I can't believe it's already the end of the year. The months flew by far too quickly! It feels like just yesterday I was saying goodbye to my friends back in Malaysia! It's amazing, really ...
Anyway! Life has been far from mundane this whole month. Productivity level was at its peak. I've experienced so many new things that it's difficult to keep track of it all. I'll have to back track using the photos I've taken; one of the only extremely typical Asian habits that I'm proud of since it helps me overcome my goldfish memory (I will never shake this habit off! NEVER!).
Prepare to absorb far too much information! LONG POST AHEAD.
---
Let's talk about the many weathers of Glasgow. Never in my life have I experienced so much change in weather erh mah gerd. I've lived in Cape Town, a place known for it's 4-season-a-day weather, but I'd like to politely beg to differ when I say Glasgow is heaps more extreme in its hormonal weather changes. One day it's sunny but freezing cold, another it's raining like a sonavabitch but it's warm as fuck. I woke up to the colour of utterly dismal weather one time, GREY, due to the thickest of fog. And I could've sworn Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians was stalking the shit out of me the other day, 'cause every time I went outside, it began to snow; like literally (also, lets not disregard that today was my first time experiencing snowfall and it was really magical!). Also, 21mph wind Needs no explanation.
Here are the photos of the grey I was talking about. Very grey right?!
Okay the panoramic doesn't do justice to how truly foggy it was. In reality though, you can see the end of the streets. It's like the horizon-line disappeared!
And here is a video of the snow fall we were caught in the other day. Amazing ... (❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ* but DIS SHIT CRAY GURL.
---
SO WHART'S BEEN HAPPENING IN NOVEMBER EYH?!
Too many things. Let's summarize it one by one.
1) After mid-term presentation, we all celebrated the beautiful Giulia's birthday! :D She's the only person in studio who's the same age as me so I feel we have a special connection (LOL-telepathy). It was a great night! Finally got a chance to properly spend time with the studio mates over drinks.
I really love this photo. Look how good we look!
And of course, someone had to get some attention by leaping into the photo.
With Gillian and Gianluca. (◡‿◡✿)
This gigolo was trying to be Asian but failed miserably. Good try though *pat pat*.
Me, looking like an alcoholic.
｡◕‿◕｡
A super nice group photo of us! ヽ(^。^)丿
2) One of the weeks of Nov (can't remember when, seriously), folks from Japan; Chiba University and Fujitsu came over for a "workshop week" thing (which turned out to now be very productive at all). We presented our work to the Japanese folk and got to know them etc.
I feel kinda bad for not being enthusiastic about them coming over to Glasgow (don't remember why. Either stress or depressed haha), but at least we got to have a little fun together just before they returned home! An impromtu pizza-beer-post-it party was thrown! :) I don't remember how the post-it idea started but sooner or later, everyone started writing each other's names/nicknames in their language on post-its and exchanging them. Our studio looked like it was hit by an explosion of colour.
On the left, unnie and I showing off some Brit-gangster signage or something (WE ASIANS SO IT MEANS "PEACE" MMKAY). In the middle, Gianluca being a complete alcoholic. On the right, Fukuo being hilarious and Amy being kawaii! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧
Look at Rika in the middle. She looks like a model for an advert! LOL! And Gaku on the right, doing God knows whart.
☆*･゜ﾟ･*\(^O^)/*･゜ﾟ･*☆
And awesome group photo with the Japanese students! I hope in the future I can go find them again, if so ever I get the chance to go to Japan. Keep in touch! Mata o ai shimashouuuuu! (★^O^★)
3) So, only a few people know that I took Analysis and Self Analysis as an elective this term; which is basically a class about psychoanalysis. And, especially my sister, knew how much I struggled understanding fucking Sigmund Freud and his complex interpretations of dreams, the mind, thoughts, self conscious bla bla *vomit blood*. It's not that I don't find it interesting, in fact, I think it's an amazing topic to discuss on! I just found it hard to mentally absorb the amount of information my lovely lecturer was trying to force feed us. But in the end, I found it great, and was genuinely disappointed that this elective wasn't available for next term.
I especially loved the exercise my studio mates and I did for one of the psychoanalysis classes! My lecturer requested that we did an exercise solely based on the topic of hospitality. So we came up with something called, "A secret at seveneight".
Basically, we all gathered at Chris's place to have a little get together. We all prepared food and all that for dinner; but not only did we have to prepare food, but also a very personal secret. With that secret, we would anonymously write it down on a piece of paper, pass it to Chris's flatmate to re-write it again, and then his flatmate would distribute the secrets to different people. So, someone has my secret, and I have someone else's, but we don't know which secret belongs to who.
And then during the night, we would try to expose the secret that we're holding (being aloof about it, of course), while analyzing each other, and then the next day in class, we would attempt to guess the secrets that each of us have in hand. IT WAS EPIC. It was like an epic mind/acting game.
A formal photo (as evidence that we did this exercise haha).
With our secrets! Look at Gianluca being all mysterious and isolated at the corner!
Chris, collecting our secrets to deliver to ...
.jpg)
... THE GODS (or his flatmates' who technically were playing the role of Gods, since they know ALL of our secrets!).
｡*:★ヽ(＾▽＾人(＾▽＾)人(＾▽＾)ﾉ｡:゜★｡
Here are the secrets! Open for you to read, but you won't know which belongs to who. (*-`ω´- )
Here's us singing to the Italian in all of our native languages (apologies for not delivering BM in a more graceful manner). EXCUSE MY DISGUSTING VOICE. I know, I sound manly and my laugh is horrendous.
I mean, look at this place! It's gorgeous! It's a cafe bar club whatever omg I'm in love! (✿ ♥‿♥)
Here are some photos Gillian took! Me, unnie and Stefania.
The big group of Italians! °˖ ✧◝(○ ヮ ○)◜✧˖ ° Eddy! I miss you!
Us and the sweet Birama! (▰˘◡˘▰)
Abrupt end fullstop.
---
Let me clarify (to myself at least) my understanding of the course that I'm studying. If anyone knows at all, I've been struggling to understand what the actual fuck I'm doing in my current Masters course. I know I signed up for Design Innovation but obviously I didn't know whart to expect. Especially since everything was just too different; I mean, it wasn't/isn't SO alienating, since I technically HAVE a background in design, but obviously not the type of design we're actually learning over here.
I came here knowing that I'd design for communities, but I obviously didn't know how; still having only the significance of architecture in mind. I couldn't think out of the box because I was out of my element, which was frightening and confusing at the same time. You don't wanna know how much time I spent trying to figure out whart on earth the purpose of my project was. It's unbelievable!
But luckily, just before final presentation, I had a sudden eureka moment and was like, "Holy fucking shit I totally get it nao". Better late than never right?
So from whart I understand is, whatever we learn to do and want to achieve in this course is definitely solely based on community needs, yes, but whart we have been striving to do is create something that the community lacks to fulfill their needs - which is where design innovation comes in because fulfilling those needs can be done in any way, be it ICT, architecture, events, applications ... we just have to find inspiration and methods to actually make it. It doesn't matter whart it is, as long as it enriches lives.
TOOK ME A WHILE TO GET IT BUT I GET IT SO YAY ME.
Anyway, lemme show you some parts of my Prison project that I like very much. You may not understand whart the hell I'm doing because ... well I didn't even explain it but ... enjoy these snippets of the project that we, as a group, made together and I contributed to.
Examples of insights gathered from prisoners! This engagement tool is called "Finish the sentence"; prisoners are given these speech bubbles with unfinished sentences and are asked to complete it.
TOOK ME A WHILE TO GET IT BUT I GET IT SO YAY ME.
Anyway, lemme show you some parts of my Prison project that I like very much. You may not understand whart the hell I'm doing because ... well I didn't even explain it but ... enjoy these snippets of the project that we, as a group, made together and I contributed to.
These are the engagement tools we made! They were used to gather insights from the prisoners of Barlinnie.
I just really like this graphic. Haha! It's part of the concept page for our book/presentation.
And I don't know why but I really like this image of Giulia's hand, holding the prototype application that I made. It look so canggih-manggih.
A graphic explaining the functions of the app for the mentor persona.
Here's a photo of unnie pretending to be one of our personas, Jakki the junkie. Hahahaha! Just to show the touch points of the Free Zone concept created for our project.
Also, here's the graphic I made for my psychoanalysis submission. I don't want people to understand it so I won't explain it at all haha. If you want, you can try to read everything and reinterpret it yourself.
My idea was more complex than this actually, but due to time constraint and the massive amount of work I had to complete during the passed few weeks, I decided to be practical (which is very typical of me) and Photoshop my assignment, instead of making something 3D (which is sad but oh well). But I think translated the concept well enough using only graphics (I hope).
---
Here are some random snippets of the month.
A collection of autumn photos that I took before all the trees in Glasgow decided to go bald. Super love the colours of the season! Pretty sad that winter is coming. Every day will be cold and grey. (✖╭╮✖) But I'll try to look at the bright side. I CAN PLAY WITH SNOW!
Please take 2 minutes to admire this adorable restaurant called Bread Meats Bread! Look at how quaint it is! And the deco is SO CUTEEE! (♥ω♥ ) ~♪
Just a hilarious photo of my tutors (the product design students have great humour).
George Square, all pimped up with Christmas deco, lights, fun fair rides and an ice-skating rink.
Some randomness with unnie. The Christmas drinks from Costa are so delicious! I wanna try other special coffee drinks from other cafes too! ＼(*T▽T*)／
A part of my flat. I call this, the sentimental corner (lolol).
And another part of my flat. Hung my psychoanalysis assignment above my bed! Gives a nice sense of irony that only I can understand.
Just a photo of the glorious Korean food that unnie cooked for us one night! DELICIOUS. Makes me miss the Korean dinners I use to have with Jas and Yvo. 。ﾟ(ﾟﾉД｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡
2am at Argyle Street.
Madiba's memorial at Nelson Mandela Place in Glasgow. RIP.
---
Before I forget, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Holidays to everyone! (ノ＞▽＜。)ノ Here's hoping 2014 will be another great year for all of us! Wishing for a good start and also hoping that we end the year with a happy, lucky, prosperous and optimistic BANG!
P.S. I miss everyone back in Malaysia (and Jas who is in San Fran and Jojo who is in Canterbury).
I hope you all are doing well! ( ˘ ³˘)❤
xx
1 comment:
This post is so cute! and Glasgow is so preeettttyyy!
Glad you're doing well :) so proud of you! awesome graphics too!
KEEP IT UP! XOXO NIKKEH
Post a Comment