The rain has finally stopped. I know it will start again and I guess I don't mind it now that I am home, in the comfort of my own room safe and dry. It was tough driving back tonight even though I had already killed some time by chilling at Ana's eating my favorite- Erika's roll. I still can't say I like the rain but it does set the mood for doing some serious thinking. Not that there's anything serious that I have to think about right now, however it wouldn't hurt to do a little self-critique tonight. I have time anyway, no school tomorrow and I don't plan on waking up at 6 am again tossing and turning not to mention feeling paranoid about the mirror... Supposedly it isn't good to have mirrors in rooms b/c it affects a person's sleeping quality, gees I wonder if that's true, considering I only have about a least 2 dreams per night and I seem to be able to remember them quite clearly most of the time. And to think I didn't have as many dreams (or at least I couldn't remember them as well) while I was back in Taiwan, sleeping in a mirrorless room... I must be paranoid or there must be some truth to this weird concept.

Anyway, I feel a lot of us take things for granted. I'm not talking about people but I'm talking about our knowledge and our lifestyle today. In this age, we are so used to thinking in the way we do we tend to forget or skip the simple things in life, the simple concepts. We are so used to thinking in complicated terms, we forgot how to simplify matters. Today in class the teacher was trying to get us to deconstruct what we see on a daily basis by giving very simple exercises, but one would be surprised at how many of us, including myself, ended up sitting there speechless. It was so simple yet so hard, b/c we no longer think in those terms or we find them to be the FOUNDATION of all our knowledge in the Western culture that it suddenly becomes impossible, for us to go backwards and see things in their most basic forms. We skip them b/c those to us are what's obvious, therefore we skip those steps and we try to provide an answer that is much more complicated than it needs to be... or we are so used to seeing things in a 2D form (to me it also means on a very superficial level) that we tend to go "what? huh" when we are asked to provide a 3D explanation (which also means to see depth, to go beyond what we are familiar with). And the funny thing is once we start to explore in 3D we suddenly had a hard time going backwards, to simply those concepts into the most easily understandable terms of all-- mathematics. I'm talking about middle school math, I'm talking about geometry, easy elementary ideas that we are all very familiar with however never quite got to explore and discuss them in such a way... I suppose this is what post structuralist deconstruction theory is about? The theory that forces us to rethink, retrace steps so we can figure out how or why each thing is built or designed the way it is, and the semiotic relationship of all things.

I don't even know if it makes any sense since we barely scratched the surface, but it got me thinking... of how we are always so quick to judge but while we are judging we tend to miss the very core of the issue, tend to miss the point. And it's like pealing away the onion, the layers, in order to really find out what's inside one must not be distracted by the misc. stuff that's surrounding the real problem. Dunno if it isn't about consciously constructing something (environment, feeling, image, etc) then it's usually about arduously deconstructing something, anything! And I guess starting now I will be trained to do both really well, in order to be a good designer I think one must be able to do so...

Anyway I believe I'm losing my train of thoughts, too sleepy to stay up and think coherently. But I'm super glad to be learning something new, if not new but to have something interesting to think about... we are surrounded by these very same theories and concepts all the time but I doubt hardly any of us actually have the time to sit down and contemplate what they mean. It's nice to have a time allotted for this kind of discussion and I must say I do enjoy schooling very much. If one cannot learn something new and fun each day then what's the point of living? To live and learn, like my papa said, and so I am... with the help of his generous investment that is! hehehehe... TO LIVE AND LEARN!

and btw, pat on my shoulder *pat pat*, best decision made in 2004-- LEAVE the job. Leap of faith, or I should say my emotion/feeling overruled me then but it's absolutely necessary to follow the heart, I'm glad I did.