what I'm loving right now.

These gorgeous photos Evane took of Hannah's room at our old apartment.  I love that wall of concert posters more than anything.

This (blurry) shot of my genius mama walking across the stage to receive her nurses pin (I think that's what it was.)  I couldn't be more proud of her; she's the only one I've ever called when not feeling well and the best nurse I know.

I finished the last episode of Freaks and Geeks the other day and I'm sad.  Seriously, people... this show is amazing.  Funny and touching and full of people you know.  I spent the whole time going, "Oh! That's that guy that's on that show!" or "She's on this?"  Watch it.  Now.

Loving this shot from my old living room.  The brass, tarnished silver, white ceramic, hobnail glass, old wood and screws, and the patterned wool rug...  Love.

Every year when the kids get together to decorate my mother's Christmas tree, my brother puts random things on it.  He wasn't here this year, so I did a bit of guerrilla decorating for him.

no more sappy, I promise.

Just pure gratitude to the family and friends who drove for hours here and back to east Texas, bought plane tickets, re-arranged finals, adjusted family Christmas and birthday celebrations, and spent their precious holiday weekend to come and see me walk across a stage for 4.5 seconds.  I heard their cheers, crossed my fingers again that I wouldn't trip on my uncomfortable shoes, held on to my too small cap (Yeah right, one size fits all!  What about my giant head?  One size fits all normal-headed people.), smiled at the man I'd never met but evidently runs my school, and took the rolled up piece of paper that said, "Don't fail your finals or you won't actually get the piece of paper that we're pretending to give you right now!"

It was so worth it.

I wore my little blue shawl/scarf/stole thing all day and had the dumbest, giantest (that's a real word; trust me, I'm a college graduate) smile on my face when everyone asked, "Did you graduate today?"  I got a free strawberry lemonade out of the deal, so the whole tuition thing is almost evened out.  The family and friends all went to lunch at the group of food trucks on south Congress.  It was delicious (salted caramel creme brulee!) and as I sat there with a bottled Mexican coke and a fresh squeezed lemonade (as would be the theme of the day, It's my graduation and I can have both if I want!) I stared at all the people who loved me and realized again just how lucky I am.

After a mid afternoon siesta and a more comfortable shoe change, Hannah, Katrina and I headed over to the east side to meet up with Matt and Bri.  We had yummy tacos and margaritas at Takoba and more tequila shots and Hendrick's at Shangri La.  It was the perfect go-out-and-party-it-up night for a girl that never goes out and parties.  Despite my frustration at the EAST SIDE KING BEING CLOSED BY THE TIME I GOT UP OFF MY LAZY BUTT TO ORDER, we ended it at Lucky J's on 6th and Waller.  Chicken and Waffles!  Katrina and I split a cheese steak from a neighboring food truck; the star of the evening, however, was the chicken and waffle with bacon, swiss cheese, syrup and hot sauce.  I believe that's what's known as magic.

Those photos?  2 AM is the best time to take use a photobooth.  Fur-hur-shure.

I started off this post by once again being crazy sappy about people I love and ended it with descriptions of food.  So, pretty much life as usual.

sappy time (part 2)

I know I already got weepy last week about my family, but it's gonna happen again, people.  I'm just really lucky.  I'm sure some of you think that you have people who love you, but compared to me, you're all Oliver Twist and "please sir, I want some more (friends)."  (That's really confusing punctuation, so I'm just gonna leave it like it is...)

Most of my family is coming from across the country to see me walk across the stage for 3 seconds.  I'm just waiting for all the yells.  (I didn't get the only loud Corder genes!)

Behind the scenes info: when this photo was taken a few Christmases ago, a random lady relative called us "a bunch of hussies."  I think it wasn't meant to be an insult?  Also, be grateful girls, I was gonna put that picture of us doing ANTM in our Christmas snuggies.

Little known fact: that photo of Evane and Campbell is of the only time they've interacted without bloodshed.  :)  ...Skunks!

My family is precious.  You don't get to pick your family and I really lucked out with this one.  Nobody does group texts and That Thing You Do quotes like us.

You do get to pick your friends, however... I did a fantastic job with that one.

I will never not love this photo. Note to self: always have red lipstick, red nails, a glass of wine, people who love you.  Also, I love how Loryn looks like a blow-up doll in the top left photo.

My friends are as good at making faces as I am.  (What? You don't have photos of you and your friends  with crazy hats?  You really should.)  These people love me, even though they know all the sucky, not-so-pretty, wanna-hide-the-skeletons-in-the-closet, icky stuff...  Do you know how special that is?  They make me better and let me love them.  Life is good, people.  It's good.

Anyways, graduation.  This Saturday at noon, it's on.  Party time!  I know my instagram followers are going to be disappointed at the lack of late night "I'm studying in a coffee shop/library" shots.  No more photos of my laptop, coffee and homework... Here's a small sampling to make up for your future loss.  

who needs a desk?

When I was little, we had these two bamboo chairs that we'd fit together, front to front, to create a "crib".  I remember when I was sick I'd get to sleep in them and I loved the coziness (and getting to sleep anywhere besides your bed is exciting for a child!)

On the 2nd floor of the Union (UT's main student building) there is a long hallway, beside a big fancy ballroom, that has fifty chairs set up like this.  (they're left like this overnight, so it's not just students moving them)  I love the idea that the university realizes that studying (or sleeping) is best done when you're comfortable - it totally works, I spend 99% of my on campus studying time in this exact spot.

give credit where credit is due.

I'd like to thank the fruit cup that I got at the campus store where I bought a blue book for giving me such confidence on this upcoming test.  I know I'm going to do well, but not because of the large amount of studying I've been doing the past two days.  I'm going to do well because your giant size and surprising variety of fresh, beautiful fruit has put me in the perfect frame of mind.  I'm gonna drink this giant bottle of water I bought as well, finish the last, ripe strawberry and then go in that giant hall and write an amazing essay about the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements.

You're the best, fruit cup.

(That's a giant bottle of water, by the way.  Don't let the proportions 

skew your perception of how big this fruit cup was.)

They're everywhere!

So, evidently these painted covers are all over campus.  I'm sure they're some sort of code for maintenance, but I choose to believe it's UT's commitment to keep things trendy.  Color-blocking and neon ftw!

(Dad, that means "for the win.")

stylish construction

The pretty manhole cover I discovered on my walk from class.  The perfect neon pink and citrus orange.  So, chic, UT!

late night books and coffee.

This is what my late night coffee shop study sessions look like.
(As seen by Larisa - she's good at instagramming.  Follow her.)

Larisa doodles.

I study (and drink coffee.)

Coral roses in a Crown Royal bottle.

Sock bun and tattoos.

Unwitting photobomb.

THE BEST PIZZA EVER!

(Loryn and Amby, this is the Epoch, the one I was telling you about from Eastside Pies.)

things that I think are awesome (the my russian professor is a boring lecturer edition)

My Russian professor is a very boring lecturer.  And he does really smart stuff like tell us that what he's about to talk about will not be on the test.

So, without further ado... Things that I think are awesome.

 One of my favorite bloggers, Emily Henderson, shot this bathroom at a house she was styling. 

Somebody tell me that you can buy paint for tiles and that if I ever see a boring, white tiled bathroom that I can take some green paint and do this to it.  So gorgeous!  I love this color green, too.

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Vintage Marquee DIY by Oh Happy Day

This is fantastic.   I totally could see this with "LOVE" for a wedding or someone's name for a party.  She used these globe lights from Target and it's a pretty cheap project with a lot of impact.

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someecards.com

See, yayas!  My messy house is a sign of my love for you .

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Ferocious Felt Lion Coat from littlegoodall on Etsy

I love.  I love.  I love.  I love.  I think that when I'm out of school (December! So close!) and have some time on my hands, I"m gonna do a little more creating - this is so inspiring.  Friends with kids, get ready for lots of presents.

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by Sibylle, featured in Design Sponge

I love this meat grinder turned planter.  I always keep a eye out for one of these things every time I'm in a thrift or vintage store.  It's the perfect genius, obviously project.

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photo by Avery House as shown on 100 Layer Cake

I love the use of giant gold balloons as table numbers.  The flowers are gorgeous as well - I love the tight, single color arrangements.  This would be awesome on a smaller scale for a dinner party with even more shades of red/pink in various short white vases.

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This. Is. Hilarious.

I've done it a thousand times.

You're welcome.

not that I don't normally enjoy lectures...

But I just really loved this one.  (Ok, so I don't normally pay attention in my Russian class...)

The translator for Thirst, by Andrei Gelasimov spoke in our class today about her career in translating Russian literature.  It was super interesting and I might have avoided zoning out for the first time ever.

If you do end up reading it, feel free to tell me what you think.  It'll be on the final, I'm sure.

in which I try to trick my sister into doing my homework with me

"Come on, Risa.  You wanna watch this Russian movie with me?"

"Sure..."

"Ok, let me just see what I'm supposed to be writing the paper about..."

"Wait!  This is a homework movie?  Dude.  I'm not doing your homework for you."

"No!  It'll be fun!  It's a normal movie, not a homework movie.  It's in Russian; it's interesting, I promise!"

Didn't work.


But, if you want to do my homework with me, feel free...

monday.

Wake up early.  Wear a handmade colorful skirt.

Do homework on the bus.

Drink some oj.  Go to the financial aid office.

Listen to Adele.  Walk to class.

Read books by old Russian guys.

(Escape Hatch by Vladmir Makanin)

Make salted caramel dark chocolate brownies (from scratch!) with your sister.
Ruin the carmel three times.
 Discuss life after college.

Watch a traumatising documentary about natural birth and then decide to adopt.
Stay up late doing homework.  Go to bed.  Wake up.  Do it all again.

don't you love 3:30 in the morning?

Finals week is almost over (including all of the papers and programs) and I pulled (am pulling at this very moment) a few all-nighters.

a slice of epoch pizza from eastside pies with a grapefruit izzie.  perfect late night dinner.

a soy mexican chocolate mocha and actual studying.

no epoch all-nighter would be complete without some bathroom graffiti pics.

Oprah's in my government book!

did you get a good lawyer?

Larisa and I have been talking lately about working on a few more songs together.  We came up with one that we wanted to sing and decided to go up to campus last week to find a pretty place to perform.

Well... We got a little distracted.  I started showing Larisa around campus and she fell for all of the gorgeous architecture.  She stole my phone (better camera) and went on a little photography spree.  She'd get enthralled with beautiful woodwork on a doorway and then apologize for "taking so long"; I wanted to pull out all of the random photos of campus on my phone to show her just how much I understand.  I'm a sucker for a gorgeous building and I love that she appreciates UT the way I do.

 all photography by Larisa Corder

We headed over to the music building where they have a bunch of little soundproof practice rooms to run through the song.  I pretended to play around on the piano, but I soon let the real musician accompany our tune.

Of course, by the time we were done sightseeing and playing around on the piano, it was dark outside.  Grrrrrrr.  We tried out a couple of places outside, but we couldn't find enough bright light to film.

Our solution?  The laundry room.  Yeah, that's where all of the great musical collaborations take place.

We just Could. Not. Get. Through. This. Song.  One of us kept forgetting the words (me) or messing up on the harmony (me) or laughing (me).  

Such are the things we do.

P.S.  It's not just me, right?  I make some weird faces when singing.

things that I think are awesome (the it made me laugh edition)

I haven't been feeling super fantastic this week (as Loryn and Mel got to witness when they dropped by to see my beautiful, pj clad, unwashed hair self) and since I found out I can make up some of the test I bombed last week,  I've been laying around watching The Office and studying Linguistics.

In a particularly challenging chapter on phonology, I found this:

"switching my major to figure drawing"

I feel you, mysterious artist who also bought/sold their book to the UT Co-op.  If I had to study this stuff for more than one class I'd switch my major too.  (And if I wasn't 242 days away from graduation, I might switch my major to one that didn't require this class as well...)

this chart is the bane of my existence

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more funny things...

a drunk guy in the back of a cop car sings "Bohemian Rhapsody" flawlessly

"I have done nothing wrong - even the situation where you grabbed me, has nothing to do with having been sort-of intoxicated, as you proclaim!  And I didn't say that I was intoxicated... And it doesn't even matter! What it has to do with is brotherhood of man on the planet Earth!" 


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I'd like to thank Clint for showing me this next video and its compatriots.  My Drunk Kitchen is a series where a girl named Hannah gets drunk while she films a cooking show and posts the videos to YouTube.  

It's as awesome as it sounds.

Most of the videos are about cooking things like pizza or omelets.  My favorite, however, is one where she attempts to make cookies.  She's not a fan of baking, by the way... (language warning)

"nothing about cookies is fun"
"now it's the worst part, the part where we cook and don't just get drunk"

"pretentious a** recipe"

"put some baking powder in, it doesn't matter how much"

"things to do while it's baking - clean your kitchen so your roommates don't get mad about your drunk cooking show"

Clint, let's make our own drunk cooking show.  We'd be soooooo good.

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Nobody does "Garth and Kat" better than Andrew Rodriguez and I. (I'm Garth)

some of Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig's best work.

"That's how your hair looks when you come out of the shower?"

"I heard a rumor that you gave me chocolaaaaaaates."

"Please, Seth!  We came all the way from Colonial Williamsburg!"

"Please!  I'm begging for my life!"

Every single time they break and start laughing, I almost pee in my pants.  They've done this bit a million times (you're welcome) but I love it every time.

please, nobody rob me.

I just realized that when you add in the flip cams from The Autism Project (I have them so I can download all of the clips of last weekend's Journeys in Music) to my MacBook and iPhone... I've got a couple thousand dollars in technology in my school bag.  Eeek!  I'm keeping this thing so close to me.

But!  I've got those videos and photos uploading onto my computer and there are some cute things on there.  Amber came and took pictures for me, so I'll wait until I have some pretty ones to show you.  (Thanks, Amby!)

Now, to answer everyone's questions about what it is that I've actually been doing... Last semester, I volunteered with a professor of mine, Pam Buchanan, at an event called a Super Sleeper, with her program, The Autism Project.  I was paired up with an amazing kid and the two of us discovered a mutual love of music and performing.  He decided that we needed to start a band (fortuitously, there was a grand piano in one of the gyms) and  we spent the weekend preparing for a big concert.  The same weekend, a local musician volunteered to play for the participants and what was supposed to be her concert turned into these hours of audience participation.  The kids loved singing along with her, writing songs and singing into the microphone.  My kid was really excited about having a "real, live, musician" attend our concert (Band name?  The Next Big Thing) and it turned into one of the sweetest moments ever. (Why, yes.  I totally belted out "Rolling in the Deep" with a 10 year old as our dramatic concert finale...)

I talked to my professor the next week, saying that more music had to be added to the Super Sleeper program.   I'd later realize that this was totally her style, but then I was a bit shocked when she announced that we were just going to have to make a new program exploring music and that I should invent it.  We've been working on the it since last December and had our first Journeys in Music event this February.  Last Friday was the second and we'll have two more this semester.  It has taken SOOOOOO much work, but I'm loving it.  Pam has told me I can do whatever I want and seeing the students get to explore music in a variety of ways is such a rewarding thing.

The events have about 15 children, each placed one on one with a UT volunteer.  We have a bunch of instruments (from guitars to ukuleles to trombones to violins to drums - the last is a real headache inducer) for the children to experiment with, helped along by local musicians and students from UT's School of Music.  From the very beginning, I've said that I wanted the students to have free reign over their playing.  Most children (not to mention ones with disabilities) are told to be very careful around expensive instruments, so I made sure we bought them all ourselves (or had them donated) so that the kids could bang away until their hearts were content.  I didn't want to stress about breaking anything and you can sense that freedom when you walk in the room.  (By freedom I mean loudness.)

We have a guest performer each time and this month was Austin local Patrice Pike.  I was particularly excited about this because I've seen her in concert a few times and she's amazing.  It turned out to be a really special performance; Patrice had been losing her voice all day and I told her not to worry if she needed to cancel on us.  She rallied herself (and as a singer, I could tell how much she was straining) to perform for the kids and they loved it!  She led them in a few dances and call and repeat songs and even let a few of the children sing in the microphone as she played her djembe.

The big finale of our night is a performance by the children.  We have a time where they can practice their solo with our accompanists or practice their lyric skills in our song writing session.  Each time we've had a few students sing songs they wrote themselves in that session, accompanied by one of our local musician volunteers or playing the guitar or piano themselves.  (That is a sight to see - an seven year old who's had about 20 minutes experience on the guitar accompanying himself on "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, version 2" that he just wrote.)  The big finale of Friday's even was definitely an eight year old boy rocking it out to "TNT" by ACDC.  The whole thing - air guitar solos and everything.

"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, version 2"

In this clip you can't see the epic bow he took at the end, but he was oh so proud of himself.

I've spent my whole life performing, but there is something really special about a little boy or girl standing in front of a microphone for the first time, hearing the thunderous applause of the whole room...

It's good to be me those nights.

A few of our UT volunteers helping one of our participants write a song.  He's a nine year old boy writing a song about his dog, so as you can imagine, it included a line about scooping the dog's poop. 

Hey!  We don't censor artistry at The Autism Project...

this makes me happy.

When I was at UT the first time, I had all of my classes in the education building on the edge of campus (makes sense, I was a special ed major...)  But now that I'm back and taking all the random little classes I have left before graduation, I'm spending time on campus in places I've never really been before.  The photo above is outside one of my classes where I sat down and ate lunch on a bench and just past those trees is the UT tower.  So, pretty much in the middle of campus, behind me a straight view to the Capitol, but a place I've never had class before/spent any time in.

I sat there on Monday, eating my seitan BBQ wrap (awesome new vegan food cart right on my path during lunch time... score!) and waiting until it was time to volunteer for a linguistics experiment.  (Volunteer is such a nice word.  Forced to sit and listen to non-sensical sentences for an hour for class credit is more like it.)  There were flowers all around, six gorgeous old buildings surrounding me (they call it the six-pack) and these giant, amazing trees forming a canopy over my head.  It was a perfect moment.

I would spend the rest of the day stressing out about how to get everything done before Friday for my autism/music program and then spending an hour or two discussing/arguing about everything from roles for women in Hollywood to the government's role in our solar panels (and daily lives.)  But those twenty minutes were calm and peaceful, surrounded by beauty and great architecture, and just for me.