Chickens and bunnies are so cute they've got to be friends

Sometimes when no one is around, I'll laugh out loud for no reason just to hear the sound. It feels good.

Everything is architecture

I'm praying this is the semester architecture "clicks" for me. I'm nervous because I have the feeling it might just happen. After six weeks of the semester and beating around the bush a little bit, this project is beginning to get me really excited.

Architecture 100B design goals

Fall semester started today and I'm feeling pretty excited for it. I'm going to be studying under the course coordinator for once, so Keith will be my instructor. First short assignment is due Monday so we're diving in pretty quickly. Having some loose goals last semester was helpful in guiding some personal progress so I'm going to outline a few for 100B.

1. Be inspired.

Research, consume, and digest as much information as possible. Develop a strong base of knowledge of what is out there and what is current. Explore more real, physical architecture and visit sites around San Francisco and the rest of the bay. Figure out what ultimately interests me and what I want to pursue.

2. Have an opinion.

Not just observe what others have done but study their work and be critical. Take a stance and make your own ideas about things. Consider other possibilities.

3. Take risks.

Less "safe" architecture, more exploration. You don't need to know what you're doing to do it. Abstract more and be willing to push things past what's comfortable.

4. Think graphically.

More drawings and less words in the sketchbook. Develop a stronger personal style and language. Improve skills with design software and presentation.

5. Look ahead.

Create portfolio quality work and update it often. Study firms from around the bay and their work. GREs and internships.

Penguin Great Ideas

A preview of Series 4 of Penguin's Great Ideas books from the Book Cover Archive (which is a great site and resource). The Great Ideas series has some amazing cover designs though I only own one personally. Utilizing a clean look, great type, and selective colors, the series showcases a wide range of styles and designs while still creating a cohesive collection. Did I mention I love the colored spines? I've seen this book on the history of Penguin's covers at Moe's plenty of times. I need to get my hands on it soon.

via Book Cover Archive

Hearst Memorial Mining Building

Late night drinks

Despite being completely laid back since the conclusion of studio and even flying back home to West Covina, I still had a take home final to finish today. I spent the last week desperately avoiding it, which predictably resulted in me rushing to write the paper poorly and turning it in late. The past couple days at home have been relaxing aside from that. Being welcomed home is always an amazing feeling. I'm surprised by how my parents have developed a kind of cosmopolitan lifestyle in my absence and of that of my brother. It feels good to see them active and enjoying themselves more now that we're out of their hair. When I flew in Tuesday they had both taken off from work for the day so we had a nice lunch at a new ramen restaurant nearby. After my sister came home from school we visited Whittier Narrows park which I hadn't been to before. Afterwards they introduced me to another restaurant and we ended up going out late for some coffee. Tonight we went out for drinks as well and I supposed that's why I'm able to stay up right now. Maxim Cafe has an awesome yin-yang tea/coffee drink that's reasonably priced and bottomless as well. I don't know why I pay $4 for coffee at school.

Anyways, I'm working on a post of my final review this semester. It'll be my first such release of schoolwork and hopefully up some time tomorrow.

Resolute

This summer will be one of adventure.

Pushing to the end

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post. Clearly I don't juggle my classes with other priorites very well. I've had a short reprieve the last couple of days since I had a midreview on Monday. Time to gear up for finals. I guess I'll be back in another month.

Putting out fires

Yesterday I slept all day while waiting for the mail. At seven in the morning, the tracking for the overnight package said it had been delivered but nothing had come! I didn't drive to Los Angeles with my dad to pick up my mom from work because I wanted to wait at home. The cds my brother sent didn't arrive until around two in the afternoon. I must have been knocked out then because I didn't hear the doorbell and the postman just left it in the mailbox. I was relieved that they repaired my system just fine and everything is back to normal. I need to start backing up my work to spare myself a lot of stress.

Is it part of human nature to slip into apathy so effortlessly? Despite having a decent workload for the break I still haven't sit down and started on anything. All feelings of urgency normally present at school have been sufficiently defused so that I now lay in bed all day with my mind landing nowhere long enough to have a substantial idea. It feels taxing enough to try to parse these thoughts into words here, much less study the failings of the Chinese republic in the 1910s and 1920s and the development of socialist thinking. Somehow I feel I've been conditioned into managing life from crisis to crisis, from one review to the next, from midterms to finals. Nothing can seem pressing enough until it has reached crisis proportions. That would explain all the last-minute cramming and all-night studio production. I'm tempted to think the lulls in between the storms of work are just periods of recovery and should be forgiven as such, but they do perpetuate an unhealthy cycle of work ethic. 

A related issue is how some people feel the need to stir up trouble, whether consciously or otherwise, to add some new excitement to their lives. Everyone knows at least one person like that, the friend who has some new drama every other week. I'd say I do prefer this mental stasis over that.

Perhaps it is a primal vestige from our human evolution. How can one plan so far into the future when one's existence is uninsured? We might not fear getting mauled by wolves in the search of our next meal but the logic persists that mental processes would be better utilized for what's at hand. What a weak excuse. How easy it is to attribute my own indolence to some innate and insurmountable cause.

Spring break

The last two weeks have been insanely painful. I had to study so much for midterms the first week and then crank out a ton of work for mid-review on Wednesday. My sleep habits were in total disarray. While trying to study for history I would read a page and fall asleep for two minutes, wash, rinse, and repeat. I fell asleep in the middle of eating lunch one day. When I woke up, I finished eating and went straight back to studying. For two weeks I couldn't have had more than a couple of hours of sleep each day, and this wasn't even at night either. Whatever sleep I managed came in lapses while I was working away. The weekends were a bit better, probably four or five hours a night but only because I made sure to relax a bit, get rest, and see some friends. It's hard to look in the mirror and not find bags under my eyes these days though.

I almost lost my job - the easiest one in the world where I get paid to sit at a desk and do homework the whole time. The first week I went in late both times because in the morning I am quite vulnerable to passing out. Tuesday morning I didn't wake up at all and fifteen minutes before my shift was supposed to end my boss called my cell phone. I listened to the voicemail later and basically if I didn't go to work on time Thursday she would give all shifts away. Ugh. It's a good thing mid-review was on Wednesday so I got a little more rest that night.

I'd say some good things came out of all that effort though. I did well on my history and film midterms, around 87% on both. The simulation game for my city planning class went well too, my graduate student instructor seemed to acknowledge the work I put into the negotiations and I even showed up in the newsreel for it. I'm extremely satisfied with the dedication I had to studio as well. I really flipped the switch last week, spending the time I needed to and focusing in on production work. I needed that. It's still been difficult shifting myself into studio life and committing to time it takes to do good work. Given I still didn't complete everything I should have for the mid-review, I can definitely improve on efficiency. Nevertheless, the review went well and I received postive comments and good criticism.

I came home later than planned; Friday afternoon I was still finishing some work samples to send to SOM for their summer internship. Even though I was still wiped out from mid-review, I spent all of Thursday night editing and laying out my work. It would be amazing to get that internship. With the grade issues on my transcript, I am definitely not getting the San Francisco one I applied to.

For some reason, today my laptop died on me. I believe the battery died while it was trying to configure some updates on startup, so the registry is corrupted and Windows won't start up. I am a complete idiot for not backing up my work before I left for spring break. I'm feeling completely stressed out over the thought that I might lose all the work I did last week. My whole project for studio is on there. I need some cds that I left at school to even try repairing it, but it might take a complete reinstall if that doesn't work. In that case, I think I could still recover my work. I'd have to buy a laptop hard drive enclosure so I can access my files and save them somewhere else. The most frustrating thing however is that I would have to reinstall all of my programs which is so time consuming. I don't have the patience for that now. I already have to wait until Tuesday at the earliest to have Charlie mail me the cds from my apartment. Why does technology always do this to me. I definitely know how to use and take good care of my laptop but I still have the worst luck. That's disgusting.

Keep calm and carry on

Why am I still designing 3 nights before midreview?!

Adderall

Girl I'll tell you now

my path never seems

to cross anyone's for too long.

What about

Saturdays in the park

Sunday afternoons in bed?

Really now the world

can't come soon enough

but I don't know how to meet it.

I thought I was

the one you could

have strength for.

A good idea from a bad dream of a good idea

I thought I had a really funny dream just now, but when I sat up and thought about it for a bit I guess it was just strange. My friends and I were were out getting some Mexican food at some restaurant a while away near the beach back home. Maybe it was Mexico though, I can't say because I've never been there. It was pretty far so it was a special trip, but we had been there once before and it was amazing. I'm talking about crazy tasting burritos. Well we went this second time and it was really good again. For some reason I was writing a novel there. We left the restaurant in my friend's lifted truck. I really don't know why any of them would have one.

At the grassy, green park with plenty of trees, somehow right next to the beach, we started goofing around and my best friend started doing some stop motion animation, teleporting and moving around sporadically. This is the hilarious part because it was a sequence set to Benny Hill's Yakety Sax. We all followed in chase, pelvic-thrusting our way towards him, but obviously to no avail. Seeing this, I had the amazing idea of capturing this stop motion movement with my camera's multishot feature. It took me a while to get it all set up on my little point-and-shoot, but I started taking a continuous series of shots. At that point the whole world started turning into what my camera was capturing, but instead of being in fast motion due to the low number of frames rate I was taking, it was in super slow motion.

We were getting closer to catching that silly fox but not close enough. In a moment of genius, one of my other friends suggested that another way we could stop him was with bullets. (This is still in good humor...) So everyone brandishes machine guns and starts spraying lead everywhere, and bullets fly around the park in slow motion. I don't join in because I still have my camera in hand, taking continuous shots and keeping the world in slow motion. But unfortunately, I run into a tree and become fused into it and everything goes downhill.

I'm half-stuck in its trunk and my friends are still shooting. I'm not worried at first, but one, then two, and then a few stray bullets start coming towards me. I get lucky with a couple waves but then one, then two, and then a few start hitting me in the body. Wave after wave start drilling me as the air gets thicker and thicker with slowed down bullets (think The Matrix). I'm getting torn apart and when my camera finally gets blown away, the world slowly returns to normal speed. I fall out of the tree and stagger behind it, feeling really heavy. All my friends run up to me, worried about what's happened. Strangely, I'm all right. I'm just really happy I got that all on my camera. We go back to the restaurant for more awesome burritos. I continue to write my novel but this time with a new idea.

The concept? A story of children that learn they can play around, slowing down time. However, they don't realize that though they are slowing things down, the rest of their world drives ahead in parallel. In a climactic finish, they come to realize the dire effects of this when they intersect with their future that is occuring at a different rate. They try to reconcile with the real time they belong to, but only bullets materialize from the war that is happening and they are all cut down.

I realize I have really wild dreams when I don't get enough sleep during the week. Normally when I'm well-rested I either don't remember my dreams or don't have interesting ones. It could be either a good or bad thing. The night before last I woke up screaming because I thought some huge, fat, juicy, translucent, light blue with purple spots colored bug was crawling all over my back. I jumped up in bed and my roommate, still awake, gave me a really shocked and weird look. Later that day, I noticed I had some kind of bug bite behind my shoulder. I don't even know what to think. Telling a friend about it later, I drew a picture of the bug. I felt nervous seeing it again.

Something is better than nothing

(At least in some cases.)

This is a pretty nasty little habit of mine. I don't ever want to start or do anything unless I'm positive I can follow through with it perfectly, hence the lack of posts here and excess of topics in my notebooks. I've got to dive in and just produce. I don't want to descend into merely dramatizing my life but if that's what it takes to write more regularly, so be it.

You've got to let them know you're thinking anything at all.

I can recap last week pretty easily: two hours of sleep over three days and lots of coffee. The midreview on Wednesday went well. I definitely need to improve on the graphics side of things though. That's one of my goals for the semester, to compose better presentation boards and learn how to create some awesome renders. It's late and I need some sleep.

Back to streets worth walking

I'm back in Berkeley and I've made it through the week rather unscathed and with high spirits. The promise of a clean slate in my classes and the resolution to focus on building my life have kept me optimistic. Of course there have already been some outrageous moments where I normally might have just lost my head and gotten completely frustrated, but I'm proud of myself for just handling them.

The inauguration Tuesday was amazing on campus. I got stuck behind the columns of the student union in the massive crowd of people, so I had to be moving my head around constantly to see the projection on Sproul. All kinds of people were gathered together to witness a historic event and to feel the hope embodied by our new president. However, I hope with all the inspiring words of the inauguration speech, people will realize securing the future will take much more than a single person to guide us through. I hope they will see beyond the promise of this new leader and realize each person needs to have hope for theirself and the resolution to be a part of the change. Not to just witness history in action, but to believe in their own power and the imperative of personal contribution.

More and more, I believe that the way we people live today cannot continue. Among the problems of modern society, such as the multitude of flaws in wasteful American lifestyles, the bleak degradation of character in today's youth, and the general decay of social values, we are too reliant on others to fix things for us. As if deus ex machina could be counted on to resolve all our self-centered problems, we expect the system and other people to remedy them without inconvenience to, or even action from, ourselves. This is an absurd and stubborn idea. However, there is hope, for I believe most people are capable of a greater social conciousness. It is only a matter of awakening it, and, from this, the fervor to act will naturally follow. I hope our new president will not be a symbol of hope in the sense that he will be the one to "fix" America's problems, for this will only perpetuate our problems and the deeper issues with the country and its people. Instead, I hope he will be the symbol of hope that we all can effect the change we wish to see. Hearing the words of the inauguration speech, I know I share this hope with him.

Starting off

So for the record, this site will be an assortment of the things contributing to my life. Whether it be a personal journal of sorts, place for thoughts and ideas, or collection of other interesting sites, it will first and foremost be an experiment in writing -- for myself to try to communicate and to expand what I'm comfortable talking about. Perhaps things will branch off in the future as I become more confident in writing, but for now, everything will be concentrated here. I expect that eventually I will allow myself to have others know and read the site, but I will probably keep my readership limited for some time. After all, my writing will include personal information as I see fit.

Being away from school has been great, although it's beginning to make me restless. Living at home is relaxing and I have almost nothing to worry about, but it basically means house arrest. I have the freedom to do what I want, but I feel I should stick around since I'm rarely home. Never mind the fact I don't keep in touch with almost any high school friends and there's not much to do here anyway. Yes, this place is a cultural wasteland. It makes me appreciate my lifestyle in Berkeley and the city so much more.

One of my goals for the year is to have the arts play a larger role in my life and really be enriched by them. Through literature, art, music, film, and whatever else, I want to enjoy life more. I've already read a couple books, The Life of Pi and Fahrenheit 451, and today I started The Kite Runner. So far I've seen the films Gran Torino, Revolutionary Road, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona as well. (I need to see the rest of the awards contenders soon.) Even more exciting, I treated my mom and sister to a Yo-Yo Ma concert in Los Angeles just recently too. I hope to post a review and some thoughts on everything I read, see, or hear this year.

Only few more days and I'll be heading back up to school. I've got to get back into getting things done and not lazing around so much. Completing my portfolio will be a start.

Panic attack

I can't seem to recall much from the past year. When I realized this hours before midnight on New Year's Eve, I started to panic. Laid down. Overwhelmed feelings. Tight chest pains. I felt myself shrinking under some tremendous pressure, yet at the same time, I was oddly removed from my body. It was frightening, having so many thoughts racing that I felt trapped. It's always about time. I've lived two decades now. What did I think when I was 10 (why can't I remember)? What will I think when I'm 30 (what might have happened by then)? What happens when time stops for me? Panic attack.

I am always worried about my memory. It scares me to death to think I might live without knowing what I've lived. Already I have trouble remembering day to day. So much input -- news, feelings, family, friends, me, life -- yet so little retention. What kills me is these include the that things matter the most and perhaps the only things that matter. My mind is constantly cluttered with the useless and I can't remember. I'll know I had an idea last month, I was on the verge last week, and I had an epiphany yesterday, yet I can't understand how or recall what today. Then, I feel that part of my brain must have atrophied some time between then and now, surviving only enough to remind me of a grave loss. Perhaps it's not an issue people my age tend to think about too often, but I wonder, do others fret over how critical to life memory is? My greatest fear? Alzheimer's. That slow insidious decay of remembrance and thought, falling into dementia.

Some assurance of my own life and humanity came from an unlikely and forgotten place, though in retrospect it should have been quite obvious. I remembered an old blog of mine, begun when I was sixteen and kept sacred for my four years of high school. It had fallen to the wayside when I left for college optimistic and assured of the enlightenment I would reach. Looking back and reading through some of the old drama and tragedies of my teenage life was admittedly embarrassing, even painfully so. But here was my life as I had lived it, the thoughts raw and unedited in the thick of then-seeming crises. I was surprised how words revived from years-old writing could muster more emotion in myself than memories from the closing year. Regardless of the situations, by the very nature of the passing of time life changed and so did my thinking. I doubt I had ever noticed it before and it was comforting. I realized whatever I do or whatever I'm going to do, life develops itself.

I've lost some of that old confidence but I've discovered much about myself too. It doesn't matter too much where I'm headed, even in the light of hopes and aspirations, but I really do need the past to anchor my life. I need to reflect and remember at times point to assure myself I'm growing as a person. The past year might be remembered for all the wrong reasons, yet it surely was formative. Invisibly so, it will still lead me with its lost histories. How about I build from here and try this once again to remember.

Life is short and understanding is fleeting.

New Year Resolutions

Be human.
Avoid outrageous and unreasonable expectations for yourself and others. Demanding so much from others is unfair and will just generate frustration towards them. Realize people are just that: people. They change and grow from one moment to the next. Stop expecting yourself to be a perfect person and holding yourself to unreasonable standards; no one is measuring you by them, only yourself.

Communicate.
Let your guard down and open up to others; you have to share yourself and meet people half-way. Being more confident and comfortable with yourself will let you talk and connect to people around you much easier. You constantly expect people to understand your cryptic thoughts and messages and then blame them when they don't. You want to people to understand you so be more clear in what you say and mean.

Follow through.
Take command of what you want to do and what you say you will do. You have the most control over your actions and your situations. You shouldn't depend so much on others to help you. Nothing has to be perfect from the start. Working through your struggles will only strengthen you and help you learn. Stop demanding fresh starts and making excuses to justify giving up.

Don't be so vulgar.
Have more respect for yourself and those around you. Use discretion in not only what you say but how you say it. Develop your vocabulary so you aren't using slang or curses to describe everything.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. Here's to 2009.

I just realized I may have had a minor anxiety attack a couple hours before the new year.