Working in Shanghai

Working in Shanghai, originally uploaded by kjonasen dsgn.

I finally made it

Publishing Practices in Russian

Publishing Practices in Russian, originally uploaded by kjonasen dsgn.

architecture russianed my life

1.27.10 2009 YEAR IN REVIEW

Inspired by Nicolas Feltron’s annual reports, I decided to make my own year in review. The editor of Northeastern’s AIAS magazine saw the TheBus chart I made back in Hawai’i and asked me to make a chart for the ‘zine.

I went overboard, and it was totally worth it.

1.27.10 I think I finally fainted

A new year, a new studio, a twenty two credit semester, and more work than should ever be attempted by something that is a person. I’ve been sleeping on boards so that I don’t get to comfortable and sleep too long. I usually aim for 3-4 hours. Lots of times I wake up in pain because my legs fall asleep (just one at a time). I woke up at 03:00 yesterday and as I was walking into my room from the living room, my left leg fell asleep. It was tingling and stinging; I just needed to walk ten feet to my chair so I could rest. I took one step and felt a sharp pain coursing through my body beginning at my left ankle and ending in the center of my brain. The inability to sufficiently feel my left foot had caused me to take my first step not on the sole of my foot, but instead on the side of my ankle. With my ankle bent inwards perpendicular to my other foot. I distinctly remember the sharp pain.

Then I woke up face-down on my floor. It was quarter to four.

twilight hours

Everyone has their twilight hours. It’s that time of the night during an all-nighter (double/triple all-nighter perhaps?) when the battle against sleep reaches its climax. A bottomless mug of coffee in one hand and a monster in the other (the energy drink and/or a small gremlinesque creature) are no match for the twilight hours. Maybe I’m crazy; maybe I just need to switch to amphetamines.

From what I gather from the other architecture majors, 04:00 to 06:00 seem to be the toughest. Personally, I am tortured from 02:00 to 04:00. During these twilight hours, the mind struggles to focus while the body, like a well programmed machine, takes to work. It is essential that the architecture student sets aside a few hours of work for the time spent during this state of near inebriation. Showering, eating, and laundry are all valid options. (Saving the complex three-dimensional computer modeling for the times you are actually inebriated.) I tend to get the urge to write.

The sun rises; twilight hours end; strength and hope circulate through the students’ minds and bodies. The energy to begin another day returns. It’s as if the mind was lagging in its processing speed and after restarting, returned to normal with just the press of a button. The sun also brings the warning that day had turned to night and the night back into day. This is made more evident when one watches the reflection of the rise and fall and rise of the sun on the windows of Egan, the hall adjacent to Ruggles 100. It’s almost time for class; final preparations should be starting by now; panic ensues. The hours between twilight hours and a deadline race by. By the time the review is over and you and your archie friends are safely out of the cold Bostonian air and nestled in the darkness of the nearest dive bar, it finally hits you: you haven’t slept or eaten in God-knows-how-long, your socks are soaking wet from the last minute run to Kinkos, and your mohawk looks more like the sad, drooping hump of a domesticated orca whale. This is your life; for some bizarre reason, you crave more.

drink up