The hand that procrastinates is (rather, will eventually be) a tired hand.

Before the Christmas break I knew I had a plate to do for ID 11. Recalling last year’s holiday season, where I never got a free day from December 24 until January 1, I decided early on that I’d be doing my plate after the new year. I didn’t have a day when I wouldn’t be out of the house or cooking/helping out. This kind of situation isn’t very good for plate-making. The ideal would be (at least) one whole day when I could just stay upstairs without appointments, phone calls or other activities (like showers).

December 29 came along and while I was checking my facebook account, the following words grabbed my attention:

ID BLOCKMATES

FORMAT

ID 20 PLATE

Wait… what?

What ID 20 plate??

I asked (quite covertly) for more information and it dawned on me that my prof did mention something about having us do a plate wherein we’d mix colors that she’ll specify in a list. But it escapes me how I totally missed hearing her say that we’d be doing it over the vacation.

I still went on with my plan of starting my plate (now plates) after January 1st, since I really didn’t have any break prior to this. Surprise, surprise! I procrastinated as usual. I only started this morning and as planned, thankfully, I finished the ID11 plate within 4 hours. As for the ID20 plate, I still have a bit of time in the following days because it’s due on Jan 7.

whew!

…And, apparently, vacation happened as well. Anyway, back to what I was supposed to do…

My other two majors aren’t so generous on the plates, but still there’s a lot of activity. ID 14 is History class, and in my case it’s more like a review of what I learned in architecture. We have readings, reports and quizzes, and the occasional plate. So far we’ve reached up to the ancient Greek period. Here’s the plates so far:

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Greece

ID 20, on the other hand, is Theory class. It’s less structured than History, so we have more of hands on activities like conceptualization and shape transformation supposedly to help us design better and with basis. This is a second year class, so presumably the sophomores have had some design principles taught to them by the design classes they took in architecture (Arch 10 and Arch 20). Here’s my favorite plate (just because it’s my favorite):

part 1: take a fruit/vegetable then dissect and make rendered studies of it.

part 2: make an abstracted pattern based on your dissected fruit/veggie

And because I’m a lazy little girl, I’m ending it here. I have other classes (Bio 1 and HE 101) but I’m not in the mood for writing about them just yet. haha.

—

Christmas break is almost over! Time to cram my over-the-vacation plates and learn to wake up early again! OTL

It’s Christmas vacation already and this is my first post since the first week of 2nd semester. What happened? School happened, that’s what. Since my schedule is whole day this sem, I don’t have afternoons off like last time. The only time I could go online was at night when I’m home, but that time is often spent on plurk, gmail, or chatting with my boyfriend. And often while online, I’m also working on something else for school in front of Nanashi, my laptop. I do have a gigantic 4-1/2 hour break on Fridays, but so far that time has been spent doing errands that I should’ve done during sembreak.

So here’s a quick wrap-up of my schoolwork.

ID 11 plates are surprisingly fun to do, so far. Every meeting we do a plate in class, but before that our prof (Current CHE dean, Prof. Mayo) does a demonstration on the blackboard, showing drawing techniques and her expected output. This is AWESOME. Some of the things we’ve done I already knew from Architecture, but most of it I learned from my work experience. I’ve been talking with my Archi shiftee friends and we all had the same observation that the teaching method in ID is way different than that in Archi. Not that I’m putting down my home college, but I’m just stating that the approach is different. We had a class in Archi that’s similar to this (Arch 2: Monochromatic Rendering), and my experience was that the profs basically describe a drawing technique, maybe demonstrate a little, then make us draw a particular subject (fruits, the hallway, our classmate, a tree). That’s it. The difference in ID is that we are shown the preferred output. Architectural and Interior Design drawings are often different than artistic renderings, and that was the distinction that is pointed out in ID 11.

Wait, I said “quick wrap-up”, right? LOL here’s my plates so far:

the “tree-plants” (pencils)

collection of round and shiny objects (pencils)

collection of soft furnishings (pencils)

Different interior finishes (pencils)

shiny objects+soft furnishings+interior finishes (ink)

spot perspective with stone, brick, wood, marble, mirror, acoustic board, & tile (ink)

My ID 11 prof  with her demonstration drawing on the blackboard

The first week of classes have passed, and all I can say is: WTH

First of all, a few of my classes are postponed until next week, and because of that I got them all mixed up. I thought my WF class was on TTh and vice versa. I also did a lot of errands which I really should’ve done during sembreak but I was too excited to begin bumming again that I didn’t think of them. So there. I did a lot of run-arounds with offices, banks and other stuff, all the while being inefficient and indecisive. I did a lot of bad decisions (knowingly or otherwise) which cost me a few attendances missed.

Let’s just say I would like to forget this past week. This isn’t a good start. I hope the next ones would be better.

A glitch in the matrix, perhaps? No, actually it’s more like a long-running tradition. On the first few days of classes, there really isn’t much to do other than wait in vain for professors. Through personal experience and by experience of others, I can attest to this. Well, except for a few abberations like a certain non-lazy LA prof a friend has told me about. All you can do is hope for at least one of the following things:

(1) somebody announces early on that the prof isn’t coming (and says when the actual first class will be)

(2) you have classmates you know and/or can chat with to pass the time

(3) you have some sort of entertainment with you (book, music player, portable gaming console, a singer & dancer…)

Also, if you have another class after this first one, then you might as well plan in advance where to spend the rest of the hours outside the classroom (especially if hope#1 occurred). A mall, an internet shop or a nearby cafe/restaurant should be good options.

Thankfully for me, I ran into some 2nd year friends (on their way to Trinoma, probably because they had the same fate as I) who told me that some my afternoon class and the one tomorrow morning are postponed until next week. Amazing! Time to go home, then.

Expect many more first day posts to be like this. :p

As with any college in UP, the first day of Advising/Enrollment is dedicated to the Graduating students and Freshmen.

I’ve already graduated and has just started attending school in another college.

Um… so what’s my status again?

I think I’m on Freshman standing, but my CRS page says otherwise. Oh what the heck. I trooped down to CTID on this first enrollment day and asked Ate Tess.

me: Ate Tess, ano ba ang standing ko?

AT: *checks computer* Ah, regular.

me: ganun? Pero pwede ba akong magpa-advise ngayon?

AT: hmmm… ikaw.

me: ok! *writes down name on list*

Haha so that’s that. I was able to have my advising done today. But the trouble was, I wasn’t able to enlist in the ID subject I was lacking because I was on “Regular” status so I could only enlist starting tomorrow. Oh well. I’m going back tomorrow anyway, so it wasn’t a hassle.

I had one FAIL moment, though. I didn’t know I had to have my grades in a slip of paper countersigned by Kuya Sam at the enlistment room before I went to my asviser. So I had to go out and back again. Other than that, the day went by pretty smoothly. Before lunchtime I was on my way to SM North to have lunch and get a haircut.

After the week-long break from school due to freaky weather, classes in UP resumed but it didn’t exactly pick up where it left off. Profs spent entire periods with discussions about the preceding week, student experiences, and sharing. In ID114 we even discussed the issues that have been brought to attention because of recent activities from environmental to political to solutions designers may do to avoid such things happening again.

Some exams were waived, final requirements lessened. So for the final week I had a, ID10 group paper, an ID114 18th-19th century furniture long test and an ID24 scaled interior model and presentation.

ID10 was easy enough, since all I had to do was delegate parts of the paper to my groupmates, edit, compile and send it to another groupmate for printing.

The ID114 exam had 2 centuries worth of coverage, and these periods were particularly confusing for me. Most of Western furniture in the 18th and 19th centuries were “copies of” or “inspired by” past motifs or designs, and they’re pretty difficult to differentiate. We had readings, sure, about an inch thick wad of photocopies which I read only the night before. Crammer resurrection, anyone? The exam wheezed by, and I was able to properly answer most of the items, although I couldn’t say I nailed it. I think I was the one who got nailed. haha

The last requirement to go was ID24 where we had to present an interior model of a room in the Asian house assigned to us. My group had a Chinese courtyard house. We basically made a model of the photos of the house we got. Our group was scheduled to be the first presenters, and up to the last minute  we were superglue-ing the final details. Thank God we finished right on time! Because of our last minute construction, our presentation was weak, but to tell the truth we were the more fortunate ones. Also, the final product made us so proud

So that was the final week of my first semester redux. How will my next semesters fare? Will I revert to crammer extraordinaire? Or will I be a grown-up professional? Maybe both? We’ll just have to find out. But for now, I take my leave! See you next sem!

I passed by OVCSA this afternoon and confirmed what I heard on the news earlier:

Classes are suspended this week and will resume on Monday, October 5, 2009

This gives students (as well as faculty and staff) the opportunity to DONATE, VOLUNTEER and HELP the victims of Typhoon Ondoy in any way we can.

Here’s a helpful compilation of ways to help.

And another helpful list!

Let’s go!

Also, from Chancellor Cao, end of classes has been moved from October 8 (Thursday) to October 13 (Tuesday). Integration period is moved from October 9-10 to October 14. Final exams for graduating students is moved from October 12-14 to October 15-19. Final exams for other students is moved from October 12-20 to October 15-22.

… honestly, I have no idea what “Integration period” is… HAHA

Classes are suspended due to the unforseen OMG-that’s-a-lot-of-water that Tropical Storm Ondoy (international name: Ketsana) has dumped upon NCR and its surrounding provinces.

Excuse me while I stare at the TV in awe.

This view outside my window is nothing compared to the waterworks elsewhere in the metro.

It’s been raining since Saturday, and I haven’t done anything much besides this ID24 plate.

The class was given a typical bedroom layout and we had to choose an Asian country and design the room in accordance with our chosen country’s look.

I chose Indonesia.

Does it look Indonesian enough?

I was trying to layout the perspective, pictures and material swatches on a 15″x20″ board.

I got a Wood laminate flooring sample from the nearby Wilcon Depot. But guess where I got my other material samples?

hahaha