Holli Rausch

OK, well, the previous post wasn’t the speech I gave on Sunday. Neither was Miles’s post.

If you go here, you can watch a video of the ceremony (I think you need Windows Media Player to view). Fast forward to 49:14 (it might need to load for a second or two) and it’s about the time where I’m being introduced. My speech is like 4 minutes long, so don’t worry about wasting your time. Unless you absolutely could care less. In that case, why are you reading my blog in the first place? Everything went well, no big flub ups, and I even got a sweet picture out of the deal! Not many people would have a shot similar to this one.  I enjoy seeing my professors giving cheesy smiles (well, most of them anyway…) but wish I could have gotten the whole front row. I know at least one reader was cut out of the picture. Otherwise, Miles, Paula, and my dad taped it. It might be easier to wait to watch one of those (I’m sure Miles’s will end up online) for all you who don’t want to go through the work of clicking on the link.

Thanks to everyone who came: Miles, Mom, Dad, Marissa, Val, Paula, Grandma and Grandpa.  And everyone who said they were going to, but backed out: Tony.

If you absolutely can’t wait, here is the speech for my graduation.  Enjoy!
Fellow graduates, esteemed faculty, loving family and friends, and those appreciated others who have come to see us off: I am immeasurably proud to be addressing the 489th graduating class of Dakota State University.
As I look out over this crowd, I am reminded of a joke.  It’s a fairly mediocre “Yo’ Mama” joke that goes, “Yo’ mama is so poor she couldn’t pay attention.”  And before you rush the stage to defend your mother’s honor, let me point out that there is at least one video camera recording evidence that can be used against you in a court of law.
The joke is a simple pun, not some grand, witty correlation between wealth and attention span, as some would imagine.  The word, “attention”, is defined by The Internet in at least six different ways, one of which is approximately, “Consideration or courtesy.”  It comes from the Middle English, which in turn came from the Latin from the past participle of the word attendere, which means to heed.
“But, Holli,” you say.  “You didn’t major in grammar, so why are you deliberately boring us with definitions?”  Touché, restless crowd.  “Attention” is special.  We talk about it like we can actually hold it, but you can’t purchase a bag of “attention” in the TC, no matter how much of your meal plan is left over.
We’ve all heard our parents or, worse, professors admonish us to “pay attention”.  An appropriate response is not “What am I?  Made of money?”  It gets a chuckle, like, five percent of the time.
However, if that same person is feeling a little less miserly, they might simply ask, “Can I have your attention?” like we have a plate full of leftovers at Christmas dinner.  Or they could possibly say, “Please, give me your attention,” after which they gaze at us, the givers, with a look of expectancy, as if we should get out our “attention purses” and give out “attention bucks”.
What makes attention so special?  Well, for one thing, I gave this speech to my kitchen last night, and I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I am now.  It’s not because this room is eleven hundred times the size of my kitchen, it’s because, suddenly, a lot of people are paying attention.  The “who” of “attention” matters greatly.  If Johnny Depp was helping me give this speech, I wouldn’t need that “Yo’ Mama” joke to get your attention.
“Attention” is the currency of “respect”, but it comes in positive and negative.
Picture a lion tamer with a whip and a chair, as the stereotype goes.  As he cracks the whip, the lions around him roar with hunger, eager to attack but fearful of his technique.  Now picture those same lions, that same tamer, but the lions are lounging in the sun, yawning, tails flicking carelessly.  A lion tamer is worthless if the lions don’t give a damn.
As graduates, we’ll be given special attention today: on this very stage moments from now, after the ceremony with our friends and family, and in every job interview for the rest of our lives.  Being a college graduate is a privilege that carries with it responsibility.  Whether we realize it or not, we will forever represent Dakota State University in our actions and our words from this day forward.  We are now a product of the attention that we have given and received, paid out and invested, and hopefully that will show through as we march off this campus to our new futures.
Insulting “yo’ mama” is not have been the most refined way of getting someone’s attention, but it usually works.  If you recall, however, I didn’t open with the “Yo’ Mama” joke.  If anyone can tell me what graduating class I said we were, then I’ll give you a prize.  Namely, my attention.
Thank you.

So our final project for 3D was animating the characters we modeled earlier this semester. I finished early. Not because it was easy, but because I spent a lot of time in there last week at night. People are mad because I’m done because they think it came easy to me and I ran into no problems and theirs is running into all these problems. Well, I ran into the same problems, it’s just I went in two weeks before finals week to work on it, rather than the week before finals week (when everyone else is in the lab). Just because they didn’t see me working several hours on it, doesn’t mean I didn’t. Sorry for the venting. I’m just frustrated with some classmates. My animation isn’t perfect, but with the constraints of the semester, and of the way I created the character, it’s decent.

I used to upload these with Google Video, but it doesn’t really exist anymore. I’m a part of an animation network with MyToons and so I’m trying their embedded player to share the animation with you. I hope it’s a good experience. Turn your sound on.

If you’re observant, you might have noticed that when you came to milesrausch.com/holli, you got redirected. All is thanks to Miles, as he bought the domain name and hosting as a gift. There will be a redesign, soon. No worries, your RSS feeds, links, and permalinks should all redirect to the new URLs. Even if you linked to a specific post; again, thanks to Miles.

Here are my last two paintings for my Painting class. This course was…to say the least…miserable. I don’t want to go into details, but nearly the whole class, if not the whole class, has lost all respect for the professor. In any case, I’m proud of these two pieces. But don’t get me wrong, I am very aware that I am not a painter. I love painting rooms and it seems as though that’s the extent of my emotion.

Our final project had to have at least one dimension matching or close to our height. Mine is about 5′ x 3.5′. You can see in the background a classmate, who is 6′, if that helps you with the dimensions. I can’t even fit it in my car, so if I’m going to keep it, I have to walk it home or find someone with a big enough vehicle.

The painting before our final project was a still life, and I wanted to keep some sort of theme, so I brought some of my demo Mary Kay products. These last two paintings had to be in the style of an existing artist, and I chose Paul Cezanne. Several of his paintings had the black outline look, with a large emphasis on high contrast values.

The next project I’ll be posting about will be my character animation. I should be finishing that up today in class. Sincerely, holligregg.com

I wrote this once and something went bonkos with the internet, so here’s the summed up version.  If you want to watch my graduation speech on Sunday, go to www.dsu.edu on that day and there will be a link to a live streaming video of the commencement.  The link will be there for two weeks following the ceremony, if you miss it on Sunday.  The speech is a collaborative effort, with most credit going to Miles and his splendid writing skillz.

And to answer the question you all are asking yourselves: No, we aren’t streaming a video of our wedding online.  Nice try, nerds.