Summer finally broke and dissolved into cool days and just barely chilly nights. It's open window season, the brief time of the year when we can open up the windows and doors and let the fresh air in to give our tired air conditioning units a rest. It's really lovely. Comfortable everywhere you go. I'm sitting on the couch right now, the screen door just to my left with the night air singing with crickets. Aside from the constant busyness, things have been tooting along quite nicely lately. Saturday I took pictures at the football game. Yesterday I met with Jackie and finally got my birthday bike - I love it, by the way. It's silver and purply-blue and I got a big double-basket that sandwiches the back tire. Nice place for all my loot. It felt so good riding to and from school today. I was so tired of taking that smelly old bus. I always worried I was going to miss it or it would be too full in the morning. Spoke to a photo pro in my journalism class tonight. RD was absent, so he was filling in. My buddy Kimberly and I didn't mind. Everyone else had left and we were still chatting with him, making sense of the basic skills that hadn't quite sunken in during the day and a half we breezed through them at the beginning of the semester. I've got a card from a guy who shoots for the Trib who's willing to arrange a day to shadow a photographer. I'll definitely be giving him a call. Photography is a real challenging thing and I feel like I have little break-throughs that advance my skill. Talking with him tonight has definitely put some new concepts and ideas into my head. And, he said I have an eye for it. Which is always wonderful to hear, especially from different people. Reinforces it. Bodes confidence. The eye is the hardest part. Anyone can learn the technique, but you can't teach someone how to see. That's what he said. I'd write more but it's late and I've got to dry my hair and get to bed. Early day tomorrow. Long day tomorrow. Tuesdays and Thursdays are always long. I'm out with a reporter tomorrow and I hope we get something exciting. : D Carrie