Work

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful work that combines many interests of mine; Death, Insane Asylums, and Degraded Landscapes.

Dear Blanche

Dear Blanche Rockabilly*,

Any ideas on what I should wear when I meet Burt Reynolds? Should I have him sign my parking ticket?

Love,

Kari

*Blanche Rockabilly is a character devised by my friend Kari and her friend Molly. Molly is starting a music magazine in which Kari will have (what I'm imagining to be) an advice column.

Because I'm All About Combining History and Design

When I went to Minnesota I visited with a third year LA masters student, a student about to graduate with his masters in design, and had a nice discussion about his project (one he had worked all year on). The project was redesigning an existing walkway across the Mississippi river that connecting the east and west banks of the university's campus. As it is, pedestrians have the top deck and traffic takes up four or six lanes on the bottom deck. His design concept had defined one bank of the river as being "natural" and one side as being "constructed" thus his walkway went from "organic" (twisty) to "modern"(right angles). A classic third-year undergrad architecture student at UNL's concept and really not that advanced.

To me, the most interesting thing he had was cut-outs in the walkway so pedestrians could look down at traffic. My thoughts about his design was: So it's more about transportation; you could reflect the history of the Mississippi river as a transportation corridor and it's importance in the economic and physical development of this city and even the entire united states. And then contrast that with our current mode of transportation, the car and highway systems, and how they affect the landscape of the campus now...The traffic below the pedestrians...It's really a palimpsest of transportation. You could even propose that the pedestrians on the top equates a trend toward more walkable cities in the future...To which, he gave me a blank look and tried again to explain the importance of the "natural" side of the river with the "constructed" side and how his design reflected the two conditions.

Come on buddy, you're a third year masters student, TRY. TO. THINK.

Turn-Around Time

For reasons I won't go into (maybe I lied about something and now don't want to face up to the situation), I'm having to avoid the janitor at work. Last night when I was taking the long-cut to the door, just to avoid him, he was standing in the hallway. I froze, deciding if I wanted to past him and risk an awkward conversation or to dart down the other hall that leads to the other door. I darted and then ran down the hall out the other door down the back stairs to fourth floor where I took the main stairs out of the building. Unfortunately, I think he saw me dart away but god repaid me in full not 30 minutes later.

Since my dishwasher is broken and lazy, and now all the dishes are dirty, I had to go to the co-op to find foods that required no cooking and only a spoon to eat. Pulling into a parking space with the sun in my eyes, I saw that the car next to me had a KEXP.org bumpersticker (a fellow pledge member!). As I parked my car I realized the owner of the bumperstickered car was walking toward me and I would be getting out of my car as he got to his. And I actually recognized him from around town, the latest sighting was at the Of Montreal concert two evenings earlier because he was there with one of my friends. Under normal conditions I would either pretend to be occupied with something in my car and wait until he leaves before I exit. This to avoid a possible awkward situation. But Tuesday evening, I got out. Not only did I get out and confront the situation I said, "I see you listen to KEXP" and then we had a short conversation about the radio station.

Usually I don't talk to people I don't know, especially people that are cute, and he was. He was a hipster type, wearing a blazer, jeans, cowboy boots and nerdy glasses. And instead of making a connection with another person who listens and donates to the same radio station I do, I think I just succeeded in scaring him.

The Lamprey Alarm Clock

This morning I had a dream where my dad had a heart attack and he wouldn't let my sister or me call for help. The dream then turned to some craziness about Santa Claus living in our barn and really being a small child. Then I dreamed I was in bed and had a small lamprey on the floor beside the bed. It looked more like a squid and had sharp hooks all over its tentacles. To keep it on the floor and out of my bed and from attaching itself to me I had tied a piece of string to it, but it kept wildly thrashing and snapping at me. Only after I woke up and realized I had slept through my alarm did I realize the lamprey in my dream was my alarm in real life.

The Trifecta

I went three for three with the grad school applications. One phone call, one troublingly thin envelope, and one e mail. Though, I still don't know for sure what the funding offers will be for UVa or Illinois. If you've been around me today you will know the pros and cons of each school and how exactly the e mail from Illinois was ambiguous in its wording as I weighed first in a positive light, then in a negative.

Karma points

I donated to KEXP.org today. They read my name (and location) on the air and thanked me. The thing is, is that I wrote a funny e mail to the dj...but forgot to sign my name.

I broke up with my imaginary boyfriend to be in love with kexp.

(love,

no-name)

"...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead"

I've been really lazy with my good news. And now the news doesn't seem so exciting, that's why it's taken me a month and two weeks to write about it. This will not be a glorious post with interesting stories, I'm just documenting it.

I got accepted into Minnesota (exciting now because Ceri got accepted there too). I'm in a group of nine "early admits" that will hopefully be in front of the funding line. So far, the only perk to being in this group was a trip to the school to meet the faculty and professionals in the area. After meeting the eight other early admits, I had the feeling that I was mistakenly cast as an over-achiever. I don't know how the nine were picked, but I'm assuming I was selected based on my age alone, not on my scholastic merit. And as the weekend progressed, I kept waiting for the dean of the college, the assistant dean, the chair, or the graduate advisor to pull me aside and kindly explain that they had made a mistake with me. Maybe it was an e mail sent in error that had caused me to end up in this group of over-achievers, maybe there was another Ellen they meant to accpet. But they never did pull me aside to send me home, they only shook my hand and kept saying how glad they were that I was there.

What was I left to do? Should I have told them they had made a mistake with me? Explain, that they may have misread my GRE scores or GPA totals? Didn't they see the nose dive my grades took toward the end of my college career? Instead, I chose to act like the architect I was trained to be and faked my way through the professional conversations, nodding my head in agreement, and asking questions. I didn't act like the Ellen I've grown to know and love, the one that makes a fool of herself in important situations, the one that is usually out to sabotage her career before it even starts. She, oddly, didn't make an appearance and now I'm left with nothing to write about.

Pop Quiz!

What's the connection between this picture and where I work, besides me?

Job Searching

Because I don't know where or if I'll be working in the next month I've decided that I need a new bike; the Bianchi Volpe.