I'm a pretty bad fourth-year. My desk crits are vast, conversational emptiness. My project is now the shadow of a good idea. My effort in classes is at a minimum... what has DD done to me? Or better yet, what did that firm destroy in me? My hopes are low for many things right now. What am I going to do about grad school? I like fashion design, but I feel so stupid saying that to the other archies... it seems like it would be such an intellectually recessive decision. [ie the imagery of me being the misunderstood genius sewing and reading goethe in the corner of a big clothing design studio] ... it would be quite funny though. I also feel like I would be behind going into that field, not having a textile-related background, but maybe a spatially-oriented background could give me a unique perspective to come in from.
The whole Anthropology idea has sort of gone out the window. This class is absolutely tearing it to shreds for me. All the professor does is read student-submitted questions back to us during class, we watch a movie [every class] and read from a textbook designed for middle-schoolers. He has good intentions and he is a very nice guy, and intelligent, too, I'm sure but the way he runs his class is not making me more interested in the material at all. The book he chose is absolutely horrendous. Although I did become interested in a small blurb in the book from the last reading I took from it. The blurb was about the Minangkabau people of Sumatra. They are the largest matrilineal culture in the world, where land and economic means of a family are controlled by the women and passed on from mother to her daughters. Oh how amazing America could be... It makes me also wonder if this gender disparity makes a big difference in the way these people learn, visualize, construct things, and organize. I have always been taught that females don't have as great a three dimensional visual sense as boys, so does this reverberate in different ways in the things the Minangkabau produce? Is their aesthetic different? Or the things they value? Another article I found on my own, delved into the cultural values these people had - most of their mythology revolving around the mother her struggles, woes, her importance. I wonder how all of this translates into their material culture? Does the mind's eye of a female change the necessities of a given people? Are their priorities and therefore their self-organizational tasks very different from our own? I wonder if anyone has asked these questions before, or if they are superfluous?
Well, anyway at least that was a good read in the text for once.
Ah, I didn't get the chance to write about this yet, but in my previous lesson with Lisa - the new eq team coach - I got to ride Luke! It was so different than before. And kind of depressing to think about how different a person I used to be... before I even just took the break from riding in college. The "sense" I used to have when riding a horse seems gone, replaced by some dumb thoughts about people or my daily life - I hope this isn't adult thinking taking over my brain.... I would really prefer to keep my youth. But Luke seemed different, more angsty, smaller in size, and less bouncy than when I was younger. I came across pictures of me and Butzel, too. I didn't realize that he would be the horse I miss the most, but maybe it's because he sort of became my project as everyone else at the barn slowly stopped riding him. I remembered taking him out to ride in the rain one day and just cantering around the outdoor ring for what seemed like forever. He was always a nervous horse - being blind in one eye - and there was thunder and lightening out in the distance, but he didn't spook. He was so steady and calm that day, it was like he and I just understood this was a good thing to do. We had a mutual understanding and "need" to be out there in some of the most miserable conditions, just to be together and ignore the rain. It must sound so romantic to someone reading this... it really wasn't. I don't think I was even aware of the rain, and maybe he wasn't either. All I was aware of was his calmness, and mine too and the steady, consistent pace we kept out there it was as if we were just thoughts being processed through time. And then there was Bob - Tammy's horse. When Julia and I started moving around to different barns, Bob was my ride... usually she preferred Rudy - she'd been working with him for a long time. So I got to deal with Bob - the silly young guy with a number of tricks up his sleeves. Bob was green and had many things to learn, but that's what I liked best about him, he was a rebel, misunderstood, just like me as a teen. And then there was the day we were out having a lesson - it was some warm summer day at [ACME ?] I think that's the name of the barn we were at then... but I'm not really sure. It had a big barn with a small, sandy ring in the back, nestled under a steep ridge to the right and hills/woods to the back. I was riding Bob, and Julia was there with Rudy, Tammy on the ground giving us a tough groundwork lesson... and then I got Bob to really extend himself. He was usually always fussy, too into his own thoughts to let his legs and muscles fly out ahead of him, but for some reason he was responding to me. He was really doing an extended trot! Probably one of the most taxing and exhausting moves for a horse to do... and he was doing this for me. Well I saw Julia's eyes that day... and boy was she jealous. I'm pretty sure it was after that day she started riding both Bob and Rudy on our barn excursions and I got to cool them off, untack them, and groom them... only. After this I think I went onto the crazy mom and son barn - the one where they wanted me to move to Florida with them and be their points rider to earn them money... and me some pocket-change... basically for me to be a big, jumping jockey... yea that wasn't happening.
Ah, well that was a digression. Thankfully my legs have been getting better each week of riding. The first week I couldn't walk right until a day before my next lesson... that was a pretty sore week. This week I think it was maaybe a day or two of soreness and then I was back to going down the Greene stairs without looking like I was half-murdered.
Some sidenotes:
- dear blank, please blank is a great website
- zero energy design sucks and evokes too much thinking about the stupid "green" movement for it to be legitimate to me
- on that note: I HATE LEED
- also, I do like recycling because it ACTUALLY DOES SOMETHING
- I need my Salt Falts design to be more refined... hmmm
- the Adirondack job was a great let-down, but also maybe an indicator of something better...? [ I can only hope ]
Alright, well that's all for now... I'll probably have something more to say to distract me from this work in another hour or less...
- c
The whole Anthropology idea has sort of gone out the window. This class is absolutely tearing it to shreds for me. All the professor does is read student-submitted questions back to us during class, we watch a movie [every class] and read from a textbook designed for middle-schoolers. He has good intentions and he is a very nice guy, and intelligent, too, I'm sure but the way he runs his class is not making me more interested in the material at all. The book he chose is absolutely horrendous. Although I did become interested in a small blurb in the book from the last reading I took from it. The blurb was about the Minangkabau people of Sumatra. They are the largest matrilineal culture in the world, where land and economic means of a family are controlled by the women and passed on from mother to her daughters. Oh how amazing America could be... It makes me also wonder if this gender disparity makes a big difference in the way these people learn, visualize, construct things, and organize. I have always been taught that females don't have as great a three dimensional visual sense as boys, so does this reverberate in different ways in the things the Minangkabau produce? Is their aesthetic different? Or the things they value? Another article I found on my own, delved into the cultural values these people had - most of their mythology revolving around the mother her struggles, woes, her importance. I wonder how all of this translates into their material culture? Does the mind's eye of a female change the necessities of a given people? Are their priorities and therefore their self-organizational tasks very different from our own? I wonder if anyone has asked these questions before, or if they are superfluous?
Well, anyway at least that was a good read in the text for once.
Ah, I didn't get the chance to write about this yet, but in my previous lesson with Lisa - the new eq team coach - I got to ride Luke! It was so different than before. And kind of depressing to think about how different a person I used to be... before I even just took the break from riding in college. The "sense" I used to have when riding a horse seems gone, replaced by some dumb thoughts about people or my daily life - I hope this isn't adult thinking taking over my brain.... I would really prefer to keep my youth. But Luke seemed different, more angsty, smaller in size, and less bouncy than when I was younger. I came across pictures of me and Butzel, too. I didn't realize that he would be the horse I miss the most, but maybe it's because he sort of became my project as everyone else at the barn slowly stopped riding him. I remembered taking him out to ride in the rain one day and just cantering around the outdoor ring for what seemed like forever. He was always a nervous horse - being blind in one eye - and there was thunder and lightening out in the distance, but he didn't spook. He was so steady and calm that day, it was like he and I just understood this was a good thing to do. We had a mutual understanding and "need" to be out there in some of the most miserable conditions, just to be together and ignore the rain. It must sound so romantic to someone reading this... it really wasn't. I don't think I was even aware of the rain, and maybe he wasn't either. All I was aware of was his calmness, and mine too and the steady, consistent pace we kept out there it was as if we were just thoughts being processed through time. And then there was Bob - Tammy's horse. When Julia and I started moving around to different barns, Bob was my ride... usually she preferred Rudy - she'd been working with him for a long time. So I got to deal with Bob - the silly young guy with a number of tricks up his sleeves. Bob was green and had many things to learn, but that's what I liked best about him, he was a rebel, misunderstood, just like me as a teen. And then there was the day we were out having a lesson - it was some warm summer day at [ACME ?] I think that's the name of the barn we were at then... but I'm not really sure. It had a big barn with a small, sandy ring in the back, nestled under a steep ridge to the right and hills/woods to the back. I was riding Bob, and Julia was there with Rudy, Tammy on the ground giving us a tough groundwork lesson... and then I got Bob to really extend himself. He was usually always fussy, too into his own thoughts to let his legs and muscles fly out ahead of him, but for some reason he was responding to me. He was really doing an extended trot! Probably one of the most taxing and exhausting moves for a horse to do... and he was doing this for me. Well I saw Julia's eyes that day... and boy was she jealous. I'm pretty sure it was after that day she started riding both Bob and Rudy on our barn excursions and I got to cool them off, untack them, and groom them... only. After this I think I went onto the crazy mom and son barn - the one where they wanted me to move to Florida with them and be their points rider to earn them money... and me some pocket-change... basically for me to be a big, jumping jockey... yea that wasn't happening.
Ah, well that was a digression. Thankfully my legs have been getting better each week of riding. The first week I couldn't walk right until a day before my next lesson... that was a pretty sore week. This week I think it was maaybe a day or two of soreness and then I was back to going down the Greene stairs without looking like I was half-murdered.
Some sidenotes:
- dear blank, please blank is a great website
- zero energy design sucks and evokes too much thinking about the stupid "green" movement for it to be legitimate to me
- on that note: I HATE LEED
- also, I do like recycling because it ACTUALLY DOES SOMETHING
- I need my Salt Falts design to be more refined... hmmm
- the Adirondack job was a great let-down, but also maybe an indicator of something better...? [ I can only hope ]
Alright, well that's all for now... I'll probably have something more to say to distract me from this work in another hour or less...
- c
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