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I got super duper promoted at work. The experience that I will gain from this new position is invaluable and it directly relates to the kind of work I want to do for the rest of my life. I would be a fool to pass on the offer. All of that being said, I feel a little weird about not applying to grad school this Winter. I’ve put so much thought into doing the process right and building my portfolio. And that work isn’t lost, it’s just on hold while I work on sustainable transportation issues in the city.
So, now that I have my sweet promotion and am no longer working 50+ hours a week, I am taking a vacation! Patrick and I are taking the Metra to Harvard and then riding our bikes to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We have a cabin by the lake reserved for the weekend. Glory be.
Wow! UIC has an activist architecture concentration.
“The Activist Practice concentration provides students with the opportunity to make linkages among theory, practice, and social interests, while providing design assistance to Chicago area communities. Students in the Activist Practice concentration will study and engage in architectural research and practices that confront the status quo in support of social justice.”
They must have been reading my mind.
The whole point of this blog is to keep my various projects focused. Here’s the next big project: Applying to Grad School! It’s a project that has been going on for some time, since I’ve been taking art classes to prepare my portfolio. For the next few months I will put most of my project energy into the Grad school application process.
Now it’s time for me to seriously take the GRE. I took the GRE during my last year at New College, but I didn’t prepare for it except reading over how the test is organized and scored. I’m scheduled to take the GRE at the end of October. I’ve got a little over two months to prepare. No big deal, the GRE isn’t that important for M. Arch. applicants anyway. However, me being the compulsive over-achiever that I am, I want to rip the GRE a new one and this is my chance.
So that I can keep all of this straight, here are the schools I’m applying to, their deadlines and programs:
UIC Feb. 1st Master’s in Architecture- Green Urbanism
IIT Jan 15th Master’s in Landscape Architecture
UC Berkeley Jan. 5th Master’s in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning
SAIC Feb 1st Master’s in Architecture
MIT Dec. 15th Master’s in Architecture and Urbanism
RISD ? not yet posted Master’s in Landscape Architecture
Those last two are my dream schools, and the first three are my top choices. SAIC is kind of stuck in there just because it’s a good school and located in Chicago. UIC is definitely my #1 because I could get in-state tuition and it’s Architecture program is one of the best.
When October rolls around, I’m going to try to work less so that I can spend more time pulling my applications together. Whew. I can do this.
Thursday after work, a friend took me on the Bloomingdale trail. I’ve blogged about the trail before, and I’ve wanted to go on it for a very long time. It was more beautiful than I had imagined. We walked from Western to a few blocks past Damen. I randomly ran into a friend having a picnic with other people on the train tracks. This city feels so small sometimes. The tracks are mostly covered over with flowers and vines. Bombus and Apis abound! There must be hives up there. I hope that one day I will be involved in designing and building a similar project that transforms unused space into green space for biking and walking.
I saw Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (T.M.L.M.T.B.G.B) on Friday, a show that has been put on by the Neo-Futurists for almost twenty years. Patrick, Andrew and I all saw it for the first time and I can’t believe it took us 9 months to go see the show! We ran into Andrew’s friend from high school- small town, I’m telling you- who had also never seen the show. The premise is that they perform 30 plays in one hour with the order of the plays picked by the audience members. The audience is given a menu of play titles and corresponding numbers. When the performers say “curtain” to announce the end of a play, the audience yells out numbers and the performers jump up and grab whatever number they hear first.
Admittance to the show is $7 + the roll of a dye. Depending on your luck, you could pay anywhere from eight to thirteen dollars!
They do not adhere to the fourth wall, so they interact with the audience and respond to the audience in a very honest way. The shows on Friday and Saturday start at 11:30pm-making the play a very nice bar alternative. There aren’t many things going on in the later hours other than bars, parties, concerts and art shows (listen to me, I’m so spoiled after living in the city). Most free outdoor movies and concerts start by 8pm. If you live in Chicago and are looking for something fun to do on a Friday or Saturday, go see T.M.L.M.T.B.G.B. It’s worth the $8-$13.
On our way to dinner at Andies, I ran into my drawing teacher (again I randomly run into someone I know). He was coming from the Lights Out art show at Las Manos Gallery. We decided to go to the show after dinner. There were mobiles-excuse me, I mean “kinetic art”- lamps, paintings, and doll houses made into mounted wall lights.
After the art show and play, Patrick and I biked back home. I went over the Damen bridge for the first time. I had seen it from the Fullerton bus, and read about it in Chicago Architecture books, but I had never actually traveled over it before. The bridge was designed by J. Muller International, a firm that designs bridges and viaducts exclusively. The red steel beams illuminated at night make that bridge captivating- it’s modern and sleek compared to the nearby hot dog factory. The bridge marks the beginning of the real city- suddenly the loop skyscrapers are in front of you as you leave the north side neighborhoods. Bridges have been a metaphor for my life recently. I think about them a lot when I’m biking- pedal hard for 500 feet before the incline, downshift and continue to pedal fast up the bridge, enjoy 3 seconds of greatness, and then shift back to the hard gear and pedal with all your guts down the bridge. The key to biking fast up a bridge is to put the work in before you even hit the incline and use the momentum to climb the hill. Bridges in the city both divide and merge neighborhoods.
Each bridge is a transition point and an opportunity for success.
I had a phone interview today for a job that I would love to have. The guy asked me if I was hiding somewhere talking on the phone at my current job. I laughed. I told him that I was in a park by my office. He told me that they received over 100 applications and that mine made the first two cuts and that’s why he was calling me. At least my resume and inquiry letter stood out enough to make the first two cuts. Boy, the non-profit sector is fierce around here. He seemed genuinely impressed with my thesis and background. I forget that I’ve done quite a few things for someone my age. Interviews aren’t necessarily that difficult. You just have to say very precise things about yourself. I’m positive that I have all of the things they are looking for, but I am uncertain if my qualifications came across over the phone. What a tedious world we live in. At least there’s hope that I will get a job closer to my house. When I explain to people that I want a new job that is in a better location, people completely understand. Even if your job is totally awesome, a long commute can drain your energy. You gotta have a balance! He seemed pleased with my experiences, and asked me to send him a writing sample. I would be doing a significant amount of grant proposal writing for private foundations, so I’m going to write a “mock” grant proposal as a writing sample. I will know early next week if I made the cut to get a face to face interview. The process of getting a new job is so time consuming. I use my vacation time to go to interviews, and write cover letters during my lunch break. In the professional world, you can’t just walk in somewhere and say, “Are you hiring?”. You can, however, successfully call up a non-profit and say, “Can I volunteer for you?”. If the non-profit is well-organized and thoughtful, they will graciously accept your volunteer offer and that makes you just one degree closer to valuable experiences and interesting people.
My drawing teacher contacted me to tell me about a fund-raising job he knew of through a friend. Unfortunately, the job was in the ‘burbs, so I told him that I couldn’t do it. I was honored that he thought of me. Perhaps I am more “networked” than I thought. By the way, my drawing teacher has spectacular art.
Enough about jobs!
Here is a super Chicago green roof map. This website was created by a faculty member of the Architecture Grad program at SAIC.
We ate at Think, an italian restaurant in Logan Square. We both had delicious arugula salads with dried apples and goat cheese. Man, people and their goat cheese….. I guess I’m not complaining… I’m glad it is so popular because I do love goat cheese. The restaurant wasn’t necessarily awesome. I know, I know. We are food snobs, and we have really high standards. But, if you are going to charge more than $20 for an entree and call yourself a “fine dining establishment”, it needs to be awesome. My dish was pretty tasty, even though it had strange sea creatures in it. Patrick’s dish was not very good. We won’t be going back to Think.
There are restaurants that you will go back to- no matter how expensive they are. We WILL be going back to avec. Holy toledo. That place was so amazing. I don’t think my taste-buds have been the same since.
I had a busy weekend. I went to the final show for the school of architecture at UIC. Oh, it was pretty mind blowing. I swooped in on my own after work and meticulously looked through EVERYTHING there. I was very impressed. They don’t have a landscape architecture program necessarily (they do have the green urbanism concentration), but the program has a wonderful theme of green/eco/urban/sustainability. You can see it in all of the student projects and from reading the facultys’ bios. They are a very cutting edge place, and not nearly as snobby as SAIC. Good lord. The open house for the master’s in architecture program there was obnoxious. I wanted to throw up after the 10th time they called one of their grad students a “wunderkind”. Oh well. Maybe I’ll end up going to grad school there and it will be awesome? It could happen.
Speaking of grad school….Getting my portfolio together is so daunting. For every 10 pieces I do, only one will make it into the portfolio. I suppose that if you can handle gettin in to Architecture school, you can handle being in Architecture school. They prerequisites are intense. I need a design portfolio and relevant professional experience in addition to all of the regular old letters of recommendation, GRE scores, etc. It’s an intense project just to apply. I welcome the challenge.
I have two job interviews this week. It’s so tricky to negotiate your time at work while trying to get a new job. Thank god I have sick time and vacation time. I can just say that I have a doctor’s appointment, and they don’t have to know anything more.
I volunteered at the girls rock! chicago benefit show at Quencher’s. I love Quencher’s. They have so much good beer, free popcorn, and it’s right by my house. What more could you ask for? Then I went dancing at tuman’s. I’m going to go to that place more often. It’s pretty spectacular.
I ate brunch at the hot spot- another super place in my neighborhood. I had eggs bendict with avocado and tomato in place of the bacon- freakin’ delicious!
