i sneak into cal arts

We took the weekend to go down to Riverside to visit our friends, the Smiths. It was a long 9 hours there, but we made it. It was wonderful seeing them again, although it was immediately apparent that something was very different with Jim's absence. At the ceremony / party I got to talk to a few of their friends who are students at CalArts. One of them was Zoe (with two dots over it), who actually came to help at CSSSA last summer. She set up and managed the sound-recording sessions for our short film final projects. It was great being able to talk all about the way students live there at the dorms --she seemed to like it a lot-- and also it was interesting hearing about the two students' different experiences.
So now that I had gotten all jazzed up about CalArts again, and since we'd be driving right by it the next day, I had the urge to stop by, just to look inside again.
The next day my parents dropped me off there so they could go get gas and food (7 hours to go!). The school was pretty empty, since it was Sunday, but there were a few students walking around here and there. Immediately memories started coming back to me and my heart started racing! It was really strange to be walking in someplace that really only existed as a memory for the past six months. Yet here it was, cafeteria and all, and I was walking through it. Sometimes I found myself laughing out loud because I couldn't believe I was there again. It didn't seem like that big of a deal until I actually went inside the place.
I walked around gaping at the artwork put up on the walls in the main auditorium, then headed down stairs to where the animation room was. As I rounded the corner I figured that the doors would be closed on the weekend, but then there they were, wide open! I had my camera handy.
Yep, that's right! Corny Cole was in the Palace doing his drop-in Sunday figure drawing class. Oh man, I wish I could have stayed!!! But I got to talk with him a little bit--I'm surprised he remembered me--and he wished me luck with my portfolio. In fact, he says, they had just started looking at them the day before. Yikes!
After visiting him (and marveling at his pastel work) I went out into the main hallway and gaped at all the student's artwork up on the walls. Quite incredible stuff.
Next I went upstairs to look around the animation cubicles, little personal office-like spaces with shower-curtains for doors. There wasn't a single wall that didn't have scribbles and caricatures all over it. I didn't look inside any of the cubicles themselves, but they seem to be pretty neat little work places. (And it appears that they are pretty lenient with student's cubicle-decorating)
It was a good visit but all too short. My parents were back after 15 or 20 minutes, and it was time once again to sink into the car seats and sit it out till we got home.
Oh, and I forgot that it was SketchCrawl 12 and 1/2 on Sunday till my mom reminded me--though I did happen to draw my surroundings anyway that morning. I love observing people...