EEP! Winter Break and Study Abroad!

Picture of the Day] My art at the conservatory stop last winter! :D I am notorious for writing "LOVE" in the snow all over the place. Hee hee.

Mood] Chilleh!

Weather] Overcast, snowy, with a high of 32

Currently] In my room

Quote of the day: "Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."

It is cold around these parts now! :D Chicago is gorgeous!!! I can't wait until I can go shopping downtown. Whoo whoo! Finals are almost over. My family got a new fake Christmas tree that I am pumped about and tonight the Techtonics are singing in the BOG for the Glee season finale (ha ha ha ha. Yes...people love Glee here too).

About this time of the school year there is a LOT of chaos. People are running around to finales, stressing out about papers that they haven't written all semester (I kid you not. I heard some kid say that they have 10 papers they could've written throughout the semester and instead is now writing them the day before they're due. NOT a good idea), and in general, realizing that there are a LOT of deadlines. One such deadline I just found out about recently myself is study abroad.

Well my plan for study abroad is to go to Japan or Germany for spring semester. I'm looking at 2011. BUT I guess there's some paperwork that needs to be filled out now that I have never seen before. X.x YEAH. I definitely need to meet with Louis Berends from the IIT Study Abroad office and see if I can figure out what to do! Since I have the Camras scholarship, things work a little differently. I have full-tuition and that means that I would do more like an exchange than anything. They would find someone to take my place here at the university and I would take their place so that we both continue our scholarships. Interesting, eh? Well that deadline is Dec. 16th, so hopefully I can figure everything out before then!

That's it! One more final to go. WHOO!!!
Jaye

Thanksgiving and Finals

Picture of the Day] Final 1/8" = 1'-0" and 1/2" = 1'-0" Section Models. Yes, I did cast that concrete wall.

Mood] Tired, but hopeful

Weather] Sunny with a high of 24

Currently] In the Ambassador Cube

Quote of the day: "I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful."

The acappella concert was amazing! I acted totally completely ridiculous, but oh well. It was fun and all in the performance. :) We have DVDs now of the concert, but I hope we end up putting it online. That would be amazing! Then I could link you guys further to it.

Thanksgiving was great. I think that it was too short really. I got together with some friends and rocked out on Rock Band, had some delicious food (and even new food like REAL cranberries. It was a lot different than the canned kind!), and spent time with family. This Thanksgiving I actually ended up visitting my boyfriend's family, so it was a nerve-racking situation, but it ended up turning out nice. I met his grandmother and stayed with his parents.

Now FINALS. I stayed up all night pretty much the night before review (I got 2 hours of sleep) which is something that I never do, so I was dead tired for the actual review. Never a good thing. Really need to make sure you sleep. Anyway, that's over with now and the reviewers had some pretty good things to say (albeit short because I think they feared I was going to throw up on them I was so nauseous feeling!). I'm going to meet up with my studio section one more time at my professor's work downtown and we're going to have lunch together, which should be fun.

I had three finals yesterday, Nietzsche Philosophy class with Anam, Structural Steel Analysis with all my architecture mates and Mechanical and Electrical Building Systems. It was pretty rough, but it was overall, a very lifting feeling. I only have Architectural Programming this Thursday. We had a group project for Architectural Programming as well and now that's over with. We turned it in on Monday (it was a booklet with a lot in it that I don't want to detail anymore. Ha ha ha.)

PHEW. SO, now I gotta focus on finishing a take-home final for Mechanical and Electrical Building Systems (yeah, 2 tests for that class), and studying for Programming and I should be good!!!! HOORAY! Then home home home, but of course, not before some shopping downtown! I need to catch up on Christmas shopping...

:D
Jaye

P.S. Chicago ended up getting Boondock Saints II: All Saint's Day, but I haven't had the chance to go watch it! GAHHHH! And now it's only in certain theatres! :( SAD!

ACAPPELLA CONCERT TONIGHT AT 8:00 PM CENTRAL!!!!

Short post today! Not even my normal stuff. Just this website! Here's where you can stream our acappella concert LIVE tonight. 8:00 PM central!!! Disclaimer: Guys group (who are first and will probably sing from 8:00-8:30 are singing some pretty...scandalous stuff, so if you have sensitive ears or sensitive siblings' ears, then beware!)

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/a-cappella-concert-save-your-fork-there-s-pie


Thanks for all your support guys. :) You've been awesome!!! Enjoy!!!!

Studio and Acappella : Enjoyable Pains

Picture of the Day] My 1/2" = 1'-0" model that I am working on. Needs a lot done, but not bad. I'm actually going to redo it. The pink foam will be a cast concrete wall. The cardboard top will be wood and the white ramp will also be wood. Probably MDF.

Mood] Anxious

Weather] Sunny with a high of 54

Currently] In the Ambassador Cube

Quote of the day: "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch."

It's been a LONG time since I blogged and we know what that means - lots of work. I've been trying to work my butt off to finalize everything for studio. Even though it's not even Thanksgiving yet, we only have a few weeks left to kick it in high gear and get these ideas out and on paper. I've been doing the finalizing of floor plans and sections so far. Monday I need to have a 1/2" = 1'-0" scale model of a portion of my building with the framing done. pictures to come of that, to be sure! This week I've been stressing out about registration, which I tried to complete this morning. There were a couple problems, but I e-mailed my advisor, so hopefully it'll get fixed. The main issue was that, since we are staggered for our registration (meaning Graduate the 1st day, Undergraduate 5th year the 2nd day, etc...) ALL of the third years are trying to register on the nose at exactly 8:30 AM (as of this morning). SO, by the time I logged in and tried to register at 8:30:30? maybe? the electives were pretty much filled up. This isn't too big of a problem considering that people are bound to drop a lot of the classes in pursuit of ones that they actually want, but still, it was a bit of a irksome adventure.

Acappella has gone AWESOMELY this week. We're SO prepared for our concert, "Save Your Fork, There's Pie!", on the 20th, so that is going to be FANTASTIC! Our facebook group already has over 200 confirmed guests AND we have people flying in from all over (mostly friends and family) to hear us. We're going to be streaming LIVE if we can manage, so I'll definitely post up that link for you guys with instructions as soon as I can! It's going to be SO good. Crown Joules (our guys group) goes on first followed by X-Chromotones (our girls group, holla!), and then a short intermission where we're gonna be sellin' pie and other assorted awesome goodies (T-Shirts, YEAH) to help raise money for our group. Then we'll have Techtonics (our co-ed group) finalize! I'm sooo pumped.

Sorry that's all for now. I gotta run! But I'll try and post again as soon as I can.

CRAZY

Picture of the Day] Sketches of my boat house ideas and framing model designs. I've gone through several iterations.

Mood] Rushed

Weather] Overcast with a high of 56

Currently] In the Ambassador Cube

Quote of the day: Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.

*sighs* WHEW. So I totally accidentally slept in late today and got to work late! I felt terrible, plus I think I definitely need a shower, so not the best of ways to start off Monday morning. I stayed up until 2:00 AM last night working on my models, which, by the way, I will hopefully be posting as the pictures for this after my talk with my professor today. We made a 1/4" = 1-0' section model where you cut the building at a certain point and show all of the structure within it for that one part that you cut through. We were also to make a 1/8" = 1-0' framing model. I got them pretty much done, so that's good. I have a Camras meeting today as well! I'm thinking I'm going to run back to the dorms after work, take a shower, and then run back for Camras. I don't think I need to subject any more people to my stench. Ha ha ha.

The weather here has been fluctuation from perfectly beautiful to rainy. It's like April or May weather. VERY strange. I wonder what I'll be doing for Halloween. Probably just doing homework. I know a lot of my friends are having parties. That's one thing that's hard to do at school. It's hard to dress up and go trick or treating and stuff. Last year I visitted my grandparents on Halloween because it fell on a Friday. I don't know if I'll do that this year. I might since it's on a Saturday. :) OH! So Kim Harrison (one of my favourite authors) is having her annual Halloween contest. I always want to enter, but I never have the time, and I'd also like to enter into it with my friends as well. It hink it'd be fun. I have to catch up on her latest novel, White Witch Black Curse. She is a REAL powerhouse when it comes to writing and punches out a book every year. I always have to wait for the books to come out on paperback though because that's the way I bought my first one of her series (which I got at Target and later found out was actually the 3rd book in her series. I was SUPER confused).

Anyway, not much happening otherwise. Everything's kind of speeding up since we're heading into the last bit of fall semester. I'm struggling to juggle all of my classes, but I hope that after I meet up with my adviser and talk about it (we do it every fall and spring), I'll be able to feel better about next semester and hopefully plan out my two IPROs - Inter-Professional Research Opportunity and my study abroad (which I hope to do in Japan or China). We'll see. I may end up in Germany since that's one of the languages I learned in school!

That's it for now!
~Jaye

P.S. Have way too few movies on my computer. I've been watching the same ones over and over again.

Sick Stomachs and Burn-Outs

Picture of the Day] Me with a birthday green tea ice-cream at Chicago Kalbi - Korean BBQ place!

Mood] Frazzled

Weather] Sunny with a high of 56

Currently] In the Ambassador Cube

Quote of the day: "We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."


The days are getting colder and colder! I can't wait for Halloween. I know that it's a pretty silly holiday in terms of the way that it's percolated into this night of receiving candy from strangers, but I remember a lot of fun times when I was younger at home with my family. I do know that the one time I decided to carve a Jack-O--Lantern some street punks decided to come and smash them. That made me upset and we never carved pumpkins again after that. Now that I'm older, I think I want to try again. I would like to think that when I have my own place in the future, I'll be super festive. We'll see. Here on campus though, my RA, Brooke, put up a board for us to decorate our own pumpkins. She instructed us to draw with markers or to take them back to our rooms and design them ourselves. My sister was visitting for my birthday on the weekend, so we decided to make some. I put mine up on the board in the hall.

I have to tell you that last night I felt absolutely wretched while I was at M&M working on my model that's due today (which is still not finished, BTW), so I had to pack it up and go back to the dorms. I was planning on waking up super early this morning to go back and finish it, but to no avail. My body refused and told me to sleep, so I woke up in time for work and that was about it. I think I'll go directly after work to studio to work on it before our lecture at 2:00 PM. X.x UGH! I think I'm burning out. My midterm review was not that bad, but I feel like I have a LOT to catch up on. >.o No good!

This week looks to be okay. I've got a lot to do, but I should be working through it. Friday Acappella is doing a BOG take-over during Karaoke night, so if you all are interested in going, you should totally check us out! I think each group will sing one song. I personally want to try and go to see Richard III at Shakespeare Theatre on Navy Pier with 33rd Street Productions, so I'll be buying my ticket Thursday or Friday before lunch or dinner sometime. :D I'm excited. It's only $5 and they say they have super awesome seats. Wh00t.

Well I'm out for now. Have a great week!
~Jaye

Open House, the Weekend, the Week, the DAY!

Picture of the Day] Bubble Tea and Chicago style pizza! YUM!

Mood] Worn Out

Weather] Sunny with a high of 56

Currently] In the Ambassador Cube

Quote of the day: "Dream. Love. Forgive. Live."

ZOMFG. I know I have a crap ton to catch up on, so we're gonna do this rapid fire. BULLET FORMAT. HECK YEAH.

Open House - AMAZING. I had so much fun. I met some amazing people! Everything turned out very nicely and I think that the other student ambassadors and I, not to mention the counselors and staff, gave a good impression of IIT. I loved giving the tour with AK. It was hilarious and great fun. The weather turned out to be pretty decent. A bit dreary, but definitely workable. The sun came out in the end.

Weekend - So this past weekend my Japanese host family came to visit from Japan. I stayed there a mere 2.5 weeks, but my host parents only came to visit for five days, so it was a very short time. They arrived on Friday and I picked them up at O'hare. We went to my hometown and ate at my family's restaurant which was sweeeeet. They finally got to meet my parents. We returned to Chicago and I got to spend another night having dinner with them in Chinatown. We walked around for a bit before returning to their hotel room. I stayed the night and then said bye in the morning because I had class at 9:00. :( It was a sad farewell, but I am glad that they had a great time. I will miss my host parents a lot.

Week - So midterms are coming up and I don't have nearly enough of my stuff done as I should. I've been falling behind a bit in studio, which is NO GOOD. So I'll try and fix that this weeek. >.o I'm just getting so tired and I can only push myself to work so much. I keep getting distracted too, which is also not good. :/ What to do. I have a lot of drawings to do in CAD and to just figure out in general. I think I need to make another model too. BLAH!

Today - Today I am 21. I think after this marker it's kinda downhill, but you know, whatever! Ha ha. I'll live it up. :) Hopefully studio won't be too crazy. I have a lot of plans for this weekend, so I hope I can get all my homework done. I want to have fun when my family and friends come in to Chicago! :D We're definitely going out to eat and probably chillaxing the rest of the time. OH! And tomorrow night, there is a magician in the BOG. I want to go, so we'll see how much work I get done. I really need to discipline myself!

I think I'll just say I'm 21 from now on. Every year. XD
~Jaye

Homecoming - A Tiring Week

Picture of the Day] I did archery and went down into the BOG to hear a performance by Mike Droho

Mood] Wearing Thin

Weather] Overcast with a high of 59

Currently] In the Ambassador Cube

Quote of the day: Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

I was thinking the quote by Robert Frost pretty much sums up what I have to remind myself while I'm in school. Sometimes I get so absolutely bogged down and tired that I forget why I'm doing this whole education thing. I get so frustrated sometimes staring at the same thing for five hours (no joke), but when I do figure something out, it's an incredibly relieving feeling. I usually watch movies to make me feel better anyway. Hee hee. I watched Boondock Saints the other day again. Awesome movie. I hope that the rest of this week goes well.

The happenings? Lots of awesome stuff! Let me say before I forget now, 2 more days until the Olympic Bid is up! :D We'll know soon whether or not Chicago will be hosting and whether or not IIT will be Olympic Campus AWESOME. It might also mean that we're going to have jobs out of college! Hooray!

Tuesday I totally went and played archery. AMAZING. I love it so much. It was fun. I ended up scoring some for Team SWE, or the Society for Women Engineers. Yeah, I know. I'm not an engineer, but I still love them and they love me. Hee hee. I couldn't make it to Capture the Flag or the actual Homecoming parade, but I did go to the Club Night on Friday for a little bit after our Acapotluck! We had all acappella groups get together for a potluck and just chilled out. It was fun. The Club Night was also fun! The weather was nice and cool so under the tent with everyone dancing it was pretty comfortable. There were free glowsticks and blinky pins, not to mention dessert foods! I thought it turned out really well.

Then on Saturady we had the Homecoming Carnival and it was SWAMPED. People were going nuts over the food and stuff (I heard the line was an hour or something!) so it must've been good. There were TONS of blow-up rides along with games and photo booths. Free Homecoming shirts and Alumni gear were scattered all over. I got two T-shirts! There was a dog-tag making stand and I kinda wanted one, but I didn't want to have to wait. Instead I went down to the BOG and listened to Mike Droho and his band play. There was a violinist, a beat boxer, and himself on acoustic. It was pretty intimate. He even gave out free CDs! I took some pictures with Alicia's camera.

Took my Structural Steel Design Analysis test yesterday. YEAH....I wonder how I did. It was okay, I think, but there was one problem I just totally did NOT know how to answer. Tomorrow I have my Mechanical and Electrical test. Everyone is worried about that because there is so much material to go over and the calculations are a bit complicated. @.@ I hope that I do well on that. I have been doing okay on the online quizzes through Blackboard.

OH! The super exciting thing is that my Japanese Host Family will be coming in on Friday. Here's the scene. During the summer of my Sophomore year in high school I went on a 2.5 week exchange program to Asahikawa, (in Hokkaido = northern most island) Japan. There I stayed with a host family consisting of a mom, dad, older brother (by one year) and older sister (by two years). It was by far one of my favourite experiences. I hope to study aboard in the future again. Anyway, they are coming in this Friday at around 3:00 pm! Since it's such an important event (I haven't seen them for what, five? six years?) I will be skipping Studio on Friday to go. I usually NEVER skip class and it makes me feel terrible to just be late even sometimes, but this is something that I know is worth it. I'll take pictures and probably be bawling, so I'll post them later. Ha ha ha ha.


Well that's what I've got going for me this week!
~Jaye

Homecoming Week Coming!

Picture of the Day] These guys were hanging out on campus. SO CUTE!

Mood] Tiiiiireeeedddd

Weather] Partly Cloudy with a high of 74

Currently] In the Ambassador Cube

Quote of the day: I want to go ahead of Father Time with a scythe of my own.

The quote today is in honour of H.G. Well's. I think it's pretty motivational. :) Right now it's rather dreary outside. It looks like it's going to rain, but the weather channel said that it would get sunnier later in the day with only 10% precipitation, so we'll see if Chicago agrees.

This weekend was SO lazy. I really wanted to be able to get all my homework done, but it was too difficult for me to understand. I think that my Steel Structural class and Mechanical and Electrical class have calculations and concepts that I need to review again. X.x I tried to make myself feel better by watching Pride and Prejudice (the Keira Knightely edition) for the 54 bajillionth time. It helped. The homework isn't even due today, but I just like to get it done. Sunday acappella practice rocked! Wh00t to the girls group! :D

I'm super excited for Homecoming! Here are the events:

Tuesday 9/22: BBQ (5 pm. Location: Baseball field)
Archery (5 pm-7 pm. Location: Baseball field)
Womens Volleyball (Scarlet fever event 7pm. Location: Keating)

Thursday 9/24: Capture the Flag with Water Balloons (5 pm-630 pm. Location: Morton Park)

Friday 9/25: Club Night/Homecoming Dance (9pm-12am. Location: MSV Lawn)

Saturday 9/26: Women's Soccer game (12pm. Location: Soccer Field)
Men's Soccer game (2 pm-4 pm. Location: Soccer Field)
Float Competition (After Men's Soccer game, Floats will lead the crowd to the carnival)
Homecoming carnival (4 pm-9 pm. Location: Quad)

I really really want to try the Archery, but I don't get off of class until 6:15, so I'll have to rush over and see if there's anything still! :D The dance is going to be fun too. I hope that I'll have enough time to do all my homework and study during this week.

It's gonna be crazy!
~Jaye

Saturday and Sunday

Picture of the Day] These are some pictures from the fieldtrip! I decided to upload multiple!

Mood] Hungry

Weather] Sunny with a high of 81

Currently] Ambassador Cube with Olivia and Muyiwa

Quote of the Day] History never looks like history when you are living through it.

Short short short entry today!

Soooooo first Saturday of work was super cool! I participated in a Saturday Visit Day, so we had a couple families come in from different parts of Chicago and other towns to talk about what goes on at IIT and also do tours! I co-toured both the tours and I have to say, my legs are PRETTY sore. I think this job is going to have me working out a lot more! I met very nice people at the visit and I hope that I did a good job explaining everything in terms of what IIT can offer and what it is like to be a student here.

Sunday was pretty awesome as well. We had our first full acappella meeting for girls group and co-ed (respectively the X-Chromotones and the Techtonics). I was excited about being able to pick up some new music! I'm going to keep it a secret for now, but expect awesome rockage coming up super soon!

Today I will be going on a fieldtrip for studio! We're going up to Lincoln Park to talk to our prospective "client" for our fall semester project, which is design a boat house. It will be interesting to learn exactly what is to be expected. I have some questions in mind, but not all. I better think of some! I also hope that my camera batteries don't die, considering I've been running on the low blinky red half battery icon for about two months. Yeahhhhh...we'll see how that goes! It should be a great day, provided it doesn't get too hot while I'm there. :P

Well, be back later with photos to add!
~Jaye

The First of Many Performances to Come!

Picture of the Day] I took this picture at Millenium Park this summer. It's part of an installation! A prize for whoever can name the architect(s) who did it! :D

Mood] Optimistic

Weather] Sunny with a high of 78

Currently] In the Ambassador Cube

Quote of the day: Didja ever gets the feelin' that you was bein' watched?

So since this is the first blog of hopefully many, I feel the need to introduce myself to all those who may be reading this before I really settle myself in. I am a third year architecture major. I enjoy food, singing, writing, reading, drawing and video gaming. I like candlelit dinners and moonlit walks on the beach. I am a Libra and like flowers.

Now that I've advertised myself, onto what today was like, which is, of course, the point of this blog! Woke up around seven feeling CRAZY nervous about getting certified to give tours as a student ambassador of our lovely undergraduate admissions. There was so much information to study and even though I had been reviewing the information for a couple weeks, I still felt a little nauseous as I walked to Perlstein. I managed to get a glance over my nifty info binder before starting the tour with Pablo at 9:30ish AM. (Thus, the quote of the day). The weather was great, I know I stammered some, but things went well. So aside from my awesome shiny new badge (not gonna lie, one of THE best parts of the job), I can officially give tours to any visitting families. >.> Which is a good thing since I work my first Saturday visit tomorrow and there are at least five or six families signed up to come! There will be tour giving and a presentation. I hope I do well!

Awesome thing today: Sushi Friday in the Commons. I was SOOOOO excited. I am a huge fan! I enjoy Japanese food a LOT so being able to try sushi there was great! It wasn't too bad at all, compared to the 7-11 version, which I would advise NOT to eat unless you are REALLY terribly craving explosive diarrhea. The parfaits there are really good though...Definitely an acceptable late night snack!

Well off to do homework! I've got a huge lineup this weekend: Saturday visit, homework, having dinner with friends on Saturday night, more homework!

P.S. I am obsessed with movies, so I apologize in advance for any and all randomly quoted material that appears in my writing from time to time. In real life, I talk in puns and movie quotes...

See you on the flipside! (...like that)
~Jaye