6 years

Yesterday was George's 6th anniversary since he passed away.

I still miss him like crazy. I think I miss him the most when the vicissitudes of life start to hit all at once...that's when I could really use his advice and guidance. He was always there for me growing up and always seemed to make sense of things when they weren't going right. And he was there to celebrate and enjoy the moments of peace and tranquility.

I wrote this for him shortly after he passed away. I was with him when he passed and it's something that's marked me, not scarred me for life. It's taught me a lot about life and it's strengthened my testimony that it's not the end. I know we'll see our loved ones again one day through the blessings of the gospel of jesus Christ.

A New Light

by Joyce Kuklis

I just wish your pain would stop,

and death would heal your wounds.

You've lived your life to it's fullest,

and seen hundreds of blue moons.

All my life you were the one,

Who kissed my skinned knees.

Now I wait for the gentle breeze to blow,

For you to whisper to me through the trees.

Every day I look at you,

and see the pain in your eyes.

You dont have to say a single word,

I can feel all your cries.

I hear the struggle in every breath,

when I'm there with you.

It burns a hole right through my heart,

because reality is becoming true.

I know that soon you will be gone,

I see your light is fading.

But a new one is lighting up,

As the other one is cascading.

No goodbyes will be said,

Because I'll see you again someday,

You've just told me to spread your ashes,

By the calm, magestic bay.

No longer will you be at my side,

But you'll be with the others,

Waiting for the day my time will come,

Rejoicing with your brothers.

You cant speak a single word,

But I know that you love me,

So now I have to show my love,

now I have to let you be free.

R.I.P. Lt. Charles G. Donoho 10.31.1913-4.28.03

San Fran fun and pictures!

I think I'm going to start blogging more. Most of the time I think of a million things to write about throughout the day, and then forget half of them. The half that somehow gets encoded in my long term memory is usually too jumbled to know where to begin so I end up not blogging at all haha. I promised my sister-in-law I'd update more so she can stay posted on my life since we don't always make it to the phone when we call. I pretty much love her. I've known her for about a year and she's one of those people that I know will be there for me even if we don't talk every single day. She made my hopes and dreams of someday being a part of my niece's life possible despite our Jerry Springer-esque family dynamics...or dysfunctions...however you want to call it. :)

I'm posting some of my favorite photos from my most recent road trip. I went to San Francisco with Cecily. She needed a road trip buddy as she made her trek to her mission companion's wedding! I'll put up all the "people pictures" first and then the ones that made me feel all artsy fartsy in another post.

random statue at the bart station

people around the Porf of SF

taking a break after biking the bridge. It's not as easy as it looks. I'll explain later.

Cecily super pumped to be back on a bike after her mission! HAHA!
taking a break after going up some crazy hills on the bikes we rented!

on the ferry from sausalito back to the wrong pier :(


chillin on the bart

-OMG I was so tired! Biking up and down hills all day and walking up and down 'em too!!!

Anyway...I'm tired. I'll post more stuff later. I'm done for now!!!

V-Day blog om St. Patties

I haven't been very good at this blogging thing lately. It seems like I always think of a million things to blog about but I never get around to it. Anyway...Valentine's day this year was the best I've had. And I didn't even have a valentine. I started with making v0day cupcakes for my photo class. They were a hit! I decorated them with black hearts and some even had broken hearts. Was my bitterness obvious? Nah. :)

Then on the actual day of valentine's I headed downtown for a couch surfing meeting. This time we all gathered in the little square with the fountain next to Horton Plaza and at the sound of the whistle, we all busted out our concealed pillow weapons and had a massive pillow fight. This may very well be the largest pillow fight in San Diego history. :) You can check out video footage on youtube if you search "san diego pillow fight". The best part had to be when we were kicked off the premises at Horton so we took our festivities to the corner of 5th and Market in the gaslamp to the diagonal crosswalk. When all the lights were red we ran out into the intersection to continue the epic battle of the pillows. The justaposition of the pillow fight with the people dressed up for fancy dinner dates made it all the more humorous. I'm definitley looking forward to it next year. I'll continue to celebrate in this fashion even when I'm in a relationship. Im not really about the valentines day thing anyway. It's just a way for companies to make money between christmas and mother's day. If my man really wants to show me he loves me, he can show me through simple ways year-round. That would mean more to me than one night of a fancy dinner and a movie. Just bust out a pillow and let out your agression folks. We'll probably do it again next year at the same place. I'll keep you all posted!

Photo 2

This semester I enrolled in photo 2. I'm so glad I got the same teacher I had last semester. Andy is a really good instructor. I usually feel extremely self concious about my photography but I actually felt comfortable in critiques last semester. This semester is supposed to be a little more heated so I'm a little worried about that but I'm sure it'll be fine. I know as an artist you're supposed to have a thick skin so you can recieve critique on your work to help foster growth, but I think im still a little sensitive haha. Showing my photography is in some ways like baring my soul. It's like poetry that is written with pictures instead of words. I know it sounds cheesy and so cliche but as time goes on I'm realizing how true this is. I'm finding connections between my work and the things I feel when no one is around.

Last semester was the first time I enrolled in a college class and didn't drop it. I tried many semesters before but I lacked the confidence. It wasn't easy and I was tempted to drop several times last semester, but I kept going and I even got an A in the class. I fell in love with photography so much, it didn't take a whole lot to put a lot of effort into it. This semester I'm in photo 2 and in psychology. Psychology will help me with work a lot. I want to major in social work and do photography as a side thing to make extra income. Realistically, I just had to go with whatever would provide me the most stable income. I wish I had scanned some of my work last semester to show you all but I mounted a lot of my stuff already. :( So I took pictures of some of my work. The quality won't be the greatest considering it's pictures of pictures...but at least I'll finally get to post some of what I've worked on in the darkroom.

On the trolley one, the light was reflecting off the glossy paper so sorry about that. :( This semester I'll remember to scan things. :)

Give and Take

Seldom will two people ever agree on what is "fair". From my experiences I've gathered that fairness is a self-serving concept that has no real court to justify it. For this reason it is vital that people learn to compromise. Compromise is a situation in which both parties agree to sacrifice something so that both can walk away feeling happy and satisfied. We can't always have everything our way, but it's not fair to ask the other person to give without being willing to sacrifice something ourselves. By asking the person to give with nothing in return, they could be sacrificing many things including their emotions and love.

One thing I've learned about myself recently is that I need to stop accepting less than what i deserve. I cannot give to others what I dont have and by this I mean my love, effort, emotions, or any other means of limited supply.

For example, you can choose to love someone, but if they can't love and respect you in return, they're not replenishing what you've given them. After a while you begin to feel drained, used, and resentful.

I dont know if any of this is making sense in the way that I am wording it all. I had about a million epiphanies in my car this morning and I wish I could remember them all in detail the way I said them. I mostly write this for myself so that I don't forget what I've learned. i'll try to blog more. I've been wanting to for some time but with my work schedule and my classes it seems as though my precious blogging time has been reduced to nothing.

Ah something else I realized....
a guy who truly loves you and wants to be with you will walk on glass (figuratively speaking) to be with the woman he loves. He will be willing to commit to you the way you're willing to commit to him, however big or small that commitment might be. He'll be willing to make sacrifices to ensure that you will be with him and no one else. If he can't secure those ties, there's no reason to hang onto a string that isn't attached to anything.
And if your ex says he wants to be friends, and treats you like you're still dating but doesn't want to make the commitment, don't be flattered. All he's trying to do is soften the blow of the feelings he's not ready to deal with on his own yet. yeah, he might love you. He might really miss you. But the only reason he misses you is because he is chosing to live his life without you. If this is the case, then like the book says...he's just not that into you.

There's someone that used to be in my life that i still love very much but one thing I've realized is that at this point in time, I can't fill his needs, and he can't fulfill mine. I can't go on waiting for him to come around, sacrificing my needs, my emotions, my feelings and my love in order to make him happy and fill his every want and need. I can't do this without some kind of commitment or sacrifice on his part because inevitably, i'm going to hurt myself more in the long run. If he's ready to come to me and make those commitments, I know my arms will be open. But until then I think we just have to grow seperately. It's not to say it doesn't hurt, or that I don't miss him. Or that I don't love him. But I need to take care of myself because I can be capable of taking care of others, especially when the person i'm taking care of isn't willing to do the same for me.
No hard feelings. If our paths cross later and we realize that we grew up and can be together again, great. But like daniel said to me...no expectations, no disappointments.

We all want to be loved. We all want to be needed. But much of the time we're better off loving, validating, and reaffirming ourselves of the things we need than we are depending on someone else to do those things for us. With or without him, I am a whole person. I don't need him to make me whole, but I know that he added a lot to me as a person. I'll miss him like hell but for now I have to move on. that's my only job. I have so much going for me. I have a career i am building, an education I'm working diligently at, and a good head on my shoulders. I guess that means that someday I wont be so broken anymore.

critique, growth, and black and white photos.

Tonight I had my second photo critique of the semester. The object of this assignment was to experiment with frame and vantage point. I missed class all last week so I was totally stressing because the only time I had was during lab. Luckily I have an awesome teacher who lets us off the hook a bit when he knows we've been working hard. Anyway...I felt really confident with the work I presented. Last week was rough. I felt like I really sucked and the content of my photos wasn't so great. The motivation and inspiration were running low but I thought..."What the heck...I'm going to balboa and taking some pictures!" I took the lady I work with and she offered to pose as my model! Any of you who have met her know she's adorable! She LOVES to be in front of the camera. Unfortunately I can't scan and post any of the photos until I acquire a photo release from work so the company doesn't get used for violating any privacy policies. But I learned a lot during this shoot. I felt like I grew as a photographer by stepping outside of my comfort zone and photographing strangers. Some of them I went up to and talked to and asked them if I could take a picture...some I just did completely candidly. This helped me gain confidence in street photography.
I also grew because I learned to wait for things that inspire me instead of just blowing through a roll of film so I could have something to process in class. Look around you and find the mundane things in life that we often just walk by...find a vantage point that will give you a new perspective of the world.
I love black and white photography! Color has it's place but there are some things better left in black and white because sometimes color can distract us from connecting with an image. For example, a girl in class had a close up photo of a telephone pole with hundreds of nails and tacks. This is something that we would normally walk past and not give a second look. Had it been in color I don't think it would have had the same effect. Anyway...I'm geeking it up pretty bad right now. I'm working on starting another blog for my photo stuff. Once we get into digital in class I'll be able to scan my images and you guys can critique them all you want. You'd be doing me a favor. :) Oh...and I got my first assignment back. I got an A! I got a 100percent on it! YAY!

And for those of you who don't think photography is an art...go try the darkroom instead of photoshop! :) haha

dinner dates...

I have a date tomorrow night with a person who'd name shall remain anonymous. We're going out to dinner and it got me thinking...
I really don't enjoy dinner dates. If anything I'm down for dessert or some fro yo (fro yo deserves it's own category)
Dinner dates are awkward...at least on the first date. You sit across from each other forced to make conversation for about an hour and a half or so. If you're lucky, you and your date really click so the convo comes naturally. But either way...you're sitting across from each other stuffing your faces as you regurgitate random information about yourself, trying to make yourself seem interesting enough to pursue further while still maintaining an attractive facade. Whew....talk about pressure. Have you watched people eat? Have you watched yourself eat? Next time you eat, try putting a mirror in front of you. You'll quickly find that you'll lose your appetite. Not so pretty once you stop and look, huh? Not so pretty once you stop and smell the roses, eh?

I'm sorry if I sound cynical or if I'm promoting poor self esteem. This all dates back to last April. I had a sit-down dinner for my first date with this guy. He said something funny and as I laughed, a grain of rice was expelled from somewhere in my pie hole. Lo and behold it flew across the table and landed next to him. Thankfully, it didn't land in his food. Needless to say...
I.WAS.MORTIFIED!
I'm sure he could sense my embarassment so he didn't say anything even though I knew he saw it. I watched his eyes follow the flying rice across the table. Anywho...I'm going out to dinner with a nice fella tomorrow. I'll make sure to steer clear from the rice.

Until next time...take care of yourself...and each other.

exOH,
Jo