Current mood:

peaceful

Pottery class and non-consumerist holiday presents

So I checked the calendar and discovered that my pottery class has already been going on for five weeks (not even counting the week of the wildfires when it was canceled). And I still haven't gotten to bring anything home from it. OK, maybe I'm too impatient - again, at Free Art Fridays at the Union Craftshop back home, it took an average of three weeks to get something done. (Make the thing one week, somebody would fire it for you, put glaze on it the next week, somebody would fire it for you, and the third week you'd get to take it home.) But the Crafts Center at UCSD (while it does have trees growing through the building, which is very cool) is not so well-organized. Several weeks in a row I have gone there and not been able to locate some of my stuff: it could have been moved, or it could have been in the kiln, but I couldn't find it.

Anyway, I realized that, though none of them are ready to come home yet, I have managed to make 5 or 6 things so far (a sun face, some sushi trays, a tea ceremony bowl, a mug with fish on it, and a large pedestal/candlestick? also with fish attached to it). Before you ooh and ahh about how creative I am, realize that the instructor pretty much planned all the projects, while we students just implemented them. The fact that there's a tea ceremony bowl and sushi trays in there has nothing to do with the fact that I lived in Japan and now teach Japanese. The fact that I attached little sculpted fishes to things also doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I am a former member of the Barony of Jararvellir. Funny, that.

I don't plan on taking another pottery class there in the future, for lots of reasons. There's the expense and the fact that I'm not actually affiliated with that university (now if it were at SDSU and I could get a student discount, maybe ...). There's the time commitment, which happens to be at a very inconvenient time of the week (Friday nights). There's also the fact that I really don't like the instructor - how she keeps all the students in lockstep on their projects, how she finds fault with people if they didn't understand all the directions right away the first time, how she tends to grab what you're working on and change it without necessarily asking permission first.

In any case, there's still 3 or 4 weeks left of the class, which I will make the best of.


So people are already talking about Christmas presents, and the beginnings of shopping traffic are already making themselves felt along Friars' Road (our new neighborhood is very close to Fashion Valley Maul). I am feeling both poor and completely unmotivated to go shopping, so I'm thinking of giving non-consumerist presents, and only to my closest family members, probably. First idea: When these pottery things are done, I can give some of them to family members, if they turn out nice. Second idea: Bake Christmas cookies and send them in the mail, since I won't be going home and seeing people in person.

Third idea: Something cool from Heifer International, like a hive of bees or a flock of ducks. That donation would be made through my church in any case, which tends to pool its resources and give a whole ark each year.

Fourth idea: I have to come up with both a Christmas and a birthday present for Erik, just like every year. I already have an idea for one of them (suggested by yogaswirl, and a good idea it was too). What amuses me is that I'm going to use Erik's own username and password to research that gift on Consumer Reports Online, completely unbeknownst to him. I got him to give me his login info when I was researching rice cookers (which didn't turn out to be listed on Consumer Reports anyway).

I guess that sounds like a pretty good gift list, especially considering it's not even (quite) Thanksgiving yet.

What do I want for Christmas? The only idea I've come up with so far is a bicycle, but I'm not sure where I'd keep it if I got one - maybe someday Erik and I will have a garage?