happy christmas :-)

seriously craving a cupcake. these are the best in atlanta...take that highland bakery! :-p

this american life is awesome :-)

studio is a little stalled at the moment for me and my partner. its hard to keep the creativity always flowing, especially since we reached a good level of design completeness. i know there are always details to flush out, revisions to be made, but these happen at a much slower pace. and to be completely honest i am incredibly exhausted by design work right now.

1/4" model? Rar!!!! I have a feeling he'll really come to life Saturday or Sunday. Til then...its Harry Potter, cleaning my room, and reading an interesting novel. I think I am really cool with that idea :-)

hooray for sleep! hooray for friday evenings! hooray for peanut butter cookies! hooray for Tuesday-Saturday off next week with a delicious meal and shopping in between :-)

sad today.

ze digital studio

sqoogle

"he's so cute!"

happy! im thinking about making little presents for people in studio and wrapping them nicely. i used to get a lot of satisfaction out of doing that. time to bring it back! :-D

i want to be this lady. now.

memory path

my infrastructure project. the infrastructure is a wall and floor system along the seam of oakland cemetery's potters field and cabbage town. the potter's field is a section of the cemetery reserved for those too poor to be afford to be buried. the city buried them, but did not leave any markers. the acrylic bricks are for those whose memories that we know. the wooden bricks are for those we do not know.

hrach recommended taking night time photos of the acrylic bricks. i will do that! hopefully ruth will let me into the combination room to do that :-)

so yes since the summer i have been enthralled, in love, infatuated with northern europe. the netherlands especially. however, im finding more and more things to explore, to be curious about, and to learn from the great white northern lights.
something mythological springs forth in my mind about this area. the north sea is the most tempermental body of water i have ever seen. one day it was gnashing its teeth, threatening to swallow me and everything surrounding. the next it was calm, gentle, and inviting. again, the light as well has a tempest personality. there are months of darkness followed by a switch by the gods to light.
the order and the rules that govern its societies are a stark comparison to the myths. everything is stark here. everything is a juxtaposition. an argument and a just as exacting counter-argument. the weather and the elements are against us, so we fight against it with societal order.
the happiest people in the world (based on life expectency, cost of living, average wealth) live in the netherlands. the saddest people in the world (highest suicide rate in relation to population) live in denmark. what is up with that? as i search i find the most interesting discrepancies that in turn fuels my search even further.
for instance, iceland is the land of FIRE and ICE. Two of the most extreme elements on the planet! There is an extremely strange psychological disorder named after a Swedish city in which the victim of a crime falls in love with the person who commits it. Why is this land full of eccentricity and discrepancy?

why do i want to know so badly? because i want this romanticized notion of a place to be TRUE. i want to experience this weirdness! ever since my grandmother first mentioned there are places on this earth that have total darkness for part of the year, i have wanted to see it. when my dad told me about the beautiful lights that sometimes reach as far south as rochester, new york, i've yearned to behold them myself. i like to be surrounded by new things and new people. i like to think that i can fit in anywhere. especially somewhere i want to fit in.

i have a theory that missing someone is often times much better than actually being with that person. that the initial shock of being with them again after a certain length of time is awkward and gets in the way of any meaningful exchange that can happen (or that is expected to happen). maybe by romanticizing this idea so much i may just set myself up for major disappointment if i do move there.

which i am trying to work on from many different angles. TU Delft, exchange programs (although one of them may be in la villette...), and general study abroad opportunities. i want to be educated in northern europe. i have to do this to be myself.

space invade my wheels

back and forth thru my mind behind a cigarette.

having huge cravings lately. LSMFT.

Not really.

saw hot tub time machine tonite...again. it was hilarious. again.

i feel myself falling into a trap of comfort. RUN AWAY!!!!

ive always had a thing for curls. that's why today in the computer lab I was happy to work on my study abroad project in the row behind this curlyhaired cutie. chuck was talking about phenomenology, lane brought up the golden ratio. there was much discussion about an array of topics that i find amazingly sexy (music+goldenratio+diagrams+mappingmosquitobites). then i realized that i knew the guy from somewhere. it bothered me all day. WHERE THE HELL DID I KNOW THIS GUY FROM?

i racked thru my brain looking for a suitable explanation for where i had seen him.
i was like hm, maybe he's an ID student and now he switched to arch for grad school. maybe he's one of those mysterious city planning kids that morphs into architecture. maybe i knew him from the USGBC stuff that i do and met him at one of the networking events there.

i was thinking all of these things while i took a long sip from my tea.
from.

the.

coffee.

cart.

[[[[flashback]]]]
me: ok im done studying for my structures test. now to make a tshirt that says "I LOVE CONCRETE" and hope it gives me good luck.
brad: you are so going to get hit on tomorrow.
....next day after the test....
coffee cart guy: hey, nice shirt.
me: heh yeah i just got out of a concrete test.
coffee cart guy: NICE. yeah, im a civil engineering major so i have to take lots of tests on concrete.
me: that sounds...cool?

i also remember taking my americano and leaving quickly.

just spent ~2 months tramping all over God's Creation (aka: Europe). Actually that reminds me of a funny Voltaire quote, "God created the Earth, except for Holland. The Dutch did that."

This leads me in to my now certain belief that the Dutch are amazing, that I love them, their country, and I wish to join in on their horrendous winters, scary oceans, tulips, touristas, and oh yes...coffee shops. No, I'm being cynical for no reason. Holland is beautiful. I love it. I wish to move there.

Which is why I am putting in applications for jobs. In Holland? No, for some reason I think this too risky. Im putting in applications for jobs here in Atlanta in order to raise funds, apply to schools, and generally MOVE TO HOLLAND. I'm considering Penn and Harvard my 2nd and 3rd choices respectively.

I've thought about going back to the head shrinker. But it's expensive and will certainly cut down on all this motivation I have.

there are two sides to everything.

wait a minute, this key wont unlock this door...if my baby dont love me no more...i know her sister will. caine + hendrix? why not?

lets forget this is a photoblog for a minute.

this semester is OVER. praise GOD. ive never had such a rotten awful smelly semester in my life. studio sucked, i had no passion for what i created! relationship fail in like every way. communication fail in every way. what a fucking mess. this was not my A-game.

i remember all those times that i've previously thought, "oh its good to fail. it really does give you a chance to re-evaluate your life, and build good skills." while part of me thinks thats true, man has it completely BLOWN.

regrets and things not to do again:
-regret too much!
-forget that georgia tech is a fine school
-put down the camera for as long as i have
-lack of passion for my project
-lost a sketchbooK! :-(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
-take an 8am math-based class (didnt actually have a choice in this matter...)
-take too many hours!
-give someone so much power over my happiness (lame!!!)
-started smoking again :-(

goals that i DID attain + things i like:
-organized the panel discussion
-did a design competition
-dated people/made new awesome friends
-made a cool-ass blog
-got better at/learned 5 software programs
-reconnected with the phi
-went to jessies baby shower
-wrote some graymatters posts w/o signing my life away to it
-ran a half-marathon
-got the 5k time down to ~24 minutes

summer! yes PLEASE. bring it ON. RE-STAAAAART :-) in EUROPE :-D!

all the best and all the worst.

rusans. eggs. colors from apriles room. things aprile likes. a phrase i tell people i think are fun. its getting late but i dont mind.

icing on the cake

icing on the cake. this is not my model nor my construction mess.

glowing coals of hot magmaaaaa

Maya deceives with its illusion.

The Fool is the spirit in search of experience. He represents the mystical cleverness bereft of reason within us, the childlike ability to tune into the inner workings of the world. The sun shining behind him represents the divine nature of the Fool's wisdom and exuberance, holy madness or 'crazy wisdom'. On his back are all the possessions he might need. In his hand there is a flower, showing his appreciation of beauty. He is frequently accompanied by a dog, sometimes seen as his animal desires, sometimes as the call of the "real world", nipping at his heels and distracting him. He is seemingly unconcerned that he is standing on a precipice, apparently about to step off. One of the keys to the card is the paradigm of the precipice, Zero and the sometimes represented oblivious Fool's near-step into the oblivion (the void) of the jaws of a crocodile, for example, are all mutually informing polysemy within evocations of the iconography of The Fool. The staff is the offset and complement to the void and this in many traditions represents wisdom and renunciation, eg. 'danda' (Sanskrit) of a Sanyassin, 'danda' (Sanskrit) is also a punctuation mark with the function analogous to a 'full-stop' which is appropriately termed, a period in English grammar. The 'danda' is also slang for 'penis' (Sanskrit: lingam) and the 'void', 'womb' and 'vagina' (Sanskrit: yoni) is its offset and complement: The Fool is both the beginning and the end, neither and otherwise, betwixt and between, liminal.

The number 0 is a perfect significator for the Fool, as it can become anything when he reaches his destination as in the sense of 'joker's wild'. Zero plus anything equals the same thing. Zero times anything equals zero.^[6] Zero is nothing, a lack of hard substance, and as such it may reflect a non-issue or lack of cohesiveness for the subject at hand.

automobile exhibit at the high. i found myself more interested in the people that were there than the cars themselves. notes that i took: car officianados and their expensive girlfriends. transvestites. art students. usual museum fare. guy w/ sunglasses, sports jacket, and cologne. plethora of well-dressed photographers. rap$tar$.

mom got her georgia state yearbook out and im totally fascinated by it.

mom 1971.

the people in the top photo are holding a gun and an umbrella.

sassy.

no bras allowed.

skylights/scoops at the high.

A room in the Jewish Community Center had little play houses for different countries. Russia, France, Denmark, South Africa, South America, Asia.
Just thought it was a little odd and slanted.

is it wednesday at 7pm yet?

Imagining the Pain ...and Release

farshid moussavi + alejandro zaera-polo

i cant imagine splitting with someone that your career (and other love) is wrapped up with.

uh oh

everyday it becomes more and more certain

we are here to interact with and learn from each other.

if you ever find me again, write the date in me and leave me with a kiss.

we'll be good books to read in a few years.

im not sure what it means to pair these photos together. but i like it.

Diane Borsato. Artifacts in My Mouth. Quebec. 2003.
I've often been tempted to touch the painting in the museum, to feel the brushstrokes, as if it will help me understand the artist better. In 2003, Diane Borsato took this desire to a new level. She was allowed to place several objects from a museum collection in her mouth.

stolen off of hipsterrunoff. Dessa was so kind as to introduce me to this website as well as the term blipster, which i find amazingly hilarious.

from the morning, past the evening, to the end of the line. gotta brimful of asha!