I took a defensive driving course as a teenager, and the instructor hit on me in front of the whole class. It was super-creepy, as I was 17 and the guy was twice my age and just icky. I know feminism has a long, long way to go to being a sort of "post-gender" society (not completely post-gender, as I don't think ANYONE wants that), but I'm thankful that for the most part people know better than to hit on teenagers, at least in public, these days.
I should have run over that guy in the parking lot after class.
Had the pleasure of driving 2 hours north to the MIL's place to rummage through her closets. My brother-in-law has some of the coolest toys saved from the 70s and is being kind enough to let my son play with them. We got a great tonka fire engine (just like the one I used to have), a bunch of matchbox cars, and other fun stuff (including a first edition book of poems by robert bligh (who used to live in their town).
We didn't have space to bring home any of the starwars stuff which included unopened action figures, a millennium falcon, a light saber, and the darth vader action figure carrying case.
In a few weeks we'll be heading back for another load of stuff. Getting my wife's doll house home will be tough - 60" high x 36" wide x 18" deep and built by her dad. it's one inch to wide to fit in my car...
my Pro Practice teacher, who was also the Dean, was later forced to resign from the school due to unethical behaviour. I would MUCH rather have had Donna...
don't know if the doll house comes apart in a way that it can be reassembled. but I was thinking about trying that. we didn't excavate enough stuff to pull it out.
Why does it seem that the pro-practice instructors are the folks alway getting caught with ethics violations?
my professional practice teacher in grad school was the head of school as well, but they were a professional arbitrator as well. But she was pedantic as hell... a great way to be taught
If Brad would hire me for a large enough fee that I could afford to hire someone, it would relieve a lot of my stress. While we sign the contract, he can be smiling, dressed like a carpenter, and be balancing one of his kids on his hip, which would help even more.
I think I have my first challenge with an unhappy employee - wants a raise and better hours and her attitude is showing it. This is tough. Especially not easy to forget the struggles I had for so many years, I just want to say "tough shit" as it is what I am used to, but I know that is not right and I want to keep her happy. Then I spilled coffee all over myself too. Where is that scotch?
We had a wild rain storm on Sunday~the front moved in hard and sheets of water fell. Then it calmed down and continued to rain the rest of the day. We left home at around noon to go to a barbie....which ended up being and indoor barbie. I have meet this couple a few times at other parties and he is a retired shop teacher.
So we have some things in common to talk about, but I was completely blown away when he starts showing me the french provencial furniture he has built, along with all the rest of the home improvements he has done. Added a great room, added a front covered entry, wood coffered paneled ceiling in his basement, His next project is a wine cellar which he has collected all the old clay
storm sewer tile from an old golf course which was breing developed in to a shopping mall.
So yesterday I get up and putz around in the morning. Then I get a phone call as some stainless steel base cabinets I ordered for a project were ready for pick up so I figured I would take the drive down to pick them up. So for some unknown reason I head down to the basement and yikes the water is standing about 2 inches deep.
We have never had water problems before so I was really taken back.
I told the Mrs and so she just heads on down and steps into the water before I can stop her....thank God there wasn't and electrical charge passing thru the water. I tell her to get back upstairs and to not go down there as I have to go pick up the cabinets and I will take care of it when I get home.
I call the roto -rooter guy who I have used in the past for clients and he is not part of the company....roto rooter. He says he is come by at around 3:00. So when I get back I dig out the wet and dry vaccum and start sucking. I wasn't even making a dent. Finally he shows up and he pops a cleanout cap the old fashioned way with a sledge hammer and chisel. The he runs his snake down the line and woosh all the floor drains start sucking water like the is no tomorrow.
In a matter of minutes I have standing ponds of water scattered around the basement and a few items that have gotten wet because the cardinal rule was not followed. I roll up a wet rug stand in the lavatory so at least some of the water will drain away. I set up fans and the dehumifier so the air will circulate and spray the place down with a bathroom tile cleaners solution with some bleach to be sure we keep mold in check..
So that is how my week started....yahoo...
Today I did some more cleaning up after discovering a closet full of old clothes and other assorted items which managed to all get wet. It was the worst part of the whole cleanup. As it was a closet under the stairs. Which I thought was clean, but Mrs....needed to put something in there for what ever reason I don't know.
Hopefully I will have most of the moist air out of their by tomorrow.
Straw - I've never been in the shoes of an employer, but for what its worth: for me, if I was unhappy with work, it would really be one or the other. I wouldn't really mind the pay if the hours were flexible and/or on the low side. And vice versa, I wouldn't mind the hours if the pay reflected it. Honesty/transparency or potential for creativity and professional advancement could also help a lot.
snook, I tripped and dumped a whole cup of coffee across my desk Monday morning - luckily very little on the computer, but lots of soaked brown papers, drawings, and splatters all over the desk/wall/printer/shredder/trash can/surge strip.
But that's nothing compared to your basement - oh, man! I was thinking if I rebuilt my house again I would do it slab on grade like it is now - basement water stories are so awful. Glad it's mostly cleaned up and how fun it must have been to see and hear the big sucking movement when the line was finally clear!
Had a really nice lunch with a girlfriend today. Then hit two farm supplies on the way home looking for 4' wide 1/2" hardware cloth for the chickens - no luck. But I know the "city" farm supply location has it! So I'll go there tomorrow.
I'm rambling now for real, but have I ever mentioned my irrational fear of sinkholes? I was digging a trench around the chicken house today (for sinking the hardware cloth into) and when one scoop of dirt came up I could see a gaping black hole beneath it - agghhh! Probably just a space under a tree root, but I made my husband come stand next to me while I finished digging so he could fish me out in case the ground opened up. Nothing happened, but if I walk outside tomorrow morning and see that the earth has swallowed up the chicken house I'll just shrug my shoulders and say "I knew it." Then I'll sell my house.
well, my friends - and i call you that, because i think all of you are - we've decided to end our marriage. so, advice? perhaps. drinks? no, unless coffee is involved. a shoulder? ah, the shoulder, perhaps.
i have some wisdom to share. happiness is not something anyone, but yourself, can give to you. you are the masters of your own feelings, no one can make you feel stupid - if you refuse to give them permission. you cannot rely on your SO to make you happy, it will destroy everything in the end.
second, and perhaps most import; don't ever pass up an opportunity to tell your mate how you feel, what's on your mind, the seemingly petty annoyances - although you don't think the will - will start to become the biggest scorecard, one could ever imagine and you will use it as a weapon.
lastly, i love her dearly, the best of me, has defeated the worst of me and realized that i care more for her happiness than i do about keeping her in an unhappy marriage. so, as much as it breaks my heart, i have to let her go, and hope to be friends forever.
i do hope to join the 2011 Grad School group - whenever that forms - and here are my top picks:
1. Cranbrook
2. Cooper
3. Princeton - as if, but hey it depends on who is teaching
4. Penn - again depends of faculty and direction
5. Stevens - PA Lab, if perhaps i want to get my gear head on, and work on Catia and Rhino and scripting...
if i was really talented i'd die to be at Bartlett....
so, i'll apply, then early next year i am thinking China, India, and then across the continent, and perhaps Holland.
Strawbeary, that is tough. I'm still on the unhappy employee's side of it, and it's so difficult to hide. I'm sure that when I go into my yearly review my boss won't be the least bit surprised when I ask for those things.
Speaking of which, I paid for a year worth of myself today! An existing client saw some of my work (specifically, plus I'm the only one in the office who does what I do so it couldn't be based on anything else) in the context of another project for them, and asked the firm to take on another project for them that's completely outside of our usual services, that's totally reliant on me for 99% of the work. And the fee we're proposing for it would cover an entire year's salary plus benefits for me at my current rate! You'd better believe that I'm going to be reminding the boss of that come review time!
Beta, so sorry to hear that it has come to that. Good luck to you.
Sounds like a tough, long road ahead but one which will hopefully lead to happiness. Don't ever hesitate to share.
Re: grad school I think i really need to focus in on applying in the next year. Hopefully this year I will get some good things together to help strengthen my chances of acceptance. But a friend of my recently started (as in this week) a PhD program and i felt a tinge of jealousy.
beta, i been where you are at and remember similar feelings. it is very wrenching time. recovering as person and also financially was a huge struggle. but it gets better. in my case i can say without a doubt (not even a remote niggle) that it was the best thing that ever happened to me. didn't seem so at the time of course.
Man, somewhere, some school is teaching all about brise soliel. The referrals from yahoo search on the word is sending my blog viewer count through the roof! Hmmm. Maybe I should do more posts about basic architectural ideas, and include hand-drawn diagrams.
Husband is going to Wisconsin tomorrow. What should I tell him to bring back for me?
Beta, do you want to make architectural art, explore theory, or learn new software? figure that out and you'll manage to get into the right program. I'll start my letter of recommendation for you once the semester starts. (ps, sign up for the GREs ASAP if they are needed)
Just looked at my class roster, 1/3rd of the undergrads are either poly sci or psychology majors. So now I'm dumbing down the UG assignments and limiting the amount of technical stuff they will encounter. *sigh* At least I can still keep the graduate stuff at genius-level.
beta- you always have my shoulder to lean on. I wish you all the best in your new endeavors. Of late I've been feeling very trapped and anxious. This summer has had a lot of obstacles thrown my way and I'm hoping to have enough courage to work through them.
barry - I find it incredibly interesting that you have so many non-LA students. Interesting. I wish you much success teaching this semester.
WOO-HOO copper!!!. Now go knock their socks off.
T minus three days until my 2 consecutive days of riding 50 miles commences. Getting a wee bit nervous.
jump, on the financial recovery aspect, I think people really forget how huge that is. Our society is really built for couples/families, and when a person has gotten used to that it is amazing how much it hits you to suddenly have burdens fall completely on you that were previously shared, even if you haven't lost property in the split. I remember the furnishing of my new place being a crippling expense, even though I lucked out in a lot of ways.
Beta, I wish you peace with this difficult decision, and as I said elsewhere, I agree 100% with your assessment of happiness. I am sending you positive thoughts!
thanks everyone! i am gaining strength through these words, and through my own desire to stand up straight, shoulders back and head held high. having said that; it's wonderful to know, that people that have yet to physically meet, think of me in such heartfelt ways. i cannot thank you enough. all of you.
my class (LA4755/5755 infrastructure, natural systems, and the space of inhabited landscapes) has been certified as a 'technology and society' liberal education requirement (and we're getting designated as a 'writing-intensive' class too) to broaden the appeal to non-design students.
The department gets $$$ for every non-major we enroll, so I'm making my boss happy and doing my part to keep the department afloat by bringing in so many non-designers. got 26 or 28 undergrads (depending on which roster I look at) and 3 or 5 grad students right now. I expect a surge of graduate enrollment over the next two weeks, so we'll see if I can get 40 bodies which will enable getting a TA! otherwise, I'm grading all those papers (ugh...)
I'll be posting bits and pieces of the class to my blog, so stay tuned.
copper sounds awesome. sounds like bonus time, or at least a finder's/keepers fee maybe?
Beta that's what tc is all about. but really it's your own desire to stand up straight, shoulders back and head held high more than anything else that will get you through. stay upbeat...
copper that is so true what you so eloquently stated. Much of the gains of society are built around couples (and or double income). I'm often impressed when people are able to own property on their own... especially seeing as I had to give up my own.
Beta... very touching, but you seem to have your wits about you despite it all. Look at this as the beginning of the rest of your life... great things are abound. You will be happy
Sooooooooooo school starts back tomorrow with a 2-day retreat that I just had to do an online job profile of what felt like 1000 questions. I'm far from ready to start teaching but not worried. It would be fun splitting my time between the technological graduate course and the undergraduate design studio. No more history this semester... more time to practice architecture too.
My yoga instructor said something very wise tonight. She said, just as you do in yoga, lead with your heart in life because the rest the rest will follow. The mind can take you down the wrong road, but the heart will lead you the right way. Seemed rather fitting for the discussion at hand.
I miss puddles too! Why did he go away? DID he go away or is he back as someone I don't recognize?
Good luck to all of our teachers!
~~~~~
Also I have a little thought exercise for you:
My company is moving to a new building in a few months, and it's REALLY exciting. I can't tell you where yet, but pretend you are me and you are super excited about it. Another exciting part is that they are actually ASKING us what our inputs are about our new workspace. They can't necessarily assimilate all of our suggestions, but coming from the unique position of being the only trained architect on a staff of 300+, I am definitely interested in making thoughtful and innovative yet pragmatic suggestions.
That said, what are some of your most favorite elements of a large workspace that you've spent time in? What are some things to avoid? I already have a wishlist and some schematics in mind but I know I am missing some things... I didn't do a lot of corporate interior layouts in my prior work, except for that one time that I punchlisted a Top Secret-level safe room for a goverment contractor in DC. Good times!
ping pong or foosball lounge (collaboration, beer. it's al good)
nap room (i'm not kidding) or other space to zone out in
unisex toilets (they stay cleaner)
having small, well lit rooms to look stuff over away from desks are always great as well.
jealous, though the office i'm in ain't too shabby.
copper, congrats on the awesome get and opportunity! i agree with barry, showing that you can bring work, is definitely a path to assoc.
melt, i love the quote, i've been leaning on that for a while or trying to. i think i need to do meditation, in order to bring more quiet to my center.
dubK, one thing that is interesting is office flexibility and team flexibility. i don't know how big your office is, or how it's even structured - in terms of teams? - but being able to location staff according to team make-up, tends to rotate staff around the office. this winds up doing two things; first, project cohesion, second, allows members in a large office a chance to know everyone and lastly, it keeps staff thinking light and not becoming entrenched with a ton of shit at their desk.
other than that, i think what holz proposes works for me, we spend more of our waking hours at the office, it'd be great if there were things that allow us to have fun or decomp.
DJ - If it's going to be an open concept layout, might I suggest private phone rooms. There's a company downtown here that has them and I think it's a brilliant idea. It's never all that fun to have to take a personal/private call at your desk and have the whole area around you to be able to hear your conversation. Being able to go into a room or a private nook around the corner, would make life so much easier. I also second holz's notion of a nap room. Sometimes a 10 minute snooze makes all the difference in the world.
Thread Central
I miss vado too.
I took a defensive driving course as a teenager, and the instructor hit on me in front of the whole class. It was super-creepy, as I was 17 and the guy was twice my age and just icky. I know feminism has a long, long way to go to being a sort of "post-gender" society (not completely post-gender, as I don't think ANYONE wants that), but I'm thankful that for the most part people know better than to hit on teenagers, at least in public, these days.
I should have run over that guy in the parking lot after class.
shit it's been a busy day. how about you all?
Why has vado left us? Is he ok?
I'm feeling a little spacey today. Like how you feel when you haven't had your caffine, but I've already had an extra glass of tea today. Strange.
Had the pleasure of driving 2 hours north to the MIL's place to rummage through her closets. My brother-in-law has some of the coolest toys saved from the 70s and is being kind enough to let my son play with them. We got a great tonka fire engine (just like the one I used to have), a bunch of matchbox cars, and other fun stuff (including a first edition book of poems by robert bligh (who used to live in their town).
We didn't have space to bring home any of the starwars stuff which included unopened action figures, a millennium falcon, a light saber, and the darth vader action figure carrying case.
In a few weeks we'll be heading back for another load of stuff. Getting my wife's doll house home will be tough - 60" high x 36" wide x 18" deep and built by her dad. it's one inch to wide to fit in my car...
sounds like fun Barry... any chance of taking the doll house apart?
Antiques road show, here Barry comes!
my Pro Practice teacher, who was also the Dean, was later forced to resign from the school due to unethical behaviour. I would MUCH rather have had Donna...
don't know if the doll house comes apart in a way that it can be reassembled. but I was thinking about trying that. we didn't excavate enough stuff to pull it out.
Why does it seem that the pro-practice instructors are the folks alway getting caught with ethics violations?
my professional practice teacher in grad school was the head of school as well, but they were a professional arbitrator as well. But she was pedantic as hell... a great way to be taught
morning all. nothing exciting to report.
Barry sounds like there might be a small fortune in old toys there...
I'm having a bad day. Hope everyone else's is better.
donna, think of brad pitt!
If Brad would hire me for a large enough fee that I could afford to hire someone, it would relieve a lot of my stress. While we sign the contract, he can be smiling, dressed like a carpenter, and be balancing one of his kids on his hip, which would help even more.
Donna,
Hope it gets better. I know my week didn't...
Donna, please go here and have a smile (and everyone else too):
http://www.hotguysandbabyanimals.com/
Thanks to Alexander Walter for posting it first! :o)
oh, come on dubk, i can't compete with those cuddly creatures...
Jamaica in the top 5 for Ms Universe...
I think I have my first challenge with an unhappy employee - wants a raise and better hours and her attitude is showing it. This is tough. Especially not easy to forget the struggles I had for so many years, I just want to say "tough shit" as it is what I am used to, but I know that is not right and I want to keep her happy. Then I spilled coffee all over myself too. Where is that scotch?
We had a wild rain storm on Sunday~the front moved in hard and sheets of water fell. Then it calmed down and continued to rain the rest of the day. We left home at around noon to go to a barbie....which ended up being and indoor barbie. I have meet this couple a few times at other parties and he is a retired shop teacher.
So we have some things in common to talk about, but I was completely blown away when he starts showing me the french provencial furniture he has built, along with all the rest of the home improvements he has done. Added a great room, added a front covered entry, wood coffered paneled ceiling in his basement, His next project is a wine cellar which he has collected all the old clay
storm sewer tile from an old golf course which was breing developed in to a shopping mall.
So yesterday I get up and putz around in the morning. Then I get a phone call as some stainless steel base cabinets I ordered for a project were ready for pick up so I figured I would take the drive down to pick them up. So for some unknown reason I head down to the basement and yikes the water is standing about 2 inches deep.
We have never had water problems before so I was really taken back.
I told the Mrs and so she just heads on down and steps into the water before I can stop her....thank God there wasn't and electrical charge passing thru the water. I tell her to get back upstairs and to not go down there as I have to go pick up the cabinets and I will take care of it when I get home.
I call the roto -rooter guy who I have used in the past for clients and he is not part of the company....roto rooter. He says he is come by at around 3:00. So when I get back I dig out the wet and dry vaccum and start sucking. I wasn't even making a dent. Finally he shows up and he pops a cleanout cap the old fashioned way with a sledge hammer and chisel. The he runs his snake down the line and woosh all the floor drains start sucking water like the is no tomorrow.
In a matter of minutes I have standing ponds of water scattered around the basement and a few items that have gotten wet because the cardinal rule was not followed. I roll up a wet rug stand in the lavatory so at least some of the water will drain away. I set up fans and the dehumifier so the air will circulate and spray the place down with a bathroom tile cleaners solution with some bleach to be sure we keep mold in check..
So that is how my week started....yahoo...
Today I did some more cleaning up after discovering a closet full of old clothes and other assorted items which managed to all get wet. It was the worst part of the whole cleanup. As it was a closet under the stairs. Which I thought was clean, but Mrs....needed to put something in there for what ever reason I don't know.
Hopefully I will have most of the moist air out of their by tomorrow.
how come no one's posted a thread on that massive traffic jam in china? 62 miles? 9 days?
Straw - I've never been in the shoes of an employer, but for what its worth: for me, if I was unhappy with work, it would really be one or the other. I wouldn't really mind the pay if the hours were flexible and/or on the low side. And vice versa, I wouldn't mind the hours if the pay reflected it. Honesty/transparency or potential for creativity and professional advancement could also help a lot.
snook, I tripped and dumped a whole cup of coffee across my desk Monday morning - luckily very little on the computer, but lots of soaked brown papers, drawings, and splatters all over the desk/wall/printer/shredder/trash can/surge strip.
But that's nothing compared to your basement - oh, man! I was thinking if I rebuilt my house again I would do it slab on grade like it is now - basement water stories are so awful. Glad it's mostly cleaned up and how fun it must have been to see and hear the big sucking movement when the line was finally clear!
Had a really nice lunch with a girlfriend today. Then hit two farm supplies on the way home looking for 4' wide 1/2" hardware cloth for the chickens - no luck. But I know the "city" farm supply location has it! So I'll go there tomorrow.
I'm rambling now for real, but have I ever mentioned my irrational fear of sinkholes? I was digging a trench around the chicken house today (for sinking the hardware cloth into) and when one scoop of dirt came up I could see a gaping black hole beneath it - agghhh! Probably just a space under a tree root, but I made my husband come stand next to me while I finished digging so he could fish me out in case the ground opened up. Nothing happened, but if I walk outside tomorrow morning and see that the earth has swallowed up the chicken house I'll just shrug my shoulders and say "I knew it." Then I'll sell my house.
well, my friends - and i call you that, because i think all of you are - we've decided to end our marriage. so, advice? perhaps. drinks? no, unless coffee is involved. a shoulder? ah, the shoulder, perhaps.
i have some wisdom to share. happiness is not something anyone, but yourself, can give to you. you are the masters of your own feelings, no one can make you feel stupid - if you refuse to give them permission. you cannot rely on your SO to make you happy, it will destroy everything in the end.
second, and perhaps most import; don't ever pass up an opportunity to tell your mate how you feel, what's on your mind, the seemingly petty annoyances - although you don't think the will - will start to become the biggest scorecard, one could ever imagine and you will use it as a weapon.
lastly, i love her dearly, the best of me, has defeated the worst of me and realized that i care more for her happiness than i do about keeping her in an unhappy marriage. so, as much as it breaks my heart, i have to let her go, and hope to be friends forever.
i do hope to join the 2011 Grad School group - whenever that forms - and here are my top picks:
1. Cranbrook
2. Cooper
3. Princeton - as if, but hey it depends on who is teaching
4. Penn - again depends of faculty and direction
5. Stevens - PA Lab, if perhaps i want to get my gear head on, and work on Catia and Rhino and scripting...
if i was really talented i'd die to be at Bartlett....
so, i'll apply, then early next year i am thinking China, India, and then across the continent, and perhaps Holland.
beta, hang in there. It sounds like you're on the next path, and there's freedom in that.
Strawbeary, that is tough. I'm still on the unhappy employee's side of it, and it's so difficult to hide. I'm sure that when I go into my yearly review my boss won't be the least bit surprised when I ask for those things.
Speaking of which, I paid for a year worth of myself today! An existing client saw some of my work (specifically, plus I'm the only one in the office who does what I do so it couldn't be based on anything else) in the context of another project for them, and asked the firm to take on another project for them that's completely outside of our usual services, that's totally reliant on me for 99% of the work. And the fee we're proposing for it would cover an entire year's salary plus benefits for me at my current rate! You'd better believe that I'm going to be reminding the boss of that come review time!
Beta, so sorry to hear that it has come to that. Good luck to you.
Beta,
Sounds like a tough, long road ahead but one which will hopefully lead to happiness. Don't ever hesitate to share.
Re: grad school I think i really need to focus in on applying in the next year. Hopefully this year I will get some good things together to help strengthen my chances of acceptance. But a friend of my recently started (as in this week) a PhD program and i felt a tinge of jealousy.
Hope everyone has a good morning
beta, i been where you are at and remember similar feelings. it is very wrenching time. recovering as person and also financially was a huge struggle. but it gets better. in my case i can say without a doubt (not even a remote niggle) that it was the best thing that ever happened to me. didn't seem so at the time of course.
jump, that is such an empathetic, supportive post. TC has such wonderful people.
wow beta, best of luck on the new adventures.
good luck beta... you sound like you're doing well... are you still coming to philly next weekend? i'll buy you a coffee and show you around campus!
Man, somewhere, some school is teaching all about brise soliel. The referrals from yahoo search on the word is sending my blog viewer count through the roof! Hmmm. Maybe I should do more posts about basic architectural ideas, and include hand-drawn diagrams.
Husband is going to Wisconsin tomorrow. What should I tell him to bring back for me?
sh - cheese curds and apples!
Beta, do you want to make architectural art, explore theory, or learn new software? figure that out and you'll manage to get into the right program. I'll start my letter of recommendation for you once the semester starts. (ps, sign up for the GREs ASAP if they are needed)
Just looked at my class roster, 1/3rd of the undergrads are either poly sci or psychology majors. So now I'm dumbing down the UG assignments and limiting the amount of technical stuff they will encounter. *sigh* At least I can still keep the graduate stuff at genius-level.
Barry, why are they taking your class? Aren't you teahing landscape?
Holy crap! I just saw a mouse in my house!
beta- you always have my shoulder to lean on. I wish you all the best in your new endeavors. Of late I've been feeling very trapped and anxious. This summer has had a lot of obstacles thrown my way and I'm hoping to have enough courage to work through them.
barry - I find it incredibly interesting that you have so many non-LA students. Interesting. I wish you much success teaching this semester.
WOO-HOO copper!!!. Now go knock their socks off.
T minus three days until my 2 consecutive days of riding 50 miles commences. Getting a wee bit nervous.
jump, on the financial recovery aspect, I think people really forget how huge that is. Our society is really built for couples/families, and when a person has gotten used to that it is amazing how much it hits you to suddenly have burdens fall completely on you that were previously shared, even if you haven't lost property in the split. I remember the furnishing of my new place being a crippling expense, even though I lucked out in a lot of ways.
Beta, I wish you peace with this difficult decision, and as I said elsewhere, I agree 100% with your assessment of happiness. I am sending you positive thoughts!
thanks everyone! i am gaining strength through these words, and through my own desire to stand up straight, shoulders back and head held high. having said that; it's wonderful to know, that people that have yet to physically meet, think of me in such heartfelt ways. i cannot thank you enough. all of you.
copper, it's nice to see you, and good job on getting that project in!
melt you will cruise through the 50 miles and feel SO great, mentally, afterwards, if maybe a bit sore the following 48 hours ;-)
my class (LA4755/5755 infrastructure, natural systems, and the space of inhabited landscapes) has been certified as a 'technology and society' liberal education requirement (and we're getting designated as a 'writing-intensive' class too) to broaden the appeal to non-design students.
The department gets $$$ for every non-major we enroll, so I'm making my boss happy and doing my part to keep the department afloat by bringing in so many non-designers. got 26 or 28 undergrads (depending on which roster I look at) and 3 or 5 grad students right now. I expect a surge of graduate enrollment over the next two weeks, so we'll see if I can get 40 bodies which will enable getting a TA! otherwise, I'm grading all those papers (ugh...)
I'll be posting bits and pieces of the class to my blog, so stay tuned.
Copper- you're now on your way to associate!!!
okay, back to writing/editing the book review.
copper sounds awesome. sounds like bonus time, or at least a finder's/keepers fee maybe?
Beta that's what tc is all about. but really it's your own desire to stand up straight, shoulders back and head held high more than anything else that will get you through. stay upbeat...
night all.
BTW, puddles lives, still not wearing pants. I miss him.
copper that is so true what you so eloquently stated. Much of the gains of society are built around couples (and or double income). I'm often impressed when people are able to own property on their own... especially seeing as I had to give up my own.
Beta... very touching, but you seem to have your wits about you despite it all. Look at this as the beginning of the rest of your life... great things are abound. You will be happy
Awwww... I miss puddles. Long live TC!!!
congrats on the contract btw copper.
Sooooooooooo school starts back tomorrow with a 2-day retreat that I just had to do an online job profile of what felt like 1000 questions. I'm far from ready to start teaching but not worried. It would be fun splitting my time between the technological graduate course and the undergraduate design studio. No more history this semester... more time to practice architecture too.
One more thing...
My yoga instructor said something very wise tonight. She said, just as you do in yoga, lead with your heart in life because the rest the rest will follow. The mind can take you down the wrong road, but the heart will lead you the right way. Seemed rather fitting for the discussion at hand.
techno, I start teaching tomorrow too! Good luck!
I miss puddles too! Why did he go away? DID he go away or is he back as someone I don't recognize?
Good luck to all of our teachers!
~~~~~
Also I have a little thought exercise for you:
My company is moving to a new building in a few months, and it's REALLY exciting. I can't tell you where yet, but pretend you are me and you are super excited about it. Another exciting part is that they are actually ASKING us what our inputs are about our new workspace. They can't necessarily assimilate all of our suggestions, but coming from the unique position of being the only trained architect on a staff of 300+, I am definitely interested in making thoughtful and innovative yet pragmatic suggestions.
That said, what are some of your most favorite elements of a large workspace that you've spent time in? What are some things to avoid? I already have a wishlist and some schematics in mind but I know I am missing some things... I didn't do a lot of corporate interior layouts in my prior work, except for that one time that I punchlisted a Top Secret-level safe room for a goverment contractor in DC. Good times!
ping pong or foosball lounge (collaboration, beer. it's al good)
nap room (i'm not kidding) or other space to zone out in
unisex toilets (they stay cleaner)
having small, well lit rooms to look stuff over away from desks are always great as well.
jealous, though the office i'm in ain't too shabby.
copper, congrats on the awesome get and opportunity! i agree with barry, showing that you can bring work, is definitely a path to assoc.
melt, i love the quote, i've been leaning on that for a while or trying to. i think i need to do meditation, in order to bring more quiet to my center.
dubK, one thing that is interesting is office flexibility and team flexibility. i don't know how big your office is, or how it's even structured - in terms of teams? - but being able to location staff according to team make-up, tends to rotate staff around the office. this winds up doing two things; first, project cohesion, second, allows members in a large office a chance to know everyone and lastly, it keeps staff thinking light and not becoming entrenched with a ton of shit at their desk.
other than that, i think what holz proposes works for me, we spend more of our waking hours at the office, it'd be great if there were things that allow us to have fun or decomp.
DJ - If it's going to be an open concept layout, might I suggest private phone rooms. There's a company downtown here that has them and I think it's a brilliant idea. It's never all that fun to have to take a personal/private call at your desk and have the whole area around you to be able to hear your conversation. Being able to go into a room or a private nook around the corner, would make life so much easier. I also second holz's notion of a nap room. Sometimes a 10 minute snooze makes all the difference in the world.
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