Fun at Work and Serious Fun

Here's the first thing:
I went into the bathroom to take a shower and when I took off half of my clothing a colossal moth was flyin' around, and we have two mirrors that face each other in the bathroom, so it looked like an infinite amount of Mothras were having light-induced seizures IN MY BATHROOM so I used my skirt like a nun-chuck and flailed wildly until it finally settled on a shelf and became immobile just STOP BOTHERING ME, MOTHS!

SO TODAY was my actual first day of actual work. Basically, I assist three different art teachers at 'Iolani from morning to noon. I was charged with the daunting task of cutting sheets of tracing paper. Sounds like picking flowers, I know, but I think I mentioned in a post once upon a time that I am disinclined to working with numbers. As in, it is actually painful for me to measure things out sometimes. I had to cut 5x7 pieces of paper from sheets that were 9x12 which MEANS TWO 5X7 PIECES CAN BE MADE FROM EACH SHEET AND I HAVE TO MAKE 63 OF THEM AND THEN PUT THEM INTO GROUPS OF 15, 15, 16 AND 17 OKAY! It... really wasn't that complicated but I was terrified when the drawing/printmaking teacher was explaining it to me. I only messed up one sheet of paper due to inattentiveness, so I'd say I'm an A+ helper.
I also created files on our Photography server for students (because we can't trust them to use the keystroke shift/command/N themselves. No, really) and I made physical labels for physical folders.

PHEW, HARD DAY.

But really, I am already in love with this job because I get to be around teachers who love what they are doing. One of them is a 2008 'Iolani grad filling in for the regular mixed media teacher. She seems so young but so very excited to be working with the little twerps. I checked to see if she (Julia) needed help with anything and the students were creating fingerprints by writing inspirational words in spirals, it was awesome. Today actually rekindled my desire to be a teacher.
Part of me feels like it is the absolute perfect career. I love learning, I love sharing what I know, and what I love, and I love being in control and bossing people around! Especially insolent children! (I'd probably have to work through a lot of impatience related issues before becoming a teacher because when the students were incessantly giggling or talking when my photo teacher was explaining things I wanted to blast an air-horn in their eardrums). I want to study writing or literature in college alongside photography, so part of me doesn't want to go to art school.. but at the same time it feels like I would be shutting myself out from becoming a Successful Artist or something. But what is success?

To laugh often and much 
to win the respect of intelligent people 
and affection of children; to earn the 
appreciation of honest critics and 
endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty, to find the best
in others; to leave the world a bit 
better, whether by a healthy child
a garden patch or redeemed
social condition; to know even
one life has breathed easier because
you have lived. This is to have 
succeeded.

Actually, after rereading this Ralph Waldo Emerson poem, I realize it sounds like the exact definition of being both an artist and a teacher. So I guess I know what I'm doing with my life now! Thanks, Ralph, buddy.
This summer I'm going to the east coast to look at COLLEGES. I've never been to the east coast before, so I'm psyched. Right now, either doing a dual-degree program at the New School with Parsons and Eugene Lang or designing my own major at Sarah Lawrence sounds particularly appealing. I wonder if New York is scary. I always picture it as a completely impersonal and impossibly busy place by day, and Satan's Basement at night. But I have friends who live there and love it so obviously it's not like that! GOOD.

Here's a recap of the rest of my Great Super Cool Awesome day:

I went to Coffee Talk (a place I frequented so often this past semester that one of the baristas knew that my order would always be a Dirty Chai and I completed two and a half 10-spaced stamp cards) after work and just ruminated, in a pleasant way. I wrote some fluff in my journal and doodled this–

I'm really digging this pseudo-pointilism thing I've started doing out of nowhere. I implored my Best and Only Jewish Friend Ilana, as well as David pictured in a post a few days back, to join me, and we romped for a while, then David went to do Bible homework because that's actually a class we actually have to take at my school, and Ilana and I sat at the top of a hill (Christmas Tree Park) and listened to music in the grass and it was beautiful–

If I actually had a smart phone and not a 3 year old samsung slide phone, I would upload my own filtered fotos instead of mooching off of Ilana's.

'Hey Rachael if this park was so beautiful why aren't you showering us with conceptual photography right now because you obviously take pictures profusely wherever you go?'

Glad u asked, actually.

If you'll notice, the camera whose strap appears to be gagging me (metaphor for images speaking louder than words? Now's not the time for a poem, dudes) is a manual film camera. So, I did take copious images today, but you will not see them until I get my first paycheck on July 1st. I like to shoot in slide film, the chemistry of which I AM GOING TO EXPLAIN RIGHT NOW (if you're one of my close friends and you've been given the slide film lecture too bad read it anyways).

Most of you are probably familiar with what film negatives look like. You shine a handy light through the negatives onto light sensitive paper and it registers as a positive. Slide film was created mostly for those old school projectors that people used to torture family members with horrible vacation photos, usually involving children crying in front of monuments and dads wearing shorts that were just way too short. Anyways, when slide film is developed, the plastic negatives are actually positive, so they can be copied and cut up and made into slides. Creating the positive effect on the negatives has to do with the way that the film is processed and the type of chemical used.

NOW, why use slide film if I'm not taking invasive family vay-cay photos? Well, when slide film is processed in C-41 developer, the chemical used for normal colour negative film, the slide film does develop as a typical negative, WITH SOME ADDED PSYCHEDELIC COLOURS AND VIGNETTES AS SEEN BELOW:

The colours are completely unaltered from the original scans in these pics, and the results always vary depending on the lighting, the brand of film, whether it was expired or not. The point I was going to make earlier about you not seeing the pictures I took today for a long time is that slide film is very expensive to develop, around 20 bucks a roll I think.

'Dude those just look like Instagram pics why do you need to spend money on crap you could make with–'

NNNNNNNNGREHHHHHHH

SHUT UP. SHUT. UP.

I've talked about it before. Film is extremely satisfying to shoot with, and because I'm working with my Photo teacher, she is letting me borrow my favorite Nikon FM10 + 50 mm 1.4 lens combo for the entire summer. I also have access to expired slide film that someone donated to 'Iolani, so that's all free. I love not knowing what is going to come out of the blue and white package from Rainbow Photo. 

And also, the particular brand of slide film I was using today is Kodachrome which is pre-treated to correct Tungsten (or especially yellow) lighting, which means that if I use it in normal lighting and process the film normally everything will have a blue cast over it to compensate. So what colour will it turn if I cross-process it? Who the hell knows. That's what I'm going to find out.

PHEW I HOPE THAT WASN'T BORING!

Here's a video of Ilana and me dancing to A-Punk by Vampire Weekend. I suggest you listen to their new album and follow Ezra Koenig on Twitter for a richer, fuller life.

I love you forever for reading all of this to the end,

Me me me me