In Case You Were Wondering

I am still alive

I am in Barcelona until Monday, at which point I fly to Brussels and probably take the train to Ghent.

I am having a pretty awesome time on my trip.  Recent highlights - visiting the Alhambra thoroughly; all of Seville (except perhaps the Metropol Parisol, aka the main reason I went); playing with the Grulitas in Lanzarote, both on and off the field; walking around Sagrada Famiglia and finding both Modernista and pre-modernista gems in random Barcelona streets.

The best food I have eaten is the Bon Bon tapas from that awesome restaurant we visited on Sunday night after a nice walk from our apartments on Lanzarote (wherein I explained linoleum and everyone listened with apparent interest).  The bocadillo here in Barcelona the first day I arrived.  The cake-first meal I had with A and J in Cologne, with possibly the best berry cake in the world, then cabbage roulade with delicious pumpkin mash.  Also, the meal they cooked me with orange-garlic salad, duck with orange sauce, and fruit cobbler.  Pastries in Paris, pretty much without exception.  Jamon Iberico.  Tinto de Verrano.

Seville is beautiful, walkable, full of interesting buildings, laid back, and sunny, and if I'm not married in 3 years I'll learn Spanish and move there because it's full of the most handsome men I've ever encountered in one place, and I've played in a lot of frisbee tournaments.

I have met so many wonderful people on this trip, which is something I was really worried about.  I never feel really good writing about them, though...suffice it to say, sometimes it's quite difficult to say goodbye to someone you've know for really only a few hours, or someone you're getting to be with again after many, many years apart.

Blogging while on a trip is hard to do - when I have a thought, I'm usually out walking around, and don't want to stop to record it; frequently I'm without good internet connection; often there's too much to say.  Occasionally there's not enough to say.  Some places are disappointing or require more processing or are overwhelmingly awesome.

You can see a through-line from the vernacular architecture of the area around Chur and Peter Zumthor's buildings.  I wish more buildings were like his best works.

It's an amazingly difficult thing to keep architectural pilgrimage sites maintained.  So many hands want to touch, feet walk through dirty from the trek there, gum and trash magically accumulate, birds poop, sun and rain and snow fall, stones and mortar fall, metal expands, times change.  Sometimes, these days, it's also difficult to see anyone enjoying them in real time.  Everyone has their cameras out, to the point that I wonder what is actually coming through, but nonetheless/and, I feel compelled to take my own pictures to fit in.  Sharing the space with so many camera faces can be very odd - it's not exactly what I imagine when I think of creating great buildings for people to enjoy.

I kept up with photo documentation of my trip until I arrived in Paris.  I have Milan, Cinque Terre, Sagogn, Lauterbrunnen, Basel, and Lyon (including all side trips) through rough edit, but Paris gave me a huge backlog.  Cologne, Barcelona, Lanzarote, and Seville will be up someday. Maybe.

East of Eden is a fantastic book.  99% Invisible is an amazing podcast.  I was a little annoyed by but also quite enjoyed the Alchemist, and enjoyed without reservation the Book Thief.  Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is almost too funny to listen to on public transportation.  I am so grateful for podcasts.  They are free, insightful, entertaining, easy to get and delete, short, and they give you a dose of English whenever you want one.

My French helped me survive, but is not conversational.

My portfolio is under construction.  This whole website is under construction.  Sometimes you start projects at really inopportune moments, but at least you have started them.

I'm very happy to find myself eager to start on my Portland adventure.  I'm not hurrying through this part of the trip, but it's been very reassuring to have conversations with people where I tell them where I'm from and I know that I'll have as much exploring to do when I get "home" as I am doing here.  I'm still keeping my ears open for places that call my name here, though.

I think I'm staying within my budget.  I have occasionally skipped something I wish I hadn't, but such is life.  I feel like I've had some really excellent luck on this trip.  I've stuck quite closely to the plan I made ahead of time.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm drifting around too much, not engaging enough, and sometimes I realise that I haven't been going out on the weekends much - only when I'm with friends, really.  Then, I try to listen hard to what I'm really feeling.  Mostly, I'm not sure what it is, but it's good practice and every now and then, I hear something.

Work In Progress

I loved Gertie’s post the other day.  She is always an inspiration, but what I liked about this post wasn’t so much that it was inspiring, (which it definitely was) but that she made the comment:

I didn’t start my blog until after I turned 30, and I’ve recently been feeling so inspired creatively, like I’m getting closer to what I’m supposed to be doing. When I’m 40, maybe I’ll be even closer. I’m a work in progress, no doubt.

I think that as a young person, it’s hard to know how great getting older can be, especially in our youth-obsessed culture.  I don’t know if I’m noticing the trend of respect and, more than respect, admiration of age more because I feel like my age suits me in a very different way than it used to, or if there really is a trend.  I’ve enjoyed TLo’s posts about some of the beautiful older women gracing the pages of the fashion magazines.  I’m excited for my housemate, who’s quitting her job and moving across the country to go work on a farm, and just heard about another 30something who recently did the same thing and found the experience very rewarding.  Although my review last week at work was a little rough, this week went very well, and with the boyfriend and job going so well, and my decision last year (which I thought I blogged about, but I guess I didn’t) that I really like the way I look, I feel like it’s good to get older.  It’s not all about growing up, it’s about doing the things I want to be doing, and knowing that I’m doing the things I want to be doing.

Anyway, that being said, I’ve been spending all sorts of time on ancestry.com making a family tree (which I know my parents have done before, but it’s so cool to find ancestors in very old censuses, and I love seeing that although my family was always extremely working class, we were on occasion ribbon makers, silk weavers, engineer’s pattern makers, bakers, and green grocers).  I have lots of projects, including the new logo for our frisbee team, and my Lady Grey Coat – if I ever finish it it’s going to be too warm to wear – but I’m getting things done slowly but surely, like my new kitchen worm bin.  So, even though I know that sometimes I’m not doing my projects, I am doing the things I want to be doing.  Oh, and I really will take pictures of the party dress soon, because it turned out so well that I bought the Bridal Couture book that I had been renewing from the library!

So, with that little brain dump, I’ll go put some laundry in and get back to some of my works in progress, including me!

Summer

A month has passed since my last post, and a lot has happened, to be sure.  The most notable of which must be the fact that I am gainfully employed, full time, as a designer at an architecture firm in Eugene!!!

Yes, that gets three exclamation points.  It’s been keeping me busy, which has resulted in the radio silence on this blog, and complete lack of effort on the portfolio website, but I can’t say that I’m too sorry about that.  As you may know, finding another job in Eugene wasn’t my intention, but all of the pieces kind of fell into place.  The women’s utimate team that seemed just out of reach for the past four years is finally coalecsing, and I felt very sad at the prospect of leaving town without having a season with them.  We came in second at Solstice, the tournament here in town, and we absolutely had a blast.  I also got a great new housemate, and hey, well, I got this job, and I really like it.

I’m working at Nir Pearlson Architect, and in the short time I’ve been there, we’ve submitted two projects for permitting.  Next week I’ll turn in the third, and I’ll do it by myself because Nir, my boss, is in Israel for the next two and a half weeks.  I’ll be manning the office alone, working on a few other projects and trying to keep everything going while Nir’s gone.  I think I’ll take the opportunity of the slight lull to make sure that my IDP hours for this job get counted, and to actually work on that online portfolio.

Summer in Eugene is pretty nice – I’m eating cherries as I type, and heading to a barbeque in an hour.  I’m enjoying working with Nir, and I know he’d like me to stick around a while longer and work on a few more jobs.  But although this job, this frisbee team, this housemate, and these cherries are fortuitous and fantastic, I still wonder how long it can last.

Up at Potlatch last week, I was reminded again of life in the city, and the different opportunities to take advantage of there.  Yesterday I spent the afternoon and evening with friends and we talked about San Francisco and Portland, and about living in the city.  I’m trying my best to be here, but, if you’ve been reading this blog, you know I’ve been having a tough time with that for some time.  I just want to peek ahead, find out where the plot’s going, but unfortunately that’s not an option.  So, I guess I just keep doing what I’m doing until it stops working.  And, I guess that after a few more weeks of just enjoying employed life,  I’ll start thinking again about the long-term plan again.

In the mean time, Potlatch was tons of fun, seeing all the little babies together a few weeks ago was fantastic,  I’m looking forward to Seaside and some sore beach legs, I can’t believe I get to play in Labor Day with my ladies, and I’m still hoping to head to Colorado to visit the brother.  I’m also hoping to get a few more hours of sewing in in the next few weeks because I keep buying patterns and fabric, so I keep needing to make beautiful things.  I’m catching up on Mad Men and thoroughly enjoying Friday Night Lights, and I’m trying to catch up with people I haven’t seen in a while, too, whether it be through email, phone calls, or unexpected visits.  So, in sum, life is full, and I’m going to do my best to get the most out of it.  I hope you’re doing the same – summer is so short, so love every minute of it!

Who are these buildings anyway?

I’ve been reading Sweet Juniper like it’s my job, and I just had a realization while looking at this, and also thinking about what my mom said the other day.  I’ve long thought about writing about buildings, and I know that I’ll do “real” writing about buildings like I did in my Architectural History classes.  I’ll write about the way that light enters a room, I’ll write about the juxtaposition of materials, I’ll write about the spaces they enclose and the spaces they occupy.  But I also want to write building fiction, and I think I know a little more about that now.

These days, we talk in our profession about how buildings should be built to last.  How they are investments, or ways of sharing our values across time.  We say, or the Europeans say to us, that in Europe, you don’t build with the idea something will come down, you build so that it can stay up, even if it needs patching and fixing.  Buildings are bigger than us, and I think that it makes sense that they would have a longer life span than us, the same way very large trees and whales and elephants do.  And, they’re even less able to care for themselves than plants, which are immobile but have some pretty kick-ass ways of feeding and repairing themselves.  So, as long as we’re in a symbiotic relationship with buildings, we keep them warm and weed-free, and they keep us safe and dry.  But, they also observe us in a way we sometimes notice, and they watch each other and the part of the world that they can perceive (I don’t really believe that real buildings do any of this, these are now my fictional buildings, and maybe, a little bit, what I’d like real buildings to do, too).  They are our memory keepers.  But, I think they’re memory keepers that keep the full experience within them.  A photo album is full of snapshots, a treasure box full of the little objects, but a house, it’s inhabited by ghosts, and those ghosts are both what is good in life and what we would normally like to forget about in life.

So, I think that’s what these buildings in my stories, whenever I may eventually write them, will be – the keepers of the ghosts, the large and sort of helpless, but intensely wise by the time that they’re abandoned, beings that see everything that we do, all the objects we cherish and the arguments that we have and the plants and animals that we don’t really understand, and the way that we’re mostly confused, and keep most of their opinions to themselves.  Maybe that’s a little why we get sad when we knock them down, even when we know they have to go – we know they’ve seen a lot and have stoically endured it.

What my mom said – “It seems as if for most people, like myself, buildings once created become things, possibly very lovely and appreciated things, but still things, whereas for you, buildings once created become creatures, beings, alive and organic and able to act upon other creatures, interact with them being to being.”  What do these ones think about us?  Do they miss their neighbors?

You can write, but you can't edit

I was walking down the street the other day, when my bike had a flat. It’s almost unheard of that I’d make the walk in to work, since the bike ride takes just about 10 minutes. However, at this time of year a morning walk can be really wonderful. There are puddles and sunshine and there’s that good old crisp fall air. In a poetic mood, I drafted this poem in my head:

The trees grow from golden pools
or red skirts dropped to their ankles
in lust last night

And immediately thought of posting it to my faceybook page, where just the night before I had posted:

The late night laundry/agitates in the basement/soap in a dark tub

and

warm from the dryer/knits, delicates, and denim/so many colors

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I generally believe that the poetry that I write mostly in my head doesn’t do so well once it’s written down, and even those verses that translate to physicality fairly well don’t always last for me. Almost as soon as I had written the little tree ditty down, I realized that what sounded lovely in my mind was really trite/derivative/uninteresting. Nice to think, but not so necessary to share. (I do realize the irony here.)

On that line of thought, and what with walking into work, where all I do all day is edit, I pondered for a moment the fact that much of our communication these days is unedited. I imagine that was always the case – kind of like buildings that were designed by architects, communiques that were edited must only make up a small portion of documents, and an even smaller portion of all communication. Kind of interesting to just ponder for a moment all the communication in the world. But, I digress. While this has always been the case, now we proudly share these mostly unedited thoughts in a public and fairly long-term manner. I don’t wish to make this another post about the problems of our modern world, but I couldn’t help but thinking that editing is sorely missing from our world. I am excited and interested by our vast new opportunities for self expression – I’m here, aren’t I – but I wonder what we loose when we don’t review, rewrite, and on occasion, censor ourselves. In particular, what are the political implications to this manner of comporting ourselves?

****

On a different note, I’ve failed recently. I intended to write something wonderful for Blog Action Day, and to participate in 350.org’s giant day of climate action. In fact, I begged off the first one and casually ignored the second to go watch a Ducks game. If I’m not taking climate action, who is?

I have succeeded, on the other hand, in enjoying life a good bit more than I was before. I’m sewing and making other projects. I am cooking delicious food, going out with friends, reading books, and actually finishing my portfolio. I’m trying to capture the lovely sunny moments before it all goes grey for months on end.

****

A final note on two recent Harper’s articles: this month’s Notebook and September’s article “Dehumanized.”

In this month’s notebook, entitled “The Cold we Caused,” Steven Stoll returns to the theme Mark Slouka wrote about in September. Stoll sums up Slouka’s position quite well, despite the fact that he’s applying his criticism to climate change rather than what happens “When math and science rule the school.” Stoll says, “By confirming the human role in climate change, and by declaring a warming world injurious to the public good, the EPA has swung a club against perhaps the grandest capitalist conceit of the twentieth century: that society forms part of the economy, not the other way around.”

On reading Dehumanized, I was certainly convinced by Slouka’s statement that we cannot forever argue for the humanities based on an economic basis, but that we must be able to find other values useful in our society. Slouka’s call for a return to the civic, the political, and the societal concern struck me as important, but difficult to undertake, as any paradigm shift is. Yet while reading Stoll’s article reinforced Slouka’s position, it also made me consider that this argument seems particularly applicable while our economy is in shambles. I wonder to what extent the downfall of the economy influenced this perspective, or revealed this truth, and to what extent that same downfall might allow us to approach these seemingly intractable problems in a different way. Could there be some sort of progress on these matters?

Blog Action Day

It’s blog action day, and I don’t have much to say. I know that I really should say something, especially since it’s about climate change this year, but I’m kind of drawing a blank. So, um, can I take a raincheck? Thanks.

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.

Breaking News

Monday September 1

News today has come of a massacre in the apartment of Rachel Auerbach, a woman friends describe as “nice – you wouldn’t expect this of her.”  Worms in her “beloved” worm bin fled its environs last night in search of a better life, only to dry to their deaths on her kitchen floor.  As she knelt to tend the bin this morning, she wondered at their shapes on the linoleum, only to realize that she knelt in a field of death.

“I had no clue they were so unhappy” stated Rachel in a press conference this afternoon.  “Those worms meant the world to me – literally, I thought that with them, I could do my part to help the planet regain some of its fertility and fecundity.  They worked tirelessly towards their goal, sacrificing every day.  But I guess I just didn’t see the signs.  Fewer mature worms, slower composting…I should have known.”

The remaining worms, of which there were few, had difficulty speaking about the horrendous events of the past week.  “The bin has been drying out for a while now, and frankly, Rachel’s been pretty bad about giving us new bedding.  She’s violated our rights on multiple occasions, and if it were up to us, we would have gotten someone else to tend house a long time ago.  We can’t afford any more time with her in charge.”

The worms have steadily graded down Rachel’s performance on vermissues since arriving under her care in mid-April.  To begin with, they rated her highly, just shy of 100%, saying that “she still has some things to learn, but we trust that she’ll get better with some tough on the job training.”  Last month, they began to seriously organize for change, but they said that despite giving her a low approval rating of 54%, she didn’t listen to their pleas.

Rachel admits to turning away from the worms in their time of need.  “It’s been busy around here.  My plants aren’t doing so well either, and I’ve had a lot of other things to take care of.  But, if only I had heard them, I would have done anything for those worms.  I just did’t really know what they needed.”

A service will be held this evening in honor of the worms.  Steps are being taken to amend for the mistreatment so that any remaining worms will not meet the same fate.

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.

I am posting

because it’s been a long time.  School is really packed, but less so now that I dropped my Pritzker Prizewinners class.  I think I’ll catch up with work this weekend, though, and I’m getting to work on studio again already, so I’m very happy with the decision.

Part of the reason I’m behind is because last weekend I played with the Fighting Merkins at Winter Thing, a little tournament here in Eugene.  We came in second to a bunch of high schoolers heading to junior worlds in a few months.  More than that result, however, the weekend was a fantastic amount of fun.  Good to play again, with those folks especially.

It’s late at night and I just spent a couple of hours doing structures calculations/organizing my gmail account/uploading photos to flickr/researching jobs opportunities and classes for the ecological design certificate/mostly doing structures calculations.  Point being, I’m not very eloquent.  I did have to break the no blogging spell, though.

More and more and more.  Soon.

Facebooked

I finally gave up and joined Facebook.

I’ve been holding out for years, but since the people that I see every day in studio kept asking me, I could no longer ignore it. I’ll admit, it’s a lot of fun, and it reminds me of just how many people I’ve met in my life.

Talking to a friend recently about all of the relationship upsets that we’ve heard about this term, I couldn’t help but muse that the proliferation of people that we’ve met in our lives makes steady relationships much more difficult for our generation. We know a lot of wonderful people – we also know a lot of people that can’t live up to our composite of all of the wonderful people that we’ve met. We’re moving around all the time, which makes it difficult for us to comprehend being set in one relationship with one person (even if that doesn’t necessarily mean in one place, it implies it).

So, just musing on the fact that I’ve taken a small step away from being here. I’m also, now, being everywhere, with everybody, at least until I get tired of it.

BTW, Studio is pretty intense, in part because everyone else is kind of freaking out about what a short time we have left. I’m just slogging along, continuing to design. Haven’t decided what media I’ll use, but I’m imagining I’ll be hand drawing, perhaps in pencil (I’d like to use some color, so I’m not sure that I won’t switch to ink; but I did some more tone rendered drawings earlier in the semester, and I really liked the way they looked).

No matter the intensity of studio, I’m planning to take Thursday off and relax with friends.

Here’s an image from this summer - it’s the drawing Michael and I did of the smoke sauna in Kiljava.

Blog Action Day

Today is blog action day, so I’m doing my part.

It’s been rough coming back to school, because all those things I learned in my undergrad are being updated. Getting my minor in Environmental Studies at Oberlin was great. I knew all about the things that were horrible with the world, and how to fix them. It was going to be tough, but if we took action right away, we were going to change our course.

I finally watched Inconvenient Truth last week, and while it was interesting, I have to say, school has been full of a lot more pressing ideas, since we didn’t take action right away. Probably the most intensely upsetting of those are presented in Stephen Meyer’s The End of the Wild. Everyone should read this book, or at least the article “Gone” from Mother Jones, which summarizes some parts of the book. As far as that goes, thank goodness for the visionaries at the Wildlands Project. 

At school we’re trying to address all these extreme situations with our designs – the greatly increased problems of climate change, the massive extinction we’re undergoing, and the social inequities that result from our decisions. But, even though I think this is a great way to approach the problem, it’s not enough. I demand that those in politics, those in power realize that we do want change, and not just as a passing fad. This is real. I am disgusted that the White House just didn’t get the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. Yes, that was intended as a message to you, Mr. President. But, change can happen at the next level down, and the next.

Keep making your personal progress. The efforts we each make are worthwhile. They give us encouragement, they teach us about living within limits, they show others that this issue makes all the others – universal health care, abortion and marriage rights, education reform, whatever it is – sink or float. If we don’t have a world, or have one that is constantly racked by disasters, we don’t have any hope.

Let’s unite. I’m hopeful today.

To Estonia and Back

Hey, it’s been a while, but I’m back on the blog.

I’m on Michael’s computer (we got back together a couple of months ago – shortly after the last blog) in a building built by Alvar Aalto, in a University partially designed by him, in a city that’s right across the bay from Helsinki, in Finland. Yes, I made it to Finland, safe and sound. Travel went fairly smoothly, with just a short delay in Amsterdam due to windy weather; although I landed in Helsinki with less than 15 minutes to the bus departure, I still caught the bus I had planned to take way back in the U.S.A.

When I got to my apartment, I found out that I had one of the smoother trips, as some people had lost luggage, or had to put down a deposit on the supposedly pre-paid apartments, or had significant delays/reroutings in their flights. It took a day to get the keys to the room, so I spent a night sleeping in the hallway on the chair pad from a housemate’s room, but no harm done. Unfortunately, we’re not all at the same site, and some of my classmates have housemates who are from different programs, including Michael. I think that would be great if it were true for all of us, but as it is, it sort of seems like an extra stress for those classmates who aren’t going to be quite as clued in to what’s happening in the program.

A few more quick gripes – really, everything is expensive, it’s no joke. Luckily, there are store brands and a cheap lunch at the University, plus on Tuesday we should be able to get transportation passes so that we don’t have to keep shelling out for each trip.

Also, we haven’t yet gotten internet in our apartment, which we are apparently supposed to have right off the bat and for free. Like many things, we’ve run into bureaucracy in solving the problem, which wouldn’t be bad except that in general, it’s inflexible and unhelpful and everyone’s on vacation.

Now, onto happy things – my apartment (and everyone’s in fact) is quite nice – one big window in each bedroom, and a balcony off the kitchen. There’s a shower room separate from the bathroom that has it’s own heater. That way you can turn off the water as you lather up and you don’t get frozen. Our fridge was a moldy, smelly mess, but we cleaned it today. Unlike in London, there’s plenty of space for everyone’s food in the fridge. Above the sink are the traditional drying racks, which make for a nice clean countertop since you don’t have to have a dish drainer hanging out. My housemates are great, and I think we’re going to head out on the town tonight…which is going to cut this posting short.

That’s probably a good thing, since I’ve got lots to tell about the end of last semester (at this rate it may never get told, but that’s ok, too) and even more about being here in Finland. But right now, I’m going to sign off, and be here.

Developments

Just thought I’d post some pages of my sketchbook with a bit of commentary to give a glimpse of what I’m up to in studio.

(Under the) Table was one of my first ideas, interesting because it encourages the subversive use of the dining room table as an architectural aedicula. I didn’t really want to design an “adult’s” table, though, so it’s the first idea to go by the wayside.

The first sketch for a Parent and Child or Child and Child rocking chair. The new idea is to have nesting Matroyoshka like chairs of mini sizes.

Here’s the dowel that would go along with the Peg Chair. It’s developing steadily – now I’m thinking that it will be a hook at the gripping end. If it’s a hook, then two can link together, plus you could hang things on it, plus it still serves the function of a handle for the peg and for the furniture.

Collage of sketches for this furniture piece. The idea is to have a few parts that add up to make many different furnitures – a chair, a table, a desk, a set of steps, a booster seat, a bin, a fort, a set of shelves. The next development (after the pegboard and doweling development) is to have multiple sizes, just like with the Duck chair. Esther suggested more shapes, so I’ll be thinking about that too.

I’ll take pictures of my little models tonight – the pics of the first thing I made out of wood and the mobile aren’t going to happen since they’re now both dried up.

Oh, and if you would, please tell me what you think of the Snap preview. Is it helpful? Annoying? I can turn it off…

All Drawn Out

Back from our two-day trip all around Oregon, and I'm all drawn out. We stopped at the High Desert Museum, Warm Springs Museum, and Timberline lodge yesterday (Tuesday) and today (Wednesday) we left the Timberline lodge and drove to the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Multnomah Falls. At each stop on Tuesday we drew interior, exterior, and detail drawings, plus we were supposed to draw diagrams of the landscapes and a section of our drive from Eugene to High Desert and from Warm Springs to Timberline. Today, we only had to draw at the Columbia Gorge Dicovery Center (plus finish the Timberline drawings), so we got to just enjoy the falls and the Vista House.

As much as it was a bit of overkill, and a lot of riding on the bus, the trip was enjoyable. Still, it was exhausting, because when we weren't drawing, we were all still in the getting to know you mode. I think it's particularly strange - we've spent a lot of time together, but in individual pursuit of the same goals, rather than in collaborative work towards a single accomplishment. That means that we have a lot to compare, rather than a solid baseline shared experience. So conversation tends to revolve around school, or other points of comparison (in particular, our opinions of each other, which makes me feel like I'm in middle school again, but sometimes our previous lives), rather than moving into new territory. It's somewhat frustrating because it takes a lot of work to continue the conversations, but the payback is relatively low. I'm looking forward to some mellowing out of the group.

One high point - last night I stayed at the Silcox Hut (7000 ft elevation) on Mt. Hood. Twenty-six of us shared the bunk house. I signed up late, so I was on the floor in front of the huge fireplace. Before we went to bed and after a good hour of casual conversation in the fireplace hall, Jake and Eric (the guy I was going to live with originally) were headed back out to sled a bit more on some lunch trays they had lifted earlier in the day. Kyle and I headed out with them, and we had a great time sledding down Mt. Hood on the tiny little trays. Throughly out of breath and much colder, we headed back in to the warm fire. It was a nice little snippet of time without the pressure to impress anyone, and some much needed physical activity after the long day of sitting.

I have a couple of drawings I'm very happy with, some that are quite a bit more rough to put it charitably, and lots that I didn't get done. I hope to clarify tomorrow what level of detail and preciseness vs. expressiveness and expansiveness we need to be capturing, which is probably a question that I should have asked before the attempting the assignment. Oh well. On a happy note that relates both to the drawings and to this little bloggy-poo, I was doing my reading today and came accross this quote from Edward Fischer: "Judged by the days, life does not make sense. Judged by the years, things add up and a plan emerges. A good reason to keep a journal is to have the consolation of seeing patterns form." A lovely sentiment, if expressed in a melancoly mode.

Hoping to get some fun/free time this weekend, along with doing a lot of drawing, starting the next project, writing the History/Theory midterm, and dealing with loose ends that have been hanging since the beginning of the term. Good news, though - I can now take my computer in to the studio, which means that I can spend even more time there...

Waiting, Anticipating

It's time to play the waiting game, and so that's what I'm doing. Everything for the past two days has seemed so geared towards Monday and beyond. I cleaned the kitchen at the house, got that P.O. Box and figured out tuition, and ordered a whole bunch of books.

In that shopping mindset, I got excited about replacing my broken cameras with a new digital. I did a ton of research (aka read a lot of customer reviews on Amazon) and I've got a front runner, the Canon PowerShot SD600 6MP Digital Elph Camera with 3x Optical Zoom. It seems to have all the capabilities I would likely need through a couple of years of grad school, including some manual abilities, plus it's lightweight and portable enough to just take along on fun trips, plus it's not too super expensive. This is a big decision for me, but also a fun way to while away a day...

Which didn't really need whiling. I did a sprint workout in the middle of the day, after making some split pea soup. The workout was great, mostly since I could see how after three weeks of working out I would be in very good shape. That's a big motivator for me. Also, I have found a workout partner who will definitely challenge me. She's a physical therapist, so she seems to know every possible variation on each exercise, which adds flair and adventure to something otherwise potentially dull and painfull. After the workout, I headed to the market on the bike that I've started to fix up.

So, all in all it was a productive day, but really, what it comes down to is sort of a holding pattern. I'm avoiding resume tweaking (the architecture students I hung out with tonight said that they couldn't remember anyone working during the first summer), trying to decide whether to play in the summer league, and opening a new bank account.

Here's the exciting thing though: soon I'll be writing about real thoughts and ideas, rather than giving a list of what I did in my day. I know you'll miss knowing about how much fun it was to darn my socks, but you'll be oh so intrigued to hear what I really think of Loos' voyeuristic designs. Perhaps this weekend I'll get a chance to listen to the Shiguru Ban keynote address from the HOPES conference and respond. That would be nice.

Also, one last tidbit. Tonight I got invited to a salad party. This is a party in which the host, who is probably a gardener, supplies the greens, and the guests each bring a favorite salad topping to share. What a lovely idea - everyone should have one!

Starting Out

Hello. I guess that's the first order of business.

I'm about to change my life pretty drastically - I'm moving from Vermont to Oregon to start Architecture grad school. With that change, and since I've just done a couple of weeks worth of research on the subject, (maybe a little bit longer than it ought to have taken...) I'm giving in to the blogging craze. So welcome to my blog, which will focus at least for a while on my cross-country trip.

Before I get there, though, a few thoughts on starting this blog. I feel a bit like it could be that magic way of getting all my friends back. Lately, lots of fantastic people have been getting in touch with me from eras past. Also, I'm about to leave an unparallelled group of friends behind in Brattleboro. Plus, I seem to keep meeting wonderful people wherever I go (more on that in a sec). I used to dream about having a ski lodge where everyone I was friends with would come and hang out, and we'd all go snowboarding every day and drink hot apple cider every night. Who knows where that idea came from for a Florida girl, but the place had great beams in the ceiling and a huge fire.

Anyways, since I'm notoriously bad at corresponding, perhaps blogging will work for me. Having an audience can be a great boon to a writer, even if that audience is imagined. Welcome to my blog. Let's see how it is being here.