strike that

cornucopia

I thought the new city job would start today but the paperwork hasn’t gone through yet, so it will start on Thursday. Which means Wednesday I will pull espresso and Thursday I will meet the Bureau of Environmental Services and Friday I will teach Landscape Planning. This is my kind of week.

The planning course is what I’ve worked on all day. I opened up my online class roster for the first time yesterday and it was full, and something about seeing the students’ names made it more real and very exciting. I have fifteen students for five hours a week for eleven weeks, and they have names, and I want them to think this class kicks ass. Which is taking some preparation.

Every Friday has a lecture and a studio, so every Friday I need a PowerPoint and demonstrations and in-class exercises and reading assignments, and then there’s the big final project. So today I’ve been assembling drafting tools and inventing drawing games. I’ve been sorting slides. I’ve been flipping through a giant tower of literature, excerpting Kevin Lynch and vetoing Carl Steinitz, pulling together a reader from academic theorists and design magazines and landscaping guides from the seventies. Trying to seamlessly integrate my socio-enviro-political agenda while leaving room for good debate; trying to work in Steven Krog. Steven Krog who wrote, “We must learn to tolerate two experiences that the design process is explicitly intended to circumvent: substantial personal terror and uncertainty.”

The world is full of heroes.

posted by tortaluga @ 5:52 PM