This is what I'm doing for June, before I head back to the motherland.

The blog
photographs
The new nom de plume I have decided to adopt, now that the whole world associates and has adopted ~dangermouse~ with the DJ and not the original, awesome, amazing cartoon, is ~p-a-n-i-c~.

What is M? Well M is basically Graphic Design meets social cause. Added on the side is some networking. Throughout the month that this workshop is Its like the Rural Studio, but instead of architecture, it's graphic design.

Rural studio
check it out, its amazing.

So we're trying to do something epic, and legendary. 8 of us, in Greensboro Alabama.

John Bielenberg heads it and guides us.



my 'epic' photograph of him.

So yesterday was our first real brainstorm. We'd been brainstorming over dinners and wines and beers and food before, but yesterday was our first time in our new studio, with sheets of paper and a process. It was a really great process. We threw out all our main ideas onto the sheet and then voted. And prioritised in this way.

We live in a house that the Rural Studio renovated, we call it the 'Bunkhouse'. 8 of us in one room on bunkbeds. I think the last time I lived like that was Rishi Velley in 8th grade.

But it's fun, so far. John expects someone to crack, that's cos this happend at least once every year. But so far it seems like there's a really good vibe between us all.
but we have about 3 more weeks to go and you never know what may happen.

Today is Saturday, we've been here exactly a week. I think we're on schedule in terms of how much we've accomplished. well, truth be told, everyone else thinks we're on schedule, I think that when we work, we need to work a little more intensely. And not go for a bazillion breaks etc. etc. But then again maybe this is the way I work. I like to work for short periods but very intensely.

aiyyiyo. i sound very pretentious in my Where I am in design post. I'd like ot take it off, but I like to belive once Ive blogged Ive blogged, so. Just so you all know, I'm not always that obnoxious.


I think.

my latest obsession.

Skywire Take control of the cable car and get the passengers to safety.

Play this free game now!!

Some beautiful images from my a 'playing with light' elective my friend Vinu was involved in. I think they ifnally made films.








I wish he would upload the film on youtube, then I could link it here and we could once again take part in supporting the wonderful world-information-exchange revolution.

Ask him questions at vinu.chaitanya@gmail.com

(I'm trying to do this in the ~inclusive-information-share-n-care-blog style)

Work and Workspace.

I took this picture of myslef a minute ago. Yes that is how I look like while I am writing this. No I didn't get a face-job, scroll down, sillies. My good friend Umar from London says I look like a hooker/junkie, but unfortunatly this is the way I look when I wake up in the morn. So my aim was to work hard all day so I can enjoy turning 21 tonight. I got distracted and decided to bloggit. My next week is going to be hell. Lots of work. I need to phase it out so I dont roll over and obliterate.

I have too many indoor pictures. I will get you some of the outdoors, special for your viewing pleasure only.

(I know I look a little silly y' all, but I like the picture. Me and my brother, Anjan, in San Francisco)

Wrote this a few days ago -


Being a designer, in my opinion, involves the training of one’s skills and applying them to increasingly challenging situations. I sense that I am at one of these points in my learning curve, where I am ready to take my design experience to a more meaningful level.

While in design school, focusing on the micro has taken me away from my eternal Big Question, which is simply, how can I change the world? This is my next goal.

I am excited at the prospect of being involved with creative, motivated individuals and building something concrete with them. I am also excited to interact and be guided by people I respect. I want to peep into their minds and observe how they think. I look forward to how these encounters can impact not only what I will bring to the table, but also my design process in the future.

I am in America for six months. I am trying to make my adventure as rich and varied as I can. My experience at MICA has enabled me to move many steps ahead with my work. I have also savoured the experience of immersing myself in a new and oddly familiar youth culture. My 8000-mile long journey has proved to be unimaginably richer than I could have ever envisioned when I first set out.


ps- have you noticed my new hillbilly accent thing? Drew, my roomate from West Virginia, is giving me lessons.

yee haw folks* im back







I have so much to say.
It's been tough to blog lately, and Ive realised that Ive missed out on documenting some of my very cool and unique brushes with American youth culture and American design.
So I'm gonna do a quickndirty photo-post so you can quickly catch up with me.
Heres some of my work. Im wokring on an 'alphabet book' for publication design. My strcutures are inspired by the Eames' house of cards. The structures are modular, as you can see and comprise of units.
The books gooing to be published through www.lulu.com, and going to be sold for, if i remember right 14$? Anyway it's going to be in bookstores for real! I dont know who will buy my book apart from me, but hay! I'm not complaining, I think it's an awesome project.
While my pics load, I'll give you the lowdown on my life.
I am having an awesome time. I feel like I've come so far in terms of my work, so I imagine that impact that this experience has made on me is even greater.

this is very irritating. My blog has been attcked by some lame viagra sales pitcher, so if you see posts advertising the stuff, pls ignore them. It happens about once in two days. Ive writen to blogger help, but they havent responded..yet.

Here's a list of links that lead you to my faculty

Brands and Branding>Mike Weikert
Publication> Kristen Spilman> She works with Abbott Miller
Typography>Kevin Auer for the first half of the sem and then Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals. They also have a band, Double Dagger
Fashion Graphics> Zvezdana Rogic and Nancy Froelich. At this last link you'll also see pics of Kristen, Mike and Zvezdana.

The Brown Centre where they have
- animation and interactive media floor 2 (which is equivalent to floor 1 in all other places outside of usa)
- graphic des floor 3
- video floor 4





it's a gorgeous building which actually reminds me of NID a lot. They have that whole exposed cement pillars and floors happening, glass and instead of wood, it's metal. More pictures of the inside coming soon.

I'm a little depressed today. It's largely having to do with starting life from scratch so many times. Its very charcter building and all that but also very hard. Though it is a very unique opportunity and I'm grateful for it. It just takes a lot of energy to keep readjusting and rebuilding.

My sketch book, slightly larger than an A5 ( I'm fond of that size) with schedule on the back. I think I need one per class cos all except one require workbooks to be submitted at the end of the sem. Some ppl have fancy schmancy hard-bound sketch books but i got this great one for cheap from a Rite-Aid. Which is like a 7/11, like a magazine/junkfood/stationery/cosmetics/all-in-one sort of store. And I covered the front with some brown paper to make it look non-unsightly and stuck a holographic roaring shiv sena tiger from my cool new india-sticker-collection that I brought with me.

so here s what I did for my t-shirt modification assignment. I bough a tee shirt form the thrift store for 2$. I made dye with turmeric from my kitchen in my newly bought pressure cooker pot. I did bandhini in the places and pattern I wanted and soaked the long sleeved white shirt in the dye for thrity minutes over the flame, stirring continuously.
I then washed and dried the tshirt, untied the thread and cut off the ugly sleeves. i didn't like the way it fell so I stiched some darts onto the sides to make it fit better with my neon yellow thread and needle with a fat hole, both from Walmart.

I was unsure about when to stop, I contemplated adding neon yellow embroidery as more surface detail but decided not to in the end. I also wanted a pocket on the stomach but that ruined the mutant nipple compostion on the chest.






Since I couldn;t wear the now sleeveless garment to class (cold) i wore my blue shirt underneath for contrast. It sounded very excotic when I said, "a traditional Indian technique called bandhini, bandh means to tie, and I used an Indian spice, turmeric, from my kitchen" it's very cool how they respond to all this everyday stuff for us.





Some people came up with some really cool stuff. This guy made this really high men's collar. One woman made ballet flats, another made a shirt that could be turned into pants (unfortunately this sounds better than it looked), many ppl made bags, many ppl screen printed, some only used cuts to make skirts, this guy learnt how to knit from his grilfriend and cut three tees into strips to use as yarn for a scarf, one made ties, one girl made this very cool multi buttoned shirt which you can mix up the order of buttons in order to change the way it falls every other time you wear it. So all in all very creative, some were lame "pretty" screen prints but most were exciting.

My room, kitchen and and and....snow!

so i just went grocery shopping yest and am feeling very complete. after eating at the MICA dining hall twice I am very happy that I don't have a meal plan there. I find that I feel compelled to make my 8$ meal (!) worth it so I eat all I can and feel not good afterwards.

So I have been cooking at home and here are some samples.



This is dal and tomatoes in my new pressure cooker. I didn't put enough water (I'm learning)


So the dal turned out really brown after setting the smoke alarm off. In all this commotion my toast got a little crunchier than normal. In order to salvage my meal I quickly made a big bowl of (very yummy) tomato raita.



call me captain cook. here's my wonderfullest creation of the season. Its lightly toasted bread with avacado on top. sprinkle some mustard seeds for that interesting texture in the mouth, a dash of butter and oven it for a bit. et voila. its delicious btw.

hey everyone!

Unfortunatley I don't have an image to liven this post up, I'm not posting from my own computer.

SO I'm basically going to give you the lowdown on America and MICA

Everything in America is in straight lines. Neighbourhoods don't sprawl organically, instead its built on a grid system. It makes more sense, but being away from home I'm beginning to be hit by the Indian-abroad disease, a symptom of which is to romanticise home.
I missed home food on the second day of my being here. This is very odd, I often go weeks in India eating pasta and other foreign food. I bought a pressure cooker yeasterday, to cook dal. yum-yum. I'm being very conscios of how I eat, I try and eat some leafy greens+dairy+protein+carb everyday. My breakfast is usually lettuce+hummus+bread+olives+feta cheese and some toasted bread. Today this was my lunch, being my first day of class I was in a hurry. I also drink green tea out of a bowl every day. It makes me very happy. Think not that I'm on a health spree, I ate two packets of chips today, my daily dose of junk.

I've made friends but not so many that I have plans every night. Anyway I think I'm going to be super busy..

My courses: ADV Graphic Design II- This was my first class ever and it sounded so cool. Its fashion and graphics together. My first assignment is to modify a tshirt and wear it to the next class. So I can spray paint/cut it up/stcik stuff/ sow it up, basically do anything. Last yr a girl brought in underwear. I'll update you abt the course as I go.

I think it'll be be information overload if I tell you all my courses so I'll describe them as I have them.

I miss so many poeple! I miss my parents and Simon and Lamiyah and Anu back at NID and so mnay ppl!!

On this note, I sign off.

first post from America!

Hi everyone,

Things are going ok, my room, although the smallest in the house, is very cosy. The girls, Rose, Leslie and drew are very very sweet. Funny and helpful as well.

Today is orientation. I hope my fellow exchangers are fun and smart.

Everything in america is big.

more (plus pictures) coming soon!

thatha, patti and ma. (translation: grandfather, grandmother, mother)

MOMA new york. 2005. It was this rectangular case of these super reflective bottles. i love museums. i 'do' museums. like to look at their floorplans and weave my way through them so i dont miss out. ii like to read every little sign and want to go on every free guided tour. though on one guided tour, this was at the Tate Modern, she said that the curators believed that one should only go in for the kill if the actual objet d'art was interesting. i rem she said this while standing next to these semi-perverted paintings by this german man after the 2WW.

anyway, i disagree. i like to look at everything. interesting, uninteresting, everything.

i put this random pic here because i hate having image-less posts. so boring, so uninviting. it s so damn hard to read on screen. so i figure ill just keep putting up interesting things i see/have seen and talk abt em.



this poto shoot last month. i like this picture because:

1. im looking away, element of mystery
2. interesting way of displaying a bag, not to be braggy, but my idea.
3. i dont look fat. yes yes as aforementioned, i am a product of the mental force-fed-ization of the image of the modern woman. at least im honest. not that im honest always.

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aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA MY JURY S TOMORROW. so today they didnt finish up on time, so instead of being first in the morn ive been pushed back to what i suppose will be late morning.
i will be screwed:

1. for my incomplete AGD (advanced graphic design. i dont beleive we still have a course with a name like this. wtf?) i have an incomplete cos i ran away to bbay to shoot the dabbawallas. and missed a week of agd. my only reassurance is that 10 yrs later im not going to remeberthe incomplete, but i am going to remeber climbing over stacks of dabbas to get that picture. (how romantic, no?)

2. for my late submission of photography. which i will get a complete in touchwood.

3. for handing out my portfolio and networking intensely at the goa design conference. hey i had fun. (they reason that its too premature for me to hand it out. EVERY other faculty ive talked to disagrees, not that this is going to prevent them from hammering me)

aiyyorama, i say.

ps- hi shivani, tanks for the comment!

my jury's on tuesday.
im the first one in the morning.

im really tense. its weird, im fretting for what will be an hour of my life.

i want it to be over and done with.

i need to read some Krishnamurti. He really destresses me.

Im feeling so uncertain, unstable. I guess that ll change once my jury's over.

Reading Orhan Pamuk's The New Life. Im having to nudge my way through it a bit. I hope it gets good.

I wish I could defragment myself like a computer.

The thing is I need to dealwith it entirely on my own. NO one can help me. I feel fake asking for advice, support, a shoulder to cry on. Doesn't work. Gosh
I wish it was Tuesday this time right now, I'd be a happier person.

She kicks ass. Totally ignored me so that was great for the photographs. Laxmiben, one of the six women dabbewallis.

Love that sari.

hanging around with them was fun..hot dusty sweaty exciting turbo-accelarated-breakneck-blistering speed stuff but thats right down Dangermouse Ave. One day i was eating lunch with a bunch of them in the BCR (boys common room) in some dumb-ass medical college and got thrown out by this loser who told me i was supposed to be in the LCR (three guesses). I dont know why he had a problem, we were in this partioned off place sitting on top of this loooong table eating where the Dabbawallahs i was with eat everyday.
well he basically told me to fuck off after which i basically told him to fuck off.

This old keymaker who used to hang out w the DWs, id made friends with him the day before, in the BCR stood up for me, what an angel, and give him a nice private scolding. i was thereafter left alone.



goa was great too. i drew the speakers while they spoke and emailed them a scan. most of them were quite charmed by it, so im pleased. peter bilak (the thin man in the pic) said he was impressed with my wide variety of skills. yay!

---------

A private word with Mr. Melbourne Fan: Thank you for you kind and funny words, could you possibly tell me who you are?

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ants are pouring out my keyboard. red ants. why? why? why? die die die!

COMING SOON TO A BLOG NEAR YOU: *The Dabba Project*

the quintessential japanese tourist group. i love the way mr. photopgraphers standing.

cracked up when i saw this. whipped out the camera (call me QuickDrawMcGraw) and recorded a moment in time.

i did leave my mark on melbourne..

i like this picture.

well, yeah we faked it. its at this student protest at RMIT.

but we did play the damn things for real for eg, when everyone clapped whooped and cheered we when *bam bam bam bam*. good fun. he offered me an apple in thanks, and i accepted.
i bumped into him again when we were at Fed Sq watching the big match on big screen and were glad to see each other considering we'd shared such a rich history of apples and drums.

i guess youcan only dance like that amidst hay and sun if you have a body like that.






AND i found who stole me card. shocker!

I WANT TO BE FREE


so whats been happening everyone? ( notice ive adopted an I-have-an-audience tone)

-------------

im very scared of new technology but like all human beings i adapt quickly enough. take for instance something as simple as hyperlinking. i want to link rohits blog here

x

but im scraed of html (or rather i havent taken the trouble to get my head around it) so i cant to it. i am handicapped by my fear! and so my sily fear stops you all from viewing his really funny new post about aditya vikram sengupta. nice drawing R.

other things im scared of:
1. being disappointed greatly -- which is why i try not to expect things
2. ....

i dont think im scared of anything else. at leats not anything else substantial. sure im scared of my mother on mud-pack-mondays but hey you get used to it.




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the package? i get it friday. i think i get:
a pair of headphones with a mic, ive been lazy to buy it here
2 saris
some dubai ka chips
some hello and ok magazines haha
and i dont know what else

the stuff comes in an egg carton which i can use to store things in my room.the old ones are soggy with rain. my family has a history with egg cartons, theyre really strong. we used to bring stuff to india in these corrugated boxes, sealed with masking tape and then tied with rope. not really a la louis vuitton. they used to embarress me. now i think theyre the most amazing soln to travel.


--------------

someone stole my debit card and had a mini shopping spree for 3000 bucks.the thought of someone swiping away to glory while i sat unawares someplace else is very creepy.

no pics agin this time, sorry folks.

i try and keep it visually interesting but lately....ive
been...bored/lazy/apathetic.

played a basketball match today. the team needed a girl and so i was it.

im so excited im getting a package from home.

im back. havent posted in century.

maybe its good. the interest surrounding it would have died by now, so it can be a little more private. its silly, i know, looking for privacy on the internet but the last i can hope for is some sort of semi-quiet.

just finished margaret atwood's The Blind Assassin. I finished the last page about 20 minutes ago, and I'm overwhelmed by its impact.

She says this really wonderful thing (and let me dignify it by punctuating carefully for a change):

"The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwsie you might begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.
Impossible of course."

I remember in RV when I felt really really sad, or really really happy I had a set of orange post-its that I would write on. And I would be really careful to word myself well, I didn't want to cringe when I read it later. I cringed anyway. and killed my spontaneous happy moment when I would try and cling to joy as it bled out of me while I worded myself well.

What if I hadn't told anyone about my blog. I admit I would be much freer in what I say and for example not bite my tongue before I swear lest I cause the parental brow to crease with concern.

I feel like being quiet. I want to zip myself up and move around mute. What fun for a change. I talk too much. So vulgar. Sometimes I think eating is vulgar too. Then there are those who think that eating is vulgar but won't tell anyone because theyll think shes been seeing too many Gemma Wards in Vogue. Hm, I notice Ive made this a 'she' thing. Maybe it is. I dont deny that im influenced by all those evil msgs in those evil magazines. I think the view of a girl's behind when she rides pillion on a bike is vulgar too. Someone told me I was old-fashioned when I said this. But it just looks ugly. In my opinon. So dont, 'o I dont really agree with you' beacause I dont care.

I'm in a foul mood today. I think its been hanging around me for quite a while but I'm enjoying it.

god, give me back my good humour

im emailing this post to blogspot.

testing.

the internet is a very cool thing.

--

Oh Sonic, I know exactly how you feel.

The National Gallery of Victoria, with a wall of water (recycled) sliding over glass, looks very impressive. They have this long stained class ceiling over one long room and I caught this band playing. trumpets and all.

i liked the pattern

Black Narcissus, confirms every cliche about India in the book. But we love ti cos it's old. Saw it acmi//Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
The movie, set in Tibet shot in Hollywood, has:





one rajah








one strapping sinewy white man









and a nun for his potential woman.



He doesnt get her body, but he does get her heart.

so tired.

Today i sat with Deanne Koelmeyer from 9 30 in the morn to 4 30 in the afternoon, giving feedback to students, they had final presentations. i know appreciate how gard it is for teachers to do all the things they do, stay alert, give pertinent feedback, analyse, keep the students pluses and minuses in focus, blahh blahh blahh, and still stay good humoured. aiyyorama indeed.

no pictures, my finger is beginning to hurt from clicking.

somedays are full of activity and some days are just dull. today is dull.

re: video interviews, im glad theyre finally getting over.

im getting nervous. I have to move to Simon's house this week (that means moving all my shit to his place), book tickets for Sydney (tomorrow).

Saw Candy yesterday. Heath Ledger, whatsername aqnd Geoffery Rush
It was awful, I ve seen heaps of better druggie movies. And the music, the cliched church choir in the background as they got high. So overdone, I say. Even the marvellous Geoffery Rush couldn't save this one. Whatsername was better than Ledger, I must say. Also, the lack of chem btwn Rush and Ledger was too much to handle.
The script was bland, I'm sure the movie wouldve been much better if theyd taken the same actors, same crew, same dir and used a more inspiring script.
Jeez and save me from the other big cliche, the artsy wiritng on the wall when she went crazy.

Sigh* I'm liking my experience too much to go back to NID. Such is life.

picture of me Meena took at Rose's artist market last weekend after I bought the self-same cap that in sooth, sits atop my head.

Taking pictures of myself in the Art Centre bathrooms. Mother wanted some pictures of me in my coat. You must understand that I do not come from a coat-culture. I'm certainly enjoying the new found joys of a winter coat.

And another one.

Posing with a D&AD award (the squat silver pencil in my hand, if you cant see) at Studio Pip & Co. which was the firm I chose to go to as part of the conference.

learning how to drive on my way back from Bendigo, lesson and picture courtesy Shamus (more about him, plus pictures! coming soon)

No I have not forgotten about my blog, as many of you are probably thinking.

("I knew she would stop posting")

I've just been frantically busy trying to finish my video interviews, my personal deadline for shooting is the 31st and I absolutely have to finish before then so that I can move on to other stuff.

I get back to NID on the 17th. Im not sure I want to.

Today I did some voice recordings for these guys whom I met thru Rob who goes to RMIT (and is coming to NID next sem). They callt hemselves The Broken English :), but I think they haven't made up their mind whether or not to drop the "The". I met them at Rob's brother's bar, which is called the 'Lamgoes Bar' (note the pun pls), and they asked if I wanted to do some vocals for them. So I improvised an did some Indian sounding stuff. Was really fun. I just biked back, it's a really cold day today. It' s a really cold week. (it is 11 01 pm)

Today I also got into the zoo for free for a shoot, it normally costs an outrageous 25$. pics later, im dead tired and could *swoon, thud* any second now.

i need to sleep.

Pictures of Sam (Soumitri Varadarajan, Head of Industrial Design, RMIT) rushing through Vic Market as he buys stuff for Soraya's birthday picnic. Also wearing strange hat whilst working the Dept. Him, also, sowing my dress, tee hee, before the AGIdeas party. For those who don't know, AGIdeas is the design conference I attended last week. It was really nice of him, I had an hour to leave and the slit in the side of my dress was coming undone. And I cannot stitch in a straight line. So he helped me out : ) Sam cooks really well too. He usually does dinner at night and lunch on weekends. So to the party I wore these gorgeous white orchids behind my ear. Right next to the house is this lovely florist, they're v creative. They wire up flowers and stick em up neatly with green florist's tape so that you can wear in hair. The more expensive version is to have a comb put in and two or three diff types of flowers etc which can cost about 30$. I got four sweet flowers for 7$. I brought Sophie the pink flowers one evening from the same store. She really likes flowers.

Sophie icing Soraya's birthday cake. Lovely William Morris wallpaper in the background. We eat meals in this room. The house is really cool and vintage with all these brass fixtures all over. The house is wired up with speakers which sit hidden nicely behind brass Art Nouveau-esqe grills on the ceiling. The speakers are connected to the radio so there's always music playing the house, Pop, Rock, Old Hindi, New Hindi, W Classical, Indian Classical, The Beatles, Abba (the kids listen to the last two when they go to sleep, adorable). It brings a lovely atmosphere into the house when you have the radio playing in the bathroom/kitchen/bedroom. I like it.

I've been collecting stencil graffiti I've seen sound Melbourne. This weekend there's a Stencil Fest that I'll be going for, should be cool. One of the things thats going to happen is a bunch of artists all stencil graffiti-fying together. I think that'll be awesome. Lots of picture prospects and some inspiration too. Theyre not the most amazing, but I still found them interesting. I like the first four, though. The first one is of John Howard, the country's favourite person to hate, suprise suprise, the Prime Minister. And ironically, he got reelected the last time. Last week, George Bush came to visit. Guess they found some things in common.

Long time no post. I have so many things to say, so many pictures to post that I'ts daunting. But the job must be done. So now I'm going to let the pictures do the talking , there's going to be more of "See what I'm doing in Australia" as opposed to, "See how I see Australia".
But I'll prolly get carried away and throw in both. Here goes.

Hello fatties. So today I went to do my laundry. Big job. Today I had to confront my deep seated fear of the washing machine. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I have never operated a washing machine before. I think it's because in life, I've only ever been flung to the extremes of washingmanship. At Rishi Valley, we hand-washed our clothes and when I went back to Dubai, there was always someone who did my laundry. I've sorta missed out the middle existence. At NID, I absolutely REFUSE to use the washing machines. Waylon once washed his sneakers in them. Need I say more? And why bother with all those buttons when Anju-ben does my laundry @1 Re/item.

So today, my first hurdle was to locate 10 dollars in coins. I went to like four shops to find change. 3$/wash, I washed whites and darks and also had a pile of 'heavy duty' so thats 9$. 1$ to dry for 12 mins. running it twice was good to have everything nice and toasty.

I was quite intimdated by all the knobs and switches, but when I actually looked at them, they were painfully simple, and I scoffed at the me of two minutes ago.

So here are pics of
- The laundry
- Catching up on kylie minogue's new found happiness while the socks dry
- The 70's style driers.
- Folding things in warm neat little piles
- Eating skittles while I wait. Here I was confronted with another new piece of tech. The candy-machine. The things First Worlders take for granted.I had to fiddle with a bit to figure out how my money went in, whether I was expected to hold the packet still while the skittle slid out (only after I open the machine-flap, it turned out), etc etc.

Notice the lost skittles lying beside my feet. *tut tut*

the black was depressing me. this isnt as striking but its very rainy here, and it stresses me out to look at so much black..

*doom*

*gloom*

So come Monday is AGIdeas. Hm. the big conference I've come all the way from India from. Yesterday I was talking to Frank(staff) and he said, honestly, it's a load of shite. I'M not taking this thing lightly considering I've spent a lot of money on registering, so it was good to hear Sam reassure me when he said that he thinks these forums are amazing. The only thing I have to do is be proactive and aggressive. He said I need to make contact with these lecturers, give out my card, badger people, play the Poor Indian Card but somehow manage to extract something out of my situation. hm...and being 20 means I can get away with a lot.

Sometimes I'm beset by moments of self-doubt. What am I doing? Yeah I'm in Australia, but that doesn't automatically make whatever I do amazing. I need to keep pushing myself, keep finding opportunities to see more, do more, meet people. Something I found difficult initially was setting up appointments with poeple to meet at xyz time, pqr place. That's not really what we do at NID. Over there we just expect to bump into each other sometime or the other and sort life out whenever. And it even works to a certain degree, especially since everyone's on one campus. At RMIT, and most other Uni's in the world, you'll see someone in class and sail through the week w/o sighting them again. Of course, there are pros and cons to this.

It was great to have a sort of review with Sam last week, where we sort of went over what I was and wasn;t doing, and what I needed to do. I'm lucky to have found him, he's a great guide. He told me I needed to be more aggressive and proactive when it came to setting up meetings etc. So over the past week I've been actively working on that. And it's paying off.

I think it's really good that I've had this period of incubation before AGIdeas. Sam's sorta seasoned me for what's up ahead.

At RMIT, they set up blogs for every classroom project they do. Why a blog?
I quote:

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This blog will be used as a way for you to document your design process, to ask questions of your peers, to test ideas etc.
Once the radio machine is finished and pumping noise into the airwaves we can potentially stream the sound through the blog.
The blog opens up your work to the world to read and question.
The blog is an anywhere anytime journal.
POst photos, sounds, video, drawings.
Learn to love the net - and make it your place.
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this is a post by liam, who features in an earlier post on this blog. The link to this blog:
http://radiomachine.blogspot.com/

Above are frames from this very strange, but very funny cartoon called Stripperella. Starring, ahem' Pamela Anderson. She's a detective. Dialogue is on the lines of, " hey there handsome, science makes me horny" while she squeezes
her breasts together to a leprechaun. All when shes been converted into a robot so read the dialogue in robo-voice.

More later about the biggest reality show to hit Australia: BIG BROTHER

yay! maddy's (madhurapoorna krishnan) and my promo for channel [v] has made it to the top 10! if you want to earn some good karma, pls go to this link, register, and vote for promo 8, which is ours!

http://app.indya.com/vindia/mywtov/vote.asp#myframe1

registering is the :S part but it would be really nice of you to take 2 minutes to do this.

dude, nothing ive ever done, (co-done, in this case) has ever been considered of significance. tis a nice feeling indeed.

My video interviews are finally picking up.

My first task here is do three minute video interviews of the staff in Industrial Design at RMIT. There's been a lot of change ever since Soumitri came along to be the new head, and I think he's been amazing in seeing his vision through. So his plan was to make every teacher not just a teacher but a design guru in their own right. An individual, who has his/her own area of study/ reasearch, apart from just teaching. So each staff (faculty) has their own "pathway". Some are more academic, some are social, some deal with areas that link design to the industry, and suchlike. I think it's a wonderful system, where the student looks at his guide with a new certainty.

So in the first week that he was at RMIT he told the staff that by the time he was done with them, they would have a teflon coating around them.

My calendar of things to do is slowly but surely filling up, and I'm hounding the faculty to give me time. My plan is to do the main interview in one place but also have some footage of them in action. Right now I'm still doing background research about them even though I do have interviews lined up this week.

So today I was in Liam's first year Studio class (theres a photo of him earlier in the blog). He conducted it in the most wonderful way. I think the kind of stuff they do here is what Jacob and Waylon and that type would absoultely love. Over i think three weeks theyre going to make radios, well, noise making machines, that interfere with each other by transmission. Im not too good at these things so my explanation may be shaky. So by next week they have to come up with wokring models of their noise makers.

The whole class just mass brainstormed. Liam was on the floor ( I wish I had a pic) with this massive ream of paper, pulling it out at regular intervals and just writing/drawing the ideas that were flowing out. So its group work but solo work too; they make their models alone.

My initial plan was to film Liam in action but, dammitall, the camera battery hadnt been charged. Both of them. And I have to return the damn thing to the AV Dept tomorrow. And book it again. I should have booked it yesterday, I'm such an idiot soemtimes.

Pictures of this alternative school I went to. Sam and Sophie's children study there. It's alternative educations, but three kinds of it in one school. there's the Steiner stream based on the philosophy of this man called Rudolf Steiner, there's the second, Italian, Rezzio stream, and there's the regular stream. Steiner is like deign education from a really early age, they work withpure wool, pure wax, pure chalk, very pure materials. They work with colour, and texture and other such designy things a lot. They each have a sheepskin they use and keep all the way through their time at school. They learn to play instruments, garden, and deal with actual academics very slowly.

In contrast, the Rezzio stream is all computers. 8 Apples in every classroom.

The best thing is that its free, it's a State school. I think it's wonderful that as a country, Australia recognises the value of this way of learning.

Hard-Rubbish Day. Its when sections of the city put out stuff they don't want out onto the streets. HRD is on two days where I live, ie, North Carlton. It's like a mass city swap. Some of the stuff put out in the posher parts are amazing. So what nobody picks up, the council dumps in a massive land-fill. I've never heard of such a system but apparently it happens all over the world.

Indian shop. If you try, you see the Lays Chaat Street chips in the shelf. Home away from home.

The library I mentioned in a previous post. They actively promote libraryness, and have these ad campaigns and everything. And a picture of the Japanese section.

Better than NID, I say.

Everyone uses these green bags from Cole's to shop in. This society is a recycling one, and very environment conscious. It's lovely to see. So this is Sophie using the bag to return books to the library. And libraries, man, they're free for every citizen of Melbourne. So there are four or five in one area, well lit, large, and lovely, and you can borrow from one and return to any one of them. Life is simple. They even have books in Jap.

The other two pics are of my room, yes yes, its super messy, but only cos its so damn confortable. lovely soft beg, two razais to fend of the horrible cold, kettle to make tea, fridge, gas, nice lighting, heater, design books all around me *sigh* what more could I ask for.
Though I think I'm being a little indulgent in staying with Sam (Soumitri) and Sophie for so long, Simon and Amy- thier friends, have offered to put me up, I think I'll stay with them for a week just to make my life a little less confortable. I think it would build character, in the words of Calvin's (n Hobbes) father .

So this is the view, waiting for a tram at 12 am. Just had a drink with Loki and his girlfriend at Madame Brussels, which was this lounge bar place that used to be a brothel before it got converted into this stylish place. Loki is Chinese Australian and was teaching the Design Studies class I attended last Friday. Conversation came to grinding halt after a little while and Loki and I began romantically reminiscing(sp?) India, with a "yeah, India is so amazing" every two minutes. I couldnt tell who was getting more tired of it.

And this is Liam, who sits in the room I sit in. He s staff at RMIT and is one of the poeple I have to interview as part of my video project to profile the staff that make up the ID dept at RMIT. he s really nice,and a great teacher. I sat in on one of his clsses last Friday, which was a bit like DCC+self study. DCC cos they were dealing with large areas of interest eg, Health/ the Politics of Food and suchlike, but they had to do indivdual research papers on a topic withing this broad category.
So Liam has this rusty, stripped-down, very cool bike that looks like h put it together himself. Most people use cycles as a way to get around the city, me included. He hasnt brought his cycle in today but I' ll put up a picture of it when he does.

so this is a clip form this strange video installation i saw at acmi- australian centre for the moving image. its by this woman whos been inspired by nanotechnology to create her own baby. weird and ugly. but a little cool too.

so this is my third morning in australia. Was my first day at RMIT. Didn't do anything. Cycled to it. Was a gorgeous morning. Grey and cold but hell, at least it wasnt hot and dusty. I have to cycle by this massive massive graveyard every morning. It really intrigues me.

I've spotted some cool graffiti around. will post some pictures tomorrow.

Soumitri (Sam) reminds me of my father. Everything he asks you sounds like it's a trick question.

this blog business is very strange. I dont know WHO I'm writing to. I generally change my tone/ language/ conversation when depending on who I talk to but here its like I'm talking to...nobody. And it's like this public diary, I ll have to be really careful to censor my thoughts tee hee

this is my first ever post. oo. i think this would be a good place to put up my work. hm.

im back. havent posted in century.

maybe its good. the interest surrounding it would have died by now, so it can be a little more private. its silly, i know, looking for privacy on the internet but the last i can hope for is some sort of semi-quiet.

just finished margaret atwood's The Blind Assassin. I finished the last page about 20 minutes ago, and I'm overwhelmed by its impact.

She says this really wonderful thing (and let me dignify it by punctuating carefully for a change):

"The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwsie you might begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.
Impossible of course."

I remember in RV when I felt really really sad, or really really happy I had a set of orange post-its that I would write on. And I would be really careful to word myself well, I didn't want to cringe when I read it later. I cringed anyway. and killed my spontaneous happy moment when I would try and cling to joy as it bled out of me while I worded myself well.

What if I hadn't told anyone about my blog. I admit I would be much freer in what I say and for example not bite my tongue before I swear lest I cause the parental brow to crease with concern.

I feel like being quiet. I want to zip myself up and move around mute. What fun for a change. I talk too much. So vulgar. Sometimes I think eating is vulgar too. Then there are those who think that eating is vulgar but won't tell anyone because theyll think shes been seeing too many Gemma Wards in Vogue. Hm, I notice Ive made this a 'she' thing. Maybe it is. I dont deny that im influenced by all those evil msgs in those evil magazines. I think the view of a girl's behind when she rides pillion on a bike is vulgar too. Someone told me I was old-fashioned when I said this. But it just looks ugly. In my opinon. So dont, 'o I dont really agree with you' beacause I dont care.

I'm in a foul mood today. I think its been hanging around me for quite a while but I'm enjoying it.

god, give me back my good humour.