Putting things out there

Warning: next three paragraphs deal with the intractable issues of work and social life.  For something actually interesting and new, skip to the photo.

I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but for quite some time to come, I think my main job is actually putting myself out there.  It’s actually been a lot of fun to put together the portfolio and teaser and resume…and I’m sure the cover letters will be fun in hindsight, too.  Now we come to the part where I actually send them all out, though, and that’s a whole other story.  I’m less than excited to send them into the abyss, to ask for jobs that don’t exist and to profess how wonderful I am to people who can’t really care.

I can’t help but feel a reflection of this work life issue in my personal life, too – I may know all sorts of people here, but I’ve yet to rebuild a group of friends of the sort I had in Oberlin, Vermont, or, in fact, that I pretty much developed here, pre-graduation.  Not to mention that there’s a good chance that I’ll move to a whole new place and actually have to make an even bigger effort towards friendship than I do here now.

I’ll admit, part of it is a problem of commitment.  I’m not sure where I want to move, not sure what I want to do, not sure who I want to spend my time with, so in some ways I’m not making a strong case to anyone, let alone myself.  Howard’s recommendation of actually writing out a five year plan or two seems like a great one.  I vaguely know where I’m going and what I’m doing, but defining things a bit more, while having an alternative plan, seems like a good way to stop faffing and actually move confidently towards doing the things that I want to do.  I feel like I’m back in high school with all this self definition and worrying about who I’ll be friends with.  Thought I was over all of that.

On another note, I saw this today:

Along with five other lamps, it’s part of an impressive graduation project, Light Movement, by Noam Bar Yohai.  Each of the lamps employs wood, elastic bands and heat-shrinking tubing, with metal components to weight them.  They are each adjustable because of the friction of the tubing, weight of the metal, tension of the elastic bands, or flexibility of the wood.  I think Yohai has done an excellent job of exploring this object as a series of mechanisms.  For me, they come to a pleasing level of refinement – they seem like abstracted models of joints: skeleton, sinew, muscle, and nerve poised before some action.  Tell me what you think, and perhaps, if you’re ambitious, compare and contrast with Moooi’s Brave New World lamp.

Mail Room

There’s a rumor going around that Eugene is going to lose a post office.  Not just any post office, but the one I go to, University Station.

No big deal, right?  There are other POs in town, even quite nearby.  In fact, I now live closer to the main station than to University Station.  No one is going to be prevented from sending and receiving their mail, in no small part because, as Obama recently reminded us, there are many private companies now willing to take part in that transaction who are “doing just fine.”  Yep, “it’s the post office that’s always having problems.”

Be that as it may, I would be greatly saddened if University Station is closed.  Fundamentally, I think that every university should have a mail room.  In fact, it surprised me to find that the University of Oregon had a post office, not a mail room, when I arrived, but I guess there’s a matter of scale that makes the mail room at Oberlin viable, and that at Oregon a post office (Though perhaps the problem lies somewhere in that inequality).

The mail room of a university or college serves its students tirelessly, providing a stable address for those orbiting campus.  It is a place for paying first bills.  It’s where really good things happen when you’ve been away from home for a while – a care package arrives, or just a postcard, when you thought you had been forgotten.  It’s a portal to a place far away.

Amongst the little cubbies or up at the window, you have the sense of really being in a physical place.  You see the postman heft a box of letters dropped into the slot for the 1:45 pick up.  You’ve written on paper with pen, folded that paper, tucked it into an envelope, and licked the envelope closed.  Now you lean against the counter with the envelope in hand and ask for stamps.  You look in the folder proffered – you select from the objects at hand.  You’ll drop your letter in the empty box, they’ll wheel it out with the 5:30 mail.

Perhaps it’s a relic of things past, but I think that’s why it’s so valuable.  There’s no scrolling through options, imagining the shapes and sizes and weights of things.  Here, things are measured, they’re displayed in their corporeality.  Keys are turned and doors are opened, objects are filed and sorted.  That’s not to deny the electronic scale or scanner, but it is to say thanks for the man behind the counter, wearing his blue ringer polo shirt, affixing that label to that package.

I think students need to have a place so connected to objects, since many times they’re living a life so overstuffed with ideas.  They need a place that is neutral in the way that government places are; where freedom of speech is practiced in a dramatically different way than in their classrooms.  They are lucky to have a place devoted to their physical connection with those far away, and a place that so effortlessly combines responsibility and spontaneity.  When all of that is at the heart of campus, it becomes an important place for chance meetings or reality checks amongst the craze of finals; when it’s that convenient it doesn’t take away time from studying or socializing.

Against the realities of the federal budget, my fondness for and belief in the importance of University Station will probably weigh naught.  Yet, for that foreign student, or for the man in the blue polo, I’m hoping that my thoughts are worth more than their weight.

Little Victories

We picked a theme for HOPES 15!  It’s “Thinking Small,” and here are the bits I’ve been working on so far:

Solving our ecological problems will require massive change, as Bruce Mau has suggested.  Yet even as we must think big, we must also remember to think small.  Visions are accomplished incrementally; details are important; impacts must be studied and limited; the meek among us require protection.  Join us as we consider the meaning of “local” and “appropriate,” as we ponder the ripple effect.  Help us contemplate nanotechnology and microclimates.  Plant the tiny seeds to grow the revolutionary change.

Topics:

Scale – buildings, economies (Schumacher), “local” discussion

Nature – microclimates, invertebrate communities, guerilla gardening, agricultural questions

Activism – small change/massive change, beginner’s steps (Radical Simplicity)

Ethics – Nanotechnology, appropriate technology, design for the meek/forgotten, design for children

Other – Visioning: what’s the importance of thinking small and thinking big, what can we miss by doing too much of one/the other?; Finding focus in an interdisciplinary field

We’re already gathering ideas for speakers, too.  I’m very excited about this topic: I think that it’s amazingly open ended, yet gets to really important questions and still maintains a core idea that’s very strong.  I can imagine that when we share this idea with everyone (after we come up with a manifesto that’s a lot less cheesy and a lot more focused), people will immediately think about something interesting, and that’s pretty good.

Right after the HOPES meeting I headed to the fields for our last game of the season in the A-league.  Rumpus was holding even with Strike Force Seven when I got there.  We kept it pretty even, but they put up a couple of points on us as the game was coming to a close – 5 minutes left and we were down, but we came back even and finally won at universe point.  There was something amazing going on.  At one point, I laid out for a disc I knew I didn’t have, but that was the moment where I decided to go all in.  I think pretty much everyone else was there with me, too.  

So, Rumpus Room is spring A-league champions.  After the game, we headed back to my house.  I got to throw my first party in my very own house!  We had pizza and I made cookies as folks showed up.  A full-party game of Apples to Apples developed, and we just had a good time together (and with players from Kremlin, the other team that we hung out with all season).

This morning, I taught my last section for Architectural Context.  It’s pretty amazing to have two semesters of college-level instruction under my belt.  I can’t imagine how long it takes until you really feel like you’re in the right place, like you’re really the one who should be talking.  I feel like that at certain moments, but I think that’s just because I’ve never been afraid to give my opinion, not because I think my thoughts are so worthy of professorial consideration.  One way or the other, I’ll just have a little bit of grading left.  Summer is coming on quickly.

So, there are three bits of info.  Lots more going on – other productive meetings, work plans for the summer, obsessive checking of Facebook as if there were actual people there that I could see and talk to, hitting the upload limit for my Flickr account, excellent cooking, and productive errand running.  Hopefully, with such great things happening, and a full weekend coming up, this little sore throat and stuffy nose go away.  And, on that note, I shall get to bed now.

Oberlin Again

When they told me at the airport desk that I was flying standby because I had no seat reservations, I knew I’d be writing about going back to Oberlin.  It’s been so long since I blogged that they’ve entirely changed the WordPress layout, which, by the way, looks really good.  But sometimes you just have something to say, or far to much to say, and you realize that even though your last post, from two months ago, was about how long it had been since you wrote, it’s time.

I got on that plane on Thursday night, flew to Vegas, and Chicago, and finally Cleveland, where I begged my way back to Oberlin.  We drove in pretty quietly, everyone on the airport van watching the landscape for change, trying to remember what had been there last time we came that way.  Finally, past the Farm, we arrived.

Getting back was like inhabiting a memory.  In my mind, the place had become more real than the actual, alive Oberlin.  I knew where everything was (with some notable exceptions, like the A-level remodel), remembered everything, but it all just looked a little flat.  Maybe that was in part due to the fact that when I arrived, the town was still quiet.  Friday was a day of arrivals, and after I found Sam at his gas station and put down my bags at his house, I returned to Tappan to collect people.

This clumping was something I hadn’t quite experienced as a freshman, coming in for preseason and missing out on that first week of orientation friend-finding.  It’s a thrill to have a posse, though, and I thoroughly enjoyed adhering first to Melissa, and then to Tina, Phoebe, and Henry.  In the Feve by around 3, it just felt so good to be back.  The whirlwind started.

The dance party at the Sco, the dance parties/porch sits at 189, the alumni game, the trip to Chance Creek, breakfast at the Black River, stumbling into the Swing Dance, schmoozing at the art show, visiting the AJLC to use the facilities, showering, drinks at the Feve, the front lawn of Tank, softball at the Pleasant street park, the Bippy show, weirdly, partying in South, buying a sticker at the bookstore and a postcard at Ben Franklin: all over the place, reuniting.  Sleep a little, do a lot.  Miss even more.

Revealed (or rerevealed) to me:  

1. I want to do everything I ever find interesting, and am frustrated at the impossibility of that desire.
2. I know a lot of fantastic people doing amazing things, and am frustrated that I do not
   • know them better
   • keep in touch with them more frequently
3. There is a script for the reunion meeting that is a little sad and progressively harder to overcome the more you use it. Phrases often repeated:
   • Where are you now?
   • I’m in grad school/I’m going to grad school/I’m working in this amazing environmental job/I’m getting married
   • I know you look familiar, but I can’t remember what context I knew you in
   • Meet at the Feve tonight
   • Do you know where Hans is? (a representative example)
   • When did you get in?
   • What’s going on tonight?
   • and my repeated conversations – about Eugene: how close it is to everything, how it took me a while to like it but I do now, how it’s not as rigorous as I like but you just have to make it what you want, how if you’re ever on the west coast you should visit me/I should visit you – about Oberlin: how much it feels like this weird memory that I’m inhabiting, how I’m in sensory overload, how when I was there I could deal with a lot more going on all at once but since I’ve left I no longer can be in that close proximity with that many people and be comfortable and happy, how the people even if you didn’t know them that well just feel like the kind of people you want to be with, how everyone is doing such interesting things, how I feel kind of dorky taking pictures of the buildings but I feel like I need to because they come up in my architecture classes – about the reunion: how so many people are here!, how certain particular people are not here, how amazing it is to be here, how it’s not actually my reunion but I knew that I couldn’t come next year and maybe not for some years after that and this was the last year I knew anyone graduating and plus the people in this cluster (02-04) were the people that were there when I was a freshman and I felt close to them maybe even more so than my own cluster.
4. Oberlin is beautiful, especially in the spring.  The people there are pretty amazing, and really are different from the general population of the US.

So, a mostly wonderful experience.  Even the hard parts, the not getting enough of the people I wanted to see and soak up, the occasional awkwardnesses and left-out feelings, the being excited when you’re so sleep deprived that you want to cry, even those were pretty good.  Maybe the hardest part, scheduling my plane so that I couldn’t find a ride to the airport and had to spend a lot of valuable party time asking people to borrow a car and then leaving straight from a dance party and not getting to really hug people and say goodbye – maybe even that was pretty good.

When can I go back?

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.

Dazed

I just came across an old draft of a poem that I will now share with you despite the fact that it should probably never have seen the light of day again:

There is a space — within the heart
Where dappled sunlight drifts –
Accumulating dense and thick
Til summer’s burden lifts

And lets the soul once more resume
The comfort of the cold
Alone — enclosed — and justified
of prejudices old

It’s from my recipe book, when I was in the Emily Dickinson class at Oberlin. Wouldn’t be half bad if I could do something better with the last line.

I’m looking at recipes because I’m supposed to make something for the potluck that my studio professor is hosting tomorrow night. It’s supposed to “tell about me.” I could bring ice cream, but I don’t want to make it. Could make one of my fallback favorites, shortbread or peanut butter fudge or lasagna, which come to think of it, I might make the lasagna. Could make the grapefruit cake I’ve been making recently, and just change it around to be an orange cake so that it’s a bit more straightforwardly Floridian. I’ve sort of been thinking that I’ll make the Mac and Cheese that I made on New Year’s, though, since I’ve been craving it ever since. It requires a blender, though, and I don’t have one and I’m not sure I want to attack the cottage cheese by hand with a wooden spoon.

I’ve sort of been wondering about in a daze the last week or so, maybe even further back. When I’m in school I’m pretty focused, but I’m not that focused otherwise. Perhaps it’s in part due to the fact that I’m still up in the air about what classes I’ll be taking this spring. I was originally going to take a Product Design class along with Children’s Furniture (my studio) and Architectural Context (a required class). But then I got into a Daylighting class and had the thought that it would be great because it would be something architectural to balance out the object making in studio. Long story short, I missed the first Product Design class, but then realized that I had missed it and that I really did want to take that even more than the Daylighting class – basically thinking that the studio and product design class would reinforce each other more and the daylighting class would add more to a semester when I was actually designing a building – so I found the prof and begged and I think I’m in the class. But I’m not really sure. In fact, so not sure that I’m still going to the Daylighting class and still thinking that I need to do the work, which is problematic, since the work is done in pairs…

That and the fact that I’m still needing to figure out Finland tickets and travels, and the fact that it seems like Michael and I have very different schedules this semester, and the fact that there are still things like making a portfolio page for last term that I didn’t do over spring break that I sort of want to do, oh, and the fact that studio is still entirely open ended and I have no direction to start exploring yet are all making me feel quite dazed. At least it was a drop dead gorgeous day today and I got to spend a good bit of it outside, running and reading, and wandering around aimlessly in a daze.

So, I should really go to the grocery store soon, because whatever I make probably should be made tonight, but I do want to promise pictures of the little centerpiece that I made in studio yesterday, complete with the story of how it came to be. Good things are going to come out of this studio, I’m sure of it. And I’m definitely making the orange cake. Tomorrow.

Spring Breakin'

I’m currently enjoying the most laid-back spring break I’ve ever experienced. Michael (the boyfriend) and I were originally going to head down to San Francisco, but for many and various reasons, we changed our plans at the last minute and have been hanging out in Eugene doing very little of anything. We’re going to head up to Portland for the weekend, which is particularly exciting since Emily, my friend from Oberlin, is visiting the West Coast and will be my main attraction to Portland.

We just got our studio assignments for next term, which for my little ever-forward-thinking brain is super exciting. I’m in the Children’s Furniture studio with Professor Hagenlocher, which was my first choice. I was a bit concerned to take an Interior Architecture studio for my first studio but it seems really exciting and I’m sure I’ll be able to follow up with a lot of good architecture studios later – especially since I already know I’m heading to Finland for the summer.

Speaking of which, yesterday, I bought two travel books to scope out things to do in Finland and beyond. I’m trying desparately to figure out what travel dates make the most sense, since tickets are going up, but it’s pretty difficult to try to plan for the trip. Right now I’m thinking that if I fly out of Chicago to Finland I can get pretty good prices – then I can get a cheap flight from Portland to Chicago, hang out for a few days there, and on the way back jump down to Florida at the end of the break. Just have to figure out what sort of time is appropriate at the end of the program, which of course means making an estimate of the cost of being there, which of course is very difficult to calculate for one such as I with little to no understanding of what I would like to do there.

Anyway, just a quick update from the semester. I passed with flying colors from my studio, literally, with a Pass Commend. My professor really liked my work, as did I, and I hope you will too. I made a little set on Flikr for those of you who who’d like to see some of the highlights.

Hmm, it’s 3:45, and Michael and I are going to get some lunch. I’m going to see if I can convince him to take a little trip to the hotsprings. Oh, and maybe I’ll get you a picture of him soon…

Time, creativity, nature...

I should be asleep right now, but instead I’m in this weird state of trying to write an essay and instead checking out new music. I’m supposed to be writing essays for my application to study in Finland over the summer, but they’re on such inane topics that they’re hard to focus on.

Good news of a sort – I got my Environmental Controls Systems classes waived. That means that I have one less class of work to do this term, which should help loosen up my schedule a bit, and that next term I can take a different technical skills class. All that work at Oberlin payed off. I’m a bit worried that I’ll be missing out on an essential part of the Oregon experience, but as Alison (the professor) pointed out, I can always GTF for the class.

So, I’m planning as of now to use the time to read the textbook and just refresh my memory a bit, as well as doing more studio work and explorations in the library. I took my first action in that vein today – I made six tiny models that were mostly just about making six tiny models. They explored some of the concepts I wanted to get at, but they are pretty much just objects that I’ll enjoy looking at over the semester. Studio seems to be going very well so far. I’m hoping that my efforts in plan drawing this weekend aren’t getting me too stuck in my ideas, but I’m making a pretty conscious effort to stay loose with the whole thing. I’m getting a lot out of my professor, too, so far.

The energy this semester seems markedly different than last semester. There’s the fact that I’m TAing, which is a lot of fun even though it’s pretty scary to be the person being looked to for wisdom. There’s the Savage Lectures, which have been pretty fascinating so far. There’s the excitement of actually knowing people in other years, and having a little bit larger social circle. There’s a sense of action, better weather, and the beginning of terminal studios for the upper level students. I’m having a good time, and expect to continue doing so…

Tonight I saw Brook Muller, one of our professors, give a lecture presentation of his fall studio’s work. The studio studied how to create infill development in Eugene that would simultaneously increase the density of human inhabitation and create wildlife corridors. After seeing the work, I’m looking forward to taking a studio with him. The thing that was most interesting to me was that he was working with a landscape ecologist. Evidently landscape ecologists study “how spatial variation in the landscape affects ecological processes such as the distribution and flow of energy, materials and individuals in the environment.” It’s funny how I’ve learned many of the principles that come from the field, but never knew it existed as such. Turns out that many of the principles are analogous to architectural principles and can be strong generators of form in architectural applications.

My reaction was that it seemed very much like Second Nature, that moment when we recognize that we must start to garden our wilderness in order to preserve it.

Ok, now I’m really starting to not make enough sense to keep writing. So I’ll add Dan’s blog to my blogroll and go to sleep, and finish my essays in the morning.

Flix and Pics

A little update from my corner of the world: you can now be my friend.

Oh, you say, I wasn’t before? Not like now. Now, we can share our Netflix queues!

http://www.netflix.com/BeMyFriend/P7iQZYMc8ejtfHix4RGP

Isn’t that exciting. You can see that I have 9 foreign films, a documentary, and a drama. Guess I’ll be watching my movies alone.

Actually, as sarcastic as I may sound about how we can achieve this new level of friendship, I’m really excited about Netflix. Can’t wait to get my first movie, and I’ll probably end up moving things around a bit. I was trying to decide how much of The UP Series I might put on my queue…

Speaking of friends, I had a good New Years as far as that arena goes. I seriously debated driving down to San Francisco from Portland to visit with a bunch of friends from Oberlin, but then as the day approached I backed down. I wanted to see those folks, but I didn’t want to drive all day just for one night of partying. Turned out New Years Eve was a bit of a wash – I enjoyed it despite having a small crew, but had gotten rather excited about the prospect of a few extra folks to join in the carousing and was a bit disappointed when they didn’t show. But, I sucked it up and called them the next day to invite them to lunch, and started a great tradition. Or, rather, I continued a great tradition. It turned out that everyone did want to get together, so I whipped up a little good luck lunch, complete with Hoppin’ John, Money Cabbage (although I left out the coins because I wasn’t sure of the proper sanitization practices) and Mac and Cheese, the glorified baked kind. Ok, the Mac and Cheesemight not be a traditional good luck food, but it went well with the meal, and it gave me a good excuse to use the recipe that Debbie baked in Florida from Smitten Kitchen.

In the end, with all the food, we ended up eating at about 3:30, talking for several hours afterward, then playing a game of Taboo. Guests left post 10 with most of the dishes unwashed. I’d say a very successful event!

I turned sick after that, and am sort of not quite better but not much worse. Just a head cold, but something I’d like to kick before the semester starts. On the upside, house is much cleaner for all of the staying in it I’ve been doing.

Yes, you can assume that I did have a lovely Christmas (or, shall I say, lovely Christmases) and that the end of the Florida trip went well – no problems in the airport, all my new items fit into my luggage, and they’ll let me come back next time. And, in addition, I had a lovely few days in Portland visiting my cousins Herman and Ruth and actually getting to spend some time with them.  Ryan visited briefly on his way between a gig in Seattle and going home to the Bay Area, and the second night we went out to the Doug Fir, which was, as Ray would say, a trip. Who knew that kitsch log cabins could be so hip and relaxing all at the same time. I’d have guessed one or the other, but thought the two attributes to be mutually exclusive in that setting. Shows you what I know.

So, one last weekend before my nose is re-glued to the proverbial grindstone. Will I squeeze in all of the relaxing/dealing with real life that I want to before I am once again robbed of my free time?

A short list, as a bonus. Movies I think it would be worthwhile to own on DVD:

Afterlife
Dancer in the Dark
Triplets of Belleville
Amelie (although everyone else does)
Babe
The Straight Story.

Maybe you have something to recommend for me via Netflix…

PPS, I added more photos to my Flickr page. More to come this weekend.

Alive and Kicking

I never would have thought a week and a half would feel so long, but it seems more like I've been in school for a month and a half. We started right in with a design project, and without explaination of how to draft or make a model. They changed our schedule so that we now have class from 8:00-6:00 with a one hour lunch break, and it's pretty brutal, because at the end of that time there's inevitably a pile of homework to do. So, long story short, I've either come home around 12 a.m. and read for another hour, or around 9 p.m. and crashed out. Then I generally get up at 6:30ish. It's quite an adjustment to make, and one made more difficult by the strange eating habits it fosters.

Part of the difficulty is that this past weekend I went to Potlatch, in Seattle (You should know not to take frisbee pictures seriously). I worked in the studio all day Friday, and got to the fields just before midnight. Caitlin Cordell and I shared a tent at the fields. I played with Entropy Punch, the Oberlin reunion team. We quickly dispatched our first opponent on Saturday, and then settled in for a deadly second round bye. Meanwhile, one of our six women went to the hospital and was told not to play for the rest of the day as the result of an inconclusive shoulder diagnosis. Down to five ladies, we played and beat Denial, the Eugene team I'm about to become part of, and Smells Like Tacoma. By our fourth game, we were pretty beat, and indeed we got beaten by a California team. At the end of the game, in an attempt to revitalize myself, I chugged about a quart of pickle juice - let me recommend that you never do such a thing. I felt miserable the rest of the evening, but that probably worked in my favor, since I avoided the hangover on Sunday morning.

Sunday we lost one, won one, and lost one. Our win was pretty exciting: we were behind 13-7, and pulled out the energy to win 16-14. At the end of our games, I went to find my ride, only to discover that they had already headed home and weren't answering their cell phones. So, I asked around until I found some other Eugene folks that were heading home, and ended up getting to see the finals, in which Bomb (Carleton reunion team) bested Vagabonds (Portland), but not getting any work done.

I guess my bad luck in getting left was karmic repayment for my good luck of winning the bookstore's Book Award, which gave me $400 worth of books and supplies! So, as soon as I get a spare moment, I shall take in my receipts and get money back that I've already spent, and in the mean time, I'll keep buying the supplies I need without worrying about where the money to pay for them comes from. Super sweet.

So far I am enjoying the program, particularly the history and theory lectures. I'm excited about my current design for our first design problem, although I'm anxious to work out all the details. The problem is to build the first of three structures on a lakeside site. The site slopes down to the lake, with a fir forest to the north, a fern gorge to the east, oak savana to the west, and the lake to the south. Our house, the "Wall House," is on the western edge of the "bench" (a preexisting foundation structure), and acts as a gatehouse, temporary house for the owners during the construction of the other house, and a guesthouse. The house is 300 square feet of less, with requisite attached outdoor space and strict structural requirements. I've been working a lot with sliding, and had the queen sized bed sliding underneath a wall to create a condition of two couches, but the professor strongly suggested that I get rid of the wall since it's such a small space. I think I'm going to heed his advice, but now I have to figure out how to create the two couch condition, since I'm determined not to have a murphy bed and I'm also not digging the futon option.

So, I'd better get to sleep so that I have brain power to tackle the task at hand and not cut myself with an X-acto. Oh, and I have big plans for posting more photos and drawings (did you see my photos from our field trip?). Once I get my computer set up to work in the studio, I bet I'll be posting more often. Until then, I'll just keep wondering around looking lost whenever I'm not bent intently over my cardboard and cutting mat.

Hello, Goodbye; Hello, Goodbye

I'm hanging out on the back balcony of a friend's apartment in Chicago, a lovely spot with plants and sunshine and warmth. The friend is Jason, aka Tiger, who is Lyrica's boyfriend. We'll be here a couple of days exploring the city before we head out on what I consider our "real" road trip, which is to say that I haven't been to those places and we'll be camping out rather than staying on couches. We left Oberlin yesterday. I originally thought we might stay a bit longer, but it just seemed like time to go. Lyrica tells me it gets better the second year out - I loved seeing all those folks, but after being in small town Vermont, it was quite overwhelming to see so many people I knew in one small space. I couldn't bring myself to go to the very crowded bars and parties because they're so claustrophobic. And it's just like after any break there, you've got your two minute shpeil about what you've been doing and what you're about to do that you repeat, with slight variations, to everyone you come across. Despite all of this complaining, I had a great time and was so happy to be back there. A couple of lists:

Sporting Events I Attended/Participated in: 1. USA vs. Venezuala Soccer match 2. Oberlin Alumni Frisbee game (or rather 4 games, all of which were difficult to sub in on!) 3. College Nationals a) Florida vs Wisconsin b) Stanford vs UCLA 4. Which inspired a Run with Josie and Lyrica 5. Disc Golf, both Friday and Sunday nights, although Friday I played very well and Sunday I played like sh*t.

Favorite things to do in Oberlin that I did: 1. Go to the Feve when Karri is bartending 2. Dance at Sam and Gideon's dance party 3. Dance at the steel drum band's illumination performance 4. Play disc 5. Take showers/play freeze out with lots of lovely ladies

Tasty Food consumed: 1. At Millers, a large (3 scoop) ice cream in a waffle cone 2. At the Black River, a short stack of chocolate and raspberry pancakes and a side of hash browns 3. At the Feve, a portabello mushroom sandwich and the insides of someone else's buffalo shistawouk 4. At Agave, a huge burrito 5. On North fields, a barbeque plate with hamburger, hot dog, salad, potato salad, chips and chocolate chip cookies

Things I wanted to do but didn't: 1. Go to the OSCA picnic 2. Go to A-level 3. Visit Jim LaRue in Cleveland and say hi to some of my professors 4. Be awake at Illumination 5. Dance a whole lot more, especially to Naomi's reggae band, whose show I missed.

Places I slept: 1. In Erica's house on one of her three spare matresses 2. In the back seat of Melissa's car parked outside of the Feve while everyone else was inside of the Feve - and then I set off the alarm as I got out of the car... 3. On the way to and from Nationals 4. Amongst the chair set up for commencement in Tappan Square during Illumination 5. In the car ride from Oberlin to Chicago

The weather was hot, the people were hot, and it was good to be there visiting and seeing people walk across that stage.

Plus, a big shout out for Jake, who was awesome about the whole thing, entertaining himself a lot of the time, and making friends with my friends when he joined in the activities.

Ok, back to porch sitting - my new book, A Million Little Pieces, a glass of water, and a square of cookie dough. Yum.