I’ve Moved!

Please visit me at my new home at http://www.crystalle.net

Thank you!

in the mean time…

You can see my latest/updated work via my flickr. Thanks again for being so patient!

hang in there

Bear with me people! I’ve been MIA for good reasons! I’ve been working on a new look and a ne w blog…

I have tons of pictures to blog about, but I really really want to wait for the new blog! Thanks for waiting!

obama

I am so happy that Obama will be inagurated this week!

It’s time for CHANGE.

ONE!

Our niece, Melia, turned one a month ago, but today we had her official birthday party! Here’s a sneak peak of the bug.

first all nighter…

Yikes! This is my official first all-nighter. I was hoping I wouldn’t get to this point until later on in the year. The good news is: I’m not terribly tired yet (currently 3:03 a.m.); the bad news is: I have a ton of work to do.

Back to the good news: it’s Friday! After my review tomorrow, I get to sleep (in) and see my niece. Then back to the bad news: Sunday and Monday will be jamb packed with work!

The good news: I get to shoot for a Vietnamese engagement party next Saturday! Yay! That’s what keeping me alive and kicking – the opportunity to play with my camera.

school update

I know that I have not been very good at blogging, and I apologize.

So here’s what I’ve been up to: SCHOOL!

I started grad school on August 4th and so far have not stopped. Since the very first day, I have been putting my all, my everything into architecture. Right now we are doing a “jump start” project on surfaces. It is a six week exploration where we work in teams of two. Well, we’re going to be in teams the whole year. Anyway, it has been challenging. In the working world, you’d typically work in collaboration, but in terms of design, concept, and execution, I’ve been, more or less, on my own. It’s nice to be able to conceptualize and analyze something, and take many liberties into pushing the idea.

Well, in teams, you have to work at a pace that meets your partner’s; you have to consider his/her point of view and design decision; you have to speak clearly and, even more so, listen carefully.

I’ve been fortunate so far. I think my partner and I have so many similarities in terms of work ethics and ideas, but unfortunately, we work at different paces and often times, arrive at the same place with different approaches. That’s good, but in a way, it’s not because it’s almost as if we are so consumed with what we want to do, that we completely miss the validity of what the other person just said.

Well, I guess we’re doing something right because we did a pretty good job today in our pin up and have a lot of good feedback to move forward.

Lots to do:

Read six essays/papers

Prepare an argument about the two architectural pieces in question

Visit two LA (recent) buildings, and write about them

Design, cast, and fabricate a hardware piece used in our design

Develope our design – approach, tectonics, drawings and graphics

*um, I’m falling asleep as I’m typing… I think that’s a sign that I need to stop typing and start sleeping…

More to come on my life… good night.