a random post of updates.

Hey, horse eating hay in the Old Market. How's it going. Make any important life choices recently?

Well.

I have not been keeping up here as well as I might have. Forgive, forgive, I beg you to forgive, and so on.

MANY THINGS have happened. SO MANY THINGS, so I shall give you a brief (if scatter-brained) post about as many as I can think of.

First: Many persons who know me are probably aware at this point that I am possibly going to be doing an internship in Lausanne, Switzerland, this summer. If all my visa paperwork goes through correctly, I will be starting June 1 with the same professor I did daylighting research with undergrad for three months. I also applied to a two-year energy management and sustainability program at the school she now teaches at, EPFL, and if accepted I may be staying in Switzerland for a bit.

SO THAT IS VERY EXCITING.

Second: Illustration continues apace. I am back at the Hotshops in Omaha doing life drawing once a week (you can see several weeks worth of work and experimentation here), and I think I've improved noticeably from last year. My illustration production has slowed somewhat (more on the reasons for that later), but I've finished some new paintings, including a still life, a the proscenium at the Rose Theater, and some of the Durham Western Heritage Museum architecture. I'm working on another painting now, and have a lot of ideas for things to try in the next month and a half (though I am making sure all my art supplies are portable so I can trundle about Switzerland sketching and painting if possible.)

I was in my first show this month, at the Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the plein air group I painted with 2-4 times a month from October to February. I have twelve pieces in the show, which is up until April 30. Yesterday we held an artists' reception in the afternoon, and I sold two paintings and six prints, so I am quite excited about that.

Third: Writing continues apace. I am still working on my book (bit stuck on it, to be honest, so I've been developing the outline), but I've also written three (and a half) short stories and submitted them to magazines.  The first was an attempt to be literary and local, and the second two were fantasy (and I recalled the reason I write fantasy, which is that it is SO MUCH EASIER.) So far I have no takers, which is rather discouraging, but to be expected, I suppose. (I did burn my first official paper rejection notice in my mom's Christmas Yankee candle, so that made me feel a bit better.)

The Kansas City Design Week experience did yield up three articles for This Big City blog: one about the graphic identity of the city, one on density and transportation, and one on interpreting architectural history.

Fourth: I have had some adventures! I went back to Kansas City for a weekend two weeks ago to spend time with a friend; we went to the Kemper, walked about Westport, and went to the new H&M (I got a sweater! DON'T JUDGE ME.) In two days I will be going to a live performance by Eric Hutchinson and Graffiti6 at the Waiting Room in Omaha, which admittedly I bought a ticket to because a. they were cheap and b. I like Graffiti6 (though after finding some music by Eric Hutchinson on Grooveshark, he's not too bad either.)

I continue to work and hope and plan! Hopefully I will have more and more interesting posts soon.

Osaka Otsu and everything in between

I decided that I'm not going to write much on Japan until I finish my London blog.

But, miracle of miracles and oddity of oddities, here I am again. I am staying in Otsu, next to Lake Biwa, tonight in a business hotel, which despite its strong odor of cigarette smoke seems rather nicer to me than the Quality Inn I stayed at last night in Seattle. I flew into Kansai International Airport (the airport code of which is KIX, heehee) after an 11 hour flight that was mainly occupied by me flipping through what grammar books I brought and sorta kinda dozing. The airport is on a man-made island in the bay. It's impressive.

It took me five hours to get from there to here, but thankfully they were rather unhurried hours. I got lost a couple times but mainly just walked around the train stations a bit more than the average customer.

I remember coming into Tokyo and seeing flooded rice fields everywhere. I really didn't see any this time -- I don't know if the area between the airport and here isn't rural enough, or if it's not time to flood the fields yet, or what. I did see several fields of enormous cabbages.

The train smelled like Japan. Perhaps later I will try to figure out the components of said smell.

It's good to be back. I don't think I'm starting work for a couple days; in any case I shall be sleeping in for hours and hours tomorrow.

exhausted by snow

Things I have been doing in the fortress of unholy snow (besides beginning two three blog entries that I can promise you are all over the place):

Watching videos on the "It's Kingsley Bitch" Youtube channel. Yes, I laughed out loud. A lot.

Currently listening to: "Howl" and "Cosmic Love," Florence and the Machine; "Fuck You" and "Wildflower" by Cee Lo Green, "Aurora" by Origa, and a variety of less interesting music. This video is pretty great.

This photo editorial makes me want to punch puppies in the face. (Not really, nothing actually makes me want to punch puppies. But it does make me want to punch the photographers and the model.)

(For some mysterious reason I had a Google window open with the phrase "peruvian toothpaste" typed in the search box.)

A project for me before April: I've promised a friend a calligraphied version of poem by Francis Quarles.

A house designed by the office where I hope to be interning this summer.

Speaking of which, design boom is another comprehensive design blog that I always mean to keep up with and never do. :/

Also speaking of which, I've been wanting a somewhat nicer looking backpack to carry my computer in when in Japan; thinking about this one. (The over-the-shoulder bag I used in Spain was okay, but if I don't have to carry my 8-lb Dell in a bag that puts undue and sometimes painful pressure on one collarbone, I would prefer not to.)

Random cool maps of Tennessee.

Vanessa Jackman, a promising looking fashion blog.

I'm actually not too impressed by the Google art project -- I think it lacks curation. But, nice idea.

File under "things I've discovered by way of Lang-8:" The works of Shoji Ueda, a Japanese photographer

Pretty sure I've blogged this before, but I'd really like to make an effort to keep up with the Miss Moss blog. Nice stuff. Very nice.

I've been spending so much time in front of my computer that my butt is numb. I am ready for spring LAST MONTH, please.