Therapy

I turned in my thesis yesterday, to the grad college, for good. I burned the DVDs and printed the labels* without a hitch. I walked down to the grad college with gray skies and a light sprinkle. I had to wait for the thesis checker, but not more then five minutes and then after a 30 second check he said everything was fine except I needed to buy a second folder. After listening to all the horror stories about this process and how I haven't had any problems I said, "That was anticlimactic." He then shook my hand, said congratulations and said that they hadn't installed the confetti cannon yet. I shrugged and left to go next door to buy the second folder.

And then I realized that, on this important day, I had left my wallet at home. The hurdle between getting my masters degree and not was about two dollars that I did not have. I knew my roommate was at school so I walked back to the architecture building to find her. Of course she wasn't in grad studio and no one had seen her for awhile. I headed up to junior studio to see if I could find anyone to bum a couple bucks from. Luckily David, my adviser, was printing and after listening to my pathetic story gave me five dollars. "It's a gift." And now I'm done.

Today I got the shoes I ordered on Monday. After looking at Asics Tigers for years my sister beat me to buying some, so I was provoked into keeping up. Turns out buying things makes me feel great. Now I just need to get my fixed gear up and running and then I can catch the tail-end of the hipster scene.


Last Saturday I went to Chicago; Hyde Park and the University of Chicago (where my debit card was mysteriously declined), the Midway to Jackson Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, and then down Wabash to a hostel near the Art Institute. We drove by IIT (Mies) and I got to see the new Koolhaas student center.

Hi Robie House. The tour of you was horrible, fortunately I didn't have to pay for it; also our tour guide had a mysterious lump on the side of his belly, like the size of half a cantaloupe sticking out there.


We also got into the Museum of Science and Industry for free because we got there an hour before it was going to close. I spent most of my time at the model railroad exhibit. Two thirds of it is Chicagoland with rest the expanse west to Seattle. In this model Seattle is pitifully rendered more or less as a backwater in comparison with the details of Chicago. That being said, every time I go to Chicago I love it a little more.


Across the street from Jackson Park.





*I did learn, however, that the new Microsoft Office does not have Futura as a font choice. I had to make the effort to accept that the font on my labels will never match the rest of my thesis.

Deadlines

I didn't realize the first of May was coming up so quickly. It looks like its coming up on Thursday. It's also the deadline for graduate students depositing their theses for May graduation. I fall into this category so I should be paying attention but I'm not really. After I printed my thesis out I spent last week twiddling my thumbs about burning the accompanying DVDs. In usual form I'll probably run this down to the deadline. When I told my Dad that I had all the checking done before the deadline he asked me who I was. I'm trying not to let him down.

Savior City

Done-ish

94 pages. One appendix, around 30 pages of text and 60 of images, one supplementary DVD, and quite a few glaring gaps in the project (there was one section where I forgot(?) to make any images).

I went with Futura* and a nice, sparse layout.

I did a find and replace for double periods.

InDesign is a miracle program. It kept track of all my figure numbers and even when I had to insert one at the beginning of the document it reordered all the rest.

Now it goes to our department for the departmental formatting check (nervous about this). Then on to the grad college for their formatting check. According to rumor, the grad college stops checking after the first mistake and you have to go back for more checks. Then you have to make sure to buy the right folders...and it seems like this process will never end.

*New favorite font.

Question

So I've used pandora.com for awhile and have been mostly happy with the results.* But a few weeks ago I decided to give last.fm a try; they had Ryoji Ikeda's Dataplex album and I wanted to listen to it before I bought it (liked it, bought it). But here's my question, why when I try to listen to an artist's station do they play the artist I've selected only once? For example, I wanted to listen to Andrew Bird, I typed in "Andrew Bird" into their station finder and although the first song it played was Andrew Bird, it didn't play another one while I listened (probably an hour, if not longer). I'm just wondering if there's a reason for this, or if it's only happening to me.


*Except they have a proclivity on some stations** for playing U2 every other song.

**Not the U2 station either.

sometimes it just takes the right font

David and I maxi-edited my thesis for five hours on Sunday. I had hoped for this; just one intensive edit instead of going back and forth for several versions. I wrote the conclusion Monday night and have been adding images and formatting since and then, and then, I'll be done. David thought I could have it wrapped up by Thursday at five, but I'm not so sure. I still have a lot of scanning to do and all the loose ends (citations I hate you!), but either way I'll be done by this weekend.

61 pages and counting.

we're so close to chicago

Last semester when I was TAing for the intro design studio one of the new grad students mentioned that he played in a band. Upon questioning he said he played the trumpet in a "marching band kind of thing." I didn't think anything of it until last weekend in Chicago, Erich another student, mentioned that Ben's band had been on Conan and the video was on youtube. Unfortunately it's not anymore but the band, Mucca Pazza, is featured in Andrew Bird's new video. Ben's not in the video because he had to be at school.

When I saw him tonight I had to ask where they found so many marching band uniforms. He said thrift stores and while on tour they would have to spray them with vodka to mask the smell.


Andrew Bird with Mucca Pazza - "Fitz & The Dizzyspells”