A New Day

Today was markedly better than most in the past week. I am still suffering on my ability to do work during the day, but I am getting better, and remembering more things, like to make lunch for myself so that I can stay at school past 1 pm when my classes are over. I at least was doing research today after classes were over, and while class started out quite horribly, and my teacher said that he would be okay with me changing my project because he could see me spinning gears...I really couldn't think of anything else to do besides this women's electric razor idea, since the vacuum coffee maker is out. Honestly, I want to do the women's electric shaver because there is a lot of room for improvement in the market, but the idea is a bit out of my range of knowledge, so there is a lot of research involved. At least it will improve my empathy....or something. I want to make an aesthetically pleasing feminine form without being offensive and flowery and stupidly girly. I dont just want to make a flower with pinks and purples and have it shave your legs. I want it to be a product that people would actually like and feel is a viable option. Its tough, because women want something that looks like a women's product, not just a man's product in silly girly colors, but I feel like I can't go too far in the other direction, especially since I start out on thin ice as a man designing a woman's product. I don't want to seem arrogant, like I know everything there is to know about women because I am the coolest man in the world....because I really don't, although I may be the coolest man in the world. Also of note is many a complaint that men's razors work better than womens. Surely at least in the case of the electrics this is as much a case of market share, as men have a million different kinds of razors and sell electrics 10 times better than women either because of it, or there are more because men buy more shavers...not sure what the case is, but it is still true that norelco doesn't make those circular bladed shavers for women, nor does any other brand...also they dont have that feature that oozes shaving lotion, although it might be hard to accomodate enough lotion to shave the large skin surface area of the legs. I have heard/read many a story about women stealing boyfriends/partner's razors and shavers because they believe they work much better....I dont know if this is truly the case or not. I don't believe that there are a lot of studies about it, but I feel like this is a very common belief. I also don't know what factors are involved, so it is hard to say if it is true...I mean, there is less that men shave regularly, so they may in general replace blades less often...meaning sharper blades and perhaps better perceived shave if a man's razor is stolen intermittently by the female whose razor is already dull. Also, it is possible that women's shavers are really less powerful as well, beacuse most women's shavers are at fairly low price points, presumably because of really low sales so maybe lower sales mean lower buy in prices, and thus less powerful shavers....I dont know. This is all speculation really. Perhaps women's shavers do really suck. In that case, thats great for me, because its more for me to fix to make mine look better. Just have to find a way to convey "powerful enough for a man, designed for a woman" without being to cliche or condescending. Oh the complexities of design and gender...I can see why my teacher was thinking that I might want to switch, but I dont give up that easily. So yeah, anyways, my drawings were allright today, but relatively uninspired (as we are in the ideating phase right now, inspiration is everything) so my professor suggested just putting out some forms that evoked what I was going for stylisticly, so I listened to some music and just sketched feminine forms of various kinds...some more literal forms representative of the female body, and some just sculptural smooth line drawings with some semblence of form, and already the forms were much more innovative and interesting than anything I had been doing in the past few days, so if I can just keep doing some of them tonight and tomorrow and port them over to shavers, it could definitely produce some interesting results.
Also in non-design news, I ran on the track today with the Running Club at 9pm (still hot and hazy out unfortunately). I came late to a ladder work out and only caugh the way down, which included 600m, 400m, and 200m with 200m walk rest in between each one....so I ran them pretty hard, since I was fresh and wanted to run hard while there were still people there to challenge me. I pushed a little harder than they were ready for, since they had already run more than twice of what was left in the ladder, so I felt kind of bad pushing the pace, but it did feel good to run with other people. I realized I went too hard when I tried running 2x400m after some rest and I ran them not so well. But I ran a cool down and watched the foreign students just start ariving at 10pm to play some late night futbol. After I got home, my endorphins were keeping me quite happy, and I proceeded to quote awful Dave Chappelle skits for half an hour. All in all, I was generally in a better mood than I had been since I have been back in Cincinnati, except for when my girlfriend visits, because really you can't beat that....although I usually hit a low on sundays when she leaves because I realize that she is gone and I have a crapload of work to do that I have put off all weekend while she is here. Anywho, I leave today feeling decently well, and tomorrow may have something to look forward to: Jungle Jim's (awesomely large food store with many foreign foods) which I have not been to yet and possibly War of the Worlds (which I am not really as excited about...I kind of want to see it, but I'm pretty unsure of seeing it in theaters, although my roomate really wants to. personally I think Batman Begins on Imax or Mr. and Mrs. Smith are higher on my list of things to see right now....but I dont think either of those are options). So I said I wasnt going to post as often, but I guess I was wrong.

By the way, if you, the reader have any insight on women's shaving, or razors feel free to leave me a comment with any tips, suggestions, or any general shaving info you just feel is important.