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June 22, 2006
Happy Solstice
Tonight, the longest darkest night, has in past times been seen as an important date in the turning of the seasons and the constant cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
It once might have been a moment to reflect on the passing of time, but in todays age of heaters, air conditioners, packaged goods and global warming it is just another date. Most people dont even know what a solstice is, or an equinox.
So what have I to reflect upon? A realisation over the weekend was just how hard it was to feel like you are achieving anything or progressing in my profession. Projects last for years and each stage flows into each other. Even "completion" is a blurred event and architects often want to move on quickly to the next paying client.
In university it is simple. You have set milestones: semesters, years, degrees. You get marked on your work, and you get told if you are going well. Every assignment done is a step forward.
In the workforce and the rest of life things are harder to assess. Should I have changed jobs? Am I learning a lot? Is my work good? Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? Do I want to be a registered architect? Have my own firm?
And what about the other ways to judge your life? Romance? Friends? Personal projects? Fitness, trips, experiences...
Money?
Do people collect material goods mainly because it is an easy system to mark progress in? More money = good. More possessions = good. Bigger house, a new car....
What do we want to achieve before our eventual deaths?
Posted by julien at 12:18 AM | Comments (1)
June 16, 2006
Flickred
My oh my, I havent been updating my flickr account in ages! This may be related to the fact that i dont have a fully opperational camera anymore, but hey.
I managed to see Belle and Sebastien at the enmore theatre on tuesday with Zen and Andrew and it rocked. It seemed more like an intimate get together than a concert with people from the audience getting involved and just an overpowering cheerfulness and playfulness that couldnt be ignored.
And i got the setlist!
So go check it out.
And i also updated the great escape's set.
Meanwhile the sydney film festival is in full swing, as is the bienalle. I havent been online in 5 days (though mostly thanks to josh?)... all is busy but fun :)
Posted by julien at 09:48 AM | Comments (1)
June 05, 2006
Brain-fry
Its monday. I finally understand the weekend, and the week. These ideas do not exist during university time. But the start to exist when you begin full time work.
At the moment my weekends are blissful sleeping in, quiet days dissapearing into nothingness with josh next to me, cooking dinners, meeting friends, seeing gigs.
The weeks are stress, exasperation, a feeling of never accomplishing anything, constant fatigue.
I almost yelled at my housemate today over a telephone bill and was ready to snap at almost everyone on msn.
Its like every weekend i escape to some other world.. and during the week half my time seems to be spent thinking of that world.
What is intersting is that this is only beginning to happen as Im getting more sleep and slowly regaining consciousness.. and the ability to stress. Maybe i should have just remained half-dead? ;)
Posted by julien at 11:48 PM | Comments (1)
June 04, 2006
the 24 hour place which has all the other places that NEED to exist
Let me present:
Thesuperwonderful24houreverythingyouneedplace.
Basement Level: Yoshinoya. Printing, university stationary and arts supply (from all the times i ran out of model materials at 4am).
Level 1: bubble tea bar, bookstore, record/cd store.
Level 2: Cafe with LOTS of lounges. Bar at night, with stage for live music and dancing.
Ok, seriously.. what would be great is to take the cafe/cd shop concept and extend it into a bar and live band area, and make it open really really late.
Imagine spending an hour or two looking at records, sipping a coffee while reading a book. Then you go up the stairs and join the crowd ready to hear some great music... have a drink.. then bring a drink down and look through the cds some more.
And there is NO BUBBLE TEA SHOP IN NEWTOWN.
Anyway, random thought for the day.
Posted by julien at 10:45 PM | Comments (1)
June 02, 2006
....hanging
...a failed architect hangs from his unfinished cathedral, while death watches on, letting him swing this way and that way....
Improbable's "The Hanging Man" borders on pantomine, with a beautiful set and striking visuals. Apparently the basic story went through numerous incarnations, each a failure, until at the last minute they improvised a production, putting together every dramatic technique they could muster to bring it to life.
The play is dark, yet often funny... at moments formal but mostly free-form. Death breaks from character to tell how during rehearsal she had had a dream about being a dog... so she starts to act like a dog, only to be incorporated into a dream the architect had about death.
Moments move one into the other very much like a dream, where the linear path is not always apparent.
This results in a frightening surrealism. Discussions of death, life, love, insecurities are juxtaposed with r&b dance, satire, theatre sports and melodrama.
The subject is very dark; the realisation that the beauty of death is but the other side of the beauty of life. In the opening moments, when the architect jumps off the chair a woman behind me burst out crying and had to be escorted from the theatre.
On leaving jack commented that surely one of the authors was an architect. Much of the discussions deal with creativity and author of that creativity. The architect of the story was so frightened with the power to create something that was purely his own that he commited suicide.
Tomorrow is my three-month "sit down" with my boss, where I am asked if I am happy. How do i tell her that it worries me that the only other senior architect is leaving the office and that if she proceeds to replace him with another recent graduate as planned we are all going to be lost? Or that one of my favourite firms is being insistent in giving me a job, though I really feel responsible for the jobs I am in charge of within her firm.. i just wish there was more potential for innovation and creativity?
Meanwhile, my life has become once more an ongoing struggle against sleepiness. People dont understand there are so many forms of feeling sleepy: there are tirednesses that are healthy, such as after you have walked for hours, or you brain is exhausted after solving puzzles.
Then there is this painful, unnatural sleepiness, akin to the flu, where everything is tired and heavy, where I can sleep and sleep and only get marginally better, and yet have one night with less sleep and feel so much worse.
I had to take yesterday off. I went to work and was in a peaceful daze. I had a site meeting up north and there was morning sunlight, and there was the cold, and I was all rugged up, and everythign seemes bright and beautiful and mysterious. I cant work out what wierd emotions were going through my head but I felt like I was still stuck in a dream and couldnt wake up.
I went home and slept. And slept.
It is a frightening thing when your life becomes a dream.
Good night.
Posted by julien at 12:05 AM | Comments (1)