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(02/15/15 5:30pm)
Digging into family history and exploring how it relates to a person is important in discovering oneself, according to artist Cynthia Farnell.
Farnell, originally from Birmingham, graduated from Auburn in 1992 and attended the Rhode Island School of Design from 1999-2001.
Farnell is now an artist and director of the Welch Galleries at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
Farnell said she has always been interested in art. She said her parents were very encouraging, providing her with private lessons and museum trips.
According to Farnell, her teachers at Auburn also impacted her love of art.
"One of my first teachers at Auburn, Allyson Comstock, was my mentor when I was younger, and she made me think that it was possible for me to become an artist," Farnell said.
Comstock said Farnell is a talented artist whose work deals with important topics such as memory and transcultural identities.
Farnell said she figured out she wanted to consider art as a profession in high school, when she started to recognize other artists.
"(Art) keeps me engaged with the world and what's going on in it," Farnell said.
The best part about being an artist, Farnell said, is there is always a new project to work on, never leaving her bored.
Farnell said another high point for her is engaging with students and people who come to see her exhibits.
According to Farnell, having a job in education and being an artist at the same time can be difficult. Farnell said she is fortunate because her job supports and encourages her art.
However, Farnell said being an artist can be frustrating because of the financial considerations. She said her projects cost money, and she is not always compensated.
Another challenging aspect according to Farnell is the strains on relationships. She said art is time consuming, and not everyone understands the work put into each project.
For her projects, Farnell said she doesn't use one specific style.
"I don't think of myself as having a style or trying to have one," Farnell said.
However, Farnell said she has gravitated toward photography.
"Art can be intimidating, but most people have a relationship with photography," Farnell said.
According to Farnell, everyone speaks the language of photography.
"I use that medium because it's more of a bridge with the audience," Farnell said. "I want to make them comfortable."
Farnell has placed her art in exhibits in non-traditional places, such as houses and a state park.
Lately, Farnell said older photographs and their stories inspired her.
Her most recent exhibit "Ancestors," which was featured in Biggin Gallery, came about when Farnell saw a statue of a Roman man with masks with his ancestor's faces in his hands.
Farnell said the statue made her think about her collection of family photographs.
"I wanted to think abut how the stories of my ancestors impacted who I am," Farnell said.
The exhibit featured pictures and symbols of her ancestors and their stories.
"It was a powerful show that dealt with its subject matter through the objects and projections," Comstock said.
Audience member Mary Wetzel, senior in art, said the exhibit was easy to relate to, and had a sense of story to the art.
Farnell said each project requires a lot of research, but she keeps a timeline to help make sure she doesn't spend too much time on one project.
"It's not always easy," Farnell said. "Sometimes it brings up uncomfortable feelings if you're exploring things that are troubling and meaningful at all."
Farnell said she does not consider herself a Southern artist, but being raised in the South definitely influenced her art and made her who she is.
(02/13/15 10:00pm)
Valentine's Day: A day of love, chocolates, candies and adorably cheesy cards that show someone how much you care. But for flower stores, it's a week of complete insanity.
"We have by far more flowers, more orders and more deliveries than on any other holiday," said marketing manager at The Flower Store, Sydnee Cleveland.
The storage room at The Flower Store is packed with rows and rows of red, white and pink flowers, the most prominent one seen: roses.
Ginger Turvis, the marketing manager at Blooming Colors, said roses are also their most popular order.
"Roses are definitely one of the biggest sellers, and then probably mixed cut flowers and poppies," Turvis said.
In order for a store like this to manage such a hectic time, Turvis said her employees are the key.
"We've got a great crew that sets up special areas of high volume so people can shop and look at still arrangements at the same time," Turvis said.
Cleveland said managing Valentine's Day sales requires months of preparation and is comparative to firefighting.
"It's non-stop intense for an entire week for me, like putting on a million hats and putting out a million fires," Cleveland said.
Cleveland and the rest of the staff at The Flower Store have to change their regular routine slightly in order to manage all of the incoming orders. They assign delivery drivers to specific routes and bring in more part-time employees, according to Cleveland
Adam Perkins, senior in supply chain management, has been working at The Flower Store for three years.
"It is really hectic during this time, because I had three tests this week but I also had work some nights until 10 p.m." Perkins said.
Although Perkins said he is busy, he loves what he does.
"It's a fantastic job, they work really well with my schedule and even though Valentine's Day is busy, I'm appreciative of the business," Perkins said.
At the end of the day, after the flowers have been sorted and arranged, Cleveland said she is able to reflect on the positive side of Valentine's day.
"This is the most beautiful time of the year to work here," Cleveland said. "It's fun to see love spread to everyone: girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, wives, new love and old love."
(02/11/15 9:00pm)
Facebook is creepy.
This may be the understatement of the year for a company that experimented on its users to see if it could affect their mood by showing them happy or sad posts (it could), but it's no less true.
I keep my Facebook account to stay current with old friends, participate in groups for work and because everyone else has one.
The best way to use Facebook while limiting the site's spying ability is to use Tinfoil. Like the name suggests, Tinfoil is a Facebook app for the paranoid, for people who would rather not enable location services for Facebook's app.
The app is minimalist, providing a basic wrapper around Facebook's mobile website.
Tinfoil downloads content from Facebook within the app; preventing the kind of shenanigans Facebook on Android is prone to pulling.
For whatever reason, Facebook's Android app has never been great. For years it used super-slow HTML5 code.
Then it forcibly downloaded an app called Facebook Camera onto Android users' phones without asking permission, and it was un-installable until users protested.
Then it removed messaging from the app and forced users to download a separate app until they protested.
Speaking of permission, check out the list of permissions the official Facebook app requires in order to download on Android.
It knows what apps the user has downloaded, what email accounts are on phone, as well as their contacts, calendar, text messages, location, camera, microphone and device ID.
Facebook's Android app is great for a business based around collecting information and using it to sell ads. Don't let Facebook gather so much information.
Use Tinfoil, because it provides a perfectly functional Facebook experience with a fraction of the permissions (pictures and location, the latter used only with your permission).
The worst thing about Tinfoil is it's entirely dependent on Facebook's mobile site. If Facebook changes something, Tinfoil can't do anything about it.
The app could also stand to be updated more frequently.
Tinfoil's source code is posted on GitHub.com and can be checked by anyone for shady behavior. It's far more trustworthy than Facebook, which is closed source.
Tinfoil adds a couple features on top of the basic web wrapper functions. Users can open a menu by swiping in from the right with options such as jump to top and refresh.
There's even a kill button to close the app completely when you're done with it.
Tinfoil is free on Android through the Play Store. It is not on iOS, but iPhone users can do the next best thing by pinning a bookmark to their home screen.
Open Safari, go to Facebook.com and press box-and-arrow icon.
Select "Add to Home Screen" and "Add." I tried it and got a blue "F" icon on my home screen linking straight to Facebook's mobile website.
Though it's not as convenient as having a dedicated app like Tinfoil, using the mobile site is the best way to browse Facebook without giving it as many hooks into a phone.
For the Facebook user who can't delete Facebook, use Tinfoil or a home screen bookmark.
(02/11/15 5:30pm)
As Steffi Ledbetter, junior in music theatre, waited in the crowded room with 30 other finalists on "American Idol," all she could think of was how she had possibly just given the worst audition of her life. But when the producers walked back in and said, "You've made it to the celeb round," she couldn't believe her ears.
"I remember the boy next to me," Ledbetter said. "He said, 'Wait, you mean, like, in front of J. Lo?' and when they said yes, we both just stood there."
Although Ledbetter's time on Idol ended after Hollywood, she does not seem too phased by the experience, because she said she knows every experience helps further her career.
Ledbetter said she has been singing for as long as she can remember and has known it was what she wanted to do for just as long.
"I've known I wanted to be a singer, probably since I was 7 or 8," Ledbetter said. "How I felt on stage ... it just felt right, you know?"
When Ledbetter was 10, she was recommended by a friend to a voice teacher in Auburn, April MacDonald.
"I normally don't take children, but since she was referred to me by a musician, I thought I would go ahead and listen to her," MacDonald said.
MacDonald said she knew Ledbetter was talented the second she heard her voice.
"I was afraid that with an impressive voice like that at 11, if I didn't take her as a student, someone would ruin her voice," MacDonald said.
MacDonald said Ledbetter is able to sing in the highest classical register while also having the ability to belt with the best of them.
"She was trained by me in head voice because she could go very, very high, the highest soprano, called a coloratura soprano," MacDonald said.
Since then, MacDonald has been training Ledbetter steadily for the past nine years, watching her go through countless National Anthem performances, a performance for former President George W. Bush, leading roles in plays and "American Idol."
"I was really proud of her because, no matter what, it's great exposure," MacDonald said.
Ledbetter said the confidentiality contract she was under while on the show was the hardest part. After being discovered on YouTube, she was flown to Nashville, Tennessee, to audition for the first round. Even then, she wasn't allowed to report her successes, and when she found out she would be on the show in July, she couldn't tell anyone until December.
Taylor Thomas, sophomore in media studies, said he couldn't believe one of his closest friends would be performing on "American Idol."
"We were just driving in the car when she told me, and I was like, 'Wait, really?' and then I texted her constantly while she was away on the show, asking for updates," Thomas said.
For the celebrity audition, Ledbetter said she wanted to do something different to impress the judges. She practiced singing "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons and added her own jazzy twist. But after performing her planned song, American Idol judge Harry Connick Jr. wanted her to do something more modern in jazz.
"He asked me to sing something by Amy Winehouse," Ledbetter said. "So I picked the first song I could think of on the spot which was 'Back to Black,' and I guess that's what he was looking for."
Although Ledbetter said the entire experience was exhausting, it was also rewarding.
"Getting to go home and work on the things the judges told you and improve before Hollywood week was just a great experience," Ledbetter said.
Throughout her singing career, Ledbetter said she has acquired many fans and supporters who hope to see her succeed and admire her character through all of the fame.
"It would be crazy to be able to buy her own songs on iTunes," Thomas said. "She's crazy talented; so she deserves it."
MacDonald said she is most impressed by Ledbetter's nonchalant attitude.
"Through all of that she's still very humble," MacDonald said. "I'm kind of like her second mother, and I know I brag more about her accomplishments than she does."
"I remember once when I was 10 or 11 and opening for a Trace Adkins concert," Ledbetter said. "In the middle of the concert, Trace Adkins turned to me and said, 'One day I'll be buying tickets to her show.' I'll never forget that."
(02/24/15 1:07am)
"Papers, Please" is the best boring game I've ever played. It is a game about doing repetitive, mind-numbing work, and it's fascinating.
The player takes the role of a lowly border guard for the fictional 1980s communist nation Arstotzka. They have to let in the legitimate immigrants, while barring spies, terrorists and criminals from entering the country.
Gameplay is simple. The player buzzes his or her station to call the next traveler in line. They hand over their immigration papers. The player quickly checks their passport and visa to make sure they're valid and looks for fake IDs.
The player is paid by the number of visitors processed, though income is docked for letting too many illegals through. I found myself racing against the clock, trying to process as many immigrants as possible without letting through a human trafficker or terrorist.
Saving money is important too, as the player must pay a mounting set of debts or the game ends. I often had to choose between feeding my virtual Arstotzkan family or giving them heat for the night. Earning the most money means processing immigrants as quickly as possible while still trying to check every detail.
This is the real point of "Papers, Please" -- forcing the player to make uncomfortable choices.
One woman visited my booth and asked me to let her into the country to see her sick son who needed her help. Her papers were wrong.
I thought about letting her through, knowing it would mean a citation. I considered detaining her -- the guards get paid per the detainee and split the profits with me. Throwing this old lady in jail might buy my Arstotzkan son medicine for his own illness.
Dilemmas such as this force the player to confront awkward choices about what is right. The most moral decision isn't always clear in "Papers, Please."
The moment-to-moment gameplay of swiping papers around the iPad screen and checking details is secondary to the greater narrative of trying to survive in an oppressive country where doing the right thing is severely penalized.
"Papers, Please" is available for $7.99, only on the App Store for iPad.
(02/06/15 7:00pm)
Camren Brantley-Rios, senior in public relations, said he made tacos Jan. 30 slightly different from how most people do it. He took taco shells, added taco seasoning, lime, grilled onions, avocado queso fresco, refried beans, salsa and wax worms.
"It didn't taste bad at all," Brantley-Rios said. "It was just the fact that I was eating worms was a little weird."
Jaimen Perez, one of Brantley-Rios' friends and senior in economics, said he tried the same tacos and was surprised by them.
"I couldn't even really taste the worms," Perez said.
Brantley-Rios said his whole diet for the next 30 days will be a little weird. He's challenged himself to eat every meal with some kind of bug or insect-based additive to raise awareness about bugs as a food source.
Brantley-Rios said he researched cultures that consume bugs before starting his challenge. He said his findings challenged some of his previous beliefs about bugs.
"I've always associated them with vermin for so long and being pests," Brantley-Rios said. "I was never an outdoorsy kid who played with bugs and ate worms because I was dared to, so I think I'm just trying to get out of that."
According to Brantley-Rios, his challenge began Jan. 30 with an omelette seasoned with mealworms. Although he said he was nervous, he managed to eat the worm omelette.
"I ate it, and then I started jumping up and down because I was so delighted," Brantley-Rios said. "It was a big relief because it tasted like popcorn and had a buttery taste, so it wasn't that weird."
Not all of his meals have been as easy to eat, Brantley-Rios said.
"I'm not gonna claim to be used to it," Brantley-Rios said. "I start off and think, 'Oh, this is fine.' I start off and I try to gauge the flavor and the flavor's never bad. Halfway through the meal I start thinking about it. 'Yep, these are bugs. You're eating bugs.' I kind of get grossed out, and I slow down. It's a work in progress right now for sure."
Brantley-Rios said he's found it easier to eat Exo protein bars, made with cricket flour, because they taste similar to regular protein bars.
He said he also plans to make his breakfasts by blending bug-based ingredients into smoothies.
For now, Brantley-Rios said he has to order bug foods from online stores. Food made from insects is more of a specialty item, something he said he hasn't been able to find locally.
Two people interested in his challenge, Brantley-Rios said, were Scott Clem, second-year master's student in entomology; and Simon Gregg, senior in biosystems engineering, who talked to him about buying locally grown bugs.
Clem and Gregg said they were thinking about raising insects locally before reading Brantley-Rios' blog announcing his challenge.
"(The blog has) really given us more motivation to make something happen," Gregg said.
According to Gregg and Clem, bugs are an untapped market of food creation, something people will eat in the future if they can get over what Clem calls "the ick factor."
Clem said eating grasshoppers, which consume grass, is no more "gross" than eating shellfish, which feed at the bottom of oceans or rivers.
"For thousands of years, humans have been eating insects," Clem said. "They're loaded with protein, they have calcium, they have good nutrients."
Clem said most people already eat insects without realizing.
"The USDA allows a certain amount of insect matter into our food," Clem said. "It's a very minute amount, but it's impossible to (make) things like grain and avoid having insects mixed in somewhere. It's there, we're already eating [it] and it doesn't harm us at all."
Brantley-Rios, who is mixing more than minute amounts of bugs into his food, said he hopes to change people's minds about bugs' potential as food.
"You gotta just look at it and say, 'This is just food,'" Brantley-Rios said.
(02/05/15 6:00pm)
A student decides to prepare for future travels by eating bugs with his meals for thirty days straight.
(01/31/15 5:24pm)
College students filled Bourbon Street Bar on Friday, Jan. 31, to listen to the musical stylings of Little Raine Band.
Little Raine Band, originating from Birmingham, now work their way around the Southeast, including places such as Florida and North Carolina.
The band preformed after the opening act, the Aquaducks, from Nashville.
Between the bright colorful lights and the upbeat, groovy music, audience members could not keep still.
Little Raine band caught the attention of audience member Nathan Jamison, who had not heard of the band before.
Jamison said the atmosphere the band created was enjoyable and optimistic.
Saxophone player Jonas Shultz and drummer Rohan Prakash joined Little Raine Band on stage.
Daniel Raine, rhythm guitar and piano player, said the two performers helped add a jazz-funk edge to their sound.
According to Raine, this was the bands first time having two drummers on stage at the same time with the band.
Little Raine Band performed many of their own songs as well as a few covers.
"I want our audience to leave feeling like they were positively impacted by our performance," Raine said.
Raine said the band did everything in their power to bring the heat and blow their audience away.
The goal of the band's performance was to get their audience to want to come back, Raine said.
"If you put all of the genres in a blender and mix it up, you get our style," said Davis Little, guitar player and singer.
Raine described the band as a combination of jazz, blues, funk, and electronic.
According to Little, the band started when he and Raine performed acoustic gigs together in seventh and eighth grade. The band has been together since 2013.
The band said they were looking forward to playing for the new and familiar faces of Auburn students and residents.
Little Raine Band performed with smoke and multicolored lights, and left the audience on their feet the whole night.\0x200B
(02/02/15 7:00pm)
Many people play video games, but Auburn University communication and journalism instructor Joshua Hillyer is helping make one.
"I think it's one of the most exciting forms of media," Hillyer said. "Video games are an area that I want to affect positively."
Hillyer said he is aiming to affect video games with a two-dimensional action game "Neon the Ninja." The game follows a renegade ninja as he rebels against his clan.
"He's very punk rock," Hillyer said.
Hillyer said players traverse a two-dimensional world, fighting enemies and hunting down eight different bosses like in the classic Mega Man games.
The game's website advertises it as a "Quentin Tarantino-v.-Saturday-morning-cartoon take on video games."
"It definitely has a comedic tone," Hillyer said.
Stuart Phelps, the game's programmer, artist and original creator, said he got the idea from an episode of "Samurai Jack" where the main character hides within a neon billboard.
Hillyer joined Phelps and soundtrack composer Chris Sinnott in July 2013. Phelps had been developing "Neon the Ninja" for approximately one year.
Sinnott said Phelps found him through a forum.
"I was pretty much onboard immediately because it looked so promising," Sinnott said.
Phelps said he found Hillyer through Facebook while he was posting about a new game he wanted to make. The two knew each other from playing in the same punk rock scene 10 years previously.
"He's a really cool guy, and his band was cool people," Phelps said.
Phelps originally hired Hillyer as a writer to write the in-game story, dialogue and promotional materials, but Hillyer has since become involved with design decisions as well.
Hillyer said he places non-player characters within the game and writes cutscenes to convey the plot.
"I'd like to make a game that feels great to play, has a story that makes people laugh, but [the story] doesn't get in the way," Hillyer said.
Although he writes the plot, Hillyer said he writes content for games with a light touch, adding cutscenes and other story elements that take away gameplay time only when necessary.
Hillyer said his favorite part of writing "Neon the Ninja" is creating each boss.
"Villains have always interested me," Hillyer said. "They're all so bizarre and yet understandable. One (villain) is a deranged Elvis impersonator. Though he is a crime lord, you see how his life could have turned out differently."
Hillyer said his least favorite part is the sheer amount of time involved in creating a video game.
Phelps, who has been working on "Neon the Ninja" since fall 2012, said finding time to do the work has been the hardest part of development for him as well.
Phelps said it can be difficult to choose between spending time working on his main job as a web designer, finding freelance work on the side, spending time with his girlfriend and working on the game.
Hillyer said writing comes after his day job as well.
"I've always looked at my role as a writer as a secondary thing," Hillyer said. "There's not a lot of work for indie game writers."
Hillyer said he, Phelps and Sinnott plan to fundraise for "Neon the Ninja" on Kickstarter in late 2016 to early 2017 for release on Steam and Wii U. The funding they receive will determine the final version of the game's complexity.
"I have a lot of great plans for this game, but we'll see," Phelps said.
(02/01/15 10:00pm)
I am a forgetful person. If I don't write something down within a few minutes of hearing it, it's as good as gone.
Thankfully, Evernote has alleviated a lifelong habit of scribbling notes on whatever paper is at hand.
Evernote is a better way to take notes. Users sign up for a free account and download the app, which is available for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and web browser. After that, creating notes is easy, just open a new note and start writing.
The use of Evernote lies in its organization and universality. I can write myself notes from my iPhone to check later on my MacBook, or bring them to meetings on my Android tablet. It also means I can't possibly lose my notes, barring a natural disaster destroying Evernote's servers.
Users can file everything into separate notebooks and add tags within the notes for further organization. For example, I added an "ideas" tag to my note of story ideas for The Plainsman and my note listing blog post ideas.
Evernote is also smart enough to recognize contexts and offer related notes. When I start composing a note listing movies on Netflix I still need to watch, it starts suggesting my note of movies I plan to watch with friends.
With all this, Evernote can become a catch-all productivity tool. I can compose stories for The Plainsman on my laptop in Evernote and not worry about hard drive crashes since everything is synced to the cloud.
I can also keep checklists of items within notes, making it even easier to keep track of sources to contact and interviews to pursue.
I also like that Evernote is free. Users can upgrade to a premium account for $5 per month for storing large files in notes, annotating PDFs and searching within scanned images, but most users won't need those features. They seem mainly aimed at corporate clients.
Evernote has a lot of useful features, but sometimes it veers into unnecessary complexity. Options such as location-tagged notes are a bit much for users who just want a way to jot down notes on the go.
For someone who wants a simpler note-taking app, Apple's built-in Notes app (iOS, Mac) or Google Keep (Android, Chrome) are faster and easier to understand.
(02/01/15 7:00pm)
Cooking in college can be tough for multiple reasons. There's planning to consider, money to buy the ingredients and, of course, time to actually cook. But it turns out finding cheap, easy-to-make meals for just more than $8 is possible and can be fun.
I started with the notion that I wanted to make two meals for the price of one.
There are multiple directions you could take with this idea, depending on what type of food you like the best. While oatmeal works for most breakfast meals, if you wanted to make lunch and dinner foods, then what I've found is extremely useful.
At Outtakes in the Student Center, I found most of the ingredients I needed for spaghetti and soy-and-vegetable pasta.
There is a pasta section complete with different types of sauces.
The box of noodles itself is only a couple dollars, and the sauce is even cheaper. Wal-mart sells a 15-ounce bottle of soy sauce for $2.08 you can reuse.
The rest of the ingredients depend on personal preference, but if you want vegetarian stir-fry, the stores in the Village and Terrell both sell raw produce, or you can buy a bag of frozen veggies from Wal-Mart for $1.50.
As for the cooking, I started by boiling the pasta and heating up the sauce to pour on the noodles for some delicious spaghetti. I made sure to only use half of the noodles and save the rest for the next day.
The second night, I sauteed some vegetables in the soy sauce, poured them over the leftover noodles and voila! I created two delicious meals for just more than $8.
(01/30/15 4:05am)
A Birmingham artist gave a lecture at Biggin Hall to end her exhibition of painting and sculptures Thursday, Jan. 29, at 5 p.m., and collaborated with Andrew Kozlowski, assistant professor of art, on prints of her work.
The department of art hosted Amy Pleasant, whose exhibition ran from Dec. 14, 2014-Jan. 29, 2015.
Pleasant received her bachelor's in fine arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her master's in fine arts at The Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Her work has been featured at Jeff Bailey Gallery in New York, Whitespace Gallery in Atlanta and the Birmingham Museum of Art and Candyland art gallery in Stockholm, Sweden.
Pleasant spent her 45 minute lecture speaking about her progression as an artist in the 12 years since she finished graduate school.
"I think it's important to see how an artist's work changes, why they change, different things they experiment with and failures," Pleasant said. "All of those things are a part of a lifetime of practice."
Pleasant said she is interested in mundane, daily things and people's basic relationships with others. Pleasant makes tiny drawings with brush and ink that show people doing things such as getting out of bed, having a conversation or sitting in a chair. She combines many tiny images to create large, sweeping wall drawings. Her largest wall drawing, located in The Columbus Museum in Georgia, is 20 feet tall and 30 feet wide.
"A lot of what I'm interested in is how all of our lives cross over each other at one point or another when we're all seemingly doing our own isolated things," Pleasant said, "and then what happens when we come into each other's lives and how that changes us and how that forms our decisions."
Although her artwork focuses on drawing and painting, Pleasant said she has been interested in working with print for a long time.
"There's a historic relationship between printers as facilitators," Kozlowski said. "There's this really great tradition of artists coming into print shops where the master printer or assistant printer is the go-between for the artist. They see something in the artist's work and they translate it into the print form."
Jessye McDowell, assistant professor of art and exhibitions and lectures coordinator, is generally in charge of setting up and organizing the art in Biggin Gallery during exhibitions.
"She clearly has a vision," McDowell said. "She basically designed the curation (in the gallery) ... She was very involved and had a clear idea where things should go. She is a very nice combination of someone who knows her work really well, has very clear ideas about how it should be shown, she's obviously very engaged in a deep way with her practice and she's also easy to work with and fun to be around."
(01/30/15 4:00pm)
For many students, their daily routine consists of attending class, spending time with friends and doing homework. Some students do all of that while also operating a business.
On a normal day, Ashley Kickliter, senior in graphic design, goes to class while simultaneously answering calls and scheduling appointments. When she returns home, not only is homework looming over her head, but also the photographs from countless weddings, engagements and senior portraits she has to edit.
"The first three years of college, I feel like I missed out on a lot," Kickliter said. "(But) I don't feel like I was meant for a typical college experience anyway."
Kickliter said she has been photographing her friends since high school -- going into backyards, dressed in fashionable clothing, pretending they were "ready for Vogue."
It wasn't until the end of high school that Kickliter said she realized maybe photography was something she was meant to do for the rest of her life.
"Those moments when people tell me, 'You made me feel beautiful,' that's when I'm reminded this is what I was meant to do," Kickliter said.
Deli Wayn Robertson, senior in printmaking, said she too feels the rewards of owning her own business.
"My friend I'm making a Jedi robe for, he's just so excited about it," Robertson said. "Helping somebody else fulfill a personal goal is really fulfilling for me."
Robertson said she didn't start her printmaking business for the money; she started because she loved the craft, which transformed into sharing her passion with others.
Robertson said she enjoys branching out and using her skills to further her business in other areas, such as jewelry, costumes and accessories.
"I really enjoy building friendships with people I'm working with," Robertson said. "I sometimes sell stuff to complete strangers, and it's validating in a way that people are interested enough in what I'm making to give me money for it."
Rose Sweet, senior in studio art, said the pressure of managing a business is not as bad when she is selling items she already had to make for class.
"My best friend approached me and said, 'Let's start a business,'" Sweet said. "I was like, 'Why not?'"
Sweet said she thought ceramics was the last class she would enjoy, but it ended up being her favorite thing in the world.
"I love ceramics because it's a functional art, it has a purpose," Sweet said. "It's not just something that hangs on your wall."
Robertson said she knows the clash between school and owning a business.
Robertson said it is hard to find the time for everything when some projects require weeks of research.
"Take my paper dolls, for example," Robertson said. "They are related to extensive research because I research who the person is and what part of themselves they want to share."
Finding time for extracurriculars or homework is challenging for someone spending more than an hour in the studio for a single image.
Kickliter said many students tend to misunderstand the demanding nature of a photography business.
"There's also all of the editing, packaging, delivering and answering emails and phone calls," Kickliter said.
However, when all of the hard work is over, Kickliter said there's nothing comparable to the feeling she has when she gets to know her clients and their stories and they are completely overjoyed at her work.
"I had a lady call me once, almost in tears, begging me to redo her wedding photos because the photographer they hired hadn't done them how she wanted," Kickliter said. "She is the one who wrote me a letter when she got the photos back and told me she had never felt more beautiful in her life."
A month after receiving the letter, Kickliter said she found out the couple she photographed had both just gotten out of cancer remission without relapsing.
"That hit my heart even further when I realized why she may have had such a hard time with her self-image," Kickliter said.
Kickliter said it is the moments like those that make all of the work and struggle of owning a business in school worth it.
(03/24/18 12:16am)
Madison Collins, freshman in biomedical sciences, has earned a nickname around campus.
(01/25/15 5:00pm)
Rice cookers are the quintessential college cooking contraption. They're ideal because you can head to Asian Super Market off of Opelika Road and pick up a 10-pound bag of rice when you're short on cash. It's just more than $10 and will help feed you for more than a month.
First and foremost, there's a trick to cooking perfect rice every time without using a measuring cup, called the knuckle method.
Place as much rice as you want into the ricepot, and then place your palm on top of the rice. Fill the cooker with water until it's almost past your knuckles. Turn the cooker on, wait (time depending on your cooker) and you're done.
However, just making rice is a disservice to what a rice cooker is capable of cooking.
Rice cookers essentially operate like a stovetop, which makes them perfect for Auburn's dorms, because technically, they're not stoves. A rice cooker will, generally, turn off after a set period of time or once it reaches a certain temperature. But rice cookers are easy to fool. Simply turning them back on will do the trick.
With this in mind, I came up with macaroni and cheese and chili.
(01/25/15 8:30pm)
Letterpress surprised me. I'm not much for Scrabble, Boggle or other word games. Letterpress changed my mind with its addictive approach to vocabulary ability-based multiplayer games.
Letterpress is a hyper-competitive, one-on-one version of Scrabble. There's a board of letters. Players score points by stringing them together into words, the longer the better. Picking a letter makes it that player's color; picking an opponent's letter changes its color and takes their points away. Any letter surrounded by the same color does not give the other player points for using it.
The game is easier understood in practice than it sounds.
With all the rules in play, Letterpress becomes a game of choosing long words to surround one's own letters while taking away letters from one's opponent. The extra layer of tactics atop basic vocabulary testing adds fun.
Unfortunately, what should be a basic vocabulary test often becomes cheapened when someone starts using Google. It's easy to feed letters into Google and find playable words. Since Letterpress isn't played in person like Scrabble, one has no idea if the other player is playing fair.
For example, one opponent beat me by playing "fynbos," which the University of the Western Cape said is a shrub from the Western Cape of South Africa. Either that player has an impressive knowledge of South African shrubbery, or he or she looked it up.
There's plenty of time to look words up during a match since Letterpress is played asynchronously. One player makes a move and waits for the other to react.
I rarely played a game in one session, instead making moves between classes every hour or so. It's good for a quick 30-second hit of entertainment in the Starbucks line or while waiting for class to start.
Letterpress is free on the App Store, but not available Android's Play Store. There is a $1.99 in-app upgrade for multiple simultaneous games and seeing the history of every word played in a game. I'd recommend it to any word game fan.
(01/23/15 7:00pm)
Cassidy Kulhanek, senior in fine arts, slid a sample of her work across the table. It was a print of a blue sky, with a hill, and a bone -- possibly of a dog -- lying in green grass.
Kulhanek said printmaking is the process of making artwork by printing ink on a blank page through a screen made by the artist.
"You take a chemical photo emulsion and then you put it on the screen, and that reacts to light the same way film does," Kulhanek said. "Then you have an open space to push ink through and that's how you make the print."
Kulhanek's work has been featured in local galleries and within the University.
"In Biggin, there's one show open for any student, and then one for seniors at the end of each semester," Kulhanek said.
In the Field Work Projects Gallery on Gay Street, Kulhanek has been able to display her work. She said she feels her work has begun to improve recently because she is no longer afraid "to talk about the bad parts" of herself.
"My art tends to come off as a little revealing or harsh sometimes," Kulhanek said. "But I think that's a special part of it because it gives it a little bit more of an intimate relationship with the viewer."
She strives to give all of her work that intimate feel because she thinks "it's easier to have a connection to the work if you feel like you have a connection to the artist."
Kulhanek said she originally began as a zoology major, before switching to drawing, and then finally, printmaking.
"Printmaking is really quick, and it's easy to make a lot at once, and that's good for me because I'm really impatient," Kulhanek said. "I think that's why I gravitated toward it."
After graduation, Kulhanek's ultimate goal is to earn an MFA in printmaking so she can teach, but she said she definitely wants to continue making prints as well.
Forrest Badington, sophomore in studio art and one of Kulhanek's closest friends, said majoring in art may seem difficult, but there are certain jobs specific only to those majoring in an art field, such as film.
"I want to be a production designer for movies," Badington said. "You get to have creative control over the look of the movie."
Kulhanek said her father, an engineer, is extremely supportive.
"He's just happy I'm doing something that makes me happy," Kulhanek said. "He understands it's not going to be easy for me, but he knows that I also know that."
Kyle Taylor, a recent alumnus in fine arts, and another friend of Kulhanek's, said Kulhanek has the ability to succeed in printmaking.
"She seems to work hard at what she does," Taylor said. "I hope she can be around people that want to learn."
Badington said he also recognizes the drive in Kulhanek.
"The day I left for winter break she was in the studio working," Badington said.
Kulhanek said most of her inspiration comes from her relationships with others and how she interacts with them.
What she said she loves most about printmaking is that "it is so unlike other things that you can study" or major in.
"There's no right or wrong way to do it," Kulhanek said, "and there's no right or wrong answer in the end, it's just working the whole time to improve."
Kulhanek said many people do not realize the amount of hours artists spend in the studio, and the amount of frustration that goes along with that.
"You have to work on something until you hate it, because if you love it too much, you'll just want to work on it forever," Kulhanek said.
Even with the trials and tribulations, Kulhanek said she still loves what she does and is thankful she gets to do it everyday.
"It's a very personal action to make art," Kulhanek said. "So whenever you make art you are making little pieces of yourself."
(02/11/15 9:36pm)
College can be an exciting time \0xAD\0xAD\0xAD\0xAD-- the anticipation of living alone, making your own decisions and meeting new people consumes most high school students' thoughts as they prepare to voyage into this vast, unknown place.
For me, transitioning from high school to college was probably the most exciting and the most difficult thing in my life.
My 17-year-old cousin, Anna, died my senior year of high school from leukemia, blood cancer.
One minute, I was applying to colleges, signing my life away -- or what seemed like it at the time -- and the next, I felt like I couldn't breathe.
Death is hard to accept and the process of grieving is even harder.
I kept thinking I could cover it up, go out with my friends and forget it happened.
But that's not the reality. When something bad happens, we just need to figure out how to cope.
The hardest part of grieving for me was accepting it.
She died. Even though it didn't seem like I could just go on living in a world where she wasn't, it had to happen. The earth keeps spinning.
Next was denial and dealing with family members.
The only thing that made this better for me was opening up to my family and telling them what I was feeling.
The last thing you want to do is go on family vacations and get-togethers, where there is a lump in your throat the entire time.
Instead of pretending like everything is fine, tell your loved ones what you're experiencing.
Talk about the things that are consuming your thoughts, or at least jot them down in a notebook.
We're human, and we can't keep all of our emotions bottled up just waiting to explode.
In these situations, holding on to your family and friends and leaning on them for support is crucial.
You can't do it alone.
No matter the situation, express yourself.
Everyone goes through tough times.
Keep a journal to write in whenever you're down.
It might help to get those thoughts out of your head and onto paper.
Reach out to others who might be experiencing something similar.
You never know what people have going on in their life. A simple "War eagle" might just make someone's bad day a good one.
When life gives you trying times, express your feelings and talk to people about them.
It helps, or at least it helped me.
(01/20/15 5:00pm)
The Orion space capsule blasted into orbit atop a Delta IV heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Dec. 5, 2014.
NASA and Lockheed Martin engineers collected data for testing during its four-hour flight, according to NASA's website.
Jeff Hampton, systems engineer for Lockheed Martin and Auburn alumnus, said the flight tested how the capsule would perform at 85 percent of its potential speed when reentering Earth's atmosphere.
Orion flew 3,600 miles into space, farther than any craft capable of carrying humans has flown in more than 40 years.
"Our heat shield's got to meet that criteria to survive reentry at that speed," Hampton said.
Hampton said he helped the Orion teams work together.
"One of my main tasks is to make sure the hardware guys are talking to the software guys, and the software guys are talking to the hardware guys, and everyone's talking to the lab guys," Hampton said.
Hampton said he also did a compatibility analysis for Orion's software to ensure the ship's computers could handle the data it collected.
For his work on Orion, Hampton received a program manager's commendation and a Silver Snoopy.
Beth Schulze, software team lead at Lockheed, said the Silver Snoopy is a prestigious NASA award that is "not easy to get."
Schulze said she helps direct Hampton's team in Houston from her office in Denver. She said Hampton is a talented worker and "very brilliant" even by the standards of rocket scientists.
"We consider Jeff to be one of our big-brain kind of guys," Schulze said. "He understands a lot. He's good at putting together small parts into the big picture ... It's not always easy to find people who can do that."
Hampton graduated from Auburn University in 1990 magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in computer science.
He originally attended McNeese State University for a year and a half where he "burned out" before dropping out and moving to Alabama.
He lived there for a year to establish residency and applied to Auburn.
Hampton finished his undergraduate degree at Auburn and graduate studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
As a student he worked at Auburn's veterinary school and co-oped to support himself.
"It was persistence that got me through," Hampton said.
After graduation, he tried to fulfill a lifelong dream of working at NASA, even getting an interview. He did not get the job, instead signing on at Lockheed Martin.
In 2008, Hampton began to pursue a position on the Orion team in Houston. From his position at Sandia National Laboratories, he knew recruiters within Lockheed and convinced one to take his resume to Houston. It worked.
Now Hampton helps put together the nitty-gritty details behind Orion's launch. He said it's a dream job.
"Ever since I was a kid, that's what I wanted to do," Hampton said. "I wanted to be on a project like Apollo. It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime programs."
After last December's test flight, Hampton said his team is already planning ahead for another test flight in 2017-18.
Hampton said the work makes time fly. Beating the clock is Hampton's other goal. He said he hopes to see humanity's next big steps in space.
"If I could be alive when man sets foot on Mars, I would be happy," Hampton said. "It's my hope and my dream that the work I'm doing gets us closer with every test flight."
(01/17/15 6:52am)
Auburn's Bourbon Street Bar went with the flow tonight by hosting New Orleans funk band Flow Tribe.
Bourbon also had an overflowing amount of concert goers with the line to enter the bar extending well past neighboring stores.
After an opening act, Flow Tribe overtook the stage with funk a little after 11 p.m.
Flow Tribe performed songs from their albums in addition to performing covers of songs.
In particular, the band covered Rick James' "Super Freak," which was very well received by the crowd.
Flow Tribe impressed concertgoer Lee McVay, a freshman in software engineering.
"I've never heard of Flow Tribe before but they are actually pretty entertaining and I look forward to seeing them in Auburn again."McVay said. "I was not expecting a performance with such an upbeat and groovy vibe with synced dancing."
Flow Tribe succeeded in bringing New Orleans funk to Auburn with their performance at Bourbon Street Bar tonight.
The bar was filled with a happy, funky vibe as Flow Tribe released their unique flow on stage.
K.C. O'Rorke, lead singer and trumpeter for the band, said that this was their first time back in Auburn since the Auburn-LSU game last September.
Flow Tribe, made up of six long time high school friends, originate from New Orleans but have been playing all over the region according to O'Rorke.
According to the band's publicist, Matt Kelly, Flow Tribe released their new album "Alligator White" in September.
O'Rorke said the album was focused around several genres, not just funk, "Although we are rooted in the traditional New Orleans funky music style, we also infuse swanky funk, back and forth, and bounce hip hop into our music to reflect the musical diversity of New Orleans and pay image to their musical roots while growing up," O'Rorke said.
O'Rorke also said the band enjoys playing covers of other bands' songs in addition to playing their own music during their performances.
"The best way I can describe our music is a feel good, backbone-cracking groove that people can have a good time with." O'Rorke said. "We want people to just come out, have a good time, and get ready for some backbone cracking music." O'Rorke said what he enjoys most about performing is the opportunity to meet fans and seeing different cultures.
"We take our music seriously but not our personality seriously. We like to treat our fans like friends, because that is how we see our fans," O'Rorke said.
When asked if they enjoy playing at Auburn, O'Rorke said, "We love playing in Auburn, we always get a great response from the crowds and love the way downtown is set up with everything being close together, and War Eagle."
