"Faces from December 8th" is a photo set found in the Motel section of Vista Drive.

December 8th 2005 marked the last day of my first semester at CSUN.  Ever since I signed up to go there I felt this nervousness.  I wondered if I would fit in, whether I would do well in my classes, and whether I'd like it there.  The answer to all three of these questions was a resounding yes.  I can honestly say that I had the time of my life, and the classes were challenging yet enjoyable.  On the last day of the semester I wanted to take as many pictures as I could in order to have a little bit of a record of that period of my life.

Really that's the basic purpose of the Motel section in Vista Drive.  Memories are fleeting, and we tend to remember things differently than how things happened.  Photographs have this incredible ability to tell a story that I love.  I can never take enough pictures.  There have been times when I've taken over 100 pictures in a couple of hours somewhere and it's still not enough.  I'll get home and I'll lament about the pictures I didn't take.  That passes because there's no use worrying about things that can't be changed.

This first picture above is of two of my Photography as Art classmates.  The girl in the pink shirt is Jennie.  Jennie is a unique person in that she knows who she is and isn't afraid to show it.  How many people can say that?  I was drawn to Jennie because of her wit, a sharp wit at that.  Sharp witted people are rare, believe me I know.  I like Jennie because she's not only sharp she's also tolerant.  There are things I say, and do, that put most people off.  I don't think there was a thing I said or did that put Jennie off.  I could be wrong, but I also feel that people are offended by some of my words or actions because they are insecure.  I often say things that people find to be poignant but also inappropriate.  My theory on that is that these people are offended because they don't really know themselves.  Something I might say only represents my opinion, but some people think that it represents fact.  The second person in the picture is Matt, a very talented photographer.  Both Matt and Jennie presented some really great photographs.  They truly have artistic eyes.  Matt is a character, which is why I think the three of us talked so much.  Everyone else in the class seemed to be a zombie.  The three people you could always count on to have an opinion was Jennie, Matt and myself.  There would be times when I would actually stop myself from saying more because I didn't want to monopolize the class with my stupid thoughts.  Having these two people in this class really made the class for me.  Everyone else seemed to be stand-offish, sheltered with their actions and words, but not these two.

Brina is a classmate from my Writing about Literature class.  Brina and I clicked from the first day I sat next to her.  She told me one day that she wished I had been around sooner so that she could have taken more classes with me.  It's funny how things like that work out.  It was her last semester and my first, yet we were able to spend that time goofing off and having a great time together.  What I'll remember most about that class is Brina.  She, another girl named Liz, and I, were notorious for our talking throughout the whole class session.  The teacher was nice enough not to get annoyed, or tell us to shut up.  Well, you might say she was spineless really because it would have been quite easy for her to just tell us to calm down.  I would have known that that was the signal to get serious.  Brina is a goof too, as witnessed by the picture above, which she took herself.  Anyone who is this goofy is someone I'm going to be friends with.  Life is too short to spend it worrying about every little thing.  Another thing I'll remember from that class is the bitchy group of people that sat next to us.  They were pretty much annoyed with our talking through the whole class, but we didn't care.  I thought one of the girls, another girl named Liz actually, was so pretty.  I would have talked to her, but the barrier from her being in one group and me being in another group kept me from interacting with her.  It's funny how people form cliques and have a hard time breaking the interpersonal barriers.

This is a picture of me as taken by Brina.  The previous picture she took and this one was taken by her with my camera.  She saw it in my hand and took it from me and snapped a few pictures while we walked to our next class.  The picture she took of me is perhaps the only picture of myself that I actually like.  The sun was bright, but the weather was cool.  I wore my huge winter coat and my messenger bag.  I made my best GQ face and she took the picture.  Like I said, this is one of the few portraits of myself that I actually like.

My third class of the day was called Narrative Writing.  The girl in the picture above is named Bethany, an absolutely beautiful girl.  She honored me when one day after doing our roundtable critique she informed the group that the story we had just critiqued was inspired by something I did in class.  I thought that was the COOLEST thing, that little ol' me was the inspiration for a story.  I couldn't wipe the smile off my face for the rest of the day.  The group of people that I met in that class was quite incredible and diverse.  Bethany is a dancer, another person, Kelly, is this incredible artist.  There was this girl named Tiffany that I'll always remember because she was quite the character.  One day Tiffany and I talked in the hall for the better part of two hours because class was cancelled and neither of us had anywhere to go.  I had to wait around for my next class to start, and she was waiting for her sister I believe.  Whenever I met someone who is as big of fan of the Simpsons as I am I have to talk to them endlessly about the show.  Narrative writing also had this girl named Annette that was the first girl I asked out at CSUN.  She turned me down, but she was the first one I asked out on my new school.  It sucked that she turned me down, though it was for the best.  We had some great conversations too, and I really liked her.

The last class of the day was Verse Writing.  The picture above is of Kendall, my favorite person from that class.  I loved making her laugh.  Her snickering laugh was like this stamp of approval that made me smile.  I was drawn to Kendall from the start, and not just because she's cute, but because she's smart.  Smart is always better than just being cute.  There was another girl in that class who was ABSOLUTELY beautiful, but she was kinda plain personality wise.  Her name was Brianna, though now that I think about it it is unfair for me to say that she had a plain personality since I didn't interact with her much.  Brianna sat next to me twice, and both times I couldn't make her laugh AT ALL.  That's a problem, for me anyway.  Brianna is physically incredible, but was hard to talk to because she put up a barrier of silence around herself.  The other person I will remember from my verse class is Mary.  We had a falling out because of something I said, but I really liked her poetry, and I thought she was cute.  There was something about the way she looked at things that I found to be so attractive.  I'm attracted to silly things, I'll admit that.  I fucked up things between Mary and myself to the point that I'm pretty sure the next time she sees me she will either totally give me the cold shoulder or kick my face.  I loved my verse class, so much so that I'm taking the advance verse writing class next semester.  My biggest weakness is poetry, but I'm facing that weakness head-on.