magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

As it turns out, it was probably for the best that I didn't leave the house last night. With only a few days left to finish my Columbia application, it was invaluable to get a good night's sleep under my belt before the unavoidably hectic rush to the deadline. And I did get a good night's sleep (there's something about being snug in bed while it's snowing outside) with the exception of being jolted awake by two claps of thunder, the first of which must has been from a bolt of lightning striking the ridge of trees just above my house or an antenna on a nearby building.

'Hi C____, it's Bean. I was just calling to follow up on...'

Waking up to a winter wonderland of snow, I felt that I must really be living in a bubble these days to not have known that it was coming. All told, by late afternoon it was tallied as the largest snowstorm in New York City's recorded meteorological history (the last 138 years). I ventured out into the snow to get bagels and take photos. And while there's certainly something magical about all that freshly fallen snow, it didn't quite seem as monumental as it was being made out to be. Some of my earliest, foggy memories are from the winter of 1976-77, one of the snowiest in modern history. This snow will all be gone in a couple of days, so it's really not the same thing.

'Hi P____, it's Bean Amerika. I know it's really short notice, but remember a few months ago when we were talking about...'

I began the work of actually laying out my portfolio today. I had already decided what was going in it, dug out the drawings and photos from projects that I wanted to include. I had taken some additional photos, touched a few things up. I had come up with a preliminary order, an idea about printing and binding. But today I sat down to set up the files. Chose typefaces. Wrote, or rewrote the blurbs describing projects. Decided, in earnest, the project for the cover: my first ever architecture project, my "House of the Future", a clay sculpture (model) from 4th grade art class.

'Hi M____, it's Bean. I guess when I said sometime soon, what I really meant was in two months.'

By the time the snow tapered off this evening, I thought things were in good standing. I had a page-by-page mockup. I had written all the text. I was actually going to pull this off.