Monday, January 30, 2012

Three Weeks in

Three weeks has passed since the start of the term. So much and so little have happened, I don't know how to comprehend. This marks the end of January and I have about 6 months of life in London to go? INSANE.

Few selected highlights of those three weeks.

A lecture by Spanish illustrator/designer Javier Mariscal. Frankly, one of the most entertaining lectures I've ever been. His entire presentation was done in a series of movies, with music and animation, along with his live voice over (and singing). A lot of humour. Very Spanish. Made us all happy and laughed out loud. He sort of became a little legend among us.
I've always liked what he did for H&M in Barcelona, which I think I saw in Wallpaper* magazine. I have visited there specifically to see his design when I was in Barcelona.

More of his work can be seen at his Estudio Mariscal website.


Arduiono workshop with Angus:
Arduino is a kit that allows you to do physical computing easily and it's something I've never known before the start of this school year. I have never thought I'd be interested in such a thing (I chose graphic design because I was more interested in two dimensional objects in general over physical stuff), but this thing is so exciting. You can attach whole kinds of sensors for inputs, and it also can have various output modes.
Hardware and software are both open source and you can find more information at arduino.cc


Time/Speed self-set brief:
I've done series of experiments, timing myself as well as setting time limit to my activity. I've also done series of 'how much can I do in 3 hours' experiments. One of which was to record how far I can walk in 3 hours. I started in Old Street tube station, headed west, and ended up in West Ealing 3 hours later.
More information about the progress of my self-set project will be noted soon!


週7(!)で学校行って、大学の図書館でバイトして、日々の生活の中では大学関係の人としか会わないし、大学と家の往復の毎日という生粋の大学っ子。
毎日新しいことを知って、学んで、成長出来て、本当にそれは幸せなことで。でも大学というのは、守られた、小さな世界であることも事実なので、いつかは出なければいけないし、幸せな場所で幸せに完結するわけにもいかないので。4年間幸せに過ごしてきたのだから、そろそろまた苦しいのもいいよね。

自分は、「裕福な家庭で、外国でのびのびと育って、英語も幼いうちから喋れるラッキーな子」という印象を与えてしまうことが多いというのも、自覚していて。自分も、少し前までは「上辺で判断して、あたしの苦労も知らないでー」とぐれていたのだけれど、割と最近になって、自分は「努力」はしてきたかもしれないけれど、「苦労」は一切してきていないと気づいた。どんな境遇の人でも、努力はするべきだと思うけれど、苦労はしなくて済むのならしなくていいのだから、やはり自分は恵まれているなあと思います。親への一番の感謝はそこだと思う。なら、苦労しなくて済んだ分、努力したいです。

本当、自分に足りないものだらけで、毎日悔しいから、この際成長してみせるよー。