Leah Apodaca: a blog
The drabbles of an art student
The drabbles of an art student
Jul 28th
I made two books yesterday in a style that I like to call faux case binding. Both books are perfect bound and are about 125 pages each. In mine (the salmon and sea foam green one), I put a few random colored pages mixed in with the blank white paper.
I made the books for a 30 day journal challenge. I actually thought it was 100 days which is why the books have so many pages in them. Oops! You can check out the challenge here.
I hope I stick with the challenge. I am going to try and post what I did for each prompt here. That is, if I don’t get too self-conscious.
Happy journaling to all!
ETA: I’d like to add that my boyfriend picked out the colors for the yellow and blue book and also helped me glue, because it would have took a lot longer all by myself.
Jun 3rd
I found this gif via lovegifs.tumblr.com. Turns out it was made by iamnotanartist.org and they have a huge collection of fun and clever gifs at their website. Enjoy.
Jun 2nd
This was a meme that was going around Facebook at the time. Someone would write 25 facts about yourself that people might not know, and you’d tag 10 friends, and they’d do the same. I’m pretty sure I wrote this in the Spring of ’09, so a couple of things have changed, but it’s interesting to go back in time.
[1] Cults. Ever since I wrote my Psychology paper on cults last semester, I’ve been both morbidly fascinated and totally creeped out by them. I couldn’t listen to Beck, watch the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, or even look at a picture of Tom Cruise for a month.
→ Cults will always be freaky. The. End.
[2] I have internet crushes. My main one (and has been for about 5 years) is Kevin Rose. Chances are you don’t know him. In short, he was on TechTV, is the founder of digg.com, and is the host of the podcast diggnation. I’ve pretty much been in love with him ever since the first time I saw him on TV as the Dark Tipper on Unscrewed with Martin Sargent. I even rode the bus downtown to go to a live tapping of a dig townhall because he was hosting it, which brings me to…
→ Still true, though Kevin Rose is the only on at the moment. KRose 4eva.
[3] I’m kind of a geek. I say kind of because I’m interested in tech stuff, but don’t know enough about it to be considered an actual geek. I like web 2.0 things, always like hearing about new gadgets, and like podcasts. I mean, I used to watch TechTV, c’mon.
→ Still true, and will always be true.
[4] I’m weird. I talk to myself a lot. Most people (or so I’d assume) talk in their heads, but when I’m alone (and sometimes when people are around, too), I talk aloud. I don’t know why, I think it’s because I was raised an only child and I am freaking weird.
→ Once again, still true, and will always be true.
[5] Love/Like. I’ve never been in love and I can’t remember the last time I’ve really liked a guy.
→ Not true anymore. I have a boyfriend whom I love a lot lot lot.
[6] Wait, what? I think sometimes I like the idea of liking someone, or like the idea of someone, or am used to liking someone, so much so that I confuse it with actually liking the person, hence the number 5.
→ Used to be true, but luckily my boyfriend and I found each other and I don’t have to be unsure anymore.
[7] Whipped. I don’t like it when people think they have to have a significant other to be happy. I get really annoyed by people who ask the question “why don’t I have a boy/girlfriend?” Maybe it’s because you cry too much.
→ I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty whipped. I don’t like going more than a couple of days without seeing my boyfriend. But, I think you have to be patient with relationships and love. I’ve known my boyfriend for 7 years now, but we didn’t start dating until 6 years after that.
[8] Writing. I don’t think many people know it, but I like writing. I have notebooks filled with poems, stories, and other writings that no one’s ever seen. I have a lot of Word documents saved on my computer, as well.
→ I definitely still like writing, but I don’t write as much as I’d like to. I blame school.
[9] Future goals. My dream is to work with music. I want to design album artwork, band merchandise, and most of all, gig posters. I think poster art is amazing and underrated.
→ I’d still like to work designing stuff for the music scene, but I’m happy designing anything. I’m not picky, and I love it all.
[10] Girliness. For not being very girly, I do like some lame ass girly things. The worst one is probably books. Gossip Girl, The A-List, Sarah Dessen, and I’ll admit that I’ve read Twilight (at least the first book). I like bad tv dramas, too, like Gossip Girl, Degrassi, and 90210. What’s weird is that I can’t stand chick flicks (for the most part), and come to think of it, I can’t really stand these tv shows, either, yet I still watch them.
→ This is all still very true. I love shopping, and my new addiction is makeup.
[11] Motivation. I have serious motivation problems. I always have these ideas of things I want to do and rarely ever start them or finish them. Guitar, jewelry, and photography are a few of them.
→ Unfortunately still true. I’m a bad procrastinator. I hope to be cured one day.
[12] Singing. I love singing. I regret quitting choir in high school in a way, but then again, I’m glad I quit when I did because it was making me not like singing. That was the teacher more than anything, though.
→ I wish we had some community choir or something. Glee makes me want to sing even more.
[13] Purple. Purple has been my favorite color for as long as I can remember. My room is purple and black, it’s awesome.
→ Truth. I have an obsession with gray, too.
[14] Shyness. I hate how shy I am at first. The only way I’ll branch out is over time or if I’m with a group of people/friends I feel comfortable with. If I feel comfortable, though, I often won’t shut up. My Typography class will vouch for that.
→ It makes meeting people a little tough, but I manage.
[15] Animals. I really am an animal lover. I will go to the petting zoo even though I am 20 to play with the goats, if I go to the zoo, you better believe I will make sure I see every single one of the animals.
→ There is this house a few blocks away that has a pet goat. I go visit it regularly.
[16] Children. I don’t want to have children; instead I will have pet dogs. The first will be a welsh corgi named Baja, the second will be a pug named Beezie, and the third will be a sheepdog named Atom. I don’t know if I will actually have three, but I definitely want at least one.
→ I can’t wait to get a dog. I want one so bad.
[17] Music. It’s hard to describe how and why I like it. It’s just a feeling. I have to listen to music loud. I feel like it’s the only was to appreciate it. To play it so damn loud that it’s surrounding you. That’s probably why I like concerts so much. Sometimes I’ll go a month or even a few without listening to a band, and when I do, the music just engulfs me and I wonder why the hell I haven’t been listening to it every day because it’s just that good.
→ Music is good medicine.
[18] Blogs. Man, I think blogs are great. There is some good stuff out there, guys. Some of them are funny like Fuck Yeah Sharks, there are some design blogs I could browse for hours like ffffound, and there are some that are just cute like Gary’s Real Life.
→ I don’t use Tumblr anymore, but there’s some blogs I check out every now and then. I should get back in that habit.
[19] I make a lot of noises. Some of them are just sounds, and some are words I’ve made up. Weewoo is one of them, which is used to show excitement.
→ I think my noises are pretty much out of control since I became friends with Matt and started dating Ben. One day we are going to open a zoo, and we will play the animals by dressing up and making the noises ourselves. It’s going to be amazing.
[20] Chicago. I think I would like to live in the windy city one day. Maybe after I graduate. It is such a wonderful city, and the last time I was there I didn’t want to leave. I wish we at least had subways here.
→ I’m not so sure about living there anymore, but I definitely want to visit Chicago again.
[21] Theater. I wish I had done drama in high school. Well, maybe not since my high school didn’t have the greatest program, but it looks fun. The only theater experience I have was when our middle school did the Wizard of Oz and I was a munchkin and guard.
→ Still true. Sometimes I think about checking out community theatres just to be part of the chorus because I can’t act for shit. Making movie’s is a lot of fun, too.
[22] Tattoos. I want a tattoo of an ampersand (&) on my wrist or forearm. One of these days I will get it done. I’m not really afraid of getting it done, I’m just cheap/broke.
→ I still have yet to get this tattoo and I still want it. One day…
[23] Friends. There’s a handful of friends that I’m not afraid of losing. I can not talk to them for a couple of months, and one day decide to call them and things won’t be awkward at all. It’s comforting.
→ Thankfully still true.
[24] BFF. I haven’t had a best friend since I was in middle school, probably. There’s not one person that knows everything about me, I’m very much a private person, and even my closest friends don’t know a lot about me.
→ Kind of true. I’d say my boyfriend is my best friend, now.
[25] Siblings. I wonder what it would have been like if I hadn’t grown up an only child. I am my mom’s only daughter. My dad had two sons and one daughter before me, but I didn’t grow up with them. I wonder what it would have been like if our age gap wasn’t so large.
→ This will always be a ‘What If…’
Apr 15th
Our featured eligible bachelorette is Henrietta Manning. This Canadian native is seventy-one years young, and in our opinion, doesn’t look a day over sixty. When she’s not spoiling her grandchildren, you can find her taking care of her eight cats. Henrietta is certainly not a catist, considering that she houses breeds from tabbies to calicos. In the winter, you can see Mr. Jingles, Gertrude, Kevin, and others trotting around the house stylishly in their warm, hand-made booties that were knitted by their owner.
Her cat apparel has been a real hit at her neighborhood church, and although Henrietta’s pair of hands are decades old, she can crank out a mean dozen pair. If she likes you enough, she’ll even make you a hair of mittens with a matching hat.
On the weekends you can find Henrietta at Blackout, the local bingo hall, playing anywhere from one to eight cards at a time. Henrietta is hoping to find her good luck charm so she can finally hit the jackpot in love.
Feb 28th
Apple fanboys and fangirls can rejoice for there is a new product Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, recently unveiled. By now, surely everyone has heard about it; I’m talking about the Apple iPad.
One of the features of the upcoming iPad is reading iBooks. Sure, reading iBooks on the iPad sounds like a great idea and would save paper but is it worth deteriorating your eyes over? Staring at a backlit screen can’t be good for you, especially if you were at school or work for eight hours staring into a regular computer screen. Would you then want to come home and snuggle up with an iBook?
The anatomy of the iPad compared to the iPhone is exactly the same besides the screen size and the processor. There are the same external buttons, sleep/wake, mute, volume and home. The screen size is 9.7 inches while the iPhone and iPod Touch is 3.5 inches. No USB ports, although you can buy a separate iPad camera connection kit that will allow you to convert the iPad connector to allow you to import photos via your camera’s USB cable or via SD card. I’m hoping that this separate accessory will lead to a way of hacking the iPad for a more customized product. Also, the largest capacity of an iPod Touch is 64 Gigs and guess what? That will be the largest capacity offered for an iPad, too.
One thing that is unpleasant about the iPad is that there will be no flash support in the web browser. According to Steve Jobs, the reason why there is no Flash support in Safari is because Flash causes Apple products to crash and act buggy, as well as diminish battery life. If you’re a big fan of YouTube, though, fear not, for there is an app just for viewing YouTube videos that will work on the iPad (just like on the iPhone and iPod Touch).
From my overlook on the iPad, I believe that they are the computer of the future for the rich and spoiled. Maybe I’m just being bitter and I’ll be honest—If I had just five hundred dollars lying around, I’d probably buy an iPad. But I don’t. Spending five hundred plus dollars on a machine that does basically everything that my iPod Touch can already do seems steep. The user interface on the larger screen size of an iPad is without a doubt gorgeous, but for someone like me who actually counts on their computer to be a machine that is able to do more than just check email and surf the web with, the iPad just isn’t powerful enough
If you really want an iPad but can’t shell out the extra five hundred plus dollars for one, there is one way to upgrade your iPhone or iPod Touch for less than ten bucks that my friend Sam pointed out: Search for “Magnifying Glass” at Amazon.com.