| Sunday, 11-27-05. Mixed weather | |||
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It was a great trip, but today was just plain awful. After hauling around my 50-pound backpack and laptop case for the almost five-hour layover we had in Honolulu, I was delighted to find that my camera, which I just got back from being in the shop for three weeks, somehow had its LCD screen shattered, while in its padded case, and while that padded case was inside my backpack. If that wasn't fun enough, I couldn't sleep at all on the flight due to turbulence. Halfway to Sanfran, I started getting one of my typical headaches where the throbbing increases exponentially until I get nauseous enough to throw up, which I eventually did after arriving at the folks'. After passing out for two hours in an armchair, I drove home to find that I had nothing to eat and tons of homework due tomorrow. Bitching and whining aside, it was a great trip, and I'm going to the market and camera shop tomorrow. I'll put up an album of the photos from the trip soon.
German word of the day: Krachen - To crack |
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| Thursday, 11-24-05. Mixed weather, mostly humid and hot | |||
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It's been a nice stay, though not perfect. I haven't had a full night's sleep since we arrived, as the beds are comparable to concrete slabs. Emily and I have to share a room, and the bathroom has a slatted door. As a result, one of us has to leave the room when the other uses the can or you can hear everything. I've been wearing earplugs at night, but they're almost as uncomfortable as the bed. All this aside...
I love this island. It's mostly rural, it's not overly-touristy, and it's peaceful. The scenery is thick, green, monumental, and the humidity makes you want to take a nap all day. I've been nabbing dozens of excellent photos, mostly of the local birds, scenery, and flowers. Today we drove to the other side of the island to find sun, as we're staying in the heart of the "wet" side. After a snack at a resort we had dinner at the last time we were here in 1996, we spent a bit of time at a county beach before heading back for a feast of a Thanksgiving buffet at Princeville. Dessert was a flourless chocolate cake with rasberry syrup and a hazelnut mousse topped with whipped cream and shaved chocolate. Outstanding. German word of the day: Privatsphäre (f) - Privacy |
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| Sunday, 11-20-05. Sunny and humid | |||
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I'm sitting here at Honolulu airport, shaded partially by a variety of tropical trees in the lower courtyard of the inter-island terminal. We have a considerable layover, so the family and I are occupying our time with pigeon-watching and an occasional indulgence of ice cream from the tourist-infested food court.
German word of the day: Heimsuchung (f) - Infestation |
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| Monday, 11-7-05. Drizzling and cool | |||
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My rendering class is extremely rich with talent, but a bit small and scattered. There are only a dozen students that show up regularly, so students from other classes tend to think it's an open-lab classroom and bring their projects in to work on as well.
Today I talked a bit with an older man who was sitting across from me. He wasn't in my class, and he said he was from Persia. This immediately perked my interest, since just about any Iranian national disapproving of the current regime, and a resident of Iran before the 1979 revolution, would call it Persia instead of Iran. He talked about how, in the late 70's, he was drafted into the Iranian armed forces to guard the Shaw's palace. He then went on, describing how he went into hiding for a month during the revolution, because the students were executing anyone having anything to do with the Shaw, particularly members of the army. He described hunkering down in a ditch from machine gun fire during street skirmishes between the revolutionaries and scattered guards. He described how he was threatened by a teenager with an AK-47, and how he angrily chastized the kid for being so stupid, and then grabbed his machine gun and beat him with it. He described being forced out of the country as a member of the Shaw's armed forces, hopping on flights from one country to the next, finally having to wait for three days in an airport in Japan before being squeezed onto the last seat of a Jet bound for New York. He was a very interesting man to talk to. German word of the day: Talent (n) - Talent |
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| Sunday, 11-6-05. Drizzling and cool | |||
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Fall is undisputably here. Like an old light bulb flickering a few times before going out completely, our usually partly cloudy skies have slowly given way to significantly darker ones over the last several weeks. Frankly, I look forward to this time of year. The rains wash the filth in the streets and sidewalks away, the air becomes crisp, shadows get longer, and I get to wear layers.
The project still isn't finished, as I've spent about six hours over the last couple of days trying to work out a decent color scheme. I should be done by tonight, however. I'm starting to lean toward doing the Berlin Stadtschloss for my final project. Am I insane? Well, duh. German word of the day: Farbenreich - Colorful |
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| Wednesday, 11-2-05. Partly cloudy and cool | |||
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Life is getting better again. I received a call this morning that my camera arrived from Nikon repair. While I was at the shop picking it up, I also bought a wireless remote for the shutter. When I had previously been trying to take night shots (even when I used a tripod) my finger would make a slight vibration leaving the shutter button, and so some of my shots would come out a tiny bit blurry. The remote should eliminate this... or at least that's the theory. The tele lens still has some operational problems which I don't feel compelled to make a stink about, but otherwise everything checks out. I took some photos around my room this evening to get back into the photography groove, but none were particularly spectacular.
I've been trying to make an effort to curb my unexplainable last-minute-dash habit of procrastinating work on large projects until just before they're due lately. I've had this problem ever since I was a teenager, and I've never been able to figure out a way around it. After my unforgettably awful experience spring semester, however, I've started to really get serious about finding a remedy, and I've been pushing myself to start projects hours and even days earlier than I would've otherwise on my own. Last night I was up until 7 am inking the drawings for my latest rendering. Unfortunately, I ran out of steam when I was out nabbing donuts just after making my final copies, so I didn't even get a chance to color/shade them. The process goes on... hopefully I'll be done with it all by this weekend so I can get a leg up on the final. German word of the day: Bein (n) - Leg |
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