I found out some sad news today. I was already feeling a little uneasy about going to Rome, because of the housing situation and money matters, but today I found out that two of my best friends here, Alejandra and Cristina, are not planning on going. I am a fairly independent person, but whenever I imagined going to Rome, I imagined they would be there with me. I thought they would be the people I went on weekend excursions with – to Barcelona, Paris, London… I can go on my own, and I can most certainly find others to go with, I just thought I would be traveling with them. They are both really fun to be around. We are able to goof off and be silly with one another, but also still have serious conversations when we want. I don’t think I will be able to change their minds, but I hope they do. It won’t be as fun if they are not there. Maybe I am just being selfish. Not everyone goes. Not everyone wants to be in debt an extra ten years after college is over.
I do have some good news. The idiot guy who provides our wireless internet service came over to “help” me set up my repeater. So, it kind of works now. All of these networking guys are so funny (I have met quite a few). They think they have a lot of power because they set up and control the network you use. So they act all important and special when they come to help you. When this guy left my apartment he was chuckling about how he made someone’s internet connection really slow (about 28 Kbps) because they were messing with his network. That is probably what he had to do to teach this guy a lesson, but you could tell he got some satisfaction out of it. What a silly man.
I have been busy working on the Phillips Exeter Library research all week – doing fun things like circulation and public vs. private space diagrams, and writing an abstract about the building. As interesting as the building is, I am not finding this research all that interesting. And that is a bad sign, since I will soon be spending precious time in AutoCAD drawing files of this building so I can laser cut a model of it for my night class. I really think the amount of work (time and energy) we put into our school projects is ridiculous. We don’t get to talk about them for very long at our critiques, and our job interviewers don’t really look at our portfolios (they are more interested in where we have worked). I suppose it is all about the experience of working hard and being organized and graphic. I learned enough this summer to know those are necessary skills in the architecture profession.
I have another meeting this Friday with the Engineering professor about the Clovis project. I am supposed to have my bid ready for him. I am planning on using tomorrow night to prepare a proposal. All I have done thus far is a little bit of site research. I really hope my creativity doesn’t let me down tomorrow when I am working on this. I would feel really disappointed in myself if I wasn’t able to prepare something satisfactory for this simple exercise.
