turkey

i hope you had a good thanksgiving. it was good to see you if i did, and i missed you if i didn't.

happy thanksgiving

from the deer.

chapstick

what gets me through the winter...

a cursing ferret

this is one of those animals that i drew several times in a sketch book and decided to put down on paper for my senior design show. i'm not sure why he's using expletives, but it's probably because i like to use expletives.

piglet

from a picture that carmen took in africa.

garden

i started enjoying planting things when i lived on elmwood. i had a little patch of space under the staircase there, and i got it cleaned up with the help of my family and started planting things.

then anthony referred me to an article by michael pollan which spurred my interest even more. when i moved into 4306, i decided that i had plenty of space for a garden and should use it.

this weekend my parents helped me to make three raised beds that are growing lettuce, cabbage, spinach, celery, dill, parsley, peas and onions.

i hope that the harvest is good and that i will do my little part in helping our world to take a step toward green. if only the squirrels weren't trying to thwart my efforts. they don't believe in global warming.

sad dog

these on the graph paper are from my sketch journals. i went through sometime last spring and scanned the more interesting parts of them in the hopes to someday make a book of them...

i'm not sure where this dog came from. maybe just my imagination, but possibly a photo of one of the many dogs in italy. the europeans like their pets.

owlish

i'm sorry that i post so many pictures of animals. i guess it's thematic...

did you know that there are owls in thailand? i found this out on election night. i'm not sure how that conversation came up, but we researched on the internet and found that there are owls in thailand. who knew?

butterfly

hummingbird

giraffes

my point exactly.

i voted

it's funny how we're still being rewarded with stickers if we do something good. i would think adults were a little beyond this practice, but it seems that people are into it, because i get the feeling that if you don't have a sticker, you are automatically less cool...

i probably shouldn't be surprised that reward and bribery have their place in making one prone to care about their civic duty. i was on the bus at the beginning of the school year and saw an advertisement from the UT police department reading "Report a crime and receive a free pizza from UTPD." i was appalled by the thought that someone would report a crime for pizza instead of reporting a crime for justice. but maybe that's just me...i like justice and having a voice. i also like pizza.

other than stickers, businesses are giving away free things. starbucks is giving away coffee--and i will be getting some. ben and jerry's is giving away ice cream. free bus rides from cap metro. a krispy kreme doughnut. tattoo removal? basically everything that i need to get by for one election day in austin...

i like to think about why people vote. living in a neighborhood where the majority of the people vote, it's easy to get excited and feel like things might change. then again, i think about the fact that i live on the little island of austin, so it's easy to forget the rest of the state i'm surrounded by. some people get angry, and they vote or they don't vote. some people are just ready to move on from the past. some show up at every election to vote, because they feel they have a civic responsibility. i'm excited about this election because i feel like it's getting so many people involved. everyone from all angles, showing up to vote, because it seems to be important this time. that and plus, they really want a free sticker and cup of coffee...