vobiblog

“It’s a box!” the grumpy tutor exclaimed. Ned felt dejected as it was not the first time this had happened since he had decided it would be a good idea to study architecture. Ned constantly thought to himself, “if only i didn’t leave planning”.

As it turns out, there is very little to stop me from going back to Urban and Regional Planning. After talking to an old lecturer last week, I found out just how easy it is for me to change back again. When I first floated the idea of chucking in the towel with architecture and going back to planning, I thought that everyone would be saying “Oh Ned, why can’t you just make up your mind’. As it turns out, no one is really surprised as I never convinced them of the merits of studding architecture in the first place.
Other peoples support is great, but the only person I need to convince is myself. Hence, I have come up with a list of compelling reasons for me to go back to planning:

• While I like the design process and methodology in theory, in practice, it is replacing PHP or Perl with concrete and steel
• For whatever reason I am better at expressing my thoughts in written form, rather than visually
• Architecture is a very narrow field. You pretty much have to live and breath buildings, which I don’t
• A cardboard box, in my view, has a kind of aesthetic that is greater than those of most of the “cutting edge” architecture
• I have broad interests. Politics, the environment, social issues, economics. Very few fields could allow me to cover such breadth, planning just happens to be one of them.
• To a certain extent, I already live and breath planning. I spend much of my spare time keeping up today with the issues (sad I know). Why not get paid for it?

So there you go, I have actually articulated what I want to do with my life. Now it is just a waiting game for QUT to process my admission into a Bachelor of Urban Development. Could they have picked a name for a degree with more negative connotations? Thankfully there isn’t much in a name.

On Tuesday, we spent the afternoon at university in the workshop. Six of us were trying to work out the best way to make a 1m cantilever platform with 6 x 2m lengths of wood, string and duct tape (please, no jokes about hamsters). Anyway, due to the tightass nature of QUT, we were not able to store the wood there, and it had to be taken home. Everyone else in the group had an excuse as to why they couldn’t take it home. Three of them were catching the bus, fair enough I guess. One was catching the train. They have been getting a little squeezy during peek hour. Also fair enough. Another was driving and said it wouldn’t fit (What are you driving dude! a mini?). It was up to me to be a hero and save the day. Armed with duct tape I taped the wood to my bike and rode home.

How elite am I? Faster and less smelly than public transport, less effort carrying shit than walking, more carrying capacity than a Mini, more looks than Anna Nicole Smith walking down Queen Street Mall topless. To all those who saw me, I hope I made you commute home on Tuesday a little more amusing than usual.

How did I manage to do this to myself (note the red spots around my eyes). Puking blood is bad.

Charlie (the crow) went missing yesterday. He has ran off before, but we have usually been able to find him pretty quickly. Spikey printed up some fliers, and we walked around the neighborhood and dropped them in peoples letterboxes. Near the end, we came across this house with a badly painted Jolly Roger in the window. I said “these guys look like a friendly bunch”. Spikey responded “they would probably keep the crow for themselves”. We walked on, I went home, Spikey went for coffee. Within 30 minutes, someone had seen Spikey’s flier, and had been minding Charlie in their back yard all day. Spikey called to give me the address of these people and tell me that she would meet me there. Sure enough, it was the place with the Jolly Roger. I knocked on the door and their was a friendly pirate drinking some spiced mead. Arrrr!

To bad that by the time we got there, Charlie was half asleep. We tried to get him but he made a dash for another tree, where he will remain for the night. Someone is going be up at the crack of dawn.

For those of you who haven’t seen me for a while, I thought I would post a new picture so you can see what I look like these days.