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1. In December I signed up for a 6-week Beginning Wheel throwing class at the Arts Center of the Capital Region, in downtown Troy. The first class was Thursday, January 12, so I didn't go because I was in the middle of having Covid. That meant my first class was last night. I'll spare you the horrors of the bike route the G-machine sent me on to get there from work*, and will fast-forward to:
Ahh, I can't even tell you how amazing it felt to be back in a pottery studio.
I quickly realized I had exactly zero clear plans for what I wanted to make**, but given that it is a beginner class and the current topic is "throwing a cylinder and then varying/altering its form," I went with that.
Giant tea mugs and planters, ahoy!
(only the front 5 are mine)
It's always interesting to learn how new clay bodies handle.
Actually, more than anything, I am grateful to now be in a space again where I can finally let myself think and dream about what I want to make. It turns out it kind of doesn't really matter so much what I actually make, so long as I can have at least that feeling of creative potential. This does a certain something for my spirit.
It takes about an hour to bike home from Troy. There's a smaller pottery studio at the Albany Art Room just a couple blocks from home, but I still can't quite figure out the best way to infiltrate it yet. I suspect they may just basically be full, from my standpoint. They do offer both beginner and intermediate classes, but I don't yet know how quickly they tend to fill up, and their classes are shorter and seem like they may have fewer associated Open Studio options. I might still wind up switching over to that for simple geographic reasons. It might also be that I can buy clay from them, make studio space at home, and just use them to fire stuff. But let's be honest - if I don't have the social structure of going somewhere to practice the art, will I still actually follow through?
In the short term, I am so grateful to finally just have my hands in clay again.
2. I finished my first LaTeX project! I got myself set up in Overleaf, plugged away at things, and managed to convert one whole set of handouts for Animal Phys into a booklet.
Achievements unlocked:
-A document that doesn't look like crap, thanks to someone's book template
-Lists: itemized, enumerated, and of the to-do checkbox variety
-Image embedded
-A Table of Contents, automagically generated from sections, subsections, and subsubsections
-A simple table
-Hyperlinks
-Flashy cover design that I totally didn't come up with.
-Section with text in two columns
I punted on trying to incorporate my R Reference Card, and on trying to figure out how to include sections with landscape-oriented pages.
I also now have a better overall sense of the scope of what's involved in converting my types of Word documents into .tex that are useful for my purposes.
That means I can more realistically consider future projects, like converting my hodgepodge of lab handouts into much more attractive and systematically-organized lab handouts that can then eventually get turned into a full lab manual.
Indeed, I am pleased.
*I already knew of other ways to bike to downtown Troy from work, I was just curious about G's thoughts on the matter. The suggested route was TERRIBLE for a person on a bicycle, especially given that it was dark and the road conditions were sketchy due to sleet.
**Well, one very loose plan, to make plant pots, heh.
Ahh, I can't even tell you how amazing it felt to be back in a pottery studio.
I quickly realized I had exactly zero clear plans for what I wanted to make**, but given that it is a beginner class and the current topic is "throwing a cylinder and then varying/altering its form," I went with that.
Giant tea mugs and planters, ahoy!
(only the front 5 are mine)
It's always interesting to learn how new clay bodies handle.
Actually, more than anything, I am grateful to now be in a space again where I can finally let myself think and dream about what I want to make. It turns out it kind of doesn't really matter so much what I actually make, so long as I can have at least that feeling of creative potential. This does a certain something for my spirit.
It takes about an hour to bike home from Troy. There's a smaller pottery studio at the Albany Art Room just a couple blocks from home, but I still can't quite figure out the best way to infiltrate it yet. I suspect they may just basically be full, from my standpoint. They do offer both beginner and intermediate classes, but I don't yet know how quickly they tend to fill up, and their classes are shorter and seem like they may have fewer associated Open Studio options. I might still wind up switching over to that for simple geographic reasons. It might also be that I can buy clay from them, make studio space at home, and just use them to fire stuff. But let's be honest - if I don't have the social structure of going somewhere to practice the art, will I still actually follow through?
In the short term, I am so grateful to finally just have my hands in clay again.
2. I finished my first LaTeX project! I got myself set up in Overleaf, plugged away at things, and managed to convert one whole set of handouts for Animal Phys into a booklet.
Achievements unlocked:
-A document that doesn't look like crap, thanks to someone's book template
-Lists: itemized, enumerated, and of the to-do checkbox variety
-Image embedded
-A Table of Contents, automagically generated from sections, subsections, and subsubsections
-A simple table
-Hyperlinks
-Flashy cover design that I totally didn't come up with.
-Section with text in two columns
I punted on trying to incorporate my R Reference Card, and on trying to figure out how to include sections with landscape-oriented pages.
I also now have a better overall sense of the scope of what's involved in converting my types of Word documents into .tex that are useful for my purposes.
That means I can more realistically consider future projects, like converting my hodgepodge of lab handouts into much more attractive and systematically-organized lab handouts that can then eventually get turned into a full lab manual.
Indeed, I am pleased.
*I already knew of other ways to bike to downtown Troy from work, I was just curious about G's thoughts on the matter. The suggested route was TERRIBLE for a person on a bicycle, especially given that it was dark and the road conditions were sketchy due to sleet.
**Well, one very loose plan, to make plant pots, heh.
