neighbors...why?

to the left: they're alright. they have a lot of yappy dogs that they like to scream at when they bark. the human screaming is worse than the dogs barking, but it usually doesn't last long. their cats also like to hang out in our driveway and probably poop on our lawn (landlord freaked out once about finding cat poop on the lawn), but the lawn isn't our responsibility and we're never on it, so whatever. when a car drove by and knocked the across-the-street neighbor's side mirror off, they chased after the car trying to stop it and/or get the license plate number. they say hello and wave back when we say hi.

behind: i don't get it. an older lady and man that seem to be a couple, a young guy in his 20s, and a young girl in her 20s in a three bedroom. we thought the older lady might be the younger two's mom, but i just saw the girl talking to a lady the other night in a random car in the driveway who she called "mom." i thought the girl and the guy might be a couple as they share a car, but then i saw her holding hands with some other guy near our shared trash cans the other day. they say hello and wave back when we say hi.

to the right: the house was vacant when we moved in, and soon after, a for sale sign went up. starting from last week, there started to be construction sounds coming from inside the house. at 1 AM. f. the next day, they took the sale sign down. at some point, the bear saw a bunch of youngish kids (high school age, maaaaybe early college) and an old man moving stuff in. i saw some high school age kids moving a piano in a few days ago.

two nights ago, they started playing piano, clarinet, sax, and singing at 11:30 PM. all the racket lasted until about 1:30 AM. oh, and it all sounded pretty bad. since it's so hot, our windows were open, theirs were open, and we could hear everything loud and clear. yesterday, there was some bad piano playing and singing during the day, but it only lasted about 30 minutes. last night, they started up again at midnight. at 12:30, the bear went to go ask them to keep it down. they stopped. at around 1, they closed all their windows and started up again, but our windows were closed by that time, too, so it was bearable.

oh, and when the bear went over to ask for quiet, there were like 8-10 high school kids in the house. no adults that he could see. ok, so he admitted that maaaaaaaaybe they're first years in college. but the house was for SALE, not lease. even in this market, it was a decent chunk of change for a bunch of kids who probably have no credit history. or the owner could have taken it off the market and decided to lease it instead, but who would rent a 3 bedroom to 8-10 kids? what's the old man's role in all this? and why don't they understand you should keep it quiet after 10 PM in an otherwise very quiet, residential neighborhood?

we went out to dinner about three hours ago. they were hammering something when we left. they are still hammering right now.

yes, i'm nosy. yes, i could probably find the answers to these questions if i went and tried to be friendlier with my neighbors, but c'mon, this is [near] LA. despite the quiet, residential air of our new neighborhood, we're still in an urban area. at least i say hello.

we are si-am-ese if you ple-eease

photo class was interesting tonight. we learned that since our eyes aren't shaded, we usually see everything with a bit of glare. one way to cut this glare is by putting one hand over your eyes and the other under it to block light coming from those two directions at least.

or you could wear these:

[screenshot of their website]
[brought to you by why wednesday. WHY???]

yeah, i was a bit annoyed/disgusted/offended as a first reaction. it brought me back to the elementary school playground.

white kid: [making slanty eyes] ching chong chang
non-white, non-asian kid: are you chinese?
me: no
some other white kid: then are you japanese?
me: no
non-white, non-asian kid, again: then what ARE you?

if i were quicker with the wit and comebacks, i would have responded, "human." this answer is courtesy of the bear's friend who responded that to some girl that called in for him on desperate and dateless back in the day. but that's another story for another time. or never, as i don't think i'm at liberty to tell any of the rest of it. too bad that response came like 15 years too late and from a source other than my witless brain.

anyway, back to the slanties. i got over my offended-ness pretty quickly since the thought of seeing someone wear them in public and how i will laugh my butt off made me happier. good news is they should actually work as sunglasses by cutting down on glare per what i learned in class today. too bad slits/holes in paper/board/wood don't have UV protection, though, like real, modern-day sunglasses. there's more fun reading on others' takes on them in their press section.

oh yeah, i'm too tired to upload my photos from this past week's assignment. they were just aiite anyway. instead, here are a few i took while waiting for class last week. yep, rain in california in june.


our instructor said today, "now you're all photographers." i don't believe him. i'm just a dabbler who now knows the basics of how to shoot in manual and what a dSLR camera does to produce photos. that a photographer does not make.

frenetic

do you ever have so many thoughts in your itty bitty head that it feels like all that gray matter is going to ooze out of your ears, down your neck, into your shirt, and eventually end up in a big, oozy puddle on the ground? good thing the floors are school are concrete and the carpet at home of the incredibly-ugly-yet-hides-everything-and-anything berber variety. you won't even be able to tell i oozed. brain barf time, so as to prevent the above from happening.

it's midterm week[s]. my studio midterm was last week (SO nice to have it first and out of the way). had a math-ish midterm today. have a rough draft for a midterm drawing due tomorrow morning (yay procrastination via blog!). some people don't have their studio midterm until late next week (3 midterm weeks?!? i know.). the air in the halls (or one big hall, in the case of our school) is charged. well, it's not just charged, but there's actual frenetic activity everywhere. glossy boards go up, then down just in time for someone else's glossy boards to go up (i prefer matte or satin paper as i tend to fingerprint-up all those expensive prints as soon as they roll off the plotter). models are strewn about, i mean carefully placed, everywhere. half scale chairs and their accompanying gigantic drawings fill a room. large installation pieces, some reminiscent of the chair george clooney built in burn after reading and some destined for their ultimate home at coachella later this spring are tripping hazards for a day until they're moved back to someone's desk.

i'm so frustrated because i think too many things too quickly. i'm not saying this to tell you how smart and wonderful i am. in fact, i am saying this to show you the messy, non-linear crazy. frenetic in the head. i think faster than i can write. faster than i can draw. faster than i can say out loud (and you wonder why i talk so fast...my brain is already usually 3 unrelated steps ahead onto the next tangent). faster than i can type. faster than i can model in the computer. and way faster than i can model in foamcore/chipboard/musem board/sticks/et. al. ideas spew forth (the more the better as 99% of them aren't worth much or that useful). frantic, almost paranoiac, compulsive hunting & gathering of research happens as fast as i can grab all of it with my grubby hands (or mouse). analyze this precedent. analyze that project. diagram this. diagram that. think about this. overthink that. radicalize this. make a statement on that. before i can output all of that in some constructive, concrete manner, KABLOOEY. gray bits all over the floor, ceiling, walls, and even in your shoe for you to discover way later when you feel something annoying lodged between the side of your shoe and your pinky toe. gray all over the place, but it yields no Architecture. it doesn't even yield architecture. oh wait, it doesn't even yield a fully finished foamcore model or remotely resolved drawings. all that is left is me. stuck. stucker than stuck. still hacking at foamcore.

i heard stan allen speak tonight. smart dude. smart dude who theorizes and gets built. the pace of his talk was quick. clipped but thorough. almost frenetic but always within his control. flip forward two slides, flip back one, flip back to the first, flip forward two, laser pointer circling here, there, everywhere almost faster than my eyes could follow. this is the first time this semester i stayed through the entire length of the lecture and stayed awake. nothing against previous speakers--i just was less sleep-deprived this time. plus the chop-chop pace of mr. allen's cadence clicked with the pace in my brain, creating a funny kind of harmony that kept me awake.

all of my favorite pens are running out of ink this week. small but infuriating. adding to the panicked pace as it always happens right when i NEED to write or draw something in danger of being immediately forgotten if not inked instantly.

sometimes i wish i was a scarecrow. most of the time i'm glad i'm not, despite the crazy.

lab rat

had class #2 today. again, the instructor for my section was a no show as she's getting married today or something like that. i couldn't quite hear as i was standing behind a human buffer (a guy something like twice as tall and wide as me). the instructors for the other three sections were there, though, and that was good enough as it was just running through rules and the structure of the class, etc. our assignment for this week is to help thesis students, so again, not a huge deal that my section leader was not there. this is turning into a disturbing pattern, however. the registrar may be hearing from me.

so here i am in a dark lab, helping a thesis student. my job is to type a command, wait 30-60 minutes for mr. compy to actually do what i commanded, rinse, and repeat. not super exciting, but at least it's mindless and i can do all sorts of things on the internets [sic] while waiting. i'm also kind of learning a new program doing this.

sorry, short and sweet for now. no fun photos today. nothing that humorous happened, either. i think i'm slowly losing the ability to find silly humor in the tiniest things due to being so serious for school. i'm too serious as it is. must start seeking the funnies out again.

fun with ipint

perfect to quench the thirst that results from living in a sauna. please excuse the wifebeater. it's the only appropriate dress for our cozy sauna.

by the way, why does pique-nique sound and look so much better than picnic?

TMI tuesday + why wednesday in one!

am i the only one that thinks it a horrible waste of time to sit, reading, on the toilet forever? i'm in and out. i don't like touching my reading material while taking care of germy business. i also don't understand this "waiting on the toilet until you're ready" business. why don't you wait while doing other things, then go when you're ready?

my brother used to sing songs he made up on the [s]pot. he might kill me for posting this. if he does, it will be removed. he was like, three, and still in that really cute stage, so whatevs. i'm teasing because it was actually quite endearing.

ok, so i admit i have started to look at some of the bear's reading material recently, although i rarely get to read much anyway.

yawn

cannot. work. any. more.
so many things i could be doing with my time here at the office, but the brain has shut down and can only skim blogs and nap on my desk.
delivery guy is still not here. :(
i wanted to write about my weekend highlights, but the photos are being held captive on my home computer. i thought i had uploaded them. :(
cleaning lady has come and gone. :(

instead, i will tell you what i ate today. it's truly thrilling.
1.5 uncle eddie's vegan cookies, in oatmeal chocolate chip, stolen from rezzie dezzie's desk. i also love the peanut butter chocolate chip, but some batches are salty. dear uncle eddie, salt does not replace butter.
1.0 plain pretzel with no salt drenched in jalapeno "cheese" dip from wetzel's pretzels. i prefer auntie anne's. whatever, beggars [dodging beggars on the promenade] can't be choosers.
that dip is way too small for those that dip like i do.
0.5 an uncle eddie's vegan cookie.
1.0 hansen's cherry vanilla soda. i shouldn't be drinking soda given the tightness of my pants and the fact that i'm getting two cavities filled on saturday, but whatever. it was free, and it was calling my name with that dang cherry + vanilla magical combo in its name.

why...

...would anyone want to make love in this club (in this club, in this club)? or in any club for that matter?

...do the subs not understand when i put a big, red "X" through their drawings and write in big letters "revise per most recently issued drawings, delta 5, and resubmit." why do they then submit drawings showing stuff from the FIRST set of drawings ever, with designs that the first and long-since fired designer on the project issued?

...are some clients so simply amazing--appreciative, see value in your work/the money they're spending on you, good at making their expectations clear, and decisive? and some others...not so much?

...did i happen to shop david hicks fabrics for a client and then stop in at tory burch only to start lusting after tons of summer clothes in bright, graphic prints?

...does homemade salsa taste so good?

...can i not stop eating?

...does the sun make me so cheery?