Self Assurance

I was rather blue yesterday.

I have a couple leads on my autism documentary project-- the Rochester Regional Center for ASD got back to me and invited me to come present my project to see how they can help me get working on it, and I also heard from a psychology professor here at RIT who has worked with autistic high schoolers. I'm just kind of being patient with this, letting things work out how they should. I'm still really excited for it though; I definitely want to pursue this idea.

I've had this lingering cold for the past week or two, which would probably go away if I just had a day off to rest. I'm not coughing or sneezing much anymore, but my ears still don't feel right and I'm hoping that will go away soon. We have lots of tests and projects due in school, plus I'm working 30 hours this week, so I just don't have much time for anything else. The good news is that I've managed to find rides to/from school most days of the week, so I don't have to wake up at 4:30 anymore and I don't have to ride my bike so much. Last night was our first frost, so winter is definitely on its way.

All things considered, I guess I'm doing alright. I got some naan and hummus today and made falafels for dinner. I'm managing to stay on top of my finances and schoolwork for the most part. I just wish that transportation wasn't such an issue here, and I do wish I had some semblance of a social life. I'm lonely. I have acquaintances in class and work, but at work I'm obviously kept pretty busy, and the last couple days I just got overwhelmed and I feel like someone's always mad at me for something. But I'm trying to make this work.

On another note, I'm kind of irritated that I can't look at my stovetop now without thinking the words "blackbody radiator." Thanks M&P.

New.

New York.

It's strange that I feel myself growing so much here in such a short space of time. I'm doing work here that I don't think I would've ever been able to do a year ago. I had my doubts about moving to a suburban location, that without the wackiness of San Francisco I would just lose all inspiration, but I feel more like an artist than I ever have in my whole life. I'm working with some brilliant people who understand my geekiness for journalism, graphic design, typography, print, anthropology, etc.-- this place is just a perfect balance for me.


At the moment I'm doing research for what will hopefully develop into a long-term documentary project on children with autism. I have no idea how it's all going to turn out and I'm nervous, but after everything that happened this summer and over the last year, I finally feel ready to do a story like this. And it's strange, like I said, a year ago I would never have had the guts to do this, being so shy and reserved, but it's like I HAVE to do this, and now that I actually have people expecting work from me and who will give me useful critique, I feel like I can get it done like any other assignment.

Basically what's been happening is this-- I was placed in a beginning photo class this quarter, but after talking with my advisors, they agreed to let me do a more specialized program study so that I'm still being challenged-- so next summer/fall I can jump into my photojournalism classes. So I'm taking this opportunity to assign myself a project that I can work on and build over a long period of time, as well as a couple smaller, more design-oriented things to complement that on the side.

At first, I thought of doing this story because I honestly didn't know what else to do, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. It's something that I've been wanting to photograph for a long time, but couldn't have done with my own family, and in addition to hopefully bringing a little light to the disorder, will probably trigger a lot of introspection for myself and, hopefully, healing. I've never really known what it's like to live with autism, because I've never had a "normal" life-- and so I'll get to see it from both sides now (cue Joni Mitchell music). My goal right now is to find a family with an autistic child, get to know them and photograph them on a very regular basis for the next several months.

God, there are just so many facets to all this that I'm experiencing right now, it's hard to know where to start explaining it and it probably doesn't make much sense. I'm just so excited to do this, I feel like all this work is finally starting to have meaning for me.

I'll post pictures and such later-- off to the library to study for a bit.

Oh, it's already freezing here. And I'm fighting off a cold. Go, white blood cells, go!!!!

PS- I got a printer :) The school labs were practically giving them away and I couldn't pass it up. My only complaint is that it takes 8 ink cartridges-- and each of them go for about $30 each. Right now it's missing the light gray and it refuses to print it. Why you need light gray, light magenta and light cyan is quite beyond me at the moment, but we'll see...


As always, my refuge is in a book...

PPS- I am tired of the teenagers who honk their horns, yell, whistle, holler, and flip me off when I am riding my bike home at night. I really don't understand people my age. I don't know what it is... it's just so weird for me, being at college and meeting all these people whose parents have always done everything for them, who have had this totally sheltered life and go to country clubs. I tell myself that in the long run, this hard work and stress will all be good and worth it, but I can't pretend like it's not frustrating. I can't pretend that I don't sometimes wish I could be like them. I reckon it'd be a bit less lonesome.

I'm just no good at being young.

Finally...

I finally, finally got to buy a digital camera. I've gotten by the past couple years shooting film and borrowing school cameras, which wasn't altogether bad, but it makes such a difference having your own equipment. Before that I just had a dinky little Kodak 3 megapixel point and shoot. I decided to go with the Pentax K20D (which, since they just released the K7, the price came down about $100) because it will work with the rest of my Pentax film lenses, and Pentax cameras are built like a brick sh*t house. I ordered it off B&H and all in all, it was about $645, with an SD card. I still need to get a light meter (though I'm getting pretty good at guessing exposures now) and a flash, but... one thing at a time.

I can't wait to try it out, I'm so excited. It should arrive Wednesday or Thursday, which is good considering I leave the Tuesday after that. I'm so ready to start shooting again, for real. I don't even care what crappy assignments I get in school, I'll be happy to do anything. As you may have noticed, this "Photo Blog" doesn't contain many photos these days. Hopefully that will be changing soon.

I also got a new Timbuk2 messenger bag and I swear, I've already got it halfway packed, I'm so ready to go. Tomorrow I've gotta go pick up a box for the rest of my things and see how much it'll cost to ship all my books.

Blah blah blah. I'm just rambling now to keep myself from going insane with impatience. And now, I'm going to go be artsy and try to write a proper letter to Amanda.

Zion Trip

I got back yesterday from a weekend camping trip to Zion National Park. Considering it was planned by a couple of 19-year-olds, I think it was a very successful trip. The weather was perfect, the only thing we forgot were camping chairs (so we had to lay by the campfire on tarps and blankets, which was actually very nice), the food was fine, no one got sick or hurt and there were no arguments or anything. It's always so nice to get out of Vegas, especially this summer heat.

We made it in around 4:00 Friday afternoon (we got a bit of a late start, had to wait for a babysitter and finish loading the truck) and set up camp before dark. After doing that we decided to do a couple short hikes, the weeping rock trail and emerald pools. I've been to Zion several times before, but I found out something I didn't know about the weeping rock (which is basically an overhanging rock that looks out onto the canyon floor and constantly drips water like a light rain). Apparently, this is caused by the porous sandstone that the rock is made of absorbing water, until it eventually hits harder rock that it can't penetrate and then flows outward until it drips from the rock. I guess they recently did some testing on the water, and found that some of it was over 1200 years old. There are signs up advising you not to drink the water or anything, and I guess this is why-- I always figured it was just because of some bacteria or something.

When the sun was going down, we got back to camp, lit the lanterns and started cooking dinner. It's a good thing we had two girls on the trip because the one guy, Jake, was kind of retarded with cooking, and it resulted in my Boca Burger sticking to the pan and falling apart into 5 pieces, which I sadly tried to piece together. We got a good fire going, made the obligatory s'mores, smoked the hookah (all completely legal, I promise) and laid around watching the stars.

For whatever reason, I could not fall asleep that night, and around 2 AM I heard something walking really close to our tent. I figured it was just someone going to the bathroom, but then it kept walking back and forth around our tent. I'm pretty sure it was a coyote because I heard it whimper a little like a dog, and I don't think deer would come that close to us, but I was honestly too scared to get up and see what is was. A little ridiculous, yeah.

We all woke up at 7 the next morning, partly because the sun was shining directly in our faces, and partly because it was really cold. We made breakfast and then had to pack up and move to the next campsite by 11. After that, we headed down to the riverwalk trail, which takes you through a forest area down to the Virgin River. Most people stop there and play in the river or have picnics, but you can also continue hiking down the river in the canyon as it gets narrower-- hence called "The Narrows". The river was quite full this time, so we were walking in the river most of the way. The hard part is watching your footing, as it's easy to trip over the rocks at the bottom. The water came up to about my stomach-- we went probably 3/4 mile (the original trail being about 2.5 miles) and then turned back because we wanted to have time to do another hike.

After that, we decided to do one of the most strenuous hikes in the park (but also one of the most popular), Angels Landing. It's 5 miles roundtrip, climbs about 1500 feet through a series of 21 steep switchbacks, and the last half mile culminates in a bit of rock climbing. You hold onto chains as you make your way along the edge of the rock, finally up to the top, where you have an incredible view of the canyon, a 1200-ft drop on one side and a 900-ft drop on the other side of the rock. The switchbacks were the worst part of the hike, but when you make it past that, it's totally worth it. Like I said, Mallory and I had both been there a several times, but for one reason or another we never got to do Angels Landing. I'm so glad we decided to do it because I don't know when I'll be back there again.

The next day when we left (we headed out earlier than we intended, being too worn out to do much of anything) we stopped at a few of the gift shops in Springdale and couldn't resist getting t-shirts featuring Angels Landing on them. On the back it says, "I hiked, climbed, crawled, nearly passed out and barely made it to the top of Angels Landing." Pretty accurate. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in St. George, and for those of you who have never lived in the south, they have the most amazing country food ever. I usually only get to eat there when I'm in Texas or something.

I shot a few rolls of film on the trip, but I doubt that I'll be able to get prints made before I head up to New York. However, my developing chemicals seem to still be good, so I'll try developing one roll today and see how that goes.

15 days left in Las Vegas! The end is finally near.

Until next time,
Lindsey

I almost forgot, here's another amazing bedhead picture from Friday morning.