it's been flippin cold the past few days, with temperatures dipping all the way down to negative 7 at one point. it has never been this cold in savannah and everyone is surprised. apparently we broke the record of such low temperatures set since 1965 or 1977 or so. 

it's so cold, even the fountain downstairs froze. check out the sweet pictures my new roommate took with her amazing DSLR camera. (she's a photog student)

simply gorgeous. it's pretty cool when you see puddles on the floor frozen. i'm pretty sure if it rained it would be snowing. after this weather, 14 degrees became warm to me. i can now run around in a simple t-shirt and my fbt trackpants at 0 degrees outside. haha. THICK SKIN MAN. 

so anyways. we had an uber long 4 day weekend last week due to Martin Luther King's and thank goodness my professors didn't take full advantage of it and spam me with homework....very much unlike what the usual Singaporean education system would do. anyways, Laura and I headed down to Savannah Mall on Saturday cos i needed to get supplies. What was intended to be a short shopping trip to buy groceries/daily necessities and art supplies bloomed into us carrying quite alot of bags. I was very much drawn into the book store sale there. it was a closing down sale ranging from 40 to 75 percent off everything. I managed to grab a borders reversible and waterproof tote bag for like 3 bucks and a legit art book which teaches you all kinds of materials and techniques and a legit photography book of animals which is HUGE and would cost u say....40 to 60 bucks in singapore each for 2 bucks each. so all in all, what would probably be an over S$100 book shopping trip turned out to be a less than US$8 shopping trip. i was uber pleased with myself. 

laura did more shopping and she obviously made full use of all the sales that were at the savannah mall, together with her lil discount coupons, snagging a sweater at victoria's secrets for a measly 4 bucks. it was a very interesting time of bonding considering how she was super antisocial and cold towards me last quarter and now we talk and hang out. which is strange. nonetheless, i'm glad to have expanded my social circle :) 

oh yea. we bought  a whole gingerbread tree christmas set for a dollar at the art craft store cos they were trying to get rid of it so we bought it for fun. who cares if christmas is over. in this cold weather, i would think we could still re-create the spirit of christmas! 

so home we went, where we bumped into michelle carrying her bike up the bus from wal-mart, of which we made a huge fuss and laugh out of it. silly michelle wanted to buy a bike to cycle back cos she didn't think she could catch the bus. SILLY HER. for all you people back home, the malls, unlike singapore, requires a travelling time of a minimum half an hour to 1 hour along expressways. Michelle appeared silly becos

1) it's damn bloody far as i have already illustrated

2) it is damn bloody cold

3) she didn't know the way home and she thought she could stop along the way to ask for directions

4) she didn't realise that bikes are prohibited on the expressway...which is the way home. 

HAHAHA. we joked about it and i joked about her having to buy some common sense from walmart since they sell practically everything there. hahaha. ;p mean but oh man. that was a pretty good line. 

so after we pretty much settled down, laura helped me to make my plaster mask and it was a very interesting experience. we had a homework cum movie party (yes. only art students can do that cos we dun require extreme concentration) and alot of people were there. so can u imagine how all of them took the opportunity to tease and disturb me while i was handicapped with my mask, unable to speak, laugh, react and finally see. still, we got it done and i realised how unshapely asian faces are. we dun have nice deep eye sockets so my mask is pretty.....unshapely. all u can see are my uber high and round cheeks and a small buttonny nose :( that was pretty much it. i'm like shit. i'm going to fail my planar analysis for my drawing class cos there's practically not much planar to analyse :( BOO

after that was done and cleaned up, i helped laura to put together our lil christmas gingerbread tree. the icing didn't turn out very successfully so what we ended up with was a gooey mess which was really quite embarassing, but nonetheless, a good laugh. i waited so long to blog becos i was waiting for her to upload pictures BUT SHE HASN'T and i couldn't wait anymore to blog lest you guys think i have frozen to death here or smth. 

so anyhoos. school has just been alright. the projects have still been pretty basic and slow going and nothing really portfolio worthy. i mean...WHO WOULD PUT A GRADIENT SCALE OF TONES, TINTS and SHADES and a COLOR WHEEL for their portfolio?????? blah. but we learnt smth cool today. how to make transparency with color. :D drawing's been pretty slow going too. even for my sketchbook assignments. it's been pretty much too cold for me to want to sit outside in the park to draw. most of it is outdoors which is bloody insane. one of my classmates told me how her pen ink froze while she tried to draw and she couldn't get anything done in the end. lol. 

speaking of which, my experimentations for sketchbook work of animals at the zoo and animation-style of head anatomy construction with blue pencil has turned out pretty mighty fine and i'm so psyched to use my new set of 96 brush markers that i got at a steal of 150 USD. the original price was 288 USD. hahaha. yes. i am psyched. i originally wanted to buy them individually at the local store, but after calculating, i save 1 buck per marker and even if i buy more markers than i need, it's still more worth it :D not to mention that it comes with a desk stand to put my gorgeous array of colors :D 

OH EXCITINGNESS!!!!! WHOOT

soooo...anyways, been pretty much caught up with studying art hist for the first exam and i pretty much aced the extra credit quiz with full marks ;0 we're on the renaissance period now and i'm learning so much awesome shizaaz from my professor. michelangelo is my new hero. his artwork is AMAZING. specially his pieta, the sculpture of virgin mary and jesus. so much meaning and beauty in it. AMAZING. stuff wilkie tan never showed us. sad. no wonder i could never appreciate it. oh well...perhaps it is true that more knowledge does help you to appreciate things more and more :)

CHEERS :)