Professional Paradox

I've been toying with the idea of going back to school to get my Masters next year, applying this upcoming December.
Besides the stress of prepping -Portfolio, letters of recommendation, and the oh-so-daunting GRE -I have discovered how absolutely asinine it is to get a Masters in Architecture in such a bad economy.

I know, if you can't find a job, it seems productive to go back to school. Sure it is, if you are from a country where your education is free and living expenses taken care of by the government. But in the US? If you're going to shell out $150,000 for a Masters degree, you hope that when you get done with your 3 years of strenuous suffering, you have a job waiting for you to help you pay off that mountain of loans.

I sit right next to the woman in charge of hiring interns and employees here. About 300 hopefuls have applied  for an internship here, and I'd say about half of them were cut from the pile right away -no matter how talented, how impressive their tome of work, how long their CV or list of recommendations. If they have a Masters degree completed? They're out. Buh-bye.

Why?
They're too damn expensive. In Denmark, at least, there is a minimum wage set by the Dansk Ark- Architecture association. If you're an architecture student, pre-completion-of-Masters, the wage is about 1/4 of that of a degree holder. If you're a company suffering from recession, who are you going to choose? A youngin' with a modest amount of experience, sufficient technical know-how, an open creative mind, and a reasonable price tag, or someone with marginally more experience, slightly more refined technical-know-how (but really, very little difference), and a pretty costly price tag -not to mention a diva attitude and a list of demands, simply because, well, they hold a Masters.

The choice is clear.

And for me, as well. It makes no sense at all -the only reason I would go back to school within the next year-ish is if I'm really itching to do my own work again. But then I should just time-manage and enter into a few solo competitions in whatever free time I can manage to scrape up.

For now, I don't mind being paid in beans, living on Struggle Street, gaining experience anywhere I can find it. For now, I'm finding work opportunities, against all odds, and the work opportunities will keep coming so long as I am fairly cheap to hire, and willing to work (and stupidly? I am!). And when I'm done with my Masters? With such huge debt looming over my head, I won't be willing to take a crap-paying job. I simply won't be able to afford it.

And when I do finally go get my Masters, I'll have a pretty strong sense of what kind of designer I am, and a diversified CV to boot, so when I do have to trump other Masters-holding hopefuls and make my way to the top of the job-application pile, it'll be no sweat.

Who would you choose? An expensive Masters-holding Architect with little to no work experience, or one with a wide range of experience, plus the work done in school?
No offense to those who've decided to go the Masters route directly out of school. Perhaps I'm just justifying my own route to myself. But really, good luck out there. It's a grim market, and those loans won't pay off themselves...

Heaven helps those who help themselves

I find myself so irritated by those who make plans, make promises and then drag their feet and don't follow through, all the while blaming others for their misfortune, their crummy lives, their lack of accomplishments.
Just, like, take some responsibility, man!

The worst part is, I am sometimes one of those. A professional pussy-footer.
But Nat, give yourself credit where credit is due! If I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. No questions asked. In what time frame? That's a whole different story.

I've been feeling so stressed out about my summer plans. Today is my last Monday at Henning Larsen Architects. This is my last week. Oy gevalt!

I finally committed to going home, and booked a flight last week. July 27th. That's my final European deadline.

When I booked that, and started looking into my July travel plans, I felt such a huge weight lifted. All of the guilt of putting it off for so long, gone. The crazy thing is, I always build these tasks (cleaning my room, booking a flight home, packing, blogging, even) into huge mountains in my head that become daunting and cripplingly incapacitating until I finally take care of them. And when I do? I find they take no time at all, and I feel immediately like a champion. 10 points, Nat. Scratch that off the endless to-do list.

I am always making resolutions. One more: I resolve to be more proactive about my own life. That empty package of gum floating around the bottom of my purse? Throw it out before 15 more accumulate, and I begrudgingly take an entire afternoon (5/6 of which is spent procrastinating the simple task at hand) to finally clean out my purse. Ugh.
Get it done. Move on.
Feel enlightenment.

Mr Dobalina

"The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself."
Me me me me me. 
I must get my ducks in a row, and stop placing my energy elsewhere as a diversion. 
Clean up and sort through room, preparing for departure.

Finish that damn pesky portfolio of mine, to have something to (hopefully) be proud of. 

Book a flight home, plan my summer travels. 

Focus. Follow through. 

These are not my strengths, but damnit, I will make them my strengths. 

As a side note: I can't wait to leave this place, where fidelity is unheard of. The shit I see go down here is unbelievable. Married men blatantly lying to get a shot at some variety. Guys with girlfriends on the prowl. I just don't understand. It grosses me out. If you want to be single, be single.  But I guess the problem is just as prevalent back home, perhaps just slightly less visible or socially acceptable to talk about. Trust no one. 

Honesty is so hard to come by these days. I have recently been told a few things by a few different people that would certainly warrant lies -should end up as skeletons in their closets. But I respected them, all the more, for just dealing in honesty. My rate of forgiveness and acceptance is exponentially higher when the truth comes out first. If you want my respect, just be honest. If I want to respect myself? Kick the liars to the curb. And finish my portfolio. I should finish my portfolio first. Curb-kicking later. 

Espere

Waiting for miracles also includes exercising willpower to suspend your belief that miracles come about by will alone.
I can do this. I can do nothing. I can wait.
Learn patience, learn grace, learn to keep those last shreds of dignity you've been concealing in your coat pocket.

A Yawn at Dawn

It's 2:16 AM and the sun is already coming up.
I should get my butt to sleep before my room is completely bathed in sunlight.

Nordic Summer.
The lighting here is bipolar. But the weather is still consistently cold and wet.