Currently, I'm pulling an all-nighter. Nothing new or unusual.

Drawing for Design is the bane of my design existence. I hate this class with every fiber of my being. With each passing project, the only thought going through my head at 4 am is if SCAD wasn't making me take this stupid shit, I could be sleeping. Healthy, normal, natural: sleeping, instead of drawing these stupid god damn perfect, even lines on god damn perfect, white paper. It doesn't help much that I go straight from class to work until midnight on zero hours of sleep.

I knew this year was going to be tough. I push myself to get the most hours at work, the hardest professors, the best grades (Dean's List for a third time would be stellar), and somewhere in the middle of all that, I go insane while I try and keep it all together.

But the end of tomorrow, that is what will make life worth living. Tomorrow night the bests get here and then bright and early Friday morning we all pile into our vehicles and drive up to Asheville, NC for a weekend of mountains, photoshoots, fancy estates, cookouts, and fall love. I've been counting down the days for three months.

Other than that, life has been as expected. Barnes has been typical Barnes, with customers as batshit as ever and employees revolting against the camera systems my manager now watches from home. Boys have been typical boys, prying their way in and leaving wreckage behind. Friends have been amazing, with movie nights, late night conversations, and pumpkin pie making. Classes have been exactly what I predicted for junior year, stressful and generally Hell on Earth. But this is it, my life, and though I seem to be living it on fast forward, I'm collecting a million good hearts and memories along the way.


p.s. I was recently featured on Explore on Flickr! I'm thrilled.

I hope that when we're eighty, we look back on these days and smile. That we remember the happiness we shared, the moments we swapped over coffee cups and burnt out cigarettes, the way she looked dripping from the rain and the sheer joy I felt that first second the mountains came into view. I want to remember the stupid inside jokes, the crazy homeless guy, the buildings that grew on and on forever into the distance, the sound of the seagulls and the smell of the ocean lingering in the air. I want to remember you, and me, and how just for those few moments, our friendship was the most solid thing in the world. I want to remember living, breathing, seeing, being.





( I THINK I'LL GO TO BOSTON, WHERE NO ONE KNOWS MY NAME )

Being on vacation has given me time to do exactly what a Kades does best: think.

The future has really been stressing me out this month; the drive to be successful has settled like a strand of thorns somewhere just underneath my shoulder-blades. I don't want to screw this thing called my life up. And I know if I walk into it confidently, start this year off the right way, and really give everything my full one hundred and ten percent, I'll be fine. Better than fine, probably. But I worry about stretching myself too thin. I think I might be trying to accomplish too much too fast---like I'm speeding my life up faster than it should be going---but I'm terrified of being left behind. I want (need) those internships. I want to get my feet wet in this career and make sure I'm really in this for the long run. And more than anything, I want to make sure I'm at the top of the competition. I don't even have to be winning---but I better as hell be at the top. There's no reason not to be, because I've got this. I've so, so, so got this.

I need to make sure I spend more time putting effort into my portfolio and less time putting effort into my night-soon-to-be-day job. When I send out the applications for these internships (and future job opportunities), I want my portfolio to say everything about me. I want my typography to speak for itself, my feminine charms to be hidden in the photography, my creative juices to leak out of my hand made elements. I want that portfolio to be a superstar. It's going to be a lot of work. A lot of work.

Going into this summer, I had pretty low hopes. I thought it was going to suck ass. But it didn't defeat me (at least, it hasn't yet). Living alone? I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Working the entire summer? Paid off the rest of my trip, a few gifts to myself, and a good start for my Lacoste fund---not to mention some great memories with some great people. Not getting a trip? If I want to do something, I'm gonna do it, no matter who tries to stand in my way; Maine, I cannot wait to meet you. Missing my friends? Only means more love-notes and can't-wait-to-see-you's which can never be bad, truthfully.

My chest is sunburned, my hair's too short and my bangs too choppy, my skin smells like chlorine, and there are still little grains of sand stuck to the inside of my knees, but I can't complain---I love it. Everything works out, little by little. And my life? It's going to work out... little by little, just the way I like it.