Stream of Consciousness: From MBP to Life

January 1, 2010 at 3:00am I was ready to hop into bed after a night of new year festivities at home. I open my door only to find the floor of my room covered with water. More importantly, my computer, which was sitting on a chair by my bedside as a makeshift computer table, was drenched in water. I had no idea where it came from. There was no tipped over glass. There was no water bottle. Just water. I literally looked up at the ceiling to see if there was water leaking anywhere. My laptop was on when I last left it to catch the countdown in my living room. Hours later, I find it struggling for life. The sound of electronics shorting out and the slight smell of burning accompanied my new year. My new year began with the death of my MacBook Pro. What was most upsetting was that who ever was responsible didn’t have the decency to even clean up the mess! Unaccountability and immaturity sickens me. Fine, you spilled water all over my computer and my room. You didn’t want anyone to find out it was you. The least you could have fuckin’ done was clean it up and not let it sit there for God knows how long. I’m not too upset that my computer is dead, I am much more upset at the principle of the matter: IF YOU FUCK UP, STEP UP. (If for some reason you happen to run across this blog and read it, I highly suggest you make it your 2010 resolution!)

Not the best starts but things will be okay! I have most of my data backed up with the exception of anything I’ve made in the last week or so. Worst case scenario: I have an excuse to buy a new computer. I’ve narrowed my choices down to the 15″ Macbook Pro or the 27″ iMac. This left me in a very challenging situation of finding out what was right for me. The iMac is an immaculate machine at a lower price than the MacBook Pro. Logically, it makes sense to purchase the iMac. I do most of my mobile computing on my iPhone. I don’t take my notebook outside the house that often.

On the flip-side, it is a challenge being productive in my room. There aren’t many places I can design, but I know my bedroom isn’t the most optimal place. I came to that conclusion during fall of last year. As a result, I decided then that I wanted my bedroom to be one thing… a bed room. No more funky studio/work/office space. I thought that was the main reason that I couldn’t sleep in my room. I was constantly surrounded by my work. In hindsight, I was completely wrong – I just have some unhealthy and irregular sleeping habits! However, that left me no space to do work and as you can tell from the picture below, my workspace has been relegated to the corner of my room, segregated from everything else.

My room itself is extremely small. It’s what one would call “Teeny-Tiny.” I took that picture to send to my friend Sara for ideas on how I could change the layout of my room. Why is this important? This is important because fitting a 27″ iMac on that desk you see above is a challenge in itself. It also presents a problem that has less to do with logistics and more with my personal objective. It’s the same reason why my walls remain grey, naked and bare. I don’t intend on staying that much longer and anything I set up will only serve as a reminder of why I am still home.

Back and forth I went, dilly-dallying in the process, about what to do with my computer situation. I kept staring at that lonesome desk in my room. I realized a few things, 1) I’m going to buy a MacBook Pro and 2) This room is part of my home. Sure, I have aspirations and a longing to be elsewhere. But years from now I don’t want to come back and visit and see a dull, naked, grey room. My room should serve as a reflection of who I am and not be a purely fuctional space (sleeping, storage, working.) It isn’t a cubical. It’s my home. It will only serve as a reminder of how neglectful I was to myself. When I look at my room, I don’t sense someone who is aspiring to go places and do things. I sense a fear of being stuck. With that in mind, I hopped in the shower just for the sake of thinking. This is what I came up with for my room.

One of the biggest challenges with the space is that I have very limited options as to where the bed can go. Three of the walls in my room contains some sort of door as you can see from the rough schematic above. In addition, of the three walls, one wall is absolutely consumed by a closet. My solution is to section off the closet side wall with a white curtain. I want to break up the plain flat grey walls and add some texture and pattern while also keeping a clean minimal design. Currently my bed is on the left side of the room on the only available full wall. I think it’s a waste of a wall! I decided to move the bed directly in front of the full wall. This wall will now be available for framed pictures and framed artwork.  I added a lamp since my room is fairly dark since there are no windows. I also added some clean, simple shelving space for books and pictures and other things. Ironically, my pursuit to keep a simple and minimalistic room resulted in me living in a space that was surprisingly hollow and empty.

With that observation in mind, here’s to change and the new year!