It amazes me how some weeks are unproductive and boring, while others are productive and exciting. This week has been very productive with the finishing of finals with momentary spikes of excitement. I want to start this post talking about last night, and simply how amazing it was.

I’ve mentioned him before, but for those that don’t remember, Jay Brannan is an amazing artist. I found him a little over a year ago and I’m glad I did, all thanks to YouTube too. In any case, his music came to me at the same time that I was introduced to the beginning of folk music from way past my time (Daniel gave me more earlier this summer / fall). In any case, he had a nice voice and the songs came at the right time. I was really sad that he had a few gigs in NYC but I couldn’t attend them because I wasn’t 18+, but last night he had a concert at the Zipper Factory, which is a great venue. I was so excited reading about it a little over a week ago. Of course I bought my ticket!

The first to open was Drew Brody, and he had a similar style. Drew’s lyrics are just as sad, but they’re different from Jay’s in that I feel somewhat grateful and happy, yea that’s it. His voice is also very likable, and he was friendly with the audience. The don’t remember the name of the second open, I just know that I wanted one of her CDs.

Three folk singers and all three of them were amazing. Jay’s performance was so adorable too. Very interactive, and he’s such a cute performer. He performed his first piano song for us, which he felt so nervous over, and it was really good! JAY BRANNAN UPLOAD THAT SONG NOW! Bowlegged and Starving. Gosh…

Why must I repeat myself?

Earlier in the day, I had Core Studio and it was an absolute wreck. I absolutely loathe the girl I’m forced to work with, and I can’t do anything about it but suck it up. I don’t feel bad at all for my actions or words, especially not after what she said. There were two instances that made me want to tell her that she didn’t belong at parsons, at least not in this department.

Mika: As a designer I’m not going to need to know how to code or program so I don’t see why I have to learn it.

Mika: I expected you to say that because you’re a snob at all of this.

Here’s the situation. When the professor came to our group to ask us how we were doing and whether we needed help. I showed him the two ideas that Tara and I were experimenting with, and then I began to explain the idea that Mika had. It was a great idea, just there were problems that I didn’t know how to solve. It was basically taking an image that she had drawn (because that’s her only talent) and having Tara and I program Processing to make it so that the user would have to trace over the lines and if they went off the image, they had to restart. I liked the idea, I just couldn’t imagine how we’d take her scanned image and make it work in Processing, after all I’m only an amateur still. Even the professor explained how it was going past our level, so I suggested that we simplify the idea and make it simple objects like a square, circle and a triangle.

She immediately rejected the idea, saying that she didn’t think that would be visually appealing at all and she wanted something more beautiful, that’s when the professor went to speak and she cut him off. At first I said to let the professor speak, but then I got heated from what she was saying and that’s when I started saying that it IS possible to make visually pleasing things in Processing. Then she started going into statement one, explaining that as a designer she didn’t need to know this information and she wouldn’t be asked to do things like that, so she found it absurd and ridiculous to have to do it. What kind of pissed me off was when she went to the professor, “I know Processing, I tried it and I don’t like it, so I don’t want to do it.” Seeing that the conversation wasn’t going, he tried to explain how Processing helps us as designers understand how programs like Photoshop and Illustrator work, and not only that but explained to us that the next generation of kids are going to think Processing is a joke and get bored with it.

I interjected and explained to her that if she reads design articles, she’d find out that there is a continuing demand for designers with knowledge in a wide range of programs and languages. That’s when she shot out the second statement, and that’s when the verbal battle really began. She added to her comment that I don’t bother to teach her anything about Processing, and my immediate thought was “It’s not my responsibility to teach you, stupid…” and I responded saying that “If you had done that reading that I asked, then we could go over something. But you haven’t.” I also explained that the other day when she left with the rest of the class when it got canceled, Tara and I went over the examples she worked on and we went through the coding. Then she mentioned that she didn’t want to sit there going “Please teach me Processing Kris,” because that’s not her and she didn’t have to “prove anything” to me since she knew Photoshop, Illustrator, HTML/CSS, Final Cut Pro and Flash (I really really doubt that because her website is a joke and her skills in those programs are so basic that children can do them). Things kept escalating before the professor could snap both of us out of it, and I find it funny that it only happened when I told her that she could do her own project then. He told us both to breathe, and try to work it out after class. She left immediately.

I felt really embarrassed, especially since the professor said that he figured a problem like this would happen in one of the groups, and that he put me with Tara and Mika because he wanted to show me that it’s harder to teach Processing and doing it. I feel like a let down to him. I don’t feel bad that I just talked shit about her, I just feel bad that I didn’t really do what my professor expected, since I really like him.

On the bright side…

It appears that my finals are coming to an end. I just have to do some printing proofs for 2D and 3D before those are complete, and Digital Tools requires a burned CD of our website and such. Oh boy.