{building} art

I should be in class right now, but thanks to the admin who showed up over 30 minutes late to our meeting regarding some fellowship application paperwork, I had to skip class :( Skipping grad courses makes me nervous, especially since this prof is new and there is not book for the course....

Anyways, as I walk from the bus stop to my building (~30% of my commute is spent walking) I pass by this fantastic building called Anderson Hall. Last night I noticed that one of the upper stories was lit up, revealing what appears to be a beautiful gothic-style hall. I'm not in the college of Forestry (clearly), so I'm going to try to explore the space without too many people noticing I'm there. I don't even know what the space is currently used for, so that complicates things a bit.

anderson hall {pre-giant-bus-stop now residing near it}

As I was looking up the building online, I stumbled across the UW's Digital Collections, full of historical photos and many original architectural drawings. Look at this incredible drawing I found of the Space Needle:

And the pictures come with interesting descriptions, including this about the Space Needle:

Set on the only section of the fair grounds that was not owned by the city, the site did not have the height restrictions of other exhibits/pavillions at the fair. The lot, 37-by-37 m, was purchased by private investors for $75,000 and is still privately owned.

and this was supposed to the be a bank at the World's Fair:

What a cool building! I haven't actually determined if this structure was ever built, but I'm think that it probably was not constructed, mainly because I can't find any info on it....but there is going to be some exhibitions this coming year to celebrate the 50 yr anniversary of the World's Fair, so maybe I can find out more later! (also, I've always secretly wanted a circular house...)

even the floor plan is something I would frame!

{art + friends = balance}

it's been four really really long days. and it's the first four days of the quarter.

mostly, I've been dealing with my new TA assignment all week. Due to poorly written lab handouts, I've spent time going physically through the labs myself, trying to decipher what the instructor intended. Fortunately, my chemistry background has made this a bit easier, as my MSE lab is basically a chem lab. It's been really interesting seeing how much the students don't remember about chemistry. I've been giving them a bit of grace, remembering that they only have had two quarters of gen chem, two years ago, but I'm going to have them watch this video before coming into lab next....

It even has fun music!

But, today is Saturday - woke up to my alarm at 8:40am, freaked out for a moment, said "kali - it's 8:40!" thinking she was late to work, and then remembered it was saturday (sorry for waking you up...)

Today was SAM day with Sarah! She's off to Indonesia with the Peace Core soon and I'm trying to keep good balance in my life by taking time for non-school related activities, so we bussed downtown to the SAM to see the 'Art of Asia' exhibit.

I really enjoyed the art on display, as I love asian art. There was an interesting mix of cultures represented, though ironically, no Indonesian art. As I am both a font and textile geek, I loved all the tapestries and scrolls. Apparently the following is the most important important scroll in the SAM collection:

Most interesting was the description that the characters can show excitement, exuberance, and even be a small surprise as you're reading - that is definitely more emotion than can come across in this very straight and proper Arial font....even modern calligraphy doesn't convey much emotion.

The textiles were fascinating, including the summer robe above. The blue was rich in color, and the embroidery was all golden. Incredibly, the robe was in the pristine condition, including the mesh sections along the arms. I just love textiles. 

In other news, I finally broke down and bought a paper weekly planner. I tried so hard to be paperless and take advantage of all my various electronics, but it was surprisingly difficult to track everything. Still on the hunt for a good planner app that interfaces with both my computer and my phone in a simple manner. In the meantime, I'm going to use this Moleskine planner with some great cover art: 

I've also spent copious amount of hours installing linux on my baby tablet pc. windows XP was just too cumbersome. 2 re-installs later and many minutes on the internet, I finally got the screen resolution fixed. it's the small victories in life.

My wonderful day ended with a lovely gathering of friends around a crockpot of soup, some TJ's cornbread, and homemade pazooki :) 

Thanks for filing our home with love, warmth, and laughter.

"break" goals

First quarter of grad school done! I turned in my last assignments today and found out that I passed my most stressful class! Since I'm not totally finished with fellowship apps at the start my Christmas break, I'm not sure how much of a 'break' the next three weeks will be. I want to get them all done early, like next week, but I am always better with hard deadlines than softer self-imposed deadlines.....

regardless, I do have a few non-school-related goals for the break, we'll see if any of them actually get done.

• get at least halfway through my newest sweater project. The stress halfway through last quarter got to me and I ran to JoAnn's, buying some inexpensive wool to make this fun sweater: 

I love cabling and knitting is more portable than sewing, so I can work on this sweater in the car, watching TV, at Bible study, or just while chatting with my family. Or, even, while attempting to sit by the pool in Palm Springs, as that is where my family has decided to travel for a few days this break. I'm not a huge fan of going warm places during the Christmas season (not sure I could ever live in the southern hemisphere...) but I am a fan the sun! Strange side note - knitting is about the only thing I can do while riding in a car without getting motion sick. I can't read, watch movies, or even type emails :(

other things to do:

• start reading Right Stuff, Wrong Sex. (dealing with women in science/first female astronaut cannidates)
• start reading The Design of Everyday Things
• start reading Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (it just came in the mail! so exciting!)
• watch Objectified
• watch When we Left Earth
• starting learning to code again. probably in python, but I'm open to suggestions!

MatLab may be more useful, but I can't get a free copy and am not currently willing to fork over $100 for it... I'm not going to work in DOS again (like I did in 8th grade), but let me tell you - if you need something password protected, want to play a game of hangman, or see 8-bit style cat drawings, let me know :) (if this kid can program in three languages by the age of 12 and speak so well in front of lots of people, I figure I can (re)learn to program)

I also want to knit some new mittens for myself that my friend Hannah designed, but I've got to either find appropriate weight yarn or convince my dear sister that she should spin me some for Christmas. But I also want her to spin me some conductive fiber yarn (I know - so cool!) so I'm debating what I should persuade her to spin first :) conductive yarn = iPhone compatible gloves!

• finish a long winter coat I started 4 years ago. Yes, it still fits. I was just too lazy to get the snaps for the closure from the store....
• paint a large piece (or two!) of art for the MSE grad student 'lounge'. 

best part about this art - it's subtly MSE-geeky! The pattern is from the pattern used to define quasi-crystals in x-ray crystallography. The man who first discovered and published his discovery of quasi-crystals just won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry! Click the link to read his story, it was a long uphill battle convincing people that he was correct. (my advisor is/was a crystallographer, so he was very excited...)

Right now, the area inspires no creativity and is just one blah rose beige color. (the furniture is also atrocious, but I'm not going to deal with that yet. well, I may take the couch covers home to wash them, not sure when they were last washed...) I also need to bring some color/life into my personal half cubicle, but I'm kind of stuck with what to do with my space. Suggestions?

In reality, I'm pretty sure the next week is going to be filled with lingering paperwork I need to finish for research, so I'm not too hopeful about getting too many things done...but at least I'll be in a place with sun!

{art + science}

Probably most of the people who read this blog know that I love when art, design, and science come together - the results are both both beautiful and technically interesting. While I was aware of national SEM image competitions, recently I came across the 'Art of Science' competition from Princeton.

Would you believe this image represents the reversals of the Earth's magnetic field?

Or that this image models population dynamics?

This image captures some of the dynamics of a surfactant (soap) at a thin-film/silicon wafer interface: 

my new grad school goal: find out if the UW does anything like this and if not, make it happen. We even have an art museum on campus!

{I linked some of them above, but I've posted a bunch about art/fashion + science/tech on my other blog}

blessed.

I'm currently sitting in what is probably a multi-million dollar house in Queen Anne that has the most breathtaking view of Seattle I've ever seen. With a view similar to that of Kerry Park, the house is designed with 3 stories of windows that face out towards the water, so whenever you look outwards - there sits Seattle. I just can't get over how incredible the city looks at night.

{this is legitimately what the view looks like, only everything appears even closer and larger....}

tonight, I was supposed to edit NSF fellowship essays, but instead I've been sitting in a tastefully designed house drinking tea from an Olivia the Pig mug and enjoying being in the same room as my roommates. not gonna lie - this house is a beautiful combination of everything I've dreamed about in a house - open, spacious, lots of windows + natural lighting, decidedly minimalist, but still incorporating lots of floor-to-celling bookshelves full of english, art, design, and scientific literature.

we read love poems from a slim red volume, started a game of scrabble (but only got as far as 'daft', thanks Steph :) ), played with a soft hamster, and I finished editing some photos of my newest skirt.

all in all a good evening. so blessed to live in this city, to live with these women, to be pursuing a research degree in a field that I love, and as I was reminded last night while reading through Colossians 1, I'm so blessed to be a part of the Kingdom of Christ, forgiven and redeemed.

Art + HP = Wordle

You didn't even have to read the 22 pages and now you know all about my honors project :)