ArchStar

This is your wake-up call. Pick up the phone.

It doesn't help to start off the day finding out that in the past month you have gained 10 lbs. Short of being frank, this absolutely blows hardcore to the tenth degree; not simply because of the weight gained but the distance it puts between myself and my goal. Anyway -

I have been absent from my architectonic lifestyle for approximately 3 weeks while I worked as a counselor for a program called the Summer Institute for the Gifted. I can say I personally got some things out of it while at the same time helping mold minds that will change the world in the future. I know for a fact they will hold weight and have impact when one of the 11 year-old there was selling cakes in a business of his own. Moving on, I had fun, a bit of love (yes, these things happen at camps), some reprimanding (never come back late from night swimming in the hills), and overall I think I'll do it again. I can tell you for a fact though that the time I think about having children it will be too soon. It's odd b/c on one end I felt so old in respect to their age, as if the past 7 years has just zipped by. But I know in my mind that it was never that fast and even now I live day-by-day and hour by hour the clock ticks at a normal pace: I don't think I'm dying any time soon (God willing) @.@.

Either way, it's time to return to the way I was before, but in that same token, move to make changes in what I do. Something nice I picked up from working with these kids is consistently working to max on 6 hours of sleep. If I hadn't mentioned before, the way sleep works is that it is in 1-1/2 hour cycles, so I settled on this amount as it would translate well to the work I'll be doing during the school year. Anyway, my bedtime (currently) is 6 am and I can get myself awake a 7am (out of bed at 7:30 at the latest) and be fully functional the entire day. Who knew? For someone who was constantly suffering from insomnia as a fresh-faced you this will help me out very much in future endeavors.

Another change is that of cultural expression. It seems that the longer I've been in college, the more and more I've lost touch with the Hispanic part of my culture. This seems a bit ironic as in all of my projects I stress the importance of expressing one's culture through the creative process, and overall the realization has been a bit shocking. In this light, I have decided to dwell a bit on my past (something I don't usually do) along with practicing my Spanish and watching some telenovelas. May sound a bid ludicrous, but I heard of a Romanian tennis player learning Spanish from watching them and on top of that it is in large part a way to be reminded of what it means to be me.

Sport is also going to be a larger aspect of my life - pretty much the entire idea of health in both what I eat and what I do. Currently as I write this I'm thinking about what I want to do right now for exercise, though I cringe at the thought of the pain the first workout after a long hiatus from major activity. That and I mean major activity. The goal is to push myself to being a two athletic training body, one being my architect and the other is my sportist (made-up word but whatever). This includes not only hardcore training techniques, but on top of that a very stringent diet in that I won't eat anything processed and I'm officially donning the moniker of flexitarian.

Things I am keeping: my love of music, my love of Japanese culture (reviving my manga reading), my practicing of Italian, my penchant for trying new drinks (especially now that I'm 21), and the goal of going to graduate school in England.

I'm still very young so I feel I have tons and tons of life to lead. I have to say that right now this time is for me. It is a very selfish thing to say, but as they say, architects are ego driven, and according to some I'm not. Guess I have to prove them wrong? Whatever happens I'm still smiling, and I'll still be the giggler.

Today is also the day I plan on starting a bit of portfolio organization, though I'm at my mothers so if that actually happens it will be a miracle