Post-graduation

The week continued.
After the party, not a whole lot happened.
Mom started going to bar prep classes on tuesday. I caught a ride with her into town.

What the hell else was I going to do?

This week, mom would go to bar prep courses, and I'd wander over the architecture library and stake out a table. A week after graduation, it was pretty quiet. Free wi-fi, comfortable, light, and possibly the largest architecture library in the US, it made a nice base to figure out what I was going to do this summer.

It sounds like there is just not much work here. A friend of mine who recently graduated from the architecture grad school at ASU confided that few, if any, have been able to find jobs. Taylor and Brit, encountered an army of applicants while chasing down Craigslist postings. Everywhere I go, it seems I overhear someone looking for a job. So Phoenix is not a great place to be jobwise.

So, part of the time at the library I spent job hunting. Applied to a few places around town, and also a few places in the UK. Not much luck. It's tough to be really enthusiastic about since really at this point, I'm only really available to work for a month.

Got a slew of rejection emails from the firms that bothered to send them. Actually, one of the senior designers from Rick Joy's office sent me an incredibly warm rejection letter which actually made me feel good reading it.  No word yet from Sir Norman Foster. Something tells me that I will not get a personalized rejection letter from atop the Gherkin.

I also spent awhile figuring out my school finances and travel plans. Thursday, I booked my tickets to London and Helsinki; made further arrangements possibly to see Salt Lake. Whatever this summer is, it is definitely NOT going to be dull.

Being in Tempe also allowed me the opportunity to meet up with old friends. Had lunch with Sal and his girlfriend one afternoon, and then Tay and Brit the next day, and actually had lunch with my dear friend Dr. Morton, who was my history of architecture professor at ASU. It was good to catch up and see what adventures he's been up to and to update him on what we've been up to in St.Louis.

The other thing I've been doing is learning to drive stick.
Mom has this car. It's about the size of a box of matches, yet has the turning radius of an aircraft carrier. When you get in, the seats are so low they're actually below the level of the street. It has the visibility of a deep sea submersible. If you've got rope to tie it down, the trunk is large enough to hold a golf-ball. If you want to see what cars are around you, the best bet is to stick a camera out the window and snap a quick shot. Best of all, it's got an manual transmission.

Last summer, mom attempted to teach me how to drive stick, partly in my anticipation of having to drive a manual transmission truck to move out to St.Louis. We spent a few hours driving around the nearby church parking lot, endlessly shifting from first, to second, stopping. Shifting to first again, to second, ad nauseum. Actually it was good practice. Thursday, we did a few laps around the church parking lot. And then I drove back to mom's house which was new. The next day, I drove to Tempe. I'm still sweating bullets the entire time, occasionally killing the car, and occasionally swearing. But I'm getting better. I'm told its just a matter of practice.

Realistically, I need to know how to drive stick. When I was in Argentina, a group of us took a bus trip across the country to Mendoza, aiming to reach Las Lenas, an ski resort high in the Andes. The bus took us as far as Mendoza where I found a car rental place a mile from the bus station. Guess how many automatic transmission vehicles they had on loan? Thankfully, there were two people in the group who not only knew how to drive stick, but were old enough to go on the rental agreement.