Hi, I'm Nicole.

I've hated exercising forever.
I now go for a walk almost every night.
I really like it.
I think being left handed would be sweet.
Sometimes I practice writing with my other hand just to see what it's like.
I have an addiction to Mountain Dew.
My favorite is Mountain Dew Voltage, although I've tried and liked almost every flavor.
I have a mini fridge full of the aforementioned Dew in my bedroom.
When in doubt, medicate.
Sometimes this may involve self-medication.
Because I don't drink or do drugs, self-medication usually takes the form of Mountain Dew.
Which is conveniently located in the fridge in my room.
After one day on the job, I'm confident I will love my job.
Parts of it also scare the crap out of me.
I'm extremely attracted to brown eyes.
I miss being in a relationship. A lot.
Not so much that I'll settle for just anyone.
But enough so that it still stings when people get all mushy in public.
I hate Valentine's Day.
And not because it's commercial. I love buying crap.
That's why Black Friday is so awesome.
But because it's a cruel, sadistic holiday designed to separate the happy people from the lonely people.
I feel like no matter what I do or don't do, I keep losing more friends every day.
This is my third year as a member of the Oregon Marching Band, and I'm still not completely sure I've found my place.
Finding my place may have been further delayed by my choice to drastically switch instruments in the middle of my college career.
Oh well. At least I can feel like I'm one step closer to being able to realistically dream of becoming a badass.
In addition to a clarinet, which I can play fairly well, I also own a flute and a keyboard, neither of which I can play.
Journalism is my other love besides music.
I decided on my major my junior year of high school.
I still don't know what I want to do.
I constantly worry that I'll never know.
I have random music moods, and iPod playlists to accommodate them.
I wish I would have been awesome enough to be in the student section for football my freshman year.
Then maybe it wouldn't seem so strange now when I go to volleyball games.
211 and 415 are my favorite songs that the garter bands play.
For those who don't know, that means "Separate Ways" and the theme from Duck Tales, respectively.
People look at me strangely when I know the words to stands tunes.
I don't really care.
I've passed that age when people think that sounding cool when you talk involves using profanity every other word in every sentence.
It's all about discretion.
I don't care what your religious beliefs are, or even if you have any.
I do care when you make a point to trash mine in front of me.
Especially when I don't do it to you.
I may not be the poster child for piety, but I don't appreciate feeling threatened.
I hate wearing my hair down.
I hate when it's in my face, and it looks terrible.
Which is why it's almost always up.
I miss a lot of people.
Some I will probably never talk to again.
Oh well, that's the way life goes sometimes.
I just wish this didn't happen all the time, with each new group of people I hang out with.
I'm craving egg salad right now.
But I don't know how to make it, and it's almost 11 at night, so Barry's is definitely closed right now.
Not that I want to go to campus right now anyway.
I'm tired of having people my own age act like they're my parents.
I already have some. I don't need more.
Especially when my actual parents don't boss me around that much.
I worry every day that after I graduate college, I'm going to fail at life.
I know a lot of people won't read this, and that's cool.
I won't judge you.
I just need to clear my mind so I can figure stuff out and where to go from here.

I took this picture a week ago. The building in the background is Gerlinger Hall, one of the older buildings on the University of Oregon campus. I also took a similar picture with a little less foreground, a little more of the building and from a lightly different angle. I like them both, but eventually this picture won out.

"Nature Girl"

I took this picture in July a couple of years ago in Stuart Grenfell Park just outside of Sheridan, OR. It also has the distinction of being one of my first Facebook profile pictures. This picture was taken with my Samsung brick.

Welcome to The Eye Of The Beholder!

When I noticed that many of the posts in my other blog, "Rock Journalism," consist of a selection of photos, I decided that those photos need a place to call their own.

Sure, I could just post them all on Facebook, and I do that regularly. The problem with Facebook, particularly with the new layout, is that the only way I can really "feature" a particular photo is by cluttering up my wall. And I don't really want that...

So here you go. It may not be much, but I think these are a pretty good showcase of my developing skills in photography.