this too shall pass.

This has been going around the interwebs for a few days now, so I thought I would pass it along...

I love all of OK Go's antics, and this one is great!

so here's OK Go - This too shall pass





and here are some making of videos:






tiiiightt

fresh start

its time for a new journal! I got my square ruled moleskine last year (started march 16, so almost a full year) and I have very much enjoyed it. I decided I would just stick with what I like and so I got squared moleskine #2 the other day. This, accompanied by my pink march colour-a-month planner just makes me smile.

also, today I decided that 3-4pm is my favorite time of day.. especially in this kind of spring-like weather. I have also found in my various 2-4pm art/architecture history classes that this is the most difficult time of day to stay awake. hope ya'll had a lovely thursday!

international women's day!

Monday was International Women's Day and to celebrate, I went to work. ha.

There are 29 countries who celebrate the day as an official holiday. Obviously the US is not one of them, but for the past two years I was able to celebrate the day in two countries who do.
In 2008, I was in Rome, Italy working on my thesis. On this day we used the opportunity to go to a celebration at Corviale, my thesis site. It was a very interesting experience which included a 2-hour long video about Women's liberation in Italy... all in Italian of course. We did receive yellow mimosas though, which is tradition, and very lovely indeed. If you want to read more about my day there click here... which is a link to the Thesis blog I kept back when.

Last year, in 09 we celebrated in E. Asia! Our teacher 马老师, took us to eat at a brazilian bbq buffet. It was both a strange and delicious experience. I miss her and all of these lovely ladies sooooo..

Next year, maybe I will be more up on my game and be able to celebrate with a nice dinner or cupcakes or something. maybe.

homes for haiti

tonight, I had the opportunity to help build some homes for haiti. The church I've been going to has teamed up with CORE Alliance and Builders Without Borders to build 10,000 homes. They aren't meant to be permanent structures, but next-step, temporary (lasting around 3 years) shelters to replace the tent cities that thousands of earthquake survivors are now living in.

The homes are shipped as walls and floors and the assembled on site. We had this whole assembly line going on. I got to use the circular saw! And my team cut all of these sheets down to size:

While I was working and covered in saw dust, I was thinking about that sweet smell of fresh lumber. I was reminded of the two spring breaks I spent gutting homes in New Orleans. I remember the smell of mold and rot.. I remember that down the street from one of the houses we worked in was a home that was actually starting to be reconstructed. You could smell the fresh lumber all the way down the street.. I remember thinking that that is the sweeeeetest smell... because it means newness, hope and progress.. I hope that these fresh, sweet smelling homes can provide the same kind of relief and hope to those in haiti.