Photo and Other Things

It's blurry, I know. However, Ben brought it to my attention today that he has no idea who my friends are, or for that matter, what their genders are. So here are Shelly and LiQiang (a boy, as you can see). We were at a really nifty place that sells XiaoLongTangBao - Soup Dumplings.

Other than that, yesterday has been filled with the most interesting things. I'll start with work. Yesterday was the Architect's birthday. We celebrated with a humongous cake that makes me never want chocolate cake ever again. However, I believe that the party has put the Architect in a very good mood. Later on in the day, when my supervisor, Anita, and I went to see him and go over our designs, he was most amusing. What I'm doing is creating exteriors to pre-existing, unfortunately malformed and overcomplicated interiors. The end result looks somewhat like Casa Barragon, but very skewed. I had a scheme going on about solids and voids intersecting one another. If I can figure out how to get a rendering out of SketchUp I will post a picture. In any case, the Architect said he really liked what I had going on. However there was one problem. "You see," he said, and I translate, "These clients are very conservative. What they want is something more traditional. It's like they want cheesecake, but what you've given them is fancy chocolate cake. The fancy chocolate cake is very nice, but in the end, if we present them with no cheesecake, they'll walk away feeling like they didn't get what they want - namely cheesecake. What we could do is offer them some cheesecake with some fancy filling (he suggested something which I interpret as foie gras - in cheesecake?)." So he told me to hold on to the chocolate cake - he likes it enough that he's willing to present it as a final, very optional option, but he told us that we must work on making cheesecake. Anita later complained that she doesn't like cheesecake, and that she's not very good at making cheesecake. The senior designer, a fellow named Hung Ming, chimed in and said that she's just going to have to figure out how to make cheesecake even if it's really bad cheese or something along those lines. The whole experience has made me very averse to cake of any sort. I doubt I'll be eating any for some time.
Later, I went home. One of my other uncles stopped by to pick up a package my aunt left for him. While he was over, he needed to borrow a bottle opener for something he brought. Since neither of us knew much about the place, we looked everywhere for one. He was in the kitchen and I looked at the sideboard thingy where all the hard liquor is kept. At one point, I saw the shiny metal of a bottle opener and thought, "Oo! Bottle opener." Imagine my horrified consternation when I picked up the shiny piece of metal and found attached to it a very detailed wooden phallus. Yes, the "down there" of a man. I can only assume someone presented it in poor taste to my uncle as a gag gift. And, needless to say, I found a different bottle opener for my other uncle to use.
What's also wonderfully amusing is that the starter conversation of the day in our row at the office was about working women. By working women, we mean hookers. There are a lot of them in Shanghai, and though it is technically illegal, none of the ladies are ever arrested. We asked the boys in our row whether or not the ladies are in a legal business and they said that the policemen here don't arrest them. We asked why. They said because the police here need their services too. Then they asked us how to ask a hooker for her services in the states. Then we told them that it's illegal, but according to movies, the proper approach is "How much?" Then they asked us the usual price. Being that neither of us have ever needed such services, we had no idea. Adn that's a fascinating start to my day.

Today I went to lunch around here. Isn't it nifty? Shelly and I stopped to buy a Chinese yoyo (for her brother) and some pumice stones (for our feet). Since purchasing our rocks, Shelly has fallen madly in love with hers and is planning on buying one for practically everyone she knows. Also, while we were here, we had some cheap and delicious XiaoLongBao (Soup Dumplings). MMMMM.

Shanghai Some More

Last night, I went to a spa! A real one! I went with my aunt and uncle, soaked in a hot tub and got a foot massage. And the foot massage cost only a whopping $6. I love this country.
Today I went with my aunt to a street market that sells fake Gucci, Prada, Fendi and the like. I didn't really see anything that really caught my interest. The only thing I ended up buying was a purse in this random store in the market that was completely original. Mmm, purses. While we were in there, the store crowded up with English speaking people who couldn't fathom that some Chinese people can actually speak English, so that was pretty amusing. I was also at another store where a woman bought something at 10 times the price that I could have gotten it for simply because she was 1) caucasian and 2) could speak no Chinese.
Speaking of caucasians that speak Chinese, I heard a wonderful tale from my coworker, Shelly, about her unfortunate friend. He's in Shanghai working over the summer too. He's a nice American boy who doesn't know a single word of Chinese. The firm he works for set him up with a place to live, but the bed had to linens. So he went out and bought some pillows and blankets and sheets. On the way home he saw a place that sells really cheap beer. Awesome, he thinks and heads on in. The proprieter sees him holding his pillows and blankets and starts pointing and laughing. The poor guy stands there confused. Then, quite a few scantily clad young ladies walk downstairs and also starts pointing and laughing. Then, the young ladies go up and start touching him inappropriately. I suppose at that moment he realized he'd walked into a brothel and they were laughing because they thought he had brought his own equipment.
Gotta' love China...

LWMA = Loquacious Wayward Muddled Architects

So it's been almost a week since I started work. So far it's been pretty good. I've been working on the exterior of a building and it's transformed into a Casa. Kind of like Barragon or however you spell it, but the house is definitely looking more South American than American. I have so far learned how to use 3D studio Max and SketchUp. 3D Max is pretty comparable to Maya, but unless it's changed since I last used it, 3D Max is better an snapping. SketchUp is really great for making simple forms when you're just beginning to make massings, but after my casa got a few too many angles, everything started to go to pieces on me.
It's quite different from working in a tiny firm like last year's. I guess since Nestor and Jonathan were so much older, I felt a little odd hanging out with them, but I have a great time with all of my coworkers, since they're all around the same point in life as me. Well, I'm actually a little behind since most of them are recent archie grads. Still, the level of productivity is definitely lower because I'm having too much fun. I spend a lot of time gossiping with my coworkers about random things like the architect's love life or who does what. Today, Wang Yue (a guy) noticed I was wearing eyeliner and seemed to decide that would be a wonderful thing for him to copy, so somehow he obtained an eyeliner pencil and a mirror and sat at his desk for a good hour trying to put on eyeliner. He tried...it most ended up on his eyelid because he was afraid of getting too close to his eyeball. Silly boy. I can't quite figure out what induced him to put eyeliner on. Shel suspects it has something to do with his fascination with Marylin Manson.
The final deciding point that we were all definitely still kids came today. At 10:30 the senior desinger, Hung Ming or something like that, gathered all the architects into the shuttle. I think there are about ten of us. We drove over to a place called "The Bridges" because our next big project is going to be similar in that we will be taking pre-existing historical buildings and modifying them to become offices and shops. We spent an hour and a half scampering off in different directions, taking photos of everything and each other. Shel kept getting distracted by the merchandise instead of the architecture. At one point, we saw a firm for David Chipperfield, some English guy. Apparently he lectured at Yale so Shel wanted to find out what work they did in China. Since the door was open, Shel popped her head in and asked. The British guy at the table was very rude, asking, "Who are you?" and "What are you doing here?" She asked her question, apologized and then we left. We weren't more than a few feet out the doorframe when the fancy modern white door came whistling towards us, basically slamming in our faces. Never work for Chipperfield - check. We next saw a really cool looking firm which had very scandinavian design, a nifty place called Alsop which is actually British, too. We popped our heads in their too and the receptionist was very willing to tell us all about the firm and how to apply to work there. Maybe would love to work for Alsop simply because the name is cool and the receptionist is nice - check. Then, when we were all gathered in the courtyard, someone mentioned that SOM's office was in the facility. Shel used to work for SOM so we all decided to go on up and find the person she used to work for. We hiked up to the office, wandered in and the receptionist said, "No, Silas is in a meeting with a client." Basically indicating that he wanted all us low-rate Chinese architects out. Now. SOM is filled with self important jerks that don't make anything that interesting anyway so I'll never work for them - check.
After work I went out with Shel and another co-worker, really nice guy, if he had an English name it would probably be like Greg or something. Friendly and unimposing, very nice and get formal. He brought along an old classmate that apparently they all hang out with. I realized at dinner that it is possible for Chinese guys to be good looking. If only they heard of dental work. Greg's (That's what I'll call him) old classmate looks like Karl the really super cute designer that the blond American woman in Love Actually was in love with. Except he has crooked teeth. Teeth, they're very important you know. Irreplaceable. Can't really eat well without them. But yes, Karl is very nice. He works for an Italian design firm, but speaks no English. Greg on the other hand can say, "Can I carry that for you?" and when picking up the bill, "My treat." Gentleman in training - that's Greg.

Shanghai: First Day on the Job

I hope I make it out of Shanghai alive. I told my cousin the other day that I remembered that in Shanghai, green means go, and red means go faster. Now take that into consideration and imagine me trying to cross an eight-lane highway where there's no stoplights anywhere in the area. Now imagine me only making it halfway across because the traffic on the other side caught up. Now imagine standing on the yellow line with cars honking everytime they zoomed by at 50 mph. I lived. Barely. And it wasn't like I was jaywalking either, because there were definitely zebra lines. And thinking back on it, I want to yell at those drivers for honking like it was my fault. After all, according to the law, they are supposed to stop for me. I'm not supposed to stop for them.
So, the office where I'm working is quite nice. They use a lot of stone in the place, and, as Zach says, the signage is awesome. One thing I noticed is that the office is definitely not to code. USA safety codes, I mean. The stairs don't have any railings at all and the glass thingies that enclose the mezzanine aren't structural in the least, nor do they have mullions. That means that if you lean on the glass, you make the glass fall. Also, there's a crazy sort of half-bridge that hangs out over the workspace. Think prow of the boat, or "off the plank!" or maybe have some mad scientist laughing devilishly as he lords over his little minions below. Of course, as lovely as the idea is, one also has to beware of the fact that not only is there no safety rails surrounding the thing, there's a 6 inch gap between the edge of the mezzanine and the start of the plank.
In the office itself, I have my own desk, my own box of pencils, my own desk lamp, my own computer and my very own empty drawers for stuff I don't have. The only other people in the office fluent in English are the architect himself (fat chance on getting to talk with him - he only spoke a hand full of sentences to me all day because he's so busy) and another intern - a grad student from Yale named Shelly. After a very frustrating day of not understanding my Malaysian neighbor (he mumbles too much) it was a relief to turn off the Chinese side of my brain and speak some English. I later realized, too, that it isn't that my Chinese is bad, it's that people from different parts of China have completely different accents. I had a hard time with the Malaysian accent, but when I talked to the senior project manager, I didn't have to ask more than a couple times for translations (I found out later that he is Taiwanese, so that explains it). It is also a bit of a relief to realize that my reading in Chinese isn't too bad. I need to find time to get my hands on a Chinese English dictionary so I don't have to keep bothering everyone for explanations. I think I made a lot of friends today. Shelly, Mr. Malaysian and some of the other younger people in the firm asked me if I wanted to stay a bit later and play some badminton, but I decided that I would save today for trying to get home without getting lost. Fortunately, I didn't get lost. Day one is over and I'm alive and well.

Shanghai Day 3

I feel like it's been forever already, but I've only been in Shanghai for three days. Partly it's because my cousin has decided to take me around as much of the city as possible this weekend.
Today I went with him, his wife and baby, his grandpa and his aunt to the Century Park out in Pudong. Pudong, in case you aren't familiar with Shanghai, is the newer district. There's a lot of new development out there, mostly skyscrapers that look like rocket ships, imitation art deco or vertically inflated temples. The new airport is out there (photos to be posted on facebook when I'm not so lazy). It takes about an hour to get to Pudong by car and once you get there, traffic is so confusing that my cousin pulled a tricks that would have had him arrested in the US. For example, we missed a turn, so we did a U-turn and went the other direction - right into oncoming traffic. Fun...
Outside the park, Yuko (my cousin's wife) and I were accosted by a teeny old lady who was trying to sell us plastic bottles filled with tap water. Normally I would just say no thanks, but she followed us and kept waving the bottles in our faces. Fortunately, Kaikai (my cousin) and his aunt came to our rescue by whisking us quickly and efficiently away. We went into Century Park and enjoyed the sights. I think the whole landscaping of the park is geared towards framing the skyscrapers in the back. The skyscrapers that look like they could blast off at any second, that is.
We got back to the apartment around 7:30 for dinner and afterwards, while everyone was still eating, I brought my eating-ware into the kitchen where the maid/nurse was eating. I asked her why she didn't eat with the family. She said something unintelligible (For some reason, she speaks only in her dialect and expects that I understand every single word) and then thanked me for always putting my bowl in the sink. I responded that my parents would kill me if I didn't. Haveing a maid, or help of any sort, is really really strange. I don't really like it....

Shanghai

Hullo from the other side of the world! I had the most comfortable 14 hour plane ride ever in an aisle seat on Japan airlines sitting next to an archie that goes to the Boston Architecture College or whatever it is. BAC, BCA, something along those lines. He started the program really late so even though we're both just out of third year, he's three years older than me. It was interesting hearing what their curriculum is like. Teachers always tell us how important it is to have studio culture and from what I hear, this person (Yao is his name) barely ever goes to studio. He has it once a week, and all of his classes are at night. I think the students there (and they have way more archies than we do, and a lot of interior designers) spend the daytime working in firms and their evenings in class. They don't have any university-wide electives because there aren't any university classes and they rarely go to school community events. Makes me really appreciate how I have at least thirty-six more-than-acquaintance friends. Still, while I think the culture is nice, I think they're going to be a lot more functional as architects when they get out because those students live and breathe architecture with no distractions whereas we have hours and hours of extra classes to worry about.
So I thought that getting through customs would be a pain. I figured they'd question me, detain me, possibly arrest me just for the reason that I look suspicious. Obviously I was just being paranoid and got through customs in under ten minutes. I didn't even have to wait for my checked baggage to show up because it rolled right by me the moment I approached the luggage carousel. Looking for my cousin was another story. I haven't seen him since fourth grade so it was kind of doubtful that I would recognize him. I put on my glasses just in case, which made it a little harder for him to recognize me, but fortunately, we recognized each other. Sort of. I saw him and thought, 'hmm, I think...that's...him...but I don't want to be embarrassed if it isn't, so I'll look around and pretend I'm not making a b-line for him to see if he recognizes me.' And then I realized it was him and upon saying hello immediately proceeded to think, 'He's shorter than I remember.' Most likely because the last time I saw him I was only a little over four feet tall. I think he and dad are around the same height.
So then it was an hour ride back to my aunt's apartment and then another couple hours of chatting with Kaigen (that's my cousin's official English name - celtic he says) about stuff - we reminisced about how he used to pick on me (stealing my baby doll, making me run errands, how he and his old high school buddies used to take my doll and toss it around high above me so I would cry) and talked about his new family. He has a wife named Yuko and a little boy named Arvin whose nickname is Mumu. I still haven't met them because they were already asleep when I got there and are still sleeping now.
Today my plans are to hopefully get a phone call from Ben (hint hint) and then go out and figure out how to get to the office. Fortunately, I don't seem to be suffering from jet lag because I went to sleep around 2am and woke up at 8 - that's about normal, right?

Why I Love Home

So it's been a little over a week since I've been home, and tonight I'm yet again reminded of something I don't miss. As we have guests over, and, as daddy never cleans up his papers, our dining room is covered in his litter. Mom asked him to clean up his junk since we have guests over. And now he's throwing a temper tantrum. Why the hell is he throwing a tantrum?

New York Again

Today was my second trip to New York in less than a week. I've had so much going on since I got home that I feel like I've already been here a month.
Anyhoo, this time, I went with May which proved much more pleasant because 1) May doesn't spend the entire trip bitching about how I need a rich boyfriend and more importantly 2) She's willing to walk from Grandcentral (Which is somewhere to 42nd St and 4th Ave) to the Chinese Consulate (Which is on 42nd and 12th Ave). I timed us, and I'll admit it took a while, but I didn't really mind. In any case, we walked many of those blocks, maybe six of them, right behind this woman who was wearing a tight black dress and heels and big "partied-last-night-now-hung-over" sun-glasses. It was very amusing because we were right behind her and got to see all the admiring glances she got, namely almost every man that walked past her. We started keeping count of how many men turned to gape (and I do mean gape) and it was around fifteen. And who said New Yorkers weren't friendly.
We got to the consulate during their lunch break so we went to a little deli and got sandwiches. We decided to eat at the tables outside Starbucks despite not buying a single bit of Starbucks merchandise and then I ditched May there while I stood in line for half an hour to pick up my Visa. That was made all the more bearable by my reading a copy of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Really, why don't they teach Philip K. Dick in schools? It's just as good if not better than Kurt Vonnegut.
Next stop was Broadway between 32nd and 33rd St for my plane tickets. I will be flying Japan Airlines, woohoo! After that, we meandered our way back up, stopping at H&M, Zara and Banana Republic. Surprisingly, I didn't see anything at Zara that I liked, so we ended up only getting stuff from Banana Republic.
Then we walked up to Grand Central, bought gelato smoothies and made it just in time for the 4:20 train, which, contrary to the information on metro north, is in fact a peak fare train. O well, we only got charged $3.25 extra per person.

Settling In

So now I'm home. I had a pretty hectic home-coming as the moment I got home, my mom started berating me about getting my visa and then I got an email from one of my students informing me that my internet apparently farted out mid-grade-inputting so I had to try to figure out who got what grade as quickly as possible. Fortunately, I didn't throw out the grade sheet and was able to call my roomie and she could tell me what the numbers were. Then, Friday and Saturday were spent in New York. Friday kind of sucked because I had to wake up at 5:30 in the morning, get to the train station and from there get to the consulate. Normally getting from Grand Central to the consulate would take me maybe half an hour of walking, but since I had mom in tow, and mommy doesn't like to walk very much, we had to stand at the bus stop outside Bryant Park for about an hour with no bus in sight until mommy gave in and we caught a $6.50 cab ride. I mentioned to her that I could have gotten to the consulate in half the time for free, but as usual, mom refused to listen. As it was, the whole time we were there, it was pouring.
At the consulate, contrary to popular belief, we didn't have to wait an hour. In fact, by the time I finished filling out the paperwork, they had already passed our number, so my mom argued with one of the annoyed people behind the scary windows and we handed my papers in. Right now I'm on a tourist visa. I told mom I had to have proof of employment before I could get the right visa. Mom, of course, disagreed with me so now I have to go and switch around my visas when I get to China.
Saturday was nice. We went around and got groceries, sat around the apartment and left when we realized the Mets game was about to end (we didn't want to get caught in traffic). So now I'm home. Monday, May and I are going to the library. Wednesday, I have to go back to New York to pick up my visa. Stupid visa...

I Hate CT

I have been home less than three hours and I want to go back to Pittsburgh already. I walk in the door and mom is already demanding this and that, and then I get an email from a student asking about lab grades and I realize that my internet at my apartment is so screwed up that half the grades I input didn't go through. And now I have to figure out what everything is except that my grade sheet is in Pittsburgh and I can't reach my roommate and I think final grades have to be in by tomorrow. I'm probably going to get fired for this. FUCK! Why couldn't my students have brought that to my attention sooner!
I really miss Ben, and I really miss having privacy. It's nice seeing my sister and my dad, but mom is getting on my nerves and I have to waking up at F-ing 5:00 tomorrow morning so we can hop on the train to the consulate to get my visa.
I miss Pittsburgh.

Krispy Kreme Hands

Today Waz and I went to get our end of the semester treat - manicures. We went to a place that's about a block away from where I live called Daniel & Co. The lady who did our nails is very enthusiastic - first we got oil rubbed onto our nails, then the nails got filed, and then we dipped our hands in a tub of hot wax. Our hands came out with a thin coat of wax and for a while, I was trying to think of the best description possible, and the only thing I could come up with is Krispy Kreme Hands. We had a layer of glaze and now I know what I would feel like if I were a Krispy Kreme Donut. So yes, we got a nice little hand massage and we got our nails painted, the whole while the nail lady, Vicky, was giving us all her opinions on everything. It was very...interesting...
So when we left, I told Waz I would screw up my nails in 10 minutes. I definitely didn't try to screw them up, I certainly wasn't trying, but when I went to close my umbrella not 15 minutes ago, I caught my nail in the plastic handle part of the darned thing and scraped a chunk of polish right off. O well, I never was good with nail polish...

Wondering

So I got my studio grade just now. I got a B which is what I really was hoping for. Well, it was a B-, but still, I got the B. I really wonder why I'm sad and yet really uncaring, and why I'm so relieved with getting a B. It isn't great, it isn't at all what I ought to be wanting for my grades. Maybe it's just this year that has me so down, maybe it's the whole studio situation.
I really wonder what I'm doing here sometimes. Even though I decided in high school that I wanted to be an architect, I never really had a clear idea as to why I wanted architecture, and what I would do in the architecture field. I find that I'm so much more interested in other things - the bookbinding class I'm taking next semester has me much more excited than studio. Studio, in fact, I am dreading. As usual. So I wonder, what am I doing here? Maybe I really need to rethink what my goals are. But then again, it's already fourth year. I think it's already too late to turn back. So I guess I'll just have to finish out my time here and think about what I really want to do when I leave school.
I think right now all that's really keeping me here is the fact that I've spent so much time working towards this degree. That and the fact that with the architecture degree, I can have a lot more options than if I were to have a comm design or art degree. I sometimes wonder if I should have done communication design because I spent so much time in school figuring out how to make books and working on layouts. I just had no idea that that was communication design. In fact, I never heard of communication design until I lived with someone who had it for her major.
And then there are those times when I'm so excited about architecture. I really wanted to work for Archi-tectonics, and I'm really hoping for that job with LWMA. Maybe it's just the atmosphere here at school that's getting me down. Everyone's depressed, no one's really interested, just cynical. I've spent a greater portion of this year trying to avoid studio by hiding behind my six other classes, or my job. Incidentally, I think my grades in my other classes are going to turn out pretty well, so much that hopefully I'll make Dean's List again - finally... Hope for the best, work through the crap. That's going to be my motto for a while.

O yes, and I had a super crappy conversation with my mother today where she basically told me, yet again, that I should stop wasting my time with my boyfriend. I don't think she realizes how I find that grossly offensive and that whenever she mentions it, I just decide that I'm not going to listen to another word she says. I hate how she's racist.

Shanghai

It really seems like all the firms in NY are full up for the summer. So now my choices are two - I can work for a really awesome architect in Shanghai over the summer, narrowly avoid heat stroke and see what living abroad without my mother bitching at me about my boyfriend the whole time can be like. Or I can stay home in Connecticut, work at some dinky job that's completely unrelated to architecture, and learn to drive. Those are my options.
As much as I need to learn to drive, that option isn't nearly as tantalizing or glamorous as Shanghai...Hey, who doesn't want heat-stroke after all? The down-side is that my pay is going to be equivalent to a McDonald's worker in China. I guess that means I'll be making a dollar a day. O well, food there is cheap and I won't have to pay rent. Woohoo!

Negativity

Yesterday I got the most negative comment I ever received since coming to college. Last night, a bunch of us were working in the computer labs on our templates. Templates which I was hired to create. Of course, the whole time, people were griping about the template, but I didn't mind too much because it was about having to do the template as opposed to disliking my template.
Then while people were griping, Ben Saks decided to up and say, "Yah, Angela, I have to say, your template is really bad." Thinking that he was joking, I made a pouty sad face and then he said, "No, I'm not joking, I really think it's bad." I thought a few moments, 'Maybe he's still joking?' Apparently not. Then I asked him why he thought so and he mentioned a few reasons - for example, that the 20x20 panels weren't at maximum size, and that there were spaces for things that he didn't want to put in so he had to make that up on the spot. Boy was I mad. In the end, I just told him it's the difference between me having taken a class that had some communication design focus (we learned that white space is good) and him never having taken one.
Still, as I said, it's the single most negative comment I have ever received. It wasn't a "I hate the template." It was a, "I hate your template." Meaning that I'm completely inadequate as a designer and should give up now and switch to engineering while I still have a chance because apparently all I'm good at is math.
This was supposed to be a short post. I think if I see Ben today, I'm really going to yell at him.

Brokeback

Yes, I did it. I watched the gay cowboy movie. And you know what? It was really good. I don't think really good describes it well enough - I think it might even be one of the best movies I have ever seen. It was quite tasteful for the most part other than one scene half an hour into the movie that made my jaw drop a mile. I still haven't finished thinking about the movie yet, there's a lot of depth to it, but I just thought I'd let people know that movie fully deserved all of its nominations.

Loneliness

I have no reason for feeling this way, but maybe it's because I just watched Pride and Prejudice, but I feel incredibly lonely. Darn those romance flicks with their perfect image of love. Completely unattainable, I hate them.

Vindicated

It's been a long time since I've written. Mostly it's because this year, I've had an extra extended hell week. It dropped be to an all time low for depression to the point where I would cry for seemingly no reason at all at strange times. For example, walking to class I would start thinking about it, and my eyes would start to burn and my mouth would tremble. But now, that's over, and for the first time in a week, I feel like eating. Yes, ladies and gents, I feel vindicated.
So let me tell you what happened. As usual, the last couple weeks of class were spent preparing for final reviews. I was well on my way, doing everything on the computer. I did a lot of AutoCAD and exported into photoshop and saved myself money on paints and paper and had some really nice drawings. And then the unspeakable happened. Monday morning, five hours to presentation, I was putting together my boards. It was probably because I had CAD, InDesign and Photoshop all opened at the same time, but suddenly my computer shut down. Melted down. Geeked out. Flipped out. Threw a tantrum. No blue screen of death. It just suddenly went black. No worries, I thought, so I hit the power button. Nothing. Well, maybe it just needs a moment, I thought, so I went and took a shower. After my shower I hit the power button and it turned on, but then windows wouldn't load. Not good, I thought, so I called Steve Lee (the studio coordinator) to let him know the situation. I tried a few more times, sort of freaking out and finally, I got things up and running. By then, it was about 12:30, and I thought, awesome, I can still do this, so I called Steve and let him know the situation. And then, I realized that most of the files I had open were corrupted. Somehow some of the pdfs had miracuously changed from yellow toned to green toned, and there were chunks that were grey. Not good. But at least my older files were okay, so I figured I would use those. I slapped together what I had into the required 40x40, hoping to get some sort of presentation that day. I wandered over to campus to get things plotted and by then it was 1:30 - that was when I was supposed to present. I went to the plotter and found out I had a couple hours wait, so I stuck around and regaled Buzz and Bob with my horrible tale of computer woes and they offered some good advice about how to fix the computer. So at 3:30, I got my plots and went to present. What happened was horrible. Everyone stared and said nothing. Gerard tried to be nice and said, "Well, let's look at what we do have..." I can't remember most of what happened, except that at the end, first one professor told me there was just nothing there to comment on, and then my own professor, Walbert, said that the presentation had to be redone, that it wasn't worthy of my project. I think Walbert's comment hurt me the most. Fortunately, but then, it was time for me to go to dance class, so I left with Rebecca and immediately started sobbing when we walked into the stairwell. I contintued to sob through half of dance class and cheered up when we started learning a dance for "You Can't Stop the Beat" from Hairspray. After dance, I went home and cried a lot, and called Ben and cried to him. Poor Benny-bean, I didn't mean to make him so uncomfortable.
In any case, I agreed with Walbert that my presentation was crap, so I spent the week recreating everything in just autoCAD and watercolors, this time saving all the hard computer thinking for the school computers. I finished about an hour and a half into studio today and Buzz was kind enough to plot it for me while telling me all about beer and whisky. I now know whisky tastes better if you order it on the rocks and let it melt a little.
I brought the new printouts to studio where Walbert kept giving me apologetic smiles while I trimmed the plots. I finally showed him what I had and he told me that I had too much white space. Waz disagrees, so it's all good. I showed her and Zack and other people in Fisher studio and then decided I needed to see how it looked on a board so I hung it up and started to write down what revisions I need to make (those revisions will most assuredly also be done on a school computer) when Walbert walked in and gave Chang a crit. After he was done with Chang, Walbert asked me if I was waiting for stray professors to give me crits and I replied that no, I was just writing down things that I needed to change for my own purposes. Meaning that now that I know I'm not half bad at creating presentations, it's become a point of pride to make all of my presentations attractive. After I talked with him a bit, I decided I wanted to show Steve what I fixed because he also seemed severely disappointed with my presentation on Monday, so I brought it up to him and he gave it a thumbs up. We talked a bit about Monday and he asked me why I didn't try to explain the situation to which I replied that Gerard was there, and Gerard doesn't take those kinds of excuses.
All in all, I now have a nice final project, and, even if I end up with a C in studio, I know that it was a good project and I really didn my best.

Gospel

National Geographic always has the most interesting articles. The latest issue is all about a new gospel - you know, it's like the Dead Sea Scrolls or some such. Apparently someone found an old book which was then transfered from person to person for about thirty years until someone got smart enough to take a closer look and what do they find? The Gospel of Judas. Sadly, the people who got a hold of it were stupid enough to undo the binding and shift the pages all around, deteriorating the papyrus and then leaving it in a bank vault.
So the story goes that in the past five years, a famous restorer of documents and a guy who knows his stuff about Coptic (the language in which the gospel was written) worked together and translated all that was left. What it says is that of all the disciples, only Judas truly understood Jesus's message, and that Judas did not willingly betray Jesus. In fact, Jesus asked Judas to do so so that Jesus might be free of his body.
So far, all testing that has been done has proven that the document is actually from the right time period.
Normally, I couldn't care less about religion, but when something this juicy pops up, it's just great. It's like the DaVinci Code or Stigmata, but so much better because the documents have been around for 2000 years. Anyhoo, just thought I'd share. Nifty, no?

Post Pre Final

Let's just say that I'm depressed.
About a lot of things.
I'm depressed that I treated Ben so badly, yelling at him more in this one weekend than I have in the entirety of our relationship.
I'm depressed that I got a really bad crit today where the teachers basically told me my roof is great but everything else is trash.
I'm depressed that I forgot a CD so I had to run home and was late for dance.
I'm depressed that the teacher finally decided to let me dance even though I showed up after plies, and seemed to even have saved me my usual center front spot.
I'm depressed that I couldn't do any turns today.
I'm depressed that Archi-tectonics doesn't need any more interns.
I'm depressed that I'm probably not going to find a job this summer.
I'm depressed that there won't be a dance class next year.
I'm depressed.
I'm going to go and finish crying now.

Apartment

My roommate finally let me know - she's moving out. Does anyone want to live with me? Or know anyone willing to pay $500 for rent which includes the utilities?

Breaking up is hard to do

Breaking up is hard to do. I know this now. No, I didn't break up with Benny-bean. We're still quite happy together.
A few of my friends are going through tough times and for the first time in my life, I have been deemed sympathetic enough to be confided in. I suppose back in high school everyone always considered me some sort of misery-chick like Daria (you know, the cartoon girl with the monotonous low voice? A voice very similar to mine?). Most of it was because of the voice and similarities, but I guess a lot of it was also the fact that I never cried in public, didn't laugh too often and also, didn't try very hard to make as many friends as possible.
And now, suddenly, I have people who actually want me to listen. Fascinating. I wonder if it's some sort of indication as to just how much I've changed since leaving for college...

The Hilarity

Poor boys...

I think I missed my calling

It's been a very long time since I updated. It's finally the weekend, and it's finally warm. Right now, I'm at Ben's place and and trying to keep his dog from nibbling my toes off.
I see doom looming in the horizon for several reasons. One is that I have two big papers due in a couple weeks that I'm not prepared for. Another reason, though it's not entirely a bad thing, is due to my portfolios class.
It's sort of turned into Project: Runway - the portfolios class that is. A while back, five of us were picked to design the templates for student work. I got the joy of doing that for the third year. Then, this Wednesday, we go to the lab for what is supposed to be an InDesign tutorial. After a quick overview, our teacher tells us that she sent us a file that needs to be turned into a postcard. We had one hour to do it and whoever was picked in a faculty review would revise it and the postcard would get sent out to over 2200 people. I can just hear Heidi Klum saying, "One of you will be een, and one of you will be out."
Well, I made a nice little design inspired by something I saw at FIT which involved Impact style font and a calendar, since the postcard was an announcement of events to come. Lo-and-behold, when I went to my meeting with Steve Lee today about the template, he mentioned that I got another project to do as well, with a rush on the job. There's a faculty candidate series going on and I have to get posters made for each and every one of them. I don't know if I get to make the postcard thing, but I got something out of it still. Yippee for me!

Perfectionism

Fun OKCupid test I saw on a lot of peoples' blogs:

the Perfectionist Test finished!

you chose CZ - your Enneagram type is ONE. "I do everything the right way" Perfectionists are realistic, conscientious, and principled. They strive to live up to their high ideals. How to Get Along with Me Take your share of the responsibility so I don't end up with all the work. Acknowledge my achievements. I'm hard on myself. Reassure me that I'm fine the way I am. Tell me that you value my advice. Be fair and considerate, as I am. Apologize if you have been unthoughtful. It will help me to forgive. Gently encourage me to lighten up and to laugh at myself when I get uptight, but hear my worries first. What I Like About Being a One being self-disciplined and able to accomplish a great deal working hard to make the world a better place having high standards and ethics; not compromising myself being reasonable, responsible, and dedicated in everything I do being able to put facts together, coming to good understandings, and figuring out wise solutions being the best I can be and bringing out the best in other people What's Hard About Being a One being disappointed with myself or others when my expectations are not met feeling burdened by too much responsibility thinking that what I do is never good enough not being appreciated for what I do for people being upset because others aren't trying as hard as I am obsessing about what I did or what I should do being tense, anxious, and taking things too seriously Ones as Children Often criticize themselves in anticipation of criticism from others refrain from doing things that they think might not come out perfect focus on living up to the expectations of their parents and teachers are very responsible; may assume the role of parent hold back negative emotions ("good children aren't angry") Ones as Parents teach their children responsibility and strong moral values are consistent and fair discipline firmly Renee Baron & Elizabeth Wagele The Enneagram Made Easy Discover the 9 Types of People HarperSanFrancisco, 1994, 161 pages You liked the test? so please RATE it... but remember! it had only two questions!!! ;-) You are not completely happy with the result?! You chose CZ Would you rather have chosen: AZ (THREE) BZ (FIVE) CX (TWO) CY (SIX)

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 0% on ABC You scored higher than 0% on XYZ

Link: The Quick and Painless ENNEAGRAM Test written by felk on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Sleep? What's that?

Sometimes I wonder why I decided to have eight classes...

Schenley Farms is the happiest place on earth

Today my classmate Andrew and I went to Oakland to do research for our history mid-semester exam. For the exam, we're to wander around Pittsburgh and get examples of particular types of architecture such as art deco, queen anne and things along those lines.
We started at a church on 5th Ave and we first took photos of the exterior. Then, we went and rang the bell asking to take a look around inside. While working my camera, I couldn't figure something out so I said loudly, "Goddammit!" not realizing we were in the house of God. Then, upon realizing what I said, I followed it up by an "Omigod!" Things weren't going well. Thank gosh Andrew's Jewish. After that, we went to the office and talked with Verl the secretary for a while and she lent us an antique book from really long ago about the church.
After that, we saw a nice house across the street, and started taking photos of it. The owner drove out on his way back to work and we told him that we were architecture students looking at his house and he told us a little about it and gave us his business card and his permission to go around the property to take photos. While we were busy snapping away, his wife came out and let us in and showed us around. The interior is comparable to a mini Newport Mansion.
After that, we wandered up Bayard and ended up in front of a nice looking house that I thought was Arts and Crafts. While Andrew and I were arguing, the owner jogged by and also invited us in for a tour. They showed us everything from top to bottom. It was quite nice - the owner had a do-it-yourself approach to things and worked very hard with keeping the house in shape.
As nice as it was to go into all those houses, imagine our relief when we saw a photographable house that was abandoned.
After that, we found a reasonable Queen Anne that had been converted into an Indian Restaurant. The owner told us all about that place too, and let us run around and take tons of photos.
Aren't Pittsburghers nice?

My dress for the Beaux Arts Ball! Thank you Ben for taking the picture for me.

Beaux Arts Ball

Last night was the Beaux-Arts Ball. After spending $80 on tickets and $100 on supplies for costumes and a whole entire day on sewing, I have to say - it wasn't worth it. The music was so loud we couldn't talk, most of the place was closed off and once you walked outside you couldn't walk back in, and there wasn't much to drink besides alcohol, red bull and coffee. Let's just say it wasn't my scene.
Not to mention, by the time I finished the costume, the ball was already 2/3 of the way through. By the time we got there, most people had left, including Waz and Josh. So sad, I wanted them to see my costume. Though if what was there earlier was more crowded, I'm kind of glad we were late, because Ben and I had a hell of a time trying to walk around. On the upside, my friend Kiko told me my dress come out awesome. I'll admit there were definitely a few kinks in the design, but I executed what I set out to do so I'm happy. Photos of the costume to be posted shortly.

So Cold

I pulled a super all-nighter tonight, or day. Whatever. This was after a regular all-nighter the night before. I think I'll be sleeping late tonight as well.
Post Lunar Gala includes a lot of catching up on the classes. There's a big project due in studio as well as the costumes I'm making for Benny-bean and myself for the Beaux-Arts Ball.
Which reminds me, I dragged Ben to Union Grill the other day for dinner and it was delicious, as usual. While we were there, we saw Jared and Josh. Josh kept mentioning going to studio to pitch a tent and apparently he was the only one who didn't realize the connotations (in reality I think he was referring to his housing situation). In anycase, they got to meet my Ben (yay!). I also realized as we were leaving that Dee and Laura Lee were at the bar right next to us, so I said hello and talked to them a bit too. It seems that Union Grill is incredibly popular. I think when my family comes by next, I'll take them there for dinner. So far it's the only place I've been to that has consistently good food.
On a side note, I'm starting to like my studio project.

Lunar Gala

It was amazing! Tonight was Lunar Gala, the annual fashion show. Tickets were sold out, police were saying we had a fire hazard - over a thousand people showed up, including Adam Sandler who hid back stage (I was dancing into the backstage area and he yelled "Wooo, yahh!" at me).
I did my dance thing - I really wished we had more. I think most people agree, because when I was in studio afterwards, my classmates told me that they enjoyed the dancing part the most. As nice as fashion is, it really is just people walking. There's glamour to it, but not much entertainment. I agree, dancing is where it's at, and we can eat. We burn it all off anyway. I was dying for some water after we got off stage.
I compensated by getting a strawberry banana shake. Anyhoo, I say the photographers taking lots of photos of me, so pictures coming soon!

Communication Design

Before this semester started, I thought I was pretty good at the whole communication design thing. Now, I look at the portfolio I used for job interviews and think it's horrifically ugly.
Generally, my work is ignored, which I suppose is better than getting it shot down. Last week, I made a general layout for the third year site studio and Burns basically shot it down saying it was too green, too much, too heavy, too repetitive, blah blah blah. Today we looked at it again and Laura Lee basically says it's perfect, that in that one diagonal line, I have the entire site studio summed up. I think she said she loved it, but I might be interpolating to make myself feel better about my horrid design skills. Still, I had a big grin on my face. Hah to you, Burns!

Lurv

Happy post-Valentine's Day everyone! In the past I was usually the angry one because I didn't have anyone, but this time I can celebrate. Actually, this is the first time I ever celebrated. Last year, I had to cancel on Benny-bean because of the horror that is studio, and found out later that he bought me a cute fuzzy bear that had a heart that says "I Love You" on it. Awww (It's sitting with my dolly at home in Connecticut).
This year, I refused to let anything get in the way of me enjoying Vday with my boyfriend, so I made sure to get everything out of the way early. I cooked a nice chinese dinner (Beef and bell pepper and also eggs with tomato - so far the best for both of the dishes) and we watched the Corpse Bride. I'm not one for romantic things, but I must say that I really enjoyed it. And this year, Ben got me four bars of dark chocolate (WOO!). I brought a bar with me to studio today and devoured it. It was delicious.
I love you, Ben! (Nobody laugh)

Please?

Just for fun, can you fill out this survey?

Fever

I haven't been this sick since high school.
It makes sense that I got sick since I sit to the left and right of Josh and Bill, and across from Danny, all three of whom were so sick yesterday that they couldn't go to studio. I'm pretty horrible right now, I have a very sore throat and a fever. I can't sleep because I cough when I lie down and I'm too cold even with my comforter over me. The room shifts from side to side when I walk. Not good at all. I hope I'm better tomorrow so I can go to class, though I haven't done any of my homework...

Happy New Year!

Happy Chinese New Years!

DS

I watched the Dancer's Symposium DVD.

I'm a HORRIBLE dancer.

How did this elude me?
How exactly am I supposed to improve?
I need some private lessons...

Depressed

So I'm back at CMU and things are starting to pick up again. I started with eight classes, but after attending one of them (a StuCO) and realized that for a dance class it was sort of a joke, I am now down to seven. In studio, they immediately tossed us into a five day charette that I actually decided to give a shit about and am, yet again, met with disappointment - which, of course, is my cue to slack off for the semester.
To continue, the doctors tell me that there's something wrong with me so I have to get a second opinion tomorrow and apparently it involves getting a biopsy and spending a lot of money. Mom and I doubt the school health center made a correct diagnosis, but whatever.
Then there's the fact that I had high hopes about getting to spend lots of time with my Benny-bean, and that doesn't seem to be the case, what with dance and Lunar Gala and all the work I have to do. It's only been a week and I've already pulled two all-nighters.
People have also been bitching in studio about the fact that I complain all the time, but mostly it's due to the above several reasons. The anxiety that I might be seriously sick just eats away at a person. I really doubt it's anything, but still, you never know.
Yesterday I had dance auditions and I completely screwed up. My brain was completely clogged so I couldn't really learn the dance. I've never had so much trouble learning a dance, not since ninth grade. I might have gotten into one dance, but yet again, I doubt it's one I really want to be in.
And now one of my classmates is talking about how wonderful his project is and even though I want to be gracious and all that crap, I'm feeling really down about how I can't ever seem to get anything right and I wonder if I should just give up and go and do engineering even though I'll be depressed for the rest of my life.
It's been overall a pretty crappy week.
On the upside, Ben's brother had a baby and we went and got to see her. We were there for three hours and she wouldn't wake up, but she was still absolutely adorable and tiny!

The Big Taiwan Update

I'm back in the states, barely recovered from jetlag and its now time for the big update! For organizational purposes, I'm going to go day by day:
Day one (12/27/06):
We left for the airport. Fortunately that morning I had an appointment with the dentist so my teeth were squeaky clean and ready for the 20 hour flight. The flight itself was pretty boring, I slept throught the first three movies, but I watched "The Island." The final verdict is that while Ewan Mcgregor is gorgeous, the movie was still only so-so. I had trouble getting comfortable since the seats were so small and the engine was so loud and the fact that all other noises just seemed muffled. We landed in the airport at 6:30am on 12/29. My ears oddly didn't have any problems with pressure. Mom's on the otherhand were so screwed up she was deaf for 3 hours. It was a little odd having to yell in her ears. We were whisked through baggage claim and customs and were picked up by a taxi my aunt called for us. One thing May and I forgot was how badly people drove in Taiwan. At one point, the taxi had to change lanes and he did so by literally driving onto the white line and literally forcing other cars out of the way. I looked out the window and the neighboring car was just a few inches away from the glass. It makes me fervently appreciate American roads and traffic laws.
Day two (12/29/06):
So my time thing is a little off, but when we traveled all the way across, we jumped really far ahead in time.
We got to my aunt's apartment and slept for a couple hours. We got up and then came some unpacking and figuring out her apartment on our own since she was in the US. She is an antique collector so her house has tons of them squished in (orderly fashion though, other than the fact that there needed to be a good extra foot of space between everything, the arrangement was quite lovely). It took us a bit of deliberating to figure out whether or not we could actually sit on the antique furniture. In the end we decided we could, and I actually spent most of my evenings sitting on an antique bench thingy than on the actual couch. Her apartment also had one of those moving door/wall panels that looks really cool, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what the point of it was. I suppose it just goes against my archie sensibilities. After mosying around the house a bit, we ventured out to explore. We went on South FuXing Rd and searched for a bank to exchange bills. None of the banks seem to want to take US currency anymore. Or at least, they wouldn't take specific serial numbers. Some wouldn't take travelers checks either - which, in my mind, defeats the purpose of having them. We walked a good 10 or so blocks to find a Bank of Taiwan which was supposedly the only bank that would take the abhorred US currency and when we got there after all the searching, they wouldn't take most of the bills either. It didn't help either that the weather was much hotter than we anticipated and we were sweating quite a bit despite the fact that there were Taiwanese citizens happily walking around in long winter trenchcoats. But then, 60 degrees is pretty cool by their standards.
(to be continued)

TAIWAN

What's really awesome is that everything on the screen is in Chinese, well, other than what I'm typing.
We've been in Taipei for a few days now and after going for just a week without internet, I've been going crazy. Upon checking my email, I found 128 messages in my comcast mailbox, none in gmail and 23 in my school mail. Absolutely amazing, and almost all of it was junk mail.
I figured I'd just let everyone know where I was in case they were wondering what the heck happened to me. Alive and well, just on the other side of the planet. Eating. Lots of eating. YUM!

End of the Year Update

Well, it's been quite a while since I have updated. Yes, as usual, there's been a lot lot lot going on. After classes ended I thought that there would be a break. O how wrong I was. So I spent the next few days working on enviro and cleaning up the apartment and trying to find time to spend with Ben. When the weekend rolled around, I ended up working on that damn enviro project instead of really spending quality time with my boyfriend. Enviro sucks. All that effort got me a stupid B. At least I got 4 As as well as the lowest grade I've ever had in studio ever (C) which pulled my GPA so low that despite having what was otherwise the best report card ever, I still don't make dean's list. I hate you, Sheldon. Anyhoo, first semester's never good for me. Second semester should be better, what with my whopping 8-class schedule, it should be great even with a C in studio. Fortunately Dad doesn't seem to mind the C, though he made fun of me quite a bit. (I hate you, Daddy)
My last night in Pittsburgh I spent cleaning the apartment some more and cooking a simple pasta dinner for my Ben-bean. We also had popcorn and watched "Robots" until 11-ish. I was going to go to Josh's end of the semester party, but after Ben left I was feeling really down and I felt that walking in the cold dark all alone and going to a party where only depressants were served (AKA alcohol) would not make me feel any better. So I packed up as much as I could and went to sleep.
Next day was last minute packing and I managed to make it to the airport exactly on time - I had half an hour to spare so I had a little lunch, walked leisurely down to the gate and just as I sat down, they started to call up the zones. Woohoo, how awesome am I?
After a very comfortable ride with two seats all to myself, I arrived in Hartford where May picked me up. We got back home after an hour and a half of Audioslave, Gackt and Bucktick (those last two are Japanese, for those who aren't J-rock inclined) and had a nice dinner with the parents and Gramma - Gramma who kept bothering me about not dressing warm enough the whole time she was there. Interestingly, she told me and May that our second cousin (he looks a little like Casey for all you archies who are wondering) is going to be playing a Chinese bodyguard/pirate in Pirates of the Carribbean III. Nifty, no?
Mostly sat around for the week, it was nice.
On Friday I had a doctors appointment which was...interesting. Can you imagine drinking three bottles of water in half an hour and having to hold it for two? It was horrifically uncomfortable... After the doctor's appointment, I wrapped up all the presents - this year's theme was MOMA. Being on the environmentally friendly green design binge, we got my cousin Sylvia a Luisa Ceverse ipod bag which is made of industrial waste, how nifty is that? In return I got a book titled "Green Architecture!"
For Christmas Eve we went to our cousins' place. When we got out of the car, we heard some wierd yiping noise. I said, "What is that?", turned around, and saw the tiniest little terrier yipping at us with all the strength it could muster. Very amusing. I thought about petting it and then wondered if it might try to bite me. That would not be a merry Christmas. It was a fun day, we played a game of chess, Texas Hold 'em poker, had lots and lots of food including the Citrus Chiffon Pie we made that was declared a success.
Christmas Day was just us sitting around the house, just the four of us. And today was Mom going insane packing for the trip tomorrow. Tomorrow? Hygeinist in the morning and right afterwards, we're hopping on the plane and going to Taiwan. Can't wait to hang out with Waz! Warm weather, here I come!

Light at the End

Every single time I think about the future I always think, "This hell I'm in will all be over soon." Somehow that never seems to be the case. So Dancer's Symposium is finally over - it was awesome, I didn't mess up on Saturday. Classes are finally over.
So why do I feel like I still have a crapload of work to do? I have to do enviro still, of course. I also have to grade the last batch of statics homework.
I finished my research project for History of Clothing last night at 3 am. It really shouldn't haven taken so long, but I got distracted by reading about Henry VIII and his six wives, quite fascinating really. Did you know that that middle aged letch married a girl who was only 15? A 15 year old who was already experienced in that way since the age of 12? A little gross, don't you think? But then, most of them only lived to be 40 years old when they died, and most of them were really sickly (Bloody Mary had a tumor in her stomach). O yes, and the only one of his wives that modern people would consider particularly attractive was the one that Henry VIII divorced because she was too ugly (Ugly meaning that she was tall and thin, kind of like a supermodel).
But yes, I was up till 3 am, and now I have to hand in the project and work in studio until god knows when, meet with Sheldon to receive the C I'm probably getting in studio and then going to help my student with a statics crash course review. Fun!

Hour of Pi

I don't know what time it will be when I finish this post, but my clock currently says 3.14, so I will call it the hour of pi.
I waited outside Maggie Mo for 40 minutes for the escort to pick me up. I think I just missed the one I was aiming for, so I danced around outside (I learned the choreography for some song in Hairspray and also some stuff for Lunar Gala today) until 3:05 when I finally got picked up. I was in a pretty bad mood until I got back to the building. I saw the doorman sitting in one of those uncomfortable looking cushion chairs you see in the homes of American grandmothers, and he was dozing slumped in the chair. It looked really funny and he kind of reminded me of what a grandpa would look like, so that cheered me up. Now I have to write 6 more pages of my paper...

My Schedule

Hello, world. Long time no see. My life recently had been devoured by studio. Now that that is over, I can do stuff for my other classes. My to do list is as such:

Monday:
11am History of Clothing Exam
1:30-4:30 Studio
4:30-6 Dance jury
6-8 Dance practice
8-11 Dance dress rehearsal

Tuesday:
9am 12 page paper due about Emile Zola and Rome and Paris (I've written 2 pages)
10:30 Site - review for the exam
3 - Enviro
6:30 Teach recitation for Statics
8 Quality time with my Ben-bean

Wednesday
11 research paper due for history of clothing
1:30 final presentation
4:30 dance class
6:30 statics office hours

Thursday
9 Europe's capital cities
10:30 Site Foundation due
8 Dress rehearsal for Dancers Symposium

Friday
6 Call for DS
8ish Showtime!

Saturday
6 Call for DS
8ish Showtime!
10ish Off to world of Ben

Sunday
Day of Ben

Monday 12/12
11am 2 research papers due

Thursday 12/15
8:30 Enviro exam

Friday 12/16
8:30 Europe's Capital Cities exam
Enviro Climatology analysis due

Monday 12/19
8:30 Site exam

Tuesday 12/20
Back to CT! Bye Ben!

No, not much to do at all...

Mid-Night Revelations

That time of the semester rolls around and once again, the archies of Carnegie Mellon are chained to their drafting tables by a sense of duty, responsbility and sheer insanity. Of course, during such trying times, deep thoughts about life, the universe and everything surface and some of the most mind-altering epiphanies come to fruition.

A sample -
Josh: How do we have milk? How did it occur to some person in past to touch a cow's utter?
Ben S.: Uh, I think it might have had something to do with a venting of sexual frustration...
Josh: Wow, that's pretty incredibly horrible
Ben S.: So you could say that beastiality is what caused the creation of cereal.

That is all...

Dreary

Life kind of sucks today. I think it's been adding up since Friday, actually. Friday was dodgeball - archies vs. art, which we archies dominated, of course. But, as usual, something has to happen where I stick out like a sore thumb. The last round was hard to win because a lot of our people just up and left, and I was the only girl with a handful of guys. I'm not particularly good at throwing so I didn't try to so I just stood in the corner trying to anticipate them trying to throw a ball at me. It didn't help that 1) with no glasses on, everything was a blur and 2) I was really afraid of being hit because that happened earlier and it really hurt and 3) the last couple of art kids were pointing at me and clearly plotting.
Weekend was nice and relaxing with Ben as usual.
Today was very horrible. Around 1 a.m. my DVD player decided to up and break on me. So I called Dell Support. Thank goodness they're 24-7 and thank goodness dad decided to extend my warrenty. New DVD-rom is in the mail.
Then, even though I clearly recall setting my alarm clock for 7, it didn't go off and I woke up at 9, making my morning schedule of finishing up work that much harder. Then in studio, Mike and I spent so much time discussing that we didn't have anything yet again and Sheldon gave us a little ultimatum. Of course he doesn't realize that even when we have something he barely glances at it anyway, which gives a hint as to why I'm so darned unmotivated. That upset me a lot and, compounded with my runny nose, made pirhouetting really bad for me in dance class today. I feel like I've suddenly lost what took me all summer to figure out and that's putting me in a bad mood. O yes, and during studio today, Josh decided to take my stool during my crit so when I went back to my desk I had nothing to sit on. After finding Waz's compass in my desk, my scale in Max's and my trace by Josh, that was pretty much the last straw. I tried to get him off my stool, but of course I'm 5'4" and he's 6'4" and therefore wins the contest. I don't think he realized I was seriously peeved. Yes, I was. And I have my migraine, for the second day in the row. Doesn't help that it's raining...

Hello, World

I found the other day that yes, people actually do read my blog. Amazing, isn't it?
In studio on Friday, things were very strange as a lot of my friends went to Toronto this weekend for a AIAS conference (for non-archies, that's basically an architectural conference). I didn't go because I'm running lower on money than I would like, so I've decided to try and save a bit.
As for this weekend, it was quite wonderful - I hung out with Ben and watched him beat F.E.A.R. (scary) and he let me play Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas. O yes, and to make up for making me watch "Land of the Dead" last weekend, I made him watch "The Way We Were," with Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford. Great movie, I cried lots. Ben fell asleep. O well, I can't blame him, I fell asleep watching Predator. Before that, though, we watched Star Wars: Episode III. It wasn't bad, despite the horrible acting. None of them are actually bad actors from what I can tell, but I think George Lucas was never really good at making actors make things realistic (or at least, less rehearsed sounding). Still, good story. I've been so much more into Star Wars since playing Knights of the Old Republic. I really need to get the first one - I hear it's much better than the second. Hey, someone put that on my Christmas wish list - o right, I don't have one...never mind.

Addiction

My friend Waz has introduced me to her latest addiction, and boy is it addictive. Apparently there's a site where all you have to do is collect sets of 27 with a matching theme and if it's witty enough, voila! You can get anything from an iPod to a box of matches - the prize givers are very...whimsical...
I'm too shy to ask people directly to join, but if you want to take a look, it's pretty fun and you get to meet lots of people.

All Hallows

Happy Halloween, everyone! Happy Samhain!
This year for Halloween, I was a goth, as usual. I went to class in a corset and fishnets and a long black skirt, and had very dark eye makeup and dark purple lipstick (my black lipstick was sadly destroyed in the great sewage flood earlier this year). Reactions from classmates included, "You look very nice, Angela," "Holy S***, Angela." Reactions from teachers were much wordier - Christine said, "You're very distracting today, Angela. I looked at you and thought, not asleep, but still dead looking," and also, from hearsay, Walter said, "I could not give her a crit, because I think I would have a heart attack." I don't think I'm that scary, am I? Anyhow, it was a wholly satisfying experience. Waz also mentioned to me that she and Cathy were considering an emo/goth themed party. I told her I would love to go.
O, and I found out they are reinstating the Beaux-Arts Ball this year, as this will be the CFA's centennial celebration. I can't wait to find out what this year's theme is. Perhaps I can drag Ben along in a doublet and hose...

White Supremacy

My sister sent me the most interesting link to an ABC News report about a couple of sisters named Lamb and Lynx. They look very much like the Olsen twins way back in the day and guess what? They sing and play instruments! Guess what they sing about! White supremacy!
They spoke about being very proud of their German (by German, they mean Nazi) heritage and wanting to preserve their racial purity. I don't think they realize that they are living in the past, as Germany for the most part isn't Nazi anymore, and is, in fact, a very forward thinking country that I would like to visit sometime (their advances in zero energy housing is amazing).
It also amuses me that they tout their superiority when their own parents don't seem to have the courage or commitment it takes to be able to stay in a marriage. I'm not saying that most people are better than white supremicists about staying in marriage, I'm saying that they're no better than the rest of the world.
That's my outrage for the month. Venting online is so nice.
I'm going to go play some Star Wars now. May the force be with you.

Time Management

It's really odd that just a couple weeks ago, I was pulling all-nighters practically every other day. These past couple of weeks have been pretty good for relaxing a little and getting things done. I've managed to finally complete my room, and it's clean and pretty now. I've managed to show up on time to most of my morning classes. I think I'm doing pretty well and I attribute it to my new schedule. No more staying up all night. Insteand, I go to bed at midnight and wake up really early. Maybe I still only get 3 hours of sleep a night, but it doesn't feel like it because I always think that I've had a good night's sleep since I went to bed at midnight. It's a good idea, early to bed, early to rise, makes a person (and I quote the head of our school) work smarter, not harder.
Well, I was on a roll until last night, when my Enviro homework caught up on me and I was up really late working - I attribute that to my computer crashing and me not saving, though. Must remember to save more often...
On another note, I got to call best-buddy in the world, Marlen, on the phone a few days ago, since we both now possess cell-phones. Amazing, isn't it?

Classes

This morning, I made an effort to get to Europe's Capital Cities class on time. As it's been about three weeks since I've been there on time, and I missed two classes, I felt that I really should make more of an effort. I went to bed early - around 12:30 and then I got up at 6 to study for today's quiz. I gave up around 8 and got ready for class and left at 8:30, arriving 10 minutes early. How is it that if I leave at 8:40 I'm always 10 minutes late? Odd, isn't it? I think I've just finally reached the end of my endurance and some sleep was due.
For site, we went to Nine Mile Run. Professor Christine managed to fit 11 of us in her van. She joked that she'd better not get in an accident because killing a quarter of the class would probably get her fired. I thought that was quite amusing. At Nine Mile Run, a fascinating speaker lady took us on a tour. She was extremely enthusiastic about the restoration of the place, and told us all about the river. For example, definitely don't touch the water, because anything that was in the city sewers does not in fact go to a treatment plant. It just goes right into the river - so if you're walking your dog and you pick up the poop, don't put that into a storm drain, because it's just going to come out somewhere just as inconvenient as the roadside. Speaking of dog poop, just about everyone in our class managed to step on some at some point during the tour.
After studio, I ran a few errands and picked up my kids' homeworks. Many late ones, tsk tsk. I also handed in my time card, and slept through enviro, woke up with a headache. Guess I deserved that for sleeping in class.
And in studio, Kellen and Adam made an art installation using our studio stools and fancy lighting. Somehow they managed to balance about 10 stools on a 2x4 so it's completely suspended in the air. There was a prospective student visiting and I told them they should go and take a peek at the awesome exhibit. After studio, I found out the Adam and Kellen had caught a Sphinx moth. They're really, really large, but very pretty. People were most surprised that I didn't scream like a sissy and instead said, "Whoooooaaaa! COOOOL!" My reasoning was that it was in the make-shift chicken wire cage, so I knew it couldn't fly into my face. They are feeding it on apple juice. I'm not sure how long it will live on that. People were worried they were dead, but I seem to recall that after dying, moths loose the brilliant colors they have. It was standing in such a way, though, that seemed to say that it wants desperately to get out. Maybe we should have made a cage for the praying mantis too...except it probably would have snipped through the chicken wire...

Sissies, all of them

This weekend was spent working like a crazy person in studio. On Wednesday afternoon, we were assigned the "Midsemester Sketch Problem." In layman's terms, it means we're supposed to do a month and a half's worth of work in four measly days. I started planning on Thursday, finalized on Friday, didn't sleep at all on Friday night and continued late into Saturday. I hate to admit it, but I was working that hard mostly because I wanted to be able to spend time with my boyfriend (and my parents think that having a boyfriend would be bad for my work ethic...). I did most of everything, and left with the boyfriend, had fun most of Sunday morning and realized around 3:30 that I really had to get my act together. Sadly, I only have two as opposed to three perspectives done (they were both done in less than ten minutes - me so proud). I was very surprised when I walked in around 9 that my desk only had a couple of Waz's things on it. I half expected Laura to have plopped all her junk on it, but Waz said that she thought most people were too afraid of me to mess with my area. Mwahhah, success. On a sad note, the bread I bought on Tuesday is moldy. As I was in studio the whole time, I never had a chance to eat it. Very sad. O yes, and on Friday night there was a high school football game going on in the stadium. The people there were horrifically enthusiastic and everytime they cheered, it felt like a pulsing wave of sickening happiness roaring through the studio. At one point, Waz and I at the exact same moment in the exact same tone said, "O, just shut up!" I said it again while walking back from Entropy with my big bottle of caffeine. It worked this time - I realized that it's no good if you gulp it all down at once and should rather just take a little at a time. And on Saturday night, Meredith wanted to eat her peach from Whole Foods and screamed like a sissy when she found an earwig peaking out of it. Then Ben (not my Ben, architecture Ben) picked up the peach and when the earwig moved, he screamed like a sissy too.
My room's a mess. I need to clean.

Bus Stop

Today, I accidentally overslept. After pulling near all-nighters everyday so far this week, I finally crashed.
I woke up blinky and confused around 11 am before looking at the clock, yelling an expletive and dashing out of bed. I decided that since I was late, I ought to try to catch a bus, as a bus takes only 2 minutes to get to campus whereas walking would take around 20. I should have walked.
After about 5 minutes of waiting, a fellow plopped down in the seat next to me. Then he asked me incoherently (very thick accent) which bus would take him to Monroeville. I shrugged. And then he kept talking. Where are you from? I say Connecticut. Obviously his English isn't very good because he somehow thought I said some foreign country. Then he said he was from Mexico and asked if I was Japanese. I didn't assume all Hispanic people are Mexican, but apparently he thinks all Asian people are Japanese. Granted a small portion of my family is Japanese, but I myself am not. So I shook my head and said very clearly, "Chinese." Then he pointed out that I have a very pretty figure. That's when I scooted farther away from him and closer to the nice old Asian man next to me (see? I don't assume all Asians are Japanese). Sadly Mr. Mexican didn't take the hint and kept trying to talk to me. "What's your name?" Angela. "O, it's pronounced Anjela in Mexico." I know. Then he started talking about a great Chinese buffet in Oakland. I hate Chinese buffets. I just nodded a bit and then fortunately the bus came. I should have walked to school.

That Feeling

Have you ever gotten that feeling during an all-nighter where you feel a coldness in you as the sun's just about to rise? I hate that feeling, it makes my muscles all weak and wibbly. Yes, wibbly. I'm going to sleep for an hour now. Good morning...

Conneaut

This weekend, I went with my Ben and his family to Conneaut. It was a wonderfully relaxing place where all I did was talk, sleep, cuddle with my bunny and grade papers. First night we were sitting around the fire with Ben's brother and his friends, and they decided they wanted to take the boat and go to some hick bar. We got in the boat, but unbeknownst to us, someone didn't refill the tank so we were stranded for a few tense minutes out in the middle of a very cold lake. One of the guys was quite drunk and made some lewd comment about me being the only girl on board, thus I would have to keep them all warm, and hoped I was limber. Ben was grossly offended. I'm just slightly disturbed.
The next day I spent some time grading papers and a lot of time napping. We had hoagies for lunch, and Ben's mom remembered I like fudge so she bought me some chocolate. Yummy. Dinner was pork and rice, yummy too. I had to get all the grading done, which took me a long time, and around 11, I finally got to go and see what Ben was up to. He, his brother and his friend were all around the fire again, so we all sat and talked. Everyone drank beers, I tried a little Mike's Hard Lemonade and decided the alcohol flavor wasn't pleasing, so I gave it away. Ben went to sleep a bit mellowed.
The next day was leaving day. Ben and I went down, ate breakfast and went back to bed. Right when everyone was leaving, we finally got up. Lazy, I am. Hope they don't think too badly of me... Since it was Ben's older brother's birthday, we stopped by his house where we saw a gigantic spider and a stick bug, as well as some of the biggest dogs in the world. It's funny, because when I first met Ben, I was scared to death of dogs. I don't mind them so much now, though jumpy ones still kind of make me nervous. At his brother's house were the two dogs we brought - Bo the Boxer and Corby the collie mix puppy, and his brother's dogs - Justin the German shepherd, Simon the golden lab and Maiza, not sure what she is, and then there was Ben's brother's mother-in-law's dog, Murphey the Irish terrier. It was fun to watch them running around, particularly Corby since she's such a wimp. I sat with Simon for a while, he's very old and slow and likes it when I scratch his ears. I like to pet a dog who sits still so we were both happy.
After that it was back home I go, where work and dance awaited. One of the dances involved horse stance for half an hour and boy did that kill. It's funny how I refuse to use the discipline to stay that way when it comes to martial arts, but when it's dance, I don't even think about the pain. Must have something to do with my mentality. I just know that right now, my thighs are killing me. Pretty soon I'm going to be trying out for Lunar Gala dance. I hope I get in - one of my choreographers for Dancer's Symposium is also choreographing this year, so maybe I'll have a chance. Four dances plus dance class, I feel fit already.

DC

This past weekend, I was in Washington D.C. On the first day, we went to the NCCP (or was it NCPC?). They're the ones that figure out where monuments go. It was kind of boring and though they talked about the memorials a bit, they spent most of it talking about what they do. When they asked if anyone had any questions, well only the teachers do. I think urban planning is still out of most of our realms, and also, most of us haven't been in D.C. since junion high, so we don't know what to ask about. I mentioned later to our teacher that I thought it would have been better to go to that place last, and she told us that in past years, the speakers would always go into detail about the memorials, but this year they only mentioned them briefly. Afterwards, I went around the western end of the mall with Waz, Ken and BKish. The Roosevelt Memorial I think, is truly an impressive memorial and a pleasant place to be. We took a lot of photos around the giant scotty dog. We went there, the Jefferson Memorial, up to the WWII memorial then to the Vietnam Memorial and then to the Korean Memorial. By then, my poor bladder was dying of overload, so I sounded the alert and we headed back to the hotel (it was already 8pm by then anyway). For the evening, we went to Georgetown with Hannah and her friend who wanted to wander. While walking there, I recalled my friend Christina transfered to Georgetown - except I couldn't call her with my nifty new cell phone because I had no internet connection and therefore could not look up her number. Very sad...It's been years since I last saw her.
After a day of walking, we weren't so much interested in wandering as in eating. We ended up eating at Unos. We were seated at the table at the highest spot of the restaurant, which was pretty cool. We ordered around 9:30 and got our food around 10-ish. I threatened Ken while we were waiting that if the food wasn't there by 10, I'd have to gnaw on his arm. He said that Kish was probably tastier, to which I said Kish was hairier. Ken's reply was handing me the butter knife. Fortunately for both of them, the food arrived in a timely fashion. The table was completely silent for a good 20 minutes while we gobbled down everything on our plates.
The second day was the work day. I spent all day drawing the Korean Memorial and in the process got burned like a lobster. At 4, I went with a few classmates to meet everyone at the National Building Museum, which is supposedly just on the other side of the mall. It turned out to be on the other side along with seven extra blocks. After an hour of walking, I was very unhappy and my back is now brown. Not my front, not my legs, not my arms. Just my back. I hope it goes away soon. After our meeting it was off to Union Square to meet Stef's cousin. He hadn't seen her in about ten years and we were tempted to line up all the little asian girls (there were four of us) and have him pick her out of the lineup. Sadly, it didn't happen. We ate at Capitol City (a microbrewery - I don't think her cousin realized we were all underage) where Cathy had the most delicious desert ever. Then, we tried to get to Georgetown before all the stores closed. Sadly, we only made it in time to glance through FCUK and the United Colors of Benetton. Waz didn't get to go to Urban Outfitters for her flask...After that we just went back to the hotel where we all sat up talking for a while.
Day three was awesome. We all got up early and slept all the way to Mount Vernon. We got free tickets to go on the boat tour which was at 10:30 leaving about 30 minutes to kill. I wandered through the craft tents and there were perfect pewter Jeffersonian cups that I would love to buy, except they were $25 a cup. Maybe when I'm rich. As it is, I bought some really nice handmade soaps - bug hater's bar (lemongrass scent), Grapefruit Tea, Peppermint Citrus, Cinnamon Oatmeal and Spiced Lime. I can't wait to use them, but for now, they're freshening up my bedroom (Ben commented the other day that the whole apartment smelled funky, except my room - I thank the soaps). The boat tour was just like 8th grade, except this time around, everyone forced me to slather myself with sunscreen. I don't know if it did any good, I know I did get ever so slightly redder. By the time the tour was done, I had literally an hour and a half to find a place, make my documentation and meet up with everyone. I speed walked most of the plantation and ended up sitting in a shade at the slave memorial. At first it was just me and Hannah drawing quietly (interrupted at one point by an annoyingly loud and shrill little girl) and then a bunch of classmates who were done came by and decided to take a nap by me. Guess I just exude sleepiness... We all went to eat lunch at the Mt. Vernon restaurant afterwards. There was chicken, summer squash and mashed potatoes - very yummy. I ended up sitting next to the third year coordinator, Christine, who commented that we were the most punctual group she's ever taken on the trip (I like to think we're just hungrier than other groups). After lunch, we went to Dunbarton Oaks, which I decided would be a great place to get married. Not that I'm looking to get married anytime soon, mind you. Still, it's a beautifully designed garden. I ended up sitting under the bright sun again, on a ledge overlooking the fountain terrace (I just happened to like the only restricted area) drawing pretty flowers. Christine came up behind me at one point and said I picked a good spot. It feels like the trip was over way too soon. We hopped on the bus and headed back to campus, and I got to hang out with Ben for a little while.
O yes, and they picked my watercolors as one of the sets to show the NAAB people. Yay!

Sleep is for the Weak

Congratulate me. I pulled my first all nighter of third year. The last time I pulled a true all nighter like this was second semester of first year. That didn't happen until we were at least a month and a half into things. That's how wonderful my life is. Tuesday was Enviro - group project(group of four). Today, or rather, tomorrow for me, is Studio - group project(group of two). Tomorrow, day-after-tomorrow or Thursday is Site - group project(group of three). Due to slackers, I couldn't even finish Enviro until 4 am on Monday. Then, with our extended Enviro class today, we couldn't start studio till 10pm. And now it's 8am. I'm going to go shower. Life sucks. Martyrdom is all there is.

Dance!

I had a horrible tryout on Saturday. It was bad. The dance was more hip hoppy than I would have liked. On the upside, I got into three dances, one of which I never thought I would. On the downside, I didn't get into the one that I really, really wanted. That's got me sort of down. O well, maybe next year.
On this semester's menu, we have one quirky Abby dance, one awesome Jess hip hop dance and one studio jazzy Kelly dance which looked fun in a high school dance team way. Still a little hurt Steph didn't want me. I did see a lot of super ballerina-like girls this year, so I guess all the ones she picked were freshmen. I don't think she'd pick friends, she's very professional about that. Most other choreographers only pick friends though. I suppose it's refreshing that she picks those who can best handle it. Still, I kind of wish I got a chance at it. I think I've definitely improved since spring, a lot about not worrying so much about the look and worrying more about the stretch, since stretching is what gives you the energy to bring motions through to completion. I wonder when Dancer's Light is auditioning...

Which Do You Want First? The Good or Bad News?

I'll save the good news for last and tell you the bad news first. It isn't really that bad, more like an annoyance, a bad ending to an otherwise great day. I was all set and ready to drift off into the land of deep slumber when my cell phone rings. Fancy that, someone is calling me. So I answered and someone with a fake Indian accent starts telling me that I won $200 and that I should give him my social security number and no, it's not studio, it's just his parents like to laugh. Haha, thanks for waking me up Kiko. Nice of you to lend him your phone just for the occasion, Ben Saks. Always appreciate ruining a good nine hours of sleep for a laugh at my expense.
On the good side, the studio drawing of our section looks fabulous. Mine is so-so next to Josh's and Waz's. I should have used their methods for drawing trees. Darn. Also on a good note, my Ben went to a job interview today. He hasn't heard from them yet, although the lady said, "I see no reason why you wouldn't get hired." It sounds like an awesome job, and he gets out of work at 3:30-ish so I get to still have time to hang out with him. Yay!

Trees

This week, I spent more time outdoors than I have in my entire life. Well, that's what it feels like anyway. Studio this semester is very much landscape architecture, so we have to go out and learn about trees and why we're supposed to love them. On Tuesday I hiked up to Chatham (couple miles from campus, all uphill) and had to pick out an area to document. Then my classmates and I went out to Schenley Park to document our areas for studio. On Friday, we went to both places yet again, though the trip was a little more fruitful this time. On Saturday, I was at Ben's house and I was regaling him with my adventures in the wild. I suppose he decided that since I spent all week in the woods, I wouldn't mind taking a look around his woods. I don't mind so long as its bug free, but sadly it wasn't and I'm totally covered in mosquito bites. Oddly, not a one bothered Ben. How does he do it? He said, "I think you'll like it a lot better, honey, when everything's dead." How right he is.
Saturday with Ben was very nice. His parents were up at Conneaut closing up the cottage so it was just us and the dogs. His parents bought a collie/lab/retriever mix and she's only about six weeks old. Very small, very adorable, very tiny bladder. She peed all over the house. It's amazing how she has perfect bladder control when we're outsides, but the moment we let her in, she pees. It makes Ben very upset. I got paranoid towards evening, and everytime I didn't see her in the room, I'd go look for her just to see if she had ruined yet another portion of the carpet. On a nice note, I found that just sitting in the back patio with Ben and watching the dogs is very peaceful and satisfying. I think I enjoyed that even more than driving around and watching movies.

The Cleanliness of Man

Everything's starting to come together here in Pittsburgh. The homework is starting to pile on, I now have internet, all my furniture is put together, if not quite organized, and pretty soon, I will have tastefully neutral curtains hanging on the openings. I spent all evening working on my room, finishing around 9:30 and talking with Ben for an hour. Then I spent the rest of the evening cleaning the kitchen. I always thought of myself as relatively messy, but today, I met the true kings of messiness. The nice thing about my apartment is that when the people who lived here before us left, they also left behind a lot of furniture and utensils. While I like most of the furniture (my desk is both hideous and uncomfortable at the moment, but that's my only furniture related complaint), the kitchen things were...lacking. We brought our own pots and pans, so in reality, we didn't need anything at all. What we got was a cabinet filled with about ten pens, three pots and miscellaneous other things. After Christi pulled a crud-covered Foreman Grill out of the cabinet, she decided to go no further, and up until today, it remained the cabinet of disgusting, stomach curdling ickiness. And then I had free time and a strong urge to clean and polish.
Today I learned just how disgusting college boys can be. I can understand a fleck of food here and there, accidentally left on the pan. I can understand a heap of dirty pans in a sink. What I find absolutely incomprehensible is putting the pan away while it's still dirty. Four of the pans were covered in so many layers of food and grease that I couldn't even figure out if it was teflon coated or not (as in, can I use the brillo pad to scrape away all the gunk?). After serious debate and consultation from Christi, we decided that by the time I brilloed all the gunk away, there would be nothing left of the surface of the pan. In the trash they go. It makes me wonder what condition their scrambled eggs were in after using those pans...It makes me wonder how they didn't all die from food poisoning...
I also found a very old, 70s-esque waffle maker complete with the crummy leftovers from the last time our former tenants made breakfast with it. Year old waffle crumbs...yummmm... I couldn't figure out how to wash it without damaging the electronics (apparently, neither did they) so I opted to toss that too. I topped it all off with a liberal scrubbing of the kitchen floor and a splash of antibacterial. If that doesn't work, I don't know what will...