A few weeks now into my first semester here at UWM School of Architecture. Since I have not written on this blog in awhile, I almost have to sift through all that has happened lately in order to not be up all night, all though to do so would seem then norm these days anyways.
Work at the architecture firm has been amazing! I feel totally at home there with the team and feel like I was able to hit the ground running. What else..oh, finally all moved in on the East Side of Milwaukee, pretty close to Lake Michigan! Close to coffee shops, Whole Foods, the Milwaukee river single track trail (awesome)...Life has been grand. I am truly blessed.
I have begun the new design studio here, it is their first one that they offer to Architecture students and I have mixed emotions about having to take it. A lot of what is being covered is review for me, except for some new vocabulary and some new concepts to dwell on. After I was finished at ITT and started up in Madison at their Architecture program, I felt like I was having to start over, learning many of the same concepts that I had already spent a fortune on learning once already, not to mention putting in the time, again. Here at UWM it feels like that a little too so far. Of course this is a little disappointing, in that I was hoping to be learning all this wonderful design theory and to be diagramming the great buildings of old. I am sure more of that is coming, but I think what really causing me to feel that way is that I REALLY liked going to work at the firm every morning. It was exciting, it was fast paced, and I was learning A TON of real world application every day. Since I am obviously missing it so much ( being on reduced hours now due to school full time) I must be on the right track, and truly love what I am doing which is the practice of Architecture. So whats the problem, right?
Even though a lot of what I am doing presently in school may be review, I am still learning. I am still practicing Architecture even if it is building little cardboard abstract shapes and changing them and rechanging them and drawing them and then doing it all over again. There are lessons in the every day little things, and I am learning more and more to be patient. It is the only way you get to see them. The big things are easy to see, everyone gets those. The smaller ones, not so much. You have to earn those, by putting in the time and being there when the magic happens.
Since it is all relative-the model making, the history lessons, the sketching and the sleepless nights of drafting I simply have accepted that this is paying my dues- again. At a new place, with new teachers, and new peers and new lessons to be learned, and earned.
Here's to the winds of change, blowing stronger than ever...cheers!
