Let it Be Christmas Already

Here I am again, not as stressed as everyone else. I'm just about done my ePortfolio, just waiting to hear back from some people for feedback. You can take a look too if you like: heatherwoo.com.
The SSC will be hosting another potluck on Thursday, this one is a dessert potluck. I'm very much looking forward to it. Unfortunately, two of my closer friends won't be around to come, but we had to go with the date that worked for the most people overall. I bought a gingerbread house for people to decorate, since that was something that people liked last year when it happened on campus (although I died a little inside, since I haven't bought/used a store bought gingerbread house in 4 years). Right now it looks like we're going to have a good turn out. It's a fine line though. Obviously we want as many people to come as possible, but we also don't have a ton of space in our apartment. And we can't really use our 'sunroom' off the back this time because it is not insulated. So we'll see how it goes. Might have to do some rearranging of the furniture.
Thanks to Black Friday and the magic of the internet, I've completed all of my Christmas shopping except for one gift. This is definitely a record for me, having it done so early. My mom messages me on a semi-regular basis saying "Another package arrived today," since I'm having them sent to London. Although I think they've all arrived by now. I am very excited to wrap the gifts. I love gift wrapping. (If you want me to come over and wrap your gifts for you, I'd love to. Seriously).
Not a whole lot else going on. I only have one more week of classes, and then I'm free! I've been making Christmas cards and I have to say I'm quite happy with how they are turning out. I'm really looking forward to being at home over December. I can't wait to do Christmas-y things. I'm also excited to get back into sewing.
I made dinner tonight for Marissa and Michelle. I made dill meatballs, which is one of my favourite meals. I made it for them at some point last year, and they both really enjoyed it as well. So now I try and invite them over to eat with me whenever I have it. Michelle and I played Mario Kart after. It was fun to just hang out with her for a while; she's often very busy and is never around on the weekends.

Real Fruit

Something I learned in my international business class is that there are companies named things like "Real Fruit" and "Natural Flavours". Now, from a design point of view, one would wonder why such simple names? Nobody is going to notice you with a name like that! Well, my dear friends, that is precisely the point. Companies name themselves these simple terms because they often appear on packaging, meant to lure us, the customers, in with the appeal of "real" food, and not chemicals. This way, a food producing company can use the products from the company "Real Fruit" and then label their package "Contains Real Fruit!". Except our definition of real fruit and their definition of real fruit differ greatly. Who knows, maybe the company "Real Fruit" actually uses real fruit. But between you and me, if they have to use that name and that marketing strategy, then it probably isn't real fruit. This is why it is so important to do research and not just believe everything you see.

Typography

This week I have assignment about typography: Choose 5 words and interpret the meaning of the word using a typeface that represents the characteristics of the words you have chosen.

So basically, tell me what you think. Does the font represent the word? Do you think there is a font that would do the job better?

87. Ever won a contest?
My youth group had a super hero costume contest once, and I dressed up as Light Girl (or something like that). Basically I had a bunch of different lights on me. And I won. My prize was the giant Staples calculator, which I had only been wishing I owned forever. So yeah, it was pretty awesome. 

Sherlock: Character you dislike.
Either D.I. Dimmock

or Kitty Riley

'Cause everybody's got their way I should feel

- Be Be Your Love, Rachael Yamagata

Ok, pick your fave:

1.

 2.

 3.

 4.

5.

Or if there's something you like in one, and something in another, let me know. 

Ok I know that two of you looked at my collage and then didn't comment, and I'm hurt. But don't go back and comment on that one, cause I've made changes.
Seriously guys, I don't know what this looks like to other people. Lend a girl a hand.

Collage

I need your help with one of my assignments. I have to make a digital collage. I'm trying to make it say something, but it's one of those things where, since I know what it is, I see that. So I need your unknowing eyes to tell me what you see in this:

Copyright Heather W.

Roller Coaster (& QOTD #23)

In my GBDA 103 class we went down to the UX & Gamification research lab that the Stratford campus houses (which I did not know about). It has this simulator which we got to try out. It was set on a roller coaster. It was so cool. You wore these goggles that looked into a small screen attached to the head set. There was also a screen showing it so that other people looking on could see what you were experiencing, but it wasn't 3D. Then if you turned your head, the view in the simulation would follow accordingly. It was really cool (not as good as a real roller coaster though). But after awhile it made you dizzy and now I have a headache. But it was fun.

(This is the thing you wore).

23. Are your eyes the same colour as your dad's?
Yuppers.

I define downtime as...
I don't know that I've ever thought about this specifically. I guess I would call it when you are relaxed and enjoying yourself. For example, I would define downtime when you are doing something you enjoy and you don't feel guilty about it. I mean, I enjoy spending time on the internet, but I'm usually supposed to be doing something else (like studying). So downtime would be when you don't have something else to be doing.

Helvetica

I am currently in class, watching a movie about Helvetica. A movie, about the font Helvetica.

it's a font

a movie about a font


update:
Soooo many companies use Helvetica as the font in their logo, it's acutally kind of sad.

Boom. All Helvetica, with slight variations. Italics, rounded off, a small change on a single letter. You get what I'm saying. Helvetica.



onlyinGBDA

Showers

For the second time in the past month, my floor does not have hot water. I've even heard that one of the showers has brown water. Which I would rather not think about. Thankfully I took a shower at home on Tuesday, but unless this problem gets fixed, I won't be able to have my Thursday shower. So apologies to those who are going to see me on Friday! At least before I get home again and I can have a shower. Weird, right?! I'm going to be home again this weekend after a whooping two whole days back at res. On the plus side, I have my two midterm reviews written up. Now all I need to do is actually go over the stuff. Which, I have to admit, is the harder part. Ah well. For some reason my astro prof wasn't in class today, so the TA was giving the lecture. He did a good job, but you could tell he wasn't going into as much detail as the prof would, simply because he doesn't have the years of experience. The TA had such an innocent lost and worried and nervous vibe about him that I found adorable. I can't really explain why. Anyways, since he wasn't going into as much detail, he got through the slideshow pretty quickly. I'm talking, we were excused at 8:30pm. The class starts at 7 and goes until 9:50pm. With the delayed start because he couldn't figure the projection system out (there's the innocence again) the actually class probably lasted about 75 minutes. Hehe.

Movies

Today in class we were talking about different types of animation. The teacher (a guest prof, I guess), used Tarzan, Tangled and Avatar as examples. They use 2D, 3D and motion capture animation, respectively. Each time he brought up a movie, he would ask if anybody hadn't seen it. There's this one guy who put his hand up for each movie, and I'm like

UPDATE:
He has seen Snow White, thank God.

Astronomy

During my Astronomy lecture this evening I was trying to find the special characters in Pages and I came across "Start Dictation". What this feature does is it will listen to what you say and turn it into type in your document. Anyways, I started the feature and so it was listening to my professor speak. I was only a couple rows back, but the computer was facing the wrong direction, so I knew it might not catch everything. The way it works is you start it, and then it keeps listening until you click done. Then it takes a moment to translate it and boom, the text is on the screen. However, it is not always accurate. Actually, I don't think it is ever accurate! And much to me and my friend's amusement, this is what it came up with listening to my professor talking about eclipses:

Doesn’t generally doesn’t
One shadow
Players rail
Homestead always bye
Butter
Stays up all night since last just some opposite
Lettuce dressing see it on the size on the celestial sphere place near penannular distant
But what you notice a nice relaxing
Situated
The other leg
So
Why doesn’t insult someone. Jim
Son lives at the center of the solar system there was a prison
Yeah
This Wencella was Plaske
Your
As the most direct evidence motion of them around here
Show additional evidence yes
Son is
CVS and pressing for geometry

The words in bold are things my professor actually said. As you can see, there are not many. When it says "son" it was most likely when my prof said "sun". The funny thing is that sometimes I would record a minute but then it would only give me one word. My personal favourite is butter. :)

I am just about to head off to a 4 hour class. 4 HOURS. It is going to seem to take forever. And then I have a 3 hour lecture this evening. Along with Italian this morning, that a whooping 8.5 hours of class today. So maybe if I find some time, I'll post again, but don't hold your breath.

I Guess You Could Say I'm Officially A University STUDENT Now

So, I guess you could say this marks the beginning of my "mini" weekend. I have an Italian class on Monday 9-10:20AM. I don't have another class until Wednesday at 9AM, so it's a good chunk of time off. It's almost too bad that my first Italian class isn't on Tuesday afternoon. That way, if I was going home for the weekend, I could stay for Monday as well.  Speaking of class, I JUST HAD MY FIRST EVER UNIVERSITY LECTURE. And half of it was spoken in Italian. When the prof came in he started speaking in Italian and my thoughts were somewhat along these lines: "OH GOD (I know, I know, don't use the Lord's name in vain but it was MY FIRST EVER UNIVERSITY LECTURE and I was panicking a little) I HAVE MADE A MAJOR MISTAKE THIS ISN'T A BEGINNERS COURSE HE EXPECTS US TO KNOW ITALIAN OH CRAP I'M GOING TO LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT MAYBE I SHOULD DROP THE CLASS WAIT THEN WHAT OTHER LANGUAGE AM I GOING TO TAKE? DUTCH? FRENCH? LOLNOPE." That may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. In the end, the prof did say that it is a beginners course and when he asked, only one person has Italian experience. It is not a very big class, I'm guessing only about 35-40 of us. I now know how to ask you your name in Italian. Fun Fact: the direct translation of asking your name in Italian is "what are you called?" I could tell you that I also know how to tell you my name, but I forget and I'm too lazy to go look it up in my notes.  I'm planning on doing a review of everything he told us later on. Maybe while I'm waiting for laundry to wash/dry. I am going to attempt laundry today. I've done it before, but always just after my mom has told me what to do. Also, I have no drying rack and I am nervous about putting some things in the dryer. I'll get back to you on how that goes. I am 92% done The Help, so close!!!!!!! I wanna finish it tonight.