Preparing for a Tea Ceremony (one of my favorite Japanese traditions).

One of the things that amazed me the first time I was in Japan (in the summer of 2005 I went to Kanazawa for a month) was how incredibly accommodating and helpful most people are to me, the awkward foreigner who only speaks enough Japanese to get a general gist of whats going on around her while still having to suffer that tense silence when you understood what someone just said, but you have no idea how to properly reply. Worse yet is when you have no idea what was just said to you, and so you nod and smile in desperate hopes that whatever they said was not of dire importance.

I’m currently staying in an all-girls dormitory, and the owners and staff have all taken extra steps to make sure that I am well taken care of, well fed, and that I know exactly where I am within the city (I am the only foreigner in the dormitory). It’s amazing to me, because no where else have I seen people make such an extra effort: the owner took me herself today to the school that I am attending, along with a map in case I get lost at any further point in my stay here.

I remember last time I was here, I asked a store attendant where the bathroom was. Instead of just giving me directions and sending me on my way (the restrooms were outside of the store, and in a neighboring building) she actually left her post in the store, and walked me to where I had to go (I think thats an unintentional pun… ¬_¬). And this kind of behavior is, as far as I’ve experienced, quite normal…for here, that is. As far as my traveling experiences go, both in and out of the States, I’ve yet to find a place as accommodating and helpful as Japan. Then again, I’ve yet to really find a place as bizarre, either.

This past semester kicked me in the face…I hardly had time for the internet!

This is a portrait I did of one of my professors. She is a brilliant woman who shares my love of Japan’s culture. And speaking of Japan, I will be spending 3 weeks there, so expect some nifty photos real soon :-)

I’ll be updating my DeviantArt account soon, too.

From pencil sketch, to an inked line drawing, to an Illustrator line drawing, to a digital piece done in Photoshop. This piece really tried hard to eat my computer…

This might sounds incredibly silly, but I discovered recently a love for peanut butter and apple slices. It seems like a semi-common snack, yet I had never had it before. And it’s amazing. Totally unrelated:

I first did a sketch in my watercolor sketchbook (because I’m just cool like that) and then filled it in with color. Yay, monochromaticism.

So, I spent a good amount of yesterday validating this site, so w00t to it finally being valid! (In both XHTML and CSS!). I also spent a good amount of time today updating my DeviantArt account, which is something I haven’t done in…months! So cheers to being on top of things. On other notes, art:

I decided to go through my sketchbook and scan in some of the things that I figured might be decent for public view-age.

Simply a quick watercolor study done last semester. Hurray for the first post with art!

This is the start of a brand new web adventure…an art blog, of sorts. It will probably be pretty lame, like most of the junk you find on the internet. My one attempt at redemption, however, is my shot of humoring my attempt at getting half-way decent at art…

…A post with actual art will be happening shorty.