Application Updates

Well, it has been a while since I have updated this thing.  Again.  Anyhow, busy school semester has finally come to an end.  I have survived and can finally move forward with my life.  Part of that moving forward is switching my focus back to school applications.  Due to the busyness of school, I haven't been able to focus on grad school applications and will thus miss the deadlines for some of the schools I had planned on applying to...mainly UC Berkeley, MIT, and Georgia Tech.  I have readjusted my list of schools to the following:


1. University of Washington (M. Arch)
Deadline: January 15
Status: Complete!
Chances: Slim

2. University of Oregon (M. Arch)
Deadline: January 2
Status: Complete!
Chances: Slim


3. Rice University (M. Arch)
Deadline: December 31
Status: Complete!
Chances: Slim


4. University of Michigan (M. Arch)
Deadline: January 15
Status: Complete!
Chances: Slim


5. Illinois Institute of Technology (M. Arch)
Deadline: January 15
Status: Complete!
Chances: Slim


I have secured two professors to write me letters of recommendations and am still debating on who to ask for my third.  One professor will only write recommendation letters to three schools, so if I do ask for his, I'll have to pick three schools for him to send it to.  Anyhow, here's to hoping for the best.


As for job searches, I have selected a few firms around Seattle and Portland that I would like to visit and get a feel for over the break.  Ideally, I would be able to land a job with one of them after I graduate, so it would be nice to kind of get my foot in the door and present myself to them beforehand.

Graduate School Application Checklist

1. University of Washington (M. Arch)
Deadline: January 15
Status: Application Started
Chances: Slim

2. University of Oregon (M. Arch)
Deadline: January 2
Status: Application Started
Chances: Slim

3. SCI-Arch (M. Arch)
Deadline: December 16
Status: Nothing yet
Chances: Olsen twin slim

4. UC Berkeley (M. Arch or M. Arch + M. City Planning or M. Arch + MS Structural Engineering)
Deadline: December 19
Status: Nothing yet
Chances: Slim Jim

5. MIT (M. Arch)
Deadline: December 15 (Portfolio Jan 3)
Status: Nothing yet
Chances: 1 / number of particles in the universe

6. Cornell (M. Arch)
Deadline: January 3
Status: Nothing yet
Chances: Slim

7. Georgia Institute of Technology (M. Arch)
Deadline: December 15
Status: Nothing yet
Chances: 50/50

8. Washington State University (M. Arch)
Deadline: January 10
Status: Nothing yet
Chances: no idea

Others in consideration:
University of Maryland
Rice University
Illinois Institute of Technology
University of Michigan
University of North Carolina - Charlotte
University of Cincinnati

Prime

On my most recent trip to New York, my primary travel lens--the Nikon 18-70mm f3.5-4.5--decided to stop working properly.  My initial prognosis of this is there is some sand (from the beach firework shooting) stuck inside the gears preventing it from zooming in and out past the 24-45mm range. I'm not too bummed about it though because if one of my lenses were to break, I would have preferred it to be this one.  It is also the cheapest lens that I have (at least in terms of the amount of money I spent to buy it).

So without a zoom lens now, I am limited to shooting with either the Tokina 11-16mm (okay, technically a zoom lens...but it's too much of a specialty lens), the Nikon 50mm f2.8 or the Tokina 100mm f2.8 Macro.  No longer are my prime lenses used only for portraits or my super-wide angle lens used only for landscape and architecture.  In a way I kind of like this because I am now forced to take photographs with a limited focal length--allowing me to explore new compositions and angles that I normally wouldn't have done with the convenience of a zoom lens.  I find myself to be the kind of person that tends to try to capture the whole object or the big picture instead of zooming in and being more detailed oriented and just capturing the necessary components to convey the image.  This will help me with dealing with that.  I'm not too stoked about not having a normal range zoom lens because I hate having to back up 20 feet just to take a group shot because I only have my 50mm prime.

Another advantage for having my 18-70mm die on me is that this now opens to door for me to get a new lens.  I am debating whether or not to get the DX superzooms such as the 18-105mm/18-200mm or the FX superzoom 28-300mm because I have no telephoto lenses beyond 100mm. Or if I would be better off getting a shorter range zoom constant aperture lens such as the 17-55mm f2.8/24-70mm f2.8.  I have been trying to lean towards FX lenses as I prepare to jump to full frame whenever I graduate and get a job, but I'm wondering if I should just wait until then or get a lens to fill the gaps.

Lenses I am considering to fill the gaps(prices are for new items...I will most likely try to buy used and for cheaper):
Nikon 16-85mm f3.5-5.6 VR ($650)
Nikon 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 VR ($800)
Nikon 18-105mm f3.5-5.6 VR ($350)

Lenses I am considering for full frame:
Nikon 28-300mm f3.5-5.6 VR ($900)
Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 ($1650)
Nikon 24-120mm f4 VR ($1130)

So who wants to donate some money?

Form and Function

I am currently in NYC visiting for my sister's graduation (which has already happened earlier today). I'm not particularly fond of NYC for many reasons that I will not list because it will insult many egos--besides, it can take up an entire blog entry all by itself. Anyhow, we are staying at the Gershwin Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The location actually isn't too bad and the price is very expensive--but that was to be expected. This hotel is a very...unique hotel in that it is very artsy fartsy and eclectic I guess. It seems like every room is designed differently--different furnishings, different artwork, different walls, etc.

The first room was stayed in--room 1136, was like the hotel room from hell. It had a lot of room--actually one of the largest hotel rooms I've ever stayed in. However, it did not utilize the space properly--at all. As an architecture student that designed hotels at a firm for an entire summer, I was extremely appalled. There was a putrid smell upon opening the door, the floors weren't that great, the chairs/couches were terrible, the bathroom was bad, and there was no table or desk. Instead, there was a giant coffee table that stood a foot above the ground and stretched about 7 feet long getting in the way of everything. There were also a lot of electrical outlets--which was nice. The couches/chairs were one of the worst designs I have ever seen. Everyone in my family has stubbed their toes on the legs of the chairs at least once because they jut out way too much. Whoever designed this room definitely only thought about form and not function. The form wasn't even that great.

I will upload photos in a bit of this nightmare room. Actually, the photos I took kind of made the room look a lot nicer than it actually is, oh well.

We ended up switching to another room that was much, much better.

The Last Frontier

One of the best views I've scene from a plane taking off from PDX

I just returned from a week-long fishing trip in Alaska with my cousin's family. It was a good experience but it was quite tiring. There really wasn't too much of an opportunity to take amazing photos because most of my time and effort was spent catching fish (yes, I actually did catch a decent amount of fish). Another factor was that I also forgot to bring my camera battery charger and also forgot to charge the camera battery before leaving, so that limited my tendency to photograph anything and everything. Fortunately though, someone in the same fishing cabin lodge site area thing had the battery charger that I needed.

As of right now, I am uploading photos to Google+/Picasa which I will use to add to this post later. There were some pretty good ones in my opinion I think. I kind of hoped to have taken more photos, but oh well. Not too big of a deal. [update] You can find the rest of my photos from this Alaskan fishing trip here.

A pile of filleted sockeye salmon.

On this trip, the biggest thing I learned was how to clean, fillet, and de-bone salmon. I still need a lot of practice overall, but I got better along the way. I didn't really do this the last time I went to Alaska six years ago. I improved my fishing throughout the week too. I don't fish often so it's not really part of my muscle memory. However, because I have done it before, it was pretty easy to pick things up again. I caught 16 sockeye salmon, 2 cods, and 1 halibut (that was released because it was too small). Very tiring work.

In a few more days, I will then head to NYC to attend my sister's grad school graduation. Busy busy week.

Not excited that school is starting in less than a month.