Last day of secure freedom

I have just finished reading the Alchemist, and so my thoughts of late have been about dreams, omens, and the untiring pursuit of one's Personal Legend. I feel at the beginning of my own, though unlike Santiago, am unsure of my direction. I did not have a dream of buried treasure, but I have the opportunity to choose the next steps towards self fulfilment.

I am slowly working on a proposal for an independent studio. I would prefer to call it a "mini thesis," because I feel it should have more weight and significance than a typical studio. I finished the proposal this morning and submitted it rather later than I would have hoped. I'm not sure if it's too late or not, but we'll see. I've been torn between pursuing the project or selecting from the 20 or so offered every semester. We'll see tomorrow how it all turns out.


My inital thoughts were for a Chicago living machine, as described in a previous post. However, after a short meeting with Tim Brown, I began rethinking my approach entirely.
I would probably have done this anyways. I know I shouldn't, but I can't help but put extra emphasis on the meaning of this project. I want it to be a holistic representation of myself and of my interests. I want it to be both intelligent and beautiful, a commentary and a design, a research and an art project.
Aren't all projects thus?

This is made especially difficult by the fact that I feel on the edge of the unknown. Not only am I graduating in a few months time, to end my current life as a student (the only career I've known), I am not certain of where I want to go in life, what I want to be when I grow up! Wait... isn't that what I was supposed to be figuring out over the last five years?

Somewhat ironically, the thoughts I expressed as a brand new freshman ring even more true today: I'm not sure I want to be an architect, but I know I like design.
In retrospect, there have been moments over the last 5 that depict a winding, but persistent path towards my still unknown personal legend. As a sophomore, I remember remarking to a professor that I did not want to be an architect because design was stressful, I wasn't sure I could handle the level of passion and commitment I felt for my projects. I was afraid of failure.
As a junior, greatly influenced by a boy I loved, I took a leap and applied (without much hope) to the Architectural Association... and got in. A dream! And from there, I guess, I realized it was possible; I might actually make a successful designer, it just takes leaps.
I think a lot about Elle Wood's closing remarks to the Harvard Law Class of 2004: "you must always have faith in yourself."

I've been telling people that I wanted to work for an NGO, to do grant proposals and learn the business and law side of sustainable stuff in Chicago. To some extent this is true, but I also realize now that this was a desperate cover for not knowing at all what I wanted, and fear of not finding a job. I've moved on. I have a goal.
Eventually, I want to work for a company like IDEO. This is not a simple task: it is highly competitive, drawing the majority of it's employees from Stanford's "d.school" and IIT's Institute of Design (ranked #1 in its field). The majority of their employees have terminal degrees in their area of expertise; their interns are all grad students.
I want to get a Ph.D. I want the opportunity to continue academic discussions, to learn and teach for many many more years.
I want to stay in Chicago for a little while. The city has so much to offer, I like using public transportation, and I am learning to find the space in both my day and my heart for the rest that makes peace possible, a quiet I used to only know during long summer breaks. I like how easy it is to meet new people, and to find special places that feel secret and unique, and to lose myself in a crowd.


And now I have to ask myself, how do I want to do that? What do I love to do right now?
I love reading, of imagining the places of my stories. My project proposal incorporated as much as I could: emphasis on the development of a "log book" which would hold all of my research, diagrams, sketches, and narrative development. Sort of like a whitebook, or well organized sketchbook, but with more emphasis on the development of a character. I'm sure I picked this idea up somewhere, but I don't know from whom... but I love the idea of creating a "relic" of sorts, a document that not only contains all of the work but acts as a sort of "evidence."

Anyways, I am spending my last day of break doing quiet things. I met with a friend for coffee, am at the library, running errands, and plan on spending quite a while reading. I'm in the middle of two new books at the moment.