Hmm.. updates. We had a banana bread bake off at work on Friday. I was one of the 4 entries, and won the award for “Feels best in your hand” which is probably my most glorious title ever.
Went to Stone Gardens (the climbing gym) a few times this past week and discovered that I like bouldering quite a bit! Such an awesome arm workout and so much more fun than just lifting weights. I hope I can get myself to keep going, especially since I have two weeks of free membership.
Other “stuff I’ve made” updates
Sewed a plush lung for work this weekend, which was fun. Makes me wonder why I don’t make more crafty plushie things normally. Maybe because I only like making things that are to be used for something.
Finally got a copy of Box & Bun from Lulu. It’s a story book about Box & Bun and their adventures around the Northwest, all of which are based on things we’ve have done in the past year. It was meant to be an anniversary present for Angelo, but it took forever to get mailed and the first one I ordered somehow got lost when it was delivered. But it did finally arrive. It was a good test of Lulu’s color printing. Overall it’s about what I was expecting from them in terms of quality. Not quite bookstore quality full color, but still pretty good for what it is. If you’re interested you can get a copy, but I don’t intend to pimp it out quite as much as I tried to with my doodle diaries book. I really do love Lulu. It’s amazing how few easy it is to just make a book cause you feel like it.
My Arduino arrived the same day as the book. I’m super excited for it. I’ve been looking at cool stuff people have made with it for a while and I’ve been wanting to try it out. And all the projects in the Making Things Talk book use one, so I figured I’d try it out. So far all I’ve really done is make some LEDs blink at various intervals, but it’s still pretty exciting considering I’ve really never messed with any electronics like this before.
Grad School?
The other day, after doing a bunch of following one link to another I came across NYU’s ITP grad program, which is apparently where some of my favorite interactive..things… came from (Intimate ControllersandIn bed). It’s also what Gizmodo lovingly calls “NYU’s hipster school of digital artists.” I’ve been doing some reading up on it and it sounds like it would be a lot of fun and pretty much perfect:
The department provides an open and nurturing environment in which people are empowered to develop their own ideas, no matter how experimental. ITP emphasizes the user’s creativity rather than the capability of the computer. The department challenges students to apply their creativity and imagination to the latest digital tools and techniques. The curriculum is devoted to teaching the practice and theory that emerge from the convergence of new media technologies.
I’ve known I wanted to do grad school at some point, I just wasn’t sure for what exactly. Or where. But ITP sounds pretty sweet. I’m looking around for other similar programs but I can’t seem to find much. It’s hard when everyone calls their spin on it something different. I would love to just spend two years experimenting with stuff. My only concerns would be moving to New York for two years and the hefty price tag (tuition is 18k+). I’m also curious what other people think of the program.
I’m not set on it yet. Still feels a little early to be going back to school when I’ve just started to enjoy not being in school and I’m happily employed. But it’s nice to at least start thinking about it. I’ll be checking out the department when I’m in New York in September for Pictoplasma (which happens to be at NYU too) so maybe I’ll wait until I see for myself. But so far it seems like a lot of interesting stuff comes out of there.