Pedestrians. NOT cars. Get the right of way!

 Everyone goes to driving school, or drivers ed, then has to take a driving test to get their drivers license, right? Then why don't people know how to drive? Don't they know there are rules? Do they think that they are taught the rules just to forget?
I get run over almost every time I walk to or from campus. Three of the four streets I cross have cross-walks on them, the fourth doesn't. The phrase "Pedestrians get the right of way" has somehow been changed to "Cars get the right of way if they can make it across the cross-walk before the Pedestrian finishes crossing the street"!
I am a firm believer that the car must stop for the pedestrian. Just last week I saw a guy and a girl trying to cross the street. They were already half-way across and I was coming behind them. They started to cross the second half, but the cars wouldn't stop. They were in the middle of the road and the cars wouldn't stop! Really?!! Then the girl started to cross again and the guy had to pull her back to keep her from getting hit. A couple days later I was crossing the same intersection when this happened: I was crossing thee second half of the street and I still had a good ten feet to go. The car coming didn't wait for me to cross, but came all the way through the intersection and waited three feet away from me on the cross-walk. What? You couldn't wait on the other side of the intersection for me to finish crossing the street?
I always make eye-contact with the drivers. Stand there and wait for them to stop their car with a "Really?" look on my face. Then I cross the street. The number of times I could have died while crossing the street is off the charts.
Here's a shout out to all college students walking to and from campus. Look both ways. Before you cross the street! Yes, you heard that from your parent's when you were just learning to cross the street by yourself for the first time. It still applies! Don't trust any car to stop when you start to cross the street. Wait for them to stop completely. Then cross.

heroes

 (I found this post in  my 'Edit Posts' section that I wrote on Halloween.)          
I was in the Wilk studying for a midterm before heading into work two weeks ago. I noticed all these little kids walking by in their Halloween costumes. At first I didn't know why they were there, but I didn't really care because I'm always up for cute little kids in costume! I later found out they were on their way to the SpookFest in the Wilk Terrace. First I saw a little Batman and then an even smaller Buzz Lightyear. These little guys got me thinking about heroes and why we choose them?
Do we choose them because they are good looking, maybe better so than we view ourselves? Do we choose them because we love what they represent and stand for?
Are we encouraging them to have good, wholesome heroes like the Superman and Batman of cartoons, or are they basing their hero dreams off the Batman of today? I was talking with my Mom about this and telling her how the Superman (Smallville) and Batman (Batman Begins, Dark Night) of today are much more OF the world than they used to be. Yes, the media has changed a lot, but does that mean our heroes should change with it? Children have the gift of being able to inherently see the good in everything, so I am sure they aren't associating their heroes with the ones we know as teenagers and adults, but someday they will see those shows too; what will they think then?

i'd never been told that before

I'd never been told that I was really nice. I have been told that I am very up front about things, but not that I am nice in the way I voice them. I reminded someone of home. Of a person who is understanding and loving. An old friend.
I got to talking with a fellow student after we'd worked on our class project together. We were venting our frustrations about our professor and group projects and such. We ended the conversation talking about how teachers and others give advice. Teachers that give terrible degrading advice because that is how they are, not because they want to tear us down. Classmates who hate how you are doing something, but won't tell you that to your face. Then she asked me where I was from and told me that I reminded her of people from her home town in Colorado. She said that she usually had a hard time opening up to people, and I told her that she had done a great job opening up to me. She said that I made it really easy and that I was a nice person. One who speaks her mind and lets you know her business, but who voices her thoughts in a nice way. She said that I was like the people in Colorado.
She said I wasn't like most Utahns. I then asked her what she thought other Utahans were like. She said they are not up front with their business, that they put on their pretty faces and are dishonest with you. I said that those kind of people are what I call "fake". They put up a perfect facade, but underneath they are someone completely different. They feel like they have to impress everyone and stop being themselves. I definitely understand this. When I was growing up I felt like an outsider in my group of friends, sometimes I still do. I felt like they were being nice to be because they didn't want to be openly rude in front of me, but that as soon as I was gone they were different. It was like they couldn't be their true selves with me around. I felt the same way; I didn't fee like I could be myself around them because they wouldn't like me. I was too busy trying to please all of them, I forgot to be myself. I have learned now not to care as much what others think of me and I try to find friends that love me for the way I am.
Why is it that my new classmates feel comfortable enough to open up about their whole lives within a month of meeting me? This is why college was one of my favorite steps of live. I was told I would have to come to school during summer, before my friends from home would come down to start the normal semester in the fall. At first I didn't want to, but it grew on me. I was excited to get out of the life I'd lived at home, the friends I had there, and start the next chapter. I knew no one that summer, but I instantly clicked with my roommates and the friends I made during those two months. It was like I was in a new world. I was free to be myself without the labels I'd placed on myself in my grade-school years. From then on I have continued to live with people I don't know from home and I don't hang out with them much either. In a way they are the friends of a past life, with some overlap into this new one, and they are stuck there.
I am still working to change the way I think about my life before college, but it's easier said than done in my case. I have changed a lot in college. I have become more blunt and I have realized that I love being myself, not matter what people think of me. I felt trapped in my grade-school days and now I am free again! No one knew who I was that summer; they were meeting me for the first time. No one knew what I was like at home and they were able to form an opinion of me. Sometimes I think that the people who know me the best are the ones I met after high school. Do those friends really know me? Will they ever know me like this?

Studio Art

Last semester I took a Studio Art class for Art History Majors. In that class we did a little of this and a little of that; a little of everything. Ink painting, copper plate etching, linoleum engraving, egg tempura, oil painting, watercolor, sculpture, and fresco. Here are photographs of my work from last semester: I hope you have as much fun looking at them as I had while creating them! 

Ink Painting: Landscpape No.1

This was much like water color, but with only black paint. My teacher put a variety of things on the table and then told us to paint what we saw on our papers horizontally and it would automatically look like a landscape.

life is meant for the living

FAMILY. FRIENDS. ROOMMATES.

Disneyland!

Here are some fun memories from last summer. I think I am getting Spring Fever! I can't wait for it to be warm again and to be done with school for a few months! If you click on the link below you'll see pictures of the people and places I love. Enjoy!

dress up

      There's a stage in a little girl's life when she loves to play dress up. Not only is she dressed up at all times, but she also does so without batting an eye. She speaks her mind and doesn't worry that it isn't appropriate, or that someone will judge her. For a moment you get a glance of who she really is; how she sees herself in her own mind. She'll come out wearing a tu-tu, a sheriff's badge, butterfly wings, and holding a bow and arrow and she'll say that she's a superhero-ninja-fairy-princess. She loves all things girly when it comes to princesses and fairies. She listens as you read tales of  her heroes before she goes to sleep at night. She wants to be both; princess and hero. In her eyes the possibilities are endless. The world is her oyster, and the sky's her limit. She'll go anywhere, do anything, and be anyone. Imagination; that is the key to her world of fantasy and adventure.

 All too soon she'll grow out of this phase. First, she's girl in elementary worried about boys with cooties and how to write in cursive. Then she's teenager who worries what the other girls think of her clothes and now she thinks boys are cute. Eventually she'll find the man she wants to marry (one you approve of , of course) and you'll give her away to another man to weather the tests of marriage together. But she'll never forgot how she used to dress up and save people from the bad guys. You hope that she learns that life isn't about being someone else, it's about remembering who she is. She's your precious daughter. You'll love her forever.

       

 You may be asking why I am writing this. I don't have kids. I'm not a mom. I'll tell you why. The other day I heard a father telling this story about his little girl. Most of the last two paragraphs are his words; the other parts are me. I really liked his analogy, so I wrote it down. I hope you enjoyed it!

all in a semester

my name is Melinda Moon. you may know me as Mindy. i was born in Salt Lake City, Utah.  i have five brothers and two sisters. i am 20 years old. i am an Art History Major at Brigham Young University.  i plan to graduate in April 2013. i am single, and i love to take pictures, laugh, and travel.

Here's what I learned this semester: papers aren't that bad, procrastination stinks, roommates will always be messy, the Ensign is the best magazine in the world, i'm not a sophomore anymore (bummer), no matter how hard you try time keeps rushing by, cinder block are lethal, i love my family, making art to please someone else isn't fun, i now understand by people skip class, it's better to be busy than bored, i still love getting letters, i barely get on facebook anymore, worrying isn't worth it, living four blocks from campus is too far, unlimited texting is  amazing, being a friend can be the hardest thing and the best thing, working a ton gets old but the paychecks don't, and i went home almost every weekend this semester. 

Art is a shadow of what a person is thinking... a small glimpse of what they hold inside. Little secrets, regrets, joys... every line has its own meaning. ~Sarah, Los Cerros Middle School, 1999

Five Days in the Sunshine State...
                I went to San Diego to take pictures for a friend’s wedding this past week. It was a beautiful sunny day at the San Diego Temple; the perfect kind of day for a sealing. It was so sunny that I found everyone squinting their eyes in their pictures. Later on at the reception there was dancing, food, hot chocolate, S’mores, pies of all different kinds, and of course wedding cake. Inside there was a variety of soups and warm rolls to eat before delving into the variety of sweet things outside. There were fire pits filled with warm crackling fires, divine hot chocolate with whipped cream on top, marshmallows for roasting, and pumpkin, pecan, lemon, lime, and banana cream pies! All the guest’s stomachs were pleased with the yummy food. 
                As we sat by the fire warming our hands we talked, laughed, made new friends, and became reacquainted with old ones. We watched the dancing through glass doors and heard the music as it wafted on the soft breeze through the twinkle lit trees and to us by the fire. As I sat watching and listening, I found myself in wonderment at the amazing world we live in and the great lives we lead. It’s a world where people talk, laugh, and dance the night away. True, we may meet our far share of troubles along the way, but ultimately we lead quite happy lives. It was like heaven was on Earth that night; everyone joined in the festivities. Nothing else mattered. Only the warmth of the fire and watching happy people, young and old, dance late into the night occupied our minds. The only way I can think to describe it is being completely relaxed and ready to face whatever came next. I had a belief in myself that I had never considered before
               Each day we find little things to laugh at and moments that make us smile. These instances remind me of Rob Thomas’s song Little Wonders. “It’s these little moments, the little wonders and twisted turns of fate, when time falls away; it’s these small hours that remain” with us. Time seems to speed up and there’s nothing to hold it back, so we make the most of the time we have together and part after lengthy goodbyes. Even then we aren’t gone from those happy moments, they stay with us as we turn them around and around in our minds. We moll those few days of heaven, family, and friends over in our heads, soaking up every last ounce of warmth and laughter before placing them on a special shelf in our brains to be revisited when we are in need of comfort. They will also come in handy during those rare times when we meet an old friend and reminisce for hours of those days we spent in the Sunshine State. 

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary -Pablo Picasso

This semester in school I took a Studio Art class, which I enjoyed a lot. It's a course to introduce Art History Majors to a little of what it's like to work with each medium we study in our other courses. Instead of quizzes every week, our professor assigned us a visual journal. We were to spend a minimum of three hours on it each week, then turn it in on Wednesday nights, when he would look over them and give us a grade out of 10.

Week 1 (Colored Pencil, Printed Pics)

art washes away from the soul the dust of every day life - Pablo Picasso

These are pictures from the watercolor
art class I went to this summer with
my Mom, Aunts, and Cousins. My
Aunt is a Utah Artist and she was the
one who taught the class. The picture
on the right is one of my cruciform 

abstracts. We also used different
kinds of rice paper to give our art
texture. It was hard at first, as I
believe all abstract is, but we got the
hang of it after a while. This is one of
my favorites from the first day of class.
Later we painted flowers and then
abstract flowers in vases. I learned that
I am more of an artist than I realized.
It's in my blood I guess.