Blue Font? Inspirational Speech Time.

My friend's roommate has a bubble wrap calendar.

Alright, well it’s 12:28 AM at the end of a long week, and I just watched a movie that has made me feel rant-y and inspirational speaker-y, so bear with me.  Give me a shot, because more art is on the way, so this post won’t be all bad.  By the way, the movie was Happy Thank You More Please, only formatted into one word because it was an indie movie.

I just want to start out with this: you are an exceptional person.  That’s what my dad always says when he gives me one of his speeches.  It just feels really good to hear that, doesn’t it?  You, YOU are an exceptional person.  I’m pretty sure I know pretty much all the people who read this blog, and if I don’t, one of the five of us knows you and I bet they think you’re an exceptional person.   So let’s just go forward with this premise.  Also, if you only know one of the five of us and don’t know me but are still reading this, I’m really impressed.  That definitely qualifies you as an exceptional person.

Anyway.  I guess my point is going to be that it’s easier to half ass things (like the sentence fragment preceding this sentence) and say you don’t care about them.  But it’s much more gratifying to excel at things, and truly look in the mirror and say, “you know what, I’m going to rock at whatever I’m going to do today.”  And then do it.  Sure, we can’t all save the world (I’m probably going to get to that first), but we can be really frickin’ good at whatever it is we want to do.  Even if today that means eating a chocolate chip scone and reading Rachael’s blog.  You guys are doing great.

I guess you sort of go to college and you think it’s going to be a certain way, like in the movies, where suddenly everything is totally different and everyone is really interesting and everyone you meet is someone you could have intellectual conversations with over coffee.  And there’s indie music or something in the background and everyone smiles.  And for some reason it’s always Yale.  Why is Yale the American dream?  But then, if you’re like me, you get to college and some of the people are really deep and engaging, but some of them just drink and smoke hookah in the quad and have sex with people they hardly know.  And your classes are not like they are in the movies, because you actually have to do work for them, and maybe sometimes you think you’re taking the wrong classes or are in the wrong major program.

And “that’s just part of the process” and such, but they didn’t tell you that on the brochure.

So I guess what I’m saying is, if you don’t like how things are, which is sometimes how I feel, you should change them.  Because exceptional people like us deserve to be happy, but as exceptional, contemplative people, it may be harder for us to be happy.  Because sometimes the world decides to be crappy and we have the perspective to see that.  So being happy means being actively in the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of excellence.  And when people say treat yourself like you treat your best friend, those people are smart, because you guys treat your friends well.  And you wouldn’t ever tell your best friend that they were anything besides exceptional and a cut above all the other people you know.

So I guess to summarize that stream of consciousness: 1) You are exceptional.  2) Sometimes we don’t give things our best effort, but we’d feel better if we did. 3) If something doesn’t make you happy, change it, because you, as an exceptional person, should be happy. 4) No, really, you are exceptional.

This is the one I showed you a sketch of last week.  We had to do 100% contrast for this one, so it's less realistic than the next example you're about to see.

Here’s the art.  And here’s an apology for the inspirational tone.  I’m not trying to be patronizing or trite, and I understand I am being both.  So, sorry.  Thanks for reading this anyway.  You guys are special.

Night for now.

-Rachael

More bottles and boxes, but this time with shadows and background colors.  It's not done, but close enough.

We did these two color wheels in class.  They're not perfect, but I mixed all the colors except red, yellow, and blue, so I'm pretty happy with them overall.  I also had to draw the 12 quadrants, which proved to be more difficult than I thought it would.

 

I thought this was pretty artsy and cool.

P.S.  While I wrote this blog, the thing I was doing exceptionally was brushing my teeth.  And you guys should know this gross thing about me- sometimes I’m too lazy to go to the bathroom to brush my teeth, so I use my water bottle to wet my toothbrush and spit my toothpaste into a plastic cup I use for that specific purpose.  That makes me really gross.  But if I were my best friend, I would say that it’s cute and resourceful.  I think that’s what Devin would say.  So that’s an example how even if you are gross, you’re exceptional enough that your best friend would invent a euphemism to make you sound good.  Try it sometime.