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shlimer
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Name: Grace Face
Country: United States
State: Hawaii
Metro: Maui
Birthday: 3/11/1986
Gender: Female
Interests: I like guys who like pirates. Food is good too. There's nothing like coming home to good food. MMMM. And running when the sun is shining makes me happy. Music is the pinnacle of life. Take time to be zen. Be gung-ho about love. People love love...ever noticed?
Expertise: archiTECture...i know nothing else.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Art
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  ghlim5
MSN: ghlim5@hotmail.com
Member Since:
3/24/2003
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| I've been waiting to post this entry forever!!! I'm finally in Europe and have a running blog (well, one that I'm hoping to keep up...) of my adventures this semester! Even though I'm a loyal Xangan, I have a new blog specifically for my travels in Europe.
www.ghlimmer.blogspot.com
For those who'd like to visit, all are welcome. For those wanting to leave a comment, you don't have to join blogspot, you can comment as anonymous. However, please make sure to note your name at the end of the comment so I at least know who commented! Send me your love! AND your prayers! And I'll try to keep you updated so that you can be my virtual travel buddy. 
For now,
Grace
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| I'm sure by now, most people don't read/update xangas anymore. LOL. But in any case, I'd rather share my thoughts with the xanga community than have my mini-feed advertise my notes on facebook...I'm just less confident in my writing skills...
In line with that, I guess my jottings for today is a contemplation of people and the effect of this world. Broad topic, I know. Bare with me...at times I may sound blasphemous and even like a heretic, but I maintain to write to record my thoughts.
Since turning 21 (I'm sure you all know where this is going, esp. if you were at my b-day party...lol) I've engaged in some rather, over-21-only activities. Admittedly, I have gone over my limits, but not without regrets. Realize...that it's only been 3-ish months since my birthday and some weeks, I indulged myself in alcohol almost everyday. It got to the point where most of my liquids during mealtime almost HAD TO HAVE a dash of substance.
But then, alas, my dear friend Joe and I decided there needed to be a change, and we resorted to fasting alcohol for missions to beat the idol we call "alcoholism" (you can ask me about this later). "Kicking the habit" entails many-a different experiences.
First, there's the withdrawal...where you find yourself saying stuff like, "this would be so much funner with a little alcohol" or "that joke would be so funny with a little alcohol"...etc.
Next, there's the "let's pretend that this is alcohol." (Pretty self-explanatory).
Then, the "this fasting is not worth it" attempt to give up.
Then, the extremely self-reflecting stage. <-----I'm here.
Finally, and hopefully the last step, is the "I can live without it and know that I'm okay with moderation" stage.
Well, it's been made clear to me that alcohol might well be a result of this world and its increasingly restrictive paradigms (stick synonym here). Far stretch, I know...but my logic is usually that way.
So, let's do an exercise. Imagine yourself in junior high...you're once again that awkward child going through puberty, a process that is still unknown to you, trying to figure out who you are, what your purpose is, and most importantly, trying your hardest to fit-in and be cooooooool (if you can't relate, you're fortunately unfortunate :-/). You're extremely vulnerable to criticisms, impressionable by any means, and AFRAID TO BE JUDGED. Now, look at yourself now...how much of that has really changed besides the puberty part? Honestly speaking, for me, the world is a macro version of junior high and I'm trapped in it's unmerciful headlock until God rescues me. I'm cautious to speak my mind, afraid to look like a freak, and hoping that I won't offend anyone during the course of my rather stressful day.
For 21 years I've felt like this and what was my release? The alcohol that touched my lips on March 11, 2007. In the well-chosen words of Lindsay Lohan in "Mean Girls," I had uncontrollable "word vomit." I could've talked for HOURS about anything and everything that came to mind. My brain was projected in all its bipolar-skewed-logic-awkward-humor glory and I could care less what people thought. The downfall? The morning after, when I remembered everything...EVERYTHING!!!
I returned to normal...that fearsome thing...and realized the only escape is alcohol. It helps, I thought, to make me unafraid of judgement. So, then I kept wanting to feel that way. Wanting so badly to not care all day, everyday. So, then I kept drinking and not feeling and drinking and not caring.
The more I didn't feel, the more I thought and shared. But when I DID feel, I kept thinking but wouldn't dare share. Grace thinking = emotional suicide. Not a great equation...
So now, as I reflect, I realize that the world is madness (a conclusion I'm sure a lot of people have already realized). It's forced us into thinking a certain way, kept us from saying things we want to say, made us believe that we're someone we're not, and basically created a world full of underachieveing, self-depracating people, wishing to be something that God did not intend us to be. What a horrible world!
Remember the people in junior high, who were so strangely good at one thing...like the kid who would play with his calculator and program weird things to prank the math teacher, and didn't care that kids were making fun of him because he knew that calculators were his expertise and refused to abandon his passion to fit in? WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THOSE PEOPLE. I find it troubling that people have become so caught up with fitting in, that instead of figuring out what they're good at and figuring out who they were meant to be, they've become part of the world and their lives almost seize to exist.
Frankly, and quite regretfully, I am often a victim of homogeneity. When I'm not, I'm bursting at the seams to want to be me. I guess you can call it the gravitational pull of God's will trying to pull mine align with His.
And the alcohol comes in because it's the carelessness of what the world thinks that people all naturally desire. To act and speak and express who they are...who they REALLY are in the confines of their own minds. I realize that sometimes alcohol is used as an excuse to act and do OTHER things, but in this context, I speak of the pure intentions to maintain one's "inalienable rights" from the "mean girls" of this world.
Well, to keep this entry from getting any longer, I shall present the solution: GOD. Why God, you might ask. Well, if we did as He said from the very beginning, we wouldn't be in this mess...we would know not to follow things of this world and strive to be who He wants and intends for us to be. I know, I know, we are human and even if we were to live according to His will, our interpretation of His will would eventually screw us up somewhere along the way. In theory, yes. However, read Genesis 50:20.
Now, you tell me your thoughts.
Here's a pretty picture for enduring my loooong entry...lol.
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| *Random Thought: I may be screwed for the last time in my life...
Mmmm...I used to use xanga as a tool for procrastination, but since facebook I don't seem to pen my thoughts anymore. And since I'm in the midst of another charrette for studio, I figure I might as well use this time to...well, PROCRASTINATE!!!
I realize that architecture has somehow sucked me into living a life that is always creating conditions of perfection...maybe even to the extent of achieving sterile perfection. I say this, kind of as a reaction to the VT shootings, to flickers of reality, and to the lack of normal patterns of sleep, among other things. This semester, we're designing a theatre and in the beginning of the semester I was excited about the project because it had so many possibilities because in the 21st century, a theatre could be so many things (i.e. a place for local plays, broadway shows, ballets, movies, even a club or a place for a birthday party). However, after looking at the same project for about 3 months, I'm beginning to wonder, how much of the public is actually going to use my building...because I sure don't go to theatres on a regular basis, probably because I'm stuck designing one instead of actually going to one.
Anyways, I have a nearly completed building and as I'm staring at the plans in CAD, I find myself fidgeting...with drains, plumbing fixtures, furniture...to somehow fix the smallest details about my building and get it to the best solution possible. I'M STARTING TO SOLVE PROBLEMS!!!
But then...when I zoom out of the minute details and look at my overall plan, I start to think - who's actually gonna care if my bathrooms are perfect in plan??? What if I designed my own industrial toilets??? Does it really matter if all my rooms have a 5' turning radius to be handicap accessible if people in this world are starving or don't even know God's name???
*Sigh* Then, it hits me...my building could be perfect...but in this day and age, it could likely be a site for premeditated shootings and deaths of many innocent people. If that happens, I guess it really won't matter that my mechanical ductwork is perfectly placed placed to service the heating and cooling without people noticing...
Sorry for the archy-rant...for those not in architecture...I'll just post a picture.
(w/my hot cousins in Koreatown - Paulan, me, Miriam)
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"When were young we set our hearts upon some beautiful idea
Maybe something from a holy book or French philosophia
Upon the thoughts of better men than us we swear by and decree a
Perfect way to end the war of ways the only way to be a
Work of art, oh to be a work of art
But in time a thought comes tugging on the sleeve edge of our minds
Perhaps no perfect way exists at all, just many different kinds
Oh but if its just a thing of taste then everything unwinds
For without an absolute how can the absolute define
A work of art, oh to be a work of art"
The Guggenheim Grotto [Philosophia]
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| *Random Thought: Hallelu- Hallelu- Hallelu- Hallelujah! PRAAAAAAISE YE THE LORD!!!
Wow...I never thought I'd say this, but I'm seriously suffering from insomnia. Like, no joke. I forced myself to sleep at 2:30 this morning and woke up promplty at 4:30 (that's two hours later) and couldn't go back to sleep. I tried everything. Counted sheep, thought happy thoughts, thought of nothing, sang to myself, pictured words in my head, prayed (this almost never fails)...seriously, everything.
I think after getting sick and having to sleep all day, my body decided that sleep was a waste of time. REALLY. You basically just lie on a bed of springs for 8 to 10 hours, and you're doing what? NOTHING...
Okay, okay, it's probably not THAT horrible, but I'm just bitter because ever since I started getting no sleep during the school year, I was hoping to make up for it during my break. However, that doesn't seem to be the case.
OH OH! I got to experience snow...falling from the sky...while I was up at Mammoth. Man, I think snow is so awesome. It's so soft and cold. And man can never immitate it no matter how great technology can get. Not even with a snow machine. Seriously, though, there's nothing cooler than seeing the silence of snow. You know? And if anyone asks, I am an awesome snowballer. 98 percentile. 
Didn't get to snowboard while there because I was sick, but hey, I had fun playing Nintendo Wii. I was sore from Wii Tennis for a couple days. 
Anyways, here's a portrait of my family. And let me tell you, taking a family portrait with my family, is like Noah trying to get all the animals into the ark...bascially, almost impossible. Every year, since I can remember, my mom has wanted to take a Christmas portrait to send out to family and friends. Unfortunately, the end of Thanksgiving until the night after Christmas Eve seem to be the busiest time of year, probably for most people, but especially at church. This causes a problem for my crazy family to try and spare even 15 minutes to get together and smile for a picture. SO, our Chirstmas protrait has become a Lim tradition of posing-at-the-alter-after-Christmas-Eve-service-when-everyone-leaves-church portrait. Well, here it is.
Yeah, I guess you could say "I'm pretty good at photoshop."  LOL.
Okay, that is all. Almost time for church. YE-AH!
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"Praise and glory to Your name, You will always be the same. Let all know You are Holy. I'll remain in You, and You remain in me." - [Morning Star] Tim
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| Guess what, Guess what!!!
GRACE IS DONE WITH HER FALL 2006 ARCH 302al SEMESTER FINAL PROJECT!!!
Now everybody say: HAAAAAALELUJAH, AAAAAAAAAAMEN!
So, I'm gonna be a major dork and post pictures of my project...not that they're good or anything, but a bunch of people keep asking me, "What the heck do you guys work on all semester without sleep in the [cold-freezer of a] studio?" ([cold-freezer] added for effect)
This semester, we worked on housing...(saddness). This is a "medium density" housing project, which includes one community space (mine's a children's learning center), twenty apartment units (4 - 2 bedroom townhouses, 6 - 2 bedroom units, 10 - 1 bedroom units), sub-terrain (underground) parking, AND WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBILITY (argh...I know, I know...they TOO have to get around...).
Our project site was in Echo Park! I'll even take you there if you want!!! It's a really electic, trendy place...and there are many artists there!!! Anyways...the site is on the border of a changing city grid (I'll show you what I mean...) so I focused on using the site as a way to inform important site lines and use my buidling as a way to transition the grid change.
Here's the final product...keep in mind that I didn't get to finish and do my best work...argh.
OKAY! Get ready for some poor 3D action!
This is the site grid. The colored lines show the "site lines" extended through the site. It's diagramming the dynamicism of our site, in terms of the different possibilities for the site.
Here's the rendering of the above diagram with my building in the site.
This is what instructors would call "an interesting, informative
rendering." Ask me what that is in person...so that I can show you how
they would say it...
Here's the building from the front...
This is from inside the apartment complex, looking on the street:
This is "glorifying" the lobby (this is not meant to be paganistic...that's just how we say..."DUDE, LOOK AT THE COOL LOBBY")
I leave you with this...stand up and say: CHINGOOOO! [Photoshoped for emphasis...HAHAHA]
I love you all, and good luck with finals! YEAH!
***If anyone wants to go belt-out some emo Korean songs at NRB, call me up!!! Yeah YEEEAH!
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"You are precious to God and He is with you so do not fear." - Isaiah 43:4-5
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