A change of scenery can help one's thought process a lot. Sitting on top of the photo drying racks, I'm thinking about grad school. I've been musing the idea of going to faraway schools and the type of things I'll do afterward. I've also been terribly anxious from school, work, and home. Historically this is the worst time of year for me and I think for once I need to change my attitude, especially if I'm gonna apply to schools. Kristen wrote about holding oneself accountable, especially for the things most important to you. I think that's something very important in our lives and can easily fall off the radar if we don't pay attention.  Making sure we take care of ourselves is important.  No one is going to tell you to exercise everyday or eat properly, take care of your main interests and find meaning in things.  No one is going to think critically for you; it's your responsibility.

The Penrose Square

After reading a comic on my professor's door last Friday I decided to run with an idea for a drawing on my bedroom wall. This took up the majority of the day. I hadn't done a connect the dots game since sixth grade. I found a website that I could print a diagram from. These utilize math problems to advance the lines. Quadratic equations were as far as I wanted to go; I never got past trig in high school. Done in permanent marker and acrylic paint.











It's funny that this is an object drawn by completing a series of math problems yet no math can explain Oscar Reutersvard's Penrose Square.

Taz is trying to tell me to relax by laying on my arms as I try and write this paper. I left the photo lab late tonight. It's a little unsettling to return to a lifeless house after work, but then there's the cat. I imagine living on my own isn't too far along the road, at which point it's me and Taz. In certain ways, I'm living as though I have my own place this school year. Work and school have kept me incredibly busy. The time I would otherwise spend at home with roommates is spent visiting people and working on personal projects. I'd like to learn some French before this proposed bicycling trip across Europe next summer. I still need some basic gear so I don't die, or at the very least bonk out in the mountains. I also keep thinking about giving the trip some larger purpose than just traveling a ton, such as making a message about climate change and the environment. That doesn't mean I can't see a lot of stuff in the process. :)

"Animal Logic"

I visited the UMMA for the first time in a while today. There's an exhibit on the first floor, a series called "Animal Logic" by Richard Barnes, that I enjoyed a lot. His huge prints of natural history installations are incredible to look at. So incredible, perhaps, because of the juxtaposition with human beings and taxidermy. At first it's pretty strange to look at these and you might wonder, "What the hell?" But I think it's pretty clear when you go through the series the comment Barnes is trying to make. The giraffe is my favorite.

"Museums, like warehouses, are containers of the dead... great warehouses of objects." -Richard Barnes

You can see the exhibit's site here.
These small images don't do the series justice though, as some of the prints are five feet in length, so go see it.

Oh yeah, today is Gandhi's birthday.