mercat: (Default)
On the one hand, it's this ancient fictionalized culture that is constantly begging for reimagination.

On the other hand, its historicality is... essentially nothing. As far as I understand it, and I need to do more research, but-- it was basically understood to be this joke place that no one took seriously (until much later after the Greeks and Romans, I mean like the 1400s I think?). And as far as I can tell, I do think it was Minoan Crete or something close to there (Mycenae?).

And as fascinated as I am with Minoan culture because of its art and its related mythologies (the minotaur-- not a Minoan story but a later mythology likely based on its existence), it kind of kills my ideas about what Atlantis is.

I'm getting super judgmental about it, too. I have this idea that I can't pin down, and it's really frustrating me, especially in regards to the current project we're doing in studio. We have to build an ancient burial site, but the restrictions are MAJOR, which was frustrating enough. Then I'm trying to find a place for it in my head with an appropriate structural decoration-- no, too Mayan, no, too Angkor Wat, no, too Indian, no, too Dinotopia.

I'm not satisfied. All of these distinct styles and even though I love them, I feel constrained by them. It's the same problem I have with classical Greek (and Roman) styling-- it's overused and too heavily styled.

I think I'm struggling to find my own defined style. Which is proving to be a huge challenge, because I'm trying to remove it from any sense of cultural appropriation or historical basis, but when you can't picture in your mind a place on this planet to put a building... what do you do?! No site, no structure.

I feel like sometimes I'm just slamming my head into a brick wall repeatedly at my own hand and I don't know what to do about it. But it's the only way to move forward?

Addendum: I also can't determine a style to go with an Atlantis that I already have semi-conceived. I have a few ideas, but the whole thing is very nebulous, and it's very hard to define something when your only tools are "definitely not A, B, or C". And as much as, ah, Victorian neoclassical? (not sure what to call it-- think Shedd aquarium) fits into it, I hate some very distinct parts of it and even though Atlantis should be Mediterranean, I HATE GREEK AND ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.

With a burning fiery passion.

fuuuuuck everythiiiiing
mercat: (Default)
I'm too good at it.

...Where you win if you can research obscure things? That, or I'm way too fucking stubborn and I insist upon running my results dry time after time.

Other than tracking down sold-out items from over a year ago, I have successfully tracked down a lot of things recently. It has only made me wish that databases were more comprehensive, so instead of searching 50 sites I would only have to search one. This is especially a problem with online shopping, where a small store may have exactly what you want, but it doesn't show up on Google Shopping or Amazon and their site is basically unsearchable or undiscoverable unless someone else points you directly there. BUT I DIGRESS.

Earlier this week our professor challenged us to find a slightly meme-ish image of what looked like the Michael Jackson of zebras. His head was striped, his upper torso was white, his back was striped, and his back legs were white.

First of all, don't google "half white zebra" because you get nothing but pages of "ARE ZEBRAS HALF WHITE WITH BLACK STRIPES OR BLACK WITH WHITE STRIPES LOLOLOL".

Second, in under five minutes I found the image by trying "albino zebra" and then I believe "partially albino zebra" which led me to a page about zorses. And zonies. Which are half zebras, half horse/pony, and are generally bred in Africa (much like other places get donkeys, and they are most often sterile as well) because zebras have some natural biological defenses they can pass on.

Uh and then in class Thursday we were talking about what a temple is, thematically, and for a brief few moments the prof had an image of a buddha on the screen, of course with no source. HOWEVER I realized that under this seated buddha was a script that was too familiar... A script from the old online COSI: Adventure game that was linked from their site (to LiveScience?) a while back. I think the game is still up if you have a direct link.

ANYWAY, the online game was based slightly on the Adventure! exhibit, but without a lot of the originality, probably because of time/money constraints. (I'm not complaining, it was made for 8 year olds, approximately, I'm most likely the only person who ever cared.) However, given my extensive gradeschool examination of Egyptology, I recognized that one of the... uh... sacred items? that they used in the game was a slightly photoshopped version of an Egyptian alabaster papyrus-lotus vase.

Anyway, eventually you have to crack a code, and if there's one thing about me, I LOVE CODES. I was always upset though that you never got a good look at all 26 letters, because you never used them all, and the closest you would get is the "dictionary" you would get, but since it was a very low-quality shockwave file, you couldn't look at it too closely to get a good enough idea, either.

I always assumed they found some random font (which, tbh, they probably did) and just threw it on there. That, or they made it up, which was awesome. And since I never found anything about it, I just kept on assuming it was awesome and went on my merry way. I took the character that kind of looked like a "d" (I don't know what character they used it as) and I think I have it as my random icon on a few different sites-- Twitter I know to be one.

UNTIL THURSDAY.

So I'm sitting there looking at this buddha, which I know absolutely jack shit about except that we're currently discussing stupas in terms of temple design and what they are, and under this buddha are TWO TO THREE LINES OF THIS TEXT WHERE SOME OF THE CHARACTERS LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THIS CODE

AND I'M ALL LIKE "HOLY SHIT OMG I FOUND IT" WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY "OH FUCK NO IT'S NOT ORIGINAL I AM LE SADFACE"

And then the prof decided to not post the presentation, from which I was hoping to steal the image so I could try to tineye it. False! Hahaha, just kidding.

So I googled combinations like "seated buddha sculpture ancient stone hand raised" for about thirty minutes, pretty much ever permutation of ideas ever and then decided to try a library image database. I tried to be a bit more general and tried things like "seated buddha" and "buddha sculpture" and eventually I stumbled upon one that was SIMILAR but not exactly the same sculpture (and was much plainer, had no text, etc.). So I took one of the title words from that, not knowing what it meant and tried Googling it, nothing. Took that back to the art database, found an even closer-looking image! Took a different word from the title/description, tried Googling that, SUCCESS! So then I tried googling/wikipedia-ing that, etc. to try to find more, plus "city name of sculpture + text" and FINALLY came across a wikipedia page that had some ancient script information.

It was very close, but not quite in the ballpark enough yet. So I clicked through to several different pages, and a few more from there, and I have a few pieces here, and a few pieces there, and at this point I think I'm pretty darn close and I need an expert or to sit down side-by-side with the "code" and pick out each one individually.



So... I have completion problems, I guess. Or research fascinates me too much, I don't know. Or I'm too stubborn. OR I'M TOO GOOD AT THE INTERNET.

Anyway.

On a completely unrelated note, I've noticed I've gotten more in shape this week. I call it "skinnyface" from tour but it's usually about three weeks into alldays for me when I realize that I'm exercising and eating well and I have lost weight. I don't know if I can chalk it up to bloating or something? Because it always seems to be something I notice overnight, one day and not any day before, which doesn't seem possible. But at any rate, I've also been very tired and physically worn out again this week, though not feeling sickly-tired like I did two weeks ago. So I don't know? Maybe this trying-to-eat-healthy thing is too much undereating? What I've found is that I am much better about controlling what I eat (that is, not eating too many junk foods) when I control the shopping. I'm still probably not working enough fruits and veggies into my daily diet as opposed to grains and dairy and delicious, delicious pizzas (I'm serious [Red Baron 4-Cheese]), but I'm trying to slowly edge myself into a healthful diet that I enjoy. I could eat a veggie diet that I bet would be supremely healthful but I would probably get sick of it very quickly. Not to mention hooooow fucking expeeensiiiive fruits and veggies are. Well, everything in Hawaii.

So anyway, that's what five-miles-a-day-bicycling-on-all-hills and dropping 75% of the junk food will do.

Last week I tried to make it my mission to, instead of buying lots of frozen things and eating them one day at a time, to buy some bulk food items and make enough for a long time (ignoring the fact that I still have pasta sauce in the fridge and my mom just mailed me two cans of skyline! AUGH OM NOM THE TEMPTATION). I bought shrimp and rice and all the supplies for garlic shrimp, it was STUPIDLY EXPENSIVE. Partly because I now have enough garlic shrimp-making flavorings for, uh, the rest of the year, but whatever. On day three I was already sick of garlic shrimp. What the fuck? I hate my food-moods. I've eaten almost nothing but pizza for about three weeks, this is some crap. I like pizza but I AM TRYING TO GET SOME HEALTHFUL VARIETY UP IN THIS BITCH MIX. I'm mostly pissed because it seems like a waste of money if I'm not going to eat it, WHICH I NEED TO BEFORE IT GOES BAD, and especially if I keep in this pizza-and-italian-food rut for the rest of the semester. Fuck.

So, uh... I'm kinda learning to cook? Not that I can't, given an adequate recipe, it just takes up SO MUCH FUCKING TIME and I HATE IT.

I think next up might be coco loco chicken!!!!!11! though, because ON NOM DELICIOUS but also omg chicken?! With lime curry sauce you bet your ass

It is delicious.



...Aaaaand I didn't do my pushups for this week (again), I am a failure. As much as I would like to be able to do and gain all the benefit from pushups, I JUST HATE IT and I've totally let it slip my mind this week.

Which I'll say is forgiveable since I now have to spend the entire fucking weekend in the stupid studio AGAIN. Free time on a weekend?! What the fuck is that?! I would like to fucking GET OUT ON A BIKE RIDE THANKYOUVERYMUCH

Luckily next weekend is a long weekend with no homework over it aaaaaand the student architecture club is having a sand castle building contest. FOR REALZ, Y'ALL
mercat: (Default)
I indentified an ancient Egyptian alabaster lotus vase from a fuzzy dvd still from memory, and that is normal for me. Reminding me once again that I have a strange elementary-school background in ancient cultures and not in 90's pop culture. I'll take it

In the continuing roommate saga, no immediate updates. Nothing else has gone missing, so I haven't left any notes. However I'm buying a 24 pack of ice cream bars tomorrow, so we shall have to keep an eye on that. On the other hand, another week's worth of dirty dishes sit in the sink, and yesterday's apparently-weekly have-people-over-and-cause-chaos-in-the-shared-communal-spaces continued. This time a big pot of hamburger helper something or other with cheese sits out (at least with a lid this time), and all the bowls used to cook it and eat it. And then all the bowls and cups and utensils used to make smoothies of some kind, and all of these eating containers are just strewn about the counters, including the bar counter which has a few bowls on it filled with food mess and water. Because the counter where people put their mail and shit is a good place for more dirty dishes. Also-also, no counters wiped down, more food on the floor, I don't go barefoot in this apartment anymore. Depending on how things go with the food missing or not missing, I might leave a note out about fucking cleaning up after yourself.

On the other hand, girl-roommate had a birthday party for her mom and knocked on my door to offer me cake, so at least we seem to be getting along. :D

Grad school, otherwise! Going well. Architecture is seeming to be a lot more work than engineering, but I can also pay attention in class more. Don't ever replicate floor plans if you can help it, and if you can't, get somebody minimalist. I had to do Wright, whose work I love, but jesuslordhell I spent five hours on one damn floor plan. It looks beautiful as all getout, though, that shit's going on my walls.

Speaking of walls, I need to decorate my room. Right now it's kind of... stuff strewn everywhere... to give my brain a sense of filled space. I, apparently, detest empty space. (So minimalism = not my thing. Not livable and it explains my compulsion for detailing.) I wish I could paint the walls a dark color, the Generic Dorm Color OffWhite No. 78 is really getting to me. I just watched all of Firefly and I have this urge to decorate my whole room like a space ship lodging, but that's just not really feasible. (On the other hand, I noticed a lot of architecture students seem to waste a lot of thin MDF after they use the laser-cutter on it... I may be able to salvage those scraps into something, but then what am I going to do with it when I have to move?)

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