HARD WORK NEVER FAILS?

Hard work never fails.

This is a good thing to be reminded of frequently. In hindsight, looking back at recent achievements, hard work is something that you can never regret. Hard work is always appreciated in hindsight, rarely ever in the moment, and in architecture school, this moment may look very, very, very bleak. One can only hope that the hard work that they are struggling through will eventually pay off.

Hard work for what reason?

I was asking myself this question earlier today after reading a Thanksgiving Facebook post from a mutual friend about risking stability and livelihood in a mindless hospitality job, diving into his passion for photography with a year of contacting people asking for work, and reaching the stage where he is now being asked for his photography and travelling to provide his services around the world. Good on him, good on all freelancers, for taking the risk and working hard to make it worth it.

In this case, it seems that the goal of this hard work - to become a viable freelancer - has been driven by the desire for autonomy and to have a genuine love for the work he is doing. I would say that the 'proper' reason as to why one should work hard in school is for personal development, however, students who put in hard work genuinely to improve themselves and their design skills seem to be a rarity.

I feel like the competitive environment in architecture schools leads people to focus on things that in the long run, aren't very important. Working hard to please your tutor, working hard to avoid the shame of presenting unfinished work in studio, working hard to have a solid portfolio when applying for an architecture job. From what I've noticed, the trope of "it's all about connections (and communications)" is all too familiar, and among ambitious students, there is an unspoken competition of who-knows-who, internships, and internships-where?.

Perhaps I am a bit shortsighted. Perhaps it's me who sees a rivalry when I should be focussing on working on myself (again, always something I should remember). When it comes down to it, I'm not sure what makes the exertion and sacrifice associated with architecture schools worth it, or whether there is any 'right' reason for it. I don't know whether the career focus in architecture schools, or at least among students, is healthy (I don't think it is though). The crux of any education should be self-development, but perhaps it's idealistic of me to think that.

This time around

These past few days, I've been freaking out about uni starting next Monday. Freaking out because I still haven't got a confirmed timetable, which means that I can't tell my manager the days I'll be available to work. She wants at least two days (or equivalent) in a week, and at this point, it's hard to say whether I'll be able to or not. Freaking out because I've been anticipating and working hard towards starting architecture at RMIT and it's becoming a reality. Freaking out because the era of 'in-between-degrees' is almost over, and just like the weeks leading up to finishing my B.A., I'm freaking out because I have no idea of what my life will look like in the next month/ few months/ year.

This time around doing undergraduate university seems to have started very similarly to the last time. Architecture orientation was on Monday afternoon, to which I arrived half an hour late. We had tours or the architecture studios and today we have tours of the workshops. The other day, we were emailed a list of materials to buy, all stationary and art materials kind of things, which reminded me a lot of back-to-school lists in primary school. All of this is making me freak out a bit because I haven't studied in a creative setting since Visual Arts in high school, and I have no idea what to expect. Perhaps I have no idea of what I'm in for. Although there is a sense of reassurance that I've passed two stages of tasks and interviews to be at this university studying architecture, which means that at least the three people on my interview panel think that I'm capable of getting through whatever will be thrown at me for the next three years.

But I suppose I should also care less about what people think. The next three years will be a learning experience, and the following paragraph will be somewhat of a manifesto to myself - a mental pinch in the arm to stop me from getting stuck in cycles of freaking out. Try new things. Be open to criticism. Be critical of yourself. Compliment yourself. Criticise others. Compliment others. Be open to new people. Academic staff are here to help. Soak in as much as you can. Challenge yourself with new people, new ways of learning, new materials and new machines. Stay on top of everything. Draw out your ideas. It will be okay.

Document

I generally don't like making resolutions every year. I lost interest in using the change of the year as an excuse to reinspire yourself (time is an artificial concept, etc). I had three job interviews last week and that has given me hope that I'll be able to find some work (and have some choice about it) very soon. I feel good and bad about starting work again - I'm dreading starting something from square one, I'm nervous about introducing obligations and routine into me spontaneous and free schedule, however I'm looking forward to feeling like I have a purpose, and I'm look forward to having money to curb my stress over leisurely spending and to fund my personal projects.

B and I went to Sydney the other week, and while we were there at my family home, we looked through my art diaries from Years 7 to 12. Particularly in my art diary for Year 11 and 12, it was fascinating seeing the research and experimentation that went into making something for a high school art assignment. I printed excerpts from websites that I thought contained interesting concepts, and I brainstormed my ideas and how I could express that in a physical form. I had forgotten how it was to document and expand my ideas in such a way, especially since I haven't been using Tumblr for that purpose for the past two years. I used to document things too digitally, and then I documented things too casually/sporadically, and now I don't really document things at all.

Apart from measured goals (make bags, make a zine, earn money, read more), I guess my resolution for this year is to become familiar with my ideas and opinions through documenting them on paper, reading and researching more, mind maps. It's definitely something that I feel that I've lost.

Hindsight

Photos taken in Hangzhou, September 2014

In Year 7, our English teacher gave us an exercise to do in every lesson - she would pick a word, theme, or phrase, and everyone would spend five minutes writing anything about the word, theme, or phrase that she picked. Doing it was a chore, but reading back on those pieces of writing amuses me.

Lately, I've been reminiscing a bit. I still haven't gotten over my old workplace. They went to Hawaii last week, and this week, the office was evacuated because of the terrifying siege in Martin Place. I made contacted with my former manager for the first time in a few months, just to check up on how it was for them, and was grateful that she was grateful that I had made contact. Photos of their Hawaii trip have started coming up on Facebook, and I added another girl whom I hadn't had as a Friend before. It gets me a bit down to see that the company is moving on without me, that friendships at the place are getting closer when I've all but nearly broken off all contact. It really does made me feel a bit depressed that my life seems like it's at a stand still - two and a half months without a solid job and nothing to prove for the 'downtime' that I've had. Your perception of time gets so skewed when there is seemingly nothing to do. Often, I find myself wishing I had a time machine so I could go back and do things differently, with the hindsight that if I didn't do things differently, I would be in my situation now. Not that I regret the past two months; I sort of don't feel anything towards how I've spent it which is perhaps even worse.