ukulele .

I bought a ukulele last summer sort of on a whim (oh, the ways you find to empty your pockets when you're getting a steady paycheck). It was shipped to me from Hawaii, and a week or so later, I was the proud owner of a soprano. The first few days I played it a good bit, but then I sort of forgot about it (as is the case with many new things, unfortunately). The other day I was listening to a playlist I had made for a girl from work (Sami) and this song called Sweet Pea came on by Amos Lee.

Well, I decided out of nowhere that I wanted to learn how to play this song. I immediately stopped everything that I was doing and dug out my uke, after realizing that while there was guitar in the song, it was not the prominent instrument.

brielle .

The other day on Twitter I happened to notice a Q&A that Owl City (Adam Young) was doing for people as they sent in their questions and he replied to them. One of them really caught my eye:

The coolest part about this? Brielle is quite near me! In my county in fact. It's not super close, but still! So exciting!

3rd year .

As it is the end of the semester and I've just finished, it is of course time to go ahead and reminisce about the past year's activities. It's been a great year and I can't believe that I've finished my third year of college. It blows my mind how fast the time moves, how many things have happened, not to mention how old I am.

During this past year, I lived in Barcelona for 4 months, studying architecture, I had the opportunity to travel to Madrid, Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Dublin, Glendalough and Oslo. I've seen things I've never seen and had more new experiences than I can count. And yet, a year from now, I'll be graduating. It feels like it was just yesterday that I was sitting in the stands of Franklin Field at UPenn for my sister's graduation. All of a sudden, I have just a year between now and the time when I will take my turn to walk away from Clemson, diploma in hand. But enough of that -- I still have a year to go!

canada .

This past weekend I went down to Lexington to play in a volleyball tournament and stayed with a friend while I was down there. I happened to see the magnets and postcards on the fridge of Banff, Canada... And all of a sudden tons of memories began to flood back to me. I spent two weeks in Canada with my family a while back, and it was one of the best trips I've ever been on. Tons of hiking, taking long scenic train rides, staying in cabins and nice hotels -- It was truly a fantastic experience. I wish dearly that I could go back again, even if not to that part of Canada.

Music Monday #66

Welllll, obviously it's not Monday, but I'm playing catch-up this week so you'll just have to make do. Apologies if anyone really missed having it on Monday! This week's song is Wild One by Flo Ride ft. Sia.

photography .

In a limited world, I think that photography is the only thing that is absolutely and truly limitless. There will never be a lack of subject matter, there will never be the same exact shot, there will never be the same opportunity for a photo that you have right this second. In the same way that no two snowflakes are the same, no single photo will ever be exactly the same.

I am no expert at Photoshop and probably never will be. It's on my list of things to really work to get better at, because with the architectural world moving ever steadily towards sole photorealistic renderings it is imperative that I learn how to be able to digitally replicate at least some of the things seen in real life in a photorealistic rendering. Believe me it's not easy, and some of my friends are absolute masters at it... One of the problems is that I don't really enjoy the rendering process. It is a tedious, time-consuming process where little normally unnoticeable  tweaks make the difference between pure shit and pure gold. BUT. And that's a big but, photography is completely different.

LSD .

So I recently came upon this slideshow of pictures an artist did while given a dose of LSD. You can check it out here. Seriously; go and read it because it's absolutely wild. Admittedly I don't have any experience with drugs of any kind (all the moms out there can breath a deep sigh of relief now) but it's certainly been there if I wanted to. Welcome to life as a kid growing up in today's world; things are extremely accessible if you only know where to look. To me, LSD was only ever the drug that inspired the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds... Or something that induced a feeling that very much made you see things like this:

go ahead... stare at this for a good minute... it'll make you right dizzy...