On photos and food

Hemingway and I went by a photography student friend of mine's graduation ceremony, where they had an exhibition featuring everyone in her class. O and his brother were there as well, and as always we decided to geek out on architectural photography, but there were quite a lot of really nice art out there. I didn't get nearly as much as I'd wanted to on camera, due to the fact that I felt that it looked a little tacky to go around an exhibition with your phone camera ready, but ah well. My friend did good, and so did a lot of her friends too. It's sad that artists like painters or photographers seldom get the creative freedom I wish they had. Who knows what they could dream up if they did? Then again, we live in a material world, and I guess we all have to adjust to that.

On strange dreams and strange kids

I had a hard time sleeping last night, being completely exhausted after coming back from a day at my parents' house. Head hit the pillow, and BAM! Instantly super awake. I snuck up and played Bioshock until after 2 instead. Thought I'd maybe go for a run, but decided against it, as that's the kind of shit that gets you killed in horror movies. When I did fall asleep it was to dream of being stalked by annoying guys and trying to escape tidal floods where the bubbles were eyeballs. Yeah, my head is kinda messed up right now.

Why can t I dream of this instead? Would' ve been so much better.

On the universal language of fashion - Project Runway Korea S2E1

This morning (well, 11-ish) I groggily logged on to Skype after having crawled out of bed not unlike how our evolutionary ancestors crawled out of the sea to begin life on land. Mom messaged me pretty much right off the bat asking if I was doing anything in particular, and if I'd like to come spend the day with her at her house, seeing as my plans were to knit and hers were to sew, and if we were going to do granny stuff we might as well do it together. Two hours later I was on the train, heading out for a pleasantly slow day of lazy clothes talk. In the spirit of that, I'm moving straight on into the next season of Project Runway Korea, because hey, that's what I do.

We take our fashion seriously.

On mishap days and laundy irritations

I dragged myself out of bed this morning to go get some breakfast. Reach into the fridge and try to pour myself a glass of milk, only to find that the milk I bought the day before yesterday has gone Lumpy Space Princess on me.

"Oh my glob, you guys."

 "Ah well, I'll have some toast" I think. "FUCK YOU" says my toaster and commits electrical seppuku on my kitchen counter. To top things off, I thought I'd do some laundry today, which of course turned into an unmitigated disaster.

On real life boogeymen and unexpected google results

Lately all of Sweden's been buzzing about a disappearance-turned-murder up north, which seems to have been particularly gruesome. A friend of mine has this place as his home town, and has been scouring forums. It's peaked my interest as well, and I can just say that this would probably make a pretty damn terrifying movie, Se7en-style. Love triangle drama in the deepest forests of the north, ending in what's rumoured to be a ritual killing? Chilling to say the least. The police have appeared to be pretty ham-handed, it's taken days for them to get anywhere at all.

Pictured: How I feel I look when hunting the forums for clues.

On phone terrors from planet Comviq

I love being able to rightfully complain about things. It gives me such a feeling of superiority. I was right, you've wronged me, how dare you? I switched service providers for my phone not too long ago, and they promised they'd hook me up with two free months. "Sweet", I think. Then they start calling me again.

"Hey, have you heard of this great offer?" "Uh, yeah, you sold it to me yesterday."

And again. "Hey, we have this great offer we think you'd like." "I know, thanks, I've already decided to go with it."

And again. "Hi, we thought you might like..." "Jesus Christ, you people are incompetent."

Stop fucking calling me!

On runway mishaps and burrito bonanzas

That awkward moment when you dream you're walking in a fashion show for Diane von Fürstenberg and there's no backstage crew, so when you're struggling to dress yourself for your second look you first accidentally put on the wrong dress and then end up not having time to walk the runway at all. On top of all of this, the runway is ended with a critique much like the ones we have in school, in which the David Icke-lookalike who critiqued my architecture presentation asks why I didn't show the final look, and I go "I uhm... I did, you must not have been paying attention." You're not fooling anyone, dream self.

Shit man, modeling 's hard.

On knits and being a 60's time traveler

Real men knit.

I've started knitting again. I'm aware that a lot of my hobbies are positively granny-esque, and knitting's definitely on the top of that list, but it's fun and it gives me the right amount of analytical thinking what with all the counting involved when it comes to complex patterns. I read somewhere that knitting is relaxing and stress reducing in the same way as yoga is, and I'm sure that can be true. This pattern I'm working on at the moment is pretty complex and a little bit anger-invoking though, so I don't know. I've missed knitting though, I haven't had time to do it for a long time. I used to do it all the time and everywhere - on lectures, on the train, in cafés, and people, especially old people, would come up and talk to me or comment on it. I remember a really old man telling me with quite a bit of pride in his voice how he used to knit when he was young, and how proud he was to wear the things he'd made. While my social awkwardness leaves these conversations not running very smoothly, I still like hearing them, and I like people complimenting me or marveling about what I'm doing, as if it were some amazingly complex thing. It's not really, it's math - patterns and systems and numbers, only you're rewarded with something warm and cool-looking when you're done.

On the commencement speech I never had

Ok, ok, I know I already posted stuff today, but hey, who knows when blog.com will be down again, so I wanted to share with you John Green's Butler Commencement Address, which is awesome, just like it's writer.



It's long, but stick with it. I missed my commencement speech because I was on the phone, trying to locate my uncle who was on a completely different part of campus looking for my school, so I found another one. A better one, even though I love our kind Spanish examiner with his funny accent. This makes me wonder if it's time to maybe try to not be so self-centered and maybe even a less worried.

Try not to worry so much about what you are going to do with your life. You are already doing what you are going to do with your life, and judging by your gownedness, you’re doing all right.

I hope so, John. I hope so.

On cages

There's a particular moment of infinite sadness when I find out personal things about people sometimes. T was asking a whole bunch of questions about what I'd do in the long run really, architecture or teaching. He couldn't seem to wrap his head around the notion that I could do both, or neither, or anything in particular. He said that while he was sure that having a teacher like me would be fun, I might have a hard time adjusting to the lifestyle there, with conformity and schooling being such strong points in the society. I was a little annoyed, and asked if he'd had everything planned out from the start, assuming of course that he wouldn't, since I doubt most people end up doing what they wanted to do at age 5 (because if they did, we'd have a lot more astronauts out there). The answer I got sparked one of those moments when culture clash hits deep and makes me sad - "My road was decided the beginning. It's not something that I want to do, but something that I have to do." I was perplexed, and asked him if he wasn't happy. "Not really, no."

On mushy mushiness and school-related nightmares

"You know", Pony said, "I was skeptical. Really skeptical about this whole relationship in the beginning. But I look at you and you're so relaxed and happy, and it's so wonderful to see. I'm so happy for you."

On presentations and feeling particularly asocial

My face after having graduated.

So my presentation came and went by without too much of a hassle. They had nicer things to say about it than I did, which I guess is a good thing, and the two teachers who critiqued it both separately came up to me afterwards to say something about it or give me a tip of some reference project to look at, so I'm taking it as a sign that there was at least something that awakens some sort of curiosity about my work. I know it's not the best I've ever done, nor the best I'll ever do, but given the piece of shit spring I've had so far I'm just happy to be through with all of it.

One of those teachers looked so much like Edmure Tully from Game of Thrones that I half-wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing here, and why he wasn't on his way with Rob Stark to the Freys at the Twins to marry that Frey girl he was promised to. What can I say, nerds have more fun.

"Could your building stand a long siege?"

On the best breakfast and the birth of Box.

Blog.com's been down again, to no-one's surprise. It's always down. I really should switch platforms to something more reliable. Seriously, what do they do with their servers? Who handles them? Untrained monkeys?

blog.com s staff

Hand-in completed, and after a 14 hour sleepathon, I wake up to this.

Ah, so that' s where he put my phone.

On divine critiques and rental issues

Sunday I was hit square in the face by a migraine. Hoping for just some sympathy, I told Hemingway about it. Hemingway, convinced that I was dying or something, tore over to my place to make tea for me, do all my dishes and feed me sandwiches with delicious jam from Singapore. Do I even need to tell you guys how touched I was? "Have you eaten anything?" "It was warm food right?" "Do you have a fever?" I feel so pampered, it's great. Apart from that we've been hanging out a lot, which while it distracts me from the work I need to do, feels really nice. I'm not always good with being with people for a long period of time without breaks, especially in stressful situations, since I have a pretty big need for privacy, but it's worked out better than I expected it to. I feel really relaxed, and I'm happy with the situation. I'm sure I'll be happier once this hand-in is over and done with though.

Jesus loves architecture.

I kinda need pampering now, having just another four days to finish everything up. It feels daunting, but I know I'll get it done. I've done more in less time, and while the result kinda ends up looking... well, less than I'd wish they would, it gets done. Talked to our friendly Barcelona examiner yesterday, and he made me feel like I was totally on the right track with everything. Gotta love Jesús, if not for how calming he is, for being able to say Jesus instead and pretending like every interaction has religious significance. "I met with Jesus today." "Jesus likes my project." "Jesus said that bamboo grows just fine in the Swedish climate." I've also found out that for my final critique, I'm getting critiqued by the man in charge of all of years 1-3 here at architecture school - probably the friendliest man in the world, who just happens to look a lot like the bat-shit crazy David Icke. When I told Jesus about it, he laughed and said "so you must be feeling pretty calm about that then." and yeah, I am. This David Icke-clone is the reason I stuck with architecture school actually.

On the internet being a dick

Youtube, I appreciate that you're trying to get me to do work, but can you do so in a less depressing way? I mean... fuck you and your recommendations. You don't have to be rude about it.

Motivation's hard today.

On watching Project Runway obsessively, S11E14

I just realized I'm a million miles behind on posting about the finale of the latest Project Runway. Probably because the entire season in general was drab and boring, but you know. The last episode did do some work to kick it all into gear again. Not enough to really get me interested in another season mind you, but enough to keep Pony and me fairly complacent and complain-free.

 So without further ado, here's the bronze medal - Stanley.

The proportion of that jacket with those pants looks so odd.

On sleep deprivation and being generally happy

Hey there silent blog readers, it's been a while. Almost a week now right? Sorry about the delay, it's been hard to fit blogging into my daily schedule nowadays. Today marks nine days left until hand-in of the project on the 13th, which of course is causing a hell of a lot of stress. However, I feel like things are finally shaping up, and I've really come to love my project again. Yesterday I had a moment of clarity on a space-saving issue and I wanted to high-five myself all day for the rest of the day. Of course there's a lot of work left, and I predict the usual 12-hour days, >100 hour week that predates hand-ins, but all in all I've started to feel really good about my project, which in and of itself is really neat.

Fuck yeah.