Dorm Design

Why aren't there realistic ideas for dorm room design?  I stumbled upon this collection of designs, all of which are fundamentally flawed.  Obviously, there's never that much space in a dorm room.  I am quite happy with the accommodations I've had at Brown so far.  They're generally pretty big... for a dorm room.  But that doesn't change the fact that there is far less space than pictured in furniture catalogs.  Another huge issue with the designs is that they don't feature anything resembling the furniture that comes with a dorm room.  Generally, the room has a twin extra long bed, a dresser, closet, desk, and chair already in it that the student has to work with.  The windows are also completely out of proportion.  Some dorms have great windows, and some do not.  However, I would guess that most dorm windows are not as large or as stylized as the photographs would lead one to believe.

Having stumbled, I continued in the same vein, coming across another collection, this time focusing on pieces from IKEA.  Besides the errors the first article had, this one also featured bright colored walls.  Maybe there's a school out there that allows students to paint, but I haven't heard of it if it exists.  Both collections also feature several pictures with lighting or decorations hanging from... the unseen ceiling one is left to assume.  Now, hanging things on dorm walls is difficult enough, so I am guessing those rooms belong to bored engineering majors.  And hanging lighting?  If its not included (which it probably isn't) a lot of rewiring would be necessary to achieve the look.  Highly impractical.  

Upon a little more searching, I found an article on dorm decorating that at least achieves a little accuracy.  The advice on bedding is pretty sound, and the section on storage isn't all bad.  Although it suggests raising the bed, and I'd add that some schools have rules about if/how you can do this.  The decorating advice, however, is really mixed.  It covers the basics (posters, no paint, check the rules, etc.) and mentions a few interesting ideas (chalk? could be great if you get stuck with cinder block walls).  I also definitely approve of creating your own, cheap art.  That way, you know best how you're gonna use it, and coloring/painting/whatever can be very relaxing when you have a rough schedule.  However, magnets might not be such a great idea.  In my experience, any metal that can hold a magnet is below waist level or up high.  Not exactly at eye level where you'll want to be concentrating your decorating efforts and dollars. 

A big part of dorm decorating comes in the form of posters, memo boards, white boards, etc.  What do these things have in common?  They all need to be put somewhere!  And when level surfaces run out, you'll want to try to hang them somewhere.  But how?  Magnets have their issues, and you probably can't do anything to put holes in the school's precious cinder block walls.  My white board came with little sticky pad things.  The idea is that you can stick it to the wall/door/closet/whatever and then remove it at the end of the year.  I put mine on my wardrobe (closet substitute) door where it stayed all year.  However, getting it off was wayyyy too hard.  So I wouldn't advise trying that.  The article also suggests hanging fabric, which can look great.  However, you're again getting into the difficulty of hanging something and such things can also be considered a fire hazard.      

Now, I'm aware that the majority of this post has been negative, but that's mostly because decorating a dorm room is difficult.  I'd love to see a design show tackle that challenge.  You have no money, you can't paint, change the furniture, or cause any damage to the room, the lighting is horrible, and its a small space.  I'm pretty sure the wimps on HGTV would have a breakdown about an hour in.

Phone Calls

I've never been the most confident person on the phone.  You can't really tell what the other person means without facial expressions and gestures.  And its hard to say exactly what you mean the first time.  No stuttering, no ums, likes, or hmmms.  It's not my strong suit.  I've gotten a lot better over the years, but now the source of my phone anxiety is professional phone calls.

For my internship, I've had to make a few phone calls to companies requesting price quotes on things.  This is an exceedingly awkward endeavor.  Not only do I have to talk on the phone to someone I don't know about something that they are ostensibly far more knowledgeable than I, but I inevitably come to a point in the conversation when I realize that I don't know the answer to their question.  I don't really know what the boss wants.

Earlier this summer I had the pleasure of various waste disposal companies requesting pricing information.  Who knew how much it cost for garbage pick up?  Beyond the awkwardness of the topic itself (who enjoys talking about garbage for that long?) the question that stumped me was something along the lines of, "What type of garbage do you have?"  How do you answer that?  "I dunno, its garbage!"  I'm sure the question was validated since I work at a research lab, but we do physics.  We won't be throwing out any crazy chemicals or biohazards.  And since we're based in my hometown, we're obviously too poor to have anything radioactive or otherwise interesting.  Our garbage is your standard, run-of-the-mill office garbage.  Lots of paper, some food waste, an occasional light bulb.

Today I'm calling a local glass company.  The fun part today is the sneaking suspicious that they think I'm insane for asking about this.  In case you've never researched glass companies, they advertise things like windows, mirrors, and table tops.  Not 1/2 inch square, 1/8 inch thick pieces of plain glass.  It's not exactly their usual request.  And yet, a-calling I go.

Luckily, this time it could be done.  Next time, who knows.

Echidna

So I'm watching a show on the National Geographic channel about the platypus, because that's how I spend my Sunday nights, when the narrator says that platypuses (There is no universally agreed plural of "platypus" in the English language.) lay eggs.  Now, this is a well known fact for anyone who took an interest in odd animals as a child.  However, at the same time it was mentioned that one other mammal lays eggs.  The curiosity demon teamed up with the deja vu demon simultaneously creating the feeling that I once knew what the other mammal was and creating an insatiable desire to reclaim that knowledge.  Thus, I googled. 

That mammal is the... echidna.  Link included to spare you the 10 seconds required to find the wikipedia page for yourself.

Not only does this fascinating little anteater lay eggs, the rest of its reproductive process is equally, if not more interesting.  You can read about it for yourself.  

Isn't nature just great?

3D Words (2)

A LILY-GIRL, not made for this world’s pain,
With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,
And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears
Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:
Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,
Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,
And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,
Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.
Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease,
Even to kiss her feet I am not bold,
Being o’ershadowed by the wings of awe.
Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice
Beneath the flaming Lion’s breast, and saw
The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.

— Oscar Wilde, “Madonna Mia”

Not fifteen minutes after I posted 3D Words, I found the poem above.  Applying the previous topic to poetry describing a girl, what would the creation of word-objects look like when people are being described?  I wonder how the muse of this poem compares to the reader's imagination.  Or, if there ever was a girl described by Wilde's words.  Has life ever been tied to these words, or do they exist only in the imagination Wilde has given the reader? 

3D Words

A contemplation of James Joyce's Ulysses.  What I found most interesting was the concept of a 3D object or place being another translation of the written word.  Generally, we think in the opposite direction, that language is a representation of an object, place, motion, concept, etc.  However, I could see this alternate view being useful.  I think of movie sets and movies themselves.  Film translates the language of a screenplay into two dimensions.  Likewise, plays are a translation into three dimensions.  This article supposes the same thoughts can be applied to other literary forms, namely the novel.  It's certainly an interesting idea.  Rather than expanding this sort of translation to longer forms, I imagine it being used on much briefer instances of language: a single word.  What would a 3D translation of a word look like, feel like?  

Take for instance, the word ball.  My schema for ball is a spherical object, not too large or heavy.  In fact, the first thing I think of is a rubber ball just about the size of my fist.  It is probably red, perhaps a result of reading too much as a child.  If you were to drop it, the ball would bounce about one third of the way back to your hand.  Now that is a ball.  But would the word ball incarnate look like that?  It has to be able to represent every ball in the world and everything the word has ever been used to describe.  Can all that be contained in a sphere the size of my fist?  And does that representation have enough of the word in it?  A word owns its sound and the feel of it upon your tongue.  That cannot be captured by a mere physical ball.  'Ball' contains every sound a ball has ever made while bouncing, falling, and being squeezed.  It includes the look of the word in thousands of different fonts and the handwriting of every child.  I don't think all that can fit into one finite sphere.

A word can be translated into a physical representation of one person's schema for that word.  But a word can never be completely three dimensional.  It would no longer be a word.

"Please set a title"

And today, another dose of things I like.

First, some amazing sounding cupcake recipes.  Try to avoid drooling on your computer.  The biggest question in my mind is which recipes to try first.  Any input on this matter would be most helpful.  My personal favorites (just going by looks) are numbers 30, 26, 24, 20, 17, 10, and 4.  And 1... definitely 1.

I also like this list of travel sites.  I spend a decent amount of time traveling, and a lot of time looking for the best deal, so I always like new tools to make my search easier.  One oversight, in my opinion, is bing's travel search.  While I don't use bing a lot, I really like how detailed you can make a search.  My Midwestern hometown has a very small airport, but there are several towns with mid-size airports within an hour.  I have also flown in and out of larger cities about three hours away.  Basically, there are a lot of different airports that I fly in and out of with different airlines.  The ability to choose the latest time I can get it is absolutely vital as I'm often trying to coordinate trains and car rides.  While this feature is nice, I'd really appreciate a travel site that would not just search airlines, but trains and buses as well.  If I could see combinations of multiple forms of transportation on one site, I would be sold.  I need a way to get from one specific location, to within x miles of another, as cheaply, quickly, safely, and efficiently as possible.  If anyone knows of a way to go beyond web sites that just search flights, please let me know.

And a little humor.

 

Returned

Well I've returned from a lovely vacation.  I took a week and went out to Seattle, WA, with a brief excursion to Victoria, BC.  'Twas fantastic.  We got unusually sunny weather, perfect for walks along various beaches.

My absence being explained, I'm gonna list a few interesting things I've seen.

This tutorial for making marshmallow fondant seems like it could work pretty well.  I haven't tried it yet, but my biggest concern is taste.  I've eaten cakes with fondant decorations before, but they've always been less than tasty.  The cake could be perfectly fine, but I've yet to taste delicious fondant.  However, this recipe sounds pretty good, and since it's certainly cheaper than buying fondant (not that I'd pay for that anyway) it could be worth a shot.  If/when I try it, I'll post my results.

Another interesting, unrelated article. 

And a website for Thai recipes.  My hometown doesn't have a Thai restaurant, which is terribly disappointing.  While on vacation, I rediscovered my love for Thai food (and Vietnamese, and Korean, etc).  I'm hoping to attempt a few of these recipes before I go back to school (in 15 days!) to a terrible little dorm kitchen.  My kitchen at home isn't great, but at least I have the basics at my disposal.  And when an ingredient or piece of equipment is missing, I just have to improvise.  Specialty ingredients may be hard to come by, but ingenuity is not.

Also, since when do I need a title?  Posterous....

This is an AMAZING site of Salvador Dali's artwork.  I tend to like the paintings that aren't strictly portraits but aren't too busy either.  I like a blend of simplicity and surrealism.  My biggest criticism of the site is that its hard to look through a lot of paintings at one time.  It gives you icons, but a slideshow option would be great.