Busy Relaxing

I'm almost done with my eight-day tour here at home in South Bend/Niles.  I've watched a good number of movies, which will be recapped at the end of break when I have a final tally :)  I've eaten plenty of sweets and other food and sweets.  And had probably as many beers as I had during the whole semester, which is like five.

I've accomplished lots of silly but useful things on my computer rearranging and organizing photos, music, contacts, etc.  Part of it is a means of further organizing data for use on my iPhone.  I've downloaded some apps too- so I now have German Spanish and Italian dictionaries and phrasebooks on my phone in anticipation of Barcelona.

My vacation really consists of three parts- roughly 5 days in Indianapolis, 8 days in Chicago, and the remaining 13 ish days in Chicago (save for a day and a half of coming back to Niles for family type stuff).  So I'm almost to the Chicago part- which is the toughest, because my Chicago to-do list is the largest.  First and foremost is finishing really moving into my apartment (unpacking, decorating, etc.) and spending time with Tiffany (out to dinner, watching movies, etc.).  Third is my to-do list, for school, my computer, life, whatever.  Thats for during the days.  

I've heard from a number of people recently that they actually (!) READ this blog, so it'd be nice to get more comments.  I guess what's to comment on, since I'm just blabbing, but feel free.  Maybe I should start posting questions or riddles or something.  Who knows.

Movies During Christmas

Movies Watched Since/During Finals (including some while I worked on models):

19 in total.  Only two of them had I seen before.  Success!

Get Smart

Journey to the Center of the Earth

XFiles

The Happening

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Robots

Cars

Casino Royale

Dark Knight

Wanted

White Christmas

Cinderella Man

Quantum of Solace

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

21

all the bonus discs from The Matrix Collection

2001: A Space Odyssey

THX 1138

The Great New Wonderful

No Country For Old Men

Oops This Never Got Posted

My favorite website, as of late.  

This is kinda what my brain is like sometimes.

Hold your mouse over the comic for a sec when you're done reading it.

http://xkcd.com/439/

I.AM.FREE

This is it folks.  The moment you've all been waiting for.  Or maybe just me.  Or maybe Tiffany and Josh so I can actually hang out with them and not be stressed and busy all the time.  I'm free from school!  Thank you Newsboys for providing the soundtrack to my Christmas break.  Below you can see how I enjoyed my first day of break while cleaning my apartment:

Cut my hair...

...aaaaaaaaand cut my face.

And did a little dancing and air guitar for the camera...

I am now on the most glorious Megabus ($1* fares!) on my way to Indianapolis to visit my favorite kids in the world, and some friends.  Stoked.  I of course could be sleeping like everyone else on here, but why the hell would I waste the opportunity to surf the internet at 70mph?  Mobile wifi is sweet.  I feel so 21st Century right now.

Flash forward to the next day.  I'm in Indianapolis with the kiddies.  

Time to sum up the semester.  Hardest I've worked for that amount of time.  People say architecture is hard.  And then there's being given loads of work over the weekend "because you have two full days to work on it".  Great.  Its okay, I don't need sleep, food, or time to bathe myself.  If I could live with a beard, I could certainly use that lost shaving time back.  Geez.  I just hope I got good enough grades to continue my quest to go to Barcelona.  Which is to say (which is the department chair's favorite phrase) I'm trying to maintain a 3.0 so I'm in good standing and not kicked out of school.  My 3.67 first semester was hurt by the 2.89 I got the following semester, due to (as far as I'm concerned)an  unappreciative six-credit C in my Studio class.  Hoping to not repeat that this semester.  Will know soon.  I worked my ass off, within reason.  Still need time to be a human being.  Shop for groceries, slowly unpack my belongings, spend time with my girlfriend and roommate.  

This semester was an urban design studio, designing a library for the currently library location in downtown Chicago.  We spent weeks researching, weeks doing other research, and the rest of the time building models it seems like.  Oh and then there were three other classes- lord knows when I have time to devote to those.  Here's some model pictures below.

Tiffany and Josh came to my final all-day review (part of it) before we went out for AH drink that turned into many drinks since the bartender knows my regulars classmates and was pouring us tasty girly shots all night on the house.  Okay, sounds good to me.  

The following morning I began my one-month quest to regain my humanity.  It began with having three days to plan a magical birthday for Tiffany and clean up my apartment enough to have some guests (my brother and his friend).  And spend the afternoon playing Super Nintendo as well.  Tiffany's pre-birthday and birthday went well, complete with my brother and his friend winning tickets in the Wicked drawing they do every day.  We did some shopping, did some Tex-Mex food, saw a wonderfully depressing WWII movie to end the night on a high note.  Even the weather wasn't too bad.  Until it went from 53 on Sunday to 6 on Monday.  Thankfully I was off for warmer climes (Indianapolis).

So I'm well on my way so far.  Changed my address with all the places in life that have my address, two months after moving.  Cleaned the bathroom for the first time since I moved in.  Not meaning we cleaned it when we moved in.  Visiting some friends and family here in Indianapolis.  Onward and upward.  Cleaning up this semester's files on my computer, messing with my music library.  

When I get home home, to SB, will be the real activity.  Cleaning out or at least organizing all my garbage thats still there, helping the family clean/arrange the basement.  Creating a website with Chris.  Playing some guitar.  Doing Christmasy things like making cookies, drinking egg nog, sitting by the fire, eating cookies, sitting by the fire, eating chocolate, sitting by the fire, drinking cider...you get the idea.

So more blog entries will come as I continue my tri-state travels over vacation and continue firmly grasping my sanity for a few weeks until it is stolen from my desperately clutching fingers.  And now for some completely different pictures.

A model I made for mid-term that was universally hated (~2 feet long):

The model I build next, with a grassy roof.  Same-ish size.  Took days.

Me and my pal Shubair, Tiffany's friend from Baylor.

Me and my pal Tiffany :)

Tiffany's brother Wesley.  We went to NASA Space Center in Houston over Thanksgiving- fulfilled a lifelong dream to go see all the rockets and space shuttle and stuff...

Tiffany's sister Karen and some large rocket engines...

Cockpit of the space shuttle!  Cool.  Airplane nerds might like this.

Tiffany celebrated her early birthday!

Snow-covered world from the air- neato.

My newly much larger class sitting around at a review, where we pin our garbage up on the wall and talk about it one by one.  Usually takes all day :)

My final model in the giant model of Chicago we built.  This model may come to South Bend with me if you wish to see it there, family members.  Its about 2.5 feet long.

Another closer photo.

A large model that was just a small section of my whole building.  Chris spent half a weekend in November helping me with this, Tiffany helped me make furniture and place people.  Then I borrowed people from many people in the Studio and populated my auditorium for a photo.

And then I knocked all the people down.  On purpose, this time- they fell down a few times on accident before I got them all up for the picture.  Couldn't glue them down since I hadta give em back!  This model was about three feet tall.  Maybe four.  It got throwed away.  After I rescued the people.

Inside of the model decorated and furnished by Tiffany :)

The whole thing.  Its tall.

Some of my classmates' models sitting on the ground waiting for their presentation.  Neat.

Hell Hath Descended

I don't have time for a real post.  I was gonna write about Thanksgiving and my time in Houston, while I was there, but suddenly I'm back, its snowy and cold, I have a sh-ton to do, and this is the best I got.

Observations from my flight to Houston:

-I greatly underestimated the number of people at the airport pre-6am the day before Thanksgiving

-They want us to turn our electronics off for takeoff because that's when most accidents happen

-Southwest airlines either buys their snacks on the cheap or is given them as advertising- every time I fly the snack is different

-there is a lot of farmland and river tributaries in the midwest

-people really look vulnerable and helpless when they're sleeping on an airline tray table

-getting five hours of sleep before a flight is a bad idea, made much much better by having beaten Wario's Woods the night before

-i have a tendency to get micro-crushes on middle-aged flight attendants.  they're saucy.

I will see many of you over Christmas Break.  Until December 11th consider me dead to the world.

Burnt Out

I'd rather be doing the following than doing more school work:

many many things.

1st   semester: Architecture rocks!!

2nd semester: Architecture is cool, and a lot of work.

3rd semester: This sucks.

(anticipated)

4th semester: I wanna die.

5th semester: BARCELONA!!!!!

6th semester: just get me out of here.

...almost forgot

...and one of the highlights of my birthday was omitted because it happened 9 days later...but that didn't keep it from being awesome.  By now I know Tiffany noticed I didn't mention her fantastic gift...she took me out to a Brazilian Steakhouse.  For anyone unfamiliar, its all you can eat 16 kinds of meat in giant hunks being walked around the restaurant on swords by men wearing pantaloons and tiny vests, with a waiter who continuously replenishes your supply of mashed potatoes and fried bananas and small rolls, with the world's best salad bar in the center of the place.  Oh yeah, its expensive, and oh yeah, its magnificent.  We stayed for two hours and tried maybe 10 kinds of meat and most everything at the salad bar- they had mushroom risotto, cheese tortellini, ceviche, oysters, spicy shrimp salad, fresh mozarella, four kinds of cheese with prosciutto and salamis, and then the other half of the salad bar.  Wow.  We were disgustingly full.

I wish I could take people there.  There's now four of em I think in downtown Chicago- so they must be doing something right.  It was my second time!  Uncle Tony happens to be a fan as well ;)

Oops.

Well I guess since I haven't posted since apparently October 3rd, I guess I should do that.  Geez I didn't even write about my birthday.  Less is more so I guess nothing is a LOT, right?

Here's an update on me.  I bought a book awhile ago called One Thing At A Time.  100 simple ways to live a clutter free life.  That lines up with the list I saw a while ago called 100 things, where you try and pare your life down to 100 possessions that you need (not counting things like toothpaste or something, but counting pairs of shoes and such) and see what you can get rid of.  Geez, ending sentences with prepositions is apparently bad.  So anyway that combined with moving got me to start getting rid of things.  Not stuff I need, just stuff I don't.  Toiletries, clothes, shoes, random things, you name it, trying to get rid of it.  Clothes in particular I will add up and post a list of what I got rid of.  There's that preposition again.  Anyway, its fun.

Also keeping in mind that being in grad school makes clear what I need and don't, what I use and don't.  Of course I'm not getting rid of my guitars just because I don't play them now.  I will use this newfound skill though in finishing what Jenny started, or at least continuing it, and helping my family get rid of/clean up/organize things at home as well, over Christmas break.  I've got a fair share of my own stuff there as well that needs to be addressed. 

I'm writing, by the way, because I have nothing else to do.  Which is to say (a phrase used in heavy rotation by the chair of my department at school) that I have a ridiculous amount of things to do, the least of which is trying to clean and organize my apartment.  My number 1 and 2 priorities are making sure I pass the semester, which at times I worry I may not.  Seriously or not, I dunno, but I do worry about it.  Priority number 3 is making sure I still have a girlfriend at the end of the semester.  Grad school, I shake my fist at you- if you were a person, I would punch you in the face.  

I've been working my uh, face of for like three weeks now.  The week before midterms was bad, midterms was bad, and it got zero better after midterms, and this week at least until Tuesday is bad, except then I have a Structures exam on Thursday.  Which used to be physics but now is more just glorified algebra.   But lots of formulas charts and numbers.

I'm hoping for 2 As and 2 Bs, expecting at least 1 A, considering the possibility of 1 A 2 Bs and a C, and dreading 1 A 1 B and 2 Cs.  I don't think it'll happen but with big final projects it really can come down to the wire.  And with the amount of work thats asked of us, the gap in performance between grades is chasmic.  Wow, thats a real word, spell check didn't even underline it!  Sweet.  I thought I kinda made it up on the fly.

Well anyway, I'm basically trying to hunker down and not hate life until Christmas break, and take small victories in not working for half the weekend if I can get away with it- but these days I have so much that I'm always thinking I *should* be working.  And I'm doing more work with worse results than last semester.  

Currently as usually in the past few weeks, I have multiple things due in the next couple days and constantly trying to assess which of them I should be giving my time to.  As I am completely hopelessly and constantly tethered to computer also, its of no small importance that half the stuff I need to use for school right now is currently not working right.  I have plenty of time to spend the afternoon error checking and defragging Tiffany's computer so it runs enough so I can use IT instead.  Sad times, resorting to a Windows machine to get by.

My birthday was a gleaming diamond of fun and relaxation in an arid desert of stress schoolwork and the occasional frappucino-  I got some Notre Dame green suede shoes from Tiffany, we got Qdoba burritos for dinner, went to South Bend, got pumpkin pie blizzards, and watched Iron Man on 60" almost HD with almost surround sound.  Spent Saturday looking at the new garage's progress, eating lasagna and DQ ice cream cake, opening presents, playing cards, watching another movie, and I think drinking multiple tasty liquids- ah yes Ruby Red Squirt, Mudslide, Very Vanilla Soymilk (The Taste Kids Love) and some other stuff.  I got a couple cool things from my parents, oh yeah and found out Chris and Tiffany had been not exactly lying to me, but certainly manipulating and deceiving me, for around three months-

CHRIS BOUGHT ME AN iPHONE.  

So he's crazy, its awesome, and when the going gets tough, the tough pull out their iPhone, look at their sweet suede shoes, and remember that their cool birthday presents and the people they care about will help em get through it.  My phone hasn't quite transformed my life, but thats because I received it before mid-terms and haven't exactly had the time to give it the attention it deserves.

I really must do work now.  I'm hoping everything I've been doing on here will finally make the computer work now.  I'm getting desperate here.  Times are getting rough.  I've spent more of the weekend being I.T. guy fixing this computer than I have actually doing school work.  Its awesome lemme tell you.

I also know I'll be home with Tiffany for at least five days during Christmas and afterwards, and maybe myself longer, dunno yet.   Also hoping to take a trip to Indy to visit some newly moved friends of mine as well as some of my favorite little cousins.

Gotta go.  

Suh-weet.

Carl's personal favorite architecture firm these days.  The principal architect, Bjarke Ingels (firm is called Bjarke Ingels Group, "BIG"), gave a rockin lecture last year on their work.  The lecture alone, work aside, was just really cool and well done.  He's Dutch.

www.big.dk/

Live and Learn.

New apartment.  Third night in the place.

dripping toilet

broken doorknobs

windows painted shut

smells like gas

no battery in smoke alarm

no carbon monoxide detector

windows painted shut.

called the gas company

they'll be right out

(within the hour)

make sure i'm by the front door

(three floors down)

its okay, i've got sleep to burn

only one assignment to finish in the morning

but i'm nearing the edge here

no more clean underwear

and my windows are painted shut.