mew-magic5

My manager at work brought everyone a canvas and had us all paint on them for her wall at home. Finally painted in what has been years (I mean, I believe since high school).

My phone takes excellent pictures but is having trouble with the colors, so I'm going to have my brother come over tonight and use his camera to get a really nice shot so I can upload it before I have to give the picture to my manager.

Expect it up hopefully tonight, or maybe tomorrow?

Either way, hope all is well with everyone. I have the majority of you on facebook and/or tumblr, but if not, shoot me a message. :3

I love how I decided last time I would start drawing again, and a year, plus, I still have nothing.

That however has changed, because I actually already have something drawn. So it will be up tomorrow. :3

School is still hectic as all hell, but I will start drawing and uploading more. Even if it is more of sketches and scraps.

However, if anyone is interested, I have a tumblr, here:

mewmagic5.tumblr.com

Feel free to follow me, and if your tumblr name is different than your DA name, let me know here or there so I know to follow you back.

Long time, no... anything.

So yes I realize my last entry was over a year ago.

Why yes, my latest deviation was uploaded even longer than that.

Yes, I am going to try to change that.

Lauren and I went on a last minute, "oh hey der myspace" run while drunk off our asses with everyone at her party the night before last and looking through the art I had posted on there, I won't lie, I miss it. D:

So I definitely can't say I'll be posting everyday, but I'm definitely going to start doodling again, and if I can get the extra time between school and work, I'm going to see if I can't even pick up photoshop again.

Let's do this, yesyes?

<333

No, sadly, this is not a delurking journal, and I promise, with school out in two weeks, I will be on to comment, but something has happened school wise, and I would appreciate the help if you could spare it. Mind you, this entry will be long, so bear with me. It was copied and pasted from my livejournal, so for those of you who are friends with me there and on facebook, I apologize for the spam.

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Guys?

I NEED YOUR HELP

I know I said I would update the second of the two entries like, three days ago, but some shit has come up in the past few days and I would really appreciate the help. For those of you who have a facebook, [info]frankie_25 ,[info]reya_chan ,and [info]abyssed , I see you guys have already joined and I appreciate the help, and for those of you with a Deviantart, expect to see something similar, if not a copy and paste in a journal on there.

Simply put, if you have a facebook and we are not friends, then please add this group:

www.facebook.com/group.php?gid…

Please, also, invite all of your friends, I could care less if only 9 of your 697 join, it's 9 more we didn't have before. And if you are interested in writing a letter or email, let me know and I will send you information via email or Facebook message.

Now, for what is happening. (This will be LONG)

Just the other day, the Dean of the Language department announced he was considering eliminating the Russian major, and only making it available for doing the World Business and Language concentration. Mind you, this is my major. Now, at that time, I had already been declared, and being a  LWB major, this wouldn't affect me. However, there is a full section of Russian 101 and 201 students who do not have enough hours to declare yet, and many want only the major, and not an additional concentration in business.

We were hoping that by sending a few letters, we would end this.

Today, the same Dean announced that he was eliminating the budget for both the Russian Department and the Italian Department.

This changes everything entirely.

Now let me explain, and bear with me. By eliminating the budget, he leaves two of the three Italian professors jobless. As for the Russian department, that leaves my teacher, Irina jobless and almost two years earlier than expected. In return, that will cause either two things. One, all 40 something 101 and 201 students will find out days before classes begin, that oh, by the way, Russian class no longer exists, or two, Professor Blackwell and Natalia will be forced to take over those courses.

With those two already teaching full schedules they will have to drop literature and conversational classes that are directly tied to my major.

Now, what that means, is the Dean can say, oh, well you guys don't have any students signing up for Russian, so why even have this as a department? Ironically enough, there are no students, because there are no classes, there are no classes, because there are not enough teachers, and we cannot hire teachers because YOU placed a ban on the funding.

Funny, is it not?

Now here's the kicker. For about a period of 10 years, there was only one graduate with a Russian major. The Russian department has literally exploded since then. For the last few years, there have been two sections of 101 and 201 as opposed to one section of each because that many students have signed up. Irina was originally hired to help teach said courses, because it was too much for Blackwell and Natalia. In the next two years, 10 students will be graduating with a Russian Major, and that is not including us LWB Majors, who will also have majors in Russian, and well as a business concentration, and those who are only minoring in Russian. Long with that, here are a few other short reasons for keeping the department:

The program is strong and growing, with award-winning students

Russian is a critical language

Elementary and intermediate courses have been fully subscribed, with upper level courses trending that direction (Again, school isn't even out and classes are already FULL)

The program stands to be among national leaders in graduate numbers within three years (Again, 10 students with the major ALONE)

There is no budgetary savings from the proposed closure (all affected students still need to take a language and a humanities course)

The proposed closure reduces diversity and international expertise (by cutting Russian and Italian language and culture seats by 50%, Italian by 80%)

The proposed closure contradicts the university's SACS accreditation plan, "Ready for the World"

The program is economically efficient in cost per student credit hour produced

Humanities areas, and undergraduate programs, are as important to the state as the sciences and graduate programs

I also have other small issues. Such as the fact they're also targeting the Italian department, and that prior, we have heard similar rumors about the Portuguese department, and even the German (which is beyond us because German is a very popular language on campus).

Even Japanese has been rumored, and I'm sorry, but it was UT cutting the Japanese major prior to my attendance that has already caused me to look to somewhere else for grad school (aka, hey UT, you're not getting anymore of my money once I graduate), and I'm sorry, but if I only wanted Spanish and French as my language options (And do not get me wrong, I speak Spanish and I love the language) I would have stayed at Pellissippi and taken the same courses for cheaper.

The reason I came to UT was because it offered the various language courses. If I could spend the rest of my life in school learning language after language, I would. I was also unaware until a few days ago that out Campus is the only one in the state to have a Russian major. Silly me, I just assumed a variety of languages was taught at all universities. A fail on my part obviously.

What I'm asking is simply for you guys to join the group above, and over all, if anyone is willing to write a short letter or email on how the Russian major is important, and why we should keep it, again, let me know. I'll send you a couple of information mails and the addresses to do so. I would really appreciate it because we need all the help we can get.

Overall, I'm passionate about all language, and for me, it seems my university is turning into a third rate one by doing nothing more than raising tuition, but eliminating the classes, that make it stand out from others. I'm also a firm believer that knowing at least one, if not more foreign languages is important. Not only can it take you places, it's something that we honestly can't avoid with the way out world is connected today.

It seems from the looks of it, that this Dean just wants to get rid of Foreign Language in general at our school, and that, I honestly do not understand.

Thank you guys for your time.

<333

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Whatever help you guys can give, please do. My professor would prefer we stay away from demonstrations and protests unless deemed necessary, and fully believes that if enough people write letters, we can change this before effects start taking place.

Thanks again guys.

Well I apologize for really not being that active, minus what few comments and what not I've given.

One of my many resolutions for this new year involves getting back into art. While attempting to clean the ground zero that's my room I came across just about every painting I did back in high school an immediately missed it. So with my next few paychecks, I plan on taking a bit from each and investing in a set of paints and some canvas and going to town.

Not to mention I plan on doing some actual drawing, though since we no longer have a working scanner, whenever we get that one fixed or buy a new one will affect exactly how long you may or may not have to deal with crappy camera pictures.

Anyways, I've looked and commented through a good deal of deviations, but I still have a few I'm holding, and I still need to go through journals, so as long as I don't get too distracted, expect comments within the next few days, especially since school starts Wednesday, and honestly, this semester looks like it may be a bitch, so I may not be on DA too often. :/

But my New Year was fucking fantastic, and I hope you guys had one that was just as fun, and that it continues throughout this entire year. :3