Graduation Convocation

Today I had to get up even earlier and bike down to Gammage to get ready for Convocation. They had us arrive at 8, but didn't lead us out until 9, so we mingled in the cramped backstage area. This involves the entire college of design, including everyone from Interiors, to Planning, to Landscape, Design Studies, building administration et al, so it was pretty packed. Saori and her mom spent an hour and a half putting her special kimono on, one that traditionally she is supposed to wear only twice in her life- graduation from college, and then for the photos afterwards. Looked great, but very warm.

Convocation went smoothly, they announced me as "Alex Perkins" when I handed them the card with "Alexander Perkins," but they completely butchered Saori's name, mis-reading it as "Sandy" ah well. We got our degree holders and walked across the stage. Pretty quick ceremony. Finished in less than an hour and a half.

After the ceremony, Sally, Jonathan, and the family took us to Oreganos where we had an early lunch feast. Afterwards, my grandmothers and I lounged by the pool at the hotel, reading, talking, and enjoying the cool water. I was stung by a wasp, which was a little painful. I was concerned I might be allergic to wasp stings since I'd never been stung before, but the swelling and redness disappeared within an hour. Around 5 o'clock, grandma Case made a comment about cocktail hour, so I decided to take them to Four Peaks brewery, where we enjoyed a pitcher of beer. They were excited to have the "complete college experience."

Anyway, photos: click on the Webshots link to see the full sized photos.



Graduation 2007

Commencement

Today I had my degree officially conferred upon me at the ASU convocation, along with about 3200 other graduates who showed up (about half of the total student population graduating). My grandmothers took a shuttle from their hotel to the arena where it took place, and in keeping with my typical M.O., I took the city bus. Luckily a short distance. In honor of my grandparents visiting from Oklahoma, and in deference to the official State Neckwear, I wore a bolo tie which belonged to my grandfather Case. I also rummaged up an old silver bracelet mom gave me when I was about ten. Commencement was good. It was pretty snappy, nobody talked for very long, I'd never heard of the commencement speaker, but apparently he was a key figure in sequencing the human genome. He talked for a short bit about duty. Then they recognized the people who graduated with honors, so I got to stand up when they called for all those with Summa Cum Laude. Then they had all the colleges stand up individually, and after presenting all of us to President Crow, he officially conferred the degrees, and we all cheered. And that was about it. I had a lot of fun watching the various costumed people come in. I recall I went to commencement as a freshman to start college almost as a lark, just to see what it was. Same old robes.

After the ceremony, I met up with Sally and my grandmothers and we took some photos outside. Somewhere in there I lost my regular glasses, so now I'm wearing my temporary ones. Later that afternoon, we went back and my grandmothers hunted around where we were while I idled on the side of the road. I would have parked but unbelievably they seemed to be having ceremonies the entire afternoon so the traffic was terrible.

I took them to Fashion Square in Scottsdale for a bit this afternoon, where we got a bite to eat at the Kona Grill, (and I got grandma Loretta to try a bit of my sushi), and I replaced a battery in my watch. They didn't find anything, but enjoyed looking and getting outraged at the luxury prices of everything.

This evening, a friend of mine had an extra ticket to the college of architecture/landscape party so I was able to bring both my grandparents as dates. It was nice, all the faculty were there, free drinks, some food, really good desserts, all at the Stone House at the Phoenix Zoo. Hung out there for a bit and met Saori's mom who was also in town for the occasion. My grandparents got free bouquets in vases as the party wound down.

Tomorrow is the more intimate ceremony with just the college of design graduates. Should be fun.

Welcome to Spring Break

I think I've found a good solution to how to get to work. I'm going to buy a car.

But in the meantime. I've discovered a great alternative. ASU president Michael Crow drives me downtown.

The way this works is that Crow saw through the establishment of a downtown campus for ASU. This campus has classes used by regular students at the Tempe campus, who really did not want to A) Fight traffic, or B) Pay for downtown parking. So part of the deal is a free shuttle bus which runs from ASU's tempe campus straight to downtown.

Friday morning, I biked to the shuttle stop on ASU in less than ten minutes. The shuttle bus left at 6:30 AM. I was the only one on it, which feels a little strange, but ok. The bus dropped me at Polk and First st, which was another ten minute bike ride to work. So I got my workplace at 7:05. I had time to bike around the neighborhood, and pop into a Jack in the Box for breakfast.
Next time, I'll take the 7 AM shuttle and get another half an hour of sleep in the morning.

Work was good, simple tasks to do, so I filled in the rest of the time really getting everything right in the programs, and doing some areal photography work over the site. I rode home with a bunch of chittering, giggling, Devil's Advocates, the peppy student guides and salespeople who give tours of ASU to graduating kids with thier parents. It's hard to believe there was so much enthusiasm for ASU. They were like evangleist youth groups spreading the Good Word, so pure was thier faith in ASU.

I got my two other books in the mail. One was Images of the City by Lynch, and the other was Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. I love Vonnegut. His books are like tinted glasses to look at your world. Some books are good at drawing you in and making you forget the world around you. Others are good for making you look at the world around you. I like the book so far, Cat's Cradle was better, Vonnegut seems more resigned and embittered by the world around him in this one. Image of the City was recommended to me by my old history of architecture professor and friend Dr. Morton, while he was reviewing my project.

Listen: Friday was also my mid-semester review. Five of us pinned up in the hall outside our classroom at a time. One person got the board, and the other four shared two huge movable whiteboards which we pinned up on both sides. We completely took over the corridor and clogged it up. Our reviewers in the early part were actually two thirds of the Argentine faculty. Milagros, a faculty from southern Argentina, and Professor Claudio Vekstein, whom we all know from our many adventures south of the equator.

I went late in the day, but the reviewers really liked my work. The idea of putting up a facade of another building on the old mill was a really controvercial decision which made my studio teacher (art and theory background) nearly come to blows with Milagos (brutalist modernism background). It's fun when reviewers fight. Especially since they'll typically give you ammunition for later development. Everybody loved the patio on top of the grainery. That shot with the silhouette and the sunset nailed it. That was the money shot, even if it was completely fabricated. It's the idea of what they could see rather than the precise angle or height (I shot the sunset from on top of A mountain, a good several hundred feet above where the top of the grainery is).

Saori's studio was not so fortunate. Her studio all looked really unhappy leaving friday. Seems like Professor Spellman wasn't too happy with the state of things, or the amount of work. So there's lots of work for them over spring break. Our studio teacher told us that she didn't want us to worry about working over spring break.

After studio, Saori and I and Jamie (old roomate) met up with a bunch of grad student girls from our Buenos Aires trip, and we sat ate mexican food and drank margaritas and talked for about two hours. One of them summed up the problem with all our of studios/thesises. "We're halfway through the semester, but we're not halfway done yet."

So that was friday. Today I picked up Sally and Jonathan's van at thier apartment and took it in for an oil change which was part of the deal that I made with them to borrow it over spring break. Better, really since Sally left me money for it too. Anyway, after the oil change, I watched a movie, relaxed, read about half of Breakfast of Champions and then worked on my sketchbook.

My sketchbook, incidently, has about 320 more pages that I have to fill with drawings and sketches. This sketchbook when I turn it in will consititute most of my grade for my sketching class. So there is some serious work to do, especially considering that I have five weeks.

Five weeks. I have five weeks of school before graduation. I need to get on the ball with figuring out all the finalities and nicieties of the graduation ceremony and protocalls. And I need to figure out a place to live too, as the lease here is up in mid may.

Maroon and Gold

Finally got my transcript straightened out, so I applied to graduate this morning. Got a receipt and my tassels. My GPA was above 3.8 last semester, so I'm going to be graduating Summa Cum Laude, so I'm very happy about that. Wow, I can't believe I'm graduating. Just wanted to share.