I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Boston Architectural College

Graduation: BAC Commencement Part 2

Here are the last couple of photos from the Boston Architectural College Commencement from May 29th 2010.

my mom snapped this right after we sat down

in line before going to get my ‘dipolma’

yay we’re done!

I wish that I did not look so bad for these family photos but I was so flushed and my hair was so smashed down. After the last photo and ripped off my gown. I was way too hot. I felt dizzy from the heat and not really eating the ‘breakfast’ school provided.  At least I got a few photos in before having a melt down.
My super prepared mom had a bottle of water that I stole before running to the trolley to returned to school for my diploma.
After that I got to relax for our party with family and friends!!

Graduation: Boston Architectural College Commencement Part 1

Incase you missed it in a previous post, facebook, twitter, or in person… I GRADUATED!!! 

Holy hell, I never thought that day would come. No, I never really planned on dropping out but when you enter college directly from high school and you are facing a 7 year program, the end seems far away. The days drag on when you are working full time and going to school for 3 to 6 hours for a few nights a week. Also, when I entered the median age was somewhere around 35. Plus the graduation rate is 8%. So the fact that I, along with the other 121 students, graduated this year is pretty damn impressive. Round of applause for us!!!

I was so excited to be done but I had an issue with something. And that something was this GD lame beret that we all had to wear. Sure it honors one of the long-standing past presidents of the college. But why? Why can’t I have my tassel to flip over when I am officially done? Plus have you seen people in Berets… come on! I grumbled but finally put it on at the last-minute.

 We, the students, grouped up outside of the school to take a class photo. I wonder if I ever get a copy? Then we lined up to walk a few blocks down to Old South Church, where the commencement was being held. Leading us on our trek was a Dixieland band. It was pretty funny to see people staring at the gaggle of us marching down Newbury Street  with a band in front.

 

Since the Bachelor of Architecture Degree has a handful of graduates Price and I got to sit next to each other in the second row. The benefit of having alphabetically close last names. 🙂

The graduation ceremony ran a bit over 2 hours. There were a series of awards, honorary degrees, and speeches that were for us and for the architecture community. One of the things mentioned was how active our school is with activities and outreach, one of which is the semster down in Biloxi for post Katrina building… which Pricer did!!!

 Mayor Thomas M. Menino was our graduation speaker. He received and honorary degree for Doctor in Sustainable Communities for his involvement in transforming the city into a Green city. It was pretty cool to have him speak at the graduation. I can’t really tell you what he was talking about since I was so distracted from being so hot from 1) several hundred people stuffed into a church 2) no AC 3) robe 4) wool beret. I just remember about him saying how he has just made a bunch of people mad after he said we must remember the scale of Boston and we can’t have any big skyscrapers…. which is what he was trying to pass just a few years ago.

 After Menino spoke the handing out of fake diplomas began….

GRADUATED

yep we’ve done it.

I’ll have more to write soon…

still in recovery mode after wearing that lame beret, having a great graduation bash, and getting over the general fact that I now, officially, have time for a real life!!!!

A good day

yesterday was a good day

It was gorgeous out. We set a new record! It hit 90 degrees in Boston!!!! (granted it dropped like 40 degrees overnight for today’s high) The city was alive with people riding bikes, selling their artwork on the street, eating ice cream, and walking around- overall just being outside.

Sonsie’s ‘outdoor seating’ on Newbury Street (across from the BAC)

I had a meeting at school and I’m now a level 8- the level of performance, knowledge, and responsibilities at work required to graduate. wOOt!

When I got off the T I saw the most incredible sunset. In the minute it took to cross the street and get my camera it already changed so much, but it still was such a pretty, vibrant color combination.

don’t judge the picture cuz it’s crap- the sunset was unbelievable!

Price got a rate increase for the drafting work he just started. So cool since it’s like seeing the light in the end of the tunnel in terms of getting money, paying off CC debit, and splitting bills again.

 the best of the worst shots I took of us

So we sorta celebrated my final approval to graduate and his increase with a simple sushi dinner at Privus. We took a walk at night and headed down the road for something quick and cheap for dinner and ended up at Privus. Such good sushi! Price got their Crispy Dragon Roll and I got their Treasure Island Roll.

do you see the dragon?

 once we got home we had a call with my mom discussing the graduation party. We picked a caterer and menu and then I went online and we picked out invites that I have to edit and order tonight.

loving how everything is wrapping up and how spring is gearing up!

 

 

Stick a fork in it

I’m DONE!!!!!!!!

 

My last class was last night. It was a rough push for this final review but it came out well and the review was great. Typical comments of ‘ you could have done this…’, ‘did you consider….?’ ‘ I appreciate that you did this….. because….’. There were positive and negative comments which is fine. I designed a school into an exisiting Big Box store which has its own design challenges there but I had never done any school work before. This project idea came to me because there is a collision of schools that were built in the 60’s that need expansions or major renovations and a lot of vacant Big Bix stores (in Oct commerical real estate reached a 12% vacancy rate in MA). Some people design schools as a specialty so it was pretty nice to get some positive feedback since was my first school design.

 

As soon usual things came down to the end. I was printing right until I had to pin-up. Luckily, it was only 5 big sheets for this final review instead of all the process reviews with sketch paper pinned up and several 8.5×11’s photos tacked up there.

The hardest part about presenting a project is the printing. In this case I had a 1/8th inch scale plans at the last review which were too big to visually process so i reduced them to 1/16th.  I also reduced the sections and elevations to 1/16th so they would directly line up with the plans. this was a fail in layout design… they would have read better larger. Oh well, hind sight is 20×20.

Plus color on your computer is really different than color printed. This is a continuly problem but I thought I solved it by picking a LIGHT blue in illustrator. My sky blue  in my elevations is screaming blue (see first image). Again, oh well.

 

My model was awesome though. It was 4 slices that came together to be 40″x60″. That’s right, my model was 5′ long- just slightly smaller than me! It came apart in 12 pieces 4 roof sections, 4 second floor sections, and the 4 first floor sections. Price was a MAJOR part of getting my model done- umm he was my slave labor on wed and thursday. He was amazing and so helpful. I really would have been screwed without him. I love him so much for killing his hands for me.

Once I get to relax a bit I will finish the couple of walls that we forgot about as we were moving from section to section so quickly, the 3 exterior walls that I ran out of time to print and cut, and the columns that decided they did not like the frantic car rides from home> work> school.

It seems really bizarre to be done. It really has not sunk in yet, granted it has not even been 24 hours. Things will really be done when I don’t have to register and take classes in January again.

So today I am celebrating my FREEDOM!! by going out to go shopping at lunch. Finally a lunch that is not devoted to homework!