One of the most excellent/torturous aspects of getting a research degree is that it affords me the opportunity to pursue - and think really hard about - topics that interest me. It's excellent because I never felt I had time to pursue such ideas in my design-focused undergraduate degree, but it's... View full entry

The other day I think I saw someone complaining that the school bloggers weren't blogging about lectures enough. I feel bad about this: I missed the first few lectures of the semester because I was simply too tired or too busy to go. But, I went to the lecture at USC yesterday - subjecting myself... View full entry

Although I don't think I'll recover from the euphoria of Obama's victory probably for as long as he is in the White House, I did come back to Earth rather quickly this morning as I logged into Archinect and read story after story of people who had been laid off recently from their jobs in the... View full entry

Hello. I apologize for the long absence but it's been a very rough month for me. A couple of weeks ago I had to fly to the East Coast abruptly for a funeral; and then yesterday my cat passed away. In the middle of all of this I had to find the time and the energy to work on my thesis in order to... View full entry

It's cool and overcast this morning in Los Angeles. It reminds me of San Francisco or fall in the Midwest. I LOVE it. Lately I think I've been suffering from overexposure to sunshine, if a person can suffer from such a thing ... my problem with too much sun is not only that it dries everything... View full entry

I'm a mess today. I can barely focus and my head hurts. I don't know what's wrong with me but I don't think it's the norovirus that has made hundreds of people sick on USC's campus lately. At least I hope it's not, for obvious reasons. I do think it may have to do with air quality though ... the... View full entry

Hey everyone! Sorry for the long absence but it's been a whirlwind week here. I had a bunch of meetings, and then a birthday party, then a birthday, and now I'm sitting next to a presentation board I produced for a showcase on campus. I'm operating on very little sleep but this is pretty exciting... View full entry

As the title implies, I gave my first thesis presentation last Friday, and for those of you who are used to design theses, things go a little differently in the Building Science program. This is primarily a research degree; it takes a year (yes, a whole year), it's self-guided, and I don't need to... View full entry

Hi. I'm sitting in the middle of what appears to be about 25 minutes of free time, i.e., I have nothing to do, and no apparent reason to start anything right now. I'm so confused. This hasn't happened in a while. I'm at work and have no work to do. check I've said all I wanted to on my "other"... View full entry

Any time not consumed by my thesis or work over the past week was spent planning Park[ing] Day LA 2008 in our little spot on USC's campus. It was a lot more difficult to plan than it should have been ... as it happened, the event was so early in the semester that there was no way for us to get... View full entry

... is going to a lecture about architecture! I do realize that this will be the second post in a row in which I give you nothing of my own experience, and something directly from my school, but the lecture series is an important thing, and I almost forgot to tell you about it. Besides I'm still a... View full entry

I don't have anything interesting to say today, but it's worth noting that USC recently got approval to restart their dormant Ph.D. in Architecture program. I haven't decided if I'm going to apply yet, but for those of you who might be interested, here's some information from Doug Noble, the Ph.D... View full entry

Following my recent post about over-involvement, it stands to reason that often in my academic work I have a tendency to "go big or go home." But ... I'm in grad school. I didn't quit my job and move nearly 3000 miles to just sit around. I was adamant about finding something that I was passionate... View full entry

Pssst. Do you want to know a secret? You have to promise not to tell anybody. I have Tuesdays off. Well, kind of off. Off of work and I don't have any classes, which means that I can work from home all day, and I do (with an Archinect School Blog interlude, of course). But it's a solid full day... View full entry

No one has ever accused me of "not doing enough." For as long as it has mattered, I've always been involved in something other than my primary occupation at the time. Usually I have multiple things going on. So for the first week of school, I had to hit everything pretty hard. Introductory meeting... View full entry

I wish we could skip first days. I'd like to start off on the third, or maybe the fourth day, when we already know what we're doing, where classes are, and who's sitting next to us. But we all have to go through it ... the administrative issues, the syllabi, the introductions. And there's a good... View full entry