i got a step closer to a manifesto on architecture this evening as i watched a lightening bug unable to fly yet still pulsing a second at at time in the grass until it stopped and eventually became too dark to discern from the adjacent twig or leaf. good architecture can only be described as a run-on sentence.
as i close in on this scarpa paper, let's not forget the simple pleasures in life like screwing around on aim. i'll be playing the part of mr. diesel.
Nutball123: I need girl advice MR Diesel
VinDiesel is xXx: yo, just make hit movies like chronicles of riddick
Nutball123: thanks vin
Nutball123: errr
Nutball123: I mean, Mr Diesel
VinDiesel is xXx: yo, that's right. keep it respectable.
Nutball123: thanks again your advice is book worthy
VinDiesel is xXx: yo, you're right. i should write the chronicles of riddick:the book.
VinDiesel is xXx: get some intellectual ass
Nutball123: i meant about your life
Nutball123: but i bet that would work
VinDiesel is xXx: yo, the chronicles of riddick is a true story
VinDiesel is xXx: VinDiesel is Riddick
Nutball123: i guess your right mr monkey head
the following presentation has been edited for time and content...
Nutball123: ice cube i have a question about the ladies
Ice Cube is xXx: sup sup sup?
Nutball123: when you were in jail for being a mass murderer did you fantasize about ladies, or did you just screw men
Ice Cube is xXx: i don't know what you talkin bout fool. have you seen my new family friendly movie, are we there yet?
Nutball123: why do you keep mentioning that one?
Nutball123: what about XXX?
Nutball123: i thought that was your new one, i hate your old ones
Nutball123: all but saving private ryan when you dressed up as a little girl and got rescued by Vin Diesel
Ice Cube is xXx: yo, just showin the ladies how i can blow up stuff, make them laugh, AND take care of the kids
Ice Cube is xXx: yo, that matt damon is pimp
Ice Cube is xXx: i'd take him in jail or not
Ice Cube is xXx: err, i mean
Ice Cube is xXx: i'd bust that monkey faced diesel up in a second
Nutball123: i think your gay
Nutball123: except when you play straight like in Three Kings
Ice Cube is xXx: yo, let's just say that it was all real in boogie nights
Nutball123: you weren't in boogie nights
Nutball123: thats marky mark
Ice Cube is xXx: yeah, but i saw his little king
Nutball123: so you are gay
Ice Cube is xXx: yo, have you seen my new family friendly movie, are we there yet?
Nutball123: way to change the subject you master of distraction you
once again, we caught the rat. and by "we" and "caught" i mean joanna and hale repeatedly smashed and bludgeoned the thing to death with the big street trash can until it screamed its last little rat scream and lay still as a ball of hair and rat fluid, packed in the brown paper bag from whence it came. sadly i wasn't here at the time or else i would have chipped in while vomiting at the horror of it all.
meanwhile, the cool front from this past weekend has continued on and i wake up every morning with a good chill and the sound of birds chirping "my ass is freezing." maybe i should close the window.
it's a good old fashioned custody dispute as simon and speck fight for visitation rights. this is my life now, and will be for the next two weeks. it's actually nice to know that as soon as i leave the goodsyard i've got lots of books with pretty pictures waiting for me at home, yet a diversion or four is in order for this weekend before i smell grindstone.
i'm not sure why i have issues with design. architecture right now is one of the few pleasures in my world that gets me excited and doesn't have a guilty aftertaste. just pick up the pencil and draw to force the world to make a bit more sense.
maybe the new sauna feature in our house will encourage me to go get more work done. or maybe the fact that we have a new rat who is smarter, braver, smaller, and thus more maneuverable .
if you're just joining us it's 4:19 in the a.m. and i'm wide awake. chalk this one up to tomorrow being the least busy tuesday on record, consisting of my new found unemployment and only one hour long class. luckily i'll get my schooling through chinese history lessons seeing as mom and dad are in town.
in just their few hours in austin so far, i've further realized i am my father's son. which other gene pool of xy chromosones would find out their aunt/great aunt had died of alzheimer's that day and make forgetful memory jokes that night to play it off? i didn't actually know the woman well but i imagine how marshall/marc should be feeling.
now on the brink of 4:30 and the subsequent morning i think i'll try some reading which will hopefully turn into "reading" which for those of you outside of the whitis house means sleeping. today i'll tell mom and dad something new.
i lost my job. for those of you out in tv land who can't keep up, i got this job back in january with james larue and i got a new job on tuesday with lf that starts in june. i wasn't necessarily expecting this gap of unemployment but i can't say i'm surprised.
in between missing redlines and repeatedly messing up copying documents, i sucked. yes, i was wanting to leave the job since day one, and maybe that reflected in my work, but that doesn't keep me from feeling like a guy who just got fired. am i automatically going to stop sucking in san antonio?
good news is jim said i always showed up on time, dressed well, and had a nice haircut. maybe my good interview skills and friendly good mornings got me this far, but this far gets you fired. my supposed charm is mere eye candy where i need to be serving up the eye meat.
today ended up being the new beginning i needed after all.
typing that title, in all its infinite wit, made me realize that tomorrow i will be old. halfway between teeball practice and social security checks. maybe not that old but enough to feel i belong to a new demographic group. goodbye mtv, hello biography channel.
furthermore tomorrow i get to play grown up and have a job interview in san antonio. it's not that i'm not capable of having a full time job and living alone (though i return to normalcy in january) but i just don't think i'm fully equipped enough to be a full time adult. i'm a few edge pieces short of puzzle. and they're all sky pieces which quite frankly are the hardest to figure out.
so in conclusion i'd be content with coke floats at the rainbow roller rink. come to my party or i'll cry.
i'm currently pouring over the bus maps of london, trying to make sense of this city that i spent last week in. if ever there was a city to be deemed organic, this winding maze of tubes and double deckers seems to get it right. now begins the five week process of being the little architect in the big city, simultaneously detailing glass facades and fixing socioeconomic injustice. i hope i get a good grade!
it took a trip to midnight rodeo and a good dose of sleep last night to reamericanize and get my schedule back on. after the dead week before spring break, spring break, and globetrotting week, getting back on to just a normal school/work schedule seems hard enough. back to reading, cleaning, CADing, no napping, and emailing london and paris.
it's been about a week though it's blended all together. hard to summarize it all so far but i wanted to make a short appearance before the last couple days.
i'm quite a fan of the undergound despite jessica's protests...i've spent a bit of money and will thus have to survive on pb&j for the rest of the semester...i've spent way too much time watching tv yet it's nice to just hang out in a flat...a girl named kate came from paris and i think i have a good new friend.
i'll see you in america.
spring break 2005 will go down as a mixed success. lists were checked off, video games vegging out happened, home towns were visited, and multiple lakes were ridden upon with various kinds of boats. now i'm getting ready for this thing called london.
i leave for london on tuesday so i'm getting a much underserved 2 and a half week break. maybe i should have gotten a head a bit more for my classes i'm missing but hey, i'm going to london.
hey, i'm going to london!
another weekend, another blur of cold morning rain and LIFE CHANGING decisions. despite my last second optimism and can do attitude I am not going to have the dream job in seattle this summerfall. anyway, who said it was a dream job and working in san fransisco would be a bad thing?
i went into yesterday knowing i had to just make it thorugh the next 24 hours and dj abortion and dj pretty's 24 hour marathon helped me along the way to the point where review went quite well and the weather became beautiful. spring is on the verge. yes i see the buds on trees right now and a blue bonnet was spotted the other day so let's enjoy this season and screw the next. afterall i get london and everything that goes with that in just sixteen days.
my phone beeps.
i fell off my bike again. we have fifth room mate named benito IV. he is a rat. i've chosen seattle.
the midlife crisis continues as i have taken in the idea that i might spend next june through december working in a firm far, far from austin. the application, portfolio, and possible firm/city decision are due monday so here goes, as we enter the weekend.
hey marc, what are you gonna do with your life?
whatever i feel like, gosh!
apparently others are going through the same such decisions.
i'm at another one of those crossroads where the future of my life and possibly the world is at stake.
how very dramatic, eh? see the problem is, i went to a lecture today by local architect chris krager and seeing his work made me realize how much more i want from architecture than the traditional life story that could very easily become my life story. (that being design tuscan villas...graduate from college so i can design tuscan villas with a degree...become principle architect in america's leading tuscan villa firm). and not only is this guy chris progressing architecture in terms of materials and thought but he seems to be doing pretty well for himself. what seems to have set him apart and actually led to his success is that he takes chances.
i realize that i'm not doing residency and that doing so would have been a great experience and catalyst for everything but now i have to make the most of it. here's the plan. (design tuscan villas through the end of may...at that point i will have acquired a job in austin for the summer that actually excites me...graduate and will be that point have a acquired an even more exciting job in portland, oregon which requires weekly trips to vancouver...go to grad school in the most exciting city ever (wherever that might be) only to later get a job in a city that makes any thoughts of the previously stated exciting cities seem silly and mundane...become principle architect of the most exciting firm ever...in a city of my own creation.)
i think for most people at this point, they've come across a certain someone or something that will guide such decisions but i'm going on this one free of restrictions and am thus suffocated by the range of options.
who ever said i didn't have a life plan?
now three weeks into my job i can say i'm happy to have finally joined the ranks of the educated/employed. James La Rue and his architects are a strange group of people that create neighborhoodfuls of big houses, many of the big houses that i could care less for and on another level want to see an end to.
so why, marc, are you helping such creations come about through the art of detailing broom closets? well there's money. i'm tired of living off my parents and their endowing of a little trip to Italy was very generous so this is a way to say thanks. secondly, i'm actually getting experience that could help me get cooler jobs along the way that i feel passionate about.
then there are times when i wonder if maybe Jim and his houses aren't the end of our architectural world as we know it. i appreciate his layed back attitude, his care for details, and that he is obviously passionate about his work. so maybe i've got something to learn from him and all his arcaded porches, and maybe i'm just holding my breath until i get a raise.
did i ever mention i might want to move to oregon?
seeing everyone from high school is quite surreal. makes you realize that you spent more years of your life with them than anyone from college and the fact that those years ranged from childhood to age 18 means a lot. the slide show before the wedding made me miss those days and wish i could go back and do it again. not so much to change my adolescence but to just experience it again and appreciate it that much more.
then again, maybe we have all gone on our seperate paths now and have little in common. do we just all say goodbye once and for all. personally i look forward to more of these weddings a another year down the road where we can retell the same stories just the like the day after the stories originally happened. are you following me?
it's late saturday night in the world of conroe so i think i'll head to my familiar old room and familiar old bed. goodnight.
so apparently people read this. i started this thing to keep track of italy but it seems austin, texas is just as exciting.
i've always been a pretty organized person but keeping a calendar never seemed that important. looking back that was because i didn't have that much to schedule. sure, studio has always kept me busy but a constant white bar of studio 1-6 MWF would look pretty lame in microsoft outlook. let's take a look at his week: dinner with katie, chinese new year night one, meet design group, SOM lecturer in town, chinese new year ngiht two, marketing research study, mr. belding in town, design review, faculty-student mixer, and christina murdock's wedding back in conroe. is it lame to brag about all the stuff you do? well half of the stuff may be lame but at least i'm not bored.
speaking of lame and boring, this entry is lame and boring. sending/receiving emails from paris and london on a daily basis is fun enough.
Feast your eyes on my shiny new blue schwinn. It's wicked awesome. After me and the guys go bike riding, we're gonna go play stick ball then head down to the shake n' fries.
the shear volume of pretty girls here at the univerity of texas at austin is amazing. i kid you not. i've traveled the world and have seen exotic beauties but maybe just a good ol' texas girl is all you need. if that's the case, then why are they so elusive. there's always the chance that i've been too picky all my life.
let's run with this cause i do in fact have high standards for what i expect of people. is it too much to ask that people not base their life around alcohol or getting laid? to a certain extent i grew up with old fashioned idea that girls (i expect the same values for guys) weren't sluts. it's easy for me to judge from the outside looking in, but i personally know it makes more sense when you step away. so come on everyone, let's hold out for someone a little bit better than joe and suzy beerbong and until then keep it in your pants?
you'll respect yourself in the morning.
