Studio is finally starting to pick up. We had Friday desk crits. Julio was in Norway during the week, missing studio, and came in to make it up. His team won some competition. He said he would explain it more sometime. He was very vague about it. I built pretty much my first model yesterday morning. Nothing special but I got very excited about it. Pretty much something a second grader could build, but it was fun. So I think I know what I need to do for the weekend for once. We have a pin up on Monday. I like Julio and hope we (my studio) can pull together some good buildings. The whole studio area just doesn't seem to have the same, dare I say, rigor, of the previous semesters. Other than Marion Weiss' studio who got nailed with a ton of work on Thursday. I think they are actually doing a competition. Those dudes are there a lot. She is very demanding, but I think in past years they produce nice work. The China studio has been doing a fair amount of work too. Maybe I'm lying. Maybe it's just me not doing any work. Who cares, I'm assembling my friend's computer today and that rules.

Only one more building skins lecture and then a review. That was a good class, but I'll be glad when it's over. It's a three hour class, plus a fair amount of Rhino time (not a ton, but enough that when it's over, it will be nice). Then I will have more time to work in the dark room and it will free up my Monday evenings to focus on other stuff.

Veikos' Surface/Effects class is moving along. Had an awkward desk crit type thing on Thursday where I think there was a lot of miscommunication. I still like the class, I think I just need to rigorize that one up a little more.

There was a PennDesign T-shirt design competition. Some of them were pretty funny. One was a picture of Cecil Balmond with a sailor hat on and it said "Captain Complexity." Another had this stylized graphic of Louis Khan and said "Pimpin' Ain't Easy." Another said, in the font of Def Leopard, "Det Lefford." Our department chair is named Detlef if you didn't know that. Probably totally unwearable, but really funny was a picture of the liquid T-1000 Terminator robot with Ali Rahim's face Photoshopped on it. Another just said "I Deluze." I wouldn't wear any of them as I don't wear many shirts with words on them, but I appreciate the humor. My vote goes to "Pimpin' Ain't Easy" for it's overall quality.

I was in a group working on the Distaster Complexity charette, but since I'm pretty much stupid and couldn't understand what my group was talking about, I quit. They were all on the same page, but it sounded like French to me, so I told them to go ahead without me. I think they will do much better because they know what they are talking about so they can communicate rather than try to explain it to Cro Magnon. I wish them the best of luck. They will probably win and I will once again...not win.

Also, in my ranting I have gathered a significant fan base both via email and at school. Not even joking. Instructors have approached me and told me they enjoy this train wreck of a blog. But it also makes me worry about who else is reading....

The image below was my Windows Wallpaper last year. It was created in Rhino by drawing a bunch of lines, lofting them, and then isocurving the hell out of them. My critic thought it was my project and almost dropped anchor at my desk. When I told him it was just random crap, I don't know if he was more disappointed or embarassed.