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I am so sick of studying. It feels so strange to be spending time studying flashcards about temperature inversion and mitochondria when I already feel so disconnected from college. Like a time warp to 3 years ago or something. Anyway, I'm done with biology as of yesterday, and that is a relief. Today I will take my 3 remaining finals and then that is that. haha this semester was so ridiculous because I never really got invested into my classes because of course I was spending all my time working on my BFA exhibit and working on my portfolio and interviewing for jobs and doing freelance work... somehow memorizing the layers of the atmosphere didn't seem as important. I'll be honest though, I do really enjoy learning this kind of stuff. I just wish I had the time for it. As I'm cramming for these finals I sort of wish I would've taken these classes earlier when I'd had more time to invest in them. Especially this global climate class. I have been so lost in there most of the semester, which is unfortunate because it is all super interesting. But now it is just sort of a hoop I have to get through. Okay well anyway, back to the flashcards.

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Ok, so I know I just posted a MURS video last week... I don't mean to go overboard, but this video is just way too good not to post. check it.

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Amber and I had a great weekend in LA. Here is a picture with Chelsea, Grant, Kelly, and Dave in Claremont. Love all those peeps.

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I'm in LA this week doing job interviews and jammin to Murs. No big deal.

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Amber sits on the steps outside the V&A in London.

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I made this a while ago and just found it again on my computer. That is some serious smog.

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This is my favorite thing right now.
http://www.aniceideaeveryday.com/projects/asleep-on-a-train/

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Last night was the opening reception for Everyeveryday. Thank you to everyone who came! The response was incredible and I was so excited to see everyone becoming so engaged in the exhibit. I am excited for the exhibit to continue to evolve as people's stories get added to the gallery.
Also, Field Study (the collaborative show that Keenan and I put together) opened last night too and we were really pumped with people's interest in the eclectic visuals. Below are a few photos from last night.




PS A shout out and thank you to Quinn for his great submissions including that sweet little self-portrait of his face at 6am.
PPS My friend Ashton Rodgers took better photos of the show before the opening and I will post those soon.

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Maybe I am a little late with this.. but I just discovered the song Scenic World by Beirut and I think it changed my whole world. Or at least made it onto my favorite songs list.

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If I wasn't so busy getting stuff ready for my exhibit then I would go see this movie right now.

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I had the weirdest dream last night. I pulled a booger out of my nose and it turned out to be a 6" long toy alligator.

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My BFA Final Exhibit.
Come to the opening reception!!!
Friday October 17th from 7:00–9:00 in Gallery 303 of the HFAC.

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If you like movies that A) are awesome B) are intense C) are about corrupt cops D) are also about a good cop that tries to stand up to the corrupt cops, and E) have Denzel Washington in them, then you will LOVE training day. I just watched it for the first time and it was insane. If you haven't seen it yet you might as well just go ahead and buy it here.

_28

A call for entries!
Or something like that... Okay everybody, I am creating a zine called EveryEveryDay and it is sort of an experiment in breaking personal and social norms and challenging our routines and daily habits. Each issue will feature two different "assignments" and the content of the zine will be stories from people who completed the assignment. Hopefully the stories will be interesting or insightful or funny, because hopefully the experiences will be interesting or insightful or funny (or maybe awkward, embarrassing, or weird). Anyway, it is good to shake up your routine every now and again, right guys!? Do something different and see what comes of it. You will either learn something new or realize that there is nothing left in life for you to learn.. and either way you win! So anyway, do yourself a favor and try this little experiment!

Below is a little flier I threw together with the first two assignments. If you want to participate then please pick one of the assignments below and send me the story by Sunday September 7th!

_27

Philly Youth Group + Dave & Kelly + Jon & Amber + Mt Timpanogos =

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Some stuff I've been doing lately (pen, colored pencil, watercolor, spraypaint, sharpie):

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I am writing a term paper for my Modern Political Thought class right now. It is about Rousseau's depiction of man in the state of nature and how it compares/contrasts with Hobbes and Locke. It is due at 5 today and I've got a good little ways to go. So why am I blogging right now? Good question....

_23

What can I say, I love strategy games. Is it geeky? Maybe. Does that stop me from playing them and subsequently spending hours reading game reviews online? No way!
Yesterday we introduced Dave and Kelly to Carcassonne. Love that game.
Also, Spencer Romney came over and brought a few games that I hadn't heard of. We played No Thanks for the first time... but not the last. It is a simple yet strategic game. A good balance of strategy, chance, and arithmetic. The only thing it's missing is meeples.

_22

I am so pumped about being married to the coolest girl I've ever known! I was just thinking today about how lucky I am to be in love and how fun it is to be best friends with Amber. I was going through some stuff and came across some old paraphernalia from when we first started dating. If you aren't already so over this mushy blog entry then look below and behold some of our earliest mementos:

I think this is the first [love?] letter I ever wrote to Amber... well, the envelope anyway
And this is (not the first but one of the first) letters she wrote to me (check out that sweet hand-drawn digital-looking type! And thats when I knew...)And these are the tickets from when we went to see a really ridiculous musical at the Hale theatre in Orem. It was sort of an early birthday date for Amber's birthday, because she left for Quatemala the next day (or was it the day after that...)

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A visit from my sister and her five kids.
This is my nephew Ethan and he is so funny.

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Amber's birthday was back in June and provided the perfect excuse to buy this Jack Lalanne Power Juicer which, thanks to Sarah and Marcus' recommendation, had been looming in our wishlist for some time. To say the least, we are pumped to have this new appliance in our kitchen and more than happy with the results. I feel so invigorated and strengthened after a fresh glass of orange carrot juice that I swear I could pull a cruise ship with my teeth.
Amber and Koseli are obviously excited about the upcoming batch of orange peach:

_19

on pioneer day we floated the river again, this time accompanied by keenan and koseli. it was so fun. we got out at vivian park and had a nice little picnic complete with veggie sandwiches (with a subtle hint of banana flavor), honey roasted cashews, and the entertainment of a 90 year old woman disguised as a 10 year old girl on a bike...it was wild. it felt so summertime and i loved the whole day. after the picnic we went to a matinee of The Dark Knight, which was amazing. not only that, i'd forgotten how NICE the real movie theater is. comfortable chairs. good sound. movies without scratches. up-to-date previews. it was great.

here are some pics from the river.

_18

statistics is for xxxxxxxxxxxxx.

_17

you can't tell me you don't still love everything about this.

_16

On saturday Amber and I floated down the provo river with Ashley (Amber's sister). It was super fun. and also freezing. I want to start floating the provo river every day. for a month. or a year. or for a week. Pictured above is the sweetest innertube that you can buy in Utah. I bought it at Smith's for just $7.50. that's right only $7.50 at Smith's. I am so pumped about it.

_15

I miss playing the drums. I haven't been in a band for a while because I have been so busy with school and design and everything and sometimes I really really miss playing music. Tyler and I almost started a band last year when we got back from New York. We practiced just like twice and I can honestly say that it would've been awesome. The stuff we were writing was really raw and we were both so pumped about it, but unfortunately we got too sidetracked and nothing ever came of it. And now Tyler is back in NYC and I am still here in Provo. Anyway, I was thinking the other day of all the bands I've been in from way back when I first started playing the drums in middle school. So I made a list. Some of the bands were more serious than others, of course, but all of these either played shows or at least wrote some songs with the intent of playing shows. Also, some of them I might not have been a "real" band member but maybe just practiced with them and played one or two shows. Anyway, my music career is as follows:

The Flaming Cycles
Blue Stem
The National Nix
Dead End Drivers
Big G and the Blue Streak
The Argyles
Apathy
Disengage
The Definition of Lettuce
Sonnet
The Farewell Bikeride
Boxcar Manifesto
Throwing Knives
Pluto Was a Planet
T.V.P. (Totally Vicious Punks)
The Plan B
Actress
Bureau of Information
The Affiliates
Paul Carruth
The Handcart Company
The Pop Music Experiment
Andy Martin

There might have been some others that were sort of started but never named and never played any shows. I sort of miss all of them in their own way. Playing music is so fun and especially playing shows is really fulfilling. Shoot, I feel so anxious now to start playing again... oh time, how intrusive you are...

_14

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Amber and Jon... forever in Rome.

_12

Amber and I have been in England since Tuesday and it is amazing. We have seen so much already, and are looking forward to all the other places we will be traveling over the next couple of weeks. Here are two pictures from our trip to Oxford yesterday. The first one is called "Amber muses over the thought of a game of Cricket in the green fields behind Christ's Church in the cool breeze of sweet ol' Oxford" and the second is called "Hot Fuzz"

_11

My first car that I bought with my own money was a Plymouth Neon. I bought it when I moved back to Provo in 2005. It has been a great car. I even got broadsided last year by a seriously crazy old Mongolian man who ran a stop sign (and then later went crazy in court trying to deny what happened and accuse me of speeding around from behind him in order to intentionally cause the accident and therefore sabotage his driving record and inflate his car insurance... two hours later Amber and I were escorted out of the courtroom by a Provo police officer for fear of a possible post-trial violent attack by said Mongolian.) Through it all the Neon kept chugging along. But alas all things change with time. Today my Neon was towed away and out of my arms once and for all...

_10

Davis. Earwax candles. Summer 2006. (I'm so glad I just found this picture... I'd almost forgotten about this.)

_09

Well, this morning marked the end of design classes for the byu graphic design bfa class of 08. And what better way to go out than listening to Adrian tell us long and illustrious stories of Australian rain forests and Aboriginal funeral dances? After class the thirteen of us went up to Gallery 303 and did a photoshoot with our current exhibit, photos by Ashton Rodgers. (If you haven't seen the exhibit, and you get a chance, you should check it out this week, because I think it comes down on Friday or Saturday. Gallery 303 of the HFAC, BYU)

It is sort of a strange feeling to be finishing the design program. I still have a lot of projects to finish over the coming months, before I graduate in December, so I'm not totally finished. But from here on out it will be more self-directed and individual, with no group classes and critiques. I am excited but also feel a bit sad to be leaving the past 2 years behind...

_08

Lately Amber and I have been way into cooking Indian food. Featured here is last night's dinner: Simple Basmati Rice, Garlic Naan, and Assami Ril Do (Potato Curry). It tasted even better than it looks.

_07

Ok, so my buddy Adam posted this on his blog and I had to re-post it here because I think that it is a fantastic story. Check it.

_06

April fools...
Last night I was in the living room working when Amber brought me a glass of horchata with a fake gummy eyeball in it. It wasn't very scary—I didn't gasp or scream or pee my pants or drop the glass or anything. But she really thought it was hilarious and I thought it was hilarious that she thought it was so hilarious because it really wasn't that hilarious. Then she told me about her original plan for an April fools joke which was to get a ride home from work early so that when I got home she would be laying on the kitchen floor in a puddle of blood [fake blood I guess] and then when I asked "what happened!?" she would hold up her finger and say "paper cut." It is so stupid but also a really funny idea because of how stupid it is. The best part is that she was laughing so hard that she was crying when she told me about that plan. Anyway, I love how all of her April fools jokes are really just creepy/cheap halloween gimmicks.

_05

So, the Water/ Politics/ and Hope exhibit turned out to be really great. I was pumped that so many people came and that the response was so positive. It was so fun to organize and put up an exhibit.. now I just want to do more exhibits all the time! Also, it was so fun to conceptualize and produce all the promotional stuff for the exhibit (a collaboration with Keenan), and I think that I really want to do more work in that arena in the future, professionally. Anyway, it has been really cool also to hear people's responses to the exhibit (there is an email on the website where people can send in their thoughts about the work). Today someone that I don't know sent in this response to my piece:

"I really enjoyed this piece. It was my favorite in the show. I think that the way it presented it's message was very powerful. The contrast between those who have water and those who do not was shocking. We are so fat here in America and we take so much for granted. It really became apparent when you place a picture of a starving child next to a typical American child. It was cool how he used the orange which is a very dry, warm color and contrasted it to the blue, cool, wet color. I think the compostion is very good too, letting us see how our view is refracted. I give this two thumbs up! Keep up the good work!"

I really like to hear feedback about my work in that sort of way, from people I don't know, and where it's not solicited so directly, like "here look at this and tell me what you think" but actually a response that someone felt personally inclined to give on their own. Even when people's interpretations of the work isn't exactly what I intended to convey. I actually like that, not being there to explain every detail or intention, but just allowing the viewer to interpret.

_04

Amber and I just went with a couple of our friends to a going away party for our dear friend Bardhi Haliti. When we first got there, a girl that we haven't seen in awhile called out across the room "Hey! Jon and Amber have come out of their cave!" I thought it was really weird, and also a bit presumptuous of her to say that. Sort of funny that one might assume that if you don't hang out with them then you don't hang out with anyone. Or to assume that you must not have any real friends that are outside of "their circle" or do things that are outside of "their awareness." I have nothing against anyone at that party, as a matter of fact a lot of them are good friends of mine and have been for a long time even if we don't see each other all the time, and some of them are good friends of mine that I do see often, and some are people I've never seen before in my life. But regardless, I was disappointed that someone felt like greeting us with a comment that essentially meant "Hey, I haven't seen you guys in a long time, and that must mean that you are living a friendless life void of human interaction and activity!" No offense, but that kind of comment certainly doesn't communicate any sincere "nice to see you" and is really just pretty annoying. Anyway, we said our farewells to Bardhi, who I am sad to see go, but also very excited for him. He will do very well in NY, I am sure. And who knows, maybe we will move back there next year... Anyway, back to the cave.

_03

We went to k-mart last night to buy a dish scrubber. When we were at the check-out counter I told they lady "oh, its okay, we don't need a bag for that. we can just carry it out." She seemed shocked at first, and then said "oh yeah, I remember you two, the one's that don't use bags."
I was a little surprised because a). we haven't been to k-mart in a few weeks and b.) I would imagine that there are other people in provo who recognize the pointless waste it is to wrap every little item they purchase in an extra layer of plastic that is only going to be thrown away. am I crazy? or does anyone else agree that plastic bags are pointless, especially if you are only buying one or two or three items. Why not just carry the items out in your hands? And for bigger purchases bring a tote bag? Anyway, I know there are a lot of people out there that already do many things to reduce waste, and conserving plastic bags is just a tiny little part of it. But I was amazed by the fact that so few of the shoppers at k-mart choose not to use plastic bags that the employees there are beginning to recognize us as "the one's that don't use bags."
pretty funny. and maybe a little sad?

_02

What was I thinking this morning as I was shaving? Boredom? Over-confidence? Was I trying to be funny? Tough? Ironic? Whatever the motivation, I decided to leave the mustache. Of course, I never leave the mustache. At least not longer than a few minutes (any guy who says he doesn't play a little game of "what if I was an undercover cop?" in the mirror now and again is probably lying.) At any rate, this morning I must've got carried away with delusions of drug busts because a few hours later I still had the mustache and was feeling frighteningly okay about it. Not to mention a bit creepy. Little did I know, the day was about to get a lot creepier.
So, I'm on gmail and my brother Dave [that's right the one that lives in Philadelphia, 2,150 miles away] sends me an email. All it says is "wore this bad boy this morning" and—you guessed it—there is a picture of him with the sickest mustache I've ever seen. (see below)
I tell you, it is just too weird. Neither Dave nor I are the mustache type, nor can I recall a time when either of us actually decided to wear one out of the house (or even the bathroom)... but without any planning we do it on the same day? That is too creepy... check this out:

_01

last night amber and i went to a pretty delicious cafe in springville called gingers. it has all kinds of natural and raw and nutritious foods and crap like that. i got this crazy "pizza" that was actually some sort of insanely nutritious raw oat or granola cracker thing with a bunch of veggies like red and green peppers and onions and lettuce and avocados and mushrooms chopped up on top of it and some sort of tasty brown sauce on top too. really good food. also their water is apparently some sort of phenomena called reverse osmosis. i don't really understand at all what that means, but you can read more about it here.