graphic v. 1.0

Produced for a friend's church service; this version isn't going to work, but I liked it.

saw this a while ago

But it's gotten better since then: Paris vs. NYC blog.

in praise of breakfast sausage

This has been the week of Lang-8. Lang-8 (which I've mentioned before, but bear with me) is a language-learning site, as well as sort of a social networking site. . . and, once you've decided to sit down and do it, madly addictive. I would say that it's inherently more awkward than Facebook, just because criticism and cultural collision are sort of an integral part of how it's set up.

life drawing #2. . .

Missed life drawing last week because I was finishing up applications. I managed to get to Hotshops with no problem. . . sadly coming back was another story. Ugh. Damn you Old Market and your damn one-way streets and your damn streets that don't go through and your damn shitty signage.

Without further ado. . .

so apparently

I'm not able to consolidate my ideas into one post anymore?

It's all tumblr's fault. Damn you tumblr.

This site is fun, if way misleading.

not usually into crossing wires

between tumblr and the rest of the world, partly because I want my tumblr content to be unique-ish from this blog's content, BUT

this tumblr is so awesome it's barely even a tumblr.

From me to you.

just realized that I can't count.

two blogs made of sheer brilliance

Smitten Kitchen. Cooking blog par excellence.

Natalia Antonova's blog. She lives in Moscow and writes plays and is a feminist; I don't know, it's just beautiful.

Also a blog that I have not completely binged on the archives of but which to all appearances is quite awesome: Hark! A Vagrant. (Yeah I feel like I'm pretty late getting on this train, but whatever.)

I just did a quick count. I keep up pretty religiously with about 30 blogs and semi-religiously with another 6-10. Damn I have a hell of an internet problem.

every time I hear

"Bang Bang," by K'Naan featuring Adame Levine (from Maroon 5), I think of sitting in that vaugely pink-hued hotel waiting room outside Venice, waiting for the receptionist to finish entering the information from my passport. They were playing what appeared to be Italian MTV on the TV in the corner, and that song came on.

This makes me happy.

bad thing about reviewing research

is the sudden

SHIT ARGH I MISS BOSTON

feeling.

come hell or high water

My portfolio will be in a done-ish state by the end of this week. And that's great, yes?

I think I have how to bind this sucker figured out. . . I think I am nearing completion with most of the spreads. . . I think I have the postage figured out. . .

and yet:

a somewhat random selection of favorite things

I see these posts all the time on other people's blogs, so. . . here are six of my favorite things! (The number has no significance; it was just how many photos I took before I got bored.)

apologies: resolutions?

Wow, am I a craptastic blogger or what? So, in that vein, my first resolution for the new year:

1. Blog once a week, at least.

(Though it would be nice if I blogged at my tumblr a little more frequently than that.)

(Incidentally, a new blog I have been keeping up with: gemma correll and her merry band of misfits.)

Other resolutions?

life drawing

There's a life drawing class once a week at the Hot Shops in Omaha. As I have been sort of a hermit for a while, and as I need some incentive (always!) to keep drawing, I signed up for it. The first night was last night; luckily the snow let up for a bit so the drive was more or less okay. I had only done life drawing once before (hey, 4.102) so I sorta kinda knew what to expect but not really. It was quite a big room (the Hot Shops are in repurposed warehouses close to the river in Omaha); the model posed on a platform in the center of the room, with theater-ish lighting. The teacher provided chairs and easels. I, sadly, left most of my paper in Fenway House (pain in the butt to mail home), so I took the largest sketchbook I had, which is about 10" x 8". Hopefully this weekend brings a trip to Blick (as well as a swing by the Joslyn.) Luckily I did keep most of my drawing supplies, so I've got enough charcoal, china marker, soft lead pencil, etc. to last me for at least a few sessions.

We did five two-minute poses to warm up (didn't upload any of those, they sucked), two ten-minute poses, two twenty-five minute poses, and one forty-minute pose. I think I did reasonably well, but I'm looking forward to what improvement the next few sessions might bring.

So, without further ado, the "best of."

movies I want to see

So many!

The King's Speech (Colin Firth! Helena Bonham Carter! Geoffrey Rush! Holy freaking SQUEE!)

Wild Target (Rupert Grint in a movie that is NOT Harry Potter -- O_O)

True Grit (no, I never saw the original, but I could see it with my dad!)

The Fighter (I feel attracted this movie because it happens near Boston and because I want to see how the screwed-up family dynamic plays out. . . pretty sure I won't actually like it.)

Love and Other Drugs (might be utter crap, but Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal.)

Movies I do NOT want to see: The Black Swan. Reasons: A) Looks like there are several gross-out moments and B) I have approximately zero faith in Natalie Portman. Maybe it's not her fault that she has been in all these movies with terrible writers, but the thing is, SHE KEEPS TAKING THE ROLES.

At some point I should probably watch Inception too, but meh.

(Inspired by this.)

not the post I had intended

But instead some links.

There is a lot of wonderful stuff happening at this blog, not least in the tag here.

A style blog focusing on the elderly.

Been reading the archives at Shapely Prose, a now-defunct blog with lots of excellent things to say. . . particularly for the chubby-to-overweight crowd such as myself.

This is one of the most horrifying things I've come across in awhile. It's a site for portrait touchup software -- yet according to their portfolio, it's specialty software to make beautiful people look simply unreal. Nasty shit.

new years' thoughts, I guess

Though not really related to the new year.

This site, which I cannot remember how I found, is pretty cool. Furniture!

I got a Nook for Christmas. Fffffffffffffubbbtth. This is the sound of the Nook sucking out my brains. It is AWESOME.

I want this book! Sadly, it is not on the Nook. And I refuse to pay $65 for a doorstopper, though it might be a doorstopper of epic design coolness. (For another peep inside the fun, here.)

What is up with this book, exactly? It looks cool. . . sorta. . . not sure.

In other news! I have been reading Tiger Beatdown for a while. It is a good blog! It is thoughtful! Funny! I think that Sadie/Sara Doyle is probably a genuinely nice person, and probably someone who would be great to be friends with! I have been watching the #mooreandme debacle (debacle because of the trolls, mainly) unfold from a distance from the beginning about two weeks ago. . . and it makes me so sad. Not because it isn't a good protest, but just that it takes so much effort and misery on the part of a few people just for a basic concession that rape allegations, even when against an Important Person! deserve to be taken seriously. Ugh. I get freaked out by one mean comment on the internet, so I can't imagine what it would be like to be inundated with demands that you, personally, go die (among other horrible things.) So I feel really bad that she basically had to make a giant target/punching bag out of herself to make a point.

In final news, the MIT admissions department does not believe that my recommendation letters have been submitted, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE. Ugh. I am also trying to write some kind of coherent mess about how the Royal College of Art should really let me study Design Engineering there because, uh, I like international collaboration! Also I like technology and design TOGETHER. Yeah, I'm obviously still working.

In REALLY SERIOUSLY FINAL NEWS, there was a lot of crap under my keys that I dug out this morning.

MIT app submitted

Through poor planning, I am uncertain if my transcript and/or GRE scores are going to be received in time. (Though seriously, Student Services, if you felt like being helpful all you would have to do is walk two floors up with my transcript.)

Promise to self: I shall NOT repeat this pattern for the next four applications.

things I have more or less accomplished

1. Write a purpose statement for MIT explaining how I intend to research intersections between daylighting, historic restoration, health, and energy savings;
2. Fix the plan on my quarry project page (i.e. make the plan of what I added lighter and easier to see);
3. FINALLY finish the photomontage for the final 4.114 project that I have been working on for the last week (:P);
4. Finish updating the sections of the 4.114 hanging house project so they are legible.
5. Do what needs to be done to get a clean plan exported from my 4.112 Sketchup model (i.e. download Sketchup Pro for an 8-hour trial and use its superior exporting capabilities to bring plans/sections into Illustrator and AutoCAD -- urgh);
6. Re-scan my 4.113 final project plans, the files of which have mysteriously disappeared;
7. Edit the final 4.440 project poster text down to something that will fit on my page;
8. Write clever (ha!) blurbs for the projects that don't have them;
9. Contemplate upon some way that I can parse/showcase the boutique furniture project designs into something coherent;
10. Contemplate upon a way to make my research figures pretty.

#5 is done because I decided my portfolio is too long and unwieldy and has too many mediocre projects in it.

It still kind of makes me want to scream when I look at it.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Featured on design-milk a few days ago: YKH House.

THIS IS DESIGNED BY ISSHO ARCHITECTS. I WORKED IN THIS OFFICE.

(Though not on this project, alas.)

continuing application struggles

I wish I had done a Christmas countdown calendar on my blog. . . it would be fun. I also wish I could do one of those "gift guides," but I'm crappy at that kind of stuff, and besides I'm not buying anyone anything, I'm just baking stuff.

Perhaps I shall count down the last. . . 12 days to Christmas.

In any case, things I really, really need to get done today (plus a bunch of things I need to get done, but maybe not EXACTLY TODAY):

portfolio fun while listening to bill engvall

I wonder about myself that I enjoy his humor so much.

Anyway, here are the few portfolio pages that are completely done (funnily enough, three of the four pages are not actual serious projects. and the one that is a serious project is not a big one. :P) I actually have 11 more pages in various stages of done-ness. Weird.

First: page of drawings/art.

Second: The quarry project (I see some issues right now to be fixed, sigh.)

Third: Pottery stuff. Does this belong in my portfolio? Maybe not. We'll see.

Fourth: page of adventures/travel.

grad apps

They continue apace. I may actually have a portfolio to post one of these days.

so I suck at blogging right now

as well as other things, like finishing my portfolio and getting to work at 1:30 instead of 1:45.

However, I have managed to spend loads of time on the internet (funny that), so here are my finds of late:

Awesome Scottish first names. (Fear me, O hypothetical children of mine.)

Wonderful, funny, beautiful food blog.

Christmas present for Mom.

This article is okay, but the link inside of it (which I can't get to work right now) to toddler altruism research videos is AWESOME.

This dog is the bomb, in all the positive figurative meanings of that phrase. Seriously.

The Bible. In over 50 languages. Fun!

important revelation of the day

Baby leopards have small spots.

I wonder if they're like Dalmatians and are born without them.