I am up to my ears in academia and I need a break. I need to do something stupid. I need to dress up as an animal, or a singer or something and go ask for candy.

Alas.

I have too much work to do.

However.

If I was to dress up, it would be in one of these modes:
a) Lindy England AKA Leash Girl
b) Prof. Griff and/or an S1W
c) My Armenian studiofriend Sipan who wears nothing but Sean John and has OCDly spiked hair.

Academiaville.

In the past week I have presented a project that I wasn’t happy with but salvaged my presentation with some good drawings, diagrams and Rhino/Flamingo renderings. Did I mention that I became a Rhino maestro in the past two weeks? Here are a couple of images:

My presentation board. A detail. Front and interior perspective shots. And some views of the tunnel that pierces the structure. *Note the chair that I designed in my last project showing up in the CG. Word.

Today I wrote a critical essay on the Jean-Luc Godard film Alphaville. I argued that surrealism will save us from the dystopia created by rationalist modern architecture, which is weird because though I am neither a modernist nor a surrealist, I am definitely more of a modernist. Breathe. There were plenty of Paul Eluard quotes in the paper and at one point I think I wrote that love doesn’t live in the world of concrete, glass and steel; it lives underneath the bread on Salvador Dali’s head. The paper is actually quite good (toot-toot) but it is the title that I am really proud of: A Machine For Living. Anyone who knows the film and knows Corbusian architecture will agree that that is a goddamn good title. I am a Titleist.

Silence. Logic. Safety. Prudence.

Don’t have your laser cutting done at the ironically misnomered Carpe Diem. Par my experience, nothing there happens in a Diem, even if that is what is written on the paper that you sign. Instead try the wonderful George at Penpoint in South Pasadena. He allowed me full access to his laser cutter many hours after he was closed. Cheers to George.

I am so glad that a new studio project has begun. The last one took it out of me. It is much harder to stay up for three days straight at 31 than it was in my twenties.

The new project is for a satellite campus for the Fashion Dept. at my school. The site is (where else?) in the Fashion District of Downtown LA. The shape of the site is interesting. I will post images of the site model/analysis when I have them complete.

I have three other classes for which I have tons of work also. When does it stop? I have a pretty intense detail to draw for Materials & Methods….and the phrase that is in my head is “Goddamn, why did I choose to work with Polygal and why on bloody earth are there so many little connecting pieces….”

And.

Can anyone teach me Trig? Yeah. That thing most people take in high school. Yeah. I’m doing it in my 30’s. Bringing that shit back. I don’t understand a radian of it. I am going to learn it tonight no matter how many degrees, minutes and seconds it takes me.

And.

Remember a post or two ago when I mentioned that I needed both money and a new computer? One of those two problems has been remedied. Thank you to the world’s greatest dad.

So now in my Digital Fabrication class, I am CNC’ing an aluminum arm that operates on some bearings and holds my new flatscreen monitor. And I am design/building a breathable secure box to house my new CPU under my desk.

And penultimately.

Happy Birthday to Sacha.

And ultimately.

Happy birthday to the World’s Greatest Mom. If your son wasn’t a broke college student, he would have sent you flowers or something. I’ll get you something bigger when I graduate to make up for it. I love you.

Cheers to everyone. Hopefully I will be able to update more soon. But you can rest assured that if it were summer or something I would be having a fucking field day with the debacle after debacle after debacle happening in the Bush admenstruation.

Word.