O_O

Today I discovered some "galletas de mantequilla" at the grocery store.

In English? BUTTER COOKIES. This is not good.

I don't know why I could resist the Walker's Shortbread (yes, they have that too) and not this cute little tin with multiple shapes of shortbread.

Now, out for a walk.

um erk

Not sure precisely what's going to get a really positive reaction yet, but it's not any of this*.

Still in the deep and awkward throes of chair design.

* In case it's not clear, these are the four sorta interchangeable chairs I spent the last two days coming up with. :P

a bit more

I have decided that, after six and a half days without it, to get out the iPod for my jaunt to work and the lunch hour. No, it's not the safest thing ever to have my ears plugged up, but mine is nice neighborhood, I won't be using the iPod whilst walking after dark, and I desperately need the energy jolt music can provide while I am coming up off of caffeine.

I found this list of warning signs that you are seriously addicted to caffeine:

Do you frequently feel fatigued throughout the day? Do you rely on caffeine to maintain your energy level? (Holy crap yes.)

Do you find it difficult to concentrate without a cup of coffee or your favorite soft drink? (See: My entire college career.)

Do you suffer from severe mood swings or PMS? (Um maybe.)

Do you have frequent headaches, severe heartburn, or high blood pressure? (Yes to the heartburn.)

Do you often feel dizzy? (Usually I know when this is because of caffeine or interactions with other stuff, but I guess you could say that.)

Is it difficult for you to fall asleep at night? Do you often wake up feeling exhausted? (No, and yes.)

That's. . . ~5.5 out of 6. Also found another site that claims you can suffer "mild depression" during the withdrawal phase, which would potentially explain my slightly glum atmosphere the last couple of days (coupled with moving stress, of course.)

Un suspiro largo. . .

pictures (not of Spain, alas)

Last night I bought detergent and watched The Triplets of Belleville. It was adorable, while making fun of France, the U.S. -- basically everything it touched on, it simultaneously made fun of and smiled at. (Fred Astaire, the Tour de France, the position of maitre d'hotel, people who love appliances, Boy Scouts. . .) It was technically in French, but the main characters didn't speak, so it didn't particularly matter.

a wish. . .

I wish sometimes that I could send my personality in for a tune-up. I would fill out things on a little yellow sheet -- "God, fix these things here, okay? Clean out the junk here. Tighten this up." I would send away my personality express in a padded envelope, maybe sleep for a couple days while it was being worked on, then get it back with a receipt of repairs performed.

I was thinking about that this morning, when I decided that it a definitely a personality defect that I usually dread rather than look forward to meeting new people. What's up with that? I worry about looking like an idiot -- but man, it's not like I can really avoid it.

(I'm not in deep trouble yet, but I see myself beginning to repeat some social patterns of last summer that didn't do me much good.)

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I worry also because I'm not super-excited yet about planning trips to Barcelona, Granada, and wherever I'm going at the end of the summer. I mean, holy crap -- great opportunity! Opportunity of a lifetime, even! Why am I not bubbling over with excitement?

But mainly right now I just feel tired. I think "jet lag" is the only real, physical thing I could blame this on, but my personal opinion is that moving, even temporarily, knocks the crap out of you. Getting on a bus or a plane, even one pointed at Venice or Rome, does not fill me with enthusiasm.

I am optimistic, however -- reading about the museums in Madrid makes me feel a mild but pleasant anticipation. I can handle walking around town. Presumably I will feel more bouncy as time goes on.

new word for the day

Secuestrar, "to kidnap."

In other news, I haven't quite gotten used to the Spanish air-kiss-on-both-cheeks thing -- I don't think I can quite do it naturally yet. . .

when there are so many things

that I could do, many of which would even be useful or pleasant -- such as a reading a book, studying Spanish, writing a real blog entry, working on a submission for Threadless, writing, researching various things, writing emails to various people -- all I ever end up doing is sitting on my bed. Or sleeping.

In other news, I visited the Prado today (after getting pretty lost and walking through a park* of 17th and 18th century portraits (except for the amusing one of two toddlers in tiny white wigs), but I did enjoy the dramatic 19th century "history" paintings. Also went through several galleries of Velazquez's work. I've obviously never visited another gallery in the home country of a famous European painter, so I don't know if it's normal for one museum to contain what surely must be the majority of a painter's works, or if that is unique to Spain/Madrid. I mean, I'm not sure any other painters are as closely identified with the national identities of any other countries as Velazquez (and Goya, and El Greco) is with Spain.

Also, something excellent about the Prado: It's open until 8 every day, and free from 6-8 every day. Yeah! 8 euros isn't a huge amount, but still.

Off to be a bum now.

* So whenever I say I walked through a park, my parents are generally convinced that I am nine-tenths of the way down the road to being murdered and dismembered, possibly for my Birkenstocks. I actually did have one (but ONLY ONE) creepy guy approach and speak to me in English (?!!), then when I pretended he wasn't there and kept walking, accused me of not speaking to black people (I think, I couldn't really understand his accent.) I kept ignoring him and walking so I could enjoy my park-ly experience (the rest of the park was lovely, thanks), but I was really pissed for at least ten minutes. I think you have to be a complete moron (or a crook) if you approach a woman you don't know who is walking by herself in a big city and then are surprised when she refuses to talk to you. Ugh.

cooking

Just cooked my first meal in Spain (up until now, I was surviving primarily on corn flakes). . .carrots, onions, and chicken, all liberally sprinkled with thyme and rosemary, with a side of buttered pasta. Nom.

Things I learned in the process of cooking:

In order to use the gas stove, I had to turn on the valve for the gas, then turn on the burner, then light the burner myself (no little convenient clicky thing is included in the burner). While there are several lighters in the kitchen, none of them seem to work, so I use a long rolled-up piece of paper instead. (There is a box on one side of the kitchen with a little opening through which you can see a little gas flame. . . I think it might be the water heater. . .)

Rosemary = Romero. Thyme = Tomillo.

Olive oil is (surprise!) cheaper in Spain (About $3 for a liter.) Veggies are normal-ish prices; meat is somewhat more expensive.

There doesn't seem to be a fire alarm in the kitchen, and I haven't found the switch for turning on the exhaust fan over the stove. I am mainly happy about this, as I had developed quite a grudge against the psycho alarm at Fenway.

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I have quite a bit I'd like to talk about later. So far, my main observation about Madrid is that compared to Tokyo, everything seems. . . a little looser, a little less . . . tense? (I can't really compare it to home. That comparison just doesn't go when I try to run it through my head.) My room is a little bigger, with higher ceilings and a very small balcony. The washer is free; there are clotheslines installed either outside the windows or on the balcony, in my case. The bathroom is bigger; there is a tub with a shower instead of a rectangular box. There are trees growing in more places. My office is a little bigger, with a few less people working in it (five total, including me, instead of ten total, including me). People seem to work normal-ish hours -- 9 to 6 with an hour for lunch (although the 30-minute smoke breaks don't seem to be such a big thing here.) My two Italian coworkers worked nine hours a day this week, but they didn't come in on Friday because they were going home to Sardinia for the weekend.

I don't know if these little things are actually indicative of a more relaxed attitude toward life, or if they are just indicators of Western culture that I missed while in Japan, and so I feel more relaxed when they are present.

written in transit

My first entry from Spain is not actually about Spain. . . it was written while packing up and in transit (Chicago --> London --> Madrid.)

So, here you go: The requisite overly intense, neurotic beginning-of-an-adventure email.

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And now, a word from our sponsor, fantasy author Robin McKinley.*

"Five years ago I moved to England to marry the writer Peter Dickinson. I was happy in Maine, where I had been living, with my typewriter, one whippet, and several thousand books, in my little lilac-covered cottage on the coast. And then I found myself three thousand miles away, in an another country, living in an enormous, ramshackle house surrounded by flower-beds and covered in wisteria and clematis and ancient climbing roses whose names no one remembered.

lying low

Here I feel like placing a possibly mis-attributed quotes about arrant pedantry. . .

laying low

Have been laying low for the past week in computer land. . . I shall post about various things, including last week's New York trip, shortly.

by the end of today

I will be finished (for better or worse) with my MIT career.

Damn.

thesis dump!

Here we have a collection of completely sporadic images from my thesis in no particular order, such that I can take a break from the actual thing and simultaneously assert that Yes I Have Been Doing Things Thank You Very Much.


Radiance rendering of the inside of the Logan Christian Church before renovations in the 1960s and 1970s. (9:00 AM. Probably in December.)

The stupid Pisgah church which I cannot find a construction date for -- or if I have found one, I've lost it in amongst all my sources.


Harrison County re-mapped in Gill Sans.


Energy comparison chart for Missouri Valley and Logan Christian Churches before renovation (blue) and after renovation (green).

yes right

A lament for the class of 2010. Someone posted this on Facebook, and I unwisely read it.

My response? Fuck you, you pessimistic condescending bastard.

re-blog: something great

This entry is really great.

It's short, honest, a little funny, a lot bittersweet. I think I can feel tremors of what this guy feels/felt even though it's pretty much outside the realm of my experience. And it doesn't make me hate him or want to find him and stab him repeatedly with a Bic pen, the feeling that writing about relationships or a more sexual-type love all too often inspires in me. (Maybe because he seems to remember to his girlfriend as more than a sexual exploration.)

plane ticket

If all goes well, it looks like I shall be flying Omaha Eppley --> Chicago O'Hare --> London Heathrow --> Madrid Barajas.

Whee fun.

and fun times were had by all

My thesis presentation was yesterday done and went reasonably well. Now I merely have to write the actual thesis. Ha! (Yes, I do have a good bit of it written, but I have a long ways to go before Tuesday.) After that I one final; the next week I go to New York for two days; the week after that I graduate.

Last night I went out with a friend to celebrate at Piattini's, an Italian restaurant on Newbury Street. I even had a glass of wine with dinner -- pinot grigio something something. It was a white wine, not terribly sweet but very pleasant. I fear I am dreadfully ignorant when it comes to alcohol in general.

Today I started making good on my self-promise to do a lot of walking.



This route is about 7.5 miles, according to Google Maps.

Good times. Now I'm trying to iron out my flight to Madrid this summer. Oh boy. . .

walking

I hereby resolve to walk 5 miles in Boston ever single day after my thesis presentation until I go home (which is Friday. technically tomorrow.)

another autocad command of great importance:

solprof. Creates a profile image of 3D object.

making myself feel better

thank you cuteoverload.com.

there I am

There I am. Right at the top. Next to the legitimate graduate students. I think I will feel weirdly flattered later, but right now I'm just feeling kind of sick, scared, and vastly underqualified.

movies

I have moved my base of operations from my room to the music room (room on the first floor that used to be the dining room; is now an all-purpose living room with couches and a piano) for now. I find it is more difficult (though still possible) to fall asleep down here, it's usually been less hot, and I find the noise and the company comforting.

An upside/downside to this is that the TV with cable is in the music room. I don't (no seriously, I don't) watch TV myself, but when others are down here, I am more than willing to be distracted (frequently) from my work by whichever movie is playing.

To that end, in the last five/six days whilst hanging out/working/chatting, I have seen all or a large part of the following movies:

Daria: Is It College Yet? (excellent. but then there is reason all of us liked this show in high school, even if we (by which I mean me) had to go to our (my) friend's house to watch it.)

Master and Commander* (EPIC. but I missed a lot because they all mumbled a lot.)

The Patriot (also pretty great. remember back before Mel Gibson kind of sucked? this movie is how the U.S. wants to remember its history.)

V for Vendetta (maybe a strategic 25% plus explanations of this one.) (this movie is actually identical to The Patriot in a lot of ways, but with more explosives and a female main character.)

Hellboy* (Guillermo del Toro is awesome! I've mentioned another film he directed -- El Espinazo del Diablo on this blog before. Also fun about the version we watch were the interludes before commercial breaks when they talked about how they achieved the special effects. Lots of CG, but also a lot of intricate mechanical bits and pieces and wonderful makeup, particularly for the costumes.)

Blade (TOO. MUCH. BLOOD.)

His Girl Friday (this was actually the one I checked out. This movie is all about Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell being snappy and justifying being horrible people by being newspapermen, and Cary Grant standing around doing the, "Look at me! I'm Cary Grant and I'm so tall and elegant!" bit.)

The Punisher (didn't mean to watch this one. I left for the apparently horrifically violent scene in the middle with "the Russian" and various piercings getting pulled out.)

* Movies I plan to find again and watch the parts I missed sometime.

I had seen precisely NONE of these movies before. I think I know now how it is that everyone in the world has seen more movies than me: They all have cable.

Also an episode of "World's Greatest Warriors" or somesuch on Spike TV, which consisted people shooting at targets with sixshooters, Winchester rifles, and Tommy guns, while grumbling in a manly fashion at each other. Oy.

so much!

There is so much I could blog about. Doubtless some of it will come about today as I get frustrated calculating the solar gains and conductive losses through the windows of the churches for my thesis.

usually fashion blogs are less profound

"This is not at all my style and I’ll maybe never wear it, but I like to give myself room to dream that sometimes, we can be someone else."

from Garance Dore's most recent entry.

senior ball

I don't generally like posting pictures of myself -- I'm not very photogenic, and I would posit that the phrase "the camera adds ten pounds" actually means "the camera makes you aware of those last ten pounds that you let your eyes skip over in the mirror."

But, with that said, I am posting a picture of myself today.

Senior ball is next week (yay for glorified prom!) and though I have two dresses I could wear, I decided to head over to Anthropologie yesterday and see if the dresses on the racks were as pretty as the dresses in the window. Generally Anthropologie is not my favorite -- they're a little too expensive, a little too fake, and a little too ugly-chic -- but they've got a lot of things I really like this spring. This, I liked on the rack, I like how it feels on, and I like how it looks, so. . . there you go.