the ballad of love and hate

I know several of you may have been shocked to finally find a new post on our neglected little blog when you opened your google reader. I'm a little shocked to be blogging. I don't really have a reason to write much of an update on here. This summer has turned out to be much busier than I had intended it to be. I guess I'm a little thankful for that in some ways, but being that I feel so stressed with it, I'm not sure it's worth it. This isn't really the type of situation I was looking for with my "small business." I'm not sure what I'm looking for out of this situation other than helping out financially when I can. I love being able to help out with our finances.

As far as this little blog, I enjoy being able to put the general update out there...to not be as forgotten as we feel for those of you who care to read what we write. I hope to be able to catch up with those whom I miss the most on a more personal level and fall so short of even responding to most of my emails in any given week being that I get more than about 50 per day at this point. 

I think the longer I go without putting anything out there, the less inclined I am to start up again. Much like my exercise regime. It's usually accompanied by a huge *sigh.* ...with potential failure and judgement looming in my future.  I feel the weight of not doing the things I want/should do in these days. I have felt so consumed with my daily living, with my to-do list, that I forget the other things in life, like going to the store or being a wife. Being that the summers are so short here, I long to even be outside enjoying the weather and sunshine while I can. And day after day all I do is sit in my dark little studio, inhaling what dust and chemical I may only to make a little more money.  By the way, I hate money.

I don't know where I'm going with this and I'm sorry for dragging you along. Overall, I think I like this place in life a little bit more than I did in our first couple of months, despite the continued hardness of it. I like how much closer Ashley and I have gotten as a couple here. I like our space. our garden. riding my bike to the studio on a sunny day. that my studiomates are so different. and so great. i love that Ash really seems to like his new job. i love that my friends are having a babies that we prayed for for so long. (and that I get to meet soon!) I love being able to take a class in anything I want to learn about. I love the option of going to a portuguese church service and eating pao de quejo on a regular basis. i love not owning a home. i love that a hot day here is 90 with 30% humidity, not 104 with 80% humidity. i love the good beer here. I love a realized and expanding potential of a city.

BUT

I hate being so far away when terrible things happen. i hate not knowing how to respond to pain. or death. or friends who are hurting. or loneliness. (i want to know how and to do it better.) i hate not seeing our niece and nephews regularly. I hate chasing down people here who say they want to be our friends but who, in actuality, have no time or space for new friends. I hate not ever seeing or knowing my neighbors. I hate not having a sense of community. I hate being far away from friends getting married that we hoped would sooner than they thought they would. I hate missing out on porch time...missing wine (or soco with susu) and porch time and thursday/friday nights with friends...any night with friends. i hate feeling as lonely as i do most days.

I guess these are just growing pains. Or maybe the fact that I downed sangria right after Ash left on a camping trip this weekend and have been watching Dr. Phil when I should be stringing jewelry b/c I have over 456 pieces that need to go out before we leave for the beach next week.

I can change jobs faster than you can kiss a duck.

And that's pretty fast.  

(This is a compilation of other info and thoughts I've been letting go of randomly, so forgive me if you've already portions of my spill)

I turned in my two week notice Friday.  Exactly four months after I started.  This is the least amount of time I've held a "real" job - I only worked three weeks at Walmart in college.

Goody Clancy (GCA) just wasn't a good fit for me.  More so than any other firm I have worked at previously, their work is focus on one thing: making their clients happy.  So, really, their designs aren't so much a reflection of how good their work can be.  Rather, their work is a reflection of how good their clients can be at designing a building.  I saw what I believe to be bad design decisions made simply because the client requested them.  There was never any discussion about how to better achieve goals - whatever the client wanted, that's what they got.  GCA is all about service, which is great.  Our clients are, after all, footing our paychecks.  However, I would rather be at a place that clients come to because of our expertise, our design, and our creativity.  Not so much because we can follow orders.

[Below, a GCA designed atrium.  Pretty un-interesting)

So how did I end up at GCA?  Well, we had a house on the market, with an offer, and I had one job offer at the time.  We wanted to make the move work, and so we made it work.  GCA wasn't my first choice, but

 it wasn't my last, either.  I did like a few of their buildings - one of which they ended up not being the chief designer of, and who knows how the other one got built.  I had been told that they had come from a long "dry spell" in design terms, but some people said they seemed to be coming out of that.  I thought these two newer buildings were evidence of that.  Maybe at least one of them is, but I'm not willing to wait 10 years for that to happen.  I didn't see too much interesting design being done around the office in my tenure, nor was any presented to us in our weekly office presentations.

So, I'm starting work at Sasaki in two weeks.  Sasaki seems different.  Whereas GCA pretty

 much does only higher-ed work and multi-family housing, Sasaki 

does it all.  And, they are a multi-disciplinary firm.  So I'll be working directly with landscape architects, eco-tech experts, urban planners, etc.  And the firm is all about collaboration between these fields - it's one of the reasons their designs end up being pretty good.   

 

[Right, a Sasaki chapel.  Much better.]