Returning, Moving On

I’m going to write something because I’d really like to return to blogging, but I’m out of practice. At a point, life just got too complicated to tell about. It’s not that the plot was so convoluted, more that the characters all got a little out of hand. But, we’re beyond that now, and in fact, the plot has also straightened itself out quite a bit.

I am a Master now. Finishing grad school has been a bit anticlimactic. It was wonderful to have the celebration in June, and I do feel done, for real. However, I now feel the weight of the Internship Development Program (IDP) and licensure bearing down on me. I have a job, which I am very happy about both because the economy is bad enough that it’s rare for a recent grad to be offered a job, and because said job is actually interesting and closely related to what I want to do in the long run. However, I’m acutely aware that it’s not a job that can get me closer to actually being an architect, and it’s not a job of the type for which I have been preparing myself for the last three and a half years. So, despite enjoying it, I very much am continuing to wonder, and occasionally actually work towards figuring out, what I will do next.

So, it’s portfolio making time.  It’s time to organize a game plan for applications, to get recommendations in line, and to feel a little untethered from the future, which, as you know, I like to have some grasp on.  All of that is fine: the portfolio is taking shape and I like where it’s going.  The rest I can deal with, and may even enjoy.  But, there’s one thing I’m really struggling with – where to be.  Theoretically, I’m likely to move when I get a job in an architecture firm.  My current plan is to first apply to the set of firms at which I would most like to work, which are primarily in cities on the west coast and in the UK.  Here’s the issue, though.  Rent runs out on the 15th of next month, and I’m not sure what to do at that point.  I will almost certainly not have another job – fine, because my current job will still exist through January.  But, do I move somewhere else in Eugene?  I can, but I’m starting to feel like I want to move on sooner, rather than later, and not move all of my stuff just to move it again.  I can’t really afford to move to one of the big west coast cities on my current salary, though, and that might also end up meaning that I move just to move again.  I could see going home, but what about all of my stuff?  Do I lighten my load of worldly possessions – can I afford to sell everything just to buy more things wherever I do settle next?  And the same goes for moving back to Vermont, which I would love to do, but where I am unlikely to find a job, probably would have to pay some rent (unlike Florida), and where I would be split between friends in Burlington, Brattleboro, and Great Barrington, Mass.  The reality there, too, is that I don’t know if any of those friends have the same spaces in their lives for me as I would like to imagine they do.  Could any of them live with me on their couch/in their kitchen for any significant amount of time?

The likely answer – stay in Eugene.  I’ll move soon enough to a new place, and in the mean time, didn’t I promise myself that I’d spend my time Being Here?

It’s one of those decisions that I keep coming back to, though.  One of those unresolved questions that niggles me throughout the day, in part because it is unresolvable. Since it will be resolved in the next month, because someone else is taking over my house, I guess I just have to live through the uncertainty.  Would that the plot were still twisting, not just aiming straight into the murk.

***

On an entirely different note, played at Spawnfest this weekend, which was very good – both fun frisbee and fun time partying/hanging out with the teammates/laughing at Vern Fonk and Bawls and playing 20 questions.  Excited to get into better shape, although somehow I keep missing my running dates and workout times.  We went 6-1, but unfortunately the point differentials on Saturday put us into the B-bracket, so we only took 9th (out of 34? teams).  Read a lot of the Huddle last night in an exited frenzy to get back to being really useful on the field.

a thought or two or three

I’m almost done with this term of school, and moving in to the final stretch of my Masters.  Pretty amazing.

I just read Tim Eagan’s Typing Without a Clue and thought of all of the writers I knew at Oberlin, “trying to say one thing well and true.”  I wonder who will buy a book by Joe the Plumber, and what it says about our culture that his book can be published as a money maker.  To me, if you want to write something for other people to read, you write a blog.  If you have literary ability, if you write about something greater than your opinion and you write about it well, then you write a book.  I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Eagan that we should reward the latter with the cultural status of publication, and I appreciate his suggestion that merit should have everything to do with that decision.

I’m getting ready for Christmas – I just had a good idea for a present, and I’m thinking about my wish list soon.  I’ll hope to update it in the next few days.  I’m also going to look for a dress for Tina’s wedding, which is exciting!

letting it go too long

what do you get? way too much to actually write about.

Seeing Barak in Eugene, and being so inspired that you campaign for him for hours in the rain, snow, hail, and occasional sun. I hope I’ll write about him more once I get wireless in my…

New apartment that I moved into on Thursday and have gotten 90% organized in. Thanks to the fearless four – Renee, Jake, Truc, and Stacey – who made the move from old to new take just about four hours! Photos coming soon…

Which I didn’t take on either of my two trips to Portland this break. Trip number one, I visited Herman and Ruth, enjoyed the excellent okra stew and Herman’s amazing flatbread as well as his amazing dutch oven bread and the divine sheep/cow cheese that they shared with me. We went to Ikea and did several hours of shopping…

Which also happened somehow on trip number two, after I picked up Emily from the train station and we had an excellent lunch at Besaws, but before we drove back to Eugene along the coast, which made me wish I had gone to the coast a long time ago, and made me promise myself I’d go again soon…

but which has the fault of not always having a strong cell signal, so that a call with Stefan was cut short. We’ve made a date to re-call, though, so I’ll surely get to hear his news, as I did…

when Joe Little called out of the blue. He’s moving to D.C., so I’ll have one less reason to visit Chicago, but one more reason to visit D.C. Which I don’t have a great desire to do right now considering…

The current state of our government, and if you didn’t, like me, obsessively listen to NPR this last week, you should at least hear ;this week’s This American Life.

Anyway, this term I’m taking it easy. Just doing a practicum with Gary Moye Architect;, taking Roman Architecture and Architectural Precidents 2.0, teaching Architectural Contexts, organizing and attending the HOPES conference, and taking a short class on Graphic Statics. It will give me enough time to play some frisbee, I hope, and celebrate Ruth’s retirement, I hope, and maybe even visit Oberlin for a reunion…

And maybe, if I’m lucky, I can read some novels this semester. I hope.

Excuses, excuses

Pitiful. It’s the 18th and I haven’t posted yet this month.

Reasons? Despite having “lots of free time” because I dropped my ECS class, I actually have very little free time. Ok, I might have, right off the bat, but things have ramped up. I don’t know how I would be handling it if I were in ECS, actually. But also, I’ve been taking some time to do nothing, which means nothing, including typing on the computer. Oh, and I’ve also been taking a little time out with someone special. Happy valentines day. I have my first boyfriend ever.

Good things are happening – the murmur on the street is that summer travel to Finland looks positive. I’m about to put in my application for a Graduate Teaching Fellowship (GTF), which, if I get it, would give me more teaching experience and would pay tuition for the terms during which I would teach.

On V-day, I helped put together a review for the undergrad studio, and I was very proud, because it went so well. The day before, I rounded up a bunch of friends from around the department and convinced them to be reviewers at 8:30 the next morning. They did, and they were excellent – all the undergrads felt that they got solid reviews, which is more than I can say for myself in many of the reviews I’ve been to.

And yesterday was just gorgeous. I spent much of it in the sunshine, in my tanktop no less. Despite some rearranging, I ended up making the hike up Spencer’s Butte. I went with a bunch of the second year boys, and enjoyed the change of company. It felt like my efforts to get to know more than just the folks in my year were really paying off. The three time a week workouts (with a little gang that goes straight after studio) also seemed to pay off.

So, I’ll post a pic from around midterms, which happened a week ago, because I meant to do it a while ago. This past week I floundered around, trying to make a facade for my building, and had great difficulty. Didn’t get to work much on it this weekend, but I’m sure I’ll get there before the final review. Just have to restrategize…

[The building from Ankeny Street (one block South of the Burnside bridge in Portland). The right is the "wall of action" where all the meeting and training rooms are arrayed. Behind it is the "alley" where bridges connect the wall to the rest of the building. There, a double height volume (blue) houses the shared office space, and a one and a half height volume (yellow) houses the library. All the way to the left, behind the stair tower, is a little pocket garden.]

Oh, and I’ll also say that I’ve been feeling almost constant reminders of various friends from Oberlin and Vermont, wishing I knew what everyone was up to. I think this coming week I’ll try to make a few calls, write a few notes. If you don’t get one, it’s probably not because I don’t love you, but because those best laid plans just never happen.

Something totally random, thanks to Lyrica:

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Anywhoo, I’m back on track with the blogging. Ready to go again. Missed it. Happy now.

Final Review, Finally

So, another long time coming post. It’s been hard not to write more here, but clearly not hard enough – I’d say stressed is the word of the month.

We had our final reviews yesterday, and I thought it went surprisingly well for me, perhaps surprisingly less well for everyone else, based on what others have said to me. I was pleased that the reviewers generally liked my scheme, despite the fact that part of it was aptly described by the first reviewer as looking like a double-wide. I felt like my insistance on exploring a few ideas was reinforced, and the reviewers had helpful ways of how to make some decisions more readily in order to push the ideas to the forefront. Primarily, one reviewer explained to me a process of diagramming that seemed like a revelation, and I’m excited to try it next term.

I have to admit, I was pretty depressed about my scheme before the review. Adding the landscaping definitely regained some of the cohesion of the scheme, and brightened the outlook a bit, but I was still not as proud of my work as I was this summer. In considering why, I started to think about what I had learned in the semester, and realized that this course seemed much more about editing – about floating an initial idea and then sticking with it to sculpt it into something viable – than about exploring – questioning, coming at the project with a deep curiousity, trying many different approaches, and then settling on one. I’m sure I’ll be thinking about that more as I have my exit interview, but my hunch is that I’m of the second school, dispite how valuable it is to learn this method.

Ok, lots more to say about personal life and other bits of school life than I can really digest right now. I’m getting excited for the break, since I still have three more projects to push through. Those projects should be lots of fun, though – a website and brochure, a small cabin for a camp, and an abstract transformation from a 2-D pattern to a 3-D building.

I’ve got to keep writing, it’s amazing what this does for the sanity level…expect to see more soon.

Oh, and weigh in if you have an opinion – do I go see Thom Mayne lecture or Joanna Newsom sing on Saturday?