panda panda panda

I am exceptionally tired. idk why. i have been sleeping a LOT. i guess there's just too much on my mind.
too much on my mind....
too much on my mind....

and there's a lot to do ...but i am just slacking....and assignments are not working out very well.

There's just too much on my mind.

i want to runn them off. run a happy panda :)

strawberry.

I am just soooo grateful.

i guess i could never say this before, but I am so grateful that i didnt go to Rome. <3. And thinking of the summer after 2nd year...and the first semester of 3rd year, i always wanted go to rome.I wanted to see the eternal city with everybody else. I wanted to save my own money to go to Rome, even though my parents are very supportive of me going abroad again. and i did pray to god over and over and over..and over....then the first semester of the 3rd year, i realized I was not able to save enough of my own money to go to rome. and that thanksgiving, it just came to my mind that MAYBE THIS IS NOT PARTS OF GOD'S PLAN.
so I released, and let things go.
so..I didnt go to rome. stay in ISU. but i might just have been having my greatest semester so far. <3.

TBC

You got caked.

so ..our 2nd sudio assignment was to create a "Happening".  if you remember the box hanging above from the atrium last year at around this time. yep, that is from the same assignment, to create a "happening".
this year, we decide to bake 1500 cupcakes to cover 11 tables in the atrium in Colleg of design. oh obviously, 1500 is estimated thru calculation. It is not the hardest project, but i value it a lot. it's one of those projects that has to get the community involves, and reach out to more audienc. at least, i dont think i have done any project like this...
so to achieve the 1500 cupcakes. We thought of ...baking them at someone's place. but thinking that we need to keep it really confidential, but most of us living with a design student anyways...so there's lots of inconvenience in what time we can bake. ... and seriously??with a normal kitchen oven....how long will that take!? and ofcourse, we need to make sure all the cakes are tasty and fresh.  so, yep, we went around for sponsorship. we asked...west hyvee, east hyvee, dutch oven...and some other bakery place on main street...our back up plans are wal-mart, churches...etc. we should be able to get something from them, might not be straight cupcakes..or money...but can be cheaper ingredience....hmmmm their facilities......blah blah blah etc.
so ....the result is that...west hyvee offer us to use their kitchen to bake 1100 cupcakes for $150. goood deal~ and the rest of cupcakes are given from dutch oven, east hyvee, and that unknown bakery. we achieved 1500 cupcakes easily. AND IT WAS SO MUCH FUN BAKING!!!i have never seriouslly baked anything before, but when those vanilla cupcakes came out straight from the oven, they are just sooooooooo tempting!!! smells soooo good!!! so i ate some too.....and we put frosting on, and sprinkles on. sexy sexy!~wahahahwe had those carts/fridge kinda thing from ISU dinning. so took these cupcakes into the fridge...and took them secretly to studio.
we gathered again at 5:45 am in the studio again. to set things up. and 1500 cupcakes covered perfectly on 11 tables. They look awesome!!!! <3 <3 <3 and we set up cameras. and left as nothing has happened. :)
when i came back again on 10 am for class. everybody was so excited about the cupcakes!!!!! cameron said he had never seen so many smiling faces around. :) a secretary from archtiecture office followed mitchell to the elevator, and said...those cupcakes made my days! some faculty asked if she can take some cupcakes back for her kid. and Cal Lewis..actually went to the architecture office to ask if he can have a cupcake...LOL that's so Cal. Lots of fun things happens. and apparently people like sitting around cupcakes!!!!! Making your day, thru which i made mine!!! :)
oh and obviously we had hint...and posters spreading around before and after the event.
the event is a social experiment that get everybody involved. almost unconciously. we observe how they react when seeing those cupcakes, who are the first ones to take them, what did they do when they cant use the tables anymore. blah blah blah.
so yep, that is a success. KCCI and isu daily came to report. i should have a video later from studio. and yep! pictures.

http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/article_7f17eeda-3bfa-11e0-b382-001cc4c002e0.html

http://www.kcci.com/r/26918150/detail.html

i dont have a name for my toy yet....

so the assignment is to redevelop a toy giving respect to Eames. (basically having a concept generated from them).

so...my ­Idea of the toy comes from House of cards. In House of cards, one imagines through making.  Creativity is encouraged when all the cards have different patterns, different colors, and can be connected with each other in lots of different ways. But how if all the cards are the same, and only connect them with one single way?  In the case of my toy, the piece itself became a toy that stimulates imagination. Viewers are able to see different things through the piece at different times:  a reinterpretation of landscape, cards skipping, or a battle field etc. While the piece can be simply looked at, it can also be played with. One can form the shape of the piece, and the cards fall in place accordingly. One can install it above head across the ceiling, on the wall, on the ground etc. to create light and shadow, or to create an angulated surface. It looks different, every time one looks at it. ( or....looks the same everytime you look at it...LOL)

I had some struggles coming to this point....like HOW DO YOU REALLY DEFINE PLAY? for example...for a puzzle, there's a well defined action of play. but someone also brought up a good point with the Bean sculpture in Chicago. it's a sculpture not a toy at all, but people had played with it, and leave, and that thing just stuck in everybody's mind. so what is play? how do you define a good toy? i have some toys that i just want to put it there and look at it. so that's what i ended up having. Mitchell squire agreed that there are toys that you only look at . so my project wasnt unaccepted in the studio..but anyways..i know it's kind of a stretch. It's more like an art installation then...a toy. Mitchell also said he had done something just like that before, but he wouldnt show me (although he said he would)...but at the same time, he thinks i under estimate what i made. it has so much more possibilities.

so Here it is.

Turns out that these are the only good images that i have....and the video was too big to upload. hmmmmm...i will take more pictures!!

One of my major struggle is that ..i came to the studio already know what i want to make...more about art, less or none about toy....though alomst everybody agreed that art can be toy. but anyways my project turns out to be odd in all other student projects. but oh well. i like it, i dont care. :)

Last Friday.

so LAST FRIDAY. damnit jason.
i had an awesome day thru out the entire day. my studio time ended awesome at 4:00pm and i was really happy that my busiest week so far this semester finally ended. so ...again somebody invited me to the review/ desk critique for his 202 studio at 4:00...so i went at 4:00.  It was a series project...making a cave...then landscape....then Archive. just like any other projects that was made up. ODD. so anyways, this critique is on the last part of the project: Archive. and one student brought over a glass vase...." this is my project" BTW, EVERYBODY IN THIS STUDIO TALKS LIKE JASON. WHICH MEANS..YOU DONT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT...AND THEY TALK IN JASON'S WORDS. LIKE....USE THE WORDS THAT JASON SAYS  TO DEFEND THEMSELVES. AND THEY SOUNDS LIKE GRADUATES STUDENTS WHEN DEFENDING THEMSELVES. but anyways. so...this student was asked to brought over his previous projects. hmmm he had...bunch of glasses that has plants in it... put on a piece of wood. This is landscape. and he had a larger glass that has one plant in it...call it..cave....so...his archive..is a glass...LOL. idk..the first thing that pops in my mind...is this is such a literal way of thinking..............................................
but anyways.....he said the glass vase contains whatever you want. he wants people to imagine through it. and my critique was...i think he was proposing a question without an answer..rather than an open ended question that can have multiple answers. he should have done something to it...give a hint, so the viewer will be able to imagine through it.
one student said he kinda like it, cuz it's kinda true in architecture as well...that it doenst matter what the architects' ideas are...what the people experience can be totally different than is expected.  which i agree.however at the same time, the spaces are designed by the architects. architects all have an intention when they are making spaces. J agreed with me on saying, to any degree form follows function.
That's where it all started...Jason started talking lots of craps saying me not understanding the idea...blah blah blah..and form doesnt have to follow function...like...in COD..with that round shape you cant tell there's an auditorium in it. and king pavillion, you cant tell it's studio in it. blah blah blah....my point is! even though you cant tell what is in it exactly in it. The fact that the form is different from the rest of the building is sufficient enough in telling me there's something going on in this portion of the builiding. and even if the building is in a united single form, how much facade is transparenct, solid, floor to floor height blah blah blah all to some extend, determined by its function. It doesnt matter in real world how poorly they are done (jason's example is the poor acoustic effect in auditoriums), but what they are suppose to be. but anyways he got all crazy talking and defending his students. and then his students started to educated me that....FORM DOESNT NEED TO FOLLOW FUNCTION. i found it unnecessary to argue about an argument that has been discussed long in architecture history. and it's true that form doesnt NEED TO follow function but seriously!? how stupid this is. and the fact is that it doesnt even matter if form has to follow function. Even in a building,say...frank ghery concert hall.... that form barely follows function, it is still a designed builidng that architects have his intention in it.  so thru the form that i can imagine, and want to go in there.SO WHATS THE MATTER WITH PUTTING A HUGE GLASS VASE ON THE TABLE AND SAY I WANT YOU TO IMAGINE THROUGH IT. imagine through what!?!?!??!?! what makes me want to give a second look to the glass vase, whats my drive????????? well...i didnt say all these after jason started talking crazy, and i dont want to make the kid feel bad. he probably was already anyways.

so ...i was mad.

yep and i am still mad.
i am not going to talk to this person in the near future. AND THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME!!!

tanning grizzly sam.

i havent been writing anything for a very long time.....i dont even know where to start. the past weeks is just busy and busy.
i should just write backwards from today. Today is Valentine's, as expected, no plan. so after my first 10 0'clock class i went over to post office to pick up my package from the Mulhollands( hehe). and IT"S A TEDDY BEAR!!! well...i knew it was a teddy bear long ago.....but it's kinda cool to actually meet my new friends and know that it's more like a grizzly bear than a teddy bear. hahaha awwww silly grizzly. Sam said it's a mini grizzly sam, so yep, this is gonna be his name. tanning mini grizzly Sam.(what a long name).
This week we are doing a really fun project in studio. like....REALLY FUN. Sometimes, only the product can be counted as the project. but for this one, i feel that, how we achieve that, the making process, the product, the reaction from audience is all parts of the project. and actually , becomes the power of the project. well...i cant say too much about this project here right now since we will have to keep it confidential until the time it is revealed. but anyways i am really excited and looking forward to it!! I LOVE TOY STUDIO!!!!I AM HAVING SO MUCH FUN.
Then, my portfolio was sent out last thursday for printing and binding. It's gonna be SWEET!!! and David Block says it's pretty good too. but oh well, i do need more architecture projects in it tho. but...i wont mind being a planner, and be in any where in the world!!! hope my dream comes true.
oh ..and then....Last Tuesday i had interview with an architecture firm in Des Moines. it went pretty well. i actually think i am the kind of person that they are looking for. but oh well....again, we will find out the result pretty soon. hoping it will be great!
and then...idk...what else?
hmmmm i like my toy. it's not really a toy...techniquely...but who said you really have to PLAY a toy...and how do you really define a toy???? welll i will talk about it a bit more in my next post i guess, and yeppy yeppy pictures for sure! it looks great in the image!!