Short post:

just to show everyone what my friend just sent to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbFz--GCkOM

Yes, a new Winnie the Pooh animated movie is coming out this summer.

Happy Guy Fawkes day!

"Remember remember the fifth of november, the gunpowder treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder and treason should ever be forgot"... has anyone seen 'V for Vendetta'?

So we're continuing work on our chapel project, and they decided to throw us a curveball -- in addition to our chapel and garden that was supposed to take up close to 1/3 of the space (roughly 6400 sqft), we now must use the rest of the space to create a rectory that houses 10-20 priests, including a dining hall and other assorted amenities. Buildings were so much easier to create when all I had to worry about was "do I have enough virtual money to build the house in Sims?" ... since we're slowly but surely learning about all of the different zoning codes, there are a lot of things we have to watch out for. For example, my chapel had to be recreated because while it was spacious outside, someone with a weelchair wouldn't be able to access the main doors -- a violation of the ADA.

Sorry, but that's all I have time for right now! I'll post pictures soon with my progress on the chapel/gardens. Love and miss all of you!

Do I get a matching tee-shirt?

Sorry I haven't blogged in a couple hundred days, it's been hectic as usual. Our fall "break" just meant the Architecture professors knew they could pile more work on to our already-overflowing workload. But everything is fine, I just finished my project due tomorrow so I should be able to get a decent night's sleep for the first time in forever tonight. We're working on our final project for studio, which isn't due until the day before thanksgiving break, which is designing a chapel and garden to go in the place of the parking lot adjacent to the Church of the Little Flower. The whole area is really nice, on the one side of the parking lot is the church, and the other side of the parking lot is the St. Theresa of Lisieux catholic girls school. That project is going to be quite the challenge, because you don't want to create something so overbearing that it takes away from the church, but you also don't want to create something so small that it becomes unnoticed.

In drawing, we've been doing more and more of the architecture version of busy work; taking in a bunch of material, looking at a bunch of floor plans, and regurgitating the information. I can't say I enjoy the projects we're doing right now, but they definitely help-- and all of our techniques have improved greatly.

When I get a chance to talk more, I'll post a longer blog update. Again, sorry for the delay. I miss you all so much, and I can't wait to see you over thanksgiving break.

Lots of love,
Norman

Busy busy busy

Sorry it's been such a long time, I have about 15 minutes before math starts so I can at least add a newer small entry. I'm currently working on 3 projects-- here is a breif description of what they are:

1. Palladio's Plates: 12x18 Vellum, Pencil: It's basically re-creating an image given to us (in a much smaller scale), but it's almost like a maze to figure out the lengths of everything.. the sheet we're given doesn't give you any measurements. The building given is completely symmetrical, and deals a lot with geometric proportions: the basic set up across each of the sides is ABA, a's being squares and B's being 2A-rectangles. So getting the outside isn't tough, but getting the inside measurements is almost like solving a jigsaw puzzle.

2. Miami Studio: 2 Sheets of 12x18 Vel; Pretty self explanitory, we've been walking around taking measurements of our studio and by tuesday the 12th we need to have finished 2 sheets detailing the building, everything perfectly to-scale, including (but definitely not limited to) the floorplan, elevation, cross-section, aerial view, space-plot diagrams, etc.

3. Building research: 24" x 36" mylar/ink. We were all assigned a building to present to the class-- for me it was Villa Vizcaya in Coral Gables. I believe I was the only assigned to a building that was in Miami, so I took the Metro-Rail and took a tour of the actual building which made my professor was very happy. The final copy will have plans/sectional views of all of the Villa. This one is due Saturday night.

From today until saturday when we turn it in, I probably won't do much-- if anything-- outside of the studio, so I aplogize in advance for my lack of blog posts.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel for this deadline week, though! 2 friends and I are going to see the Dolphins Patriots game on Monday Night Football at Sunlife Stadium! It should be an awesome time!!

Love and miss all of you!
Norman

Very short blog!

Mostly for my mom-- I was browsing youtube for a few minutes and came across this gem. And I knew you would love to see it. (It's also cool that it was formed on Edward's birthday... in 1978). One of the few Bruce videos from the 70's that has great quality. It put a smile on my face, and I know it will put a smile on yours. Love you and miss you! All of you!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5buOHjOGiI

Part 2!

(Really quick before I start--- Edward, your birthday present is finally going to be in the mail tomorrow. It was tough finding time to get to the shipping station on campus- it's open 9-3 every day (and for the most part, I have class from 9-3 every day). But tomorrow I get out at noon and I'm bringing your present with me to class so I can just go right there. So sorry it took so long!)

So here's part two! As you all know we went to Key West on Saturday; and it was an absolute blast. We went on a big bus with 4 professors that lead us around (and as you could have guessed, they knew 500x more about the architecture of every single building we saw than a tour-guide could have told us). Aside from it being 108 degrees (and that's not even a joke, it was the 2nd hottest day of the year in the Keys), it was so much fun. Also, it was "Bike Week" in the Keys, so every street was filled up and down with motorcycles. Which was cool, no doubt, but it caused the entire day to be loud and smell like gasoline.

A fact I found interesting was the fact that it's actual name, "Caya Hueso", doesn't translate to 'Key West'. The only reason we call it Key West is because when Great Britain took control of the island they thought "Caya Hueso" (pronounced Caya wesso) sounded like Key West and the name stuck. The literal translation of Caya Hueso is "Key of bones", because by the time Ponce De Leon and the Spanish Army took over the island, it was littered with the remains -- bones -- of it's earlier inhabitants. (The fact that it is in fact the western-most Key is a coincidence). I thought that was pretty cool, so I thought I'd share it with you!

Alright, here are some pictures!




An old house we visited, they said the items in the house have been
kept in-tact for close to 70 years; Key West was the first place
to begin recognizing the importance of preserving history.





This is my friend Troy I've been telling you about. He's drinking a
Coconut. I love the taste of Coconut, but the Coconut milk is
definitely NOT the same thing... yuck.

This is what every street looked like. With a bunch of bikes,
obviously there were a lot of bikers. I felt like I was at a
Nascar race with some of the people that were there...
we literally had to spend 5 full minutes explaining to one of
the guys that we were here touring the *architecture* of
Key West, NOT the bikes. He in turn told us that he had
no idea what the word "architecture" was. We didn't meet the
brightest crayons in the box or the sharpest tools in the shed
on our tour. But it was still fun!! 

Awesome looking old church.



The house shown in picture 1 from the outside.

Part 1!

Sorry it's been such a long time. We had a ridiculous amount of work to do, and because I was in Key West all day saturday, losing 1 weekend day that should have gone to 4 or 5 hours of studio work takes a lot of making up to do.

So I'll start with last friday, where we had our critiques. I'm sure many of you have heard, but it went extremely well for me. The professors, hired art critics, and guest artist all loved my work-- and they weren't nice to everyone. The girl before me was told point blank by a critic: "I'm not here to compliment your work, I'm here to tell you what's wrong with it. And I honestly don't like a thing about your composition". Needless to say, I was beyond thrilled with the reviews I got for mine. One of the professor's said that they were elated to have a copy of this in their possesion because "It will help show future students that tackling a composition this difficult can result in beautiful results". Down the line, every critic loved my map. I was elated beyond words. If you haven't seen it yet, or haven't seen the entire thing, here are some photos:

This is the composition in it's entirety. 24"x36" mylar covered in teeeeeny tinnnnny dashes of ink. The basic idea is that this is Bruce Springsteen, and being that I consider him a "reflection" of my hometown-- someone that is distinctly New Jersey, not just a "large suburb of New York"-- his reflection is cast over the map of Monmouth County. Behind Bruce in the background are the lyrics to a few of his songs, including 'Thunder Road' and 'Sandy'.

The picture on the right gives you an idea of the amount of lines used to make Bruce. Nothing on the entire page, excluding the title, is made with more than a 2-3cm long dash with a tiny pen.







So I have to leave now, but I promise more pictures and stories very soon!

I finished!

With about 2 minutes to spare earlier today, I finished. The project, for the first time in a month, is no longer in my hands. I'll posta picture sometime tomorrow, but for right now I'm going to sleep before 2am for the first time in weeks.

Lots of love,
Norman

Blog #11: Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

Sorry I haven't been up to date on my blogging. This week is deadline week; my hometown map is due thursday at 8:00 and I have another project due tomorrow morning. It's been hectic, (which is probably the most commonly used word in my blog posts), but I've managed to stay up-to-date with most of my projects. I'm ahead of everyone on the Hometown Map, so I can still do my lift-abs-racquetball routine with Troy every MWF, and now I'm starting to go to the pool and log laps every tuesday and thursday (please send goggles mom!). It's awesome because I'm havig a great time and getting a crazy amount of excercise as well, and I've already moved up 20-pounds on my skullcrushers and 40 pounds on my bench.

Miss you all so much, once thursday passes I promise I'll be back to regular blogging.

Norman

Blog #10: Sorry!

I have been so busy, it's not even funny. I'm soon off to the studio to begin inking my final hometown map copy, which I'm very excited about starting. (When I was at draft 1 of 6, this seemed so far away). The inking is difficult, though. The pens we're using are ridiculously thin (A normal ball-point pen would be about .6mm-.75mm diameter, the pens I'm using range from .13-.18. And using the pens at all requires you to change your style of drawing completely; you need to hold the pen at a complete 90-degree angle to get anywhere. Also, I'm "hashing and stippling" the entire project- or, in layman's terms, I'm making .13mm dots cover the space of a 24"x36" piece of mylar. To say I'm going to live in studio this week is the understatement of the month. It's due a week from today (gulp), so please wish me luck!

Besides the studio, I've been doing a bunch of fun things on campus. My friend Troy and I have been going to the gym every day, working out and playing racquetball. Between 2-3 hours in the gym per day, 8-10 hours in studio a day, and 5-10 minutes eating per day (just kidding. more like 15 minutes), I don't have much time to do anything else. But I'm still having a blast. I'm going to go stipple until my hand falls off, so I'll post a longer blog tomorrow. Sorry it took so long to post this one.

Love you all and miss you all!
Norman

Blog #9: I have pictures!

I finally got around to taking some pictures of my studio, so I'll share those with you in a second! Yesterday was spent almost entirely in the studio, my letters project is due on tuesday so I had quite a bit of work to do, I'm happy to say that I finished the entire thing for the most part, minus a few more darkened lines and some cleaning up. My hometown map final rough draft is due friday, and then we start the hard part-- inking. Here are a few pictures from my studio!

This is one of my fellow classmates, with a view of most of the studio to the right. There's about 12 desks in the studio in total.

This is my desk! I got lucky and got a corner desk, which gives me the oppurtunity to hang research, photos, etc on the wall and tape deadlines, WIP's (works in progress), and other things on the window.

This is the early stages of my NK drawing done on 24 x 36 paper. Each letter takes about 2 hours to complete, the entire thing has to be done to the exact specifications given (ratio-wise, we had to figure out the size on our own). The great thing is each letter has a 4 paragraph description with tips on how to draw the ltters. The not-so-great thing is that each paragraph is written in Latin.

A closeup on the amount of construction lines needed to fully construct the right side of a voloute for an ionic column. This took about 4 hours in total to construct.










So there are some pictures! I debated on whether or not to show you some preliminary drawings of my Bruce hometown map, but I'll just wait until that's done to show you. Love you all and miss you all so much!

Norman

Blog #8: Nail-biter football game!

Sorry I haven't gotten around to updating this until now! So, I don't know if any of you caught any of the nail-biter Canes game last night, but it was SUCH a blast. The game was dead-locked in a tie right up until the ref flipped the coin-- and from then on Miami was the only team playing football. They were up 35-0 at half, and won 48-0. (If you were curious, I sat 3rd row in the student section-- behind the endzone-- which were incredible seats). If you tune into any game during the year, you'll see the student section do a couple cool chants that I forgot to mention.

For example:

Whenever The U picks up a first down, the PA Announcer says "And that's a university of miami--" and the
fans all yell "FIRST DOWN".

On opponent third downs, all of the students make the 'U' with their hands to pump up the defense.

On kickoffs, the sudents all yell "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh" until the ball is kicked, when everyone yells "WOOSH!"

The band plays "rock you like a hurricane". A lot.

And finally, my favorite thing, when the 4th quarter starts every student holds up 4 fingers; reminding the players, coaches, fans, and other team that the 4th quarter is when Miami takes over and wins the game. It was awesome being in a sea of orange yesterday, I loved it so much and I already can't wait for the next home game, October 9th, when Miami takes on their archrivals Florida State. If you're a Cane, there's only one golden rule- you HATE state. "State week" is the student buildup to the game, and it gets pretty rowdy around here.

Today I spent mostly in studio, aside from 2 different raquetball sessions (the game is addicting). I brought my camera the first time, and realized it was out of battery. So during lunch, I took the battery out and charged it. When I went back the second time, I took the camera and forgot the battery. So, no pictures today. But tomorrow or sunday, I promise, you can all see my studio.

Love you all and miss you all so much! Enjoy the long weekend!
Norman

Blog #7: Trying to make the midnight cut!

Hey everyone! Spent the day, for the most part, in the studio again. Helped a bunch of classmates learn how to use photoshop to give themselves a general layout of where they want everything on their image, all of us are getting to be really close (Seeing eachother (we have 12 in our studio) close to 9 hours a day helps that, of course). Some day next week we're all going to order a pizza to the studio, eat it AWAY FROM OUR DRAWINGS, do work on our projects, and hang out.. that should be fun! Also got a nice compliment from a professor today, he said he was "amazed at how quickly and precisely I work" -- it always feels good to get acknowledged!

Tomorrow I have drawing (my least favorite class so far, the stuff we're working on makes me want to bang my head against the desk-- we're drawing the letters of our name in "perfect" font, on a huge piece of paper. You have no idea how complex a normal-looking N can be.) After that I have math; and I was delighted to find out that this will probably be my easiest class. We spent the entire hour and a half on tuesday going over 2 "limit" problems, which I learned the first week of my junior year in high school. Granted, it's only the beginning, but I don't have the "brightest crayons in the box" in my class.

Tomorrow is the first football game! Classes end at 3:15, and the bus leaves at 4! C-A-N-E-S CANES!

Also, bridgey, this is for you:

Don't cheat!!

Love you guys so much and miss you all so much!
Norman

Blog #6: Tuesday?? Oh no! I forgot one!

Hey everyone! I meant to do a blog yesterday but I was soooo busy with my work I had no time. I have yet to take a picture of my studio, but I'll get on that very soon! I've been spending almost all of my free time in the studio. Eat sleep and draw has pretty much been every day for the past week, but I knew what I was signing up for so you won't hear any complaints out of me!

I'm currently working on a "hometown map. The finished product has to be a drawing with either a famous building or an icon-- professional sports player, actor, whatever -- and somewhere in the drawing has to be your town or county map. So, I'm doing Monmouth County, and my icon is Bruce Springsteen. I won't spoil the surprise, but I promise I'll post my drawing on the website when it's finished. The final product has to be 24" x 36", and it's done entirely in pen and ink... which, as you can imagine, is going to take a ridiculously long time. Tonight I'll most likely spend in the studio again, I'm considering bringing a pillow and blanket and sleeping there tonight; I wouldn't be the first person to do it this year and I certainly won't be the last.

Tomorrow night is the first pep rally of the year, and thursday is the first football game of the year! Here are some of the chants we've been told to memorize:

--"Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhh  C-A-N-E-S-CANES."
--"It's great! To be! A mi-ami hur-ricane it's great! To be! A mi-ami hur-ricane it's great! to be! etc.."
--*Fight song music* M-I-A-M-I FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!"
--"It's all about the U! It's all about the U! It's all about the U!"
--(Left side) "Hurri-!" (Right side) "Canes!", (Left side) "Hurri-!" (Right side) "Canes!"

And finally, after every game- win or lose- we all sing the Alma Mater; with one finger waving in the air; which goes like this:

Southern suns and sky blue water,

Smile upon you Alma mater;
Mistress of this fruitful land,
With all knowledge at your hand,
Always just to honor true,
All our love we pledge to you.
Alma Mater, stand forever
On Biscayne's wondrous shore.
C-A-N-E-S CANES!

So the game this thursday, if anyone is curious, will be on espn3.com.. after that, a good majority of the canes games will be on national TV.

Hope everyone is doing well at home. Love you all and miss you all so much.
Norman

Blog #5: Sunday: Mass, Laundry, Work, and Studio!

Hey everyone! I just got back from my first mass on campus (well, just off campus) at St. Augustine's! The mass was nice, it was cool to see so many college kids walking across Hecht Lawn to mass. Later today, it's laundry time. And I say that only because, well, I'm out of clothes. Great. So, one of my friends is going to video skype me so she can show me how to do the laundry. I can't figure out if that's more pathetic or more funny, but it's definitely somewhere in between. Before laundry, I'm going to have to put in some work in studio and, eventually, read the rest of The Sacred and The Profane.

Besides that, nothing much new is going on!

Love you all and miss you all,
Norman

(Also Bridgey, next time you're at Grandma's with the kiddies, please call my cell phone and we'll work out a time to have a skype video chat!)

Blog Post #4: It's been 2 weeks?

It's weird that it's already been almost 2 weeks since my aloha party. I miss everyone so so much. Please don't ever hesitate to call my cell just to chat, I'll always do my best to answer. But everything down here is so much fun. The movie last night, inception, was just as awesome the 3rd time around. Have you seen it yet grandma? If not, you should!

Also, Bridgey, thank you guys so much for the letters and all of my little bookmarks. I love them so much. Kathryn's is currently holding my place in "The Sacred and The Profane", which is amazingly even less interesting than it sounds. James' is keeping place for my notes in "Experiencing Architecture", Mary's is holding my chapter in Applied Calculus for the Managerial, Life, and Social Sciences, and Sara's is keeping me in the right place in "The Pillars of the Earth".

Today was just a relaxing day. I slept late, had some lunch, worked in studio for a while, went to Target to pick up some "architecure supplies" (I paid a 4 dollar metro ticket to buy a 2 dollar box of thumb tacks), and now I'm on my way out the door to throw a football, grab some dinner, and be at the wellness center for my 9:30PM raquetball court reservation with some friends. Love you all and miss you so much!

Norman

It's the weekend!

Sorry this won't be a long blog post, but I'm about to go wait in line for my Hurry-Cane shuttle pass for the football games. I finished class and grabbed some lunch, tonight I'm going to Sunset Place with a bunch of friends to get dinner and see a movie, it's my buddy John's birthday today. Tomorrow I get to sleep in for the first time in what seems like forever. Then I'll be spending lots of time in studio!

Love ya!
Norm

Blog Post #2: It rains alot.

I don't have many pictures today, but I got poured on twice today. There hasn't been a day where it was completely dry all day. But the 12 hours of sun definitely cancels out the 20 minutes of rain each day.

Here's my finalized schedule, just so you all can know exactly where I am each day =]

Architecture Design I, MWF, 9:05-11:55
Architecture Drawing I, TR, 9:30-12:10
Architecture and Culture, MW, 1:00-2:15
Calculus, TR, 2:00-3:15

Hope everything is going great at home, I love and miss all of you!

(Also, if any of you want to send pictures to me on this blog, all you need to do is visit http://www.imageshack.us/, click 'browse', select the photo you want to show me, click 'upload now', and copy and paste the URL into a comment on the blog. It sounds like alot, but it wouldn't take more than a minute to do.)

Norman

Welcome to my blog!

Hey everyone. I was trying to decide what would be the best way to connect with you guys, and this is what I decided. I'll update this as much as I can, at least once a week. Some days there'll be a story, and others there'll just be a "just checking in". Regardless, I figured this was a good way to connect with all of you guys quickly and easily. I'll really quickly update you on what I've been doing recently; school started today- so that's always fun and excitig. I had Arc Design I and Arch and Culture I today, tomorrow I have Drawin I and Calculus. So grandma, don't be surprised if I give you a call and ask for help on my Calculus homework. I'm not very good with integrating on a z-plain with indefinite integrals, so I'll need you to help me brush up on that.

I've been going to alot of U-Events; a comedian, a dive-in movie (movie from the pool), 850 different "Welcome to Miami!" seminars, and so many more. Here are a couple pictures from my first few days.

My room so far-- you'll get an updated, less clean version in a few weeks I'm guessing

On the left is me with the Heisman trophy. I was tempted to do the Heismen pose, but I refrained from embarassing myself. If you couldn't tell yet, it was pouring outside.












And over here on the left is me sitting in the Miami conference war room, where Coach Shannon and company make all of their tough decisions.

And, finally, the above is a picture of me and the mascot, Sebastian the Ibis. He is NOT a duck, so don't call him one! He's an Ibis, which is the bird that is last to leave during a hurricane, and the first to come back after one is over.

Hope everything is going great at home! Don't forget to comment on this blog post, and we'll all be able to communicate through this.

Love you all lots,
Norman