Sunshine! And wood!

I got my wood today! Two sheets of 1/4 inch marine grade plywood. They're gorgeous. Getting them in my truck was a project, because I have two gigantic sandbags in the back that weigh about 90 pounds each, a little more than my mother and I usually are lifting. Luckily, the man who sold me the wood was extremely helpful in lifting those and loading the wood. So here it is!

I think the patterns in the wood are so beautiful:

So I laid one sheet on the driveway, and began to draw the first set of lines. It was so sunny and lovely, I could sit in just a tee-shirt. These were just the simple, straight across lines 1' apart.

 I attempted to use the chalkline, or the mouse as I like to call it, to draw the last line, but the only thing that ended up covered in chalk was me. So I used pencil.

DRILLZZ N' SKILLZZ

Every time we've ever taken a family a family trip to Home Depot, Lowe's, or any other store that sells tools, my father threatens to buy a cordless drill. For years, we have not been able to pass the display without stopping for a look, but he has never actually done it. Well, finally he has a really great reason: his lovely daughter (eh em, yours truly) is building a canoe. So, now we have one! And it's really fun!! I like to drill!
We drilled some holes and put screws in and then took the screws out and practiced making the holes straight and I'm really excited. I'm getting to be a pretty good driller, not to brag.

Gleaning from the Past

Finally, the Gleaning from the Past entry. The idea was that we would read a journal, narrative, and research commentary of someone who had completed WISE previously. This entry is a little late, but I still remember the journal I read quite well. I read the journal of a girl who graduated in 2004, and her project was building a dollhouse. I saw some similarities between the two of us. She too did not have much experience with woodworking, she was working closely with her father, and she had trouble keeping readers up-to-date with what she was doing. I know that I don't necessarily put everything in my journal, but after reading hers, I see that details are very important. I also saw that she got quite frustrated quite often with her dad because they often disagreed on the best way to go about things. Things usually went his way. I kept wishing she would have been more assertive. Not that I plan on any disagreements, but I know I struggle to be assertive as well. I think that reading a journal was a great thing for us to do-It's a reminder to try not to be to boring when we journal, and a reminder to explain vocab words and ideas as if the reader has no idea what your project is.

Out of the Rut

7 Things I want to accomplish in the next week:
Finish cleaning the garage
Finally do  my "Gleaning from the past" entry
Pick up wood (IT"S HERE!)
Draw lines on the wood where to cut
Journal about my mentor meeting (which I should schedule...)
Play with tools
Journal about drills

4 ways my project has changed thus far:
Strip canoe to a pirogue
No more steaming
Used plans instead of my own plan
I am a little behind on my timeline

5 things I enjoy doing in relation to my project:
Journaling-the writing can be fun!
Getting messy with sawdust and garage-grime
Talking to other people in the class about my project and theirs
Interacting with people I come across-for example the man who made the plans
Reading canoe books

5 things I've learned about myself in working on my project:
It's really hard to spend time in the garage when it's cold out
I still hate to make decisions.
It's hard to talk about what has gone a little wrong.
I don't like talking about budgets.
It's hard to journal about what I'm doing without becoming the "Diary of a Cat"

17 Years of HBIs

Cleaning The Garage

The garage is a source of contention in my household. This is a place you will never, ever be able to park your car. It seems that somehow everything that is ever brought home ends up spending at least a little of its life in the garage. Things were put on a shelf "temporarily" ten or fifteen years ago, and no one really knows when they will find a "permanent" home. So cleaning the garage is no small job. This is where I plan on doing my building, so though it is a feat, the cleaning had to be done. And because yesterday was the first beautiful, sunny day in a long time, it seemed as good a time as ever to venture into its depths. My dad and I began. I  My dad has a lot of HBI's (or hair-brained ideas) and each box of old split screws and bins filled with mysterious liquids somehow related to painting or varnishing represents one of these. Each thing brings out the story of an old project, and the question of whether it will ever be finished. Mostly, it just makes a mess. We put an hour in yesterday sorting through the chaos, and I'm impressed with how far we got. There's now room enough to twirl around through the middle, as long as you don't get too carried away.

Before:

After:

The Two Row Wampum Renewal Project

I attended a lecture yesterday during Economics class, and it was on the "Two Row Wampum Renewal Project", which was a treaty between the Haudenosaunee, who at one point occupied most all of New York State, and the Europeans. The two row wampum looks like this: 
The white represents the river of life, with one purple stripe representing the indigenous people in their canoes, while the other represents the Europeans in their ships. The wampum is meant to symbolize that the two groups are equal and can live in proximity and have economic relationships peacefully. The renewal project has begun because for the first time the U.N. will be talking about rights for indigenous peoples, so this group will be canoeing from Albany to New York City to arrive at the U.N. just in time for the conference. I thought this talk applied quite interestingly to my macro research, and I look forward to reading the brochure I recieved again more thoroughly.

Making Sawdust

I started practicing some scarph joints today, until it started to snow into the garage and I froze. I guess this is spring in Ithaca.  I'll post some pictures tomorrow, they're looking kind of cool!