Mic check 1 2 3

It's Memorial Day weekend and my last at home before leaving for my summer travel study. I've clearly been MIA with the end of the semester and relaxing at home but I don't think too many people follow me here anyway. Hopefully while I'm away I can post more regularly to keep my family updated on what I'm doing out in Guardamar and share some of the sights. I'm packed for the most part and disappointed I forgot to bring back a few things from Berkeley like extra sandals, maybe some slacks, etc. A few more things need to be done before I leave Wednesday like moving some files around, printing out information, and an essay on this book:
It's made up of a bunch of deceptively short vignettes (totaling less than 130 pages) that I find fascinating for Calvino's ideas about perception and making meaning. Maybe I'm reading too in-depth for this short assignment (why am I only on page 40) but I'm enjoying it. You have to love the very-appropriate Albrecht Dürer illustration of a perspective machine on the cover. The structure of the book has got me thinking of Hindu and Buddhist mandalas, particularly this one. Mandalas in general graphically organize the universe into specific geometries like a square, and the Vastu mandala most directly relates to architecture. We definitely saw this in architecture history class and talked about how it influenced temple design.

Vastu Mandala

I'm curious to see how others are reading the book and how our instructor will be incorporating it into our work. All right, that's just a little bit for today...more to come later.