the designer ego and the designer dilemma

dee has the nicest stuff to read~ woohoo

hmm fascinated with what dee's comments abt egoistic architects. really reading into the book i mentioned earlier called The FountainHead and it gives really good insights abt a man designing against a society of such pple. my tutor in melbourne told me to read this book coz it gives me moral strength to work from my current cynicism.

i've got 2 good frens who are seniors. one told me he quit aki to pursue insurance (making money to pursue other fun stuff in life) coz he cld not stand the ego of designers being put on show for studio sessions week in week out, the other was my inspiration who loved aki so much when she failed to enrol into aki in chem engine instead, she went there, skipped all her lessons in chem engine, took all the CFMs and converted to aki in 2nd yr. now she became bored with the life of the profession, went to fly with JAL for 2 yrs and currently seeking another career. needless to say, they were great designers and great fun to be with.

dailing quit architecture coz she loathed the discourse and the endless queries into her stuff and questioned why cldnt any design be more spontaneous and lively. she woke up preparing for her AR1222 paper, brushed her teeth, and went to tell her mom she is gg to quit aki. since then she topped her cohort more than once in la selle.

i've always wondered abt cheekiang and konghan, they are a combination of humility with a childlike innocence in the pursue of architecture. in the face of so called mundane and banal singapore architecture, they created stuff to call their own, scoffed somewhat at their positions in their firms (konghan is always headhunted) and created designs they enjoy so much when it comes to explaining them, they were like little children explaining little models they created of plasticine. what drives them on? what made them such gentle giants?

always pondered what i have gained or lost over these years, what made me so cynical? i cant explain really. shane tot perhaps it was the lack of recognition in what i have been doing all these yrs that undermined my instincts to create, the fear of being put down before any idea is allowed to fluorish. shrugz.

hehz hope our last semester together wld be fun, look forward to be back home with wuks, amelia, khongster, katie and the rest. i realised i cant learn much from inside NUS and perhaps outside as well because precisely i choose what i want to learn, and experiences like playing yahoo pool and bomberman with aaron, styrofoam soccer with james, telling ghost stories with francis and amelia, fighting with merb and katie to stay awake longer, etc are experiences that are more and more priceless. hence i've long given up the idea of LOA because i realised that it is totally unbecoming of my character to leave my frens behind for our one last crusade together, and miss the chance of blaring my rage at them. oh sure, they will miss that too. lol~