Semester Outlook

So, here it is almost three weeks into the semester and I have failed to inform you about my classes this semester, much less how they are going! Fail.

This semester I feel like I have it pretty easy. I am taking my last, final credit for my majors: business finance. Beyond this I am enrolled in 2 art classes and my last credit is dedicated to my thesis. Business finance is like an accounting nightmare. All of those ratios I used to know freshman year are all back to haunt me. It is a lot of number-crunching...not what I have been used to lately. My art classes have been great so far this semester. I'm taking Graphic Design: Typography and Printmaking. In graphic design we just had our first critique. We have been working exclusively with fonts and how the font of a word can alter its implications. Eventually we will do ad layouts and such. Pretty exciting! The professor is also really laid back and cool.

When I enrolled in Printmaking, I was not exactly sure what I signed myself up for. I know now...it's a lot of work! The art of printmaking is traditionally misunderstood. A print is not a copy of a famous piece of art as so many people use the term...that is a poster. A print is an original work of art. The process involves either etching or chemically transferring an image to a plate. There are a number of techniques that can then be used to ink the plate. Finally, the plate is run through a press with a piece of paper resulting in a print on the paper. We have spent the last couple weeks learning the basics. It is fairly complicated, so I'll discontinue with my description and spare you the pain. :)

As mentioned above, I am not exactly taking a fourth class, but using my work on my thesis as a fourth credit. My thesis involves a content analysis of past and present environmental advertisements to look for trends and such. I am currently in the process of collecting my data. This unfortunately involves driving down to Iowa City to use the back magazine collection there. The Cedar Rapids library lost all of their back collections a few summers ago in the flood. I was in Iowa City for an evening this past week and am about 1/5 of the way done with my collection.

Ok, ok, enough about my boring life!