silverrose writing

How does the words ‘kaleidoscope designs’ equal porn?

That is what I got when I was looking up design ideas for a homework assignment in which I had to build a kaleidoscope design (by MC Esher). So when I finished making it, I now have to paint it. Which, although I dislike painting, I can live with. But to paint I need ideas. Looked up the subject on Google and porn was what I got, Japanese and American.

So GoogleImages…Is this what children view when they are looking up innocent things for school assignments? That is quiet sad and for such a user friendly search engine that is not very user friendly. I don’t care about the sickos that love that stuff. I care about the innocent children being subjected to this stuff. I mean porn is for kids? Makes sense because we continue to let child pornography go. But I digress. I have to otherwise I would go into a very long, tangent about all this.

Ultimately I feel that this toy which is what a kaleidoscope is, and forgive my loss of words on this one, but how many other children toys have pornographic content to them? And should that be permitted to be seen by children online? What are we letting go here? I honestly hope that you who posted that stuff really don’t know children go online. I truly hope you are that moronic. Unless your Japanese, were childporn is A-OK, then well, what can I say other then total disgust.

I am sorry for being so blunt, but its kind of a true fact that we see commonly in today’s lovely society.

YES!!!! Finally the end of the quarter here at Pittsburgh’s Art Institute and God was it long for some of us. For me personally, I will happily enjoy this break although it is short. TOO SHORT! I feel like ranting. So I will. I won 50 dollars. How, you may ask, well…I don’t know. haha I am bored out of my mind right now therefore I will write whatever random and obscure things that pop in my head. Popcorn is one of them and cheesecake. YES cheesecake! because i want cheesecake. There needs to be a fusion of the two…pop-cake…that sound fun. I am sitting inn class waiting for the teacher. This week is going by slowly. I go home Friday yay. Peanut Butter Popcorn…why not?  I won 50 dollars because of peanut butter popcorn which is good and random just like this post. There are probably numerous gramatical errors. Coconut, pineapple-banana cheesecake. SLEEP! I NEED TO SLEEP! Don’t drink city water…ever! You will get sick.

REMEMBER ITS THE END OF THE QUARTER!!!!

Adios 

Of everything that I would like to say about Pittsburgh, its college transportation stands out. For instance, Point Park and about every college settled in this city has transportation rights to their students. Does the Art Institute of Pittsburgh reserve these simple rights to their students? I have to say No. Or at least we don’t anymore. Originally, I was going to write my argument on how AIP students do not have any form of transportation provided for them here. Although I would like to continue, it has proven to be more of a challange then I expected it to become. It is very difficult to find any information on anything even remotely related to Shannon Hall.

Perhaps I will look at it from a new angle if possible. I said in the last paragraph that there was a time when AIP had a method of transportation. We used to have a trolley in which the students would pay 20 a month to use. (this was before I attended) Of course digging up that information would be no picnic either.

My other options…well, I don’t have many. I had the idea that working with something that directly effected me would provide me with something. So other things I am looking at working with:

A. continue…(likely to become a complaining fit)

B. home town (probably something philly related, there’s always something there)

C. pittsburgh and the snow (likely to have complaining but less s0)

Many of us students attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh reside in the Shannon Hall dormitory. Most of those who live here will live here in various lengths of time. Some a year while others will call Shannon their home for the entire duration of their time here. Although no dorm is fantastic, there are always a few things here and there that could be improved or approached differently. Most of us would agree that the floors of Shannon could be improved greatly.

We have cemented floors coated in a gross, deteriorating, black latex paint. The paint rubs off on anyone who walks barefooted on those floors leaving a speckled black residue on the bottoms of their feet. Could you imagine stuff like that in your bed? It flakes off in your bed, miscellaneous rugs that you may have, or it might stick to you until you get a chance to wash it away.

Some rooms show the ancient paint more then others. The rooms had huge, unseemly, spots of cement showing and little specks of black randomly scattered in the spot. Blotches of black are scattered about the rooms. We pay a decent amount of money. Our flooring could be better.

Simple linoleum flooring would look and feel better then what we have now. We don’t need anything fancy. We don’t need or want black flakes stuck to us either. If we were to have linoleum tiles our dorms would look better. That should be especially considerate of those walking in to check out the place of what could be their future college.

I looked over. There’s that girl again. Sitting alone in that corner in a hideously outdated attire. Really, you can see the holes in those old shoes. She’s so quiet. Quieter then a Mouse. …Hmm. You know what they say though. “Its the quiet ones you need to watch for.” I have seen her her and there but never spoke to her. Come to think of it I always see her with the weird Puertorrican girl. She is louder then though…when she’s around her anyway. They must be close friends.
Well she seems nice enough for friends. But…god she’s so quiet sometimes that I wonder if she really talks to people. Hmm? I looked up. Whats she up to? Drawing? Drawing what? Well, I won’t know sitting here. I thought to myself as a slowly got up from my chair. The teacher in the room didn’t care in fact most of us did as we pleased. I approched. She glanced upward, sensing me. Dark brown? Wait…brown? No, green? Yellow-green and light brown eyes? Then the suns rays moved off. Brown, solid brown eyes looked up at me. It looked like little circles were set underneith them too. An insomniac maybe? “Yes?” She spoke.

“What color are your eyes?” I forgot why I came over. Those eyes are interesting, if thats hazel…my thoughts interrupted.

“Hazel, well, yeah, green on the occasion with a tint of yellow and red in the center. Generally hazel though. Well depends on the lighting.

“Oh,…ok…” weird and geez what a quiet voice. She averted her eyes away now and resumed her drawing. Oh yeah…”whatcha drawing there?”

“Ahh…nothing really, a rose, it kind of sucks though.” She sighed.

“Oh…ok.” She paused, looked up again.

“Well uh…” I cut her off with a “nice rose.” She thanked me and I walked away as she returned to her art. She’s different. So quiet though and shy seeming. I looked over, she didn’t notice. Or maybe she did and didn’t care. I don’t know. Messy hair, god I want to fix it. I hope she’s not secretly a physcopath. Well they say artists are weird. At least for now she looks like a nice weird not a creepy emo, physco, hate-the-world weird…

Or is she? I leaned back in my chair looked over again…did she go to sleep? She draws and then sleeps? Or is she just that bored? Well who can blame her here I am bored myself. She kind of has a guy-like air about her like a tomboy. Nah, way to quiet. But, who knows maybe she’s one to surprise. She got up someone poked her. Ouch, she’s mean looking when she’s disturbed. I think enough people get on her case. She has that air around too. That thing that says “I am an easy target if anyone wants to pick on anyone.” Well she seems nice, although I want to take her out for a make-over.

I was deciding between 3 locations. I needed to find at least one that I could work with, even if its for the moment. I would check out the place and interview the managers or the owners to decide on the most suitable for the newest writing assignment that my english class received. Those places were the Tic Toc in Macy’s department store, Ide’s Comics down Wood St. in Pittsburgh and the Hard Rock Cafe located at Station Square. Of these choices, it was the Tic Toc’s manager and executive chef, whom I would speak to. Ide’s, from what I understood from my roommate who works there, I wasn’t going to get very far with as the store’s owner has been described as unreliable when it comes to decent information. The Hard Rock Cafe was my first choice before the other two. Although I intended to speak to the manager of the famous restaurant anyway, the early part of the snow storm began to increase in its pace. I wasn’t a long walk, but if i didn’t have to walk too far, i would rather not. I decided that The Hard Rock was popular enough that there would be people who have the place in mind as well anyway. Why should I take it away?

The Tic Toc was refered to me by another roommate of mine who also works there. She began to tell me about the history the restaurant had. I knew that I had only Friday to really get an interview in due to the storm. So, I rolled with it. I walked down to Macy’s and asked for some directions to get to the restaurant. When I finally got there I was greeted immediantly although the cashiers thought I was looking for a job. (hmmm are they hiring?) I was hoping that my going there would prove to be fruitful.

They called for the manager when I asked for him. I wanted to be sure that this place was at least 10 years old (Has to have some history by then right?) I didn’t want to go anywhere with anything less then 10 years of age. Actually, I wanted older, if I could have it. I was assured by the atmosphere and the manager/chef that I had selected the right place. I was given the impression the restaurant has a long tradition, as well as history even before I walked in the doors to request the manager by the newspaper clippings hung on the walls out side. Traditions usually have the word “unique” or ‘Different” laying underneith the original word. History is always tied with the word too. I like my history, if anyone can tell from reading anything I previously wrote. Considering that, I thought to use the tradition and some history of the Tic Toc as my angle.

I was walking down the cemented sidewalk path with the lifeless trees of winter on either side of me, with a night sky turning to day above me, making my way to turn on the long street of annoying traffic signs that give you a very hurried, one minute, walk across the streets before the drivers, who could care less if you get hit by them (I would know after I saw an elderly woman getting side scraped by one of these amazing drivers), run into you, the insignificant piece of paper in the road. The annoying traffic lights and signs lay in my path to my final destination that morning. I was almost to my personal favorite intersection in the city of Pittsburgh. ‘Those traffic lights will never be fixed’ I thought to myself while lugging a green, huge, case behind me along with my black computer bag. Standing on the corner of the sidewalk, not sure if I can cross the streets yet being that all walk/don’t walk signs said the same thing on all side walks in their white color that was the symbol for “ok you can go now,” I made the decision to cross the becoming busy intersection. The city buses where showing up now. I made my way into the middle of the road when the red traffic lights turned to green and the buses and cars and whatever had started to show up at this point in time on a lovely cold and beautifully windy morning.

I stayed at the median if the road facing the brownish-orange brick building with a small clock visible near its roof. A sign identified it outside. A ramp for cars to park outside of it lead to the doors that weren’t that easy for me to make out. You would be able to tell that this building is intended to look old fashioned just by noting the old styled windows. But, this isn’t where I was going. I looked passed the building of brick to the little section of trees that would never come back to life as someone thought the would look pretty if all the branches were sawed off. “Then lets hang Christmas lights off of them,” thinks the person who hired city workers to do something that would make a building slightly more attractive and weren’t causing the building any harm. If anything they were taking out some of the carbon dioxide we breathe in. (As you can see I am not a morning person).

Finally the light turns green on the opposite side of the intersection. I continued avoiding, though not gracefully, the turning vehicles.  I walked up to those mutilated trees where some benches and tables sat beside them. I looked past the old fashioned-styled brownish-orange brick building. Going behind the building, is a smaller one attached. Yellow, green, and black colored taxis were dropping other people off. I walked through the double doors, checked my time, and went up the escalator. I looked down at the people sitting, also waiting for the same intercom call that I was. Then looked ahead at the doors that opened constantly to let the workers in.

There was no seat empty for me here and there generally isn’t. I stood in wait listening to the huffing sounds of steam coming through the automatic doors. Finally, the intercom noise I waited for came.

little snow flakes fall
silver-white glow from the moon
under the night stars

To be honest, I really didn’t know too much about the city of Pittsburgh. The most I knew about it was how “amazing” the Pittsburgh’s football team, the Steelers were.  I don’t care that much for football so I never really thought about it. I knew some movies were made in the city. Although, I can’t remember any of their names. Pittsburgh’s location is in a far west county in Pennsylvania and such and such. It is located near Lake Erie which means it probably snowed often in the winter. (That’s ok with me because I enjoy the snow). Aside from location and the little stuff that most people know about, the most that I really knew about the city was some of its history, as well as a few hear and there comments from my grandmother.

Every city has its own unique history. Pittsburgh isn’t any different. The city is known as a steel city. (Now that I’ve lived here for about seven months, I realized how literal that comment actually is). As most people know, the football team, Steelers derived their name because of the city’s large industrial history.  John Rockefeller’s oil industry took hold in the city in the later 1800’s. The first railroads were built in the city around the same time. Steel mills existed everywhere. In WWII, Pittsburgh’s steel mills were depended on for the production of military equipment. But, now I am giving a history lesson. To get back on topic, I knew more, as you can see, about the history of the city then much else. I didn’t really care about much else anyway. I didn’t care too much about the history either, but, being the type of person I am these aspects of the city just stood out more to me.

Before I made my final decision to go to college here, before I decided to go anywhere, the Art Institute of Philadelphia’s representative showed up at my high school. She gave us some information about the school. With the information, was a list of the other affiliates. I wasn’t a big fan of Philly. (I looked at the school anyway). I checked of the list of a few close colleges. Pittsburgh was one of them and got back to me not too long after sending a request for information.

My knowledge of the city increased after coming to the school for a tour. I noted that it was definitely small compared to Philly. It seemed cleaner. There were small stores close by. Aspects that I didn’t like showed up, early closing stores, other things as well. This city has another nickname that I learned about and agree 100%. It is definately the city of bridges. After being here long enough, I am learning a little more about the city, (yes including the history).

I recently learned how to ride a “T.” I finally learned the locations of stores I would like to go to. I rode the incline for a class assignment when I first came here and learned more history. Although there are times then and now when it doesn’t look like there’s a lot to do, (could help if stores stayed open later), I can say there are a few things here to do if your willing to learn the “T” or the buses.