"So it goes"

I just wanted to let everyone know that I will not be updating my blog for a couple days due to Friday being my first "review." We have been working on the Dining Room Project for a while now and before we can wrap it up we need to have a review. This type of event happens every now and then in architecture school and is comprised of us bringing down statements, pictures, sketches, final drawing and model to Sibley where we present our idea to a jury (not kidding, it is literally called a jury) of other faculty and staff members, who then proceed to rip the project, and our lives, to shreds.

Legend goes that one notoriously dramatic architect, while teaching at Harvard, asked a girl who was giving a presentation to go and get a glass of water. While she was gone he set her model on fire. The water was to put out the flames.

Let's hope it doesn't come to that but even if does I would just laugh. Bullies.

So it goes.

Anyways I will post my drawing and model for everyone to see what I have been doing. I finished the drawing but now have to complete the model. I just passed my shop test and am ready for "go time."

Funny story, the last three weeks we have been having orientation and training in the shop. We had a big list of vocab and shop procedures to study and take a final test, demonstrating our competency. We heard this test was cake so four of us guys strolled into the shop last Friday, beaming with confidence. Two had studied and two were relying on memory, I was one of the latter. Well, the test was A LOT harder than we all thought and there were a couple of things covered in the paperwork and not in the sessions. We needed an 80% to pass. I got a 78.5%.

One and half points is way to close of a margin and I quickly scanned the test, found an ambiguous question worth 2 points. He had to give it to me, 80.5%! The shop manager just laughed and called me a little bastard.

GTBKI: Noyes Recreation Center

In these weeks of insanity, I like to reminisce on simpler times. For instance, in Ithaca, before classes began, life was simple. It was in those days that I thought it would be a good investment to purchase a pass to the Cornell fitness centers. After all, there is a newly constructed fitness center about half a mile from my apartment called Noyes Recreation Center.

This was before I knew that to survive, I would have to sacrifice at least twelve hours a day to architecture.

Anyways, yesterday was Saturday and I had some free time so I thought I would go and throw some weights around. I had been to Noyes a couple times before and the first thing I always notice is its size. It is small. Brand new equipment in a tiny space.

The second thing is that it is crowded. Every time I go I chose a different time and arrive to find the same situation. The half that contains the treadmills, elliptical machines, etc. is packed with sorority girls and the half with the free weights and machines is full of steroid-popping undergrads who are all about 5'10 and weigh just as much as me. I call these guys the Muscles.

Muscles are fairly easily identified. For instance, a Muscle cannot work out without adequate access to a mirror. They say it is to watch their form, which would be true if they didn't mean it as the motion of the barbells. Most of the Muscles have cut-off t-shirts with acronyms that are meaningless to me (UFC, WWF, NFL, etc) and the rest have on Underarmor. Muscles come in pairs. At any given point one of the pair is screaming encouragement at the other. Muscles generally smell pretty bad. They think the smell is their testosterone, I think it is a deficient application of deodorant.

I am going to just have to keep trying different times and hope one works out. The thing is that my schedule is pretty limited right now and there are only so many options.

5 Things that make me happy

I have noticed that there is a theme to my recent updates and I want to take some time to talk about the good things in my life. I do try to enjoy life and despite all my troubles I am managing pretty well.

Today I sat down in the Green Dragon and made a list, "Things that make me happy." Note that this is a pragmatic list and omitted are the true sources of joy in my life.

1. The Big 3 Beverages:
Tea, Coffee, Beer. Depending on the time of day the careful supply of one of these liquids can completely change my mood. This is not solely due to their chemical effects. The taste, smell, and sensation of each is what really gets me. My coffee I like with half-n-half and sugar. My tea, well I like that just as it is. Beer, I'll take anything amber in color.

2. The smell of toasting bagels:
Oh and I like eating bagels too but this is about the quotidian experiences that really have the power to change my day. Walking into Collegetown bagels, flooded with that warmth, it is a good thing.

3. Collegetown Bagels:
Not just because of the smell. The shop closest to campus has a very urban, carefully crafted bohemian feel. As unlikely as this is, I like to imagine Vonnegut and Pynchon crafting their dismay of humanity while sitting on the patio. (Vonnegut dropped out of Cornell but they still hold on to the fact that he did attend, for a while)

4. The Cornell Daily Sun:
This irreverent paper is so full of cynicism and sex, news and comedy that when I have time to sit in the Dragon and acclimatize myself to university life, it is absolute bliss.

5. Good things on the calender:
This is one I owe to my lovely girlfriend. She learned a while ago that people who have things on the calendar to look forward to, are happier. For that reason I try to include the good things among my assignments. The "good things" make me happy too, but having them on my calendar is like having half the experience.

Wednesday

I was doing some calculating on my way home today and this is what I come up with.

Say I have 24 hours in my average weekday. Now let's say on average, I have to spend 6 hours in class. Now let's pretend that for every hour of class, I have an hour and a half of work: 9 hours work. Ok 15 hours of my day dedicated solely to architecture, that is not too bad... but I forgot the commute. Ok a generous half an hour on either end of the day and another, for all of the walking between classes.

But no one can really work for 15 strait hours. I need some breaks in there and lucky for me, I have yet to include meals, a moderately important part of my day. An hour and a half should take care of that. Add another half an hour for all things hygiene related and we should be good...

Until I start to take into account things that the average architect might deem superfluous. Human relationships for one. I happen to be in a serious one of the romantic nature and couldn't get by without at least half an hour of her talking me down off the cliff. Religion is another. I am one of those superstitious folks who like to read the bible and pray. Fifteen minute quiet time and another fifteen minutes pleading with God to send the plagues of Egypt to all architects, he obviously hardened their hearts a while ago.

Ok we are getting close to the complete day. Add another half an hour for errands, there is always something to do. Add another half hour for time to decompression / entertainment... I'll let you guess which category updating my blog falls into. And finally we arrive at a number

20.5 hours! I made it with room to spare... what am I going to do with those extra three and a half hours!

Whats that? I forgot sleeping... crap.

The picture gets really bleak when I start doing more accurate measurements based on a week.

The New Crew

I spent Saturday morning in the studio drawing, took a break for lunch to read up on transparency* in architecture, went back to studio and then broke for dinner. Two of the AP kids (advanced placement students are first years who start in on the second year of the program because they are coming from a non-professional arch. degree) are from Singapore and they invited everyone to "Makanmania 09," a Singapore Food Festival.

Here we all are out on the deck at Willard Straight Hall:


Oh and Cleo Koh was there... of course. Always stoked to see a familiar face.

Here is a picture of the sunset as viewed from the deck:

Afterward, most of the crew above retired to Collegetown Bagels. We hung there for a while until it was time to move on. Next was a dive bar / pizza restaurant called the Nines where we spent a couple hours hanging out and listening to first a jazz band and then a great female guitarist who played a couple amazing covers.


* "transparency" is one of the BIG terms in architecture. Back in the 50's as the postmodernists were doing everything they could do to establish that nothing could be established, two guys named Colin Rowe and Robert Slutsky published a seminal, counterrevolutionary work on "transparency." They sought to establish two types of transparency in art: literal and phenomenal. Literal transparency is easy enough to get a hold of but phenomenal transparency is as esoteric an idea as they come. Examples of the latter include most of James Joyce's work, Piet Mondrian's work and most buildings designed by Le Corbusier (abbreviated at "Le Corb" by all the cool architects).

Fun fact: Rowe and Slutsky both belong to a group of architects called the "Texas Rangers," because of the time they all spent at the University of Texas.

GTBKI: Johnson Art Museum

This is the Johnson Art Museum. It is located off the northwestern corner of the Art Quad. For orientation purposes, Sibley Hall is located on the northern end of the quad and if one were to go out of the Green Dragon, up the stairs, turn right, and walk for about 75 yards you will be looking at the view above.

This alignment and the rest of the building was designed by I.M.Pei. It is said to have the best concrete in North America. If you are wondering why the best concrete in America is not the best in the world, well you must not have been to Japan. But don't worry I didn't know this till a week ago. We were talking about the museum in my drawing class and the teacher mentioned the concrete. Hyun leaned over to me and whispered, yeah but it is still nothing like they have in Japan. Since then I have heard it mentioned twice more, always with an envious, deferential tone.

Inside the Johnson, on the bottom floor is is cafe.

The two statues in the corner are the nude males from which the cafe derives its name.

Both upstairs and down from the lobby are the galleries and a few of you might remember me recounting my first trip to Cornell. The tour guide took us to the top where there is a 360 degree view of Ithaca, it was a major selling point.

Hardcore

Life hasn't exactly been easy these past couple of weeks but I just realized something. I am FREAKING hardcore.

Here are the top 14 reasons why:

14. I don't just pack a lunch, I pack dinner too.
13. When I have time to do laundry it is because I haven't had clean clothes for at least two days
12. To do laundry I throw on a backpack and lug two bags up a Lombard-like incline, except without the curves.
11. I typically get to campus before 8:00am and don't leave until after 8:00pm.
10. I walk home because the buses have stopped working. It is often raining.
9. My backpack utilizes all compartments and side holders for an umbrella, aluminum water bottle, travel mug, lunch, dinner, camera, computer and calculator. Not to mention any books and notebooks necessary for the day.
8. I am taking 19 credits as a graduate student.
7. I had a cold last week and CONQUERED it in two days.
6. I am surviving on cereal, coffee, turkey sandwiches, bananas, and wild rice RiceRoni.
5. Every week I double what I know about architecture (a pace I probably will not be able to keep)
4. When I take breaks, I read
3. I go to CORNELL
2. Which happens to be such a secular institution that their daily paper will include either the word "fuck" or articles too explicit for me to even name the subjects...


And the number one reason I am so hardcore:
1. The past two days have actually been enjoyable.

And I'm still in studio right now!!!!

Anyways, some other highlights from the past two days.
- I attended two lectures... just for fun. One was about new methods of fabrication and modular architecture. The other was more historical and focused on 20th century monastic architecture in Thailand.
- My favorite class right now is Theory and Analyses of Architecture I. I leave that class feeling intellectual. Quote from this week: "We have to hurry we only have an hour and a half left."
- I walked by one guy today who looked pretty normal. That is until, strait-faced, he pulls out a yo-yo and throws down.
- I walked by one girl today who looked anything but normal. She had bright pink hair, a flannel shirt, plaid shorts, white leggings, and bright yellow hightop sneakers.

Tuesday

I am exhausted! Eleven hours at school today and I might have to go back. Architecture is my life. I just got home and was puzzled at what need to address first: food, shower, water? These are difficult questions. I chose to sit on my bed. Moving fingers is preferable to moving limbs. I'll try to move again in a couple minutes.

It isn't all that bad. Last night I took a brake to go to a bible study for first year grad students put on by Cornell's Graduate Christian Fellowship. I was actually impressed and am excited to go back. We had a great time of worship with guitar and piano and then a fairly intellectual discussion of Nehemiah. It was also great to meet some other Christians in a similar position. One of the leaders even offered to bring me a meal in the event that I am not eating regularly, a fairly common disorder among graduate students.

Today was my big day and things cool off a bit until Thursday.

In other news, completely unrelated to my life, Congress apparently voted to officially "rebuke" Sen. Wilson. I wonder what it feels like to have group of elected officials who represent the entire United States, a group who has the power to declare war, VOTE to reprimand you. And what does an official rebuke entail?

GTBKI: The Green Dragon

Located in the heart of Sibley Hall is the Fine Arts Library. Located in the belly, is the Green Dragon.

Descend a small staircase and you arrive at this brick laden intellectual haven. There are a line of windows along the south wall that testify to the fact that you are indeed beneath the ground level, yes you have descended into THE underground. The "can lights" are made from old coffee cans, the columns are a deep red and the walls are painted with cabalistic geometric murals.

The Green Dragon is a small cafe that renders its services to the art, architecture, and planning students. As you would expect, it is the campus hotbed of communism and self expression. Where most campus cafes close around 8:00pm, the Green Dragon is daily open at least until Midnight.

On the Origin of Ideas: Natural Selection of Thought

Thursdays are by far, the hardest day of my week. Classes start at 8:30 and end at 4:30. I also have a weeks worth of drawing homework to catch up on and need to prepare for the scrutiny of Friday's studio.

Fridays are therefore mostly filled with the aftermath. It takes all of my logistical capabilities to comprehend that the week is over and that I should be happy. That is why I am pleased to report that today things went in such a way that made it much easier.

I had two classes, my analog (hand) drawing class and studio. In drawing class I was paid a great compliment. I was "successful" in attempting to convey the phenomenal and literal transparency of the spaces I chose. This is a great compliment because a majority of the time she finds at least something that is "unsuccessful," as in "I see what you were trying to do, but I think you were, um, unsuccessful."

In studio we met collectively to hear each other's ideas for drawing the dinner party. We each elaborated on our methods for documenting the party and our ideas for conveying that into a drawing. All I have to say is that part of Cornell's ticket price is definitely the caliber of your peers.

As you know, I sought to record motion in the room. I played around with how I was going to draw these time lapses and had come up with several compelling plans. Last night I spent some additional time in Photoshop to create a few photo collages and today, in between classes I had a breakthrough, from good idea to great idea.

The most important aspect of this project is to think of how our method of recording changes our perception of the room's architecture and how using a different method of drawing than orthogonal projection, we can convey this. My thought was to change the privileged view point, from a static to a dynamic one, what if instead of the person moving and room remaining constant the opposite were true.

Back to the presentations. There was one girl who had a method of recording similar to mine and as she presented Jim, through a series of observations and comments, came to suggest an idea akin to my revelation. At first I was a little dismayed, so much for originality. But then I thought, this is great news. In all of his experience and expertise he is putting forward exactly what I was thinking. He had not given anyone's idea a favorable review and I was almost assured success, he cannot disagree without countering his own idea.

I volunteered to go next.

I started with the evolution of my idea. This presentation was largely impromptu so luckily I had my laptop and could play a slide show of my collages. Jim was impressed and gave me another pat on the back. Ecstasy of approval. With soaring confidence I move forward. I express the bias of traditional drawing toward the static, I quote Einstein and move into philosophy, the truth of fixing the individual into a static position within a dynamic frame. I show my sketches.

Jim's response: "Now it is going to seem like I am contradicting myself but I'm really not..."

CRAP.

He is good. He is the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.

It isn't all that bad though. He was so moved by my collages that he saw my approach as moving away from the lyrical and fluid aspects in them and wanted me to pursue that instead.


Wow, I can get into story telling. Sorry about that.

090909 and Ayn Rand

These past two days have been a blur. There were some meals, a few classes, random splashes of hope... really quite a bit and not a lot.

I have been learning though and that is encouraging. After all it is why I came to New York.

Yesterday in my history class we talked about the modern perception of the architect, an image personified by one Howard Roark. I have not been in school for architecture a month before they feel it necessary to address this "Fountainhead Syndrome." Ayn Rand obviously wrote into that character her philosophy but she chose architecture for a reason. There is an aura around the profession cultivated by the great names that design great buildings and something in our culture that demands to attach one person to one achievement. We are hero worshippers.

Now architects in power have done little to correct this stereotype. In fact the first thing we design is ourselves. Who are Ephraim Goldberg or Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris or Luwig Michael Mies or Frank Lincoln Wright? Nobodies is the answer. Now who are Frank Gehry, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Loyd Wright. They are Architects!

And so to become a successful architect we are given this formula:
1. change your name
2. design a chair (many of the above started that way)
3. build a house (which requires a wealthy patron willing to say "Go where you want to with this," which in most cases means a wealthy relative.)

This formula is taken from an article titled "A Name, A Chair, A House." However, judging from the exhibition currently adorning the Sibley hallway, a selection of larger than life portraits of past Pritzker* winners, I would like to add one more step.

4. be an old white male

Anyways, today I had theory class and the professor is just brilliant. She started lecturing and five minutes in my brain exploded. She is the type of professor who can talk for two hours and fifty eight minutes and then say "Great two more minutes! With Vitruvius began..." It is fascinating and yet at the same time I can certainly commiserate with Brian Regan as he attempts to watch a Nova special on String Theory.

I finally made it home and put in my episode of Mad Men for the day. I am rationing. Don Draper gets called into his boss's office for a bonus and his boss points out a book on the shelf, Atlas Shrugged. "Have you read it?"


* The Pritsker Prize is the "Nobel Prize of Architecture" and there has only been one female recipient in the thirty year tradition of the award, a fact that my female professors will not let us forget... Isn't it funny when something is described as the Such-and-Such of Such? Oh well this is the Paris of the Midwest... not quite the real Paris is it?

Dogged

Today was a good day. Well at least as good as any holiday can be when you still have to go to class.

It was a good day because I woke up without my alarm, was very productive and felt positive about the entire experience. Sadly enough, all three of those criteria are not met concurrently, very often.

I was productive in my studio pursuits but also in that I finally emailed Jim Williamson, my studio professor and academic adviser, and told him that I wanted to meet to discuss some difficulties I was having in the transition to a new discipline. When he came into studio today he patted me on the back and asked if I was wanted to talk then. I was a bit caught off guard and didn't have the list of questions I was planning to prepare, but agreed anyway. He took a look around at everyone's drawings and then we went for a walk.

It was great to confess the problems I was having with architecture and have him answer me with some real practical advice. After talking for a while about the discipline, he gave some advice that breaks down like this....

1. Time Management. Don't underestimate this and the better you become at managing your time the better you will do as an architecture student and as an architect.
2. Do not model yourself on other architecture students (i.e. rarely are the late nights truly neccessary) and do not compare your ideas to theirs.
3. People from the sciences do very well in architecture because they are comfortable with trial and error. The worst thing you can do is allow yourself to be paralyzed by the possibilities. Proceed forward at all costs.
4. Architecture is unique in that you have to be able to switch back and forth between the procedural and the unsystematic. For this reason the people who have the hardest time switching are usually artists and English majors.

Some of these may seem quite obvious and you might think, wow I could have told you that, but his authority and experience in the matter gave great weight to his comments.

Anyways, I ended the day with greater confidence than I have had in a while and as I walked home I daydreamed about how cool it would be to have a dog waiting for me. That would at least be an excuse to leave the studio on time every day...

But then,
I got to thinking of how small my apartment is. Suddenly dream dog was half as big as I would have liked. That is not so bad, Evan has a cool little dog. Maybe I could even teach it to use a litter box...

But then,
I thought that I would be gone so often that I would need to get two dogs to keep each other company. Suddenly my daydreamed dog turned into two dogs, each a quarter the size of original. More importantly it would be double the hassle, double the difficultly persuading my landlord and double the dog-poop. Plus I would have to come up with two clever dog names and good luck keeping track of two puppies, no matter how adorable...

I think I will just stick with my plant.

Drawing Cornell

This is Uris Library and the Cornell Tower. Some of the great panoramas I have taken are from that overlook. This is a perspective from the Slope.


Another perspective. This one from outside of the bookstore.


When it is a straight on view from one of the sides it is called an "elevation." Other lingo: a "section" is a vertical slice through the building and a "plan" is a section taken at a horizontal plane (~4ft up) looking down on the layout of the building.

Some I am less happy with than others. This is Sage Chapel. It is directly across the walkway from the Cornell Tower.


A perspective of Sage, also done by the entrance to the bookstore.


Another perspective of Sage.


This is Barnes Hall. This is the North elevation and I am sitting on top of the bookstore sunning myself while I finished this (The bookstore is a hobit-like structure, built under a small hill)


Barnes from the walkway.


Barnes from the other entrance to the bookstore. (See the hill)



Barnes from in front of Willard Straight.

Overall I was really pleased with my perspective drawings but failed at the overall assignment... I did not focus as much on the "space" as the building.

The Architect's Dinner

Finally Friday arrived (longest week of my life) and we had our dinner.

And what happens when 12 architecture students, financed by an Ivy League school, get to put on a dinner?
Fun stuff. We actually had to buy everything and I must say, we did good. As much fun as it was we were also there on assignment and each of us were tasked with documenting the party in our own particular way. We are currently finishing up our constructed drawings of the space and next week we will make a second drawing based on our observations.

We each chose a slightly different medium to record the event. Some people recorded sound, some video, some took pictures, and some took notes. One guy, Hyun, had us put some masking tape on our wine glasses and mark the level every 10 minutes.


I chose to document motion within the room, particularly as it relates to the natural boundaries of the space (walls and table). I placed my small tripod on top of a large china cabinet at one end of the room and used the burst mode on my camera to capture the motion and movement of the dinner's participants.



One girl, before the start of dinner, had us blindfold our neighbor and rearrange their place setting. The blindfolded dinners then had to draw of the objects in front of them with only the sense of touch. My partner was not watching me closely and I actually grabbed one of those candles in the middle of table.


For dessert we had Cornell Dairy ice cream with fresh blackberries and then, to conclude the evening, a toast to the start of a great journey.



I actually really liked this picture for the red/green complement between the different realms in which this evenings festivities were conducted. In architecture we would talk about "dualities" and other such nonsense.

Anyways, it was great to sleep in this morning and I spent a good chunk of time today working on homework and hopefully, next week things will not be nearly as stressful.

Thursday

That was the only title I can think of... my creativity has been exhausted.

Today was actually fairly enjoyable. I spent most of my time outside and the weather was perfect for it. I bounced around campus, lounging in the grass, drawing buildings, listening to some country music. For class tomorrow we are to have twelve drawings, four each for three buildings on campus, ready to "pin-up." Drawing and thinking for an architect are supposedly synonymous and my skills need some fine tuning.

In history class today we watched a film called The Belly of an Architect. We were supposed to watch for the image architecture / the architect is presented in, how the protagonist engages his trade, what preconceptions he is operating under, the "Rome" he experiences, etc. A plot summary would go like this: famous architect works too hard, his life starts disintegrating, there are some explicit adulterous sex scenes, he loses his wife, loses his health, ends up killing himself.

Keep in mind that this is being shown to a class of about 50 freshmen architecture students and 12 entering graduate architecture students, all in the first week of classes, all just entering into the discipline. It would have been discouraging but the fact that film was shown to us was just too much over the top and was thus, quite comical.

Other noteworthy parts of my day:
- The plant is a Jade Plant (crassula ovata) and is still nameless
- I lost my kneaded eraser
- I saw a guy in the computer lab fell asleep with his face on the keyboard and when he woke up he told me that he was dreaming about his thesis
- I was sitting outside of Olin Library, drawing Uris Library, when I noticed this:

(the poster on the wall it is for a Darwin exhibit)

While this bird's demise is quite sad you have to admit its deathbed is quite ironic. I was going to caption this with "Not the Fittest" and leave it at that, but I think someone might have taken offense at the insensitivity.

Through the desert with a plant with no name

Today...
Today I woke up at 6:30am. I was at Cornell by 7:30am. I just got home.

This plant is a new, welcome addition to my apartment. I actually just rearranged the apartment and keep the futton up most of the time. It is now arranged to divide the space into a living/bedroom and a dining room/hallway. The effect is really quite sublime... if I am to be blithe with my diction. I just wish I had more time to spend here.

The plant is located in my living room / bedroom and I have already grown quite attached. Yesterday I called the florist for help identifying the plant. After all, I need to know how to take care of it. The responsibility scares me just a bit. The last plant I had, Nani the bamboo plant, was the lowest maintenance plant ever. Throw her some sunshine every now and then, water every two months with love... magic.

Anyways, the florist today referred me to the gardener, who was not in, which is just as well as he would most likely have referred me to a botanist with the type of questions I have in store... this plant is very mysterious. I might end up searching the Cornell agriculture department for some student bored of the land grant life to aid me in my troubles.*

And this,
is the least of my problems.

I am writing this as I unwind from a very stressful day and at the moment I have the material comforts of a beer, Mad Men, and this plant.


* And please, would the person who gave me this plant not worry. The plant is a great addition to the apartment as it adds much needed life to the space. When I got home today it was the first thing I noticed and it made me think of you and how grateful I am for your gift and advice.

Caffeinated

"Oh, Black River
Gonna take my cares a way
Whoa, Black River
Gonna take my cares a way..."


Today is a day for posts! Dang.

Tuesday and Thursday I have a four and a half hour break in between classes. I do have homework to be doing (lots of it) but can't seem to stop my mind from running away on me so I came out to Libe Slope for some air. The day bright and I can see for miles to the South, West, and North. The air is cool but the sun is hot and the view, is stunning.

A grasshopper just landed at my feet. He looks to be certainly enjoying himself.

My struggle at the moment has to do with the apparent subjectivity of my studies. I could not place a finger on it before now but transitioning from the more lucid, defined studies of physics and math to the "high arts" is taking a real toll on me. There are no clear answers, no rights, no wrongs. I am afraid to ask how grades are going to work.

Yesterday Jim addressed this in studio. He shared an anecdote from his time teaching at the GSD (Harvard's Graduate School of Design) about a girl who came into a the master's program from pre-medical studies as an undergrad. While she was finishing up her thesis she came to Jim, expressed regret, and said that when she finished, she was going to resume her studies to become a physician, the subjectivity being too much for her analytical mind.

Today I realized that I am suffering from a similar affliction.

Structures class this morning was in that way, a relief. However, afterward in the studio I overheard some students extolling the virtues of architecture and it was depressing. It seems like everyone is talking but no one is saying anything.

Perhaps I should just engage in the dribble. I always used to criticize this guy on my high school volleyball team for aiming to crush the ball every time. It would not have been so bad if he did not end up crushing it into the net at nearly every attempt. However, by our Junior year he was really able to hit. Meanwhile my timing was still off and I swung like a fifth-grader...

~

I have finished my coffee and am once again, more optimistic. This is a dream of mine and I have come to this field for a reason. I think I will stay true to my origins (at the moment, by taking off my shirt) and stay out here a bit longer.

Twenty Three Years and One Day

So yesterday was my birthday!

I woke up early. Watched some news, ate some cereal and opened a few gifts. I went to the gym and by the time I got home I only had about an hour and a half before I had to head up to campus, run a few errands, get to studio by 12:30pm. I cannot account for that hour and a half today as whatever I did, was that inconsequential.

My "Core Studio" class is where the hands-on experience happens, where the architecture goes down. According to Jim, architects learn by doing and therefore, the studio is where the majority of my education will occur. Which makes sense, it meets for a minimum of four hours, three days a week and the outside commitments will keep me there, I am sure, to all absurd hours of the night (if you know me, you know this will be a problem).

But this is the story of my birthday and for that matter it is only relevant to know that I did not leave studio until well after five.

Having been through this experience before I decided not to tell anyone in the program that it was my birthday and instead, rely on my true friends for their well wishes. Besides I do not like the sort of attention associated with birthdays and more importantly, twenty three is an age that is way too cool to celebrate.

In short, the best part of my day started when I finally left studio.

Holidays (and one's birthday is a relative holiday) are probably the hardest to spend alone. For that reason, among many others, I am deeply indebted to my good friends who all saw fit to call me and talk for a while. The four years I was at Westmont were not spent idly and I am confident that the friendships I made there are not on hold, but rather being conducted over a greater distance.

I went a treated myself to a Filet Mignon at an upscale restaurant in Ithaca called Madeleine's. It was voted "Best Place to Go to Forget You are in Ithaca." Fitting. I also made sure to accompany the meal with a Cabernet Sauvignon, my favorite, and made doubly sure it was from California. Perhaps it is it is the location of all of my past wine tasting experiences, but that glass smelled like Napa. The smell brought places and faces to vivid memory. By the time I left, I was drunk from the odor.

I then had my first successful bus experience riding to the Ithaca Mall. I bought myself another present, the first season of Mad Men.

I spent all of this time alone but don't worry, by the time I returned to the apartment my phone battery had run low (translation: "Don't pity me, I have friends!"). Indeed, everytime I was feeling lonely someone called and catching up with each person was a wonderful gift on my special day. I returned to the apartment exhausted, to tired even to unwrap Mad Men, called my beautiful girlfriend, she wished me happy birthday one last time and I wished her good night.

So thanks again, for being my friends.

PS- I remembered how I spent that lost hour and half in the morning... I put in Out Cold and puttered around on the internet :)

PPS- I am posting this from the reading room in Willard Strait Hall. Check it out! Sorry this is not the best picture but I am trying to not embarrass myself here and there is a guy right behind me.

Tasty Pastries

So much has happened in the past few days that I am overwhelmed by the thought of recording it all... my solution, vignettes. Tasty pastries of the written world.

Forays into the Night (Part 1)
Saturday evening. There is a BBQ hosted by a couple of graduate architecture students a few streets over from me. On my way I take a purposeful detour and end up at the Collegetown Bagels at the Commons. I am a bit socially exhausted from the party I attended the night before and decide to skip the BBQ for a book and some coffee.

Coincidences
Friday afternoon my studio professor, Jim Williamson, spoke about the two fathers of architecture: Vitruvius and Daedalus. One representing order, regimen, objectivity... Vitruvius, the good soldier. The other represents creativity and questionable morals.
Most people know Daedalus as the father of Icarus, architect of the Labyrinth. Less well known is that he made the queen a wooden cow she could employ to mate with a bull... the outcome of which was the Minotaur.
Jim's question: "Who would you like to have over for dinner?"
I am reading James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The protagonist, Joyce's alter ego, is named Stephen Dedalus... the connection I did not get until it was made explicit in the passage I read tonight.

Forays into the Night (Part 2)
I continue my two-week tradition of strolling through the campus on Saturday night. Things have changed. Packs of students are everywhere. Groups of guys, groups of girls, groups of guys and girls... all have similar objectives. Another commonality is that each group has one or two leaders, directing the merrymakers through the labyrinth of side streets, en route to the next part.
I am the only one out alone. I am comforted by the solidarity and the fact that my pack is filled with good literature. I try to check my ego. Amory Blaine and Stephen Dedalus, the two protagonists of my latest novels, both students, both ego maniacs, do little to help my humility. I am too easily swayed.
On Cornell's campus there is a large gathering of students. The tower is illuminated and joyful undergraduates consume funnel cake and convulse with laughter. It is some sort of multicultural club fair. I am pushed into a great hall by a crowd and must escape out the back door.

Reverent and Secular
Continuing on I come to a chapel. The large doors open to a memorial: Cornell alumni who never returned from war. To the left is a sanctuary stripped of all religious associations. I pass by an open closet containing racks of hymnals from each of the major Western religions. The walls of the sanctuary are white and the stain glass is without lustre.
I buy some milk and go home.

Can We Get Some Purell Over Here
Sunday morning. I take a bus to Bethel Grove Bible Church. It is a great service and I have only one criticism. When we sang "And we raise up holy hands..." I was the only one that did. I didn't do it sanctimoniously, but out of integrity to my worship. Ok, partially out of habit too.
The pastor taught on Paul's first letter to the Corinthians and I thought that if Paul were to write a letter to Bethel Grove he would have to discuss whatever it is that is making their hands unholy.

The Terrible Patron
Sunday night. I spend two and a half hours in Collegetown Bagels, the one actually in Collegetown. For two and a half hours I sit inside at a four person table. I only spent one dollar and twenty five cents for a green tea.

Company for the Terrible Patron
The two girls catching up at the table next to me speak so fast that whole phrases slip in between the words of the singers in my earbuds. The guy two tables over tries to impress a girl with how much alcohol he consumed the previous evening. She is not impressed but I am.