How many times can I use the title, "General Update?"

Things are still going pretty well here. Classes are starting to hit their stride, and the work load is definitely appreciable, even with only three classes. The amount of readings we are assigned is just a little bit excessive. Hard to actually get them all done and still go out and see the city and do "extra-curriculars" on the weekends. So that's a bit stressful, but whatever. The city is still really cool and we're having a good time.

Fever broke the night before last. I took some acetaminophyn (sp?), put on a zip-up fleece and some flannel pajama-pants, and buried myself in covers and passed out. I woke up about 2 hours later, sitting straight up out of my sleep and throwing off covers. I had broken my fever and was just plain burning up. Still have a little bit of a sore throat, but it's receding slowly.

So one of our arch projects has been to explore the use of the chamfered (pronounced: cham' ferd) corner. This is where, at a street intersection, instead of bringing the corners to a full square, like any normal human being would do, you chop a huge chunk out of the points of the corner. This allows you to put a full building front facing the middle of an intersection. And most of the new parts of the city follow this model. So our job is to document photographically all of the chamfered corners in our assigned sections. It's pretty cool. We focus on what the facades look like, as well as how the pedestrian space is utilized.

The other arch project is the use of public spaces: how they fit into a city, how they allow or encourage people to interact, and how they become a stage to see and be seen. Another cool project. Again split into groups and assigned one of the 10 voting districts of Barcelona. We did a preliminary walk of part of our district today; looks like we got a pretty poor district, at least from the parts we walked so far. Gonna be interesting to see how this plays out.

Other than that, life is pretty much just life. Saw some really cool graffiti during our walk. Need to do laundry again. Went grocery shopping again. Not having a car means having to walk your groceries home, but having a grocery store right underneath you makes it so worth it. Still enjoyin everythin.

Love you guys. Talk to you soon.

-Kenners

Posting Comments

Ok, so couple of people said that they couldn't post comments. I checked all the settings (which are now in spanish, whoops) and it looks like anyone should be able to post a comment. At the bottom of any given entry, there should be a small hyperlink that says "1 comments" or "0 comments" or however many there are. Clicking this should allow you to view the current comments, and on the page where you view the comments, there should be a box to enter a new one. You'll also have to type one of those squiggly words into a box to verify that you're not a bot. Then you can just click anonymous, and you won't have to enter any username or password.

General Update: Classes, My Life After College, Fever

So I forgot to mention that I dropped HCI last friday. User Interface Design is a really cool topic, but the professor was really dry and slow-speaking, and it had a lot of work, and hell, let's just say it: I'm in Barcelona and I really don't want any extra work. Plus now I can focus more on my other projects, which are all going to be pretty cool.

I talked with Sabir (my architecture professor) today about going to grad school for city planning. We talked for a good 30+ minutes or so, and he seems to think that my interests are well-founded and that I should add a City Planning Master's to my list of things to apply to for after I graduate.

Currently the list of things to apply to as possible places after college include: CS PhD programs, including the one at Tech; MBA, anywhere good; job applications, for positions in CS, sales, management, etc, so long as it doesn't require coding 8 hours a day; and now, applying to City Planning programs. Apparantly you can get a double master's in City Planning and Architecture in about 3 1/2 years. Interesting.

Other than that, I just feel kinda achey and a little feverish. Nothing debilitating, just obnoxious. Looking forward to what the rest of the semester brings, and the crossroads I'll hit in December.
I think I'm going to join in with the group that is spending their first break in Italy. So that will be 10 days in Italian cities. We'll see how that goes. But I guess if you're going to spend 10 days in only one country, Italy's not a bad choice, right?

I'll talk to you guys soon.

Love,
K3

Not gonna lie, I like it here a lot.

So things are pretty much going amazingly. Living in a place is so much different than just visiting it. You don't have time to get over the shock and get into the rhythms of living in the city when you're just vacationing. Actually living here makes a big difference, and I like it a lot.

Barcelona is a city that orients itself towards its citizens, which I think is awesome, coming from Atlanta, which totally orients itself towards its corporations, and more recently, conferences. Things here are actually designed and planned on a city level, taking into consideration a lot more than just the immediate engineering concerns of constructing a building. And the city government actually focuses on reviving poor parts of the city by integrating them and bringing them up as a whole, as opposed to Atlanta, where we just put up walls and ignore them until we knock down all their shit, run them off, and put up high rise condos.

Gentrification.

They actually avoid it here, which is really cool. There is an understanding, at the planning and design level, that a city should both cooperate and coordinate as a whole, while at the same time retaining the individual flavor and idiosyncracies of individual peoples and places.

So for example, the Maria Christina market, which is a really cool market with a crazy wavey roof and some cool architecture on the walls, was actually constructed in one of the poorer parts of town, among gov't housing even. And it was designed by a very famous architect, and was also intended to be a tourist attraction. And all this results in actually improving the quality of life in the these parts of the town, actually revitalizing them. How cool is that? We would never think of doing that in Atlanta.

And the market was built in the skeleton of an old convent, which is another cool thing. The architect manages to reuse the old building, and even blend it into the design in such a way as to pay homage to the past while creating a crazy modern structure that definitely looks towards the future.

Really enjoying these architecture classes (in case you couldn't tell), and am actually seriously considering doing a master's in city planning now. I'm going to go talk to my architecture professor about it soon.

But yeah, so life here is a lot of fun. You walk everywhere, or take the metro and then walk, and its so nice. Granted, plenty of people have cars and mopeds, but it's totally not necessary to get around. And there's so many things to see and do in this city. Even just out on the street, you could wander every street in the city and find something interesting to look at. It's really cool.

Ok, I'm getting distracted. I'm gonna go download the pictures from my camera, which I haven't done yet at all. Will post again later.

Love ya'll!

First Casting Call Today

So I had my first casting call today. Michelle called me last night and just gave me the address of the place and the times that I could show up, and that was it. So I cut out of architecture 30 min early and hopped a train up there. Architecture was a walking tour today anyways, so not many people noticed I was gone. Got up there and pretty much had no idea what was going on. After watching, figured out I needed to sign in, then pretty much just sat there amongst 6-7 other good looking guys for about 20 min, as the guy came back a couple times to get new guys.

So I finally get in there, and it turns out its a casting for a commercial. Lol. Luckily it didn't depend on my Spanish, just my acting. Well, ok, so maybe not so lucky. Still, the whole point was just to look like it was summer and you were having fun cutting up with your friend. Understandable Language Optional.

It went pretty decently. I have no expectations, and small hope, but it was definitely good as a first time intro into casting calls. Maybe next time I won't look so clueless in the waiting room. If they liked it, they'll call the agency, and then me, though I have no idea what the time frame is for that. I assume within the next couple of days.

So that was my point of interest today. It was a rush. I had so much adrenaline in me when I left. Crazy.

Classes are still going well. Interface design lectures are getting boring, but the subject matter is still interesting. Architecture is going to be a great class, alternating walking tours and in-class lectures. And ethics is going pretty well, though I have a feeling it's going to get me riled up before the summer is over. People apparantly don't know how to put their arguments together and keep them on one line. Oh well. My other option is to just not talk. Psh.

For User Interface Design (UI or HCI [human computer interaction]) we've already been assigned our semester-long project. We're designing a user interface (go figure) for whatever we choose. So I think what we're going to do is design a tool to help backpackers plan their trips around Europe. Right now we're thinking it will be a handheld device, although its possible that we may change it to a website or kiosk. The goal is to create a prototype that will help you find tickets, lodging, and stay in budget. You tell it what cities you'd like to see, thier importance, and then it goes to the web and checks out airline prices, train ticket prices, hostel bookings, and restaurant reviews. It could optionally have a feedback loop where you tell it whether it's doing a good job or not, in which case it would proceed to learn your preferences. Also, since its web enabled, you can allow it to cross examine other people's recommendations about restaurants and hostels, and provide locations that are more suited to you. So it's gonna be a pretty cool project. A lot of work, I'm sure. And we've already got so many readings in all our classes. It's gonna be a full semester, even though we're abroad.

K, well I'm outta here for now. Gotta do laundry. Later!!

Tengo Movil!!

Ok, so I got a mobile phone today. I receive free incoming calls and incoming texts, even from international numbers. Plan was 35 for the phone, and it comes with 25 prepaid. Texts are 7.5 cents and outgoing calls are .35/min. International calls are more. So if you feel like spending money on international calls, ;) give me a call. Sorry, there will be no drunk dials or texts to the States, they cost too much. My number is:

671 744 742

I don't know what the country code for Spain is. I mainly just got the phone so I could keep up with the modeling stuff.

Just got done cooking dinner for me and some friends. Pork and noodles. Little bit of garlic, some olive oil, italian spices, salt, pepper. Sabrosa. So I'm fat'n'happy. No clubbing tonight, just hanging out, then going out again tomorrow night. Definitely gonna need a job.... lol.

Lata!

¿Is this only the second day?

I feel like I've been here forever already. So much to say.

So the room is pretty cool. It's dorm sized, with a couple small beds and desks and a kitchen. Roommate seems like a pretty cool guy. The hotel/residencia/whatever-this-is that we're staying at is pretty awesome. Pool deck on the 6th floor (read roof), internet in the basement. When I get a power adapter I'll have internet in my room as well. Definitely well taken care of as techies. ;) However, this keyboard is totally screwy. The punctuation is in all the wrong spots. lol.

Sharing the block with us is a market, so groceries are only a few steps away, which is perfecto. And of course, they have 1€ bottles of wine. Tried two different varieties so far, one which was barely drinkable, and the other which was pretty good. In the market is also a cafe, with awesome espresso. Aqui se llama "un cortado." They're awesome, and only 1€, as are the mini sandwiches. Que bueno. lol. Most of my meals so far have been tomato sandwiches (thanks Vickie!) with a little bit of cold cuts on them. Still waitin for my Stafford loan to come in, so I'm staying as cheap as I can.

Yesterday I devoted some time to digging up that modelling agency that tried to get me to work for them last summer. I found them, visited, and got a favorable response from the girl that I talked to last time, so I'll be doing work with them while I'm here. Hopefully I'll make some money, so my broke ass can go travelling during our vacation weeks. Working for them means I have to get a cell phone though, so she can get in touch with me. They have prepaid plans around here that are like 0.30€/min so I guess I'll be getting that rolling today when everyone goes back to work after the siesta. It's about 3p here now, so most stuff probably isn't open.

Michelle (the modelling agent) also wants me to do casting calls in Spanish. So I guess I better start kicking that back into gear. I can still get my point across in Spanish, but I definitely need to tune up my listening, cause I get lost frequently.

Found a running buddy. I will definitely be running every day I can with Kabir and anyone else. And I'll be working out with Zach most days as well, so this should be a pretty good summer for gettin in shape. Zach is the other cheerleader that's here on this program.

Running in this city is apparantly not the most common thing in the world, so we'll definitely be keeping to one park or another for our runs. We did our first run just around in the city, and for one it was hard to get a good run, cause you have to stop at all the crosswalks. And then all the people give you strange/dirty looks for running. It's like rudely speeding through traffic or something. So we're done with that. Would have been a nice way to explore the city, but oh well. The parks are beautiful anyways. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I will.

This computer has 32 megs of ram and is running Windows 2000. I'm totally amused by that. Amazed that it's even running. lol

We went and visited the University today. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. http://www.upc.edu/
You can put the page in English as well. Seems like a pretty cool place. It's hysterical, they start telling you the way around (and this is our official guide), and the first thing they tell you is where the bar is and where to get cigarettes. They have like 3 bar-cafes on campus, and its not a very big campus. Quite the different approach. I'll have to get a gym subscription on campus as well, but its only 20€/month, so it's definitely worth it. 20€ setup fee though. Classes start Monday, all taugh by Tech professors (except for those taking Spanish classes). Here's my schedule:

Monday:
11:30 - 2:30 : User Interface Design
3:00 - 4:30 : Barcelona Architecture
4:30 - 6:00 : City Literacy

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday:
11:30 - 1:30 : Society and Computing
1:30 - 2:30 : User Interface Design
3:00 - 4:30 : Barcelona Architecture
4:30 - 6:00 : City Literacy

Friday: NO CLASSES!!!

So that's gonna be a pretty cool schedule. Probably run and work out in the mornings.

Still have to get my metro pass. Still debating whether to go 45€ for the unlimited/month, or the 30€, 50 rides/month. I can't tell yet how much I'll be using the metro beyond taking it to school and back. I'll probably opt for the unlimited, but we'll see. Walking here is VERY common.

Definitely needed all this time to get set up, especially if alot of the stores aren't open during the weekend.

We out last night with a small group. About 3 small groups went out last night, each to different clubs and bars, so it will be good to exchange our info. The TA (teaching assistant) also said he was thinking about setting up a wiki so all of us could share our tips on what to do and not do. I'll keep you posted. ;)

So that's about it for now. I think our window has a view of the top of the Sagrada Familia, which is pretty dang cool. Again, I'll have to take some pictures.

Ok, well I'm signing off for now. Hope everyone is doing well! The weather is here, wish you were beautiful!!

And he´s........SAFE!!!

Hey guys, I´m here in Barcelona. All in one piece. At least physically.

So I am worrrn out. We flew from Atlanta to Franfurt, where our new flight was an hour late, so we sat in the airport for 3 hours. THEN we got to come over to Barcelona, and I slept the entire way from Frankfurt to Barcelona.

Things on the ground have been good so far. Got a group of people to go out today. Started out small and ended up a decent size. We walked to Las Ramblas and had some Sangria. It´s now a first times tradtiion

Ok, well I´m fallin asleep at the keyboard over here. I´m gonna go grab some winks and get some stuff rollin.

Night!

Interactive Travel Calendar

Got the travel calendar posted. Should be viewable in the sidebar. Also viewable here.

If you use Google Calendars, then you can subscribe to my calendars and get the pretty color-coded version instead. To do that you'll have to subscribe to each of my calendars that correspond to study abroad stuff. The links for each of those subscriptions follows. Click each button to get all of the stuff added to your calendar.


I'm also going to look at the Google Calendar API and see if I can't get it to display it in all its glory here on this site.

Setting Up the Blog

Working on setting up the blog. Let me know if you have any customization suggestions or can't view something properly.