Move Number Twenty

I'm packing. Again.

You can locate me at my new address here...

Ciao Bellas

You want?

SO apparently this is now a monthly ritual as opposed to an hourly one. Oh well, can't have everything I guess.

It seems I've lost all semblance of a reader base, so this should be quite the echo when I post it to the cyber world. Let's see... what is new in the world of Brittany.

I want to win a million dollars so I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night sweating profusely due to the realistic feeling nightmare pertaining to a life without a college degree, which includes a variety of actualizations including waiting table until I'm 60, becoming a receptionist for a hometown hardware store, and clown school, all of which are possible outcomes if my loans keep getting denied.

I want my family to freeze in time when I'm away so I don't have to experience soccer games being won and birthdays through phone calls and photographs.

I want to catch up with my studio work and impress the heck out of my oh-so-disappointed teachers. And I want to not be one of those people who mentions studio with loathing like so many others.

I want to just stop my life for 10 years and spend the entire time reading for pleasure AND academics.

I want to write such an amazing paper for my writing class that I can somehow hopefully make it amazing enough to get it published in a real, live academic journal. And I want to do that now as an undergrad.

I want to stop prefacing so many statements with the words "I want".

I want to buy a car, and not total this one.

So there's a sum of my recent wishes. Maybe I'll post again sometime =)

Guess who's back, back, back...

So I'm not deceased. Or kidnapped, or any other reason that would suffice to explain why I haven't posted a blog since the beginning of September. Why the leave of absence, you ask?

Life. It comes at you in so many ways, and I've been trying to enjoy each one.

Updates: School is still super challenging - hence the reason I'm madly in love. Almost donw with the semester. Family is still struggling, but adjusting to St. Louis. Love life is suddenly very interesting - *giggle giggle*. Best friends still rock my socks.

One of my lovely life lessons lately? Things are NEVER as bad as they seem like they will turn out to be right before. In architecture and other aspects of my life...

And guess who's on duty all of the holidays this year =(

My Mantra for Architecture

So I was checking out a few quotes I'd heard last year that I wanted to write in a quote book, and I stumbled upon this list. This Incomplete Manifesto by Bruce Mao is one that his studio applies to every single project they undertake in that creativity filled room they design in.

As I read through them, I realized that they don't just apply to Architecture, the apply to any activity one could undertake. Here are a few of my favorites...

1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

6. Capture accidents
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

10. Everyone is a leader.
Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.

16. Collaborate.
The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.

18. Stay up late.
Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.

21. Repeat yourself.
If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.

33. Take field trips.
The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.

The Beginning of the End

So school has begun again.

Ah, that fickle thing I love to love, and hate... There's nothing like the night before the first day of school. I'm making resolutions. You know how most people wait until the first of January? I think I need some in smaller increments - like once a semester, or breakdown..

List will ensue...

Later.

...confusion

So a friend of mine was reviewing my entire blog in one sitting because he didn't know it existed, and he shared something amusing with me.

He said, and I quote, "You sound so confused about how confused you are." Such a simple observation, yet so profound.


Hm.

Lost in Santa Monica

So I spent the majority of my time last night wandering around the ferris wheel at Santa Monica Pier hoping I wouldn't have to sleep on the beach. What a way to spend a night. The one time I'm not working and I have the opportunity to relax, I'm so tense I stress out the 2 year old kids who walk by close enough to realize I'm insane.

Eventually I found a friend who was in town, regardless of the dead phone that was in my purse. We hung out, ate sushi, played so much air hockey that I woke up sore, and made sand angels until 3am. To top that, I climbed up and actual fire escape on an old 1920's apartment building in LA and finished the night off with tacos and Krispy Kreme. Yummy. Turned out to be a pretty awesome night =)

I might arrange another excursion into the unknown...
Anyone interested?

Hiatus

So much for updates.

If I said I simply haven't done anything interesting enough to participate in and report, I'd be a huge liar. This past month has been filled with so much... everything. Anticipation for the pending job; excitement to meet these students from all over the world; surprise at the new best friends I've made in Spain (come back soon); exhaustion from the 17 trips a day up and down three flights of stairs; contentment at the feeling of accomplishment every night/sunrise/morning. I can't even remember everything I've done this month.

But I do know this. Changes are in the wind...

BTW: I'm reading this great new series of books that I can't put down, the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I'd compare it to the fanciful nature of Harry Potter, just not quite as intricate. Check it.

And I love my facebook now for the sheer fact that it's like the UN - so many countries and languages.

Foreign Relations

I am currently located in the computer lab sitting staring at a blank screen that I refuse to leave unless it's filled with the words I know I want to pour out. Life is moving by slowly, yet I can't remember when it became July.

I am officially back where I am supposed to be. I'm not just in the California state boundaries, I am back at school. Living in a dorm room with not nearly enough space. I already have a pile of laundry that rivals Mt. Everest and the bathroom that has only been inhabited by me for a week since May is beyond cluttered. It's good to be back.

So in my incessant effort to organize my life, I'm going to list the state of things (once again) because it helps me to feel like I actually have a bit of control. Bear with me if you've had to endure this before - basically anyone who's read more than a weeks worth of blog entries..

I am living in North Hall once again, in a single room (closet) that is the only inhabited room in the top two floors. The other 3 R.A's are living on the first floor. Yay for dark hallways with monsters in the shadows at night. I'm still in the process of organizing my belongings , but that won't be too necessary as I'll be moving to South Hall in a month, and back to North Hall again for the school year. Good thing I've had practice, I guess.

For work we've had a meeting each day, usually only for an hour or two each time. And every meeting I feel like I'm that much more unsure of what I've gotten myself into. I'm supposed to be an activity leader and a resident adviser - basically a package camp counselor. The kids are ages 10 to 24, from a foreign country such as Italy, Russia, China, etc.. and they take ESL classes in the mornings. From noon to midnight I get to entertain them, eat with them, and walk the hallways.

After a while the kids I'm supposed to be entertaining and watching over sound more and more like inhuman demons rather than foreign minors. The need for a supervisor at meal times to ensure that no food fights ensue is disconcerting in the least, and I'm hoping the nerf guns are a joke and not a required part of our safety as a staff member. Seriously.. there are nerf guns. God help me.

Aside from the scary part, I get to play games with them, paint faces, teach them a bit of english along the way, swim with them, etc... basically anything to distract them from realizing they are in America essentially unsupervised by parentals. The best part is the fact that even though most of these kids are from foreign countries where they start drinking at the age of 12 - and even when there is an age restriction it excludes beer and wine - I get to be the one who takes the alcohol/cigarettes/drugs from them and tell them to go to sleep at the ungodly hour of 11pm. Seriously, can i have an escort please? I'm still not convinced that the extra security guard the school hired is for the minor's safety and not ours.

Oh, and apparently each and every one of them will develop a crush on each of the staff members. This can only end badly.

Bring on the first 134 students.

Deeper Trenches Lie Beneath

The twin is moving. 

She just returned from a long visit to her friends in Oregon and sat down with Dandelion and I to inform us that being there changed so much about her perspective on life, love, and the pursuit of happiness and she's moving there. She's going to live with a friend's family, work at a preschool, and enjoy life out of the fast lane. 

This really is a bittersweet decision - for me, I mean. 

First, I'm ecstatic that she is getting out of the desert. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but when you find the friends and groups we have up here, you kind of get really settled in and don't want to leave. This is fine if you are where you're going to be for the rest of your life (figuratively) but is not so good if there's more out of life you need to get to. She made the decision all alone as well. This is something we have all had a tough time accomplishing in our little group, and we'll ask everybody else what they think we should do instead of deciding for ourselves. But not this time. She did this without the help of anyone else, and I'm so proud of her for it.

I'm just sad about her going so far, that's all. Pertaining to distance, it's not that far. I just know that I can't even spare time to visit my friends and family who live mere hours away, so how will I ever have time to see her? 

A lot of this shone some much needed light and perspective on a deeper issue, though. I really am alone in Los Angeles. Not like I don't have anyone to turn to for help, or friends. I have an amazing support system filled with lots and lots of love. I just mean that my actual family is so far away, and friends are great, but they have no obligation to me and need to do what's right for their own lives, not think about mine. 

So this is what growing up feels like, huh? Well, I'm not gonna say it's not a brick in the face, but it's real at least. And I pledged to start paying attention and to start feeling what's real, no matter how inconvenient it is for me.

Ouch.