Logos & Lunch
Today was a nice day in the studio. I talked to my professor and showed him the logo I developed for my project and he really liked it! It's nice to have one piece figured out so I can base all the aspects off something so it's cohesive. Okkie and I also caught up with our Jewelry and Silversmithing friends, Anna, Lorna and Rebecca for lunch. It was nice see them and we somehow got talking about Christmas and Christmas traditions. The Irish and Canadian Christmases are about the same, a family gathering (sometimes somewhat forced) to celebrate the day. However the Dutch Christmas season is very different. Christmas Day is a low-key family gathering with the gift exchanging. Gifts are exchanged earlier in the season on December 5th when Sinterklaas comes. Boots are put by the fireplace for Sinterklass and his assistant Zwarte Piet. Families exchange homemade gifts with a poem (each member of the family is assigned another family member earlier in the year). Naughty children aren't given coal but are taken by Sinterklass to Spain in his sack (sign me up! free airfare!). It's fun to see how certain traditions from back home, like stockings by the fireplace might be descended from these traditions.
DDD (Design Domain Disaster)
For Design Domain we were supposed to go as a group yesterday to our Design Domain site but some one was sick so we didn't go. Okkie and I hadn't heard anything about going today but we didn't want to get in trouble and not do our assignment. We looked up the location and it was a 50 minute walk from our studio. We thought about taking the bus but none of us really had any change and we had heard that we needed change for the fare. So we walked. After awhile dusk began and we decided we would just take pictures of our current location and hope it was close to where we were supposed to be. We didn't want to be in an unknown area after dark. So we began walking back. Okkie directed me to the nearest subway station and showed me her subway map and to make sure I knew my stop. She then made her way to her home in the West End.
First Subway Ride
I took the subway from the West End and it was incredible. Tourbooks refer to it as "The Clockwork Orange", probably due to the orange color of the trains and how consistently they run. Locals refer to it as simply, "the Subway", none of the "Underground" foolishness of London! :P It's actually quite comical to me all the Subway restaurants (as in the American sub sandwich chain) and also the signs for the actual Subway. Honestly the actual Subway has better branding! I didn't have too much trouble finding the nearest West End station and I bought a multi-journey pass so I can just have it on hand when I need it. Fortunately the subway here is not very confusing. It runs in a circle and there is simply an inner and outer route. The Inner Circle runs counterclockwise and the Outer runs clockwise. I carefully chose the right one and listened carefully for my stop. It was so easy! Well that is until I got off at my stop. It was dark at that point and I had not yet been to the station during the day. I knew it was close to my school and house but I just didn't know which direction to go out of the station. I started walking and spotted Cineworld (the tallest movie theater in the world) which meant I was walking the right direction. Using my handy little map I found my way. I was very paranoid the entire time but I didn't have any issues. Once I was back safely in my room I looked up where we took our pictures today. We were still a while away from our site, probably 15 minutes at least. Looks like the only productive thing we got was exercise and I learned how to use the subway!
Wednesday, Jan 23
Fire Alarm
I've forgotten to mention every Wednesday morning at 8:45pm the fire alarm goes off in my building for a couple seconds. There seriously has to be a better way (and time!) to test a fire alarm. Fortunately Wednesday is one of the days I have to be in studio in the morning anyway.
Typo
I am seriously growing to hate Wednesday mornings. I love typography but this whole doing projects in 2 hours is crazy stressful. I always knew I worked at a methodical pace so this is definitely pushing me outside my comfort zone. Today my professor assigned us to design a book cover. Normally I would be ecstatic (dream job!) but we only had 2 hours to pull it off. 2 hours to design it and comp it! For you non-designers, designing something can take a long time by itself but then you also have to "comp" it or physically create in a client-presentation-worthy fashion. For the book cover this involved printing it out, cutting it to size, and mounting it on a piece of foam core board (which is also cut to the proper size). So I have no foam core and a ruler with only inches. Nice! Apparently one of the staff members has materials like foam core on hand that you can buy. So I didn't have to run out which was good. The foam core was too thick but I just designed my book with a bigger spine. I just didn't have time for anything else, so my edition has slightly more pages :P (maybe it's large print?) I printed my book cover but this printer does not work well and all the colors were wrong. Again no time. I cut everything out and put it together. It kills me to waste materials like foam core for a quick crap project like this. I saw at the crit a lot of my classmates used cardboard, which was smart and actually closer to the real thickness. We did the whole peers order projects from "best to worst" again. This time it turned out much better! Okkie and I were the top 2! I didn't expect that at all, particularly with all the issues I had. At the end my professor also critiqued us one by one. He had some helpful feedback, nothing that I felt wasn't undeserved. Then again it's also easy to get negative feedback when you spend such little time on a project.
Design Domain
We got to Design Domain and eventually it became clear that most of our group did not go. Only the people who said they'd go last Friday made it. That made me feel slightly better because I was concerned the rest went without telling me and Okkie. I think the tutors were a bit disappointed with our group so Okkie volunteered the information of our attempt to go. They were forgiving and said maybe we could give it another go another day. We definitely will…once we have bus fare!
Thursday, Jan 24
FoCi Lecture
Another FoCi lecture….blah boring. It was about archiving which could be really interesting to a history buff like me but honestly they just drain the life out of it. It was mostly common sense about archives and protocol about using them. Honestly for the exchange students it's still kind of relevant because we're new here but this is for all of Year 3. Shouldn't they know this already?! Only good think about FoCi is I get to see a lot of my other exchange friends from different courses.
Sunny Day Wanderings
It was so nice out today I just couldn't stay inside all day and let it go to waste! I had walked by this shoe store a few times and seen some boots in the window I wanted to get a closer look at. So I figured why not today? They had been on sale so I was also worried about the sale being over. Turned out they didn't really suit me but I wandered around a bit. Honestly it was just nice to be out. I've been cooped up in my room working on projects lately so it was good to get out. Particularly since it was sunny! Definitely nicer than home currently!
Bible Study
Had my 2nd week of bible study tonight. Dinner was Chicken Curry served with Rice and Naan. So tasty! I'm still getting used to eating spicy food (though I am sure this was very mild!). Bible Study was good. I was proud of myself that I remembered everyone's names! We continued in Philippians but just focused 1:1-11 in-depth.
Some highlights to our discussion were:
- Nothing "religious" that we do is worth anything unless it is done out of love for Christ and His Church
- Paul's prayer for the Philippians focuses on the future (Christ's Return) and the big picture. He manages to focus on those things rather than immediate events and the details of life. Definitely a challenge, although we were sure to mention that focusing on the immediate or details is not bad in anyway, it's just what comes to mind the easiest.
Some views from today's walk.....
My school on the left and a local church belltower on the right.
A part of Sauchiehall Street
No comments:
Post a Comment