Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Monkeys

Tonight was Lunar Gala practice. As usual, Waz and I lug over every outfit we're working on and spend time putting them on the model and have Sophia hem and haw over it. Sophia, yet again, was displeased. In fact, Sophia is always displeased. And mean. And rude. We keep getting threatened over and over about how we have to be completely done with all our stuff by Thursday despite the fact that we technically have two weeks left till show time. I don't see what the hurry is. Really. We'll get it done in time. Don't worry.
We got all the models together to go over stuff. Being that earlier I was sewing in my black jacket, my black jacket was covered in tons of tiny gritty things and pieces of thread and muslin. What I found particularly amusing was that first, model Justin started picking things off of my back and shoulder, and then model Grant joined in and picked a thread right off my "bust radius" (aka my under-boob), to which Justin stated, "Yah, that one bothered me a lot too, but I didn't think I should try to get it." I suppose it's okay since Grant seems quite ..um...flamboyant. Still, very funny. My monkey models.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Hapa hapa

So you remember how for a while, it seemed like everyone new I met thought I was a halfie? Well, it quieted down for a bit and for a while I thought, wow, I guess I'm sufficiently Chinese now. So... I just got invited to join the Hapa dodgeball game this Friday..... Maybe I should just start telling people mom is Mexican.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

First Day

Happy New Years! I keep forgetting to update and what do you know, it's already halfway through January. I suppose it's time for an update.

Winter Break: Fun. I slept a lot, saw lots of family, ate lots of yummy food (I actually lost weight over break...fancy that. I blame you, Waz), went to Manhattan with my sister where we visited the Met, fashion ave. and her comic book store, "Forbidden Planet." All in all, a satisfying break.

2007 so far: Pretty busy. I got back a week early and Waz and I did what little we could based off of the shitey measurements the girls at Lunar Gala took. Way to go girls, way to not measure a guys inseam correctly. We've been making the outfits for a couple of the models and a lot of things are far off mark. We seem to have a very poor understanding of the male body. I think that the girls will be much easier. Still, things are going well, and hopefully it will be well underway by the time classes pick up.
Classes are going well. The ones I've had so far anyway. My Digital Fabrication assignment is to make a crazy cube thing for Tuesday. I thought I had it. Nearly had it. It'll be cool, though. Except that I have to actually document everything and put it on a website. I'll be borrowing people's cameras for a few weeks.
Then there was Jazz. I'm actually horribly low on the waitlist, but I think there's still hope of getting in. The teacher let everyone who showed up stay, so maybe she'll let me in. Pretty please, pretty please. It was, all in all, an amazingly fun class. One of the acting majors said to me after class, "It's such a pleasure to see someone doing what they were born to do." I guess I was born to dance. Hope mom and dad don't mind.
My next class which I was also on the waitlist for is GIS, aka digital mapmaking. I think I'm going to enjoy it, it's so wonderfully structured! We have a calender and a syllabus, regular homework assignments. All very exciting for a person in art school.

After class, I attended a boring TA meeting where we were all reminded yet again (fourth time for me) that we can't date the student. If we are in a relationship with a student in the class, please quit the class not the relationship. Yes, I know, thanks for wasting an hour of my day. Then it was rush over to Waz's and sew sleeves, then rush to Point Park. OK, so, Point Park's community jazz class is NOT WORTH $15. Five maybe. The warmups were horribly disappointing after my earlier jazz class, though things picked up towards the end when the teacher started getting a little creative. If she had a better warmup, I'd be tempted to keep taking, but no. I might take a try at Dance Alloy next week and see how I like it. And I'll finally get to meet the mysterious heartthrob Estee has been raving about.
After dance was LG practice. We measured models, talked with models, Waz pointed out I only said the work "crotch" around girls and gay guys. So I'm shy, and I don't like to touch boys unless I'm dating them. So see me and my prudery. See May, I'm a prude too!
So here I am at home at midnight. Time to start the homework! Joyful fun!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Yesterday: Went out with mom, didn't see anything of interest to buy. Talked on the phone with Ben and got into a fight.
Today: Baked delicious cookies, bought Christmas presents, caught a cold.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Finally

It's been a long semester and I finally feel free to relax. Almost all of my grades save one (I have a feeling my poor professor was recently inundated with a semester's worth of work from every single student) are posted online, and most of them were surprisingly better than I expected. So, even if I end up with a bad grade for the last one (by bad, I mean B because he's apparently very lenient) I'm still pleased. I only ended up with a B in studio, which is a little disappointing because this is definitely the best semester I've had in a while studio-wise, but I think it was a good strong B, not like the just barely I got last semester, so I'm still okay with it. After all, its not the grade but the portfolio that matters, after all.
I am a little surprised with one very difficult class I had, in a couple of ways. 1) I definitely bombed the final test and somehow I got by with a 99.... and 2) The teacher hasn't posted the final project grade yet so I'm assuming it hasn't been factored into my final grade. I think that it might be that this time around, I got what I did solely because I sucked up to the professor (I swear I didn't do it on purpose).
Still, the semester's over, and I'm looking forward to next semester where I'll be taking only a whopping 6 classes with one of them being a mini (and it's just CSW - aka how to use Excel because apparently one can't graduate CMU without knowing how to work Excel) so that doesn't really count. Five classes, what a vacation...

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Cursed

I wonder if someone has placed a jinx on me for the last week of classes. I feel like my luck is usually pretty darn good, and for some reason this week, small things have been going wrong.
My laundry card: I can't even remember which day it is, but I was doing the laundry this week and I somehow managed to drop the laundry card into that horrible little crack between the wall and the machine. I tried to move the machine and obviously it was way too heavy. I fortunately was able to get it out with the aid of my ruler and a lot of duct tape. Later in the week, I lost the laundry card yet again while walking down to the laundry room. I suppose it was because it was early, but I remember looking down into my basket as I walked in and seeing the card, but when I set down my basket, I found the card wasn't there. I looked through the basket, looked all over the room, traced my steps and found the card lying in a sad little corner outside the stairwell. I suppose it flew out while I was struggling my way through that horrible doorway (whoever thought having a 5' doorway with two 2.5' doors is an idiot because it's so hard to get through with a laundry basket).
My wallet: On Thursday, I ran down to the vending machines to grab a couple sodas for me and Waz. I ran back up, supposedly with my wallet in hand, but I didn't realize it was missing until about 4 hours later. Panic ensued and I ran through the hallways looking for it, and I suppose some girl recognized me and could tell I was upset about something and told me she found the wallet a couple hours ago and turned it in to the UC info desk. I got it, fortunately with all my affects intact.
My flight: normally I breeze right through ticketing and just hop on a flight. This time around, I walked to USAirways, realized my ticket was for United, so I went to United. At the United counter, I was told that they had NO flights to NY. "But I bought a United ticket online, United flight 2758!" The lady told me as if I should've known, that it was moved over to USAirways 1096. I go back to USAirways where the machine says there are no tickets under my name for the flight, so I panicked. Then someone behind the counter made me wait 20 minutes while she discussed baggage with another person. Fortunately, she was able to print out a ticket for me. Upon arrival at the gate, I found out that the flight was delayed 45 minutes. 45 minutes later, they informed us it was delayed again by another 45 minutes. All in all, our plane took off at 10:10 instead of 8:30, and I ended up arriving in NY at 12:30.
So yes, I think I might be jinxed.
At least I got to chop off all my hair so now I'm comfortable.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Ridiculously Busy

I remember how at the start of the semester, I was raving to my parents about how easy and carefree this semester has been. How wonderful it will be and how much free time I would be looking forward to.
Well, pretty much since mid-semester, it's been non-stop work that just intensified after Thanksgiving. In the process of all that, I somehow managed to fit in spending time with my boyfriend and celebrating my best friend's birthday. Other than that, this is what I've managed to achieve this semester:
For Figure Drawing, I completed my portfolio (which I still need to pick up. For dance...well...I've been dancing. I just made it by this mini with two absences, both due to hell week. It's a good thing I saved up for those. I've also managed to make a sketchbook, a book arts info book, a different from the normal, portfolio worthy box and a lab plate in book binding. For my two enviro classes - well, I feel bad about those because I have been just hanging on all semester long. As for studio, this has been one of the best semesters ever, and I hope that I can continue to do this well. (I think that I have a good solid B this semester, keeping my fingers crossed for something better....doubtful though).
I'm also really annoyed, because before I leave tomorrow, I have to help my acoustics group put together a project, work with my mechanical systems group to put together another project, and work with another group to do the heat gain calculations and construction diagrams for yet another project. I love how all of that has to be done by the end of today.
Other than classes, I had the worst DS show I ever did, mostly because I've been so busy that I haven't had time to really go over the dances or, for that matter, show up to people's extra rehearsals. I feel like I wasn't that great a statics TA, but oddly enough, Oppenheim asked me to TA structures again, this time not even waiting for me to ask.
In my personal life, my relationship with the Benny-bean is going well. He seems oddly okay with my leaving for a month. I suppose after three months of me being on the other side of the world, three weeks of me being on the other side of the region is quite all right by him. I only wonder if someday he'll get fed up with my leaving all the time and just dump me. Who knows...boys are fickle.

PS I just had a mini heart attack when I checked my account and saw I owed $11000. I wondered for a moment how it was possible to spend that much money on printing, before I noticed the money was for spring tuition. Yah...I'm good...

Saturday, November 18, 2006

A Good Day

Today started very early for a Saturday morning. We had a field trip for our mechanical systems class (HVAC...yay...) that left campus at 8:30am so I had to wake up at 7. Amazingly, I woke up on time.
First, we went to Antiochian Village. It sounds like a retirement home, but is actually the national headquarters for some Christian religion or other. We toured the museum and auditorium, and then Jerry, the professor, took us to his favorite room of the building - the boiler room. I thought it was a little boring, personally. Looking around, I think a few people agreed. After that, we took the bus to the new dining hall. It was big. It was orange. It looked like a humongous log cabin. Jerry said the architect cried when they decided to put the faux log-cabin siding on. He also told us the architect said that was the ugliest building he ever designed. Poor architect. Again, we went to the boiler room and looked around. O yes, and the whole time, our bus driver (Mr. Chuck) walked around with us.
So then we all went to lunch. It was really amusing, because so far, when we moved from building to building, we've been taking the bus to just cross the street. I predicted to Waz that we would just drive 20 feet before we had to get off again, and lo and behold, we drove about 20 feet. I think there was a Mary Kay cosmetics convention because when we walked into the parking lot, there were an abnormal amount of pink cadillacs, and inside the entryway, there were a ton of pink things. It scared me. A lot. When we all picked drinks for lunch, I saw blue colored juice, and being that the more toxic it looked the more appealing it was to me, I picked it. Then everyone made fun of me. Meh, blue juice is more fun than red juice. The nice thing about archie field trips is that you're so familiar with all your classmates, that you could sit with just about anyone and still have a good time. It was a good lunch. I stole cookies and we ended with a debate about who was better, Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio. Since I personally think that Leo looks like a very ugly woman, I went with Matt.
Next we went to Jerry's very own home. We approached what I thought was the driveway going up to his house. A very narrow little road that Jerry's own SUV just squeezed through somehow managed to accomodate our schoolbus. I feel like we drove a mile on that road before we reached his house, which seemed to be about the same size as Mount Vernon. Apparently my professor is quite affluent. We were greeted by an adorable three-legged german shepard mix that decided to run a circle around me while on his leash, nearly making me fall over.
The inside of Jerry's house was the most American looking house ever. The kitchen and gathering room were warm colors, the other rooms looked either very stately or very country craft-like. His wife told us she was starting to decorate and one of my classmates said, "Starting??" Then she clarified by saying she was starting to decorate for Christmas. They plan on having a total of 27 Christmas trees. 27! Jerry took us all into the basement to show us his pride and joy - a 3 ton geothermal heating system. Then we went upstairs and looked around his house. The study had a tiny little spiral staircase which led to a tiny tiny little room at the top. When I got up there, I don't know if it was the staircase or the size of the room, but I felt a little faint so I went back down. Claustrophobia, I think. All in all, a gorgeous house that a state politician would love. We finished our visit with a sampling of Mrs. Jerry's Christmas cookies. Very yummy.
The bus ride home was very quiet because everyone fell asleep. Well, almost quiet. Chang snored way too loudly for me to be able to sleep well. Fortunately, my trusty new earmuffs made it a little quieter.

Halfie

I guess growing up in America has made me a little too white-washed. In the past week, I've been asked twice if I'm a halfie - by halfie I mean half asian, half white. I can't figure out why people think so, in fact, it's a little upsetting since I feel like, if anything, I seem a little more fobby after being in China all summer. My friends can't pinpoint what makes me look distinctly not-Chinese. It's not just here either. When I was in China, practically every talkative cab driver asked me if I was from Japan or Korea, or something along those lines.
I guess I shouldn't let it bother me. The guy who asked me today said, "It's a good thing." His reason for asking me was because my hair's really black. All of my cousins have really black hair, too, so I thought that was a little odd for a reason. Another friend said it's my eyes, but my mum tells me I have very nice, Chinese almond-shaped eyes. I guess I just have a wierd combination of features. Poo. Mom said that when she was in college in Texas, she was regularly mistakened for hispanic. In fact, if we go to Manhattan, very often some poor tourist will start speaking to her in fast Spanish and she won't even know what language they're speaking. Well, since people think Mom is hispanic, maybe I look half hispanic...?
Maybe I should just say, "Yes, yes I am," because, after all, with family history who knows?

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Me and My Stupid Mouth

Today I think I win the prize of saying inappropriate things. Well, I only recall two instances, one of which I noticed myself in hindsight which I very much regret, and the other one I noticed when Ben pointed it out, and it was actually quite funny. Just for entertainment's sake, I'll tell you the funny one.
So, my roomie has been receiving a million packages in the mail. Constantly. I don't know what she orders, but they always arrive in teeny little bags. In any case, I got home today and opened the mailbox and took out a few pieces of paper that notified me that we had received a package. While talking to Ben on the phone, the doorman brings out a big box and I said, "O my, that's a large package." Fortunately, the doorman, being about daddy's age, didn't notice either and said, "Yes, but it's quite light." Ben, on the phone, burst out laughing and in a very suggestive tone said, "Yes. Yes it is. A. Very. Large. Package." Yah, apparently I'm dating a pervy one.
Speaking of my pervy boy, we were watching "Sex and the City" Season 5 the other day - the season where Sarah Jessica Parker was pregnant so there were only eight episodes. About half way through episode six, Ben offhandedly mentioned that her boobs looked bigger. I never told him she got pregnant that season, so he must have come to that conclusion on his own. Is it just my boyfriend? Or is it all men? And how come, when I look at that show again, I still don't notice any change? Maybe it's just because I'm a girl and I don't really care...
Well, enough of that. I think that last paragraph can be added to my list of wildly inappropriate things. Speaking of which, to my friend, I feel very badly about what I said. If you noticed it and it upset you, I apologize.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Facebook Group

I started a nifty little group on facebook a while back to keep track of friends who went to my Chinese School. I checked on it recently and there's three people from CUNY Brooklyn and Stuyvensant. My question is - did they actually go to my Chinese School (and if so, why on earth would anyone want to travel so far for a Saturday morning class?) or did they just randomly decide to join? (and if so, should I try to kick them out of the group...?)

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Glassed!

Today is halloween. In true halloween fashion, I put on a make-everyone-stare outfit. I'm quite proud of it. Think Jay McCarroll's final collection super long green scarf mixed with his 2055 outfit. Very cool, I think. I also put my hair in two buns on the top of my head. Whee! It only took 45 minutes to do....I really need to grow out my hair...or chop it all off again...
On a different note, I bought a bottle of snapple today and right when I was about to chug the last bit down, I noticed I could hear a tinkling noise in the bottle. What's this? I think, and look closer. Lo and behold, lying at the bottom of the bottle was a little piece of glass. I really hope I didn't swallow any, though I doubt I did. I called up Snapple after class and complained. I'm getting coupons...Well, I suppose that when I'm recovering from a tear in my stomach, they might come in handy...

Fashion!

Waz and I are OFFICIALLY fasion designers in the school's biggest fashion show of the year! Rejoice at the opportunity! Lament the work that's coming...
Random note: Today I found out that my best friend Waz and my cousin Louise went to elementary school together. It's a small world...

Monday, October 30, 2006

Updates

There's a strange man in my apartment and all I know is that he wears odd high top sneakers. And sandals in cold weather. For the past month, my roomie has been inviting mystery asian man over for sleepovers and occasionally not coming home, so my only conclusions are that mystery man is her boyfriend and that he is abnormally unresponsive to cold.
In other news, my midsemester grades were pretty darned horrible, mostly due to the fact that I've been focusing more on studio and dance than usual so the enviro classes kind of suffer. O, and by horrible, I mean I only got two As, so don't panic.
Also, after working for about four weeks straight on gut-wrenching heart-stopping gotta-meet-the-deadline work, I finally had a relaxing weekend where I just focused on crocheting a scarf for the long winter ahead. It was most amusing actually, what's been happening with that. For most of the day, I walked around with a ball of yarn tucked under my arm, the scarf around my neck and the "active" part was expanding with every minute as I chatted with everyone. At one point, I was sitting with Ben in his room watching him play Dead Rising and I got called downstairs to help out with something, so I wandered down, not realizing I was leaving a long trail of yarn behind me. Ben ever so kindly picked all of it up off the ground before the cat realized it was there and put it in a pile. Also, right before he was going to bring me home, I was reviewing the state of the scarf, and, to my chagrin, it has shrunk a lot in width. I have no idea where I'm losing stitches. So, I was quite upset, and grumbled while rolling all of the around the current ball of yarn I was on. What resulted was a fuzzy big ball roughly the size of a watermelon. I kept grumbling while I packed stuff up to go, turned around and found Ben curled up around the ball, shielding it from "destructive mommy." I thought that was funny. Not many boyfriends would try to rescue their girlfriends' botched crocheting projects. Isn't he sweet? :)

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Exhausted

It's funny how I thought fourth year was such a breeze. I think part of it was the relief that we would be doing something more on the level of what I can understand. However, workload doesn't seem any less. For taking one less class than usual, I seem to still spend very little time at home.
Last Sunday, I had a big studio project due. At least, we all felt like it was a big studio deadline. Little did we know it, but on Wednesday, when the other studios had their presentations, what they pinned up was grease-pencil drawings on yellow trace. And here I spent $60 to make a book. That doesn't seem very fair. At least the review went well.
Immediately after that, I studied for a lighting exam, which I felt went well. Wednesday was my usual night off after discussing Lunar Gala with Waz. Thursday, whilst everyone partied and recuperated, Patrick and I sat in the computer lab putting together the beginnings of our lighting presentation. Friday, all day, I spent drawing the little people that went in our Lunar Gala design portfolio. They turned out fabulous. All of Saturday was spent grading homework and working out solutions for students to study off of. Sunday was all grading homework and Lunar Gala. The deadline was at 10 pm, but we were a little short on time when we found out that the printer didn't like 11x17 paper. But, in the end, we made it work - I even powerwalked between studio and the third floor computer lab. We got the deadline extended to 11 and exactly at 10:59, Waz and I grabbed our barely completed portfolio and sprinted full tilt over to the dropbox - and made it! Yay!
Then, of course, there was still Lighting to do, which is what I did last night until 4:00am. I think the presentation went will, though I feel that today, my thought process is significantly slower than normal because the exhaustion is setting in.
Dance at noon, right before the presentation - we had a substitute who had some interesting moves, many of which went too quickly for me to pick up. And, of course, it was very hip hop and if there's one thing that I really suck at...It should be fun though, a lot of my friends are in the class this time around so there's people to talk to.
1:30 was lighting, and then at 3:30, Waz and I had our Lunar Gala interview where we were solidly praised for the quality of our portfolios. I think we have a good chance, though they tell us that rehearsals are 6 hours a week, Tuesday and Thursday from 9:30 till god knows when. That will suck...and they start next week!
So now, here I am, with an hour and a half of free time before I teach recitation and then dance for three hours. Woe is me and my lack of rest. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow evening where I can just completely relax.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Sleep Walking

Have you ever woken up after a nap and gotten really confused on just what, exactly, happened? I pulled an all-nighter last night, and basically worried myself away all weekend long so I found myself in a state of zombieness today.
O and it just so happened, as well, that out of everyone in the entire studio, I had to stay the longest for my extra crit today, which, by the way, I really enjoyed because they had such nice things to say. After that, I went to dinner with Waz and then went home. Upon arriving home, I saw that it was around 7, and was a great time for me to take an hour's nap before doing some homework and then going to dance rehearsal - dance rehearsal that I lead, since I'm choreographing.
And then I woke up. About ten minutes ago, with the cell phone alarm clock thing on the nightstand next to me. How did it get there? I definitely set that thing on the other side of the room so I wouldn't turn it off in my sleep. And the funny thing is, usually, if I do that, I can vaguely recall myself turning the phone off, but this time...nothing...and I'm amazed I didn't trip over anything in my room because it looks like a typhoon came through here.
So all in all, I still have a lot of crap I need to do and let down a whole bunch of people who had to drag their butts to campus in the middle of the night just because of me. And I'm still sleepy. Crud...Sorry, guys...

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

A Detriment to Studio Culture

Cheers to me! According to my best friend's ex, I am a detriment to studio culture. According to this guru of feelings, I make my best friend feel bad about herself and I badmouth him to the entire school of Architecture.
I wasn't mad at him before. In fact, I was willing to give him a chance. I didn't talk to him unless he talked to me; since my best friend is working things out I figured I wouldn't do anything that might botch things up for her. I thought, 'Lend support to my best friend, try to be positive.' That was what I was trying to do.
And now this. I don't think I did anything to deserve hearing f***, s*** and b***** flung at me several times each over the course of three minutes. I don't recall spreading any information about him. I don't think I even discussed it with anyone who wasn't already aware of the entire situation. In fact, and I probably already said this, I didn't even hate him or dislike him until he decided to call me up just now. Not only was he rudely yelling expletives at me, he was self-righteous, condescending, arrogant, and ever so unaware as usual that he's, yet again, trying to displace the blame. Frankly, I'm offended and hurt. And yet, I still try to give him the benefit of the doubt...

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Not Feeling the Love

There's something really depressing about standing at the front of an empty classroom. There's also something really depressing about going upstairs to remind people that there's recitation right now, at this moment, and no one's interested because they're too busy playing poker or eating dinner. Hey, let's add to the depression by having me haar my students joke and laugh about how I'd yell at them for not paying attention because they'll be too busy playing poker in the back of the classroom. Thanks guys. I'M STANDING RIGHT HERE! I'm not impressed. In fact, right now, I'm feeling more than a little resentful of these people.
So, I'm just standing here at the computer, waiting to see if anyone will show up for recitation. My guess is that no, no one is interested, and in approximately 10 minutes, I'll be walking out that door myself, fuming at the insolence of the little buggers. Loving TA I am not. Whawtever. At least I'm making $5 for just standing here and typing on my blog.

Edit: So, half an hour late, but three people managed to show up (they had to finish their poker game first). They were polite enough to sit through it all, and they had questions afterwards. How nice. Still, where's the other 55 people?

Monday, September 25, 2006

No Heat

So today I planned on doing the laundry, since it's been about three weeks since I'd done any. However, the hot water in the building is down and no one knows when it will be up again. While I'm a cold water laundry person, I was warned that the hot water might back up and ruin my clothes. So, alas, no laundry for me. Whatever am I going to do with...all my free time?