they were the best of times

I am doing what I really want to be doing with my life right now. That's pretty awesome. A year ago I didn't have too much of an idea what I wanted to be doing. I was a bit at a loss.

I would say I'm a pretty passionate/opinionated person about things that are important to me, and one of those things is doing good things with one's energy. I think it's our duty, especially those of us with decent educations, to use our faculties to make a positive impact.


I became a landscape architect because I wanted to make great places, for people and for the world. When I started working, I began to learn how ideology crossed with pragmatism in everyone's life in different ways, and started trying to figure out how to simultaneously live for my own well-being and happiness as well as do right by the world.

Situational difficulties and distractions took precedence for a year or two, and I found myself asking where I really wanted to be, as I was struggling to feel passionate about what I was doing with life.

I wouldn't have been able to predict that where I'd eventually take myself would be so great for me both personally and professionally. I made a gamble based on a social/cultural instinct, and it's turning out to be wonderful for me with regard to my life's efforts and personal/professional focus. I'm designing for environmental education in urban environments as I've been aiming to do since my research grant on environmental learning.

My current project work has me designing public schoolyards in Brooklyn: completely barren asphalt yards to be turned into proper playgrounds through contracts from New York Department of Parks. It is so rewarding to be working with students and communities in designing better learning and community spaces, and helping people learn and grow to value their environments by providing them with good ones.

I have been going through series of meetings and design charettes with school staff, community members, and young students themselves. Working with them directly is such an important and tangible reminder as to why I do what I do every day. There were days when I'd be at work in Seattle and question whether I was doing what I really what I found valuable with my 9 hours every day. So I made a change, and the opportunity waiting for me turned out to be wonderful.

Oddly enough, I'm working for the same firm, and the office environment and culture can be more stressful and difficult by far than my old office. Granted, I'm still getting accustomed, and don't have the luxury of experience or comfort in the big, new, New York office. But I enjoy it because I love what I'm working on, and it's a challenge. I can't imagine using my brain and finite time on earth to do something like trade stocks or sell ads or take photos of famous people or fly charter jets, no matter how capable I was, or how financially rewarding it was. I spent some time teaching myself how to balance personal benefit with that of others in life and work, but I still believe passionately that we owe it to eachother to do right by our communities. We have responsibilities in concentric rings: from within -ourselves- to those close to us, radiating outward to our outermost communities of global proportions. Call your mother, send a card to remind her you love her. Travel less, consume less to remind your fellow global citizens you love them, too.

So here's to you, PS 170. Even if the economy was great, I can't imagine myself taking a resort-design position to make more money and receive the immediate gratification of travel. Your kids are awesome and I feel honored to be given the opportunity to do right by all of you.