After a stressful last two weeks of school - which included a double all-nighter, stacking chipboard, a massive meltdown, and everything ending up pretty okay - life finally slowed down a little bit. The weather turned beautiful, I allowed myself to sleep all day, and sophomore year was over.

Looking back on it, I managed to get through some of the lowest points of my life, did some pretty cool projects by myself and with some friends (see my portfolio - latest architecture project and "Sometimes I Think"), bought a brass rat, joined Asian Dance Team which made for some pretty lasting memories and some pretty awesome times, performed in front of about 300 people and didn't get stage fright, and was appointed to publicity director for Dramashop. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.... and summer was here. Time to put everything behind and focus on having fun, interning at an architecture firm, and exploring the city.

ADT showcase pics (Xinjiang - Why are the Flowers so Red and Dai - Trickling Stream), Ring Delivery, Fall studio final model, Spring studio final review and models, Sometimes I Think installation

After a very relaxed long weekend (Thursday to Monday!), I began UROPing/interning at Meejin Yoon's (MIT Dept. of Architecture head) architecture firm, and since then it's been a crazy ride already! Estelle and I meet up at 9:00 am in Kendall Square and take the T together to get to work in South Station by 9:30 (I tried biking to and back the first day - it's a 25 minute bike ride, but it's also exhausting), and we've been making models for a project on D street since.

The firm had two designs for the D street installation, one a voronoi-cubic object and one a swing set, both of which were interactive through LEDs and sensors. Estelle and I spent Tuesday making a beginning version of the voronoi-cube, but the designs for both ideas changed by the end of Wednesday.

Voronoi cube: top view, axonometric view, interior shots

We actually spent most of Wednesday taking down a prior installation by the firm in the BSA (Boston Society of Architects). This basically involved us scraping a rather disgusting amount of vinyl letter stickers off the walls (and peeling off ridiculous amounts of wall-paint in the process).

Peeling off the vinyl stickers & sticker shavings

We then spent most of the afternoon attempting to prepare a lasercut file for the altered version of the voronoi installation, and then cutting material to fit the bed of the lasercutter in Meejin's shop. Unfortunately, by the time 5:30 rolled around we were just about ready to begin lasercutting - but both of us had commitments near campus so we had to leave. We tried bringing the material back to MIT to lasercut, since the cutters in the FabLab are more efficient (never again will I complain about RPL and their inability to cut through chipboard!) but the FabLab was closed! Estelle and I decided to go to work early so we could lasercut in hope of finishing the models before the meeting with the client at 3 pm.

The next day, Estelle and I had an early start - arriving at the office at 8:15 instead of 9:30 am! We began lasercutting the swings out of polypropylene, and dear god the material smoked. It was pretty terrifying, and by 9:45 we were still trying to lasercut the polypropylene with little progress. We decided to switch out to the museum board and cut the voronoi loops first, while Yoonhee and Estelle tried to figure out what to do about the polypropylene mess and the swings.

Failing at cutting polypropylene and getting toxic smoke everywhere

By the time 2:55 pm rolled around, Estelle and I were still trying to frantically glue the last few loops for the voronoi into place and my computer died, so we had no reference to match the loops to. Both of us were super stressed for time, we hadn't eaten lunch so we were starving, and we both felt like puking because we thought we weren't going to get it done on time.

We managed it though, and both models looked awesome.

D street models: Voronoi installation, swings installation, and interior shots

AND the office bought us lunch/dinner - technically lunch because we hadn't eaten lunch, but also kind of dinner because it was 5 pm.

The last day of the week was super chill compared to the day before - I woke up naturally at 7:30 and felt like I'd slept in because of the ridiculously early start on Thursday! Estelle and I spent the morning photographing the models and were sitting in on meetings for the Collier Memorial and for the D street installation for the afternoon.

On a separate note, I broke into EC on Wednesday night to eat fruit - Julie left me a bunch of fruit in her fridge, along with the key to one of the EC doors (which didn't work! Someone took pity on me and let me in, though), and when I entered her room I was in for a big surprise.

When I said to leave me notes everywhere for where the box of books were, I didn't actually mean everywhere.

Notes, notes, notes everywhere. Ignoring the fact that the "rolly chair" was right in front of the door (I walked into it).