My First Picture

So this is my first attempt at taking and editing a picture.  It could be worse, right?  We have had our cameras since last Wednesday, and I got mine from my camera partner on Sunday.  It took me a while to figure out the basic shutter speed, aperture, and ISO settings, but I think I've got it down for inside pictures.  I've yet to take an outside picture, but I already have some planned in my head for the coming days...

We learned basic photoshop functions in class today, and then we got to take a crack at it by editing our own pictures.  It was kind of overwhelming, and I wanted feedback on everything I did.  Unfortunately, that's not possible when our teachers have to deal with something like 15 amateur photographers.  I think I did well all by myself, though!

I plan on spending an inordinate amount of time taking and editing photos this semester for my photography class, assuming my real classes don't kill me.  More pictures should be coming soon!

Capturing Life

It looks like Sunday is my blogging day.  It is a good thing to squeeze somewhere in the mountains of homework I should be doing.

I haven't felt like I have anything to write about this week.  My classes are too dull to bother describing.  Besides rock climbing and photography, that is!

We learned how to tie all our knots in rock climbing this week.  Then we learned the whole "on belay," "belay on," "climbing," "climb on" thing.  And once all that safety stuff was out of the way, we climbed!  It was a wee bit scary, but I made it to the top of what I'm sure was the easiest wall with Laura belaying me.  Belaying Laura was more challenging for me than climbing was, for sure.  I need to practice.  And I have to in order to get my advanced belay card.

This week was my first photography class, and I'm anxious to really get going.  We got our camera partners, checked out our cameras, and started learning immediately.  I'm so used to my dinky digital camera with all of its automatic settings.  I'm very interested to learn how to do all these things manually with a nice digital camera.  I don't have a natural talent for photography, and I'm not particularly creative, but I'm taking this class to hopefully better myself in these areas.

I'm hoping to start posting some of my photographs on this blog once I really start taking pictures.  Don't make fun of me; let's just hope for improvement over the course of the semester!

My camera partner brought me the camera this morning, so I guess I'll start messing around with it today.  My theme is "arrangement"... we'll all have to see where that goes!

As Promised, A Post About My Future

Where better to find inspiration for my blog than from what is about to take over my life again?  I mean school, of course.

I am three school days into my last semester.  It's only been two days, really, since I don't have class on Fridays this semester.  Hooray!  I have been to all of my new classes except photography, and being in one meeting of each class has given me a little time to think about things.

The four academic courses I am taking (meaning not photography or indoor rock climbing) are Finance 301 (Intro to Financial Institutions and Markets), Math 382 (Advanced Calculus), Economics 471 (Econometrics), and GBA 490 (Strategic Management).  They each promise to be challenging individually, and I am somewhat regretting taking them all simultaneously my last semester.  

I feel like now is a time to soak up as many experiences as possible rather than to soak up as much "knowledge" as possible.  That's probably not ideal for a college senior to be saying, huh?  It's not that I don't love to learn.  I really, truly do, and I always have.  But I don't really love school anymore or what I am learning in college.  I want to learn what I want, and I don't want to be pigeonholed into learning what somebody else has decided an economics and math major should.

I'll go ahead and say what a lot of you are probably thinking: It's my own fault.  I know I should've picked a major I enjoyed instead of just falling into something.  But I didn't, and it's too late to go back now.  I just need to go forward!  The decision I have to make is whether I want to stay on a math-y or econ-y track or if I want to start over with a clean slate post-graduation.

I loved math and economics once upon a time.  Algebra and calculus were my favorites!  Principles of microeconomics came to me naturally.  It's just that my taste for these subjects soured as I learned more and more of each.  I want how I relate to my field/job to be like a friendship (or relationship... but that topic should be saved for another post); I want the bond to grow stronger as my career and I spend more time together.  I need to find something that can keep me interested and motivated!

I can't help but wonder how many people ever actually have a moment of total clarity concerning their career.  I've been told by plenty of adults (I mean older adults since I'm basically an adult now... uh oh) that they sort of just fell into their job, whether or not it was doing something they had learned in school.  Maybe I wouldn't mind falling into a career; I can only hope it is more successful than falling into my major.

Life (and Football)

As everybody knows, Auburn won the National Championship yesterday.  Anyone who knows me at all knows I'm not exactly happy about that.  I hate Auburn, and I have very little respect for how many of the players (particularly Nick Fairley and Cam Newton), coaches, and administrators have conducted themselves this year.  However, recent occurrences in my life have made me realize how unimportant football really is in the grand scheme of things.  Here's some background info:

My mom went to Alabama (She was here when Bear Bryant was here and saw us win two National Championships!), and I have been a Bama fan my whole life.  Going to school at The University of Alabama and being a member of the Million Dollar Band has intensified my loyalty.

I am fan of more than just our sports teams; I am a fan of The University of Alabama.  This school and this place and all the people here have made my college experience incredible.

Of course, football has contributed to that experience.  Last year we had a perfect season.  THE perfect season.  We won the National Championship in the historic Rose Bowl.  I mean, it's in our fight song!  It could not have been any more perfect, and I cannot begin to describe how happy it made me.

This season was less perfect, but it was still good.  A 10-3 season including the Capital One Bowl is a significant improvement over my 7-6 freshman season and the Independence Bowl.  I surely can't complain about witnessing two perfect regular seasons, two SEC Championship games (and one win!), and a National Championship during my time as an undergrad!

Now back to the part where football doesn't really matter.  Let me preface this by saying that although Auburn's victory was a catalyst for this post, I've been wanting to express my altered perspective for a while now.  I am not writing this because Auburn won.  So here we go.

Tomorrow will be a month since my Grandma passed away.  She has been living with cancer for most of my life.  She beat it once and was in remission for about five years, but we found out she had a new cancer in August of 2009.  Cancer is never good.  It's a scary word, and it's an even scarier thing.  Knowing that somebody you love is suffering from this disease is horrific.  Grandma, one of my greatest role models, was so brave throughout everything.  But there is only so much one body can handle, and in the end cancer stole her away from us.  I love her and miss her so much.

The Iron Bowl was the week before Grandma went into the hospital for the last time.  I was upset after the game, with what I thought was good reason, for days.  Cam Newton won the Heisman the night before Grandma passed away.  I knew he won, but I didn't care.  And I haven't cared much about football since.

The "tragedy" of losing a football game pales in comparison to real tragedy.  Losing a member of your family is real loss.  I know what real sadness is and what merits such an emotion.  I'll be keeping things in perspective from now on.

So when football makes you feel good, great!  When it doesn't make you feel so good, stop caring!  Go spend time with your loved ones and forget about it.

Reflections on Xanga

I decided to go back and read my old xanga posts for some entertainment, and it has been quite an experience.

The concept of a public blog, like this one, is interesting.  I'm not a super private person, but I have never been comfortable sharing personal information in an overly public forum.  I'm not the kind of person who considers details of my life to be everybody else's business!  It's funny... I remember things that happened during the time I was using xanga (basically from sophomore year through the beginning of senior year), and I intentionally neglected to document them.  I wish I kept a diary, too, so that I could compare the public and private versions of my life.

The same kind of thing is bound to happen with this blog.  Even if I do write about some parts of my life, I will almost certainly choose to not disclose other parts.  It's not even that anything I do is bad; it's just that ANYBODY can read it.  I put things on my Twitter (which is private) that I wouldn't put on Facebook, but I am more okay with over sharing on Twitter because I know exactly who will be able to read my tweets.

Anyway, we'll just have to see what direction this handy new blog of mine takes.  All I know for certain is that writing it will be cathartic (and that the updates definitely won't be as often once school starts again)!

P.S.  Let me know if I overuse any phrases.  I wish I could go back in time to stop my fifteen year old self from adding "and such" at the end of every single sentence on xanga.  Seriously.

Ice Ice Baby

I'm iced into my apartment!  At least I'm assuming I am.  I have absolutely no intention of testing out my walking/driving on ice skills because, well, I'm from Alabama.  Be safe, everybody!

Scotty and I have tried to take advantage of our being stranded by working on the apartment.  (He's living with me this semester, in case you didn't know.  And he's my little brother, in case you don't actually know me...)  We put together his new bookshelf, and his room is looking pretty good!  My room, on the other hand, looks like my suitcases exploded.  I blame this on the washing machine being broken; I had such good intentions of doing all my laundry today!

It's nice to have this bit of down time before classes start.  I need some time to meditate on my emotions about my last semester.  WHAT?  Sorry, it's still hard for me to accept that as truth.  Maybe I should just go to grad school.  (The future will probably be a running theme of this blog.  Sorry in advance for my indecisiveness.)

Really though I have things that I should be doing while I'm stuck in my apartment.  I'll go ahead and check off keeping my blogging resolution.  And I'm about to check off watching "The Craigslist Killer" Lifetime movie!  Lol.  I'll keep you all posted if I actually do something exciting ever...

And so it begins

So it is January 7, 2011. That means we are already a week into the new year, and I haven't made a single resolution yet. Bad Stephanie! Well, consider this blog my first resolution.

I've realized over the break from school that I don't write nearly enough. In fact, thanks to Twitter, most of my writing is in 140 characters or less. I want to give myself a less constricting forum for expressing my thoughts. I want to be able to look back at this blog when I am old and grasping for remnants of my youth. (Look at me, turning resolutions into long-term goals!)

I guess I don't particularly care if anybody reads my blog (Unlike with my Xanga in high school. Ha!). I can't guarantee that it is always going to be exciting, but hopefully it will be on occasion at least. We'll all just have to wait and see what this blog becomes!

Anyway, that's all I have to write for right now. I should probably get to packing to return to Tuscaloosa in the morning!