Everything That Rises Must Converge

I who am the beauty of the green earth,
and the white moon among the stars,
and the mystery of the waters,
call unto thy soul:
Arise, and come unto me.
For I am the soul of nature,
who gives life to the universe.
From Me all things proceed,
and unto Me all things must return;
and before My face, beloved of gods and of men,
let thine innermost divine self be enfolded in the rapture of the infinite.

I have survived my first week of work- barely. It's kind of intense, being thrown into this environment. On wednesday I was the last one in the office, working frantically to get these contract documents cleaned up and sent out via UPS by 8 pm. This was my fourth day of work.

Otherwise life has been strange. Living at home has proved to be as annoying as I thought it might. The first couple of days were actually pretty nice, but then the parent/offspring relationship reverted back to what it was before I left for school. It doesn't help that they're in the midst of a divorce.

And, as per usual, I've been experiencing a sort of self-inflicted loneliness. Its been mostly a happy loneliness though, if you know what I mean. Some bouts of melancholy, doubt, and insecurity, but mostly happiness and excitedness for things to come.

I have projects up the wazoo, everything going on at once. Hopefully my productivity will be the opposite of what it was in the summer.

Decorating the new condo... from scratch... on a wavering budget...
painting.
making things.
sprucing up my portfolio.
learning how to make a spiffy website.

If any of you know how to make a spiffy website, teach me!

Also, if any of you like Bright Eyes, go to the concert with me! April 24th. B there or B square.

très burnt out.

I also bought the new Beirut ep and its wonderful. And the new Damien Rice cd. I need to spend more time with that one though, he sure is full of angry feelings.

Favorite songs of the moment:

Rilo Kiley- A Better Son or Daughter
Beirut- Scenic World
The Beatles- Let It Be
Joanna Newsom- Only Skin (also the whole album, but it seems to be a category unto itself)
Any Django Reinhart


Tonight I'm making dinner for a bunch of friends, mostly using recipes from the cook book Linni made me.

Asian-Style Chicken Wraps
Green Beans with Lemon and Pine Nuts
Pineapple-Topped Sweet Potatoes
Apple/Pear/Sunflower-seed/Grape/Raspberry Salad
Fruit topped funfetti cupcakes

Sounds delicious, eh?

<3

straight up mad skillz.

I almost forgot to mention! I ran into CHLOE NISBETT at the cleveland show! Which is crazy, because she's a couple of hours away, at Kenyon, and I'm a couple of hours away, it was very random. But really cool. She seemed to be her same old self, which is always nice.

Also, Joanna Newsom's new album is great. Spage, you'll like it I think.

ok. thats all.

<3

This weekend was pretty nice and not school-full. Probably for the first time all year with the exception of the new york trip/chicago surprise.

Thursday afternoon we drove to columbus to see Joanna Newsom, who was, amazing, and who's band was, amazing. But the escapades didnt stop there! There were drunken hosts, eventual hotels, icky bob evans breakfasts, more driving, bubbly family friends, and eventually, yes, another Joanna Newsom show in Cleveland, Ohio. Unfortunately Ohio is a crappy crappy state, and after talking to Bobby Birdman the opening act (from LA, Linni, you should see him), we were dismayed to hear that Cleveland and Columbus were the most obnoxious crowds on the whole tour. They said Chicago was great (representn) but also TONS more people, of course. So it was probably a blessing in disguise to see them in this apathetic and annoying state of show-goers. Because we were right. up. front. both times. As in leaning on the stage up front. And she was so magical and magestic and mesmerizing and her band was great. Instruments were played ranging from the bulgarian tambura, mouth harp, musical saw, accordion, banjo and glockenspiel. and the drummer didnt wear shoes. And the accordion player had a handle bar mustache. And bobby birdman was pretty great, too.

In other musical news, Steffan just informed me that PAT FEE opened up for MIKE DOUGHTY. How RIDICULOUS is that. and great. ridiculous and great. Someone at Pat's school got him to play a show in New Orleans in between dates on the tour (I think he's traveling opening up for barenaked ladies- or he was at least). And by the way of luck, and timing and circumstance, Pat's band opened for him.

Pretty amazing.

And Mallory met bela fleck- as you all have probably read.

So ridiculous.

I'm getting pretty excited for thanksgiving, though. Any break from daap at this point is a good thing.

When is everybody getting back for winter break? I think we should go somewhere, like, Canada, or Michigan, and get a cabin for a couple of days. Twould be fun?

Time to build a "tactile object" that represents the idea of my building...

cheerio!

I have not slept or left daap in over 36 hours... I feel like I need to tell everyone this so that if I slip into the depths of madness before winter break everybody knows why.


but I'm going home to take a nap in a little bit, and take a shower, since I have paper mache goop all over me.


The ironic thing is that this is the first day I haven't fallen asleep in a lecture....


Must be that sleep-deprived high.


I'll be in New York next week, who wants souvenirs?


<3

To be nice:

http://kevan.org/johari?name=KismetKisyout


To be critical:

http://kevan.org/nohari?name=kismetkisyout



But always to be honest!

So today I celebrated the last day of my childhood, because I have to admit, for awhile I felt like I wasn't ready to be twenty. Of course I will probably never stop acting like I'm 5, but I still felt I needed to bring in the mark of two decades with some rememberance of the past.

Luckily it was a beautiful day, so I walked to school in a tank top, my favorite skirt and red cowboy boots listening to Uncle Tupelo. I stayed in studio for awhile, decided I was bored, and left! Cowboy boots were too hot for the mid-morning sun at this point, so I took em off and walked barefoot through the campus all the way back to my apartment. I even let my hair down!

Returned to studio awhile later for a meeting with the professor, and worked on stuff the rest of the day, UNTIL Larissa and Kory and I went out for ice cream at Graeter's! Mint chocolate chip in a cone, of course. There was also some barefooted running in the grass.


So my symbolic last day of childhood was pretty great-

I think I'm ready to leave the teens behind.

I got my eyebrow repierced and it was done better this time and also its smaller and I love love love it!

It hurts when I sneeze, though.

First order of business, I love the OK Go music videos. Here It Goes Again is wonderful.


Second order of business.... Fiona Apple was mesmerizing and beautiful and crazy and just over all amazing. The theater turned out to be this tiny little gem of a place down town milwaukee, and our seats were wonderful. And I got so many great pictures and some good video clips, too. I'll post the pictures once I get a shutterfly account. Or maybe flikr... I'm undecided.

Any ways. It was great. And last night was pretty good too. And tomorrow I think we're going camping! And berry picking! And today we are going to Mitsuwa!

AND I just registered and paid for my first month of school, and charged my first month of rent on my very first credit card for the very first time. And I'm sittin pretty.

So things are pretty good. Even if I dont have a job and my money is slowly draining away, and sometimes I feel useless and unproductive. And Mallory's in China and Linni is moving to California and Teddy is going to India. Eric and Sharkie, I think you guys should go to Australia and Russia, respectively, and maybe I'll head on over to New Zealand... or maybe South America. Argentina or Brazil. Steffan, you get Mexico. We'll visit each other often. Europe's already covered by our dear Korlin. Blake, you probably want the United States. There. World domination. Also, I think I'm going to go to Greece and Southern Italy in two summers, if anyone wants to join me.

I just paid fifty dollars for a shitty off center balcony seat for Fiona Apple in Milwaukee.




I should have bought them earlier.

Last day, finals finished... freshman year is at a difinitive end.

All that's left to do is pack (and my, what a task that is).



Here's a snapshot of my freshman year in review. More will be added in the future.

http://daapspace3.daap.uc.edu/~benlouka/index.html

One of my favorite things is waking up on your own with out your alarm before its time to get up feeling completely rested and awake.

I dread the mornings where I have to force myself to get up to greet life when all I really want to do is lie in a black hole of nothingness.

Being ready for the world is so much better.


On that note, I am ready for the world. I am ready to complete my doc lab final in three days. I am ready to help build this 8 by 8 foot box and solve any design obstacles that will undoubtadly arise. I am ready to create an entire website documenting all of my work in just two weeks. I am ready to read about and review a million eras of buildings and monuments and study for my A&S final.

Go me.

Livejournal, Livejournal! Here I am! It's me!

And its already 5:30 in the pm on Saturday. I've got a lot of work to do, and little time. But that's usually the case, so why don't I just fill you in a little on my marvelous Friday, shall I?

Wake up with out my alarm, feeling rested and refreshed, decide to sleep in a half hour until seven and not shower anyways [what a dirty dirty girl]. Wake up yet again right before my alarm, get some cereal, read some email, walk to school with plenty of time to spare. Listen to Three Peaches by Neutral Milk Hotel and Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez on the way there. Beautiful morning after weeks and weeks of rain. Really nice.

Get to school with fifteen minutes to fix our model and prepare to present our final design for our class final project (I'm the project designer) to the studio, get in a bad mood as I always do because they always come up with TEN THOUSAND things to change, and Melanie our instructor is always standing there going "edit, edit edit" and "simplify simplify simplify". Weekend looking dismal with final drawings to be finished by monday for the construction team and not a wall, ceiling or floor design to speak of. Get in an argument with Larissa about how its impossible to have a study model by the next morning. go to the friday movie sulking. The movie is 12 Angry Men, which I've seen before, and really is as good as I remembered. put me in a better mood. Design team meets again and we share our design ideas, spend about an hour, and FINALLY consolidate! What a wonderful feeling that was. We start making the study model with that huge cloud lifted from over our crazy heads.

Go attend a design Symposium with some fairly famous architects who have buildings on our campus, almost fall asleep, but instead, start drawing Erica's head infront of me and end up actually paying attention and filling up pages and pages of notes and doodles. Doodling is a good time.

Get back to studio to finish the model, realize I had a piece of bread for lunch, try to go buy a bagel but the daap cafe is closed! So I eat a stale day old cafeteria chocolate chip cookie and some hot tamales (the candy) for dinner. I know what youre thinking, "Karina, this doesnt sound like a great day so far, why are we even reading this?" Who knows, maybe you're not reading this. If you are, you'll see the best is yet to come!

We take a break to go check our scores on our arts and society test, and I got a 100.4% which means I got 41 out of 41 questions right. Damn straight! This means that I have a strong A in the class and therefore will not be so pressed to do fantastically on the final. Good news for all, I'd say. Well, all of me, at least.

Shortly thereafter us busy bees finish the design lab model! the whole thing! set in stone! What a god damn relief that was.

I look at my cell phone and realize its 7:30 already, so I run back to daniels, check my mail, and there's my passport!!! I am officially prepared to jet set off to europe and train my way around that splendid continent. I've got all identification and travel needs addressed... only thing left is booking of hostels! man oh man what a string of terriffic events. So brimming with joy I set my passport aside, eat a yogurt, and get ready to bust a move at the TALIB KWELI AND COMMON CONCERT.

It was pretty off the hook. I wish we had been closer, but we did get a pretty good spot on a hill overlooking the breakdancers with a perfect sightline of the stage. It started to rain, but it didnt even matter because it was just that awesome.

After the concert I'm really craving some Zorba, so we walk on over to Myra's just before they close, get our meals to go and eat them on the stoop. THEN, Joey and his friends are going to Davinci code, and so are we! So we race on over only to find that the 11:30 showing is sold out. No matter, we dont give a f***. We just buy some freakin tickets for the next show! So we see The Davinci Code which I actually really liked. I haven't read the book, so looking at it as its own story it was pretty raw.

So its three o clock, I'm positively pooped, but also positively happy. Slept for four hours, got up, went into studio, and did some more stuff. I wont go through a moment by moment reenactment (for your sakes), but lets just say there was a pool party and some sushi involved. And now there will be a nap.

So this is what you get when you ask for a post. I hope you enjoyed it :) Maybe I'll start updating more reasonably.

<3

I just bought four shirts, three tank tops, two sweaters, a pair of red kitten heel sandals, sun glasses, a swim suit and a good sports bra for $66.63. Half of my merchandice was Banana Republic, might I add.

Outlet stores are a beautiful beautiful thing.

Kory and Larissa got bored while I was shopping (I miss shopping with Mal and Linni) and went to get spontaneous hair cuts and ice cream. And then Kory treated us to steak and shake. And then I bought a case for my ipod and Kory bought an ipod and ipod accessories at best buy.

A nice afternoon for buying things... but I got absolutely no work done, and Im really tired. I'm kind of dreading these next couple weeks and all the stress they are sure to bring. I will be coming home on the weekend of May 4th with a friend from studio. I think we're going to do a lot of architectural tours and stuff like that, but we should also hit up the H&M since I couldnt find any skirts/pants/shorts/dresses that I liked at the Banana Republic outlet.



In a couple months my last real summer will have arrived. A couple days later I'll be in europe.


Funny how things work out.