Surprise!

Over the last few days I have been surprised by a few things. Many of which have caught me off guard but made the last few days rather interesting in the sea of architectural madness that I lost myself in this semester.

1 It's Christmas next week. I must have missed the memo on this one. I have but 4 days to start thinking about this, implement a plan, and do some serious shopping.

2 It's winter. Snow lasting more than a week is a novelty out west. Here it seems like a way of life for the next several months.

3 There's a "Field Trip" to Los Angeles next semester. For five days four professors and 30 odd students are trekking off to sunny California to explore Architectural splendor. Some of our professors have serious connections into various offices down there and are working on getting us access to Morphosis and Frank Gehry.

4 I have more food at the studio than I have at home. Seriously.

5 I have at least two weeks off to do nothing.

So I'm heading home to my little house in the Annex. I think I'll exercise my Bockbuster account and see how many bags of popcorn is too many bags of popcorn.

The Finish Line?

"Oh, I'm sorry. You thought you were done did you? Hah! How about a 3d hand drawn perspective. Let's make it due the day after tomorrow. Oh, you haven't done one yet and have no idea how to do it? You better get on that."

The Pin Up

I sitting here in the corner of the main presentation room. It's a frenzy and people are everywhere.
I'm using the computer reserved for digital presentations by professors and upper level students. It's a big no-no to use these computers for other things since they are essential for people's project displays. However... There isn't a free computer in the building so......
Shane Williamson, our studio's chief professor smiled at me when he unlocked the door and found me in the corner Photoshoping away.
"How did you get in here?"
I smile and say nothing.
"What are you doing?"
"It's the only computer available in the entire building."
He smirks and proceeds to organize people into the room. It appears he is a fan of resourcefulness and I think I just made a slight impression.


...Back to work.....

The project looks good so far, but some finishing touches are still needed.
Pictures will be posted tomorrow.

The photo above is of the Bobco Metals Headquarters by null_lab

GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO.......

So this is how the final project looks so far. I have five days and LOTS to do. Just thought you'd all be curious. I'm using 1/4" birch plywood, and white core mat board [which is surprisingly expensive]. For a sense of scale the building is about 30 inches wide - the corresponding site model of the adjacent buildings [which are under my desk right now for simplicity] bring the total model to 36"x24"x26". My desk has completely vanished under this thing.
On a lighter note I'm still having fun, and not minding the long hours. I'll be mostly done this Monday except for a few pesky admin type things - nothing like what I'm experiencing right now.

Nine Easy Pieces

With nine days to go until the main studio review and 60% of my grade to be decided it looks like an interesting time ahead. When we have our final studio reviews it is customary for guest critics to be there to provide a critical response to our work. We haven't been informed of the names of the guest critics but they did say they were in the midst of confirming up to eight critics. With the regular studio supervisors included, not to mention other faculty there could be as many as 15-20 critics split between two groups. The guest critics are often prominent architects from the city and abroad [who happen to be in town] and even their names can be quite intimidating - never mind standing up in front of them and talking about your work.
I'm looking forward to it. I just don't want to go first.

First Blood

"Measuring 16" and weighing in at 3 ounces it's the 'cardboard sensation' sketch model!!! And in this corner measuring 6'3" and coming in at a paltry 165lbs....."

Well, you get the idea. My sketch model and I have decided to go head to head in a fight to the finish to figure out the bulk of my semester grade. And after a disappointing* critique of my work, which I agreed with on the grounds that something got lost in the translation from the sketch to a finished model, It seems as if the sketch model has drawn the first blood.[ * disappointing only that it was based on 38hours of work spread out over the past 2 days and a certain cost of materials which is now getting dumped into the recycling bin as we speak.]
Yes it's back to the drawing board for me. Again. Christ. I really needed to take a day to work on papers, laundry, dishes, and a cat which I seem to have recently acquired for a few weeks while my sister is out of town.
So using boxing metaphors still, it's only a minor cut above the eye - and besides I'm bigger than this little model. I'll just squish the fucker under my boot if he tries something like that again.

The 5 [goddamn] Minute Sketch Model

When I create I like to do it quickly. Get it out fast. Not hastily, but realize some form of the idea quickly. It's great for formulating some idea, but Jesus, it haunts you. Here we don't draw all the time so quick sketches take the form of models. Sketch models to be precise. And right now my desk is littered with them. All of these models have a purpose, and fail in achieving what the sketch model has. Every time you try to refine it, improve it, clarify it, etc..., you get something which sucks in comparison. Trying to develop any further - well it sometimes feels like a lost cause. Goddamnsketchmodel. I tell you, Frank Gehry was onto something when he crumples up a sheet of paper, drapes it over a site, and proclaims "I like that! Build that." [it should be noted that I actually don't like his buildings, but he is onto something...]

The Devil is in the Details

One of my professors, David Lieberman, has spent all of our Friday afternoon class time exposing us to what architecture can be. What architects are capable of. With a bit of his own agenda thrown in to the mix we have talked about everything from dense condo developments in Vancouver and Toronto to cooking and food as a system of design that leads to a final result. Frequently we have guests talking about their work and their experiences in the world of architecture. Yesterday, Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt lectured. Some of you may have heard of him as he is an international expert and probably one of the most educated people on the planet on a particular subject to which he has devoted almost 20 years of research. He has written several exhaustive books and even shown his research in court as an expert witness. Van Pelt was an architecture student when he went to the University of Waterloo in '68[?]. There in one of their cultural history classes he was shown the film "Nuit et Brouillard" [a 1955 French documentary short entitled Night and Fog].
There is a particular scene in the movie when a young woman is on a train, you might even describe her as a girl, and the camera zooms in on her face as she talks to the person about to close the door to the train behind her. She's on her way to Auschwitz. Research done by van Pelt into this haunting image of this woman led him to discover several interesting things and started a lifetime of archival and architectural research. Through records and documentation he knows the exact date and time this image was shot since it was the only time the Nazi's allowed this to be filmed. Exhaustive and precise Nazi records of who was on the train that day show the name Jan Van Pelt. His Uncle. So every time he shows this movie he knows somewhere his uncle is stuffed into one of the cars on his way to Auschwitz. His Uncle, like many other never survived Auschwitz.
He started studying Auschwitz a long time ago and looked extensively at its development. He took the Holocaust deniers argument that Auschwitz was never intended as an extermination camp literally and started looking around for evidence. The camp and city of Auschwitz was initially built not for this function, but for other things which I won't get into. However additions and renovations made turned it into a factory for killing.
"Do you need a permit to build a gas chamber in the German province of Upper Silesia? You do. I found it in the city archives. Here's a copy of it." Slide after slide after slide of images of original architectural diagrams taken from the city archives and from the archives of the offices of the architects who designed the gas chambers and crematory complex. Above is one of them.[#9/10 is the gas chamber - #1 is the five crematory ovens].
Looking at various versions and refinements of designs on the slides, van Pelt discussed a certain doorway[between #9 & #7 in the picture]: "Doors in the basement. A set of double doors opening into what was originally designed as a morgue. Nothing special." *next slide* "Here the doorway is intentionally reversed. It opens outwards. Why make such a minor change in a drawing as this. But if you know you are gassing people in the room the inclination of the dead is to run for the door. And there, by the door, they will die. You won't be able to get in. *next slide* [showing a close up of a different drawing of the same doorway - the erased original opening is barely visible] "You can't open the doors if 40 corpses are piled in front of them. So the doors open outwards." *next slide* "Here they have designed a new door. A single hinge, steel door with a small viewing portal. Here's the original receipt for the door they bought for the chamber. Here is the technical drawing of the door from the manufacturer. Why the hell would you buy a door for a morgue that is heavy steel with rubber gaskets around it and a viewing portal? Especially when drawings show a simple double door would have sufficed."
More slides. More drawings of what architecture is capable of. Designing efficient death. Architecture has a way of controlling people. How they travel through a space, how they function in a building. How a building can be catered to them. But thinking, "someone had to actually design this thing" is a horrible thought. Someone spent months pouring over details like this door making sure it was 'perfect'.

The learning curve

Yes it is starting to set in. I think I might know what I'm doing here. It's finally starting to resemble architecture. Finally.
A few weeks back letters were sent out to inform students of a potential low grade at the end of the year. Since this is a masters program grades aren't really given out at regular intervals since the 'right answer' no longer exists. There were two versions of the letter. They became dubbed as 'spicy' and 'mild'. The mild was simply a way of saying "pick it up a notch", and the spicy was a way of saying "this architecture thing might not be for you". I managed to dodge these depressing letters luckily and forage on ahead.
My latest project, based on the 16" tall felt blob pictured last post, is starting to take shape. I'm basing my ideas on a cross section I drew which I've shown above. Ready? Here goes...The interpenetration of the outer skin and how it can weave it's way into various roles: outer skin, inner skin, and structure. Imagine an internal wall that separates you from the clown next door that goes through the perceived outer shell of the building and becomes a part of the outer shell itself. Wait. That sentence barely makes any sense. How about this: Inner walls become outer walls for the next rooms, floors bend and become walls in adjacent rooms. Still Following? It'll be a total beast to construct immaculately for the final presentation in just over 3 weeks, but hopefully rewarding. My bank account awaits the strain of another project! At least I have recently acquired some 'new' tools for the job.

688 Queen Street West.

So, that felt blob I was telling you about? Well It was given a site the other day and this is it. 11 Ft of beautiful Queen Street West frontage and forming an L shape around the TD bank. We have to adapt the schematic ideas as laid out in our felt model, with special attention to the way connections/transitions were made and squeeze them into the site. We can't overhang the bank like this beauty going on downtown, but we can go below grade which is nice. So after building a 1:100 site model [read a 1/1ooth scale 3D rough construction out of mat board of the adjacent buildings] I have to come up with a system for my building to work in this site. There's a house in the back [the red thing through the trees] but we don't have to worry too much about zoning issues just yet; we just can't go any higher than the buildings on the street [ 3 floors]. Oh, and the studio supervisor told us the workload experienced thus far was "just a warm up" to what we are about to experience in the next few weeks.

A typical sight....

As promised last post PICTURES!!! Although this is not my space -thanks for making me so neat mom!- it is a common sight lately as the workload gets ever larger and more demanding. The grey floating blobs are some of the felt projects under construction/contemplation [we have to display them hanging due to the lack of a gravitational force].

Taking a Number

In light of recent events it seems like my system of 'doing it all on my own' has failed me miserably. Whoops. For those who have been caught up in this mess I must apologize for there is no excuse except for my vaulting stubbornness towards rebelling against a lifetime of being the baby in the family and a personal inability to ask for help. Growing up with a father and three mothers is never an ideal situation for someone like me to be in but hey - that's what I've got.
Work is coming along well. We have this crazy felt project which asks us to explore the relationships between a specific set of criteria with regards to a potentially inhabitable structure. We get to completely ignore the basic rules of practicality, feasibility, scale, and even gravity in the initial stages of this project which will eventually round out my studio time this semester. My initial conceptual model is done and pictures of the project and the studio space will be forth coming [AT LAST] in the next few days.
On another note I have managed to avoid the flu which seems to have descended on the studio - my studio instructor Annette is the hardest hit so far as she sneezes and sniffles her way through the day [As if I needed another excuse to try to avoid her] but it has made her more pleasant to be around as she doesn't seem to be as corrosive in her criticism of my work. I had considered the fact that my work had improved lately, but according to my classmates she seems to be warmer overall.

The End. The Beginning.

Well. Lets begin with something that nearly killed all of us in the studio. The Proun. Well - its done and was critiqued all day last Monday. 20 or so people stayed up all night Sunday to get it all done after they dumped a little extra work on top of our insurmountable chaos. Four full scale [read poster size] drawings in pen and ink, one essay abstract, one research paper taking up some mental space although not actually due, and yes.....one immaculately constructed Proun. Some Prouns were 10-12 feet high - some were made out of 200 kilos of concrete, some cost students over 350 dollars just in materials.
Needless to say there were more than a few bleary eyed students resembling something out of a zombie movie on Monday; and also explains where I have been for almost two weeks.
One of my best friends was lucky enough to experience the hell that was the week prior to the due date. I really only got to hang out with him for a single day, the day he arrived, and he was pretty much on his own after that. He came all this way to check out Toronto and hang out with me and instead I worked 20 hour days the entire time he was here.
So what exactly have I been up to for a week since then you might ask? Well I slept for most of Tuesday after we all found out that History class was cancelled. Thankfully they sent out e-mails at 10:56am informing us of the cancellation for a class which started at 11:00. I think my dead-pan response was something along the lines of "Fuck you that is not funny" when Lisa told me. Other student reactions were quite similar in language and tone as we loitered in the lobby as a group not really too sure as to what to do with ourselves and our newly acquired 'free day'.
We were handed out an actual building for a project [AT LAST!!!] which involves Basswood and 3/8" industrial felt. I'll give details later but it looks like , dare I say, fun.

A Minor Defeat

I really hate it when you look at three and a half weeks of work and it looks like something you did in grade 8 shop class. I hate this conceptual crap. The Proun project quickly descended from something interesting to something I loathed in a very short period of time. I know I'm going to get ripped apart for it.... It's an embarrassing display of my 'skills and talents'.

There's no point getting all freaked out about it though. It's almost done. It's due tomorrow. And in 36 hours I'll never have to look at it again - and that makes me happy.

"I just want to design a building!!"

Flipping the Bird

There's something moderately pleasing about blowing off your supervisor who simply can't say anything positive and to bury oneself in work they can't figure out. She looks at it and can't say much - which means she's buried in thought - and then furrows her eyebrow while she criticizes any possible detail. But she's just doing her job, which is to push us as far as we can go before we crack. My Proun project is developing well albeit a little late in comparison to others. I could really use another week but that's life and that's fine with me.

The time mapping of the shoe went well. It was handed in this morning along with a time mapping of the TTC subway platform at Yonge and Bloor. For the subway I chose to track air pressure through the tunnel, the platform, and out the blast shafts which vent out onto the street. Everyone seemed to like this project the most so far and I wish I could have given it another full day to take it that much further.

I hope to get on the bike tomorrow and pound out some miles before it's too cold to go outside.

The Mood in the Room

It's like a bomb exploded in the studio in the past few days - both literally and metaphorically. Metaphorically because the workload has tripled in a few days and things are due all at once. Literary because the studio is a total disaster as a major construction project has forced us to use any available space as a construction and assembly area. The dust is thick and patience is thin, very thin. The level of stress is unbelievable, and even some of our professors are rescheduling things to lighten the load on all of us [one of my exams was delayed 2 weeks]. Back to work....

Last Man Standing

For the second time in three days I am the last one in the studio. There is one second year and that's it. Everyone else has bugged out and gone home. I guess this means I'm in for the long haul?

Time is Money

Professor: "Hey you! The bleary eyed skinny one over there! Yes, you. Want something else to do"
Me: "That's not even close to being funny."
Professor: "Great! Go stand at the Yonge and Bloor subway station interchange platform and track something over time over a period of six hours. Then precisely draw it orthographicly on museum board. It'll be due in a week."
Me: "I thought the project you were handing out was supposed to be an in class assignment, due at the end of the day."
Professor: "Yeah that changed."

I'm so busy it scares me. When they say stand on the subway platform and track something they forget about the numbers. Don't worry it's only 360,000 people a day going through there.

Time is money, and right now I'd pay anything to have more time.



and I have neither.....

Quiet Turkey

I awoke and sauntered over to the studio this morning. The weather has finally turned and before I left I happily dug out my scarves and gloves from storage and replaced them with my thin summer clothes. There was practically no one around and it took me a moment to realize that it is Thanksgiving today. It started to pick up once I got near the campus but only just. I decided to abuse the elevator to whisk me up to the top floor of the building where my studio space is located. After I unlocked the door I poked around the floor to say hello to my friends. Alas I was the only one on the floor except for two thesis students and one second year student. It is a holiday today but it was quieter than I would have guessed - no matter I just sat down and started working on rough models of my Proun and made myself some tea [in my Bodum teapot which has been getting a serious workout lately] now that the weather has cooled off. A quiet Thanksgiving so far, but at least I'm finally making progress and getting stuff done.

Affirmation

The other day I had the luck of attending a lecture given by Farshid Moussavi of Foreign Office Architects. In a blaze of 188 slides in just over 60 minutes she explored projects and recurring themes in her work post the Yokohama Ferry Terminal complex, for which her firm gained international fame. Her approach and analytical style leads to an architecture which does not have a direct link to aesthetics but to other factors such as location, environment, function etc...[Almost functional aesthetics - it's pretty and it also channels the rain water a specific way to a water filtration system and is in turn used in the water fountains in the building for example.] The diagrams and schematics she showed of her work was an amazing insight into a firm which does almost obsessive compulsive research into the project and it's possibilities. The result was an affirmation for me of what am I doing here and her lecture gave me fresh inspiration to continue exactly when I needed it.

The Other Project

We have another side project [not to mention various papers and such] which involves an athletic shoe. We are to subject the shoe to a natural or unnatural force and track the changes in shape the shoe undergoes through time via studies of cross-sections. Imagine a time-lapse photograph showing movement through time. Now focus just on the shoe. Now immaculately draw it to scale using rulers with no tracing of photocopies or any freehand drawing. Think about this. Look at your shoe. Not exactly a bevy of straight lines are there? You have six days.
Have I started? Well I found a pair of shoes on the street the other day, but have yet to make a dent in the project thus far. Well I did cut them into sections on the Ban Saw in the shop yesterday afternoon - the overpowering stench of burning rubber, which managed to overtake most of the building, from the shoes some of my peers were cutting was almost comical.

The One True Thing

Reduce. Reduce. Reduce. Reduce. Reduce it down to the one true thing that it is. Cut away all the fat and tighten it up. For this Proun to be successful the idea behind it has to be reduced to it's base elements. I have to clean it up, make it work. It's too much of jumble right now to make any sense to anyone.
What's that one thing that will meld it all together?
I have no idea.
But this is what I need to do.

"Wax on wax off" OR What exactly am I doing here?

That seems to be the question bogging down my mind as of late. This whole Proun thing has gotten out of hand so quickly I'm at a loss as to what to do [well almost]. I get this feeling that we should try to create something challenging and structurally beautiful. Yet when I get a great idea and try to capitalize on it my supervisor tells me it's too much. It's "the cart before the horse" as she said. Yet on the last project I wasn't challenging enough and was criticized for being too simple and obvious. I am definitely unsatisfied with my work to date and am feeling a little lost. There's not much in the 'teaching department' going on and I'm wondering exactly what the point of this school is. When do I learn something that is obviously relevant to my job as an architect? What is the point of this studio environment, a class that is deemed the most important aspect of the schooling process, when no one is teaching. I'm only getting at best [and usually less] 20 minutes of face time with my professor a week, and I'm expected to achieve so much in that time with little help, encouragement or supervision.
The rationality in my brain is still sitting in behind of all this confusion and despair quietly going "there has to be a point to all of this!". I'm still waiting for my moment like in the movie Karate Kid when all of Daniels ridiculous labor around Mr.Myagi's house makes sense in his training. I'm waiting for that moment when it all comes together. I need that moment. I'm going crazy here.
They haven't broken me down yet, but they have taken a serious bite out of me. I won't let them get the better of me though.

NEXT!!!!

Well after a blustery two weeks our first project is done. I didn't like the project and neither did most if not all of the class. However this next one is a doozy.
Alright everyone brush up on your Russian Art History. Back in the 20's and 30's several Russian artists started breaking down art into pure basic elements: line, color, plane, etc. They were looking for a new art - one that wasn't tied down to political ideologies, and nationalism [remember this is post World War and Russian Revolution where these two things were felt to be a key instigator in the death and destruction across Europe] One of these artists, El Lissitzky , came up with what he called a PROUN. It's an anagram from the Russian for "Project for the Affirmation of the New".
Any way......now that you are all caught up courtesy of the link to the Guggenheim above.... we are to analyze a specific Proun and build one based on experiments with possibilities conducted over the next few weeks. Now it's nearly impossible to build one of these due to the optic tricks involved - and to make our job more complex we have to make it move [without hinges, motors or any other commercially available tool].
When it comes to projects.......this is more like it.

The Other Day

I received a phone call the other day from a friend in Vancouver whom I haven't spoken to since I left almost a month earlier. I've been swarmed with work and have spent every waking hour in the studio. And when I get home all I do us unpack a box or two and fall asleep on the couch under the weight of my history textbook. For all of you I apologise. I don't even have a land line phone yet....
I honestly think they are trying to kill me with work.

Dropping like flies

The first victim appears to have succumbed to the workload and pressure and has decided to bail out of the program. Just reminds me of how some people are simply capable of doing this kind of work and others are not. I don't think architects are smarter than other people, their brains are just wired differently: we are in the grey area between artists and engineers - left brain and right brain.
I'm sure he won't be the first to drop out. It has been publicly stated by several professors that their goal is to "weed out" those that can't keep up. It feels like some sort of military exercise where the drill sergeant won't let up until at least one drops out - but in this case I think they want to get rid of 5 or 6.
On another note I'm looking forward to the lecture by Fumihiko Maki on the 22nd as part of the Aga Kahn Lecture Series.
And on the moving in front I managed to locate my kitchen amongst all of the boxes and even managed to make a meal for myself. However I couldn't find any cutlery in the boxes I had opened so far and was forced to eat spaghetti with chopsticks.

My new home

Yes I'm in my house at last. It only took a month for my stuff to get here and minus a few wine glasses which didn't quite make it - I'm finally in. It is becoming quite clear to me in the last few days that I have another address which I will be spending most of my time: 230 College Street. It seems like [and after the first week has proven to be so] we are expected to be in the studio 12-14 hours a day 7 days a week. Yahoo. Therefore spending lots of time beautifying my home has made me realize that it is now an overpriced storage facility.
I've been very busy working on a solar-exposure project with very strict rules and photosensitive paper. It wouldn't be so bad if the sun didn't threaten to hide on the days when I need to expose my projet to the sun. It has been going well so far but I am desperately behind. I'll post photos when I have them and give a better description of the project when I have time.
The students are nice and it seems like we are our own little entity on campus forming a tight community within the walls of the building. Everyone is friendly and teaming together to get through the massive and neverending workload.

Toronto!

Yes I'm here at last. I've been spending the past several days in the summer workshop offered to students who have either not drafted ever or have not done it in so long that they need a refresher course [I fit into the latter].
I'm still a little overwhelmed by my surroundings but am relieved to have found myself earlier tonight sitting at a pub with the director of my department talking about Eisenman's aesthetic goals over pints of strange and unknown east-coast label beer. Yes I do believe I am at home.
I'm loving it tremendously and am more sure now than I was when I applied that this school is absolutely the right choice for me. The new director, An Te Liu, is a young and vibrant individual whose soul purpose seems to be to shake things up and put the school on the cutting edge of design in Canada. I just seem to have gotten in before the word has gotten out. The possibilities seem limitless and the freedom to explore my ideas seems more than just a given.

Blah blah blah. I love it. It's perfect. I'm beaming.

"Protect Me From What I Want"

Somebody the other day was asking about U of T and what the ultimate goal for me was. I thought about it for a second and said "I want to have my fingers in all the pies". They laughed and assumed I wanted to just be a big famous architect. I knew at the time this was what they thought and I didn't bother to correct them. I do feel that I should explain to all of those that are curious as to what my goals really are. I want to be able to do everything that I want. It's that simple. There are certain designers and companies working internationally like Phillipe Starck, LOT/EK, Tobias Wong [the coolest], and Shigeru Ban that I look up to and admire. They're all totally different and are doing some of the coolest stuff out there.
I guess I just don't want to be limited. I want to design teapots and chairs and light fixtures and houses for the super rich and public buildings and art works and social housing for the third world and...... everything. So everyone, that is the goal.

Renter's World

As I sit with fantasies of buildings in my head I'm reminded that many of us simply cannot experience good architecture intimately. Many of us either cannot afford it or live lives that are simply too transitory to warrant an investment on this scale. Some of us are lucky to even have a place to call our own. And some of us live will live in this architectural marvel to the left, being held up by the brick super-buildings next door.
I'm constantly reminded of the fact that the experience of great architecture and amazing design is no where near prevalent enough in the world. And that sucks. I guess I'll just have to change that.

The Order of Ducks

Yes they are in order so to speak. Accepted to school -done. Find an apartment -done. Moving company to get my stuff there-done. Student Loan -done[as much as I can]. School supplies -done. House Insurance -done. Yes I'm bragging now but with all the stuff I've had to do lately I'm feeling pretty good about all the things crossed out on my four page list. Yes, they're lined up like dominoes. Even the Tour de France is done, thank god because I need the sleep. I'm organized, ready and prepared. Of course that means that I must have forgotten something.

A Fine Find

So in my blogging madness that has taken over the last few days, I stumbled across the Archinect supported student blog program and my chosen school, Uof T, had one listed. Personally I was worried the school would be too analytical and theory based, both important aspects of architecture but a little scary when I got in on the merits of an artistic portfolio and not so much on my math grades. As I searched around through the archives it seems the school is much more art based than I had thought it would be.
This was a major relief to me and put a smile on my face for days. It also prompted a stirring of the creative juices which have been stagnant recently due to my hectic work schedule. But that smile has faded due to a family tradition of endless thought and contemplation on a specific subject. Often this thinking takes place in the background when I'm at work or on the bus. It is especially bad when I wake up early in the morning and my brain 'turns on' and I cannot go back to bed.
This has been the norm lately as I think about school. Will I like my professors? What will the other students be like? Will I even like Toronto? et cetera.
Most of these thoughts are on the negative side since the time for rejoicing has past and the time for serious hard work is fast approaching. Now don't get me wrong, I am still ridiculously happy to be doing this, I guess I just know where I want to end up after school and I'm hoping this school will give me the tools to get me there.

It Begins...

Well, It's started. My exodus from the west is near. I recently recieved official letters indicating that I was registered in the Master of Architecture program at the University of Toronto, and had not botched things up by failing to meet all of the requirements.
So after what has been a whirlwind 18 months I'm trying not to turn into a giddy school boy even though that is exactly what is bubbling under the surface. I'm stupid with excitement, and only really lame words like glee, giddy [already used] and gay[the old kind], seem to be available. I'm at a loss for good vocabularly- yet adjectives starting with 'g' seem to be dripping from my lips.
So I am wading waist deep in the steps which have to be taken to actually get myself across Canada, and ready for school. Thankfully one of my best friends has found a diamond in the rough for me in the form of a sweet one-bedroom apartment just minutes from school. I just got the photos yesterday and it looks like I have a great home waiting for me in the annex [whatever that is].
Yes I'm entering the land of one way flights and last time checkups at the optometrist and dentist. I'm off to Toronto and I couldn't be happier.

PS. Thanks to my brother Mike Beltzner and his invaluable help in getting this blog off the ground.