Current mood:	hungry
Current music:	Rainie Yang - ??????? (Zai Ni Huai Li De Wei Xiao)
Entry tags:	books, cindy pon, construct 2009, csi, danielle joseph, dull boy, indianapolis, justine chen headley, mistful, north of beautiful, san francisco, sarah cross, sarah rees brennan, shrinking violets, silver phoenix, summer 2009, the demon's lexicon

CONSTRUCT 2009, Summer Quarter, San Francisco, Books
Currently on the train heading home for the weekend and I figure it's about time I finish writing up my account of CONSTRUCT 2009 for my blog as well as to cross-post parts into the Cal Poly CSI blog (kinda annoyed that no one wants to blog on some content, but what can I expect? Discussion for another time, I guess). Will talk about summer school and other stuff after the convention in this post as well, since I still have a good six hours (as of typing this) to go before I get to San Diego and no internet to break these into separate posts (yes, I could break them when I finally get some access, but that would be lots more work for me since I'll be typing it all out on Semagic). XP

CONSTRUCT 2009 // The CSI Convention, which was in Indianapolis this year from June 16-19.
Summer Quarter // Ramblings on summer studio and math class.
San Francisco Trip // Field trip up to SF last weekend (June 26-27).
Books Discussion // With all the traveling, I've been doing lots of reading, so talk about these books.

CONSTRUCT 2009

Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday

TUESDAY
Woke up around 4:30AM and got ready to go, since my flight was at 6:40AM. My mom drove me to the airport, then waited in the security line for like, 45 minutes or something. Then got on the plane and yeah. It was cloudy and stuff, so there wasn't much of a view out the window, just clouds.

Finished reading Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon on the flight to Minneapolis -- more about the book further down.

Got to Minneapolis -- looked super pretty as we were getting read to land 'cause there was lots of trees and greenery around. Once we landed, had to walk all the way to F-4 from G-whatever to catch my flight out to Indianapolis -- such a long walk. x_x I swear, I had about 30 minutes between flights and it took me the whole time to make it to the other gate.

On the flight to Indianapolis, I got through half of Shrinking Violet by Danielle Joseph -- discussion about it down below.

Landed in Indianapolis around 3:20-ish (time-change sucks, haha) and took a bit to get my bearings and find the IndyGo shuttle. I guess I was late and just missed one 'cause it was a super long wait for the next one to come, around 4:20. Met up with the other four people who landed 3:35-ish right as the shuttle got there, and yeah -- 20 minute ride to downtown.

It was super raining on Tuesday -- when we first got there, it was only raining lightly, but it got worse throughout the day. After checking into the hotel, the four of us staying in the room together (Teresa, Grace, Andy, and I) decided to go out and find food. Because we were all lame, none of us checked the weather report before flying, so we didn't have umbrellas. We walked around downtown for a while in the rain -- passed by a bunch of food places, but we kept deciding to continue on to "see our options", even though we were getting pretty wet (we're so smart, haha). It was okay for a while, but in the end, we basically made a circle around and decided to go to the mall and eat in the food court -- mall is right across the street from our hotel, so you can just tell how decisive we were. XP

Ate some food, then headed back towards our hotel through the mall. When we walked out of the door to get onto the street, it was super pouring and we had to run across the street to the hotel. Let's just say that the short run across the street had us completely drenched, as if we just took a shower. @_@ Once we got back, we ended up just watching TV and sleeping for the rest of the night, even though we had grand ideas of watching a movie and finding a supermarket. XP

I always have trouble sleeping in new places, so I didn't really get much sleep, if you can call it that. I was mostly just drifting in and out without any actual rest that night. Everyone was dropping off around 8:00-ish, but I was just kinda awake and trying to get some sleep. Around 2:00 in the morning, Teresa woke up (and in turn, woke me up, since we were sharing the bed) and we watched some more TV, then she drifted off again shortly after that. Around 4:00 in the morning, we woke up again and decided it would be a good time to explore the hotel, lol, so we went to the second floor where breakfast would be served and looked around. After that, we went to check out the gym that was in the hotel, then went back to our rooms. Teresa fell asleep again, but I couldn't, so I decided to read and finished reading Shrinking Violets.


WEDNESDAY
Because I was up, pretty much the whole night, I get up kinda late and missed my morning session that started at 8:00AM (sorry, breakfast was more important, haha, since our 4AM tryst around the hotel was filled with countdowns until breakfast was served -- two hours! One and a half! You can just image, haha). Since most of us missed our 8AM, we decided to just go to the First Time Orientation session that was at 9AM. I don't really think there was much useful information to be gained from it, especially if you've done your research about what was happening at the convention beforehand, which I did (as if that wasn't a given, haha. Me, planner much?).

After that orientation, everyone headed to the room where they were going to hold the General Session. The keynote speaker was from NASA and was talking about his project or whatever and, as Teresa tells it, it was pretty interesting, but I have to admit it -- my lack of sleep the night before was making me super sleepy during the keynote lecture, so I closed my eyes a lot, drifted a bit, listened the whole time, but comprehended only parts, haha. It kinda sucked 'cause I was interested in what the speaker was talking about, but two nights of virtually no sleep was getting to me. x_x

So, before we went to the convention, the board decided that we would wear our Cal Poly CSI t-shirts during the convention, but half of us (the half that wasn't rooming with us) showed up on Wednesday all dressed up in business casual wear, so Grace, Teresa, and I were super outclassed. Since Teresa and I were going to attend an editors meeting in the Leaders Lounge at 12:00, when the general session was over at 11:30, we went all the way back to the hotel to change into something a little more dress-y than t-shirt and jeans. Unfortunately, I did NOT pack dressing up, so I only had one thing that wasn't super slobby, which was the dress I brought for the CSI Celebration. So yes, I changed into the dress and heels (Teresa did as well), and we headed back to the convention center for the meeting.

The editor's meeting in the Leaders Lounge was interesting, but not really what I was expecting. Mostly, it was Gilman Hu (the CSI President, now Past-President) talking about the Phoenix Group, which he and a few others created for the purpose of distributing read-to-publish content for chapters to use. It was good to see who all the newsletter editors were -- hopefully our newsletter that we're starting will be good.

After the editor's meeting, Teresa and I decided to go to the mall to shop for more acceptable clothing, lol. We probably should have gone to the exhibition hall right after, but it seemed like a good idea to go shopping at the time, lol. Unfortunately, it is NOT a good idea to go shopping in 3 (3.5?) ihch heels. x_x Cute, but unconfortable heels. =/

I ended up just buying a green shirt -- not exactly my style, more Teresa's tastes, since she handed it to me, but it looked fine when I tried it on, so yeah. (Total sidenote, but Indianapolis sales tax -- only 7%! I mean, still a lot, but totally nothing compared to SLO's 8.25% or SD's 8.75%).

By the time we were done in the mall, it was practially 4PM, so headed back to the convention center for an educational session. I was signd up for "Better Lighting for Less Energy" while Teresa was signed up for something else, but she ended up going to the session with me since her room was further away, lol.

The "Better Lighting..." session was pretty interesting, but half of it was repeat of stuff we learned in practice / ECS. But otherwise, I thought the speaker, while not amazing, presented his information pretty clearly.

After the session, we were heading to the Welcome Reception at the Hyatt and meet up with Andy on the way. Unfortunately, we were caught by one of our mentors at the escalator and was roped into going to the Emerging Professionals session in the Leaders Louge. x_x We were lead to believe that it would be ending soon, since the Welcome Reception started at 5:30PM and it was 5:15 already. Unfortunately, it was a lie 'cause the talk just went on and on -- eventually Teresa, Grace, Andy, and I left at 6:15-ish 'cause we didn't want to miss the whole reception.

During the Welcome Reception, Teresa and I went around and some videos of people telling us why the joined CSI and what they got from being a member. Also meet lots of people, including some people I met on twitter (since I'm the twitter person for our club -- no one else willing, as usual). It was fun -- the only bad thing was that me and Teresa missed out on dessert (chocolate covered strawberries!) since we kept walking in and out of the reception room to interview people and they didn't have more when we came back. =(

Following the Welcome Reception was the Stanley Ice Cream Social, which was upstairs from the room we were already in. Mostly ice cream, popcorn, and hanging out at our table. There were also raffles of Stanley tools, which I totally wanted, but didn't win. Sadness abounds!

After the Ice Cream Social, it was about 10:30-ish by the time we got back to the hotel. We still wanted to find that supermarket, so we headed out after changing to find it. Didn't really end up buying anything since we weren't hungry, so yeah. Semi-wasted walk to find it (long walk too!). After that long day and coming back from the supermarket, we just watched TV and crashed for the night. I couldn't sleep well again, but at least I got a bit more than on Tuesday night.


THURSDAY
Got up late again to make it in time for the first session of the morning 8AM, so just took my time at breakfast, then headed over to the convention center for my session on "Global Megatrends and Next-Generation Architectural Glass". Again, there was at least half that I remembered learning about in ECS, but I was sleepy during the session as well, so there was some stuff near the end that I was over my head -- more because I was tired than because I didn't understand.

After that session, we had from 11:30 to 4:00 to send in the exhibition hall and get through all the exhibitors, since Teresa and I neglected to go the day before. And yes, we (along with Grace) DID spend that whole time there and talked to basically everyone there. It was long and tiring and the fact that I was holding all the stuff that we were taking for the treasure box (stuff we're gonna raffle off for all our meetings next year) didn't help matters. Seriously, I had my stuff on one side, and treasure stuff on the other side, and for every item I got for me, there was an equivalent (if not more) that went into the treasure bag. Also, didn't help that Grace was grabbing stuff left, right and center (haha, HP reference!) and sticking them in the treasure bag as well. I swear, I probably was weighed down enough to shrink a few inches! And just for the record, Teresa, Grace, and I are all SUPER grabby people, so yes, LOTS of stuff -- most grocery bags, since bags was a big trend this time around.

At 4PM, us three went to the "Concrete Solutions for a Sustainable Future" session. Both Grace and I were signed up for this one, but Teresa wasn't and just crashed it with us. The content of the presentation seemed to be more focused on WHY use concrete instead of HOW to use concrete. Not very infomative and 100% stuff we already learned in practice / ECS. Didn't help that we were ALL super sleepy in there, but the A/C was on super high and keeping us semi-awake. But later on, the A/C went off and we all had some candy, then were all pretty much awake for the end of the session.

The session was the last thing planned for the day, so Grace, Teresa, Andy, and I went back to our room and called up a taxi to go to Cici's Pizza. For the record, we'd been planning Cici's since the first day in Indianapolis, since Teresa kept telling us that there WAS on there (there aren't any in California -- or at least, I haven't seen any) and we kept seeing commercials on TV and yeah. I got the address for one on Washington St. and we got the taxi to go there. Unfortunately, the taxi driver went the local route (looked it up later and was only suppose to be 2.4 miles by freeway, but 10 miles local) and since we had no idea of anything, we didn't say anything until it was too late. Of course, the freakin' taxi driver knew and didn't tell us until it was too late as well that were was a closer one on West St. or whatever (that one was 3 miles away). So annoying! It was $24 or so in the end. GAH! For $5 pizza. x_x

Ate at Cici's -- there were some pretty good pizzas -- then decided to walk as far back as we could before calling for a taxi, since we didn't want to spend that much on the way back. We walked for a long time (later looked up to see we walked two miles), and then we stopped at a bus stop 'cause there was a guy there and he said the bus was coming any minute. We waited for a long time (and probably annoyed the guy at the stop, haha) and yeah. I'm guessing the guy got to the stop a min or so late 'cause it didn't come. And we kept waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And then finally at 9-ish, Andy called a cab 'cause it seemed the bus wasn't going to show. By that point, we were just waiting to see which one would come first. Eventually, we saw the cab coming and getting ready to turn (by now, it was 9:45-ish), so we started heading to the corner to cross the street to meet it when, as luck would have it, the bus came. Of course we all ran back to the bus to get it instead, since it would be cheaper to than the taxi, but yeah. Of course it had to happen like that. x_x


FRIDAY
Had a session at 7:30AM, but I didn't want to get up, so yeah. Slept in a bit, then had breakfast, then got a taxi to head to the Stanley factory for a tour. The Stanley Solutions factory was kinda cool -- saw the assembly area and stuff for all the door hardware and stuff, then got to see the testing lab which was cool also -- loud though (lots of banging!), but what can you expect when they're testing door hardware then doors banging open and closed.

After heading back to the hotel after the tour (I had to freakin' pay for the taxi ride there and back, freakin' stingy people >O ), went to the convention center and bought a Project Resource Manual [PRM] (since I'm planning to take the CDT, need to study!) and some Design-Build book, and then went around the exhibition hall for a bit until it was 2-ish and time for the CSI annual meeting.

The annual meeting was kinda boring and mostly all awards stuff, so yeah. Our school didn't do the student competition, so it's not even like we got up there or anything, but everyone who participated in it got some cash prize. But if we did sign up in time, we probably could have won something. We heard that they were trying to find us (Cal Poly) on Wednesday 'cause some school backed out of the competition, but obviously they didn't find us, since we didn't participate -- too bad, 'cause it probably would have been fun.

After the meeting, us four went back to the hotel and just wated TV until we had to go to dinner with the Fresno chapter at 6PM. I ended up just wearing the same dress as Wednesday for the dinner and subsequent celebration -- good thing I had a jacket on for most of Wednesday, so it it didn't really look like I was wearing the same thing, even though I totally was, haha.

We had dinner at Weber Grill -- I got some shrimp thing -- not super good, but okay. Teresa got pork chops, which looked good on the plate, but wasn't that tasty when I tried it. I kinda wish I got a steak instead, but whatever. Our side of the table also got dessert as well 'cause we were just that awesome. It was some triple chocolate thing and it was super good, but super fattening and super chocolate-y, lol.

The CSI Celebration was suppose to start a little while later than when we finished dinner. Since we were early, we just sat outside the lobby of the room where it would be and had fun on our own, taking videos of each other and stuff. Grace and Teresa seem pretty keen on doing a vlog, so we'll probably get that started sometime during the summer. XP

Grace and I went into the room to watch as Michael Davis gave his presidential acceptance speech thing, then we all went to the other room where the music and dancing would be. There was the SpecTones, which is a band that is made of CSI members and they were pretty good. I also think their name is pretty clever, lol. But yeah.. not many people dancing, so there are a bunch of pics of our group awkwardly dancing. I swear, the camera people were following us around throughout the convention, since we always saw them taking pics of us! @_@


SATURDAY
Our last day in Indianpolis was pretty much filled with packing. I swear, me and Teresa kept repacking our bags, trying to figure out how to fit all our stuff that we got -- lemme just say that I was at a total disadvantage since I didn't bring a suitcase, just a small sportsbag sized bag, so I couldn't fit all the crap I got, let alone treasure-box stuff! In the end, we decided we had to ship it, and took it to the FedEx store to ship it. Only after I paid did Teresa come up with the brillant idea of just buying a box and having the box as checked luggage, since it would have been cheaper, but by then it was too late. x_x

Walked around a bit and hung in the mall for the rest of the time we had there (by then, everyone had left except Teresa, Andy, and I), then went back to the hotel around 4:45 to get our stuff and get on the shuttle to the airport.

Our flight was at 6:15PM, going to Phoenix and then switching planes and heading to SLO. During the flight, I started reading The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan -- more on this later.

Got back to SLO around 9:45-ish and got a taxi back, exhausted.


Overall, it was a pretty fun trip, but wish we had more time to hang around and see more, like going to the zoo or museum or something -- too bad we didn't have the time. =/

And now, links to pictures! All the pictures that us Cal Poly students took are on our Cal Poly CSI Flickr. There are some pictures on the CSI Convention Flickr group, the CSI Indianapolis Picasa, and official pictures.

Summer Quarter

Summer school started on the 22nd, the Monday after I came back from Indianapolis. So far, summer has been okay, except for the fact that I didn't get into the English class I wanted -- my very last GE. x_x I was planning to take a CRP class before, but that was canceled, which was why I was trying to get into English. Unfortunately, I had super bad luck -- 3 people showed on the waitlist, I was number 2. I thought I had super chances, but then there were only two spots in the class and the person in front of me graduated 2010 and the person behind me graduated Fall 2009, so since I graduate latest, I was screwed. x_x Even if I lied and said I'd graduate next year, the person behind me would have gotten my spot. SO ANNOYING! Seriously, what's the point in waitlisting if professors always play the graduation card? It's those people's faults they waited so long to do their GEs! Everyone else should suffer because they can't plan well when they have good priorities! x_x

So yes, I'm just taking MATH 244 (Linear Analysis) and studio this summer. The linear analysis is a combination of Differential Equations and Linear Algebra and has been okay so far. I got a 10/10 on first quiz (had to make it up on Monday 'cause I had field trip) and I think I got 10/10 on second quiz yesterday -- that is, if I didn't mess up on arithmetric, since there was tons of that. x_x

Studio is with Doefler and we are doing an America's Cup village -- America's Cup, if you don't know (I sure didn't!) is a yacht racing competition and is like, super duper big and shiny. Basically, whoever wins the cup holds next race and they have to make a village for it, with space for sponsors, the syndicates, media, and public, etc. We've got two projects going on right now. First project is the Spline Project, in which we watched Wind, a movie about racing in the America's Cup, and had to do some gestural sketches to try and capture the movement of the yachts. Then we had to model it using two sticks, ditigalize, and now make ribs and stuff on Rhino and lazor cut our model. It's due this upcoming Thursday, so I definitely need to learn Rhino to figure out the making-ribs part.

The other project is master planning. There are four potential sites in San Francisco, so we have four groups and have to master plan for our site. My site is China Basin. After we do this master planning stuff, we willl all choose one or two buildings form our master plan and design them. Our master plans are due on the 13th.

This past Monday (29th), we had to do some stupid collage thing in groups, and yeah. There are some people (well, more one person) in my group that does not know how to play with others and made our collage task a million times harder and more work than it had to be. x_x What's the point in doing five mini collages when we have to do five actual collages and we have five people? Obviously it would have gone faster if we all just did one. Or, if we all got along (which we mostly do except said person), we could have worked together and pumped out the collages super fast. Unfortunately, not. x_x

On Wednesday, we had a review of our collages with the other two classes who did the same thing, in CRP and LARCH. It was pretty boring and mostly repetitive, but whatever.

We had time to master plan on Tuesday and Wednesday and I'm semi-happy with what we have right now. There are still some sketchy parts, but overall, it's okay. Better than what that one person in my group's initial thought was. ((Yes, I'm kinda super against him 'cause he's a control freak kinda person and yeah. He's also the type who's super abstract and talks big and vague and sounds like he knows everything and then has abstract projects that aren't my taste at all, so yeah.))

So overall, school has been okay, except for some minor group-work bleh-ness, but group-work always comes with some amount of bleh-ness no matter who you work with, so yeah.

San Francisco Trip

Last weekend, we had a field trip to San Francisco for studio, since our sites are up there. Drove up on Friday morning with like, half the class. Fernando in my group drove and yeah -- seven people in the car, when there is 16 people in the class, pretty much sums up half the class, lol. Our first stop was in Redwood City, visiting the Oracle building. Oracle BMW is one of the major syndicates and they are racing in this year's America's Cup. Had a presentation and then got to go on the yacht that was out on their lake, behind the building. It was cool -- got to walk arond it and stuff -- me and Teresa went out to the very front of it, lol. Kinda scary though, kept feeling like I'd fall, especially since I can't swim and there's not much to hold onto there, except some rope. XP

After that, went to the first site -- Fort Mason. Walked around, but since it wasn't my siite, I mostly stayed near where we parked and took lots of pictures of the water and the Golden Gate bridge, even though it was foggy. After that, went to the Golden Gate Yacht Club, which is the club partnering with Oracle for the America's Cup. Looked around there, then finally was done for the day.

Teresa, Amanda, Tara, and I took the BART out to near where Amanda lives. Teresa and I were staying at Amanda's place, so yeah. Had pizza there and watched Gladiator, but didn't end up finishing since we were super tired and wanted sleep.

On Saturday, we were visiting the other three sites. The first one on our list was South Embarcadero. Unfortunately, that site was PACKED because it was Warped Tour. Once again, I have to say good planning to Doerfler, 'cause first, Gay Pride weekend and second, Warped Tour on site, but whatever. At least that wasn't my site -- it was Teresa's though, and she couldn't even get onto part of her site 'cause they were using the pier for some charter bus parking. x_x I got tons of pictures of all the people in line, lol.

After that, headed across the bridge to China Basin, which is just under ATT Park. It's just a giant parking lot for most of the site, but yeah. Took lots of pictures and stuff, then after I was done, met up with Teresa and we went to Borders to just hang out until it was time to meet up with others and head to the last site.

Last site was Treasure Island -- sounds cool, but there is so NOTHING there. Also, the exit for it on the Bay Bridge is super dangerous -- who's idea was it for that sharp turn anyway? x_x

After going around the island, headed back to SLO. What a long day! Pictures are posted here on Facebook.

Books Discussion

Silver Phoenix | Shrinking Violet | The Demon's Lexicon
So, I've read lots of books (lots is probably relatively little in comparasion to other people, since during the school year, I don't even get time to READ for fun) since Spring Quarter ended, so I feel like I should at least talk about them a little. XP Spoilers ahead for all the books!

Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon
I've been wanting to read this book for a while and finally started it after my last final while I was waiting for my ride home. I got through half of it during the trip home and finished the other half on the flgiht to Minnepolis. I thought that the book was pretty good, especially all the food in the book, lol. I would totally stuff myself like Ai Ling too, haha. But yeah, super sad when Li Rong died! =( The prose in the book was.. I dunno what the right word for it is -- passive? but that doesn't sound right... I dunno, but it wasn't the kind of voice I'm used to reading, but I think it fit since it is ancient China and stuff. I dunno, haha. Can't wait for the sequel! XP


Shrinking Violet by Danielle Joseph
I thought this book was super cute, haha. It's like a chick flick, in book form. XP But I like it anyway, lol. This book is about a shy girl who wants to be a radio DJ and yeah. I thought Tere and the guy (I forget his name at the moment, and can't look it up since I'm on the train without internet) were super cute, haha. I liked their relatoinship and it was super cute at the end how they got together. XD


The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan
This book was much anticipated since I read her HP fics and love her writing. It kinda took me a bit to get into the book, but once you're into the world, it is amazing. I love the characters and the story is pretty exciting. The ending was such a twist to me, 'cause I totally didn't see it coming, even though the hints were there throughout the book. And yeah, when I got to the twist at the end, I was reading it at the South Embarcadero site in San Francsico and I swear, I was just standing there near the coffee shopping absorbed in the book and after the big reveal, I was like OMG SO GOOD and totally ignoring the people standing near me and semi-talking to me, lol. But yes, my favorite was Jamie with all his lines -- he's awesome. XP And okay, I just have to say it, I totally ship Nick/Jamie -- just getting it out there. XP Can't wait for the next one! GAH!


Currently, I'm halfway through Dull Boy by Sarah Cross and also about a third of the way through North of Beautiful by Justine Chen Headley. I'm kinda into Dull Boy, kinda not -- I'm not really sure what I don't like about it, but it just doesn't capture my attention as much as North of Beautiful, which I just started reading a few days ago. But yes, I'll hold off judgment for both books until I've finished them. XP


Okay, so it is currently 12:30PM and the train just left LA and I'm super tired after typing for three hours straight, so that's all for now. Will post once I get access to the internet.


Addendum -- it is currently 9:38PM and I'm finally posting this, haha.

~Remula