T-28 Days

Well it's been a while, hasn't it? Certainly not the longest period I've gone without blogging, but I had a bit of a good run going there.
Reading week was good. I didn't have any work to do, so I could just relax. I managed to keep busy though, meeting up with friends, finishing my camp quilt, and playing lots of board games.
The main thing going on with me right now is the fact that there are 4 weeks of school left. Ever. It's kind of hard to believe. We've started our final group project of our university careers. We were allowed to choose our groups this time, but I ended up staying with the same group I was with earlier in the term because we worked well together. Our project is to encourage interactivity in a public space in Stratford. I think it will be good. The hardest part will be completing everything in the 4 weeks left (our first project got 7+ weeks).
After that, it looks like I'll be moving to Toronto after I graduate, so I should probably start looking for a place to live there. Whenever I've visited Toronto, I've always though I wouldn't want to live there. There's so much going on and I find it overwhelming. That changed a little bit last summer when I lived in Mississauga, but still wouldn't be my first choice. But now that I'm moving there, I'm excited. I don't want to stay there forever, but I think it will be a lot of fun. And I can finally go to all the cool things I see going on through various forms of social media. And I'll be living in the same city as Alison again, so it will be nice to be able to see her more often again.
Yesterday the campus hosted a day-long conference about blending business and design. It was really well done. Lots of interesting speakers, good food, and great networking opportunities. I got to meet a UX designer from Indigo, which was probably my favourite part. It was a long day with lots of sitting though. They had an 'after party' at the end of the day at the Parlour Inn just down the street. I was surprised, because the Parlour is a pretty nice place. We went, but not a lot of the mentors and speakers came, so there didn't seem to be much points for us to be there. We left early (after eating the food).
Not a lot else going on. The 3D printer is up and running again, so I've been getting a few things printed before it either breaks again or the term ends. I printed a settlers of catan piece, since one of my wooden pieces had chunk missing.

RedonDONE

I am often significantly less stressed the 48hrs leading up to a due date than my peers. Most of the time, this is because I complete my work before hand and apparently everyone I go to school with is an expert procrastinator. However, I thought this weekend might be different. We're on the third and final iteration of our Redondo prototype project (due on Monday), and my group was struggling to solidify our idea. This meant I couldn't start working on my part of the write up ahead of time. Finally, on Thursday we came to an agreement only because we argued that we literally didn't have anymore time to discuss ideas, and had to start working on the write-up and physical prototype. Filip and I were assigned the physical prototype because we were going to be the only ones in Stratford over the weekend. Filip didn't seem too happy about having the physical prototype, but I would take crafting over writing any day. Over the past two days, it took us 8 hours to complete the prototype out of cardboard, and that was on top of 2 hours the group had spent together building the shell of the Redondo. We went through 3 cans of spray paint trying to make this thing look half decent. But on the plus side, I am now done my contribution to the project, and thus have the weekend to myself. Which is where I started this narrative. Still done my work ahead of time :)

My other task for the weekend is 3D printing a bunch of mini pieces of furniture. This is for the GBDA X project, where we're redesigning the Cooper Site. As a part of the 3D model team, I created a blueprint of the building that will eventually printed at 24"x62". The mini furniture pieces will sit on this blueprint. The group became a bit pressed for time because the book/brand team wants pictures of the miniatures for their book. So we suddenly needed our models finished earlier than anticipated. I took one for the team and offered to print them over the weekend. It will be cutting it close. I started one today (a desk and bed) and it's going to take 9hrs to print. I'm just hoping that everything goes smoothly, because I left after about an hour. I will find out tomorrow, fingers crossed. 

Other than hoping the 3D printer doesn't break down from continuous operation over the next 48hrs, I don't have anything going on this weekend. All of the M&Ms are away for the weekend. I made chocolate chip cookies this evening. I used to bake because I wanted baked goods. Now I bake to occupy time, and have the added bonus of getting baked goods out of it. I finished The Crown on Netflix today. I really enjoyed it and hope they continue to make episodes (there's some controversy as to whether there will be another season due to comments from the Royal Family). Might do some reading, since I haven't done that in a while. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the weather is going to be great. Although today it was lovely. I was walking around in a t-shirt. 

Black Mirror

It has been a very slow, motivation-lacking weekend. Luckily, there wasn't much that I needed to get done. That being said, I'm not a fan of having unproductive days. I like to be able to say that I did something. Hence why I'm blogging.
Everybody has been frantically working on their work term report that is due on Tuesday. I had mine done about 3 weeks ago, so I've been doing my own thing. I actually submitted the report, so I officially don't have to worry about it any more. Did some laundry, went grocery shopping, 3D printed a couple more hexes for Settlers of Catan, baked some snickerdoodle blondie bars. Sill slowly hacking away at the list of things I need to do to my website.
This afternoon I went to the Perth Pop-Up market. It was disappointing. The space was very crowded and it was very dark, both of which made it difficult to see what the vendors were actually selling. I doubt I would have wanted much of it anyways. Since walking around the 'market' only took me about 5mins, I decided to pop into a couple of the stores along Ontario St. Again, didn't really want anything they were selling, but it occupied the time and it was nice to be outside. It actually wasn't that bad out today. This cold weather feels like it's come out of nowhere because we had that one weird patch where it was 25C.

On Friday, 6 new episodes of Black Mirror came out on Netflix. It's a great show. I found out about it a couple years ago from a classmate but never looked into it. It's all about technology in the future, in a grim, sci-fi kind of way. It's not hover-boards and time travel; it's eye contacts that film everything you see and implants in the brain that control digital selves. Each episode is a stand alone story, so you don't have to watch all of them or in any particular order.
It came up again in one of our lectures this term and I decided to watch it. At the time, they only had one episode - a Christmas special - on Netflix. Marissa and I watched that one, and we had our minds blown. It was very well done. I then looked into the actual seasons and was surprised to see that it's like Sherlock: there are only three episodes a season. I watched the first season, and while the stories were good, they didn't compare to the Christmas special we had watched. I have yet to watch season 2. Apparently the show was dropped or put on pause, then Netflix brought it back for a third season with 6 episodes. I was very happy to see that these new episodes are on the same level as the Christmas special. The episodes are about an hour long, give or take 10mins. I highly recommend it. Oh, and it's by the BBC!
Fun fact: it's called Black Mirror because when the screen of our electronic devices are off, they become a black mirror. I thought that was clever :)

QOTD
370. Ever been on a plane?
Yup. Lots, in fact. At least 18 (wow).

Catan > Bowling

It is with mixed feelings that I let you know that the SSC event for tonight - bowling - has been cancelled, after my last post boasted of the success of the club. We had 6 people sign up, but then two backed out, so we decided to cancel it. Hopefully our event next week will do better. I think bowling was a bit of a stretch for people anyways. People would rather watch movies or go to pubs together.
The upside of bowling being cancelled, on the other hand, is that Mara, Marissa and I are now going to play Settlers of Catan instead. I'd choose Catan over bowling any day. I'm especially excited because I've 3D printed two resource hexes (rock and wood), so I'll finally be able to put them to use.
We might be co-hosting an event with the GBDA Society next week for a horror movie night. Only, Mara, Marissa and I are not interested in watching horror movies. So basically, we're just going to help promote the event and then not watch the movie.
Our professor asked us today to bring half a dozen cardboard boxes to class tomorrow. He didn't elaborate at all. Where the heck am I going to get cardboard boxes? I might go to the LCBO across the road and see if they have any I can use. He also asked us to bring tape "or anything that sticks". I ain't bringing my tape and having it all wasted on what I'm sure will ultimately be a useless exercise.
Speaking of which, I should tell you about our guest lecture with Jordan. First of all, Jordan is my favourite Stratford Campus staff member. I was very excited when I heard that he would be guest lecturing in our class. The class consisted entirely of us playing with Little Bits and Makey Makey parts, both of which are electrical circuit toys for kids. He was using them as a representation of the Internet of Things and how all the parts interact. It was basically 2hrs of goofing off. Perhaps the more entertaining thing was everybody's snapchat stories. Just about every snapchat story I looked at that day was of people showing the Little Bits and saying things like "what even is university" "Engineering at UW" "#GBD4". But it was actually kind of cool because you could connect it to your laptop and play one-button games by interacting with the Little Bits.
I'm currently working on updating my personal website for a e-Portfolio project I have this term. And no, I won't tell you what the URL to my site is. Not until I'm done with it at least. It looks fine, but I'm thinking of changing the layout, or at least the colour scheme. It's also horribly outdated.
One last thing: I'm very excited for the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie, not just because the first one was awesome, and not just because I'd watch Chris Pratt in just about anything, but because of tiny Groot! He's way at the bottom of the poster, by Starlord's feet :) I'm going to be freaking out the entire movie purely about Groot *he's so cute*

Christmas Countdown

In case you don't follow me on other social media, I recently discovered that there are exactly 100 days between my birthday and Christmas. As I have a fondness of counting down the days to Christmas, I was A) happily surprised by the coincidence and B) shocked that it took me 21 years to figure that little connection out. (In case you were wondering, there are 71 days till Christmas.)
I don't have any exams this term, so I'm going to be done school on December 5th. I'll have almost exactly a month off, and I'm quite looking forward to it. I have many plans, most of which involve some form of creativity. I'm hoping to work on two quilts. My friend asked me to make a quilt out of t-shirts she doesn't want to throw out, but doesn't want to wear. The other is a quilt that I've been putting off for about 5 years, for a lady at church. That quilt will be much more time consuming and difficult than the t-shirt quilt (hence why I've been putting it off).
And of course, I'll continue my tradition of making a gingerbread house from scratch. I'm thinking of doing a gingerbread train this year. I feel like there's a lot of potential with things that you can put in the carriages of the train.
Back to reality, I had 6hrs of class today. This was particularly harsh because I usually have Fridays off. The timetable this week was messed up because of two 'reading week days'. I'm not feeling too stressed about schoolwork this term so far. It definitely helps that I'm only taking two courses. One course is worth 4 credits, so I have the workload of 5 courses. But only having to worry about assignments, groups, and due dates for two courses instead of five is making it easier.
I am hoping to get some 3D printing done this weekend. I'm currently printing 3D tiles for the board game Settlers of Catan. I've done one so far and it turned out really well, so I'm hoping to print one for each resource by the end of the term. I'm also tweaking a keychain I made last year. Interestingly enough, a friend asked if I would print some #GBDA keychains for her this weekend - she wants 6! I'm happy to do it, but you can only print one thing at a time and 3D printing is a long process (a Settlers of Catan tile takes ~3hrs). So we'll see how it goes. At least once you've started the printing, you don't have to do anything till it's done. I might be spending a lot of time on campus this weekend. But to be honest, I don't mind it. There's hardly ever anyone there on the weekend, so you basically have the building to yourself. And now that they have massive beanbag chairs, it can even be comfortable :) I'll set my laptop up and watch the last couple episodes of Stranger Things.
Until next time!

369. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
Ever since Emily went to New Zealand, I've been wanting to go! So New Zealand. #screwschool