I'm a Master
I moved to Seattle the summer of 2015 to start an internship at a landscape architecture firm and start my graduate career at the University of Washington. I was lucky in that I had two friends in the program, and several friends in town, that I could lean into when I felt out of place. I was also lucky that so many of my classmates are wonderful people that have gone on to do incredible things across the world.
I feel really really happy and proud of myself that I made it through, because there were moments when I genuinely thought I would not. I do not think that graduate school is for everyone. I had several panic attacks while I was in graduate school, and felt suicidal and manic throughout most of it. I remember that during a particularly frustrating studio I would go to the gym and work out until I felt like puking to numb myself. I was agoraphobic at times, staying in bed and not leaving my apartment for days to minimize my exposure to stimuli that might trigger me. Even though our program was not that competitive, I felt pressure to land a prestigious job immediately after graduating and did everything I could to try and mold myself into that type of person.
Knowing what I know now, and thinking about what my career goals were before and after graduating, I don’t think I would recommend a master in landscape architecture to anybody. The vast gap in the reality between design academia and design practice is impossible to reconcile, and I think that practice can be especially alienating to women, Black and brown people, and queer people. As a queer mixed-race woman I had a hard time reconciling my participation in capitalist corporate design and the abusive professional culture with my personal values and career goals.
I feel really grateful to have learned with and from so many sweet, thoughtful, and dynamic people. I also feel really grateful that so many people showed up to celebrate my accomplishment. A bunch of friends came up from Portland and Eugene to celebrate me, and it was really special to feel so loved, even when my biological family and relatives were not there for me. We all got really drunk, and played games and roasted weenies on the beach.
My friend Robin’s parents invited me to dinner after the graduation ceremony when they saw me by myself and I felt both alone and really held by their generosity and compassion. This was yet another instance of feeling so grateful for my chosen family, and disappointed in my biological family.
A few days after graduating I flew to Miami to meet my sister and crash with her while she attended a planning conference. While she sat in air-conditioned hotel conference rooms all day, I puttered around South Beach sketching art deco architecture and admiring the confidence and gives-no-fuckery of leathery retirees in neon thong bikinis. It was a great opportunity for me to sit with myself and do nothing after being so frantic for so many years. We ate so much ceviche and açaí bowls, tempering those healthy foods with plenty of wine and cocktails. I was really surprised and delighted by Miami. I knew it was a huge city with a long history of pan-American cultural influences, but I didn’t expect it to be so extremely heterogeneous. The urban core is a glittering mix of old and new skyscrapers and megamalls; and even though it is 1 billion degrees and 150% humidity, beautiful yuppies in three-piece suits and full faces of makeup trot back and forth to their corporate offices like you are supposed to be wearing pants in that type of weather.
I was also surprised at the prevalence of Spanish. Most everywhere we went, especially restaurants, the staff seemed annoyed if you could not order in perfect Spanish. I have also been told that I look latina (I’m hapa-Filipina), so I can understand their annoyance when my garbled vocabulary and terrible accent came pouring out of my unpracticed mouth. I know how to read and speak Spanish, I’m just horribly out of practice.
My sister insisted on going to a rooftop bar on our last night and it was quite the experience. Even though I used to be pretty party-hardy, my version of partying was never CLUBBING. I was always a wine-drunk on someone’s patio. The bar we found was on a roof deck of some gigantic shiny hotel, and was landscaped to feel like a conservatory.
On our last day a very hungover baby sister and I went to check out the Wynwood arts district, and did a big walking loop around Little Haiti and Edgewater. Wynwood is a (formerly?) industrial area that has been gentrified into an arts district. Lots of the buildings are plastered with really incredible murals, and there are paint splatters everywhere on the sidewalk. A whole lot of the warehouses are now full of art galleries and chic cafes. There were also some really incredible thrift and vintage stores in this area, the Wynwood Goodwill had a lucite bar and stools for sale and I was really sad I couldn’t take it with me.
We left Miami and went north to Providence, Rhode Island where my sister was living at the time. She took me on a little hike to the coast where we saw a beached whale, which was incredibly fascinating and smelly. There was something so hypnotizing about how its limp body flowed back and forth with the waves. It seemed as peaceful dead as alive in the water. I hope someone says that about me someday. My visit in Providence was marked by good food, my sister recounting horrifying trivia about the colonial era of US history in Providence, and a paranoia about getting Lyme disease. I was certain that I would come back home with either Zika from Miami or Lyme from Rhode Island. Luckily I was safe on both fronts.
I had originally intended on stopping through Arizona to see my only surviving grandparent on my way back from the East coast, but she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t feel good about having a house guest. I decided to do an extended layover in Chicago instead, and was blown away by how much I loved it there. However, I did visit at the end of June so it was neither the muggiest of summer nor the dead of winter. The cityscape was so gorgeous, the transit was so easy to navigate, and there was so much culture to soak up I found myself calling classmates to see if I could get interviews during my trip. However, I do not think I would survive even one winter of frigid ice storms without the ability to visit mountains, so I think it’s for the best I didn’t move to Chicago.
I walked 15 miles a day visiting gardens, coffee shops, architectural landmarks, iconic parks, and rooftop bars until my feet and ankles were about to give out. I took a train out to Oak Park and did a bike tour of Frank Lloyd Wright works. It was fascinating to see how his style evolved over his decades of practice, and how it was influenced by other cultures, particularly Japan.
I visited the Art Institute of Chicago, of course, and was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the collection. I heeded a friend’s advice and chose to visit just the impressionist collection because I really wanted to see Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte up close, and it did not disappoint. I was very lucky to be in town during a Takashi Murakami retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Murakami had been commissioned to create several murals and sculptures for the exhibit and it was incredible. They had works from his time studying Nihonga, and early explorations of pop art. I had no idea his work delved so much into death and the grotesque and it was such a fun and unique exhibit.
A day or so after I got back from Chicago my friend Taylor invited me on a little overnight backpacking trip to Mount Townsend. I usually hate walking (especially with a pack on my back), but I love them so I figured it would be good to be immersed in the mountains for a day or so. I invited my classmate Russ, and it was a pretty wonderful time being out in the woods with some pervy weirdos. The views from Mount Townsend are stunning, and we were lucky to get a clear panoramic view of the Puget Sound.
A few days after this trip I departed for my first bike tour! It was a real whirlwind of a month off, but it was fantastic to decompress a bit before starting a regular 9 to 5.
