As my roommate Megan and I were working on our new farmhouse in Vilas with a few friends, I rushed upstairs to scrub another layer of paint off of my hands before returning back to trimming the edges of the stairway in green. I immediately grabbed my camera, turned back around, and yelled quick instructions for everyone to drop their paint brushes and get outside. My room, as I'd found it, was being lit with the most amazing orange-purple light and I knew, without looking, that there would be an amazing sky awaiting us. We stared at the colors of the sky and the setting sun until they all faded to a deep blue and we got back to brightening our living room from a once dirty cream into our own blue, a bright, beachy hue to serve as our getaway from work and school.

My roommate Sheila and I took her dog, Forest, for a walk on campus a couple of weeks ago when she came up to visit. We started out in Durham Park before walking all the way through campus to King Street to grab some dinner at Our Daily Bread. Everything was in full bloom, proving to me once again how lucky I am to go to school at the most beautiful university in North Carolina. Walking to class amidst the mountains never gets old. Well, except for maybe in the sometimes subzero temperatures of winter. I actually took these on my little Sony Cybershot, which never fails to give me great pictures for a point and shoot.

As I walked home from class on April 15, I found that there were carloads upon carloads of people flooding the Hardees parking lot. I grabbed my camera and wandered over to find a modern-day Boston Tea Party-esque protest taking place. These tea parties took place all across the country to speak out against what some deem unfair taxes and the new government and it's policies, specifically the stimulus package. Though I couldn't stay long due to inclement weather, I did stand and listen on the porch for a while before finding myself in too much discrepancy to linger and hear more.