Friday was Bastille Day, the French national day, where the people of Paris stormed a prison named the Bastille and the revolution began. To commemorate all this blood and anger.. we eat.

3 hours or so of sitting at a dining table, much wine, coq au vin (slowly cooked chicken in a red whine sauce with mushrooms and things), crepes...

We had a french relative staying in Sydney with an australian friend of hers who had never sat at a dining table for so long and was baffled. Luckily she has never sat in on a real french meal of about 8 hours. Her eating habits resembled more the jewish side of my family: sit down, eat, a few words of conversation, be off the table in less than half an hour, unzip your fly and go watch the cricket.

Yum.

An introduction: My landlord and his family are forever in our house. His mother waits until he hears that we have left before running inside. What does she do there? Noone knows. But they know what we do, what we're up to. Furniture moves around, clothes move, dishes move.

A few weeks ago: George enters the kitchen to find Josh and I standing around shirtless.

George: People will be arriving in five minutes to see the rooms!
Me: (to josh) I think we should put on our tshirts...
George: Yes. (nervous laugh) Yes you should.
pause.
George: Julien, I think you have a boyfriend. (nervous laugh)
George: How interesting...

He recently told me he was not going to kick me out.. but if I wanted to move somewhere to have more privacy with Josh, that would be acceptable.

George also started accusing Candice of being a lesbian.. hmmmmm He has been showiing people her room without asking her first... and the tension between the two of them have been mounting. It didnt help that the other night we thought he was trying to rip us off rent and started to talk to him about it.. before realising we were wrong. He stormed into the house the next day to tell me how hurt he was, how could I have not trusted him.. ect.

Of course he has never trusted us. He wont let us do direct transfer of rent, nor will he give us any reciept for our rent. He once told us he wants to be able to access our house at any time to check we arent damaging things.

Anyways.... i need out. In less than 2 weeks there will be an entirely new household.

Watching: Nothing on tv except for frightening moments of Big Brother and shots of John Howard on the news.

Excited about: The design im currently working on (though I will no doubt be bored by tomorrow), Spendour in the grass, the amazing sandwich place down the street, making origami set in resin with josh tomorrow

Thinking about: Josh (too much), planning a trip to france (too little), new music in my head (though not getting it down).

Reading: Diary. Slowly. As usual. Fuck its dark.

Am i slowly slipping out of the blogosphere and into the real world?

*afraid*

Of course it might also be connected to my current lack of time to ponder.

My time is now divided into work time, sleep time, social time. I no longer have undefined quiet time (unless its with josh.. perhaps explaining why he sometimes has to deal with my emotional outbursts?) At work if somethings annoying me i need to put it aside (where it usually festers and gives me a bad sensation) and then when I get home im too tired to face it properly.

So issues and unease gets forever transfered, blanketed in socialising and work deadlines.

Gone are the times of university and philosophical analysis and self-deconstruction.

I suppose this is adulthood.

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?

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 :)

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? ;)

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.

...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.

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.

My favourite three singers/bands, if asked in 2001

Bjork, The Whitlams, Radiohead- 40%
Carl Orff, Aimee Mann, Tori Amos- 15%
The Unicorns, Bloc Party, Interpol- 10%
Jewel, Melissa Etheridge, The Whitlams- 35%

My favourite three singers/bands, if asked in 2005

The Unicorns, Bloc Party, Interpol- 0%
Tori Amos, Bjork, Radiohead- 40%
Sigur Ros, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos- 55%
P J Harvey, Beth Orton, Bjork- 5%

Where did I live for the first few years of my life?

Collaroy Plateau- 50%
Penrith- 10%
Dourdan- 20%
Manly- 10%
Glebe- 10%

What I wanted to be when i grew up (asked in primary school)

An Architect or a gardener- 25%
A composer or a writer- 45%
A writer, a fisherman or a cook- 15%
A fisherman, a builder or an architect- 15%
A restaurant owner- 0%

How old was I went i first went clubbing?

17- 15%
19- 25%
21- 25%
23- 35%

Recently the type of guy i fall for was described as:

sporty, dumb, well built- 0%
asian, short and buff- 20%
asian, girlish, screwy- 30%
boyish, cute and fucked up- 50%

How many "relationships" (ie guys ive called bf) have I had?

1- 10%
3- 50%
4- 40%
6- 0%

Who threatened legal action against me?

My step-aunt, Kris- 10%
A fantasy author, Raymond E Fiest- 20%
Head of bachelor of science (architecture), Kristine Sodersen- 25%
My jewish cousin, Tamira- 5%
The focus of my fourth year critical writing essays, Architect firm Bates Smart- 40%

How did I waste 7 years of my life?

Running a fantasy forum online- 0%
Studying Architecture at University- 10%
Reading trashy sci-fi and fantasy books- 0%
All of the above- 90%

What was the most important thing in my life when i was 9?

My nintendo system- 15%
My bike- 10%
Playing fantasy role playing games- 30%
The book i was writing (the saryn trilogy)- 30%
The musical i was writing (the ghost drum)- 15%

According to jose penguins:

a) are cute and make good snacks- 20%
b) Prove that time travel is possible- 15%
c) Prove the existance of god- 40%
d) Eat turnips and hate rabbits- 25%

In 2005 i lost/broke three:

Watches- 0%
Mobile Phones- 65%
Rotring Pens- 0%
Scale Rulers- 15%
Fucking Calculators- 20%

Bonus: What is Juliboo?

The Jewish Union of Little Irish Breastfed Obese Orthodontists- 5%
What happens when indie student julien dies and becomes a corporate monster- 10%
Angsty architecture graduate + hamster- 20%
Julien's penguin name- 65%

http://juliboo.funtest.biz/

Reasons? Foremost the budget, for they suddenly realised they didnt have one. Secondly, the married couple had had differences since the beginning: the husband wanted change, the wife wanted change without anything changing. She was PETRIFIED by the thought of anything in her kitchen being moved. Or her living room. Or....

I was rather dissapointed. This was my baby. MINE! The first job I solved and took over.

Which makes me imagine the years ahead.. the constant collapse of one job after the other.

What a wierd practice where architects are asked to invest so much time and energy and creative juice into each project and yet at any time they might fall through.

Rem Koolhaus has a 5% build rate.

So we must forever dwell in this moment of unquestioning faith that our project will continue tomorrow, while telling ourselves that tomorrow it could also end.

If we dwell too much on the possibility of failure or termination then we will never invest ourselves in our projects and imagine it as a complete, beautiful thing.

If we kid ourselves that every job will be completed, then we set ourselves up for a live of dissapointment.

So we sit in between... attempting to live in a world of doublethink and paradox. Believing today will continue forever, while not betting our lives on it.

a) Patience, and the ability to plough through the same project for days, weeks, months, years - fighting for every little inch even if you never designed that inch. I, sadly, have a short attention span and tire of projects quickly, especially ones that dont excite me much.

b) Humility - the ability to grit my teeth as the client asks for changes #7466 for no apparent reason, meaning another 3 days of redesign and because we've gone way over in the hours, the client isnt paying for the work either.

I could bitch about the way my boss presents designs in a wishy-washy, we are open for discussion way, instead of at least setting down some points firmly. She doesnt get the point across that a lot of though has gone into elements of the design.

I could regret that i have had about 8 job offers since i started at this firm and 3 of them were in great companies. But im not going to change firms.. cause i feel an obligation to see out at least some of my projects and to give this firm a chance.

Just one of those days I try to remember what I could have been if not an architect.. and of those 6 long years of study.

I calling in sick, the exhaustion of the last two weeks finally catching me and holding tight. After the great escape Ive seen David Gray, Augie March and the Whitlams, while enduring the deadlines of a contract set of documents, a construction certificate and a DA. My boss on friday commented "no wonder you are sick."

Through this is the memory that life often works in unexpected ways and I could never have guessed recent events a few weeks ago. A suprise hug in a chemist, quiet talk, not so quiet kisses.

Its cool out there, but it seems so warm in here. Then again, im currently huddled over a tea with a blanket over my shoulders....

listening to: The Dawn Collective, Mum, David Gray, Elliot Smith, Sigur Ros, Lior

Watching: Invader Zim

Reading: Drum media.. i know, i know

RAH!

*ahem*

I find it interesting how certain individuals believe that the more "attractive" they are, according to a rather arbitrary set of laws of what is desirable, the less personality they need to have. This isnt just a gay thing - it works on all sides. This odd kind of "market value" where having blonde hair and big breasts, or being well built, tall or having a large dick, suddenly makes you think you can win people over entirely on some kind of physical draw card.

Yes, physical attraction is important in any relationship, but to me its something much more complicated. If i could set down a list of rules that would instantly make me want to date someone.. then.. life would be a lot simpler :P It does depend on types and some kind of personal set of attribute thats may help, but at the same time its also timing, personality, events, acts of kindness... its many things.

Hmm.. ok.. theres what anger i can manage at the moment. Now im going to go back to quiet happiness :P woot.