What do you know? Still don't know much!

So I went to college or whatever. I did. I swear. I spent five years of my life dedicated to the architectural struggle and for some reason I just knew that once that journey ended I wouldn’t have to struggle as much. That was indeed thee biggest lie. Now being two years out in the field I can say with confidence that there is a whole world of architecture I do not know. Now I knew this going in of course, but to actually be in the thick of it now is totally different. I can remember people saying things to me like “you get a degree to prove that you can learn a skill” and “your degree just lets an employer know you can be taught”.

The amount of applicable knowledge from college into the actual profession, at least for me anyways, was little. My school, “Go Longhorns!”, was heavily design based and I’d say less heavy on the side of really teaching constructability. Mind you, you should pick the school that suits you. I have always been a lover of all things design so I was perfectly content with the scope of my education. The real world is the only thing that burst my bubble. So having to transition my critical thinking from design to real life constructibility was a TASK! Every day I am exposed to new acronyms and concepts. Each day I am blown away, frustrated to some degree, and driven by the amount of information I have yet to know. Recently, I’ve been considering beginning my AREs and that has done even more to expose me to how much I have to yet to learn.

Basically the take away here is that if you are in any way feeling like me know that you are not alone. The other take away here is for you is to not see this as how much you don’t know about the field, but instead see it as how much you get to learn. Can you only imagine how boring something would be if you knew it all and had no other way to expand your knowledge? I’d be willing to bet it would only make things so uneventful for you. Well….until then dreamers just know that I am both determined and amused at how the quickly this field has humbled me daily.

Stay tuned for the next struggle

KT

People pleaser

For a long part of my life I wanted to be a people pleaser. I wanted to be liked by everyone and loved by all. I never wanted to be the lone ranger. I always needed the group opinion. It did something for me. It strangely still does. I mean....for crying out loud my personality type is the campaigner. It's how I'm wired. A straight up social butterfly?...Yea, that's me. I needed people near. Having a lot of people around just meant having an abundance of crutches and fall backs to blame. Dealing with just me meant I'd have to own up to whatever decisions I made alone. It meant receiving direct blame if someone didn't like something, or if they just hated whatever I did. It meant vulnerability and an ownership I wasn’t convinced I was ready for, and I hated the thought of it all.

So as a solution to not having to let people down I became somewhat of a “yes” woman. “Yes, I can blah blah blah.” “Yes, I'll try yaddah this and that.” “Yes, I can help you.” I said yes to wayyy too much and even in the moments where I found myself being drained a simple "No" was never enough to fix it. A let down of any kind had to come with an explanation. "If I was free I would" or "if I have time I'll try". Those were my sugarcoated "No's". As you can imagine surely saying yes to everything started to leave me depleted. I felt kind of powerless and constantly at the mercy of other people's approval often. It was a frustrating time, but I can say with complete confidence that if saying yes to too much taught me nothing else.....it taught me following:

Concerning yourself with pleasing everyone will leave everyone pleased but YOU after it's all said and done.

Go ahead and just let that marinate.

For all those times I said yes at least half of them meant saying no to me on some level. It meant saying no on doing what I wanted to do. It just meant no on a lot. Now I'm not saying just go out there and start saying "No" to any and everything....no. I’m saying just start saying "Yes" to you sometimes. Honor your own choices. If you don't want to do something....chose yourself. Don’t do it. If you don't want to be somewhere then don't go and know that the world will not end if you say the magic word. Know that it’s ok to just leave it at no and that you don’t owe anyone an explanation at times. It’s perfectly alright.

Respect yourself....respect your interests.....respect your wishes. Don't back down from standing up for yourself because it's ok to not please everybody all of the time. Spoiler alert: you'll take yourself to your grave trying to do something like that anyways. You'll never accomplish that feat and believe me when I say you don’t want to. So the next time you take the time to please someone or something, make sure that you’re one of the people you start to with.

Happy saying “No” dreamers. 

Snippet 11.3.16

I wonder if my mom never really didn’t have McDonald’s money

Why could we never hang on to the bread tie before we ate all the bread?

What was the average rate of household consumption on those Danish cookies that came in the metal tins?

And why didn't you guys ever throw them away?

Who told the Country Crock tub it was more than a shelter for butter?

Could one really let all of the air out of the house?

Why did we never do any living in the living room?

What did our parents really get out of asking us rhetorical questions?

An ode to blackness and questions concerning my black childhood

Daydreams of a black girl

What I Don't Say

Dear Bean Heads,

I can still remember when you two were born.  I thought our folks were just dead set on ruining any other chance we had left of family vacation. (I was wrong thankfully.) You were the first curveball Bean head #1. I was totally blindsided when you showed up. Our set of three seemed perfect, but I guess our folks wanted a quad soo bad. You were just this cute little, foreign thing. I didn’t understand kids and I still don’t, but you were my first introduction to strangeness. I thought your belly button was mad weird and I didn’t want to touch you because of it actually. Weird…yes. So what. I repeat…you were a foreign thing to me.

Now when you were born Bean head #2, I just knew life as we knew it to be was going to end. When Bean head #1 came, I had already feared for our being able to take family vacations BUT WHEN YOU CAME….I felt that we’d be stuck eating chicken flavored ramen for life! Life! Going to the movies? Unheard of. I was even practicing on how to see that as a thing of the past when you came. It was at that point I figured our folks were too bored and dead set on ending our world forever. It also didn’t help that your birth year marked my entrance into womanhood. Great.  So basically, you had no choice but to be my sign for the end of times. The only thing missing honestly was the trumpet sounds and Jesus himself coming back for us all.

Yes….not your average big sister welcome, but boy believe it or not you girls taught me how to love and LOVE HARD.

As you probably noticed growing up, I’m not the most affectionate of your siblings by any means. I could never really figure out how to express my love for you two and it resulted in maybe too little time being spent going to the park, too many nights spent out on my part, or ice cream trips that would call for good old fashioned sibling bonding. In my mind…you guys didn’t need me for that and I never knew I really needed to feel needed in that way. What can I say, I’ve been a thug for a long time. I will say though that life taught me how much I actually did need to know that. However, before that lesson if I would have been anything like a normal older sibling I probably would’ve and should have expressed the fact that I fooled with y’all a little bit more. Since I was not your average older sibling though and you two are well on your way to becoming real life teens I thought I’d spend more time letting you both in on some rare Ki tea whenever I get the chance. *lean close nugget heads*

Here it is……

You two happen to be the biggest reasons for why I go as hard as I do when I do. I push and go after everything I possibly can because I want you all to know that you both can pull out of this world anything you want for yourselves as well.

You are both young now, but I look at the two of you and see the brightest of futures in store. Life comes at you fast and I know that before I fully recognize it…before you two really see it…you’ll both be women.  You two will have decisions to make and entire lives to lead. You will be forced to walk gracefully in a world that’ll try to tell you everything from how to dress to how to think. You’ll be forced to feed yourself with a confidence you won’t find in the same place twice. You will need to be encouragement, strength, love, and protection separately and sometimes all at once for yourself and others you care for. You will need to be above and beyond in this life and when that time comes it’s my hope that I’ll be able to help you both find that inner Queen/fearless one within you. Those lost park trips, ice cream truck runs, stifled "love you’s”, and other forms of inaudible adoration I took note of and stored I plan on redeeming with “I’ve been there” , “I understand”, “ how can I help you?”, and “yes, you can and I can show you how”.

Time is flying and now even more than ever I notice that you both pay even more attention to me than you use to. I know you’re watching ever so closely and taking notes.  I know you both have front seats to the things your older siblings do. You are seeing this in real time and this is why I’ll never let up on attempting to show you both what all you can do when you apply yourself.  I trail blaze for you two young beauties. This is my love.

So here’s to y’all and these wins I know you both will take some day! And here's to my attempt at constantly showing you it's possible.

A constantly inspired and proud dreamer with younger siblings,

Ki