Hi Everyone!

Wow, it really has been a long time. An incredibly long time.

I'm sorry for going away for so long and not really saying anything to anyone about it or posting up any new art. I have an excuse, I promise!

Basically, I just had the busiest year of my life. It was my senior year of high school and I pretty much gave myself a ridiculously full schedule. Unfortunately, it was the first year of my life -- ever -- that I didn't take an art class because I couldn't work anything in. So I was really very very busy and didn't have time for art. I really didn't have time for dA, either. I usually came home, did homework, and, if I had time, showered (okay, I usually showered, but it meant less sleep and I tried to avoid that whenever possible). In any case, I really didn't get a break to do much of anything artistic this entire year, and sadly, I don't even have anything new to post.

Now that school's over, I'm looking forward to doing more stuff (I just embarked on a painting for my Italian teacher of her dog, Santino) and I'm hoping that I can take more classes once I start college in the fall (I'm headed to Dickinson College in PA).

I'm also sorry to say that when I signed on there were over 800 new deviations and some 80 journals, and I really don't have the time to go through all that so I am sorry for not critiquing everyone's work and commenting on your journals.

Well, now that that's said, I think I'm off to read some more HP theory about the seventh book... I really am excited about it... but you should have already known that... hopefully, I'll be back soon with some more updates!

~Sharon

"If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things, and again with things; if we consider ourselves so unimportant and that we must fill every moment of our lives with action, when will we have the time to make the long, slow journey across the desert as did the Magi? Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds? Or brood over the coming of the child as did Mary? For each one of us, there is a desert to travel. A star to discover. And a being within ourselves to bring to life.”
~Author Unknown~

Merry Christmas, and God bless.

Every now and then I like to post my dreams, if only because they're so strange to look back on. For instance, I had totally forgotten how the Beast from Beauty and the Beast saved me and my family, who all had cancer, when we were trapped in a wormy hospital full of hopping mad doctors.

My most recent dream started long and winding and very strange, and I can't remember most of it to be honest. But I do remember the part where Caroline and I were in these trailers that were parked in my driveway end to end. In fact, the ends were open, so we could see each other quite well -- but we were each connected to ropes that secured us to a cable in the ceiling. We also had blunt spear-y things, which we were supposed to kill each other with. So we're stabbing at each other, but in opposite trailers, and really just jesting, you know. But suddenly we realize that the cable runs through both trailers, so even if we couldn't leave the trailers we could reach each other. So we make our way towards each other and grapple a bit more -- but all in good fun. It was strange beacuse I knew if I stabbed her I would kill her, and vice versa, but we were really just laughing and joking and having a jolly old time.

Suddenly I was in a hospital. Erika wanted to check on her babies [I think this stemmed from that fact that we're lab partners in AP Bio and our fruit flies are making babies right now] so she decided to call the baby ward. She dialed for the Z ward but nothing happened -- and suddenly I remembered!! On the hospital coordinate system, Z means E!! Duh! So we called the E ward, and I said I'd meet her there in a little bit.

Cut to baby ward, even though I wasn't there. The keeper of the baby ward is, of all things, the Grim Reaper, who decided it was great fun to die and grow up again, continuously and several times over. And if you stayed with the Grim Reaper too long, you turned into some sort of demon-thing.

So I mosey about, making my way to meet Erika in the baby ward. I get there and see that she is turning into a werewolf -- but only in appearances, of course. And it was quite funny, too. And we started acting out a little scene where I said, "Erika! I can't lose you!" And she said dramatically, "Run while you can.. I don't know who I will be when the transformation is complete!" And we were all laughing and joking, and the Grim Reaper allowed himself a chuckle in the corner, and there were no babies. And then I woke up.

I guess it's somewhat accurate to say I haven't slowed down since sometime around the end of junior year, between AP tests and June 16th. I was only home for about three weeks over the summer, which involved the amount of homework that would take me three weeks to do, with a weekend here and there for catching up with people. And school starting hasn't given me much time, either. Particularly the last week has been consistent in that I go to school, usually stay after for some event or another, come home, do homework, eat dinner, do more homework, and if I have time, I shower. Gross, I know. (Don't worry -- more often than not I do!!) The long, intense college search has also taken a toll on me, but my applications will be in soon enough, and I'm so excited for college that I really can't complain.

Despite the ridiculous amount of work, I have to say I've been pretty happy and lucky with the teachers and classes I've got this year. I spend about half my day in the bio room, where I take AP Bio, genetics, and work as a lab assistant for my teachers. They even have a little office in the back where they set up a little desk area for me to work in!! I'm starting to feel like that room is my second home, haha. I'm particularly excited because not only do we get to do cool things like fetal pig dissections, sequencing a part of my DNA and trying to trace my origins, and cloning African violets, we get to go on really interesting field trips. I can't wait to go to the Mudder Museum, Princeton for TIGER Talks, and the Coriell Institute, which I might look into getting an internship for next summer. I'm a big nerd, I know -- but I love it!!

Unfortunately this means something else -- I won't have much time for art. This is the first year of my entire life that I haven't taken an art class in school... and it's so strange. It just wouldn't fit in my schedule this year, and there wasn't much I could do about it. Every now and then I'll go hang out in the art room, but it's hard because I can't really be a part of it. I almost feel like art has become more of a hobby than a part of me, which isn't true. Perhaps I'll just have to take a year off and get used to occasional doodles and a painting or two. However, I definitely plan to continue art in college -- particularly ceramics. One of my dad's patients is a profesisonal potter and offered me time in his studio whenever I want -- maybe next summer I can spend time there and learn the wheel!! Ceramics is definitely my favorite, but I never had the time to perfect anything I learned. So please bear with me!! Thanks to all of you who continue to watch and comment on my work -- you are muchly appreciated. I'll try to keep in touch!

<3 Sharon