper and taking two exams. Since I'll be away the week after finals, I'm trying to work a bunch of extra hours this week. Then a few days after graduation, my summer class starts. Just for fun, I'm taking an acting class -- I'm very excited. Other than an acting class, I'll be taking voice and piano lessons. And hopefully watching my favorite three-year-old a lot. And working.

photoshoot: the station: take 3

No one has correctly guessed what the last picture was, but it was from the same shoot as this shot -- at work. Since I'm leaving for work in about 40 minutes, I thought I'd continue in that vein and post another shot from there. Yesterday's shot was a close-up of the coffee collars (or sleeves) that we put the disposable cups in when serving things to-go. We keep them about 12 inches from where these bottles of syrup are. Now that I know how to make all sorts of "fancy" drinks, I tend to describe very specific creations when I order elsewhere, like "skinny vanilla-almond soy chai, dirty, no foam, no whip" or "skinny raspberry tiramisu mocha, half-caff, extra whip." I wonder what I'll make myself tonight...
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My iTunes: God Bless the Child by Billie Holiday

photoshoot: the station: take 2

Can you tell what this is?

Now back to editing my MIDI project...
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My iTunes: Non so piu, cosa son cosa faccio from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro

"photobooth"

I put this together from pictures I took on my cell phone, so the photo quality is somewhat less than desirable, but they were so cute I just had to share them. This little girl is one of my favorite people to be around. We had a ball together last week and I'm quite excited to see her again on Friday. For some odd reason, she loves the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas -- I'd never seen it until last week, and now I have her rendition of "This is Halloween / This is Halloween / Everybody scream" stuck in my head. I must say, the music in that movie is fantastic, but I would have been quite scared of it as a child. She's amazing though and it doesn't phase her.
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My iTunes: Violin Concerto in F by Vivaldo, Autumn from Four Seasons

photoshoot: the station

I switched to edit my other photoshoot from this weekend. Work was really slow on Saturday, and since I had my camera, I had a mini-session. I'm really happy with how a lot of the shots turned out. The shoots on Saturday were very different -- the morning shoot was filled with lots of little girls, which means lots of pink and lots of action, while the afternoon shoot was mostly still life and macro shots.

Today was a non-stop day for me. Lots of "graduation-y" things, including an honors convocation and induction ceremony. Can you say l-o-n-g and b-o-r-i-n-g? I didn't realize how long it would be, and in retrospect I felt bad for picking my voice teacher as my faculty member to be in attendance. I should have picked someone I didn't like and made them waste an afternoon... She was very gracious about it, though. It meant a lot that she was so willing to be there for me, especially with her busy schedule -- if there is anyone who is busier than I am, and who works harder, it's her. How ironic that of all the voice teachers in all the world, I'd have her!

So, after the graduation-y events and tonight's opera performance (which went very well -- I quite enjoyed performing the Handel and the Mozart), I treated myself to an evening of watching Alias, without working on papers, but couldn't justify only watching, so I multi-tasked with editing. Now that it's nearly 1:00 a.m. and I still have paper-tweaking to do, I realize that I probably should have just kept my nose to the grindstone. No rest for the weary...
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My iTunes: Nur Stille, Stille, Stille! - Die Strahlen Der Sonne Vertreiben Die Nacht from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte

photoshoot: birthday party

This was the first of the images I edited of the birthday party I shot yesterday. It was a very fun party, every five-year-old girl's dream party. Lots of pink and princess. XiXi had a blast and by the end completely crashed. I've just started editing, and I'll share more photos as I go, but I loved this one and had to share it right away.

Lots of graduation-y events today. I'm listening to the traffic outside and it sounds like it's raining... that should put an interesting spin on the events. But I'm wearing my fabulous new pair of shoes -- super comfortable turquoise wedges. I'm pretty excited!
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My iTunes: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

photoshoot: A

This is one of my favorite shots from the most recent senior shoot I did. A and I have known each other since second grade, although we lost touch between elementary school and college. It's funny that we both ended up at the same small liberal arts college. I don't get to see her terribly often because we spend time in different parts of campus -- she's a science major looking at a career in medicine, and I've set foot in the science building twice in my college career. (I took my science courses at a community college during semester breaks, otherwise I would've had classes in there.) She has an interest in photography and was really excited to learn about it, so it was fun to talk about what I was doing during the shoot and then explain some of the editing process. I can't give away all my secrets, though...

Today I'm shooting my friend's daughter, XiXi's, 5-year-old birthday party. I've posted pictures of XiXi before, and it should be fun to do some shooting today.

I also donated a 30-minute shoot to a silent auction recently, so I should have another shoot coming up within the next two weeks, and a few other people have mentioned that they'd be interested. We'll see how it all pans out!

And if I can figure out how to get the pictures off my camera phone and onto my computer, I have some adorable (but very poor quality -- nowhere near the shots my Nikon turns out...) shots of me and my favorite three-year-old...
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My iTunes: Gallatry a Soap Opera by Douglas Moore