Going Home!

Picture of the Day] Science & Industry Spring Formal, 21st Birthday, Fall ASA Rush, Apples to Apples

Mood] Cheery

Weather] High of 73. Partly cloudy.

Currently] In my room.

Quote of the day: "All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has it."

WHEW~! School is ooovverrrr! At least for now. I've got a few weeks before summer school hits and then it's a couple weeks of intensive study before going back to the regular fray. I have a few pictures looking back on the year, which I always find is a cool thing to do. I will be working this summer, so I will probably be meeting a lot of new prospective/admitted students! I am excited about that. This year has not yielded quite the grades that I wanted, but I also know that 3rd year is supposedly the toughest. I thought 2nd year was bad! I think this summer I need to focus on getting a portfolio ready, working on study abroad, and really educating myself more on architecture. I think one of the best things for a student to probably do in this field is to just read and look as much as possible. Being observant in an environment that you already know about is a good thing! Being hyper sensitive to your surroundings and having that be second nature is great! It's a skill that anyone can value.

I think that I tried a lot of different things this year, but not many of them worked because my process was not quite up to speed. I can work hard and I am dedicated, but I wasn't approaching things the right way. Maybe if I practice this summer by learning more, immersing myself in projects, I'll find a path that I can use, a method that I can be consistent with. :)

Well, I am crazy excited to go home. I've been waiting for a long time and I hope that it will be just as much fun as I know it will be. My family misses me probably as much as I miss them (which is a lot). I'm also excited about getting my own apartment when I come back to school for summer school. It'll be fun to cook things on my own and to have my own place to relax in!

See you soon,
~Jaye

Finals Week

Picture of the Day] Final models: 1/2" = 1'-0" Section Detail, 1/8" = 1'-0" Final Model

Mood] Wary

Weather] Gray with a high of 73

Currently] At the Front Desk

Quote of the day: "Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair."

So finals week is approaching and there is a ton to do! This is going to be a short short post. Although review is over for now, we have to catch up on all of our other examinations and projects. Here is what I need to do.

Studio includes:
2 booklets with my work from this semester
2 cds with my work from this semester

Projects include:
Report for Ecological Basis of Planning

Exams include:
Structures
MechElec

Essays include:
Vernacular Landscape - Graffiti

Presentations include:
Vernacular Landscape - Graffiti

That's about it for now. I gotta get crackin!
Jaye

Acappella Spring Concert!!!

Pictures of the Day] Acappella awesomeness

Mood] Geekin' out!

Weather] Sunny

Currently] In my room.

Quote of the day: "Every increased possession loads us with new weariness."

So acappella is probably one of the best things EVAH. We had our spring concert and it was loads of fun. Here are some pics of the fantastic times! I had a solo this time around, so I was really happy about that. I sang "the Scientist" by Coldplay. :) One of the great things is that we were pre-ordering for our CD! Wh00t! We recorded four songs for each group. It's available for $10 + $2 shipping anywhere in the nation. We also had a few graduating seniors, who received pitch pipes for gifts and we sang a dedication to one of our fellow students, requested by his girl friend. All in all, hilarious.

Girls group was fantabulous. We all wore purple, white, and black. Purple is our team colour. X-Chromotones, HUH!!! Co-Ed we wore green and black and white. So that's cool too! ^-^ I did vocal percussion for some of the songs. This spring we also did a Lady Gaga MEGAMIX! So we had ALL the groups on stage singing a medley of Bad Romance, Telephone, and Paparazzi with little pieces of Poker Face. Cool times! Videos are probably on youtube now.

Everyone keeps talking about how Glee is so great and that it's back and it's so exciting. I have yet to watch more than the first episode, even though the first episode was good. All I gotta say is that IIT Acappella ROCKS. We are just as entertaining as any TV show because we act RIDICULOUS at concerts. There is just SO much energy flying around and we always have surprises.

Rockin' out!
Jaye

Final Drawings for the Semester!

Picture of the Day] 1/2" = 1'-0" Section Wall and Elevation drawing.

Mood] Tired tired TIRED.

Weather] Sunny

Currently] In my room.

Quote of the day: "I'm not judging people, I'm judging their actions. It's the same type of distinction that I try to apply to myself, to judge, but not be judgmental."

So my final board is too big to place on here, but I can put up my favourite drawing from it! I don't have enough drawings on the board, but I do have almost the minimum requirements. I think I'm only missing two renderings. The tough thing about completing drawings is that they all have to be at such a high level of detail, that you underestimate the amount of time it'll take to spend on one drawing. The renderings, for example, I did by hand in some respects. The method I used is that of drawing a perspective by hand and then scanning it into the computer. Then you use photoshop and illustrator to plop in all the textures and people. You could take a photo of a model and then do the same thing, work on top of that photo to add people and textures.

The elevations and sections are all about how people fit in the space. You get a sense of how tall something is or how wide it is by putting people and even possibly furniture into the mix. There are different ways of doing elevations and sections as well. Something that I have found to be quite successful is using the gray tones to represent the solid that you are cutting through. A lot of people use pure black, which is fine as well, but if you do that, then you need something else on the board to counter that weight, because it does tend to pop a lot. My professor also recommended that we use shadows to really make the drawings look more realistic.

Colours and diagrams are very useful, but do not have such a heavy role. Don't put colour in just for the sake of there being colour! Green is always intuitively related to something earthy. The layout of the whole system needs to be interesting to look at, which is something that is hard for me to do because I think about it more logically. I wanted to just lay all the drawings out nice and readable, but nope. I don't think it's nearly as interesting as it should be, but oh well. I think my favourite drawing on the whole board is the full wall section and elevation drawing. I added textures and shadows to make it more alive. I also like the shadow people.

The most disappointing thing was when I went to print and all the colours on the plotter came out to be different. All my beautiful grays for the concrete and the textures turned into teal and blue-green. It was still fine though. I printed and I presented, and that was the most important part!

Hope you enjoyed it!
Jaye

Summer and Spring 2010 Classes!

Picture of the Day] Roosevelt Road at night.

Mood] Excited and worried

Weather] Sunny with a high of 77

Currently] In my room

Quote of the day: "You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you."

So, I have figured out what my classes will be like for the summer and for the fall! I decided to take summer classes once again because they really help me out during the year. Even though I feel like I have a lot of work, I think I might have less. I managed to register for the IPRO I wanted this summer, so hopefully that will lessen the load in the school year because otherwise I would have to take the IPRO during the year along with studio and I think that would be murder! I think I will try and do another IPRO during the next summer as well.

For the fall I am also taking classes that only meet for once a week. Usually I take classes that meet two times a week, on Tuesdays and Thursday, but now I won't have to take those unless they are humanities because the ones I have now that are like that are Structures and MechElec, which do not continue into the fourth year. I am kind of excited about having fewer meeting days for my classes, but I hope that means that the work hasn't doubled!

School Year 2010

Here is my Summer Lineup: (2 Classes + VanderCook Voice Lessons possibly)

Monday

Chicago Landscapes - LA 497 - 01
Class 10:00 am - 12:40 pm

Tuesday
Interprofessional Project (IPRO) - IPRO 497 - 329
Class 3:00 pm - 5:40 pm

Wednesday

Chicago Landscapes - LA 497 - 01
Class 10:00 am - 12:40 pm

Thursday
Interprofessional Project (IPRO) - IPRO 497 - 329
Class 3:00 pm - 5:40 pm

Friday - No class

Here is my Fall Lineup: (5 Classes + VanderCook Voice Lessons)

Monday

Architecture VII - ARCH 417 - 100
Class 1:50 pm - 5:50 pm

Tuesday
Historic Landscape Preservation - LA 516 - 01
Class 10:00 am - 12:40 pm

Wednesday
Prairie School and Naturalistic Landscape Design - ARCH 445 - 01
Class 10:00 am - 12:40 pm

Architecture VII - ARCH 417 - 100
Class 1:50 pm - 5:50 pm

Thursday
Visual Training I - ARCH 331 - 01
Class 8:35 am - 11:15 am

Topics: Shakespeare: Film, Text, and Stage - LIT 380 - 01
Class 6:25 pm - 9:05 pm

Friday
Architecture VII - ARCH 417 - 100
Class 1:50 pm - 5:50 pm


If you have any questions, totally hit me up.
Over and out!!!
Jaye

P.S. Arch VII is Studio

Preview Weekend and Spring Formal!

Pictures of the Day] Spring Formal at the Museum of Science and Industry!!!

Mood] Springy

Weather] Sunny with a high of 71

Currently] In my room.

Quote of the day: "A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything."

Short post today! Not much to go in depth about. Well, I mean I could, but it was be too long then!

Spring formal was a great time! We had a total blast at the Museum of Science and Industry. If you've never been there, it was a grand experience. If you have been there, we were in the rotunda, so you probably can feel how awesome that is from the high vaulted ceiling. I have a lot of pictures of the awesome exhibit that we were also allowed to see! The museum was exclusive to us, and it was so much fun. The new exhibit is called "the Science of Storms" I think.

Dinner was chicken stuffed with something. I don't know quite what, but it was good. The salad was romaine lettuce with some cheese on top and a huge crouton. Dessert was an apple sort of tort with ice cream. There was a lot of dancing that I did not partake in, and of course, an assortment of nerd-tastic songs. It was a lot of fun. I am sooooo glad it was at MSI.

Preview Weekend was pretty great too. We had a lot of people show up and some stayed over at all of the different dormitory options, like the fraternity houses, the sorority houses, MSV and SSV. Our home base was once again, Perlstein, where we met up with different students and just sort of checked out what they were interested in. It was fun times.

Out out out,
Jaye

P.S. I also put a cover on the Ambassador Scrapbook! My goal is to upload it to our admissions website this summer!

Work Work Work and MORE

Picture of the Day] And now for something completely different. Bridge at Roosevelt to Target overlooking train tracks.

Mood] Distant

Weather] Sunny with a high of 55

Currently] In the Ambassador cube

Quote of the day: "My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose."

It has gotten to the point in the semester when you just feel so bogged down, tired, frustrated, and irritable that you just want to throw something at a wall, eat your heart out, flop down on a bed and lie there forever. At least, that's my general reaction. Of course, listening to the comforting sounds of The Fellowship of the Ring, V for Vendetta, Pride and Prejudice (2007), and many more, playing in the background as I try and work through Structures and Studio is a perk, especially because it has become such background noise to me that fills the white noise I can't stand. Pure silence or movies is the way to go. I am so difficult to work with. T.T

In other news I had my meeting with Dr. Sennott about my classes for this summer and the following semester. I think I'll try to take my first IPRO this summer, if I get permission to that is. All the IPRO projects can be found online at our website, but I'll spare you the trouble and explain the one that I want to do. The description from the IPRO website is as follows:

"The Village of Oak Park is seeking to dramatically reduce carbon emissions, water usage, and source energy usage throughout the village. Currently, Oak Park residents either lack an understanding of or feel overwhelmed by what they should do to meet these goals. In addition, most residents do not have the financial wherewithal to pay the large up-front costs of implementing conservation technologies. Oak Park is researching what it would take to implement a long-term community-financing program that would provide residents with the up-front money for energy efficiency and water conservation improvements, allowing the resident to repay the loan through a monthly assessment that is less than the savings generated. The Village of Oak Park is seeking to engage a multidisciplinary team to assist with identifying the specific technology measures and implementation approaches that will produce a 20% reduction in energy usage, water usage, and carbon emissions. The results of this project will provide the technical foundation for implementing a community-financing program that provides residents with the capital costs for deploying energy efficiency, renewable, and low carbon distributed generation technologies."

I think it sounds interesting! Hopefully I will be accepted. Since I am an architecture student, that means I need to get permission from the professor heading the IPRO in order to join. I think they do this as a measure to make sure that the team is balanced with people from all majors.

Anyway, that's all for now! Got a lot of catching up to do!!!
Up, up and away!
~Jaye