Tom's Mugs

These are Tom's mugs.

I helped him scrape out the inside before there were ready for their first firing so that something could actually go inside of them and so they weren't so heavy. 

They are so cool.

He glazed them too but he put too much on so it bubbled and gathered at the bottom of the mugs. We had to use a grinder thing to get it off and glass was flying everywhere. We had a rule that we had to leave a little space unglazed at the bottom so that it wouldn't run down and get stuck in the kiln.

Students who weren't enrolled in a ceramics classes were actually not allowed to do anything but sit there and watch. So we made it a late night date and I smuggled him in and said, "just act cool." (what movie?)

Don't tell anyone. ;)

AND on one of the last days of class when his mugs and plates were sitting on the table all done my teacher held them up and said, "Do these belong to anyone in here?"

...

Of course I didn't say anything!

And then he made an example of Tom and told us to be careful not to put too much glaze on. :/

Oops.

Tom's Bowls

These are the bowls Tom whipped out before I could even center the clay!

They're a little thick but he did a good job.

Old Pink Desk

The other day I drove past an old pink desk with drawers on one side with handles like these:

 except they were wooden like the desk and blended in nicely. On the other side were shelves the width of the desk with rounded edges. The paint was peeling off and it was dirty. 

It kind of looked like this:

Kind of.

This desk was on someone's lawn with a bunch of other junk and a large phone number. 

It was so cute. I imagined taking the pink paint off and painting it another bold color. I loved it right when I drove by for some reason...

I got the number and called for a price.

$10

I talked to Tom about it. He said, (and I thought of you, Mom) "take a picture of it and I'll make it for you one day."

PSH.

We really don't have room for it anywhere. It's really heavy and it will take a lot of work to make it look good. And then what to do with it when we move? Sell it? Haul it with us across the country? What to do with it and where to put it now being dirty and pink?

I could have bought it yesterday.

Someone else wanted it and I could have bought it last night.

...

I didn't. :(

I at least wanted a picture of it.

I drove past that lawn this morning and there was no old pink desk.

I'm a little sad.

Who knows why I wanted that thing but I thought twice about it, hesitated and missed out.

Tom better make one for me now. ;)

Math Humor

Us math people have a funny sense of humor.

In my multivariable calculus class the other week we were talking about derivatives of vectors. Our teacher was pointing out that we could call them anything. So he called one Bob and Joe and John (or something like that). 

When you take the derivative of a function r, we call the new function r' or "r prime."

So he took the derivative of his three functions Bob, Joe and John and said "now we have Bob prime and Joe prime and.." He paused and everyone knew what he was thinking.

He went back to the original functions and changed the last one's name to "optimus."

Get it?

The other day I had someone sit by me and he asked about my name. He's married and has kids so maybe he was thinking of stealing it. He asked me where it came from and I started to tell him that my grandma's name is Lillian so my mom took that and made it Lilia.
"My mom took it and..."
Guy: "She took the derivative of it."
We both laughed like the nerds we are.
I guess you could say that she took the derivative of Lillian in respect to n. :)

Guess, Guess, Guess!

Guess what kind of cookies??

I made these yesterday because the apartment smelled like onion and I thought it could be replaced by the smell of cookies.

Didn't work so well.

Flower Pot

I like the inside of the green one better than its outside. We had to "decorate" it before firing it.

I was thinking the left one could be a pot for a plant. It was the first bowl I made so it's pretty thick and lumpy but I wanted to keep it for something.

Brownies

I made Stephanie's brownies the other day.

Look at that CHOCOLATE.

 

Do you feel like you're watching Charlie and The Chocolate Factory?

 Mmm yes.

I think I baked them too long because they were kinda hard but still good.

TomTom

Speaking of Tom...

Not the coolest thing I've done..

My slab project wasn't working out so I had to do something else quick. I had to roll those slabs out by hand and stick them together. The letters were supposed to be connected but when I was carrying it over to the kiln area they broke apart really easy.

Rear-ended

The other day, Tom and I were driving and witnessed someone get rear-ended. They both drove a little way and pulled over. 

We flipped a U-ie to see if they were okay. The woman that was rear-ended got out of her car as we got closer.

She started walking back to the other person and I said to Tom, "Oh man. She's mad. She's going to start yelling at the other person. They're fine, we don't need to stop." 

But we did and asked if they were okay. The woman said yes, they were okay. And she was laughing!

 She said, "That's my grandma." 

Then we saw her. A tiny old lady was in the other car looking totally oblivious. 

We were laughing as we drove away and thought that was great that the woman that was hit had such a good attitude. Of course, how could you be mad at your frail old grandma?! 

I told Tom that it's great to know that if I rear-ended him, he would be laughing like this woman and wouldn't get upset about it. 

Family matters, cars really don't.

Swirls

This was the first thing I made. It's kind of like the thing you made, Hannah.

I'm not so creative, just copied you. :)

I thought it would look cool with candles because there are holes on the sides where the swirls aren't touching.

 

And this was very much an experiment with the glaze as you can see.. messy, messy, messy.

 I poured 4 different glazes on it and the mixtures made more colors.

 Brown wasn't one of the colors I poured on.

Bowl with a Lid

I need more practice making lids. This one was just a slab with a ball put on it for the handle. 

 That is dusty..

 I also forgot to carve and trim the foot on this one so it's flat and weird. 

It dried before I remembered it. :/

Here, this one isn't dusty.

Fruit Loop

 We had to make something that was a visual pun.

So this was a banana hula-hooping. Visual pun?

 Fruit loop but more like a fruit with a loop.

He fell over after they glazed him. One of the teachers tried to glue it back but it didn't hold. He asked me if I was really sad about it. No.

And he's smiling. :)

Or was.

Manicure, anyone?

Don't mind the garbage in the background.. :P

Spout

Next up:

 Red.

With a spout and handle.

Raku

This is the only piece I used a different glaze and kiln on.

Raku?

 The lids are silly.

Last Semester

Look Mom. :)

Here is a bowl I made last semester:

 One of its toes is missing.

The Serial Smiley-Facer

One day I noticed a smiley face above our apartment number. I asked Eldon if it was him. Nope. Tom? Nope.

Then weeks later I noticed another smiley face! Eli? Nope...

Then when Eli was waiting for me to answer the door one day he drew this:

The running man.

The fingers that drew the smileys remain unknown.

Angry Birds

Isn't he precious :)