ATTN!

Listen up!! Check out this link- http://rachel.ns.purchase.edu/~srace/centralpark.html PLEASE???!!!??? It's my final project from the photojournalism class I took at Purchase in late 2003/early 2004... when I was just feeling things out. And here are two pictures that were not on the slideshow that maybe should have been. A little teaser for you!:

Anywho.. I just found it all to be pretty entertaining. Leave me some comments!

Pokemon Monopoly.

Randomness

So I've been super busy working three jobs while trying to find another one so I can quit all the others. Hence the not updating in forever thing. It's a very disappointing process and it's kind of ruining my life right now, but I'm going for another interview on Tuesday. I'm not getting my hopes up though... If everything does work out I should be getting a 2 BR apt. in Hudson with Kate!!! Anywho, enjoy some pics, wish me luck, Happy Easter!


Country road graffiti goblins!

Hudson Opera House.

And this is what happens when you live in Columbia County too long.

May your days be merry and bright.

Couple pictures from Greenport Elementary's festival of wreaths and trees:

These girls were VERY excited when they found out their picture would be in the newspaper. So cute!
And this boy had frosting all over his lips, it was priceless.

Christmas is coming at me full force. I pretty much have every day BOOKED for the next week or so. All of my friends are coming home too, and it just feels like i don't have enough time for four jobs, family, friends and the holidays (parties especially). On the up and up, I'm completely finished with my Christmas shopping, and I got a call from the Dutchess County branch of Cornell Cooperative Extension yesterday asking me to come in for an interview for their senior administrative assistant position. Full time, $15 an hour plus benefits. Doubt I'll get it, but my plan is to keep looking while I stick with this job up on the mountain... when I do find something, it won't be very difficult for me to quit. At least I got to ski for free with my dad yesterday :)

Tonight we're going to see Super 400 up in Troy. Veryyy exciting, especially for my dad who has been a fan for about nine years and has only seen them live twice.

Tomorrow I'm going to Mehgan's snazz Christmas party. I won't have much time to get stuff together for it after work, but here's what i'm making... generally pretty easy stuff, no cooking involved!

-homemade guacamole

-goat cheese truffles

-proscuitto and melon

-cucumber rounds with chive sauce and smoked salmon

Yummm. While we're on the subject of tasty treats, I guess I should also mention that Sunday I'm going over to Heather's to bake cookies! Unlike last year, her oven actually works now, and also unlike last year I plan on drinking a decent amount of spiced egg nog.

Well, that's all for now, don't shoot your eye out or anything like that. Merry Christmas too all and to all a good night!

Another trip to the farm and a breathtaking harvest moon.

Chatham kids

These are from the last two noteworthy/fun assignments I went on for the Inde. Both were at Chatham's Mary E. Dardess Elementary School.


3rd grade Venetian Carnivale:






Kindergarten pumpkin pie making 101:

"Hissing Fauna" review (another oldie/goldie)

A few months ago I was driving my car down a country road, blasting the radio, the sun shining on my face, when I heard one of my favorite songs come on. Weird, I thought, that they would be playing Of Montreal, a notable indie pop band on a classic rock station- let alone, any station at all. Even weirder yet? The song was jingle-ized. A strange urge to run my car into a ditch came over me as the original lyrics: "Let's pretend we don't exist, let's pretend we're in Antarctica" became nothing more than steak-selling propaganda: "Let's go Outback tonight, life will still be there tomorrow."
Having that said, my personal expectations for Of Montreal's new album, "Hissing Fauna Are You the Destroyer?" which was released on Jan. 23, were exceptionally low. Apparently, I was exceptionally wrong. The emotionally driven lyrics and sinister synthesizer chords make this album rawer than Outback's steaks. It is without a doubt the most the most melancholy, yet mature work to come from the band in its 10-year history.
Perhaps this is because it was produced in a period which singer/songwriter Kevin Barnes refers to as "an insane year." Around the time of the release of the band's last album, 2005's "The Sunlandic Twins," things began to spiral downward in Barnes personal life. He moved to Norway with his wife, Nina, in order to have their baby there and, because of completely unfamiliar surroundings, Barnes fell into a deep depression. Things only got worse for Barnes when he returned to the U.S. He and Nina separated and she went back to Norway to stay with her family, taking their baby daughter with her. It was during this time that Barnes poured all of his misery and sadness into "Hissing Fauna."
Of Montreal is a straight up pop band. In the past, they have rarely dwelled on negativity. For the most part, all of their seven other albums are whimsical, upbeat, and hopeful, with simple lyrics pertaining to things like Yorkshire Terriers, trips to England, and parties.
The critically acclaimed "Hissing Fauna," on the other hand, proves that Of Montreal can master doom and gloom. Lyrics like "I'm in a crisis, I need help, c'mon mood shift, shift back to good again," from the album's single, "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse," show that Of Montreal has versatility- they are capable of much more than mindless pop songs, and not all bands are not blessed with this ability.
The album represents Barnes' twisted, perhaps drug induced quest (as the lyrics "Chemicals don't strangle my pen, chemicals don't make me sick again," suggest) to find a lover with "soul power." Rightfully considered by most to be a "break-up album," it begins with optimism, and naturally progresses through a complicated wasteland of helplessness, bitterness, contempt, and finally, superiority and the power to rise above the situation.
Just because the songs are of a completely different nature doesn't mean the band has lost its trademark glamour and sparkle. The sing-along quality of the band's older songs is consistent with every track, only it is achieved through a questioning and cynical, rather than cheerful, tone. One of the catchiest songs on the album, boasts, "How you wanna take my style when I am so sooo superior? How you wanna hate a thing when you are sooo inferior?"
Perhaps I was wrong to lose faith in a band that has never ceased to amaze me. Bottom line: "Hissing Fauna" is, by all means, impressive.