Fall Term Update

I feel like I should begin every post with an apology. Sorry I have not been writing and now it makes me sad that I don't think anyone is reading this anymore. I think I will start with a quick update on my my term. It has been busy. It has been tiring. But it has had its good moments, that's for sure. Firstly I am proud to say that I did manage to play rugby for the whole season. While I had previously planned on being nothing but on the B-side (if you don't know what that is, it is like second string) I found myself playing A-side for every game. This is not to brag since I am not a terribly good player, but the team is small and I know the game pretty well. I am trying to get pictures to show to you. All in all I am very happy I went back to the sport before I graduated. I took all last year off from rugby and I think it was a very good thing that I left so that I could remember why I love the sport. I must enjoy it since I even wrote an article for the newsletter. Impressive, to say the least. Ah well here is a picture of me and some rugby girls at the homecoming bonfire.


This photo was taken by my friend Krystal and is of me, Noelle, Emily, and Liz (from left to right).

Now I shall move on from rugby and onto the rest of my term. I am doing a thesis this term and next term on real-time energy feedback in the dorms. This is an extremely boring description of a much more interesting project. However, the project is NOT going well and so I don't really feel like explaining it or my motivation for taking the project on. Sorry to be so curt.
I am also taking CS68: The Principles of Programming Languages. Oh the thrilling life I lead! I am the envy of at least 2 people who read this now. I am sure of it. To keep this story just as short as the thesis story, the course started out with 20 students and then there were 13 and now there are 5. I am hoping that the professor will give me a good grade just for remaining in the class. Although I am fairly certain that is not the way this process works. Bummer. My last class is Introduction to Biological Anthropology. It is a large lecture based class, which keeps me feeling safely anonymous, something I haven't had the chance to be in class since Sophomore year. In addition to these academic endeavors, I am also working as an Introduction to Computer Science grader. This means I teach a subsection of the class for an hour every Thursday. They are mostly freshmen and sophomores and naturally, mostly male. I think I am a pretty fun teacher and even though I am the one giving out their grades I have to admit that they tend to get pretty good grades so I am quite proud of them.
That covers work and academics. Extracurriculars: I am busy being VP of my sorority (Epsilon Kappa Theta). That's fun. We had formal a few weekends ago actually. Here are some photos of me at the formal.


This was taken by Abbie (possibly by her boyfriend), of me and Abbie. She fooled around with the colors because apparently we were all washed out from the flash. We aren't actually colored that way naturally.


This was taken by Diane of me and Angie. I love my dress but I think I was the least formally dressed woman there. I think that I look like I am fully prepared to visit toyland.


This was taken by Erin (uhh or perhaps her boyfriend, Eric) of me and Dave.

Many other things have been going on this term but I really can't say I feel like launching into a lot of it. I recommend you read this from The D (school newspaper) and this as well so that you can maybe get a small idea of some of things going on about campus that have meant a lot to me.
Hm, what else? I don't know. Let me know if you have any questions. As soon as I get pictures from Thanksgiving onto my computer I will put those up. This break has been pretty good so far. I stayed at school since going all the way back to California is just too far and expensive for such a short break. Not to mention the term ends so soon. I head home on the tenth of December. Ah yes, I also cleaned my room over the break and took pictures of it to send to my mum. Now I will post them here so that you too can enjoy how cozy my room looks. Ignore the bras and note the snow outside.




Okay! If anyone is reading this then I hope you enjoyed it!

No wait! Don't go yet, here are more pictures me and friends. . . we may or may not have been drinking and eating cupcakes baked by Emma. I can't say that the two really mix though.

Kay Nielsen Illustrations

Here is the last installation of illustrations that the ASIFA-Hollywood archive has so kindly let me borrow and post about (quick note that these images were given to the archive by nocloo). These last illustrations are all by Kay Nielsen, who was certainly considered one of the greatest artists during the golden age of illustration. Through a bit of research I learned that Nielsen's work is thought of as a bit more modern than that of Dulac. I wasn't so sure, so I checked for myself and instantly understood why that was said. Extremely intricate designs are in almost every illustration and the Japanese influence that pervaded the early 20th century is clearly evident. Let me show you.
These are all from In Powder and Crinoline (1913).







Do you see it? I have no doubt you can at least see how beautiful these are. I'll just keep sharing the pictures with you. These next ones are from East of the Sun and West of the Moon and they are breathtaking.



These woods really remind me of John Bauer's forests. No surprise that Bauer is named as one of Nielsen's influences.




This background is really lovely, and so simple.



And finally this is an illustration from a later work of Hansel and Gretel and Other Stories From the Brothers Grimm in 1925:



I hope you enjoyed these! On a similar note, I was missing the abundance of art available at the archive so much that I decided to go in search of art at Dartmouth. Naturally I went to our special collections library, Rauner. Bingo. I have spent the past few days enjoying only one of the many amazing illustrated books stashed away in there. Of course the first book I chose was Great Swedish Fairy Tales illustrated by John Bauer. I was uncertain if I was allowed to make copies or anything of the illustrations so I made extremely poor renderings of my own so that I could enjoy them at any time I want. It turns out that I can make copies or take photos, but I am glad I have attempted to draw them, it makes me appreciate them even more.

Farewell Archive

“I came out to see the tears,” Steve said as he emerged from his office to find me admiring the drawing Mike had made for me on my last day at the archive. There were no tears, and for anyone who has known me long enough will know I very rarely share my emotions openly. Although there were no tears shed, there was quite the panoply of feelings welling up inside of me. I knew that this time around I was leaving behind so much more than I left behind when I parted from the archive in March. While I had made great friends in the winter, the summer solidified those relationships in ways I did not fully expect.
I found myself listening to Jojo at the Coral as he alternately lamented the students at his school and proclaimed us to be some of his greatest friends, and I silently agreed that he was right. I knew I would miss everyone so much and of course I have turned out to be right. The archive became a home to me and taught me an immeasurable amount. It is difficult to put into words what the archive has taught me. The archive is primarily a resource for artists and I have trouble even comparing myself to the students who follow Steve’s archive posts and visit the archive to take advantage of the never-ending treasures laid out there. I envy them for they can more easily show and describe what they have learned.
I did not learn the way I learn in a classroom while at ASIFA-Hollywood and I am sure that I am better for it. I was in charge of my own education at the archive and it would have been easy enough to just sort through films and art without absorbing anything. Well, no, that wouldn’t have been very easy for me to do because I absorb quite a bit at a pretty good rate. So I learned what I would consider some basics, such as which animators worked where and did what. I learned about artists first by looking at their work then usually through my own (very little) research. But beyond that more concrete sort of education, I more importantly developed a more critical eye and mind. Just by looking at so much art day after day I learned what I consider to be good art. The sheer volume of art I was exposed to through my work with the database and listening to conversations held by Steve and visitors gave me the ability to better analyze and critique animation and art.
As mentioned earlier, working at the archive gave me an education as well as friends that I am certain will last a lifetime. I almost forgot! The archive also did quite a bit for my self-confidence; I was amazed by all of the things I accomplished while working there. That felt good.
Now I say a final good bye and a tremendous thank you for everything to the archive and all of my LA friends for a few months. But don’t worry I will come back to visit.

Back to Rugby

I apologize profusely for not having written in such a long time. I don’t really know where to start actually since it has been so long. I suppose I will just start with the boring basic update so that in future posts I can be more interesting.
I am now back at Dartmouth for rugby preseason. Today is our first day off since we started almost a week ago. I say almost since it really hasn't been a week at all but certainly feels like it. Four or so hours of practice and physical activity a day can do that to you. Since it has been a few days now since I started I have finally gotten rid of the tremendous soreness that kicked in a day after I resumed rugby. Stairs were killer and even sleeping was difficult. I am happy to be back playing though after a whole year without rugby. It is just too bad that I am in no way rugby fit, which is completely different from any other kind of fit. As a forward in rugby (don't stress it if you don't know what a forward is), I am supposed to be able to run, or in my case jog, for about 80 minutes with an occasional break. Occasional break, well now that is nice isn't it? My breaks consist of rucking, scrumming, and doing line outs, which, for the rugby novice, means pushing your shoulder very hard against other people to win possession of the ball or lifting another person into the air to win the ball. Rugby is no walk in the park.
There is no terribly interesting news though on the rugby front except that I am playing again. Although, we did go for a run the other day in Pine Park, which circles the golf course and runs along the Connecticut river for the second half of the trail, and I am proud to say I ran the whole thing. Except when I fell over and twisted my ankle. I walked for a bit after that. But adrenaline was running high so I was able to continue the run. Now, in rugby, or at least in my experience, one tends to sport one's injuries with a certain amount of pride. They are akin to a badge of merit really. For example, if you sprained your ankle tackling some girl right before she was about to score a try, then that injury can be justified. Sadly when people ask me why my ankle is bright purple and the size of a small grapefruit, I must honestly reply that I tripped on a rock and fell down. That isn't hardcore in the least.
Oh dear, I have to go very soon to help set up for our rugby meetings tonight (meetings pretty much consist of singing rugby songs, which are. . . well I can save that for another time). This could be interesting since one of the reasons I quit rugby last year was because I truly hated the whole social dynamic. But I promise to write again soon so that I can show you the last illustrations I have to share and so that I can write a bit about saying good bye to the archive for the summer, which was a truly sad event.
Here are some old pictures of the Dartmouth Women's Rugby Club on tour in Wales a few years ago to give you an idea of what I do. I am not in them since I was taking them.
A scrum:


A line out:

Live Free, Or Die

One of the more aggressive state mottos, isn’t it? I am proud to say it belongs to the state of my second home, New Hampshire. This also became the motto for the weekend.
Not only is the motto quite aggressive, so is the summer weather, which I happily got a nice dose of this past weekend. I left cozy LA and headed east for my granddad’s 90th birthday. Alex and I left LAX at noon on Friday and arrived in muggy Boston at 11:30 pm. Summers smell and sound different in NH. First of all, crickets don’t care what time of day it is, they will chirp whenever they darn well please. I assume they do this because of the heat, the humidity, and their pig-headedness. As for smell, it sometimes reminds me of a paper bag of fresh peas on a hot day. While perhaps this is not the description most people would lend to the east coast, it is the first thing that came to mind for me.
Alexis rented her first car so that we could make the couple hour drive up to Lake Sunapee, NH. Despite the late hour air conditioning was a must. The further north we drove, the more frequent we encountered flashes of lighting. I took this as nature signaling to us that we were drawing closer to our destination. Nature was inevitably right.
Saturday was devoted to exploring the lake and finding ways to cool off. We boated around the lake for a few hours then docked for lunch. Being a completely land bound creature I found it very amusing that we boated to lunch. At about 3 we tied up the boat and headed back to the house. Dissatisfied to have left the water so soon, Lutz, Alexis and I went right back to the lake but this time with kayaks! Lutz, being a much more proficient kayaker, powered ahead in straight lines while Alexis and I followed in straight but short and very angled lines. Going in one direction was not our forte. While on the water I had the privilege to witness a boat get pulled over by the water police (not their official name). No life jackets? Live free or die! Wake in the no wake zone? Live free or die!
Picture of the lake and Alexis:




We paddled all the way out to the inhabited island on the lake and back. Why someone would want to live on an island so that they must boat everywhere beats me. We pulled out of the water just before a thunderstorm struck. These storms are truly impressive. The lightening was frighteningly frequent and we could see the actual bolt every time. Although I was in the house by the time the lightening started, I felt unsafe holding my metal soda can.
The stormy view from the house, it turned out much more blue than it seemed in person:


The next day was entirely devoted to my granddad’s birthday. We ate at Simon Pearce, naturally, which is by far my granddad’s favorite restaurant. He is well known there by all the staff and has been eating there for an uncountable number of years. Lunch was amazing and about 4 times larger than it needed to be. Lunch went long, as birthday lunches should, so that Alexis and I were scheduled to have dinner with our granddad only a few hours later. In the few hours in between we decided on a trip to Woodstock, VT. Not the best idea really. While Woodstock was undeniably cute, it was also a Sunday after 5pm. Not much of anything in either New Hampshire or Vermont is open on Sunday after 5. We drove to Hanover after that. It was nice to visit Dartmouth, even if for so short a time, I had felt odd being so near without going to campus. Dinner followed.
Monday was our last day. In the morning my dad, Alexis and I went for a walk.


A cool rock discovered on the walk:


Mt. Sunapee:


Then after dropping Christine’s mom off at the bus stop, we headed into New London, another small town that I will liken to Woodstock. Happily it was Monday before 5 so we actually got the chance to go into some shops. It was all very cute and small. Then we went to get some super fresh produce from the locals of New Hampshire. By we I mean Alexis and Christine shopped while I stood outside and took pictures of the Monarchs and flowers.


There was more boating in the afternoon and more picture taking.
Then dinner with dad, Lutz, Christine, and Alexis. In case you do not know, Lutz and Christine are very good family friends. A lot like family. Lutz is also my dad’s business partner. Now you do know, and more interesting dinner conversation you will be pressed to find. I cannot even begin to relay all the things we discussed.
After dinner Alexis and I drove to Boston to stay the night there before our very early flight home. This brought a close to our “live free or die” spree as soon as we passed by “Massachusetts welcomes you.” How friendly.

Descanso Gardens

The roses are in full bloom in Pasadena.











Rebecca and I visited the Descanso Gardens in Pasadena on Monday. Rebecca informed me that Pasadena is where the old money of LA lives. Keep in mind that old in California is not the kind of old you would find in Europe. We both agreed that it made no sense for those people to have chosen Pasadena to inhabit back in the day when they could have chosen the coast. The Descanso Gardens are on the property of a one Mr. E. Manchester Boddy, publisher of the Los Angeles Daily News, who purchased the land in 1937 and built a 22 room mansion in addition to the beautiful gardens. Now anyone willing to make the drive to Pasadena may enjoy the beautiful respite from LA city life.
I suggested to my friends, Rebecca and Anna, that we go to the gardens on Monday so as to continue my very slow exploration of all things Los Angeles. Sadly, Anna could not make it, but Rebecca and I had a fine time and many a one-word conversation.

Pond!


Rabbit!


Fish!


Hottt....


Throughout our wanderings we discussed the sorts of things you would expect a couple of friends having an afternoon completely planned out for chatting and relaxing to discuss: places we would like to travel, relationship issues, the kind of house we would like to live in if we can one day afford a house, and several other good things. We came across a small maze intended for little children and decided to wind our way to the center and have a sit on the tiny benches awaiting us there.


In addition to mini benches there were also mini railroads tracks complete with mini railroad sign, either that or I am a true giant.


After we got thoroughly turned around and lost in the lilac garden, which is the smallest garden there I might add, but in the corner so easy to get disoriented in, we found the Japanese garden.


In the Japanese garden I found vandalized bamboo. What? Yes, graffiti-ed bamboo. Disappointing isn't it? Who carves stupid stuff into beautiful plants? I feel the same way about graffiti over murals. Why would you do that? There are just some people I may never understand.


Please enjoy some more pictures taken at the gardens, no grafitti please:

Saturday at the Archive

I find that in the past few days I have been far too efficient at the archive. I have organized and formatted a hundred something scans, entered information on countless images in the database, and written up a guide for any future ASIFA intern. I have worn myself out. I am now sitting at the archive watching little blue lines snake across the screens on either side of me. The database and the intern guide sit open on the computer directly in front of me while Steve’s laptop, conveniently located at my right hand, is happily burning backups. With all of this going on at once you might wonder why it is I am writing a blog post. Good question. I am just a tad bored. Just a bit. I am a bit hungry too come to think of it. And sleepy.
I am happy that I have gotten so much work done but now I don’t really know what to do. That isn’t true at all. I know exactly what I can do because there is always more to do at the archive. I just don’t have the motivation to do it right now since most of what I have left for myself is pretty mindless and repetitive. Not good for Gemmas when hungry or sleepy.
Okay I just got some food so now I feel qualified to make the decision of how long I will stay at the archive tonight. Last night I stayed very late at the archive, which I did all the time in the winter but find it harder and harder to do this summer. This resulted in an invitation to Bob’s Big Boy. I had never been there so I was intrigued. While we were unlucky with the fact that the parking lot was packed with a whole bunch of people milling about looking at each other’s cars, we were quite fortunate in the booth we were seated at. We were shown to the booth that Steve referred to as the Beatle booth. It is the booth that The Beatles ate at when they were at Bob’s Big Boy. I ordered waffles because they are not served at the Coral until midnight and that is too late. After several hours went by I also got a cup of coffee to fight off tiredness. I am sorry to say that I was not very conversational before that. However, after some seat shifting I ended up sitting next to JD who seems to never be at a loss for words. I like people like that because I am not very good at starting conversations. I would say JD is a natural since he was constantly asking me questions and keeping my attention engaged. JD told me to hurry up and graduate so that I could come back and be on the crew of his million-dollar movie. Before that can happen though, JD will have to hurry up and find a million dollars. Overall it was a fun night.
I have just finished turning a bunch of tifs into jpegs for the database so I think it is time to head out and save the entering of the jpegs into the database for Tuesday. Perhaps I will think of something else I can do as well seeing as this next week is basically my last at the archive this summer.

Google Goes to the City

Bright and early on Wednesday morning at 9:03 I walked down to have breakfast a whole half hour before we were supposed to leave. I was quite proud of myself until the hotel decided they stopped serving breakfast at 9:00 and I had missed it by 3 minutes. That was upsetting and left my stomach all empty. I had been planning on this day being far superior to its predecessor so this was a disappointing start to the day. Oh! I completely forgot to tell you all about the new additions that they are making to Google Earth that we learned about on Tuesday. The only problem is we were sworn to Google secrecy to not write about it or talk about it. So that's a problem. . . I felt pretty cool being shown stuff they had only just begun to develop. While I had previously thought that Google Earth was just this thing to go look at if you had extra time, I think it is going to be way cooler now. It involves pictures and it's almost like you can go on a mini vacation from your own desk.
Okay, back to breakfast in Cupertino.
Fortunately my friend Tim was kind enough to let me eat some of his scrambled eggs and half of his croissant. We are such a nice team. I love us. I think that in the end we are a pretty social team, just within ourselves and not with others. As far as I know we were the only team with a lab so that we could all work near each other. That is basically the only reason I stuck with the project. The fact that it was a pretty social working environment made the hours somewhat bearable. Someone told me that one of the other teams didn't even really know eachother before they won and came to Google. That can't be true. . . but it just might be. Well we were slightly more social on Wednesday because we had a guy from the Purdue team sitting with us. Although he was really just sitting with our team leader who was so darn sketchy the whole trip. I hope she reads this.
After not having breakfast everyone got into the bus Google had gotten us for the day. The bus also came with Eugene, our driver, and Vera, our red-jacketed tour guide. We took 280 up to San Francisco so that we could see how beautiful Northern California is instead of how populated it is. While Vera talked to us about the history of San Francisco and such, Jess and Jen did Yoon-Ki and Danny's hair. They looked lovely.



Here is Tim having his chin scratched by Jen. Don't ask. I had to include it though to convey the whole experience.


I was very happy to hear Vera explain to the group that San Francisco is supposed to have miserably gray weather in the summer. You see, the Arctic water in the Pacific is very cold while the inland California temperatures are very hot. So then some magic happens and fog appears and is drawn inland where it encouters the mountains and comes to a stop because it is too heavy to get over. This leaves San Francisco in a perpetual state of fog in the summer. But weather is nice and sunny come September and October just in time for me to leave California for the soon to be snowy New Hampshire.


(Treasure Island, Bay Bridge, Fog)

We were taken through Chinatown and Union Square before being dropped off at Pier 39 where we had the unique opportunity to watch half of our team imitate the sea lions and frighten other tourists.



While most of the team dawdled, Mandy and I took our tour of Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf into our own hands and headed straight for the bread factory. Yes, the bread factory, or as some say colloquially: the bakery. We looked thorugh the window and watched the bread maker (or baker) create crab shaped bread. Our mouths watering we walked inside to see how much a turtle shaped loaf costed. Too much. Luckily there were free samples which we gladly helped ourselves to.
We then boarded a ferry bound for Sausalito, that place across the bay I never had any desire to visit. The ferry ride was great. I love boats and being on the water. It also offered me a chance to take tons of pictures of my team, the city, and Alcatraz. I will share some with you.


(Tim, Steph, and Aiden a Google worker from the Boulder office, he is a fun guy)


(Jess, Mandy, and Yoon-Ki)


(Jen requests that Mandy make a normal face in a picture so Yoon-Ki obliges by tickling Mandy)


(Mandy, having missed breakfast too, slowly eats her Snickers bar one peanut at a time)


(Yoon-Ki enjoys the fresh bay air and ponders. . . but who knows what)


(Danny gives us a quizzical look even though we are the ones confused as to why he is not sitting with us)


(a big boat I once took pictures of in high school for photography class, none of those picutres turned out as desired)




(Alcatraz)


(The Golden Gate Bridge, sail boat, and fog)

Once we docked in Sausalito we were given some more free time before lunch. Everyone dispersed and naturally most of the Dartmouth team found its way into a small toy store where we played with the puppets, read the kids books, and relived the joy of being a child in a shop full of colors. Lunch was a successful ordeal, despite a few team members' annoying habit of doing seriously obnoxious and oh so poorly executed foreign accents. By this point we had gathered 2 people from outside the Dartmouth team to sit with us. And so, on the last day, we began to socialize. As mentioned by one of my teammates, this is the safe way to go because you never know how the people you socialize with will turn out, so if you do it on the last day and they turn out to be creepy, at least it is the last day. Sadly not all Dartmouth students (our lovely team leader) took this advice and attracted creepy people nonetheless, or was perhaps creepy herself.
After lunch we headed to the Golden Gate Bridge while most of the bus continued to ignore Vera who was having a difficult time giving us a tour over all the raised voices. I felt bad for Vera, and I felt bad for the whole bus because they missed a ton of very interesting stories about San Francisco. We stopped to be tourists and take pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge. These are the last photos I took that day so I hope you enjoy them.


(Tim and Jen)




(Mandy feels the need to stand above everyone else)

Next stop was Haight Ashbury by way of Golden Gate Park. I love Golden Gate Park. Anyone who has the chance to go there most certainly should, and make sure you go to the Japanese tea garden. Haight Ashbury was fun enough, but everyone was getting tired by this point. Mandy, Yoon-ki, and I made the standard circuit of Haight Ashbury by stopping in the thrift stores that were too expensive (thrift indeed), the used bookstore, Amoeba, and finally the coffee shop next to Amoeba. No purchases were made and by 5:30 we were ready to head over to AT&T park, which I still want to call Pac Bell park.
So far this summer I have watched an excessive amount of baseball than I do usually. It is always on at the Foley house and I have now been to two Dodger games and a Giants game. Now before you ask, I was not at the game where Bonds broke the home run record. Thank goodness. No wonder that guy hits so many home runs at home though, AT&T park is the smallest baseball diamond ever! The game was not all the interesting for me since I had no real interest in either of the teams (they were playing the Washington Nationals). However the Google group did succeed in catching a foul ball; it landed literally right at Aiden's feet after bouncing off some poor guy's head. We also succeeded in getting heckled by very mean Giants fans who told us to go to LA or home when some of us attempted to start the wave. Apparently the wave cannot be done in San Francisco. I'm still not certain why they thought it prudent to tell us to go to LA. While I was too lazy myself to try to do the wave, I was still offended when our group was very rudely yelled at to go home by a woman in a hideous highlighter orange sweatshirt. I think she should have reconsidered yelling at us while wearing such a horrible sweater. Aiden first kindly informed the woman that if she wanted to flip Google the bird she was more than welcome to, then he snapped a picture of her doing just that. I don't much like Giants fans.
Overall I would say our trip into the city was a lot of fun. There is a bunch I have missed out I am sure but I only have so much patience and my attention span is only so long when writing. After the long bus ride back to Cupertino, a few of us decided to continue to be social and go to the hot tub with other members of the Google group. What this really means is that Danny and I stayed by the hot tub and chatted while the rest who had gone down frolicked in the pool. I don't think we like to sit still very much.
So ends my adventure at Google. I hope Dartmouth did not make too bad of an impression seeing as I need a job somewhere after I graduate next year.