These post at this time are intended to reflect on experiences, and hopefully gain some insight after thinking out loud....been internalizing it way too long.

A few stats of the state of things before this job:

1. Bachelor of Design (in and out of school to help family stuff-not quite jerry springer level- but got it done...summa cum laude)

2. M.Arch (sprinted through it, was just married, also b/o opportunity cost associated with student living vs earning an income....etc., also trying to catch up b/o of my age vs my peers who maybe had a "normal" school trajectory and were able to start gaining experience at younger age.....lets just say I'm about 5 years behind....see #1...finished 6 months early 3.9gpa, taking as much as 21 grad credits in a semester and also a summer international design studio to consolidate the semesters as much as possible )

3. interned for 2.5 yrs at a small firm between B.A. and M.Arch. and finished a lot of IDP.

Then through the rabbit hole:

I should have known it was too good to be true.  One of my first job applications and my first job interview with a firm not even hiring...landed me a job 3 weeks after graduating.  This was my dream firm because of their world renown work, highly published design philosophies, in an awesome city in the Northeast without having to sweat too much competing with my peers who were graduating later at the end of the spring term.  I did do the leg work though, within those 3 weeks before landing the job, I easily sent out 70-100 resumes, constantly tweaking or personalizing my resume and portfolio for each firm if necessary.

So, so far so good I guess.  Unfortunately the salary was not adjusted based on the expensive cost of living and I would have made the same or more in the current region I was living.  No moving cost or sign on bonus this time which I previously experienced from a small mom and pop firm.  What the hell, this was my dream job!  Here we go, couldn't wait to sink my teeth into some juicy models, and renders, and sitting on important meetings, learning how the big boys do it!

Not quite.

As one would expect, you need to be ready to hit the ground running.  No big.  As I was given a tour and met people with automatic smiles, I couldn't help but sense the heaviness, a gloomy cloud that pervaded the office, even with all its wonderful windows and natural light.  I even got a big desk at one of those windows, with a view of green foliage treatment on the brick facade of this renovated factory like building....and its beautiful sexy old timber beams  married with carefully designed new modern treatments.  Forget that gloomy cloud, that faint spidey sense, this is what I slaved over every night to 4am, sometimes sleeping in the studio, or in my car parked outside of the studio  building, or getting those parking tickets as I squeezed every last minute ounce of design preparation into my project right before my crit.  Even that one time falling a sleep in front of band saw trying to finish a project  to make it to my siblings graduation and ultimately having to skip it in order to safely finish my project.  All those student loans/debt from studio travel, expensive models, supplies,tools, a higher performing computer for rendering, the lack of the opportunities to work a college job as much as another college major might have possibly been able to (yes I did work odd jobs, federal work study, dog rescues, teaching, waiter, lab tech, html writer, retail), or just from the lack of having living parents to help with college.....it was all worth it !?

Hey family, friends!!,  All my hard work, sacrifices and humbling 13 years between high school graduation and finishing my m. arch.  ...I'm here I made it to the Architecture Olympics!!!

To be continued.....

disclaimer: My first blog, will not respond to hurtful/negative remarks, will delete if I can, might answer some questions....will not disclose personal or professional details,....we are all learning this game...different strokes for different folks, be nice =)