Wednesday, September 29, 2010

College Pays Off...?

I saw this on Anna's Facebook and I HAD to do it.


photo via sheknows

"While it’s easy to find a college grad who’s unemployed, you’re statistically much less likely to be in that circumstance if you have a higher level of education," said Sandy Baum. Yayyyyy. Well, I knew I was paying a school money that I don't have for a reason. Especially since I'm studying abroad, I'm really feeling the pain of it all. The article questions whether college is worth it, considering the cost. In some cases, it isn't. Some people end up either becoming a housewife/mom (MY WORST NIGHTMARE), or go into a field that has absolutely no relation to what they went to school for (ex. any trade). It depends on who you are, I suppose. I can't say where I'll end up at all. I may or may not do jewelry. I just know I love it a lot more. Certain aspects of it, anyway.

It sounds ridiculous when you spell it out. I changed my major and will be paying about $30,000 by graduation, just to say "oh that was fun. Now what the fuck am I going to do for a job?" So would it be worth it? I suppose it will be. I feel like it is now because despite all the stress, all the experiences I've had have been amazing. I learned a lot about myself, about cultures, about all the beauty in the world, and how to make it myself. Sure, I didn't save somebody's life but that's left for someone else because I can't do it. Everyone has their niche.

And as the end of the article says, there are things that happen to you in college that make you much more likely to adopt healthier living behavior. Those things would be all the people I've met in the field that I've worked in. Everyone is all about living healthy and clean, and about making the world a better place through art and design (aka, happiness and general better living). So I suppose yes, I can say it's worth it. Had I not gone to college, I would never have discovered any of this.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

General Updates... mid semester (just about)

Hey lovers.




Jump rings. I started making silver ones because I had a good amount of silver wire (and now that I know how to draw wire, I'm going to draw it down to 20ga for my smaller jump rings.

Just some pictures... and my nonsensical sketchbook.







These are all my sketches for my revised (or rather, completely redone) J3 piece. The first one was too conventional... I like conventional. A lot. And I like literal (to a point). But eyyy, it's all about pushing your limits and stepping out of your comfort zone. In the end, this is going to be a multi-pieced neckpiece that reaches to the ear. It began in the sketches as a connection from the ear to the shoulder all the way down the arm but I ended up really hating that for this topic. I would like to do that for another topic though.

I'm working on the detail of attachment and connection of the multiple pieces. I started with a chain but Jan suggested I try a mix of something else. I NEVER mix media... so off I go now, with red leather, maybe?



I found a die-formed potato chip! :)

+Love+

Friday, September 24, 2010

oh boy.

Hey lovers.


(photo via Christine, on her camel! JEALOUS) FOLLOW HER TRAVEL BLOG! She's been to a million other places before this. I wish she had started way back when she began traveling a few years ago.

I chose this article because 1- Christine is currently in Egypt and 2- ancient Egyptian culture/history was always my favorite (and then Greek mythology). I'm always interested but not too surprised about all of the new species of animals and new crevices of the rainforest we're always finding. However when it comes to things like this, it amazes me to know that we yet to discover all of the ancient Egyptian culture. It's been around for thousands of years and we're still slowly uncovering it all. The sand is what does it best- burying and preserving life and culture. Its perfectly conducive to preservation as opposed to say, the U.S. where its a lot of dirt and dust.

The Darnells' discovery uncovered a whole community that plays into Thebes' rise. So hey, connection there from Greek to Egypt ;) Apparently it was some literal physical connection from the Kharga Oasis and Thebes, for easy transportation of goods. It will never cease to amaze me how this civilization flourished in the harsh, barren desert. Granted they had the Nile, but still, the Pyramids, the intricate architecture, all that without computers and calculators. God forbid.




I have yet to update on my Design for Production project. Who knew. Last semester I had trouble having a lot to update but now I have to update every other day.


I got my cups all cut out. And I just found out about a fresh circle cutter in 2006. Which I am privy to now that I'm in the metals club. Hotttt. No need to buy cut circles.

I'm waiting on an answer from a seller before I commit to buying jump rings because this person sells it cheaper but it's only copper plated... so I have to find out what the base metal is before I buy it. If they don't answer by tomorrow night, I'm just going to buy it from the other company because it's all pretty cheap anyway. And I found some relatively cheap silver half round wire. Actually now that I think about it, it's really cheap. I should probably go ahead and buy it.

http://www.jewelrylessons.com/question/art-fire-vs-etsy

What a fine debate. ArtFire is where I found some of my supplies.

+Love+

P.S.


BLAMMYS! :) Finally, 2 and a half months later.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Stores Scramble to Accommodate Budget Shoppers

Hey lovers.


Stores Scramble to Accommodate Budget Shoppers

For all you apartment dwellers here in Towson. And everyone else. Markets are beginning to finally catch on... I mean they always knew that everyone was struggling, especially when all people talked about last year was the crappy job employment. But with moves like this, it's becoming more noticeable. Especially to me, someone living away from home when nothing is provided for me (except laundry trips haha).

Personally, I made it a point to check the Dollar Store for apartment supplies before going to the grocery store or Target and Wal Mart. i.e. aluminum foil, trash bags, some food. Then I would hit up Wal Mart, to find that yes, several things were actually really cheap and still of good quality. Like foods. Call me frugal, but I'm only ever concerned with buying food because well that's all you really need to survive. Except metal supplies.

Wal Mart has been competing with the dollar stores and are apparently struggling to keep up because though sometimes larger quantities are cheaper in the long run, some people just don't have the money for it. I bought a lot of bulk food in the beginning of the semester that has still lasted me till now. It's just all about planning finances. I spent about 40 bucks or so on the first week and some of the semester/week before school started, and I haven't spent more than 20 bucks since then on groceries. Stores are finding that it's not entirely the lower-income class that need to shop at the dollar stores. Brands are beginning to invest in putting products into dollar stores.

So look for your Dial products in your local Dollar General!

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Steps

Hey lovers.


As I write this, "Burial" is playing by Miike Snow. The song I listened on the way to U Street in the car with Christine.

I found this photo Laura Buitrago just put up in her collection of photos over the past year. I wish Billy had put up the ones from his camera; we took so many. :) This was taken around 4 or 5AM the night/morning I went to U Street in DC with Christine to go clubbing. It was after our wind down and his treat to me. :) Such a perfect night; this picture perfectly describes the feeling and peace of the end.




I miss it so much. There's so much hustle and bustle of this semester and it's really stressful; I have no time to just stop, relax, and enjoy what's going on around me. Not to say I don't also really like all this action because I'm really feeling like I'm getting into life but I guess I'm used to more breaks. That will come in time. :) Florence, baby. It's crazy to think that in about 4 months, I'll be there.

I will be back on the roll when Christine comes back. She comes back from her Africa trip mid-January so we have about two weeks to cram before I'm gone to Florence and she's gone to Los Angeles. Indefinitely.


In other news, tomorrow is our day to shine! Brianna and I are going to do our guerrilla project tomorrow for Design/Social Entrepreneurship. This is the link to our Blogspot.

+Love+

Friday, September 17, 2010

Hey lovers.

I LOVE BABIES


In accordance with my Design and Social Entrepreneurship class.

Anyways, I saw this picture on one of the side panel ads of Facebook once, and it caught my eye again as I was reading some articles on the NY Times.

I always wonder if this is going to happen to one of my pictures hah. Maybe not Japanese cartoons and toys like this kid but somehow, I'll find it in a really weird (or awesome) place.



Yes. Or no?

"While it has its glorious moments, the computational perspective can at times be uniquely unromantic.

Nothing kills music for me as much as having some algorithm calculate what music I will want to hear. That seems to miss the whole point. Inventing your musical taste is the point, isn’t it? Bringing computers into the middle of that is like paying someone to program a robot to have sex on your behalf so you don’t have to." (Jaron Lanier)

Technology has been a huge help. Or has it? Well, yes, it has, but it's been enabling us to access things easier. Which sounds like a great thing, because it helps things speed along and of course that's all we're going for these days (*DROOG!*) I'll admit, I don't take time to do anything at all anymore because well, I HAVE NO TIME. School has consumed my life. The only thing I take time to do is to cook. I'll spend anywhere between an hour to three hours just cooking, and eat it within a half hour.

But that's (completely) beside the point. I speed things along. So does everyone else in the world. Jaron Lanier brings up a fabulous and very relevant point, as I try desperately to write my paper. Imagine life before Google. Before you could quickly search all related websites, essays, articles, etc... on Google, what did you do to write your paper? You're sitting there with a million resources at your fingertips, so you take bits and pieces of each one to write "your" paper, which is really now all of "theirs." When did you last just sit and write it all up on your own, with a blank slate?

Now in some instances, yes, the assignment would require you to utilize outside books, but how about trying the library? Where you actually have to read the materials, and you can't hit "Command+F" or "Ctrl+F" to find key words? I'm guilty of doing many of my past papers sans-library. But I figure I'm still learning, so what's the harm? It depends on the subject, I suppose.

Lanier says "The problem is that students could come to conceive of themselves as relays in a transpersonal digital structure." Yeah, that could be true in some instances. I do just "relay" information in papers for certain classes that I don't give a shit about, but for the ones that I actually care about and will apply, I ingest the information and actually interpret what I learned. Like History of Modern Design last semester. I actually really loved that class. It was an online class which you might think would make me even less interested because I can just hammer out papers before the due date and not really let the information sit in my head, but I honestly loved that class (and didn't sell my books back!) so I didn't just relay information through and to my 12 page papers every few weeks. I destroyed those books and loved it. I read every bit I was supposed to and didn't skim.

I guess it all depends.

+Love+

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Hey lovers.

A phone call about finances and dues, figuring out major requirements, and all the study abroad stuff plus normal coursework for the semester hit me like a brick, and I thought I was too overwhelmed and could justify getting lazy and/or freaking out. But no, I've got a hell of a lot of fight left. I was just exhausted from a lack of sleep. I'm overwhelmed but I love it.

My hands have gone back to being dry, cracked, rough, and sore. I'm back in my element. The studio is great. I am sort of questioning taking 3 studios but it's not like I haven't done it before, and I'm still keeping up right now. I'm just having a little trouble actually seeing my roommates haha.

Study abroad... I'm a little mad about it; then again, I guess I should have taken the initiative and set a meeting before the study abroad fair, or checked up on it earlier but this semester took off faster than I could get on.

So in reference to our first Design and Social Entrepreneurship project;

For those who are still too stubborn, queasy, or rich to go with cloth diapers. I guess you can kinda help too. :)

"Two UK organizations, Versus Energy and Knowaste, think they may have found the answer for our filthy problem and is building the first ever recycling plant to get 100% of its power from dirty diapers. Now, only 2% of the overall material in a disposed diaper has organic matter in it, which will fuel the plant, so the remaining 98% will be sorted, chopped up and redistributed into other products."

We can turn poop bags into those plastic grocery bags now? (Not like I really use them, I really avoid taking them unless I bought a million things. I scold my roommates for taking plastic bags for things we can carry ourselves ;) I'm starting to consider the foil v. styrofoam boxes now.) What else can we do??



Additionally... I was looking at the "front" pages of NYtimes.com. Just thinking about those millions of campaign posters to be ditched.

(via NYtimes.com)

U.S. Zeros In on Use of Antibiotics by Pork Producers.
(via NYtimes.com)


Piggies!

" 'Is producing the cheapest food in the world our only goal?' asked Dr. Gail R. Hansen." It's this whole drug rampage. Drugs infiltrate our parents, our kids, and well of course, our foods. This farmer in the article is proudly injecting his pigs with antibiotics to ward off illlnesses, which is all fine and dandy for the pigs, but what about us, the consumers? The "antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including dangerous E. coli strains that account for millions of bladder infections each year, as well as resistant types of salmonella and other microbes" is a possible and rising concern as a repercussion of the use of drugs in feeding.

But back to producing cheap food. It always comes down to this-
shortcuts = cheap food = bad food. I suppose I can't blame anyone for wanting to do things the cheap way. I often do it the cheap way because well, I really can't afford it otherwise. But sometimes, you can splurge a little. I'll go for Trader Joe's (which really isn't any more expensive) or Whole foods (which really is more expensive). But come on, when you're affecting hundreds or thousands of consumers, is it really that important?

Again, I understand wanting to save money. Or not even having the money. Where can we draw the line?

+Love+

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Hey lovers.

Judge Calls for Punishment of Police Officer

via NY Times

Just from the title, I thought this was going to be a huge thing where the officer took bribes or did something ridiculously illegal. But it was about him taking steroids. Then, I thought it was some overblown issue. So what if he's taking steroids? It might not be natural the way he's taking them but it's his problem. Obviously he had been abusing them but then I read more to find that apparently, at least 2 dozen had been going to the same pharmacy as him to get steroids or something like that. And they played his personality to be a dirty cop, or at least a really jerkface cop (to keep it PG here). This makes me think of when we went to California and Sam expressed his general dissatisfaction with the law... hahaha. Really, what is it? It's the power that makes people feel invincible, and it takes a good few to resist the temptation to cheat. Ahh corruption, so sweet.

Meanwhile... I have a bench!!!!!! :) No more lugging around (what feels like) 50 pounds of supplies to and from Donnybrook!

+Love+

Monday, September 6, 2010

"We are good people, aren't we? Do you know?"

WHAT

Ceremonial Dolphin Killing

Let's be men.

I know some of the pictures are definitely enhanced for effect... but jesus.





Edible Glasses that Encourage You To Litter.


My next destination on the long list;
Pamukkale, Turkey




So all day while I was sick and lounging around (okay, for half the day when I was just lounging), I racked my brain for what I should do for my Design and Social Entrepreneurship project. As I also sat and tried to decide what new clothes to buy, I realized;

Seeing a Time When We'll All Be Dieting
via NY Times

Too perfect. Since our class last Thursday, I've been obsessing about over consumption and how unnecessary so many of the things we buy are. We have perfectly good clothes in our closet that could last us years and years but at the same time... we can't help but to keep buying. I'm so completely guilty of this. So I've been watching my spending like god knows. I still can't help it though. AUAFSGJjfgkhsd I feel guilty for getting that new cardigan already.

Anyways, just because of how much I've thought about it lately, this is what I'm going to do. The over consumption of food and clothes and oil and everything! More to come later. I've found a million articles on over consumption in America and well frankly, I'm too drained right now.

Later.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

HIPPO ROLLER!

Hey lovers.

I'm so confused. It's difficult keeping up with these classes that require so many similar things so blogging is going to be slightly confusing (for me).

So all these readings. Who knew? I thought I was done buying books; I dropped 175 on books for Jan's classes. And learned about many other huge expenses for this semester. Maybe I should have stuck with my other crap major. Yeah, no.

We had all of these readings from Do Good Design, Designers, Visionaries, and Other Stories, Cradle to Cradle, and The Art of Innovation.

Honestly, the only ones that caught my attention at all were Do Good Design and The Art of Innovation. Do Good Design was a really easy read and it was conversational. As in, I felt like the writer was talking to me (which makes it an easy read as well). So far on what I've picked up, it's about YOU being a designer, and the difference between designing for the benefit of not just the client and their convenience, but for the world. Or the mass. Designers aren't just the ones who make things pretty, they design for commercial reasons and for necessities, like emergency signs and their clarity.

The Art of Innovation. I started reading that last semester but never got past the first few chapters because I kinda... lost it. Haha. But it's also an easy read. I love all the little anecdotes they insert- all the examples of how IDEO improved certain products. It's strange. They turn the simplest things into the most profound ideas. Like the toothbrush handle for kids- just the way they explained their reasoning for making the handle more tactile and therefore more attractive. It's the little things that bug you that they fix which turn into what seems like the most ingenious ideas ever.

Or the biggest problems that bug you, which are solved by the simplest ideas. Ideas that make you say, "Why the hell didn't we think of that before?"

http://freeworldmedia.com/2008/05/


Quick update on everything-not-school. Christine is leaving for New York for Electric Zoo that I am DYING to go to but can't because of school... She's leaving tomorrow morning and coming back Monday at 5AM, then leaving Monday 5PM for Africa. She's not coming back until January. I'm completely bummed because we got really close the last couple of weeks. I feel like I wasted that time during the summer when I didn't see her.

Anyways, here's the rest of my summer after California;

Moved into the apartment. Dinner with Allison!
Made rainbow cupcakes!
Night in DC with Christine. One of the best nights of my life and really opened my eyes up to being adventurous and traveling (after meeting her friends and learning about her life abroad with them)
Good eats, homemade dinners :)

Days in Fell's Point/the harbor. I learned to appreciate how freaking awesome Baltimore is.
I hate how you lose quality through Blogger, but I guess that's how I can upload a million a month.

I also worked the Buyer's Market for this pearl supplier but obviously no pictures. That was quite an interesting experience. I'll have to update that later though. I'm getting tiredddddd.

+Love+