Discovering Perspective

Well, my presentation went well this morning despite the three hours of sleep and massive amounts of improvisation. I will post a proper picture soon but in the meantime, check this out. Mine is the valise filled with tea.

This marks the end. Goodbye undergrad, it will be quite some time before I miss you.

Now it is off to London.

Well, the move is done. Goodbye old apartment, hello shed in which all my belongings will reside indefinitely.

I don't like moving day.

Thanks to Arion and Mekki who helped out and I apologize that I am not better at accepting help with moving. I don't like not knowing where my stuff ends up and not being in complete control of the organization. Unfortunately I'm not very good at giving orders.

I'm feeling rather depressed actually. I think Beijing is out. I don't want to work for a firm that is this disorganized and unprofessional. Last thing I need is to end up in Beijing and have no where to go or stay because they messed up. Chances for working as a research assistant for the summer aren't too good either. They're waiting to get grants approved.

So unemployed and homeless. What a bum.

My deadline for the project due tomorrow has been moved around so many times that I couldn't schedule time to work on it and now I find out that instead of being an evening presentation, it's going to be at noon. It's 3:30am. I'm exhausted. I need enough sleep to drive to Toronto tomorrow (if Mekki and I aren't both dead). I don't know if I'm going to have much of anything to show. Poop!

Grump.

Yay! The fun of Passover is upon us. Lots of matzoh for everyone.

I apologize that I won't be having a big party this year. My apartment isn't in much of a condition for guests unless everyone likes sitting on boxes. That's right, time to move again. And that's right, once again I don't know where I'm moving to. Well, temporarily I will be moving to Mekki's parents' place until I hear back about Beijing or find another place. We'll have a nice big party when we find the new abode.

Martha was teasing me for still having the original boxes to most of my stuff. But why not when you know you'll need to pack your stuff up again in a year or so. I actually enjoy the search for a new place and settling in to somewhere new. It's way better than redecorating.

Mekki and I will be driving down to London at the end of the week. For the first time since I moved away, I will get to go home for part of Passover. While we are there, my grandma is taking the whole family out to dinner to celebrate fifty years in Canada. On the way, we will be stopping in Toronto to go to the pub with Warren Ellis (author of Transmetropolitan) as he will be making an appearance for the Toronto Comics Art Festival. Otherwise, we will be enjoying the freedom and relaxation that comes with finishing school.

Mekki and I met up with a bunch of his fellow Nepean All-City Jazz Band alumni this evening for dinner and the annual concert at Centrepoint Theatre.

As always, lots of smirks and googly eyes as Mekki and I enjoyed the place where we first met. He says it was as he tripped down the stairs carrying an amp backstage because he was distracted by my beauty, I say it was a few minutes before in the hall outside the green room all giggly to meet the cute trumpet player with the blue glasses, as I had described him to my friend Natasha during the show when trying to decide who Mary was trying to set me up with. (By the way, Mekki wasn't the one she was thinking of)

Anyways, more than three years later. Who knew? As Mekki's old principal pointed out this evening, I deserve a medal for sticking it out this long.

Well, the essay is now posted if anyone has been following along with the development and is interested in the results.

It's not as refined as I had hoped since I was a bit rushed, but it's not too bad.

As always, feel free to comment.

It's the marathon week from Hell. I've said it before but this time I really mean it. I think they are trying to kill us before we graduate.

My crit actually went really well on Friday, which is a very nice change. I should have expected it. Usually I have great midterm crits and sucky finals. Given that I nearly cried at my midterm crit, it's not surprising that I came out of my final smiling. There were a few suggested alterations to the design for the sake of clarity and Canadian climate, but overall concept was greatly appreciated by the critics. I was even told that they would like to present the design to the committee working on the OAG project. Could make for some nice contacts and exposure.

After crits, the fourth years got together to celebrate, partially financed by the school as a graduation present. We went out for dinner and then to see our prof's CD release at a local club. Great fun. After four years of being told I absolutely must see him play, it was time. Of course, sleep deprived, food deprived students really should be sleeping not drinking but everyone made it home safe (I'm assuming).

After catching up on some of the week's missed sleep, Saturday was spent working on the essay that our prof so kindly (not) gave us an extension on (it just prolongs the torture). Finally ready to give up on my roomie's computer, I headed over to Mekki's to reclaim my laptop before heading out to meet up with Lara, Matt and Alex for dinner at the Greek Souvlaki House.

embarrassing story. Mekki wanted to go for a walk and stop by the bank before I left. Timing was tight but I thought I could make it. Well, I didn't and we got back to Mekki's twenty five minutes after I was supposed to be at the restaurant. So I hopped in the car and rushed to the restaurant. Practically out of breath, I am greeted by the host whom I inform that I am joining three other people. He said that he wasn't aware of anyone waiting but took me on a quick tour around the dining room to look. I didn't see them so I sat by the door hopeful that they were the ones who were late so that I wouldn't have to feel bad. To clarify, with the majority of people I go out with, I usually am the first one to show even if half an hour late. At dinner Friday night, about ten people showed up over an hour late. So I sat for twenty minutes or so and then decided to take one last look before leaving... and there they were sitting at a table on the other side of the restaurant.

But we enjoyed our meal and caught up a bit. Unfortunately both Alex and I were pressed for time so it was a short visit but it was really great to see everyone.

Back to Mekki's for more work on the essay. I managed to get through the ideological analysis and roughly 1000 words. Katie, Rob, Tracie, Ben, Tara, and Scott stopped by with a birthday surprise for Mekki. Unfortunately we weren't going to make it out to the soccer baseball and Eric's party, so they brought some of the fun and sheep to us. Very sweet.

Finally, today. Mekki and I made some yummy breakfast and then set ourselves up outside to write/study for a few hours to enjoy the fresh air and warmth (and the torture of April exams where you wish you could really be enjoying the weather). Globalization is taking me a bit longer than ideology was. I've been procrastinating by playing around with footnotes and double checking the proper Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, formatting. It's sad when that is the best procrastination you can come up with.

I'm predicting very little sleep tonight. But hopefully a pretty decent essay.

To rub it in, I'm missing out on all sorts of fun socializing that seem to spring up this time of year. Which is just all the more depressing, especially when a lot of the people are not coming back next year.

Oddly enough, on the night where half of studio is trying their hardest to stay awake all night so that they can finish their projects before crits tomorrow, I'm trying my hardest to go to sleep. Unfortunately my insomnia is not making for a productive night either. No drawings being rendered, no models being touched up, just mind going mad and heart racing.

Usually not one to believe you can jinx something by telling people about it before it is confirmed, it took a bit of debating with myself to decide whether or not to mention this yet but...

I might be in Beijing by the end of the month.

Yesterday I received an email from a friend saying that a Toronto firm was in desparate need of intern architects for a project in Beijing and that if I were interested, to send my resume. I figured, why not.

This morning on my way out the door, the phone rang and boom, on the spot interview. It sounds like I should be hearing back very shortly about whether or not I will be going, they need people fast.

Now you understand why my mind and pulse are both racing. So much to figure out first and rather stressful not knowing what to plan for but really exciting. So enjoy the breathless anticipation with me and I will let you all know what happens.

And because I know it is the first question most of you are asking (what about Mekki?) he is looking into the possibility of joining me and finding a job at Nortel over there. Otherwise maybe just coming for a week or two visit in the middle. But despite the common rumour, we are not glued together, and he is really excited for me about the opportunity. But it would be lonely without my boy.

A very interesting and productive afternoon I think. Mekki booked out one of the conference rooms at Carleton to get people together to talk about MekTek and a bunch of the projects we've been working on. It was a great chance to show how much work has been going into this recently and how much more is coming. We got some great feedback and lots of interest from all the fifteen or so people who came out.

Things are starting to move and it is pretty exciting, especially when you see other people getting excited.

Some pretty decent pizza for random flyer selection at rez commons.

Looking forward to future such brainstorming.

(By the way, for those of you who thought Mekki's blog was dead... *gasp* he posted the other day)

I was actually intrigued by one of the ads that popped up on my Haloscan Commenting page and unncharicteristically followed it and came across this.

"If Van Gogh were alive today... he'd be designing video games." - Virgil Tatum

Not sure what to make of it yet but I really like the site design.

Thought I would share this with the rest of you. One of the artists of the team [The User] gave a lecture at school yesterday to present some of his work. He's a past graduate of the program which might help answer the question I'm often asked about what else can you do with a degree in Architecture?

Symphony for Dot Matrix Printer

I'm trudging through my readings in preparation for my Research and Criticism final paper. I'm rather amused and impressed by McNeill's article for Political Geography 19 (2000), McGuggenisation.

My project is a critical analysis of Jean Nouvel's proposal for the Guggenheim Rio based on the analytic models of ideology and globalization.

One of the big criticisms of the Guggenheim Foundation is its commodification of art through its decision to franchise its collection and museum branding. First Bilbao, then Berlin, then Las Vegas, and now that Rio has rejected the proposal it looks like Tokyo is next in line.

But McNeill's article points out that this is not just a matter of the US trying to take over the world and make the rest of us like them. There is a certain amount of identity that certain cities have tried to make for themselves and they saw this as a means to that end. Certainly anyone who looks up the economic benefit and revitalization of Bilbao can see that it isn't all doom and gloom. But it's sad to see it achieved by turning Picasso into the new McDeal in a McWorld.

A curious and enlightening tidbit is the comparison to Euro Disney and the odd American repackaging of European fables being sold back to Europeans to consume it and reinterpret it with a European perception which inevitably changes the American perception.

Anyways, I will let you know what my conclusions are when I'm done writing the paper. In the meantime be weary of ordering a side of Frida with your Rauschenberger with Bacon.