My parents are old

So today is my parents 40th wedding anniversary...wow.

Despite their bickering and constant irritation with each other I know that somewhere deep inside they care for and love each other.

Case and point: A few years ago my dad said to me that he knew my mother loved him not because she would say it but because he knows that without fail he can go to his dresser drawer and he will find folded clean garments in his drawer.

Happy anniversary Mom and Dad!  I love you!

The last month in some pictures

Here are a few pictures from the last month or so.  I have spent time in NY, DC, and Boston.

Giant bear at Costco.

'stache.

We went bowling at the coolest bowling alley/night club at the Chelsea Piers.

Otto was surprised by my awesome bowling skills.

Very cool lounge at ....  It was a tasteful mixture of modern and vintage.

Tammy next to her favorite artists work!

A random Foster building up the street from the New Museum.

Sanaa's New Museum.

Just waiting for the train.

The Washington Deluxe didn't really live up to its name.

Bra-face and I walking around the giant pond on our way to see the new Martin Luther King, Jr. monument.  We were accompanied by Jeff, Brigham, and Courtney(?).

Typical charming street in DC.

The epically spooky Enola Gay at the Air and Space Museum Annex near Dulles.

My wish for Yoko Ono's Wishing Tree at the Hirshhorn sculpture park.

This is the only way someone can tell they are in DC's Chinatown.
Oh this and the Bed Bath and Beyond sign that has chinese characters below the english.

We made a rocket-ship out of a box.  The Quister 2000.

A full day of PreK is tiring.

Milo and Otto wrote to President Obama about their concerns with the trees and orangoutangs or something like that.  Anyways they got this packet back from the White House!  They were sooooooo excited!

This is the view from Anika and Hugh's.  Seriously amazing. 

A tastefully decorated truck outside of James' office.

James decided that we were going to stop at Friendly's because I had never been there.
We sat.  We ate.  We conquered.
Then we got stuck in major traffic adding a good 2 hours to our drive.

Awesome watercolor of Peter as a child!

Pater outside of his childhood home!  So cute!

MIT - Media Lab
Lobby of the Maki building.  It was very nice.  Sleek.  Clean.  Fun.

Gehry's eclectic monstrosity on the MIT campus.
The outside is horrible but the interior is fun like Disneyland!

This was our reflection in a fun little sculpture in the foyer.

Yes, the building really does leak.  There were holes cut out of the ceiling in many places....
FLW's buildings always leaked.  I guess genius always comes with leaky roofs.

Kresege Auditorium by Eero Saarinen

Just walking around Boston.

The hah-bah.

New England Aquarium by Peter Chermayeff on the hah'bah.

City Hall I think...it was something brutal.

Lovely church on the smaller than I anticipated Harvard campus.

James outside of the GSD.

The old cathedral with the new "brutal" GSD next to it.

Room inside an old church that was converted into a dance studio.
Can we say Ronchamp?

Oh, yeah.  I have an interview tomorrow with a firm that I would really like to work for.  Wish me luck!

Calling from the land of unemployment: It sucks here

So I haven't written for a while because life has pretty much sucked.
I was told by nearly all of the architects and professors that I talked with to just move to NY and I will find a job quickly.  Yeah, they were all wrong.

*Don't continue to read if you are in a good mood or you have heard me complain about job stuff before, you may just get annoyed.

I had given myself a 2 week grace period to look for an architecture job before I was going to go out and get a dumb job.  Well two weeks came and went.  I started getting more and more frustrated by not getting ANY responses for informational interview requests or applications.  Then what was even more awesome was that all three of my previous professors will not write me back and one other WashU alum that I had been in contact will also not write me back.  Now you may be thinking to yourself "Well, Cassie, there must be something wrong with you.  Either your emails are too aggressive or you are not being direct enough or you are asking for too much."  To this I would say you maybe correct...but I do not feel that I was being too aggressive or asking for too much.  I am very careful about negotiating that line and would not ask them to do something that would put them out too much.  To my face they are all very complimentary and encouraging but when it comes to me actually needing a little bit of help they slowly disappear.  I can accept that they don't want to help me, that's not the issue for me.  Don't BS to my face and say you are going to help me and then not return my emails.
It sucks because with each of these professors I thought that I had a friendship that was different from the regular student/professor relationship and I respected all of them so greatly.  Apparently I was mistaken.  There is more to the story than what I have written here, for example all three of them at different times helping other students and/or giving jobs to others.  It's not that I am mad about them helping others because I really like all of the people that they helped, but what it comes down to is that it's just disappointing.  That's all.
Now I am trying to take James' advice: Don't get mad just get a chip on your shoulder!  :)

Oh the stupid career center lady sucks!  She was on vacation for the month of August.  I wrote the person who was supposed to be filling in for her, no response.  The career center lady, let's call her EF, finally write me back at the end of August and says call and make an advising appointment so we can talk over the phone.  Okay, fine.  She doesn't have a flippin' time open for 2 weeks!  Why in the hell can't you just give me some alums names via email that said they would be willing to talk to recent graduates!?  So I make an appointment with another counselor for the next day, which I come to find out isn't over architecture at all!  However she was very nice and said that she would send my information to the new architecture counselor working with EF and he would get back to me in the next day or so.  Well I have not heard a peep from that.  So I just called up and made the appointment to talk to EF on the 12th.
Oh yeah so I also write somebody from the Alumni Office to see if they can get me in contact with any alums.  She wrote back and was very nice but said that she is not over the NY people and that she would send my information and request to guy who is in charge.  I have heard nothing.  I finally hunted down his name via my friend at the Law School A&D.  I wrote him directly.  Nothing.
I am so frustrated at how the Architecture School works.  While working at Alumni & Development for the Law School alumni were always always always treated with the upmost respect regardless of when they graduated.  I would get phone calls or emails from former students that had either just moved to a new area and were looking for a job or were just needing to network with other alums and those phone calls or emails were always responded to in a timely manner if not immediately.  I know I may sound a little crazy but it's because I have seen how other schools function and the Sam Fox School just sucks.

I'm done complaining for right now.
Something has gone right though.  I did have one job interview and that was thanks to Hilary, another recent graduate, who so kindly sent my stuff to her firm.  I'm still waiting to hear back.  But this is a whole other story for another post.

To leave things on a better note here are some photos from the past few months.
BTW: Stretch pants = Awesome pants!