box #2

the second box... labeled "oh you know" haha

Its full of stuff from my time in Italy..

Random party invite..

and a sketch of my thesis concept... pretty abstract. It represents how even though this kilometer long building-city is huge and incomprehensible, all of the units and individuals are connected by various means. more later..

welcome to cal

This is an official UC napkin. from the garden party at the Chancellor's house welcome week.

yes, i know, i'm lame.

？

apparently I ordered a camera lens from Japan and kept the stamps.

SF

I don't remember which bay cruise this was... I have been on several. the 08/05 seems like it would be either august, 2005, or the 5th of august. I don't recall going on this cruise in august of 05, and i was only in ca on august 5 one year, and I didn't go on the tour. so yeah..

The first time I went on this was with Carolyn and Marcus. We had been in the dorms for a month and they decided that it was time for me to get my first taste of in-n-out. M checked on his phone and found the closest one was at pier 39.. so off to the city we went. We got off the bart at Powell, and in our infinite wisdom decided to WALK to the wharf. We followed the trolley lines and had an adventure.. we dressed up as disney princesses, took part in a protest, and got flipped off by some Stanfurdians on a scavenger hunt. When we finally got to the pier, it just happened to be the day the Blue Angels were there. So we had a fantastic day at in-n-out, and watched the blue angels from a boat in the bay. awesome.

vote yes!

In 04, I was 19 and it was about time to vote. My mom sent me this whole section of the Houston Chronicle that outlined all of the important issues, and each party's position on them. I remember M stayed up all night with me to help me figure out what I thought was important, and what stance I took on every key issue. I don't remember a whole lot, but I remember talking about abortion a lot, and being happy that I had someone to talk to about all of this.. I was pretty proud of him too, for remaining mostly impartial and letting me talk out all of my thoughts and opinions and figuring out my own stance.

Anyway, I also had figure out my stance on all of the local issues, and since I couldn't remember all of the letters and numbers and whatnot.. I wrote them down.. cheat sheet!

go bears!

I think this is the only Cal game I have a ticket for.. since we just entered with our Cal ID. This was the first time my family came to visit me at school, so they bought tickets and we watched the game from other side of the stadium and sat the whole time.. borring..

a cappella

My freshman year roommate, was an amazing singer, and was involved in A Cappella all four years.. That year, I think I went to every single one of her shows.. even though I am not the biggest fan of a cappella.. I even made Carolyn come with me to a lot of them!

Every show, I always bought her flowers.. we went so often that Moe, the florist, knew me by name and would sometimes give me free extra flowers.. I think my freshman year was all about flowers.. I think there were CONSTANTLY flowers in my room for me or Allison.. for birthdays, shows, and just because. For valentine's day that year, I got this HUGE box from 1800flowers and Carolyn and her roommate signed for it and were sooo excited that maybe I had a secret admirer or something.. they got me all excited, I opened it to see two dozen red roses.. we ripped open the card, and who was it from? my mom.
so disappointing! sorry, mom. hahaha

sproul

just a few pamphlets from Sproul that I kept.. idk why.

slo

In 2006? for President's day, the fam (minus d) took a trip to D's hometown: San Luis Obispo. This is a sand-dollar I found at some beach on the way.. It was whole when I picked it up, but got crushed before we made it back to berkeley.
That was a pretty awesome trip.. I remember driving along the 1, and everyone oohing and ahhing over the views, but B couldn't look, too terrified of heights to take his eyes of the road.

Man, there are so many memories from that trip.. it was just one weekend, but so much happened.. we ate at all the iconic slo places.. went to bubblegum alley:

hiked to the top of the town hill.. I can't remember what it is called..

jumped off sand dunes..

hiked to a waterfall..

I just remember driving around in D's honda listening to Smashing Pumpkins on tape..
and one night D's mom gave us a gift certificate to some hot springs that she was never going to use. We took the opportunity and tried out the place.. which was more like a couples' retreat place, and we had our own private enclosed sulfur spring hot tub thing.. hahaha ridiculous.

taylor and kendall

One year when Taylor and Kendall (my favorite little cousins) came to visit, I took them to the wharf in SF. We OF COURSE stopped at Musée Mécanique, the antique penny arcade. love love love the old timey photobooth..

I got my bio-rhythm (whatever that is) checked:

and a fortune?

"You have a strong, magnetic expressive eye, you can easily induce other people to do as you wish. In affairs you like to be your own commander, and possess the faculty to oversee the work of others."
true guys?

the master

So, back in 2006 (i guess it was) this guy was featured in some ad in the daily cal. L and I saw it and joked about going.. who was this grand master they spoke of? We decided we just had to check it out.. so one day we ventured over to SF to check out this master artist. Well, as usual, we got pretty lost, and had to walk a long time in the rain before finding the place. But it was well worth it.

The pamphlets for this guy were ridiculous! one paragraph quotes:

"It is precisely due to his unfathomable Buddha-dharma realization that the Master has acquired erudition and penetrating understanding of the laws that govern the growth and change of everything in the universe. He has thereby attained the highest philosophy, vocal performances, painting, calligraphy, sculpture, application of colors to portray realistic rock texture and rock grains, medicine, and science. No one in history can match such achievements! The Master truly deserves to be called a great master the likes of which have never been seen in history! Because of this, today we can stroll in this inexhaustibly profound, rare, and beautiful world of art and enjoy one after another ingenious work that retains Nature's spirit and form but transcends its superlative craftsmanship."

and that is just ONE paragraph! this guy is.. ridiculous!

There was this only sculpture that looked like melted Styrofoam, painted different colors.. it was supposedly worth $2 million.. and could NEVER be replicated. Many had tried, but the work of this master artist is unreproducible and actually could never even be produced by human hands.. so apparently Master Wan Ko Yee claims to be a god?
He also claims to be the master of 21 different forms of art, and has the most accomplishments of anyone in the universe.

check out his propaganda site here. and here.

after the 'show' we of course went to get sushi and I tried a bunch of stuff for the first and only time..I can't even remember.. mussels? idk.

my whole life.

I had this word doc on my computer (rip bobby) that was called "My Whole Life" and every semester I would try to plan out the rest of the classes I would take at cal. I tried sooo hard to get everything figured out ahead of time, so that I knew exactly which classes to sign up for, I knew what semester and time they were offered.. I wanted to take every Architecture class offered.. and make sure I had all of my 120 units lined up for graduation.

Well, every semester, the whole thing changed again. As much as I tried to plan it out.. nothing ever went according to plan. This one was evidently printed in Fall 06. That semester I was frustrated because I was Waitlisted! for my last required studio course (because there were 4th years still needing to take it). I signed up for photo instead (waitlisted again). One day they tell me I am not admitted into studio, but I am IN photo.. then a week later, the studio professor calls me and tells me I'm In. So, I drop photo to take studio. In the process, I made the photo professor really mad and she never let me into her class again :/ haha


Also, through all this planning, I didn't account for the unexpected.. like my senior thesis option. and since I put off my American Cultures credit until the last semester.. i know, stupid, I had to take summer sessions after graduation. now THAT was an interesting class. Never taking a women's studies course again, thank you Berkeley.

I also didn't get to take every architecture course. :( I missed one - structures.
I did, however, have a class on every floor of Wurster.. including the secret 10th floor only accessible by stair. Thank you thesis language instruction/wine and cheese discussion nights for that one!

sunflower

Found this rough draft of a colored drawing I did in my first studio.. this studio was so fun! It was all drawing, and taught by two crazy professors - Joe Slusky and Chip Sullivan. Joe is a sculptor, and you can see his work all around the bay area. Chip is a landscape architect, he did the courtyards in the units!
Anyway, we did one major drawing each week..

here's the final drawing one of my favorites from that class.

At the end of the semester, we had a huge party in the lobby of Wurster.. with everyone's artwork from the whole semester.. Joe provided the music (he has a boom-box on wheels) and Chip provided the wine. This party pretty much set the tone for what being an architecture student would be like.. work really hard all semester, and then have some drinks with your professors when its all over!


found this picture of studio filled with everyone's flowers.. oh memories.. I'm really liking this process! haha

pete yorn

This story starts loong ago. When I was like 15, my family took a random trip to the land of Appalachia. Actually, it wasn't that random.. it was my mom's cousin's 50th birthday, and she wanted us to climb a mountain for her birthday. Actually that does sound kind of random..

Anyway, we stayed at many different places over the course of like, 2 weeks. One place we were staying in had tv, and I was lucky enough to sleep on the couch at that place, which meant I could watch tv all night if I wanted. So, one night, I was up late watching this music station that just played music videos all the time. There were two artists that I caught my eye/ears that night.. one was John Mayer singing No Such Thing and jumping around on cafeteria tables.. and the other was Pete Yorn.. If you haven't seen the video for For Nancy, its pretty good.. I hadn't heard of either of these people before, so as soon as I got home I bought both their albums.

Fast forward about 6? years.. I'm walking down Telegraph, and I stop in Rasputin to check out who will be around playing free shows.. who's name do I see but Pete Yorn's. So, I finally got to see him live, while squished in the dvd section of Rasputin.. it was awesome.

watercolor

Just a simple watercolor sketch of my first site! I don't even really remember where it was.. I remember walking past the Transamerica tower on the way, and being told not to go to the site at night.

I designed a Beat Poet Memorial on the site.. this was... 2005?

NORP 07

For my Spring Break in 2007 Cindy and I led a team to New Orleans to aid in the relief effort. We both went the year before (well, I went to New Orleans, and Cindy went to Biloxi, right?) and had incredible experiences.

The preparation for the trip was a little intense at the time... we needed to raise about $800 in support for each person going.. The year before, one of our friends put on a talent show to raise funds, so we decided to do the same.

we had so many great people put on performances! it was a really fun night.. we also had a service auction.. people would bid on things that others could do for them. We had apartment cleaning, writing help, a running buddy, cooking lessons, a chauffer, help with resume writing, and I made a home cooked southern meal.

One of the things we did to raise support was talk to several local businesses to see if they would want to sponsor us. Many of them gave us gift cards to their stores.. Moe's, Amoeba, Rasputin, etc. so we were able to raffle off those as prizes! I remember one day I was walking up and down Telegraph getting rejection after rejection from businesses, and I was so burnt out and tired from walking.. I was trying to decide if I should just stop for that day, go home and rest, or keep going. I had already skipped several classes that day to talk to businesses, and I felt like I needed to press on even though I was physically and emotionally exhausted. But as I was wrestling with myself it started hailing.. i know.. I have never seen it hail in Berkeley except for that day. So I stood in a doorway until it finally stopped.. and took that as a sign that I should go home and rest.. haha

We ended up getting all of our support, and some came from really unexpected places. At the time, I was working as an intern at a firm in Oakland, and told one of my coworkers in passing about what I was doing for Spring Break.. The day after I was caught in the hail, he gave me a check that completely covered one person's entire trip. It was so so so cool to see God working in others, and see that I, in my limited abilities and stamina, can only do so much. But HE is soooo much greater than me and everyone, that HE can move mountains, and does!

apparently, I kept all of the info we received.. from emergency contacts, to maps.. Because I was the only one over 21 with a license, I had the privilege of being the driver of the rental mini-van.. so we had lots of maps.. hah

and then the instructions on how to properly gut a house.. priceless. This year was a little different from the last.. It had been a year and half since Katrina, and the city was a little more put together than the last time I was there.. We actually stayed in a hotel, and were able to take a shower every night.. instead of in 2006 when we stayed in an old warehouse and had portable tent showers, with no heat.. I think I took 2 showers that week.. haha
It was also different because we had to wear these intense face masks to protect our lungs from the mold.. before, we just used the little paper ones you got from the hardware store.

one of my film prints from the trip
those are some tough looking girlies!

This was a church in the lower ninth ward, about 100 yards from the levy. Not much had changed after a year. I would really like to go back now and see what is in its place..

march 5, 2006

March 28, 2007

soft oranges

Every year, the M. Arch students were always getting grants to do weird things around Wurster (my architecture building). Usually interactive installations, seating, or a green roof. This one was my favorite though.. the orange slices were filled with water and lights.. it was supposed to be heated as well, but I never went while the heater was on. It sat 8 or 10 people and was actually pretty comfortable.. you could go chill at night while it was lit up and the wurster kids were working hard, or during the day between classes to lay in the sun for a while.

"what if a warm, soft orange lived at wurster..."

the international noise conspiracy

my ticket to the show..

That semester, my friend D and I went to sooo many shows.. mostly by obscure bands I had never heard of.. Most of the time they were in Berkeley or Oakland; but for this one, we ventured across the bay into the City. I remember getting off the BART and having absolutely no idea where we were.. it was already pretty late, and we weren't in a very good looking neighborhood (around civic center). so once we figured out where we were, we pretty much ran to the venue. then we had a great time at the show, but had to leave early to catch the last Richmond train at 12:20. and then we got on the Pittsburgh/Bay Point train and had to wait at the Macarthur station in the cold for the transfer.

You should try to check out the (international) noise conspiracy .. I only have like.. 4 of their songs on my comp, one of them is called Capitalism Stole my Virginity. so you know they're good. haha

bring your friends

found this on the street.. i liked it.. so i brought it home and put it on my wall. haha

audium

This was also on my wall for a while. When I first moved to California, my mom gave me this book called, "San Francisco Weird." It has a TON of weird things to do.. from Da Vinci's Camera Obscura, to the acid blotter museum, to the fortune cookie factory.. and of course, Audium.

It was on my list of things to do from 2004 to 2006, when I crossed it off the list. Having only the description that it was a musical mastermind, from the 60's, that would basically blow your brain to bits, we jumped on the bus.. well, bus to bart to muni.. to go to Audium.

tickets are cheap: only $15 for the most INTENSE musical experience of your entire LIFE.
and you get to explore this weird dimly lit museum first to get you in the mood.

after, you go sit in this round room with speakers all around you. you are instructed not to make ANY noise, and not to move.. not to even touch the person sitting next to you, in pitch black darkness. the neon exit signs kind of ruined the mood, but what can you do? and then the program starts. it lasts an hour.. and we were definitely expecting a musical experience.. but it was more like a bunch of weird/odd noises coming from all sides.. bombarding each other and you.

I'm glad I went, otherwise I would have wondered about this mysterious audium for the rest of my life.. but we all agreed that it probably would have been much more enjoyable if we lived in the 60's and were all tripping on acid.

You can read more about Audium here.