day 033. [photoshoot]

Today started out with just a mile run. I think I'm going to work on my mile time rather than my overall two mile time. I'm getting it down, but I've still got a ways to go before it's finally down to where I need to be to run that 12 minute 2 mile.

Afterwards, I didn't feel like eating breakfast, even though I should have, so I didn't. Instead I just read a chapter out of The Adolescent. It's surprisingly a good book. Maybe had I gotten past the first few pages the first time I picked it up I might have liked it, but I'm glad I'm in a time and place in my life to just read it. Want to know what it's about? Ask me! :)

Once done with that though I ended up taking some of the bills down to the post office. Besides mailing those off I FINALLY got Tarra's present mailed off to her. Because I know she's going somewhere on the 7th of July, I decided to send it first class which means she'll hopefully get it by Saturday!! I can't wait for her to get it. For those that know what it is, if you leave a comment keep your mouth shut. Please & Thank You :) I hope she likes it, even though it's something that she can refer to whenever she wants.

My favorite part of the day was definitely getting to do a photoshoot of my good buddy Anthony Snyder. It definitely was nostalgic because we did the shoot in the same place where I first ever took portraits ... of him! (So, I know I'm posting up two pictures again, but it's to show difference, if there is any, haha.) The first time we did shots, I actually had no idea how to use manual focus, so I was using auto focus. Also, I didn't really understand how to use my shutter setting, instead I was using the portrait setting that was on there. It actually wasn't until after that first photoshoot did I actually learn how to take advantage of those. The manual focus was sometime while I was still in high school. As for shutter mode, that wasn't until college during a Women's Volleyball game. I realized then that the sport mode was just not fast enough, so then I messed around with shutter!

That first photoshoot though we were really just trying to do something classy. I was just trying to get some "sweet" portrait shots because it honestly was the first time I'd ever done any kind of portrait work. After that ... I was hooked. This shoot though, we kind of were going for the run down look, literally. Kind of that "bad-ass" feel if you want to think of it that way. So what better way to achieve that other than Anthony being: shirtless, looking like a thug (haha), and smoking a cigar. Put those all together and I'm pretty sure that's as run down as it gets. On top of that, my editing skills have totally evolved since then. So not only can I take a photo (in my opinion, you don't have to agree) that portrays a certain feeling, but I can also edit it to bring it out even more!

That was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to possibly doing more shoots with Anthony this summer. Oh yeah, last thing about Anthony, he's the first ever model where I've honestly felt comfortable just shooting photos of someone. Thanks Anthony :)

Once that was done I headed out to a camp ground to hang out with a few friends I went to high school with. It sounds like we were going to do illegal things, but we didn't, haha. In all honesty we were just celebrating my friend Caytie's 17th birthday, which is on July 1st! I found myself being the only guy there, haha. Also, I'm starting to realize just how old I'm getting. I'm almost 20, not anywhere close to turning 20 [6 months, give or take], but I'm getting there and it's actually kind of weird and it makes me feel ... old, ha. I was there until kind of late, which explains why this post is kind of late-ish.

Today was definitely a day to hang out, and it was tons of fun. Looking forward to more hangouts, but I'm definitely loving my personal down time where I can do what I want.

PS. Check out my flickr for some of the other photos from today.

PPS. Sorry for uploading two photos lately. haha. Luckily, the other photos just don't have to do with this project, or they are what I would call "out of date" in consideration to this project.

day 032. [reading]

Note to readers: This blog was inspired by my friend Tarra McCurdy's blog. I suggest that you guys follow her too as she's going through what we call, Post Grad life.

Most of you probably know who Tarra is, but for those that don't I'll tell you who she is, haha. Anyways, Tarra was a senior at the University of Portland and I met her briefly because of Senate. Getting out of it in the Spring because I wanted to focus more on my classes. Anyways, during our time this past spring semester we came up with this idea to write a blog about our adventures in the library. Check it out if you already haven't. As she said in one of her posts, our blog has become something bigger than we thought. It really has! I'm so excited to see where this blog takes us. Even if it doesn't take us anywhere, it's still awesome to know that we have quite a few people following us, whether it's public or purely because we post it up on our Facebook walls!

Alright, enough about that, to the actual portion of this blog. Seeing as I've come home from college, finally, I have a lot of down time. Although this down time could be filled with hanging out with friends, exercising, catching up on sleep, or even my internship/job, I surprisingly would like to use some of my downtime to just read. I've always been one to like reading, but being hampered by text book readings and assigned readings from school (both high school and college) I haven't found the time to really sit down with a good book and read it for all intent purposes.

So with that, I plan on reading a few good books this summer. Some of them might be related to biology/science, but are no way in the form of a text book. On the other hand, some of the books I plan on reading are definitely books that I either had to read in high school or never got around to. If you're wondering, which I hope you are, the books I plan on reading these next two months will be (as listed, not in order):

• Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky - I read this book in high school for AP Lit, but the thing is I had to read it. I didn't really have an option to read it or not. Now is my chance to actually just read it.
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - This was another book that I could have read, but I chose another book to read instead of it
• The Adolescent by Fyodor Dostoevsky - I honestly might not even get around to reading this because I just picked this book up seeing as our public library didn't even have Crime & Punishment. What a crime.
  
• Y: The Descent of Men by Steven Jones - I picked this book up at Powell's down in Portland and it's all about the Y-Chromosome. Me being a biology major and a science person in general, this just caught my eye. Oh yeah! I'm a guy!!
• The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston - In AP Bio my senior year, our teacher made us read The Hot Zone as a final project type sort of thing. At first I thought it was dumb, but I ended up really liking the book. So I figured if I got this book to read it wouldn't be that bad. Oh yeah, I own The Hot Zone.
  

As for what I did today exactly, it started out with an early morning run, another 2 miles. I think my legs are still a bit shot because my time was still somewhat close to what I ran yesterday. After getting off the phone with Tarra we discussed that I should just get my mile time down, which I need to get it down under 6 minutes.

Besides that though, I went to the post office to see how much it would cost to send Tarra's present to her; $2.24 to send it to her, not bad at all. I'll probably send that off tomorrow :)!

Afterwards that's when I drove up to the library to get myself a new library card. You can read all about that here. That was quite the experience being in the library. I enjoy the library much more now after blogging with Tarra!

I then walked down town from the library because I knew we had a little bookshop where you could obviously get books. It was kind of a like a really small Powell's, ha. Even though I checked out Crime & Punishment from another library, I also put an order in to get the book because I kind of like owning good books, even if I've read them before. It's just nice to have them laying around if I ever want to pick the book up.

That was it for today. Sorry this was so long guys, ha.

PS. I know I can only put up one photo a day that I took, but the thing is, the picture of Tarra was for you guys, so you knew what she looked like if you didn't :)

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance. - Confucius