Not Built in a Day

December 30th, 2018 marked ten years for this blog.  That first post was only two sentences, which established this as a travel blog for my semester abroad in Rome, Italy, in spring 2009.  Somehow, I've continued to post here more or less monthly for ten years since then, except for a break in 2011 when I posted only twice.  Let's also not forget that embarrassing, but fortunately brief, time when I thought I would try using this as a food blog... which was, as we say in my house, "not good eats."  Anyway, time went on, I got back to the good stuff (architecture, obviously), and here we are.  As it's now January 2019, it's time again for that most hallowed of traditions: reviewing how I did on last year's resolutions, and dedicating myself to some new ones for the year to come. 2018 was noticeably better for me than 2017, which was a year in which I felt frustrated and directionless.  2018 was not without its stress, and in fact much of it was very st...

My thirtieth birthday was  last week    a few weeks ago   last month, and I seem to have missed New Year's, so here is a recap / resolutions and look back over the last decade all rolled into one. This blog is now coming up on ten years of posts -- my very first post was in December 2008.  Since then, I've graduated from college, then from graduate school, become an urbanist, done some  traveling, moved across country to California, gotten my architecture license, and worked my way up to managing my own projects.  Now I'm a project architect with nearly five years of experience, and I'm trying to figure out what's next. Last year around this time, in the throes of the aftermath of the election, I was feeling lost and  made some general resolutions  to take better care of myself.  I was hoping to exercise more, take up piano again, and plan some trips.  I was successful in planning the trips, and went to AIA Convention in Orla...

Back in February, I decided that the thing I wanted for my birthday was to visit Julia Morgan's Hearst Castle.  If you aren't familiar with architect Julia Morgan , then you should fix that right away.  Two years ago she was awarded the AIA Gold Medal, posthumously, as the first woman to receive this significant prize.  (Many of us wondered why the AIA couldn't find a living woman architect to be awarded, but that's a story for another post.)  She's generally considered one of the most important architects of the California Arts & Crafts movement of the early 20th century.  She was the first woman admitted to the French Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the most prestigious school of architecture of the European academy system; the first woman licensed in architecture in California; and one of very few women architects practicing in this country in the early 20th century.  Hearst Castle is considered one of her masterpieces. Unlike many of her buildings, ...

Hello readers! First of all, thank you to everyone for the numerous kind birthday wishes I received on Wednesday (my 21st birthday). Although I didn't do much to celebrate, we did bake a pear crisp that only burned a little bit, and went out for dinner to a Mexican restaurant, a rarity in Rome. It was great to have some salsa for a change! This week (Feb. 9-12): I didn't have any class on-site trips, so I don't have any photos from that, but I do have good news! I'm definitely going to Tunisia for spring break, and I now have train reservations for all but one of the trips I'm planning to take. Sara and I are going to Pisa, Sicily (Palermo, Agrigento, Catania, Syracuse), Venice, Milan, and Florence for sure, and are planning to go to Orvieto but we couldn't make the reservations so far ahead. Also this week I made my first drypoint engraving. It's not finished yet so I don't have a photo of that, either. What I do have photos of is my walk around...