This weekend I got to be a photographer at a fashion show at CU! My friend C is a designer in the club and he invited me to come take pictures! It was really awesome. All of the designers are students at the school and I was so impressed by the talent my fellow students have! The outfits were all so unique and each designer’s story and selected pieces were so fascinating. I also liked hanging out with the models before the fashion show started. We had fun chatting about school, their outfits, their poses, everything! I can’t believe I was nervous when I arrived at school because as soon as I started taking pictures, I couldn’t stop smiling. I took over 1000 pictures! I’ll post some sneak previews here. Today we’ll have a look at everyone getting ready and then we’ll get to the runway later this week! Are you excited?! I am! :D
This is one of C’s models. She used eyeshadow to make her lips blue like that! Later she added more blue to her eyes and then totally rocked the runway! :)This model’s designer had all her models dressed as Victorian birds. I loved this girl’s woodpecker dress. She had an amazing train (just wait till the runway pictures!).The girls practicing their walks. The peacock outfit was amazing. The detail of the feathers was fantastic.This girl designed and modeled her own dress. It was gorgeous.Practicing poses for the runway!I loved the way her makeup looked with her curls. :)This model is Steampunk Ariel! I love it! :) Also, the designer of this outfit (and the next one) is a double major: biology and biochemistry. Potassium is super impressed.Steampunk Rapunzel! :)
Wow! Are you excited for the runway pictures?! I am and I’ve been looking at them for the past few days!
Now it’s your turn: tell me what you think of these outfits! Also, tell me something you’d love to learn how to do or that you are currently learning to do! I’m loving being a photographer right now that’s for sure but I would also love to get better at clothing design myself! :)
Ugh! Looking at this picture makes me miss the fall colors already (pic on the left was taken at the end of October and pic on the left was taken this Wednesday)!
So we got a pretty good snow storm earlier this week. It would have been fine if it hadn’t been followed by ridiculously low temperatures… I woke up yesterday and it was -11 F outside. I’m originally from California… we do not do below 0 F there. Luckily for me, I have a ton of data analysis to do so I stayed home working on my computer while burrowing in blankets and snuggling with stuffed sharks all day. At one point, Cobalt even brought me the fanciest hot chocolate ever! Maybe I should stay home and work again today!
I did actually end up braving the cold last night to go to a girls night where we attempted to decorate Christmas ornaments. My attempts are below – there’s a shark on the clear one (as well as a shark in the 3 of 2013) and a skull for Cobalt on the red one!
I’m super happy that these guys didn’t get messed up upon exposure to the 3 degree F weather on the drive home…
What temperature is “cold” to you? Can you handle -11 F? HOW?!?!? Anyway, what do you have planned for the weekend? I have some pretty exciting things planned! I can’t wait to tell you about them next week! :D
Challenge:
In the tree, I spy a shark “star,” a skeleton, a sheep from Germany, Ice Batman, Ice BatDracula, and a buffalo. Can you find them?
Let’s talk about the tree:
This is my first year ever having my own Christmas tree and look how cute and tiny it is! I love it already. I hope Cobalt likes it too (he put the skeleton in it afterall). I like to think that the Ice bats are guarding the tree against evil… :D
An artsy picture of the top: Poncho the “star” and Jörg the German sheep say hi from the top of the tree!
Let’s talk about Potassium:
Whew you guys… trying to finish a PhD is hard work! I apologize so much for being gone but life is just ridiculous. Recently I’ve:
watched Catching Fire (it was good! I liked it!)
done 4 16 hour imaging experiments (I start up the microscope and then go home, sleep, and then come in early and turn it off)
flown to Oklahoma to spend Thanksgiving with Cobalt’s family
discovered that minus the French Country station (which is hilarious because it played a song called “My horse is dead” in French), Sirius XM radio is not all that exciting
Made delicious gravy for two different Thanksgiving celebrations
Probably done more!
Let’s talk about you guys:
How were your Thanksgivings? Are you excited about the holidays? Tell me something about your holiday traditions. What have you been up to?
He has a great point… Where have I been? I left off with promises of pictures and stories from all my adventures (including pictures from Germany!) and then I disappeared into the ether.
I’d say it’s safe to say that grad school temporarily won the fight against my time. This year has been crazy as I work hard to finish my project and figure out what’s next, etc etc etc… It’s definitely enough to cause a breakdown mmmm probably at least once a week. But really, that shouldn’t mean that you guys get ignored! You should be included so you can hear all about the insanity in real time! It’s crazy out there! Woooo!
Anyway, this post is mostly an apology (but not an excuse!) for my time away. Any requests for something you’d like to hear about? It’s been almost a month! A lot has happened (including my birthday!). As usual, I have pictures documenting almost everything. :D Also, how are you? Tell me everything! :) The holidays are coming up. Any fun plans?
I’ll leave you guys with one of my favorite pictures from my hike/fun with my new lens along the trails surrounding Boulder last weekend.
I just love how expansive it is. So much of the trail and the sky are included in the picture… And me! It’s weird that I have to be careful about my own shadow getting in pictures with the fisheye lens…
What I like about this one is that there is all that gray on the bottom. Why didn’t they crop most of it out?! Also, what do you think this girl is thinking about?
Hello all! I hope you are well! I am realizing that apparently Cobalt and I have a lot of traditions in October and by missing so much due to traveling, there is a lot of catching up to do with what little is left in this month!
This weekend we were busy getting Halloween costumes put together, picking out pumpkins, and buying candy for trick or treaters (which we will actually just be leaving in a bowl on our front porch as we’ve got ourselves a rehearsal dinner to go to on Halloween – J and K are getting married on Friday!!!!! Yes, in case you’re wondering, we will be dressed up in costumes – for the rehearsal dinner, not for the wedding obviously…).
This weekend we also went out to brunch with friends and then headed to pretty much the biggest antique mall I have ever seen. I am pretty sure you can get lost in there. Actually definitely sure because upon entering, Cobalt, J, and I immediately lost The Chocolate Pudding and The Millionaire Space Accountant! Moving on – the antique mall was really fun! So much stuff to look at/be sad about not being able to afford…. My favorite part was this whole corner of abandoned photographs and postcards from around the world. I love abandoned photographs especially because I feel that each one tells a story and I, having just stumbled across it, have no idea what it is! It brings out my creative side because I am intently gazing about how the photo was taken – the lighting, the clothing, the poses – but I am also looking at the expression on the people’s faces to try to guess what they were thinking about! So fun! Anyway, shown above and below are some of my favorites from this particular expedition.
I love this one of a woman and (I’m assuming) her plant. Also, this one has a date on the back (1925) and a note in German that The Chocolate Pudding and The Millionaire Space Accountant spent 5 min or so trying to decipher. So much fun!So I found this one really creepy with everyone’s faces overexposed like that. The back of the photo had no explanation – just an address in Lincoln, IL. Any possible explanation? :)
On the to do list for this week:
multiple experiments (although nothing seems to want to work for me right now) because I have to give a presentation on my research in two weeks
making a blueberry cheesecake (it’s a slow process with all the experiments and life – good thing each step in the cheesecake making process requires substantial cooling/sitting/whatever time)
celebrating J and K!
carving pumpkins
voting (election day is next week, folks!)
maybe sleeping? Who knows…
What are you guys up to this week? Are you baking anything epic? Which is your favorite of the found photographs up there? Tell me all!
Hey everyone! I’m back from Germany! It was super fun! First of all, Heidelberg is an adorable town nestled in some mountains in Germany. You should be able to see that from that top picture here. The conference I went to was at EMBL which is a giant laboratory tucked into the forest above Heidelberg. I hung out with my friends as soon as I landed in Heidelberg (adventures will soon be posted) and then spent the next few days being bussed back and forth between the town and the lab for the conference. The conference was awesome. All of the talks were full of innovation and cool science (pretty sure that excitement was the only thing that kept me awake in the face of the death jetlag) and I made a lot of fun international friends! After the conference, I spent one day frolicking in Heidelberg and the surrounding areas with some of the cool people I met at the conference (again with the adventures being posted soon!).
Some more pictures:
Another favorite German word of mine is schloss or castle. I visited the castle with my friends the first day I was there and it was stunning. I learned so much European history… Look forward to a post on the schloss definitely. :)My last day there, my new found friend T and I went for an epic hike (involving us getting lost a lot) in the mountain next to Heidelberg. The trees were so interesting!
Anyway, now I am back in Colorado. I’m super jetlagged still but life is insane in lab. I have to prepare (read: do multiple experiments) to give a presentation in a few weeks and if I really want to graduate at some point, I have to come up with what will ultimately be the “story” for my thesis. There’s actually a lot to talk about regarding my feelings about graduate school right now so I think maybe that will be in its own post soon.
Random questions below:
How are you guys? Is there anything specific you want me to definitely mention in my Germany (or Boston or San Antonio) posts? Do you want to know my favorite German word (it’s tchüss! – it means bye!)? I’m super frustrated with science/lab right now. Does anyone have any advice for relaxing/getting through hard work times? In other news, I am super excited that Allegiant finally came out today (where was it on my 10 hr flight back from Germany last week?!). Is anyone else a fan of the Divergent trilogy?
In other news, my blog is 3 years old today!!!! How did this happen?!
Success! The cannolis, pizelles, and other Italian desserts made it safely back from Boston (despite getting teased by TSA about the fact that there is more than 3 oz of cream in the cannolis… :/). Yummmmmmmmm…
Hey all! I’m back from the first two of my three conferences, enjoying this little break before I head out to Heidelberg, Germany tomorrow for the third conference! Epic…
How have you guys been? I am all right, despite having a pretty major breakdown about science/life/careers/etc right before I left for the first conference (more on that when I get back from Germany). Both conferences turned out to be really fun.
First I was in San Antonio for SACNAS where I was one of three graduate students from the University of Colorado recruiting future grad students and students for our summer research program (SMART). SACNAS is awesome because it’s both a science conference (with talks and poster presentations etc) but also a huge celebration of all of the cultures that make up this country. It is just such a fun and supportive place to be (just what I needed after feeling so down the day before)! Plus I had a great time bonding with my fellow graduate students. They helped me finish the poster I presented in Boston (and will present in Heidelberg). It turned out really nicely so I am super grateful for their help!
This was from the Pow wow at SACNAS. So many beautiful outfits and dances. We got to dance too and it was awesome!We got serenaded by a mariachi band while out at dinner in San Antonio!
After recruiting at SACNAS, I took off for Boston for the Salmonella conference! I ended up flying with a bunch of retired Texans who were heading to the east coast to watch the leaves turn. We bonded right away in line for the airplane and it made for a pretty funny experience. Upon arriving in Boston, I met up with my lab mate Titanium and my boss and we headed to the conference together. The conference was kind of intense… who knew there could be 5 days worth of talks (and posters) about Salmonella?! For the most part it was very interesting and exciting to learn about all the different ways people can go about studying such a vicious pathogen. I now feel inspired to build my own super team of scientists from all scientific backgrounds to try to answer some really hard question (let me know if you want to join… I’m going to make us matching T-shirts!). It was also fun because 1) there were people from all over the world attending the conference (new friends!!!!) and 2) Boston turned out to be a really fun city to explore! I can’t wait to share some of my adventures with you but for now I will leave you with these pictures.
My favorite of the random pianos around Boston. I played Heart and Soul on it. :)Titanium with two of our new friends the last day in Boston! :)
And now I am off to Heidelberg for my final conference. I have been learning some German words/phrases (turns out German is a SUPER fun language to learn) while traveling to my other two conferences. How exciting! Also, I just got an e-mail from some friends over there who are going to pick me up as soon as I get to my hotel and take me exploring! I feel so lucky and excited for this opportunity but also nervous about traveling so far away (even though I just went to Paris) and terrified that I am going to get sick… Maybe I should go buy some Emergen-C….
Now it’s your turn: tell me anything! If you are unsure where to start, you can tell me about a time where you did a lot of traveling in your life. How did you keep from getting sick? How did you go about exploring where ever you were (eating at various restaurants, going on tours, walking around, etc)? What is your favorite activity to keep from getting bored on the airplane? :)
So… in addition to all the other craziness going on in my life right now, I am gearing up to go to not one, not two, but THREE consecutive conferences next week. First step is SACNAS, a conference for minority STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) students that is near and dear to my heart. I went last year to recruit people for CU and I guess I did such a good job that they asked me to go back this again year! Yay! I am super excited about that! Also SACNAS is in San Antonio, TX this year and I have never been there… oooo new place! Then directly after that, I fly to Boston to attend a conference about Salmonella (for those of you that don’t know, that is what I am studying for my research project) with my friend Titanium and my boss. I have never attended a conference with my boss before so that should be fun. Also, a lot of big name Salmonella people should be there so it will be awesome to meet them and hopefully they can help me with the still mysterious parts of my project. After all of that, I fly back to Colorado for ~ 48 hours before taking off to go to Heidelberg, Germany (!!!!) for a conference about new techniques in microbiology. It is going to be awesome because there will be scientists from all over the world attending this conference! I feel very lucky/excited that I get to go to Europe twice in one year but I am also super nervous because I know absolutely NO German. At least in France, I could read signs and talk to people in my sub par/super slow/sometimes Spanish French. So that will be interesting…. Seeing how I got slightly culture shocked upon landing in France, I’ve bookended my trip to Germany with people that I know in the hopes that that should ease the transition to visiting another new country.
Now it’s your turn! Have you been to/lived in San Antonio, Boston, or Heidelberg? What should I definitely check out/eat/do there? Any travel tips for traveling with a poster roll as my second carryon (thrilling…)?
In other news, what have you guys been reading lately? I just finished Patrick Ness’ newest young adult book More Than This and I am still reeling from the crazy ending! Whoa!
PS – Patrick Ness is one of my favorite authors if you’re looking for a new set of books to read…
Hey all, life is currently causing me rage and anguish so instead of a post, I leave you with this picture of my awesome orange hair. Cobalt and I had a hair dying party this weekend to commiserate life being meh right now and I think my orange turned out pretty well!
Now if only it would stop fading epically…
PS- who wants to guess what fun color Cobalt’s hair is?
A few weeks ago (before all this crazy rain started), I had the honor of taking engagement pictures for my friends Jennette and Kegan. It was kind of awesome because I’ve gotten to watch their whole relationship from the very beginning. I met Jennette because she did her masters research in my lab and I totally remember the snowshoeing trip where she met Kegan. I also remember meeting Kegan for the very first time when he came to our lab to pick up Jennette for a lunch date. Awwww the memories… and more to come! I am so excited you guys! :) Anyway, we met up at Chautauqua Park for an engagement photo session and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I am normally skeptical of doing fancy pictures at Chautauqua because it is a very popular hiking destination and is often full of people just waiting to get in your super cute portraits. It also has really weird lighting during most parts of the day so you have to plan your photo sessions just right. All that said, however, we had a great time and the photos look amazing. Thanks so much Jennette and Kegan for being good sports while we trekked all over hills and rocks and fields to capture your awesomeness as a couple!
And now a few more of my favorite pictures…
This one turned out so epic… I kind of love it… :)
Some things I learned while doing these pictures:
As I previously mentioned, I learned that Chautauqua has a lot of cool places (hidden from the majority of hikers) for neat pictures
Bushes are not my friends. I edited a lot of these pictures with the help of my nephew and he and I ended up getting really frustrated when we would come across a picture with Jennette and Kegan looking adorable and a giant bush blocking one of them… way to go setting up that shot, Potassium. :p
I had a lot of fun with Jennette and Kegan because we’d find a cool place to shoot pictures and then they’d start suggesting poses/ideas/etc that they wanted to try! It challenged me to be more creative and thoughtful with my poses/angles/etc.
Wow… it’s been a while since I’ve written. Life has been a little insane here for me and Cobalt. More about that later maybe but first and foremost, how the heck are you?! Anything exciting going on? If so, please tell me because Cobalt and I could definitely use some cheering up. :)
Potassium Photography 