The Hardiman Family

This is a slideshow I made for a family I followed for my photo final last semester. One of the family members, David Donnelly, has Down's Syndrome and is currently in the process of moving in with his sister, Fran, and his brother-in-law, Barry, after his mother passed away in 2008. Enjoy

Real chilled out..

Here are some songs that I like to just sit down and chill out too. I really wish there were more hip-hop songs like these..

Bad start to the day..but it got better

This morning I woke up at 5:30. Why you ask? Because we had a fire alarm go off. We didn't have an actual fire, so it was just a test. I was so mad. But I ended up falling back asleep so it was all good. But, being the smart person that I am, I forgot to turn on my alarm clock to wake me up for my 9:30 class so I overslept and was about 20 minutes late. Did I mention we had a quiz today too? Yeah. I go up and ask the teacher's aid about the 12 questions I missed and she let me answer them. That was a close one. I had to read a book for my Intro to Photo class called "The Great Picture Hunt 2" by photographer, and former professor at Western and to my own father, Dave LaBelle. We only had to read from page 8-25. But his words were so intriguing and informative I ended up reading to page 50. I get back to my dorm and get on Facebook just to see what my friends have been up to and my good friend Pat Flynn tells me that our favorite song that we always have to sing with each other and out loud, "Every Morning" by Sugar Ray, was one of the songs that was shuffled on his Ipod. So I felt the need to dedicate my status towards Pat and now I feel the need to share my happiness with my followers on here. No matter how bad of a mood I'm in if I listen to either of these songs I can instantly become happy. Enjoy.

Great Song to wake up to..

The Message...

Start of my new life

Today I start college. I'm kind of nervous, but very excited. I thought I would wake up later but I didn't I don't start my day of classes until 10:20 but I woke up at 7:30. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNGGGGGGGG. I actually really like my schedule. I have three classes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays but I don't go to them until 10:20 and I'm done with the day by 1:35. Tuesdays I have one class, Intro to Psychology, at 9:35-10:55 and then I'm done for the day. Then I have that same 9:35 class Thursday but I get a break and then go to an Intro to Photojournalism class at 2:20-5:05. I mean I don't like getting out that late for class on Thursday but I mean I have like a five hour break so I think I can handle that. But I was listening to my Pandora and this song came on that could possibly be my theme song for the day. Enjoy

Wow

Today is my last full day in St. Charles, Mo. I leave for college either later tonight or early tomorrow morning. It's kind of surreal really. I don't know what to feel. I think I'm doing the right thing as far as leaving the state to go to school, but a lot of people I'm close too, who are all conveniently now seniors in high school, still live here. Man. I just don't have any words to explain it. Today was also black and gold day up at my "old" high school. That's where all the fall sports teams get together and they basically have a parade and what-not. It was always fun when I went. I went up there today and as I said before it was just all so weird knowing that they were still going to that school and that I wasn't apart of it anymore. It was all pretty strange. As I made my rounds to everyone, saying 'goodbye' to them I didn't really feel sad or distraught. Some people would act like they were going to cry, some people would tell me good luck, I think one girl actually did cry. And during that whole time I just had on my smile and just laughed at them. But as I left the stadium and started to walk to my car, it was the first time in a while where I really felt alone. I basically was doing this by myself. going into a new world. To put it simply, I was scared. I drove home and all i could think about was how unreal everything was and that I could very well not talk to some of my friends for the rest of my life. But I found one song to kind of describe how I was feeling at the time and how I still feel. But overall, I would have to say that today was in fact a good day....