The last two weeks have been quite a journey. It's not even real class time yet, and I can't remember when I was so stressed out. Quick overview of the first week, I had to sketch up a piece of cloth, then dissect the piece of cloth and note down the sections that I made, then take the sections and distort it axonometrically (on a 45 degree angle with no perspective) and recreate the piece of cloth in drawing. I didn't take specific pictures of it... so if you can't understand hold on. I have a final picture of everything I've done I'll put in last.
The second week we were asked to come up with 3 polygons. With these 3 polygons, we moved onto model making. I had to somehow orientate these shapes in a way that they create a volume. Like so:

That was one day's worth of work. So you can start to understand that I'm little short on time. The next thing we had to do was pick out one model and create a final model, where every little detail mattered. Not allowed to show glue, edges, and no imperfections. I had Wednesday and Thursday to do this. Meanwhile, I also have to make a collage in photoshop to put this model in a real life situation. Shiet... I'm running low on time. By Thursday night I had this finished:

 So as you can see, I am far from being finished. I didn't even start my collage yet! After I got home I mocked up a version of the collage but I needed to have my final model finished before I can do the final collage.
The presentation was held at 1pm Friday, so I had the morning to finish my project. Guess what it decides to do? FALL APART ON ME. CRAP. So I had to think fast. Tape. Lets tape the shit out of it. And tape it I did. 11am and I had this finished:

Not bad right? Can't see the tape? Me neither, until I looked closely. O.M.G I'm screwed. But I needed to move on. I needed to have some sort of collage to show. So at about 12:30pm, I had this done up and it was good enough for me since I had to start setting up for my presentation.

Haha it's not even that different from my photo. BUT IT SHOWS SCALE. When it was my turn to be critiqued, they didn't mention too much about my craft, since I preemptive striked them by saying I didn't have time to understand how to use the materials I chose. Btw it's made of corrugated plastic, illustration board, and SCOTCH TAPE. The critics were 2 profs I would encounter throughout my first year and the two third year students running the workshop. They seemed to like the idea, since no one else had the idea of inversing the shapes and creating a giant void. Anyway, this is how I presented it:

 And this is the kind of pressure we were under (although this isn't my presentation)

After wrapping up the two weeks of preparation, the two students running the show decide to invite us out to have a beer at the Graduate Student Union Pub (GSU Pub). We were a party of 9. We started with 2 pitchers, then I bought one, then someone else bought one, then another, then another 2. By 9pm, the leftover 6 of us were about 10 pitchers deep. I was quite drunk, I can't remember what we talked about but it was pretty intense. That's what beer does. It makes people want to talk very loud and passionate about anything. I do remember talking about our hobbies and interests, and it turns out that we all like the same kind of stuff. Ya I'm sure you guys are like "jeeze Jeff no shit Sherlock you guys are all architect geeks" but noooo noo nooooo. The friends I made in this workshop come from a Biology, Micro-Biology, Psychology, Econ, and something that sounded really crazy that I forgot. ALSO, my new friend from Biology REJECTED his acceptance to med school to do architecture (I guess he didn't do his research on what kind of wages an architect makes).

After these two weeks, stress aside, I had a lot of fun. I didn't stay late at school because I had to (well that's not the ONLY reason) but I WANTED to stay and work on my model and my drawings. I think I'm gonna fit in just fine. =)

Big thanks to Melissa Tovar and Ultan Byrne, the two who ran the workshop for the two weeks.

Sorry guys for not being M.I.A for the last week and a bit. It was a little hectic to say the least. Let's start on Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012.
We got to Toronto around 8:30PM. We had to take a taxi to our hotel on Spadina (The Super 8), but we didn't realize that Spadina was currently under construction. The taxi driver kept hinting for us to get out and walk because he didn't want to drive into the mess, but my mom and I didn't budge, we just sat there and waited. When we finally got to the hotel I tipped him 10 bucks... and he didn't seem satisfied but come on! I didn't decide to do construction on the roads, it's not my fault jeeze.
The hotel was pretty nice for a Super 8. Well, I didn't really know what to expect. Our room was pretty large and when we got a little settled down there was Storage Wars to watch! yeya
We went to sleep at about 11PM Toronto time, which is 8PM Vancouver time, but I was able to sleep a bit. And then... I had the freakiest dream I ever had. It literally freaked the shit out of me. I had this dream where Nathan was sitting on my bed while Kim was also sitting on the other side crying. I then started to realize they shouldn't be there since I was in Toronto, so I kinda woke up, or so I thought. For some reason I thought there were still people in the room, so I wanted to get off the bed to make some room. BUT then I was paralyzed. Couldn't move a muscle and the room was all dark. Suddenly, I felt, FELT, someone sit on my bed touching my back and then I FREAKED OUT. But I couldn't move or anything. When I finally woke up I was still sleepy but I forced myself to stay awake because I was scared of falling asleep again. O and thanks you Mei for letting me know it was the first day of ghost month in the Chinese calender.
Next day I got my T-Card, my student card for the University of Toronto, picked up my keys to the place I'll be staying for the duration of my program, and went to the condo to meet Jessie.
Completely empty. Not even curtains. And to my luck! My one and only washroom is PLUGGED. I think we spent like a total of 4 hrs, 2 plungers, and a snake tool to finally unplug the thing.
On Saturday my furniture arrived in the evening. Everything came... EXCEPT MY MATTRESS. I had a desk, coffee table, tv stand (no tv), and a bed frame. No fricken mattress. WTF. I had to call and talk to yet ANOTHER customer service department, (this would be the 3rd company) and tell them of my unhappiness.
Well I think you guys are getting bored of all this writing. So lets post up some pics. In case you haven't seen them of Facebook already, here are some pics of my new place.

Pretty nice eh? It is! Now come visit me! I'm 1 week into my summer workshop but I have yet to have any photos of what I've done. I'm pretty proud of it lol. But I'll post again when i have some more photos. It's just a little embarrassing to take pics of my work when everyone else is like "you are proud of that piece of crap work?"