If you love me you will send me...

CRAYONS!!! 

ISP

So last Thursday I met with Jason and we talked about my ISP. I showed him some of my writing and he was super supportive. We had a great meeting. I was able to talk to him about my ideas and concerns, which I think really helped me come up with more concrete ideas. Also, I have to start recording my process. I think this would be the most challenging part of my ISP because I never record anything. I don't even take pictures of my finished products let alone the actual process, but ever since the second day of ISP where we were asked to do a "show and tell" of our previous work I've been dealing with the personal aftermath of not having all of my work to show. That's when this idea originated from, the need to have something tangible that shows my artistic process as an artist and a writer.

Tomorrow, I am going to the office to go get a video camera and then Susannah is taking us to another Hull-House soup event and afterwards we're going to her studio to make art. I need to talk to Rachel about video editing and also just talk to her in general because I've been so busy that I haven't hung out with her for over a month.

I asked Jason for deadlines because I need to meet my goals in order to keep the momentum of this project. By this Thursday I will have four more written pieces and two visuals. I am hoping that the first video will be completed. I need to go get a disposable camera.

When Jason and I talked about different ways to record my information/ideas/process, we counted all of my social media profiles and decided that this would be a great choice. 

Ro 

Patrick is going to have to wait...

So I know I said I would upload my St. Patrick's Day photos and I WILL but right now I wanted to write a quick blog post about my day. I've been thinking a lot lately about the past, future and present. There's a lot of things I can't publish on this blog because they are too personal and I have a journal for those juicy thoughts, so if you're interested please go steal my journal from my bag and read on. Haha, except don't because I would hate you.

Anyway, like I said I've been thinking a lot about what has been going on in my life lately and where I want things to go for me. I've been so happy the last few months in Chicago but I've also had a lot of negative, unproductive, sad days. I don't want to have those days anymore (ha! idealist.) or I guess, I want to do everything in my power to limit them.

I just got off of work. I'm now going home to make myself a quick snack and go to a runner's meeting and a spanish speaking meeting in my neighborhood. Exciting!!!

Goals for April

Today I realized how amazing it is to have a blog. I can write about whatever I want to and no one can tell me not to. I can type in purple and forget to put commas and have run-on sentences and add extra letttttttttttttttterrrrrrrrssss to words that don't need them. 

PERSONAL:

• Apply for summer funding and take my time with the application.
• Study for Driver's test and get my permit.
• Send out all the postcards that I've written.
• Write in my journal 5 times a week.
• Stop being sad about Apple. 
• Do my laundry every two weeks.
• Get out of the house more.
• Start jar.

INTELLECTUAL HEALTH:

• Work on Chocolate Story.
• Do research for ISP & Seminar public art project.
• Go through idea notebook & sketchbook to pull out things I've forgotten about.
• Finish painting.
• Make vagina shirts with Tirzah, Lainie, and Sam.
• Finish reading:

1. Catcher in the Rye
2. The Great Gatsby
3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
4. ISP readings

PHYSICAL HEALTH:

• Work out 5-6 times a week.
• Run outside once a week (if weather allows)
• April 1-7: run a total of 10 miles
• April 8-14: run a total of 12 miles
• April 15-21: run a total of 14 miles
• April 22-28: run a total of 16 miles
• Drink 3 water bottles (750 ml) a day.
• No more pie slices or cupcakes (this one is a little sad).

FINANCES:

• Find summer part-time job. Hopefully, at LOFT or that restaurant that I've been thinking about. 
• Prepare meals at home and portion out snacks so I don't waste money on food when I'm out. 
• $15 allowance to purchase tea or coffee and work outside.
• Don't buy clothes this month.

I think that is all for now. This list will help me keep myself more grounded. 

Later,

Rocio
Quote of the day:

"The ultimate goal should be doing your best and enjoying it."

April Madness because March is Over.

Hi. So I've completely neglected this page for the past month, even though in my last post I promised to start updating more often.

But it is a new month. I'm starting over! I also deleted my Facebook so I'm hoping that that will help me  be more productive with my time. I have tons of pictures to upload to my computer so I can post them on here. I will be doing that all of this week. All of my wonderful guests are gone now so I have to get back in the flow of things because these next two months are going to be intense.

Vale bought me ASICS GT-2000 running shoes! I'm super pumped to start running. I ran a few miles yesterday to break them in and I'm going to the gym today after work.

Also, my summer plans are looking pretty great. I was offered a few internships and on Friday I went to interview with one of the organizations that I'm interested in. My interview lasted 3 hours and I was offered the job. After the interview I was feeling really happy and I wanted to take it on the spot but I knew I had to relax and think about it. I've decided to take the position and I'll be informing my future supervisor tomorrow.

I have to go finish up some work but after I'm done with that I'll be writing my blogs for the week.

1. APRIL GOALS
2. ST. PATRICK'S DAY
3. WILLIS TOWER POST
4. SUMMER INTERNSHIP INFO
5. RANDOM ART I'VE SEEN AT GALLERIES
6. AESOP ROCK CONCERT
7. INDEPENDENT STUDY PROJECT IDEA AND PROGRESS

It has been a while...

So I haven’t posted something on this blog for quite sometime and its not that I forgot, I honestly did not. I kept thinking about blog posts on a daily basis but I was just in the middle of a lot of transitions in my life that I didn’t really feel that I could write an upbeat let a alone an honest post of my Chicago experience without talking about what was happening in my personal life. However, that has changed for the most part and I think I’m ready to start blogging again.

            This blog post will attempt to summarize a few of the events/locations I went to in the last two weeks. SO THIS WILL BE A LONG LOOONNNNGGG POST.

On Monday (2/11) I made corn empanadas for my roomies :)

Ingredients: 

2 cans of corn

1 can of cream of corn

half a bag of shredded cheddar cheese

half a bag of shredded mozzarella cheese

grilled onions

Filling

End results. YUM!

On Tuesday (2/12) we watched the Maxwell Street Documentary. After we were done with that our Arts Seminar group went back to the Chicago History Museum to look at the Vivian Maier Exhibit. Vivian Maier was a street photographer who was born in New York and lived in Chicago. She was a nanny and a photographer on the side. At first her work didn’t really do anything for me but after looking at her photographs closely I began to understand why her work is worthy of an exhibit. Here are some pictures of her photographs:

This guy reminds me of Christian Bale in "The Fighter"

I want this in my apartment! 

On that Wednesday I went to Soul City Church for a special prayer event they were having that night called Stay and Pray. It was really amazing. There were I think six or seven stations and they each dealt with something different. I love this church! Its really helping me reconnect with God and I can't even express how much I've been wanting that. I can't even believe all of the things that God is helping me see and understand. I have been wanting to be closer to God since last year but I was so afraid that He would show me all of the areas in my life that needed to change but that I was unwilling to actually change. Anyway, this is getting too personal soooo on to the next day...

So that's that.

No but Becca, Ben, Alex, Lainie & I went to the Revolution Brewing Restaurant. I had THE MOST AMAZING BEER!

Being 21 is great :)

I don't really remember what we did that weekend. I think it was pretty low key because we were all super tired. I'm pretty sure we just watched movies in the apartment. Oh! On Saturday, I met up with Rachel at an ARGO TEA in Lakeview. It was soooooooo goooddddd! I can't even deal!

That Sunday Soul City Church started a new series on relationships. It was so enlightening. Afterwards, Becca and I decided to celebrate the wonderful service by grabbing some food at The Cozy Corner Diner in Logan Square. I didn't take a picture of my food but it was BOMB. Lainie joined us and we all ate lunch together. Afterwards, I went with Becca to her gym to get a membership.

On Tuesday (2/19) my Arts Seminar class went on a Walking Tour around the city to see different types of architecture. Here are some photos:

In the afternoon we went to the Re-Thinking Soup at UIC event. (link) The soup was fantastic and several people read from a cookbook that sounded like a fairytale- who would’ve thought!? Also, I bumped into two Grinnell grads. My group walked over the the Hull-House Museum next door. I got to repurpose an old t-shirt and make it into a shopping bag with a sewing machine from the 20’s.

Then on Wednesday I started my internship at Lillstreet which I had to write a blog post about for them. So that post should be on their website either by this Wednesday or sometime next week and i will link it to this page.

AHHHH! My memory sucks. There are actually a lot of other REALLY COOL things that happened. I'll do another blog post because they deserve it.

I'm done for now,

Rocio

Random Breakfast Picture

Arts Seminar & Chicago History Museum

On Friday we met with our seminar groups in the morning and again my group was the smallest (Tirzah, Lainie, and myself). Our instructor's name is Susannah Papish and she is a painter. In this class we will be going all around the city to see different types of art!

In the afternoon, we all went to the Chicago History Museum. Robyne and Mrs. Dororthy gave us a tour of the different exhibits. We were also given an assignment before we went. We will be creating and turning in a poem about Chicago in two weeks so we have to incorporate at least 20 things that we've seen in the city.

Outfit of the day:

Gold lightning ray necklace F21, black and white striped shirt F21, maroon skirt H&M, Betsey Johnson black textures tights, black legwarmers and Calvin Klein combat boots. My lighting sucks so I need to get better at OOTD pics.

And here are the pictures of the museum:

Chicago is the home of silent films. How cool!

The original Playboy costume

Next blog post will be about Friday night's adventure with Becca & Lainie (Sam joined us later but I don't think I have any pictures of her).

Ro