Caught in a Jar...or Limbo

"Now there comes a time in every man's life, where decisions have to be made whether to toil, to labor, or just plain piss your days away, away, away!" - Dropkick Murphy's


Well a decision has been made...I am moving to New York.  There just aren't architecture jobs here.
So enough of this limbo crap.
My last day of work is Wednesday July 6th, hallelujah!  And I plan to be in NY around the 15th.


One minor blip...I don't really have a job yet.  But I have done everything that I can without physically living in New York.  So I have to "step into the darkness" a little bit before I can move on.


I was in NY a couple weekends ago and I met with a few people.  I really started to get excited at the possibility of working there.  One woman I met with was really positive and encouraging about practicing architecture in New York.  Oh get this... at the end of the meeting while we were standing by the elevators I asked her if it would be inappropriate if I gave her a hug.......SERIOUSLY I DID.  She looked at me for a second attempting to comprehend what in the world I just asked her, but then she put out both arms out and gave me a hug.  As soon as I stepped into the elevator and the doors shut I did a palm plant right on my forehead.  Why oh why do I have to be such a geek?!  I was just so excited and happy after talking with her it just kind of came out.  Well, at least she won't forget me very easily.


I have kind of been beginning to realize that New York is very manageable in small pieces and areas. It begins to be overwhelming when you try to comprehend it in its entirety.  There's just too much going on to digest.
So the idea of moving and living in New York City maybe overwhelming and scary at first but once you break it down, i.e. where you are going to work, where you are going to live, where you are going to go to church, the visualization becomes easier...and my panic attacks decrease in frequency. :)


I met up with two of my professors for lunch while I was out there.  First of all they were hilarious and great.  They both always make me feel so good about myself and help reassure my confidence in my abilities.  Well one of them said that I should consider going into creative writing because I write the same way I talk which "is hilarious."  I think this was after I said something about wanting to kill the undergraduate students that I TA'ed for a couple semesters ago.  So I said if the architecture thing doesn't work out I'll consider creative writing.

Moving on: As I am itching up on my 29th year on this earth I am becoming increasingly aware of my mortality and shelf life of my ovaries.  It's annoying.


Moving on: When I was in New York I stayed with Anika & Co.  I cannot express how much I love those kids.  Each one of them is so unique and bright.  
Milo is so beautiful and smart!  She is very structured and likes routine, every single night without fail she is in her bed by 8:50 pm sharp.  She reads like a monster and is reading a grade level or two ahead!  Oh yeah she likes having me do her hair in braids.
Oh they all love to take showers!  One night I blow-dried all of their hair, one after another, Otto wanted me to do his hair like Justin Bieber...oh man he kills me.
Otto is my special buddy.  For one he is the middle child, like myself, and two he has short toes and feet just like mine!  He loves to compare our feet, especially when we're skyping, he thinks it's hilarious.  Otto is so creative and contemplative.  He struggles with traditional subjects like reading but he is absolutely brilliant in his logic and his drawings are fantastically detailed!  (He drew kneecaps on a figure that he drew in my notebook.)
Now Clio the 4 year old told me that she wants to go to a chicken farm and get a chicken and cut off its head and then eat it...because chicken is delicious.  I don't know where she came from.  She sings phrases and questions like "Cassie, would you hand me my driiiiiiink?" Her outfits that she picks out are also pretty fantastic.  The first day I got there she was wearing a black turtleneck that had the sleeves cut short and a denim skirt on top of a pair of green and white striped pajamas.  On Sunday she wore her shirt backwards because she wanted the ruffles in the back.  (She actually reminds me of myself as a kid.)  One night when I was reading her a couple of her "Fancy Nancy" books that Dina gave her she said to me "Cassandra, I'm so happy you're here.  I love you."  Then she gave me a hug.  It was pretty much the sweetest most pure innocent thing in the whole entire world.  My heart was complete and total mush.
I am so excited to live near them!  I also kind of feel bad that they don't have any cousins to grow up with...oh man that's a whole other story for another day.
Well quickly, I got the guts up and I called a guy that I have had a bit of a crush on for a while and ask him if he wanted to go to a movie.  I have two tickets from work and it is just an excuse to get to know him better, duh.  Well he didn't answer and I wasn't quite sure whether or not to leave a message, then I did and it was terrible.  Anyways it didn't happen....crushes suck.  However I am proud of myself for putting the ball in his court.  
I feel as though I need to do everything that is within my power to progress or move forward in my life.  99% of the time I don't know how things are going to work or logistics but I have faith that things will be okay and work out.  98% of the time, they do.


I'm falling asleep.


To summarize:  I am moving to New York.  I am a major dork.  I am getting old.  My nieces and nephew are the cutest things in the world.  Crushes are annoying.


Night night.

It's been a long time

So it's been a while.  How have you been?  Anything new with you?

Oh me?  Well let's see...so much has happened in the last five months.  I graduated from architecture school.  I started working at A&D again at WashU as an interim job and I hate it more than life itself, I want to shoot myself everyday when I'm there.  I have had very little luck in finding a job in St. Louis.  Mind you this comes after 2 months of be paralyzed by the fear of not knowing where to go or what to do.  My best friend moved to Boston and that sucks balls.  Nothing in the guy department.  Student loans are going to kick in pretty darn soon.

Despite of of the $#*t that seems to pile up there have been some great things that have happened.  I went to Memphis with some friends in February.  Erika came and visited me.  I have been working out at the gym again.  My car is now paid off.  I only have 1 more month living with a certain filthy roommate.  I graduated. 

Better yet let me show you what's been going on in pictures:

Faux Rio!  Delicious!

Farewell dinner for Laura.  :(

Moving day for Laura, Honey, and Journey.  :(

The vanity mirror came off of the wall while I was doing my makeup! 
Thank heavens my short-term roommate Jeff was there to save me.

First night of Celebrity!  Jordan, Jeff, and Lindsay.

Ellie and Frombo...it's trivia night, oh what a night!

Crown Candy in North St. Louis with Peter, Lindsay, Willie and I.

I picked up my diploma from the basement of the Womens Building...?

Lindsay's last trivia night.  :(

Vac and Mumin-Papa at the boy's going away party.

Pre-Snowpocalypse 2011.

$1 burger Mondays at Market Pub House...Sly Willie.

I FINALLY found DUO at the international food market!

Oh, Tammy!

My buds James and Willie.

Goodbye party for Jeff.

Driving home from church...drive-by Temple picture taking.

Gus's Famous Fried Chicken in Memphis!
Draino was needed for our arteries after this meal.

Beale Street in Memphis.

Alvar Aalto St. Patrick's Day cookies!

Chillin'...where I don't know...maybe UPS?

Turbie and I at trivia night.

Turbs and I.

Death tubes at the City Museum!

My new/hand-me-down Roomba!  I love him.  :)

Lovely picnic on Art Hill!

Happy and I at the law school burger bus event.

Peter and I got funnel cakes at the Thurtene festival on campus.

My little special troll pencil got a new hair-do.

 Fountain on Locust; Ladies Night! (minus the boys that crashed it)

Ellie and Frombo's last trivia night... :(
Hats, balloons, and leis were in fashion!

I didn't know they made skillets this small!

Look at how cute these little jade starts are!  Thanks Frombo.

I have also started building a website...I only have two projects up on there.  But take a look and let me know what you think.  http://cargocollective.com/thearchitectress

Much Needed Update

Okay.  Since I haven't written or updated anybody in a long time and I am being uber lazy I am just going to post a little clip from an email that I wrote to my aunt:

I'm doing well.  I officially graduated in December!  I actually went and picked up my diploma about an hour ago!  It was exciting.

Right now I'm back in St. Louis.  I am finishing up my portfolio, attempting to network, and identify firms whose work I like in the areas that I would like to move to.

I have a temporary job starting in about a week that's going to be about 30 hrs/week.  I will be working with the same people in the same department that I have been working with since last summer as a student worker. (Alumni and Development for the Law School).  So at least this will pay my rent and bills for 3 months while I continue to search for an architecture job.

I'm mainly looking at the east coast because I would love to be near everybody.  So this means New York, Baltimore and DC, maybe Boston.

I love architecture so much.  I feel like I am the most blessed person in the world sometimes.  Really.

What else...I need to get back to working out at the gym...I feel 100% better when I am working out several times a week.  

No dating going on here.

I am a Relief Society teacher!  I am a total crackhead so who ever thought this was a good idea...  It's actually been fun.  I'm also helping with activities at church.

I go to Trivia Night every Wednesday night with friends from school.  I always look forward to that.

That's pretty much it.  

I graduated!  Okay, that's totally exciting!

 So there is a little highlight..........To Be Continued.......................

Just call me...

...Master Cassie. 
Oh, holy shit balls.
8 1/2 years of post high school education came to the big finale/final review today.  And it went pretty well.  Better than I was expecting. 
This experience has been the most physically, emotionally, and mentally challenging thing I have ever done in my life. 

I haven't slept very much in the last four days so I am going to pass out now.  I will write more about my project and my final review once I have rested and feel a bit better.

It's the final countdown

The count down has begun.
Three weeks left until final reviews. Three weeks left until I am done with a Masters Degree in Architecture. Oh holy crap.
Five years doing undergrad (I graduated with a billion extra credits) and three and a half years of graduate school. I wonder how well I will adjust not being in school...I will share my internal freak-outs another time.

Updates:
-My finger is still sore from the x-acto/superglue incident. I will consult one of the doctors in my ward tomorrow. Amputation is still a possibility.
-No bed sores yet.
-I broke my cardinal rule: I HAVE to sleep for 4 hours before a review. I stayed up something like 26 hours before I reviewed. In the past not sleeping before a review has proven to be detrimental to my state of mind which inevitably makes them go horribly. Surprisingly this review went alright.
-I finally ordered and received my Design Thinking book. That is actually quite a relief.
-I wasted sometime today that I didn't have to spare by going to the Gap with a couple of my friends from school. I got a new sweater and peacoat for an absolute steal. I feel slightly less frumpy since I put the new sweater on.
-I'm a little weirded out that Russ and Chow found my blog.  Maybe they found me through Renee?  I prefer to be incognito.  But I love you Russ and Chow, you guys know me and how "special" I can be, so you guys are okay.
-The marriage plague is still spreading in my ward.  And it's still annoying...in all reality I am very happy for these people.  I'm just bummed that I am nowhere close to being married let alone I haven't dated anybody out here.  So every once in a while I have a pity party for myself.  They mainly happen when I am in cynical moods such as now.
 -My beautiful BFF Renee is going to pop out her second kid any day now.  I can't wait to meet this Festus Maximus in December!
-Another friend from college, Elisa is going to pop out her first kid in December.  I am very happy for her.  I think the kid will come out with a mohawk and an OpIvy t-shirt on.
-My gym finally reopened.  I have to go talk to them to see if they are going to refund the money that I requested while the gym was not in service.  I hate greedy corporate america.  Speaking of...I still hate Aetna.
-I have had a stress headache for the last week and a half.  That's just been awesome.  I took an anti-anxiety pill tonight (klonopin) and it helped actually quite a bit.  I need to get me more of those. 
-I want a dog so bad.  A lot of women have biological clocks that tick very loudly, well right now my doggy-clock is ticking.  I think going in a few weeks and being able to cuddle with Bowser, the handsome boxer that is 80lbs of pure love, is going to pacify that for a while.  Bowser loves to be held.  I'm talking about his whole entire body on top of yours.  Although my breathing can become restricted I love almost every minute.  He's my Baby Bowser.  Yeah, Boston the adopted pug is pretty dang ugly/cute.

I was going to post some of my drawings on here but Blogger doesn't support pdf files.  So maybe another time.

I need to pack up and go home now.  I have to wake up and go to church tomorrow.  I haven't been in three weeks and I kind of don't see me going again before my final reviews are over.

Buenos noches.

-cassie

Sleepy sleep time

So this is the latest I have stayed up this semester thus far...yet I am still writing a blog at this lovely hour. I thought that I would put a few thoughts that have come to my mind this past week:

-Man, my car drives a lot better when the parking brake is off. (Driving to school right before studio)
-Why in the hell am I
-Oh James, I love you and miss you! I will call you this weekend. (Earlier this week I woke up to a fantastic text from my friend James, then passed out again immediately.)
-How cute is he?! I want him to be my adopted grandpa. (At the WashU Law School Reunion weekend.)
-There are some awesome/epic comb-overs and toupes. I wish I had a camera! (At the WashU Law School Reunion weekend.)
-My legs hurt so bad this is pathetic, soon all of us (DP students) are going to have bedsores and skin infections because we don't move from our chairs and desks often enough! (As I was walking out of school at 4:45 am)
-Geeze, I hope I don't have to have my finger amputated. (My knuckle is sore and I have a lovely bump where I stabbed it with an x-acto knife and then to put superglue in the wound, so I could keep working on my model. I realized that was a stupid idea only after I did it. I then proceeded to pick out the superglue. It hurt. That was about a month ago and it still hurts.)


I am falling asleep...
More to come.

Oh Romeo, what's in a name?

I know I haven't written in quite a while. A lot has happened...well not that much...okay maybe a lot.

I guess I will just list things off and elaborate where I feel it is necessary.

-I started my last semester of graduate school.
-I got the professor that I really wanted for Degree Project and I sit by my bestest buddy Jordan...so studio life is good.
-I am also taking a great class known as SLAM CO (Saint Louis Art Museum Construction Observation). I get to wear a hard hat, neon yellow vest, protective eye wear and scary butch/lesbian hard-soled shoes. It is such a great class!
-I had a professor ask me to write him a letter of recommendation for an award he was nominated for. I felt very honored to be asked to do that. I spent a good amount of time trying to write something that would do him justice.
-I got called to be a Relief Society teacher...seriously! I have only taught three times and they are progressively getting better. For my second lesson I put a picture of Megan Fox and Hugh Heffner up on the board...I am like no other teacher they've had before! ;)

-And the big one...my dad has had prostate cancer.
Over the last few years his Gleason score has remained relatively low (~6). This spring he went in for a biopsy and cancer cells were found. Surgery was scheduled for August to remove the prostate. He had a pre-op MRI and the doctors saw what they thought might be a metastasis on his hip. So that freaked everyone out for a good week. (I had even made the decision that if that was the case that I would leave school to spend time with my family.) The area on his hip ended up being a shadow from a previous injury and not a tumor because nothing showed up on the x-rays. After a lot of self-diagnosing and pessimistic/worse case scenarios he felt that he needed to just trust his doctors and that things would be alright.
So my dad ended up having his prostate out at Huntsman Cancer Institute (which is bizarre because I had used the HCI as a precedent for my Degree Project.) The surgeon was confident that the tumor/cancer was encapsulated and that they had gotten clear margins. Pretty much best case scenario all around. I have no doubt that Heavenly Father definitely heard and answered our prayers.
I called him twice a day to check up on him. We even skyped a couple of times while he was doped up and he was hilarious as usual. He was as happy as a clam because he was getting to eat salmon and drink fruit smoothies. So he was in the hospital for 5 days I think...then he went home with his "pee-bag."
The next few days were really rough for him, he wasn't feeling well both physically and emotionally. He went in for the post-op appointment, got the catheter out, and the pathology report back. The tumor was encapsulated and the margins were clear!
Over the next couple days his pain progressively got worse instead of better (7-9 on a scale from 1-10.) I thought he was just being a wuss or had just not been keeping up on his medicine, like he tends to do. Well the pain got so bad that Dina took him to the emergency room Saturday morning. A CT scan revealed he had two large abscesses where his prostate was removed. I felt like a royal jerk for not believing him. He was readmitted to the Huntsman. The doctors opted not to drain the abscesses and treat it intravenously with antibiotics. After four days of salmon and sleeping the abscesses had only reduced in size 20%, not ideal but going in the right direction.
It's been about a week since he was released from the hospital for a second time with another pee-bag. He had another follow-up appointment with yet another CT scan. The abscesses were a lot smaller and his doctor said he was confident that the abscesses were just fluid filled and that there was no need to go in and drain them. So my dad is supposed to finish the antibiotics and continue to rest and heal. Next week the doctor said they would remove the catheter because he wants to make sure that the bladder continues to drain and that there are no other issues.
As soon as my dad was well enough to sit at a computer he has been "researching" and reading crap on the internet. So every time I talk to him he is going on about how he could have the really bad kind of cancer and that his doctors don't know what they're talking about. That's when I have to gently bring him back to reality and tell him that his doctors really do know more about his condition and new treatments than the obscure quacks on the internet. He usually says "Yeah, you're probably right." I respond by saying "Not probably Dad, I am right. Now turn off the computer and go upstairs and spend time with the family." Most of the time he obeys. :)
That's what's been going on with my dad. I know that wasn't the most eloquent writing but you get the idea.


-This last weekend a friend that I met through school got married. So about week before the wedding I had kind of forgotten about it and I didn't have a date, oops. That next Sunday I taught Relief Society so I was busy preparing the whole weekend and hadn't put much thought into a date. Well, as I was leaving church after my lesson I just so happened to glance backwards and see a guy that I have only talked to a few times and have gotten along with. I had a small yet distinct thought that I should ask him. That just kind of stayed with me for the next several days. So I did.
He was really nice on the phone and said that he would be more than happy to go. Score! It's always a good sign when you're not rejected right off the bat.
I had a great time and was actually very impressed by him. It was so nice to be able to interact with somebody that is confident, polite, intelligent, with a sense of humor.
Something I was just thinking about...During dinner he had brought up what he "needed" in a partner which kind of took me off guard. I then quickly responded something like I don't know what I want or need (which is totally not true.) I think I was just thrown off because I don't usually talk about that kind of stuff or share it openly. I am a cornball/nut-job that will be completely honest with anyone but I am very reserved and private about some things. I need somebody with a strong personality that is able to take control of situations if needed, someone who is confident and sure of themselves, someone who can accept my strong personality and all my craziness and still think I'm wonderful. Anyhoo...I really hope no one else besides the three friends that I know of on here are reading this.

If nothing else, I have been given hope in this dreary singles existence just to know that there are guys like that in the world.

It's time to end this post.
I really should revamp this blog. It's very boring does not accurately reflect my "style." Maybe when I am procrastinating some night in studio I will give it a whirl.

Ohhh I also webbed my desk at school! I will take a picture and put it on here. In the mean time check out how awesome these things are... http://www.selkbagusa.com/ I totally want one so I can look like Gumby when I go camping.




BB.
-cassie