This is it. My last days before returning to starving student life. I feel as though I was shot from a catapult after graduation in June 2008. At blistering speed I helped designed a proton beam therapy center, watched the world economy crumble around me, orchestrated 12 graduate school applications, chased every potential hospital project in the western United States, partied it up in Cabo San Lucas, watched my gorgeous girlfriend snag two degrees at graduation, chased even more potential hospital projects, rode over 2000 miles on my bike, went to FIVE weddings, started my own business, helped design a cabin, missed a flight, moved to New York, and ate the goat my father bought for two zuzim, Chad Gadya Chad Gadya.
And now, more than 420 days later, I find myself in a lecture hall listening to Mark Wigley, dean of the GSAPP, talk about storming off of a metaphoric diving board with reckless abandon into the torrential pool of contemporary graduate studies in architecture. Mark is an incredibly inspiring man. The speed at which he presents ideas reflects the ethos of the school: hungry, enthusiastic, and relentlessly optimistic.
The GSAPP is a large group, almost 1000 of us across all of its programs, but our dense quarters ensure the reverberation of all happenings inside the school. All 93 of my classmates occupy a single studio space, which is smaller than the space shared by my 48 classmates at UW. But it's not as though we're sardines, there is incredible efficiency in the studio layouts, I feel like I've got just as much room as ever.
Orientation was punctuated with an architecture school tradition very close to my heart: 6on6, or the GSAPP's version of Happy Hour. We were gifted pint glasses and let loose in a room with ample social lubricant and free snacks. I was surprised by the diversity represented in our incoming class. We have students from Ireland to Taiwan, from perceptual psychologists to phd candidates in philosophy. But we all share one thing: that curious hunger Mark Wigley is always talking about. Somehow the admissions committee has managed to put together a group of unbelievably motivated and capable individuals. I am excited to exhaust our potentials, and create our own legacy at the school.
This all happened on Friday the 1st of September. Labor day weekend was my last chance to soak up some freedom. Tiffany and I decided to take the Staten Island Ferry to... well you guessed it, Staten Island.
On the way to the ferry we happened across a unique celebration of the city's history next to Battery Park:
A miniature dutch settlement? But why you ask? Ohhhhhhh could it be that in September of 1609, exactly 400 years earlier, dutch explorers decided to make a new Amsterdam very near this spot?
Yes actually.
There were cheeses, clogs, and windmills abound, but one facet of dutch culture that I find so endearing was missing. And that was some good ol' Droog design! Oh well, I hear there's a Dutch design festival out on Governor's Island. But I digress. So Tiffany and I finally made it to the ferry (after being stuck on a train for around 15 minutes because of switching problems) and we had a nice ride to Staten Island, where we ate sandwiches and looked back towards our gorgeous city.
We didn't stray too far, and quickly made our return trip, the ferry darting between massive container ships headed for New Jersey.
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