Nice…

This is a quick one because I found someone already working on a project like the one I wrote about in my last post

archiCULTURE Film Banner

I am very exited.

A new direction for my blog

I recently came to grips with the fact that I am truly the happiest when I am working on a problem.  As an Architect you are assigned a task to create plans for a building. This task is immense.  For one person to do it alone and without a flaw, is almost impossible.  The whole profession is almost an impossible task to be a part of.  The truth is, that the statistics are weighted against all aspiring architects.

This is where I come in. If you read my essay, Survival Through Design (I stole the title from Richard Nuetra’s book), you see that I have had a long hard struggle in this profession.  I have continually blocked myself from the successful accomplishment of my degree and in turn, my ascension into this great career. It started from the beginning, when I excelled at design and learned to love the abstract conceptual artistry of the early Architectural Process.  When I came to the realization that most people in the profession rarely get to experience the conceptual beginning –designing-, I convinced myself that, that, was unattainable to me.  I was not good enough to stand out from the rest and work in that small percentile of people that actually get to design.  That was the main source of angst that I had throughout my years at Cal Poly Pomona. I unconsciously thought, what is the point of being here, if I won’t get to do what I love?

As they say, hind sight is 20/20.  I now see the error of my ways. I don’t regret all those years that I went through my depression.  I was able to learn so much and experience a different kind of education.  I always knew like most people say “you really have to love architecture to make it through till the end.” I somehow knew that I would one day learn to appreciate every aspect of my chosen profession.  And here I am, all these years later writing about this.

I am blogging about this, so that I may help someone that might be going through similar struggles.

I just recently realized that this is exactly what I want and I am done getting in my own way!  I love the early conceptual stages, but I also know that being a designer is not all that makes a well rounded Architect.  I have now learned to appreciate all aspects of my profession even the dreaded drafting and red lines, without which, we might never perfect our immense task of planning buildings.

OMG!

This is a great inspirational video for anyone interested in architecture.  It also talks about sustainability.

http://www.ted.com/talks/bjarke_ingels_3_warp_speed_architecture_tales.html

Decision Trees

As I have gone through life, I have always examined the decisions I have made that have left me in a negative situation. I go over them in my head, scrutinizing everyone and seeing what different paths I could have, or would have taken. I think we all do this, in one way, or another, as a kind of learning process. I just realized that the when everything works out and I am the happiest with the outcome of a long set of decisions, it is mostly when I am completely following my instinct, my gut, my heart, or whatever you want to call it.

Don’t get me wrong, I have gotten stuck due to lack of knowledge, but the things that has stopped me from following my instinct the most, are my insecurities. I am done with that. I know what I am capable of and I know that if I don’t have a skill and I really need it, or want it, all I have to do is take a class, or read and practice said skill and I will go back to following my heart. It is not that easy to know what to do in every situation, but if you follow your first gut feeling, you will end up in a good spot. If you are wrong then you need to work on analyzing that decision, so that won’t happen again. Usually if your gut leads you down the wrong path, then that usually means that you need to learn something. I go back home and analyze the F— out of it! Then, I research on that stuff and learn what to do if I am ever in a similar situation again.

If you think about your decisions as a natural progression, it might look like a bunch of branches. Eventually you have a tree. I know that the decisions that I have made for certain parts of my life have left me with some pretty ugly looking trees. I am currently in the process of fixing those dudes. Like my eating habits. That tree is literally looking better and better as of late. My architecture tree has now been replanted because it was really dying already. I am happy that I am now fixing all my trees, so that eventually, I could have a full forest of wonderful looking healthy trees.

I am back

This is the first of many more blogs.
Working and being unemployed are both hard. When you are working, you are stressed out about deadlines, bosses and clients. When you are unemployed, you are worried about job leads and bills pilling up. What is funny is that the bills pile up even while you are working. Lately, I have been keeping myself busy working on projects. I need to focus on my portfolio more; that is for sure. I have also been traveling a bit because for some reason, while I am working, I find it hard to plan a vacation amidst all the madness.
Tim Ferris said in an interview that “if people don’t believe the messenger, it does not matter how good the message is.” I found this interesting because I had been thinking about art for some time. I was listening to the new No Reform mixed tracks and I thought this is good stuff. It took me back to my problems in Architecture school. I remembered when I would get “stuck.” This is what I would paralyze myself with:
What is the next move?

Do I even have it in me?

What if I do it and it is crap?

I need to learn form Z better so that my stuff could look better.

Never did I just smoothly crank out shit! It was always stopped with a barrage of second guessing myself. Now fast forward to today and listening to the No Reform tracks I thought man these are good, people will like them. I told Maria and she said, they do sound good, but there is a lot of good music that no one ever listens to.
That is true. I am certain that there is tons of art, music, poetry, that is good, but no one ever sees, hears, or reads. That is what I think people must get over in order to create. In order to create one must stop second guessing themselves. I am sure any artist will tell you this. I have heard some musicians say that they write music for themselves. I think that is passion. If no one ever listens to it, it must not matter.

So back to good old Tim Ferris, the truth is, if you don’t believe in yourself as a messenger, then you will never let yourself create anything of value. In turn, no one will believe in you as a messenger!

keeping proactivities

After the last post my company layed-off 10% of the people.  guess who was in that 10% percent…? that’s right yours truly and now the challenge continues.  I am very happy that this happened to me now that I have been pushing to move mountains because I have the momentum, right now, to just add this to the pile!

write, sketch- sketch, write, write.

Spending the whole day at the beach is the most amazing thing.   I went with my wife and Family, and it was great.  It just makes me think about everything with a different perspective.  Nature and all that.  so the fireworks were nice but the waves were much better.

I had to visit the doctor two weeks ago and I found out that my health was really crappy.  I had already cut the crap out of my daily intake and started to exersise.  To little, to late. Now, I have to do that along with cutting out the alcohol. It was good that i went to get checked out cause that makes me conscious of what harm i caused my body with all the fast food and drinking.

so i hope all of you learn from me and cut out the crap before you realize … to little. to late.

mobile entry 2 (grammar)

thoughts (2)

planning is never perfect. there are always outside occurrences that stop you from accomplishing your task on time; for instance, family and friends, their  plans, or their problems. One is put in a position where one has to make a choice. Finish our task at hand or push it of for a later date. this is where priorities come in. what are your priorities?  if our priorities are well defined then these choices are not hard to make and we never regret not finishing our task at hand.

insert: to complete this thought, I was thinking that if our priorities are well defined to ourselves then others will have no problem excusing us when we cannot come to there aid. they will do their best not to disturb us on our mission.

first mobile entry (sorry about the grammar)

thoughts Feb. 5, 2008

 

i need to finish di work tonight! i really think i could do a whole lot.

 

last night when i was starting i felt a flashback to when I was in school. that lack of focus and discipline.

 

The same feelings of oh well maybe tomorrow ill work on it.

i keep telling my mom to change her enabling and have more strength to push her kids to do the right thing.

i really think i should practice what I preach (not enabling, but having the strength to push myself) . in a way that talk was for me.

It is Tuesday now and i turned in half of that project. i was feeling like shit for not finishing or for not starting on time, but this time i kept it going, i said i better show that i did do something or else i am in the same boat that i was in. It is still a bad situation to be in but now i see that i do have to change my evil ways i have let down so many friends. i didn’t want Englebert going down in flames like ed green, Ozzy, Hildy, and last, but not least, Edgar. all in chronological order. i think the biggest person i have let down is myself. i need to change that. i cannot continue along that path any longer.

Engelbert is the man. he took it upon himself to help me finish. he did not have to do that. i think that because i actually put forth the effort into almost finishing then that is why he was able to help me. i actually was able to let him help me without guilt or shame and that is something that i needed in school to put forth the effort so that i could allow myself to be helped by the teachers and my peers. my heart was in the right place but my actions screwed everything up.

 

i am dead tired.

pre-post post

Okay. I have not posted in a while. There has been a lot going on in my life that I need to share.  I got a T-mobile Dash. A smart phone. finally! I have been wanting a smart phone with a mini keyboard for some time now. They are so cheap now that Maira and me could finally afford it. Plus she lost her phone which was already busted. 

I don’t know why I feel like I have to justify my purchase.  Its probably the debt that keeps me from making purchases without guilt.

So back to the point. I have been using it to the fullest with the Calender and Outlook tasks.  I made a discovery of the program One Note.  One note Mobile.  This program just makes it easy to write notes on your computer and now your smart phone its by Microsoft – part of Office. 

I started to use it to write my thoughts.  They are very personal, so I am always afraid to post them up here for everyone to see. After much thought, I am going to do it.  I will try to get to it tonight. i have to transfer the text to the computer.

I think that most of my future post will come from my phone so stay tuned.