I'm slightly hysterical, but not stressed

We are severely behind schedule for the architectural competition. The deadline is Tuesday and we have so much more to do that the mind boggles.

But I am not getting stressed. I am on the verge of hysteria though. How am I supposed to go to work tommorrow, when I have all this work to do for the competition? I'm so angsty and I don't know how I'll sleep tonight or sit still at work until it's time to leave.

The town hall complex has turned out adorable and it would be a pity not to give it in. Crazy architects like us think colourful autoCad designs are about the prettiest things...

Got to go to sleep. I have hardly slept this weekend and on Monday I have to go pretend to design rich peoples soppy villas.

I refuse to get stressed

The deadline for the architectural competition is the 20th of March and we are in very bad shape. One of us has already deserted and another seems on the brink. I have put too much time and energy into this thing to give up now but things don't look good.
BUT I REFUSE TO GET STRESSED!!!

So no updates until the deadline and my fanfic will also have to take a raincheck.

Architectural competition

I’m too tired and busy lately to update my journal like I should.

One reason for this is that apart from working 9 till whatever, I have got together with a group of architects-friends and we are trying to take part in an architectural competition for the design of a town hall complex in a small town (more like village) in Crete.

It’s slow going, the project is big and complicated and we have trouble agreeing on things, and the deadline is in a month. If I stop and think about it I get awfully stressed, so I just avoid thinking about it and hope for the best.

I went to Crete over the Christmas holidays to visit the village. It’s a typical modern ugly Greek village, nothing old or traditional has survived. It’s only redeeming feature is the lovely landscape and the beautiful views of the mountains.

I also visited Heracleion (Crete’s capital city), a rather nice medium sized city with lots of old buildings, Venetian churches and walls around the old city.

Even though I have a number of photos I doubt I'll get round to posting any. I'm lazy that way....

Working is no fun

I feel like doing a bit of venting today....

It turns out that I really really don’t like working. Or maybe it’s just my job I don’t like. It’s not that bad I suppose, but every morning I get up with a groan wishing I could just pull the duvet over my head and go back to sleep.

I always wanted to either work for the state helping design cities or public housing or else work for a high-flying architectural company taking part in innovative and interesting designs. Instead I am stuck helping design the typical ugly, cramped and not entirely legal blocks of flats that are destroying our cities. It’s disheartening, but a person needs to work. I haven’t even been working for 6 months yet and I’m already dreaming of persuading a couple of friends to open our own office together. We will most probably starve, but we won’t be selling out.

What is also typical of Greek offices is the fact that I’m overworked and not paid overtime. At least I’m paid by month and not per hour. The pay is another matter. Wages in this country as ridiculously low.

That was enough complaining for today.

all work and no play...

Working is no fun. Getting up early, returning home late. I don’t even get paid much. By Greek standards it’s the most I can hope for at the moment, but Greek wages are ridiculously low. Plus I am constantly stressed I’ll get fired. Actually they can’t fire me since they didn’t hire me, but they can say my services are no longer needed… In my line of work they rarely hire you with a proper contract, there’s this little loophole that lets them hire you as an “external associate” since theoretically (and practically, but not with my experience!) an architect can always be self-employed.

But I must insist that working is no fun. I feel like I barely have any time for myself. Correction, I feel like I barely have any time for myself where I have the energy or mood to do anything. Which means things are falling behind.

Employed at last!

I finally got a job!!!

It seems like I am no longer unemployed. An architectural office had taken me on a “trial run”. Today they gave me the keys to the office. that means they're taking me on properly, right?
The thing about working is it doesn’t really leave you enough time and energy for “other stuff”. I have finally found the mystery to be solved in the little post-war mytery harry/draco I have been thinking of for ages now, but can’t seem to get round to writting it.

What is worse of course is that the office I am working for looks like it specialises in the typical boring run-of-the-mill apartment blocks that are overrunning the greek cities. It feels like a small betrayal to be contributing towards the construction of buildings that I relentlessly put down in my free time. Artistic integrity or a wage? Since I desperately need the money to rent my own apartment I guess it’s a moot point.

What gets me through is the thought that in five years (a small eternity) I should be able to find work in an architectural office who’s work I will actually like or maybe get a job in the civil sector (the only way you have any hope – slim as it is – to change the way cities are built) or maybe even start a practice of my own with friends. Five years is a long time to wait... That’s why in the mean time with a group of architect friends we are looking for an architectural competition to take part in. It’s the only way we are going to get to do anything remotely creative in the near future.

There are days that I feel like I sold out. This summer I went to a Rainbow Gathering. It was a unique experience. It made me feel more comfortable in my own skin. It showed me that there are people who manage to live according to their teenage ideals even into their forties and fifties. Only thing is as much as I admire travellers, buskers and new age hippies I don’t think I could do it. I am in love with architecture which basically means an office job in a city.

But I have been thinking...

Architecture is not only buildings. I have known that for ages. I am even more interested in the city and urban space. Making a difference in the city means either the civil service or politics. Years ago an architect family friend told me that if I wanted to go into urbanism I should go into politics. It was the only way I had a hope of getting anything done.

A couple of weeks ago we had municipal elections. The woman on the floor below the floor below us (we more or less all know each other) gave us pamphlets on behalf of her son who was running as a municipal councilor. He is about two years younger that me at least. My father handed me the pamphlets and asked me jokingly why I wasn’t running too. I laughed. But then I read through the pamphlets of the “party” he was running with and started to wonder why I wasn’t running. Most of the stuff they were proposing was stuff that I would be remarkably interested in implementing.

Which got me to thinking... If I want to change the world I got to get cracking. I really should get my shit together so I can do some serious thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life. And then I have to work out how I am going to make a difference. The world is in a shitty state and if we all don’t pull our weight it will only get worse. What is it they said at the Rainbow Gathering? “I wondered why someone didn’t do something and then I realised that I was someone.”

Umm... This was a boring disjointed rample, wasn’t it? But that is kind of the state of my mind this day: confused and disjointed.

feeling a bit whiny

It’s a hot October and the second wave of tourists has hit the city of Athens. It’s all quite tiresome really. The hordes of tourists that invade during the summer months are all right, you get used to them. They can be amusing and distracting. It’s even sort of nice and different that when August comes around there are more foreigners than Greeks in the centre of the city. It makes you feel sort of cosmopolitan.

But when autumn comes and you find that the city is still inundated by groups of loud Americans in louder shirts, German OAPs with knobbly knees in shorts and backpackers with maps you feel it’s all got a bit too much. Holiday season is over! Isn’t it? Well it should be.

It isn’t as if Athens isn’t noisy and messy enough these days. What with municipal elections coming up, the teachers protesting, solidarity marches for Lebanon and Palestine and occasional strikes by the public transport and the major labour unions we are having a lovely month so far.