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.