first meeting with naidir rahiji[thesis advisor @ penn]. here is what he said[assuming that i have gone overboard in explaining my thesis idea to you already....roommates complain that i am too verbose]:
-he said that i have a very promising proposal and that the amount of information that i have included was enough to be able to give a good response--apparently the other thesis students didn't but we all had weird schedules over the summer
-he said that the readings and references that i was pursuing were beneficial and he got excited and suggested around 4 more readings to look at
-i'm going to have to give 2 versions of my paper to him by Nov. 22 because at that point i should be planning and preparing for the presentation on dec. 2 to the commitee and other penn students--power point
-since i am focusing on the diagram as my vehicle for understanding, i should start working on the visual representation and studies as soon as possible--don't have too much access to the photos and other mappings that i did over the summer, but hope to have them back again soon....didn't copy the negatives.
-he was over-all impressed with my proposal and said that of the other thesis proposals, mine was actually a project that was not only dealing with contemporary architectural issues, but was also the most valid for a discourse in architecture(i.e. i wasn't just proposing putting a building somewhere, i was thoughtfully considering both the theoretical aspects that i wanted to look into and the project itself was thoughtful and appropriate to the theory--he said that the other students had just proposed a building at some site without really thinking about the project itself or the theory of the design behind it)
i was kind of weirded out that he told me all of this, since i don't want to compare my project to theirs since we are all doing something different...but i can't lie that i was a little pleased about have my professor being personally interested in my project and having such a positive response about it!
--ps. that's me on the stool...the paper...my thesis...
in other news: I'm going to New Mexico(chaco canyon/mesa verde) for 5 days with one of my classes here....SUPER DUPER PUMPED!!! YEAH!!!
No requirements while there...but still going to try to take some time for sketching and photography....i'll be sure to post them when i get back.
looking forward to a little bit of hiking, warm weather, working on my tan--sort of, seeing a really cool landscape, sleeping at a ranch....etc!!
not looking forward to having to be at the airport by 5am to catch the plain at 6am...not so much...
SORRY that i haven't updated until now....i keep trying to download pictures/projects that i'm working on and then when i'm unsuccessful i save the drafts and then never end up posting...i'll do better....
song of the day: "i'm so excited, that i just can't hide it....."
THESIS: almost back on track....
we had a meeting this morning with our thesis advisor assigned to us by upenn...seems like a nice guy...a little verbose[the 11:30 meeting went until 1] but for the most part it seems like things will be stepping up in tempo quite soon on this writing project.
we will be giving a presentation to the school of design along with the other penn students that are pursuing thesis here....it could be anywhere from a power point presentation, to a more traditional type review setting where we build boards of images and present them to a jury-type of audience....
no big deal, but just another way for them to see what we are doing and throw our ideas out there for discussion and critique...it's probably going to be in the first weeks of december...i'll keep you updated with the dates in case anyone is in town...
song of the day: " you better shape up..." from the movie grease....it was all over tv this weekend...
pucker up buttercup...i knew that you would like the manzeire that i bought you...
[isn't he dreamy!! this is a picture from his early years**sigh**--hey there man man[that's his nickname], i bought you a little present, i was shopping in victoria secret and i thought of you...i hope you like black lace!! seriously try it on...no, seriously....]a couple of people have requested a book list from manuel delanda's class, but it's a little random if taken out of context, so i would first suggest reading his "A Thousand Years of NonLinear History" the introduction was pretty close to what was discussed in the first session and gives an articulate premise to the list in general...i couldn't get some of the author's names, but i've done pretty good considering how fast he references these books with authors i've never heard of before...[ps. this will be added to as in each class he will definitely mention more!!]
so without further delay: Title/Author[approx. spelling]
-The Making of Urban Europe/?
-Series of History of Economics[1-3--he mentioned that the 3rd is the best and most interesting in regards to development]/John Galbraith
-Regional Advantage/Saxenian
-The Wealth of Cities/Jane Jacobs
-Military Expertise in something/Merit Roe Smith
-The Cathedral and the Bazaar/Eric Raymond
-A book about Richard Stallman--hacker who developed the GPL contract/licensure for the open source movement--LINUX
dane walks into a talent agency office and tells the agent that he's got the act of the century....6 rooms of vomit later, the talent agent, horrified by the gastrointestinal fireworks that he has just been witness to, asks "so what do you call this act?" dane replies "the aristocrats"...
the surprising comic: bob sagged...HILARIOUS!!! REALLY LOVE THAT GUY!!! He's such a dirty dan...
best impression: kevin pollak's impression of christopher walken telling the joke--so incredibly good it's scary...
favorite second-tier comic: the amazing jonathan...I LOVE this guy...so great.
greatest alternate of the aristocrats: three debutantes walk into a talent agency and they tell the agent that they have an incredible three sister act...margret brings out her cello and plays, charlotte brings out her grand piano and plays, and mary pulls out her violin...they proceed into mozart and then after finishing they put their instruments away and serve the agent a fabulous tea service....the agent is amazed and eyes a glitter asks the girls what they call this act..."the c*nt eating and sh*tting mother f*ckers"
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i had a pretty great monday...much better than the stress of that party.
--slept in[no class]
--got the cable fixed!!
--watched a movie on my computer
--read quite a bit for wed. class
--went to a GREAT dinner with a friends[tulane arch kid came in from washington to visit the house]
--saw one of the chicks from real world at the bar
--went to the movie aristocrats and LAUGHED SOOO FREAKIN HARD!!!
--the taxi cab driver on the way home turned up the music so that we could sing to rolling stones honky tonk girl-and he sang along too!
--had a drink
--had a hot shower
--went to bed snuggled in my thick blanket... =)
the only thing missing from my monday....a massage!
song of the day: express yourself by madonna
THE PARTY FROM HELL:
first question: how many bottles of wine does it take for someone to puke all over a 6 bedroom house?? Try 4 bottles of white....dane, you are ONE CRAZY BASTARD!!
yeah, most of my stuff was puked all over, puke smudges on the walls, puke in the washing machine....my roommate became the exorcist but without the green pea soup, instead it was muffalatta, redbeans and rice, and jambalaya... YUM YUM!![yeah, not so much...]
well yeah, i know what you are thinking....it must have been a kickin party since we had such a crazy drunk....AGAIN, not so much...we MAYBE had around 10 people stop by over a period of 4-6 hours....i personally haven't had such a shitty party since i was like 14...SOOO UNBELEIVABLY DISAPPOINTING...plus we didn't see the cute neighbor all week so we didn't get to invite him to the party....another blow...
all around yesterday and this morning were FREAKING INSANE...for more a more detailed rant you will have to call me...some things just can't properly be explained via electronic typing sources...
congratulations to my good friends jesse Rodriguez(Jesus) and Alexis flores for winning 3rd place in the urban reserve student design competition in dfw...kickin chickin!!!
in thesis news: will braham from upenn-teaches the m arch 2 kids and has been our curriculum advisor at upenn, has set us--the 7 thesis kids from tulane--up with some professor that has advised many different thesis and phd doctorate candidates in architecture, urban design, and landscape design....he still hasn't revealed the name yet but i'll keep you posted...the guy is currently in paris and will be back in town within the next 2 weeks, so some progress is being made with the thesis set-up.....the situation though is that we have a paper due to asu by october 25th....
in rahim's class we had a guest speaker: mark goulthorpe from dECOI--currently teaches at MIT and is in the process of developing a new computer program
here is one of his projects called ether...here is an exert of his discussion on the project:
Ether/I was made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the United Nations in Geneva. It is part of a series of sculpted projects (Glass Vessel, Ledoux) where "image/surface/object are ambiguous in their status". Ether/I offered an opportunity to experiment with new techniques of creative formal production. It was the negative trace of two dancers in space that was captured by the vide - the trace that cannot be seen by the naked eye, the necessary difference or error or performance. Ether/I embodies a transitional phase from one state to another, "the trace of an absent presence", a surface which is also depth. If dance is an "architecture of disappearance" (H. Gilpin), Ether/I, which is a tribute to the choreographer William Forsythe, goes beyond the reference to the breakdown of the body into graphs, as in the work of Muybridge. Ether/I is developed like a rambling line of aluminium, interweaving its mesh over a length of more than twenty metres, as if a video were reinstating the ghostlike traces of movements. Ether/I thus embodies a threshold, an energetic phase. For dECOI, the issue of representation is taken to a point of liquefaction..
his presentation in class was very interesting because he was dealing with computational theory...as in complex mathmatical emergent systems created in various programs[catia, rhino,etc.] where the fascination that comes from the form of the final iteration stems from the various fabrication processes required to realize the digital form of the architecture.
the investigation of the idea of elegance in architecture is the purpose of the class, but as discussed in the class, elegance is such a loaded word to describe architecture, and seems to invoke images of an over-programmed, and insufficient modernity...but for this class he is discussing the elegance not in aesthetics but the elegance of the process that produces the architecture that we are investigating....in dECOI's instance, the elegance of the computation and it's iterative results. this class [as in today's presentation] was so interesting, and deals directly with my thesis of emergent and dynamical systems...mark goulthorpe kept talking about a vorronoi...some mathematical principle that i can't even pretend to understand.
A tessellation of a plane is the filling of the plane with repetitions of figures (or polygons) in such a way that no figures overlap and there are no gaps. The number of sides, n, comprising these polygons is 3 <>tessellation is the tessellation obtained by connecting the centers of the polygons in the original tessellation that share a common side or boundary. For example the dual of a tessellation of equilateral triangles is a tessellation of regular hexagons.
Given a set of two or more but a finite number of distinct points in the Euclidean plane, all locations in that space are associated with the closest member(s) of the point set with respect to the Euclidean distance. The result is a tessellation of the plane into a set of regions associated with the members of the point set which is called a planar ordinary Voronoi diagram. The regions are called ordinary Voronoi polygons.
my only worry, should i try to learn maya[in rahim's studio they are learning maya as a tool to set up dynamical systems within modern and post-modern houses--they had a list of around 5-6 houses to choose from]?? i'm thinking that i probably should mess with it at least a little bit because when it comes down to next semester with the building and 3d modeling of my project, i am discussing using this process for the theoretical basis of the project, but if i don't employ these same techniques in the design it would all have been in vain. the problem is that i don't know ANYTHING about maya and even the kids in his studio have basically had to teach themselves with what little help his teaching assistant gives[basically rahim doesn't know maya AT ALL and has had to bring in a swedish tech assistant to help the students with the carrying out of the design skills of dynamical systems that rahim crits them on...wow.] i REALLY wish i had signed up for his studio now...but then i would be losing ALL of my sanity with all the other classes i'm taking. maybe i'll have some time over some holidays...thanksgiving, fall break, christmas, when i'm bored...i'd just be completely lost without ANY type of guidance from the other tulane students that ARE in rahim's studio....i'll have to see what i can do..
for more info on
mark goulthrope and dECOI ps...song of the day: feeling the top 40 hits: kelly clarkson, breakaway
ok...i found out about this game...
you state 3 things about yourself and 2 of them are lies, and the rest of the group has to guess which one of the statements is actually true(this is supposed to be an ice-breaker game)...BUT since you all know me....we'll reverse it...i'll list all truths and insert one lie and you guys have to guess....Ready??
i bought a pair of 2 inch high red sequence shoes this summer and have yet to wear them.
i am deathly afraid of choking and refused to swallow pills until the age of 16.
i have really big feet for a girl, the average woman's shoe size is 6-1/2 to 7 and i wear a size 9-1/2 or 10...that's a size 7 in men's shoes.
i once got mono from a girl that i worked with(yes it's called the kissing disease, NO i didn't kiss her).
i worked as a telemarketer when i was younger and once called the basement of yale university, and yes someone picked up.
my first celebrity sighting was one of the baldwin brothers.
i've always wanted to scuba dive on the great barrier reef.
i've got a really small birthmark that looks like a star.
i dye my hair brown to cover the grays.
i had to get my ears peirced twice because they grew in the first time.
ok, so now you guess...i had to make it a little difficult so because most of you were either present or aware of the other truths...i hope i didn't make it too easy...
helen,
it's all going to be okay, especiallywithout the three lettered jerk(you know who)...
did you ever see the movie Napoleon Dynamite...well GO RENT IT THIS WEEKEND!!! SERIOUSLY.....that one or mean girls...do this for me, as a long distance favor...i'll know if you haven't.....i'm like santa...
dj-e in the hizzouse!!! cheer up girly...it all going to be o-tay...
this one goes out to you roomie...the parenthesis are the parts sung by back up singers...
song of the day:
"you ...know ....this ....boogie is for real......
i used to put my faith in worship, then my chance to heaven sliiiipppped.
i used to worry about my future, but then i through my caution to the wiiiiiiiind."
"i have no reason to be carefree(no, no, no)
then i took a trip to the other side of town(yeah, yeah, yeah)
you know i heard that boogie rhythm
hey, i had no choice but to get down, down, down, down
DANCE!!!
nothin left for me to do but
DANCE!!!
all these bad times i'm going through just
DANCE!!!
got canned heat in my heels to-night ba-by...you know i got canned heat in my heels..."
to listen...look it up...spent almost an hour trying to make it play on this blogger when you opened the page but not tech-savvy enough...sorry helen...
PARTY HARTY MARTY!!! To those who can't be there....WE LOVE YOU ANYWAYS!!!
To Whome it May Concern:
Thank you. I don't have enough memory or room on this blog to list all of the wonderful things that you have done for my friends and myself...
If you cannot come to the above shindig....please use this as an invitation to one of the greatest parties ever....mardi gras...it's going to be the party of the century this year...without the y2k scare!!
Anyways, again thanks...poets write about inspirational friends like you guys....but since my greatest literary achievement at this point is a poem of devotion to gardenburger, i won't even attempt to cheapen the emotional and sincere hug that i want to send out right now to you.
[a hug from me to you---get your hand off my butt...j/k] just to clarify...the picture is of a group HUG not an orgy...sinner...
thanks, and i'll see you soon.
sincerely, Erin Keith
ps....song of the day...wait for it....wait for it.....
jimmy buffet: margaritaville.....looking for my outlaw shaker of salt...
Song of the day: Feeling Good-NINA SIMONE!! --blues queen diva...
"birds flying high, you know how i feel...it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me....and i'm feeling good..."
"dragon fly out in the sun you know what i mean....freedom is mine, and i know how i feel..."
Today's to do list:
read, read, read....
the image: reading rainbow....take a look it's in a book, reading rainbow....
--ps. that's me on the stool...the paper...my thesis...
