I think I have become a slave to my computer. This isn’t an epiphany – just me finally admitting it. My computer obsession has been getting worse since the beginning of the summer. I felt like I discovered a whole new world when I began working with Photoshop again, and now it is controlling my life. I turn my computer on immediately when I wake up and have it on until I go to sleep. The keys on my keypad are popping out (but is this because I have a cheap Dell, I type too hard, or I use it too much? Don’t know). I find myself attempting to use Ctrl+Z (Edit – Undo) in real life. I keep telling myself that this obsession is normal for a college student, but the truth is, I am pretty sure I will be like this when I am NOT in college. Sometimes I skip sleep because I want to spend more time with my computer… all I need to do is give it a name and it will be a full fledged affair! In the long run, I don’t have to worry about this, because if there is one person more computer obsessed than me, it is Steven!
I have spent the last two days in front of my computer slaving over a html diagram for Studio. I was in a group with Alejandra and another friend, Steve, to document the people demographics around our site in Montréal. We spent a lot of time just doing observation during different parts of the day, and we also did a few interviews. Our site is sandwiched between a very commercial street – which runs parallel one block to the north, Chinatown – which is a few blocks to the east, and a business district – on the south and west sides. Directly on three sides of the site are residences, so we observed a very diverse flow of people, varying from residents to shoppers to business people (and of course, a lot of asian people).
We are beginning to finish up these preliminary studies in Studio, which means it is time to build a site model of Montréal and start designing the Médiathèque. These site model projects are usually a big mess. Imagine 15 students arguing over which materials to use, who is in charge of which tasks, and who will pay for it all. The scale of the model is 1:200, so I imagine the base will be around 5′ x 5′. For some unknown reason, it is hard for us to get organized to make these things. You would think we would have it down by now since we have been building them for two years, but I think a lot of people have lost their motivation to make these humongous models. I hope this one turns out better than the last few I have helped make.
