Bleedin' EVERYTHING!

I had meant to write an update right after spring term ended-- about the things I'd done and the things I'd learned and these oddly prevalent illusion chairs at ICFF:

Seriously, iterations of that were everywhere. And they were not comfortable.

And the iPad on the Segway at the Apartment of the Future:

What a crappy photo. The Apartment of the Future is dim and bluish. 

And a lot of other design-y stuff (rest in peace, Massimo Vignelli!) but the last half of Spring term is kind of a blur in my mind. It's a weird sensation-- if I need a piece of information, it's in the brains, but I'm not always sure how it got there. For example, I'm pretty good at Solidworks (a 3D modeling program that is the current standard in ID) but damned if I can remember a minute of Solidworks II class. I know the teacher was fine, and I went to every session, and I know I did the assignments, but it was the third class on a Monday and apparently I was too fried to be fully there. I guess as long as the knowledge stuck it's fine, and I'm going to chalk any memory gaps up to chronic fatigue, but it's still weird. 

I'm working two jobs and an internship this summer, to my intense relief (I can pay my own rent again! I never thought the idea of paying rent could delight me so much). There are a lot of snooty unpaid internships out there and a lot of weird ones too. I went to an interview in a very glossy downtown office where they had me sculpt little play-doh animals while talking about my hobbies. I didn't get that job. 

I wound up helping design a bikeshare bike, doing metal work for an architectural fabrication company, and doing something pertaining to spacesuits which I can't talk about because I signed an NDA (did you know that spacesuits are weapons? I didn't) and because it hasn't started yet. I'm also taking an intensive Japanese class, which has mountains of homework. So there goes my summer. 

WEAPON!

It'll be interesting to spend half my week as a tidy, Solidworks-doing, Japan Society-vising, clean-nailed person and the other half covered in metal shavings. I suppose if I just did one I would miss the other a great deal, so this arrangement is probably for the best, but it feels so unsettled... 

After I got off work today I rode out along the East River then did the Prospect Park Loop a couple of times. It was a great pleasure to pull the locust blossoms off the low hanging branches and eat them as I rode. It was a pleasure to ride nowhere in particular, not fretting or trying to figure anything out. It was a pleasure to see Manhattan across the river, so shiny and attainable. I think it's important to recharge and be content once in a while, though contentment is definitely not my default setting. 

If one piece of information penetrated my sleepy brains this past year it's that there's a whole lot more to know than I thought there was. About everything. 

Bleedin' EVERYTHING!

-Isis