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AIA Center for Architecture

Morning meeting & tour with The American Institute of Architects team.


It is good to see them doing good work.
I didn’t know this about @aianational , but it puts much of its efforts into working to offer design education to as many students they can from K-12 highschool to college. Many of us, including myself are privileged to have access to education around art and design every day. Some forget how special it is to have the freedom of choice to pursue any dream.

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Tackling accessibility in all its forms is something I hope to work for and serve every day.

As I was heading back to my office, my thoughts went to a letter by President John Adams that says this:

“I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” 

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Wall murals on turquoise backdrop were installed as a result of a competition the AIA and the Housing Preservation and Collaboration collaborated on.

Wall murals on turquoise backdrop were installed as a result of a competition the AIA and the Housing Preservation and Collaboration collaborated on.

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This photo is an example of the kind of worksheets they use to educate the kids.

This photo is an example of the kind of worksheets they use to educate the kids.

I am glad to be working with them.

#urbanplanning #accessibility #community #designinnovation #architecture #atemliving

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Wines Under $60 That I Love, Love, Love!

Louis Roederer sparkles!

In America, there are many people who love their Moets and their Veuve Cliquots…. but I’m pleading here ….when I ask you to consider trying a Roederer instead, because it so. much. better. So many New Yorkers shoot for the Veuves and I fear their loyalty to the brand or introduction to is due to lot more marketing than merit. 

 

Masi Costasera Amarone Classico 2010 – like syrup and basilica, just so much fantastic! If you had to choose one wine to try on this list, I’d have you get this one. 

Lioco “Happy Cooking” Mendocino, California 2016, Chardonnay – light, but so incredibly deep and fun. It’s quite difficult to find it, but perhaps the Lioco might interest you and you can try another wine from the producer 🙂 They also offer tours for any Californians or visitors. I’ve yet to go, but I’m dreaming of going one day.

Pouilly Fuisse Louis Jadot Charddonay 2016 – such an easy wine, and fairly easy to find. Other years weren’t bad as I tried. Just such a perfect, solid, in the $20 range, will continually impress myself, will also aid in avoiding stress when looking for the appropriate bottle for a social occasion kind of wine. 

One of Alain Ducasse’s favorites: La Dentelle Bugey Cerdon Methode Ancestrale rose demi sec

2016 LANGUEDOC PIC SAINT LOUP ROSÉ

Ermitage du Pic Saint Loup – I enjoyed it and..don’t remember it for it’s flavor profile, but I remember the day it was drunk on. Because it was Valentine’s 🙂 Silly me. For keeping it on this list. Oh well! (That’s me :))

Domaine Roger & Christopher Moreux 2016 Les Bouffants (Sancerre) – I’m cheating here, I don’t recall what this tasted like, but it was on my “Susan’s impressed list” and the list is quite tight.

Lucien Lardy 2017 Beaujolais – Village – a fizzy personality, but so easy to sip and so easy as a pairing with heartier dishes too 🙂 

I don’t drink as much wine anymore largely because my days are intense and often run through the night (lots of work and study these days) and I have to keep my health and alertness on average and day to day quite tight.

It’s a pity as I love wine, and the way for me to learn more about it is to keep drinking and exploring, but one must set some passions aside, for other passions to thrive 🙂 And I’m cool with that at 26. In recent years, I’m also earnestly trying to live a life of simplicity as my values are evolving and I also have a strong sense of responsibility in being a new business owner so these affect my wine habits too (and in all honesty, I am not able to spend $50 dollars casually on wine bottles anymore for ~casual consumption~ . (Today, I buy wine if it’s in the company of another, or for another etc instead of like before when I would just collect bottles and bottles to try because I love wine so and want to try everything and drink wine alone all the time!))

There goes my ADD again. Anywhoo! Please, please consider ordering one of these online as they are very. much. SUSAN APPROVED!

Now, I must go do some of my French homework before doing more work on ATEM 

Bises,

Soo

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Grief

I’ve known seeing someone I love point a kitchen knife to their neck, to their belly.

I’ve known being choked to the point the still lights above me started glimmering and dancing.

I’ve known saying no feebly in my drugged stupor so many times as he tried to take off my bra.

I’ve known engaging in meaningless sex to drown out pain

I’ve known the persistency of the pain of feeling unloved, rejected, abandoned that resided and was rooted in with my soul.

I’ve known denial.

I’ve known the sounds of police cars and the cold, professional voices of inquisitors.

I’ve known measuring the bicep of my arm with the circle formed between my index finger and my thumb to make sure I did not get any bigger— “the only thing I could control”.                                       I laugh.

I’ve known the hollow crevices of walls and floor-beds where I laid with my back, wanting to sink in until I disappeared.

I’ve known crying tears and screaming loud, bellowing out versions of sounds I no longer remember–not human, not animal– wanting it all to go away.

 

I’ve known.

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Visiting my Dad in Nashville for the first time.

My dad and I didn’t talk for nearly two years when the divorce was officially about to come into action on the legal side. Prior to that, we barely saw each other, and it was complicated.

I still remember the first day we tried we tried to meet again. It was while I was still working at Barneys New York. Winter. We met at dinner in Koreatown. I was beyond nervou, kind of like how I was this time– for different reasons though. I saw him then, and I burst out crying. I couldn’t stop crying all throughout dinner. I was so happy ad so confused. I think my dad was too.

This weekend, there was a semblance of stability, and a bit of real, solid, long interactions of healthy emotion.

I’m happy to see our relationship developing in new ways, and in loving, healthy ways.

I can’t compare it to the past, because it is not anything like the past. The relationship I had with my dad then was nothing I wish for a child.

I am grateful to be getting back the years we lost.

This weekend was a great weekend.

I write this, because I am a living testimony of what happens when you choose radical openness and vulnerability, and you choose love and healing and looking for the ONWARDS as your targeted outcome over anything else.

Trust me on this. No two experiences are ever the same, I know :). And I will never understand fully what you went through or are going through, but I’ve been through it all in my own unique way with the pops.

I’m with you. I see you. Look at love. Explore God. I believe he is the only one who will ever understand the depths of our souls, for I believe he created them.

At some point, you just have to stop focusing on the brokenness and look at what you can start mending.

God is good.

Written on 9.25.2019

Bises,

Soo

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“Oh Lord, Establish the Work of Your Hands”

“Oh Lord, Establish the Work of Your Hands”

“Standing up from crags and clay
The peaks of earth
In full display
They break the lines
That break the sky
That’s full of life
Full of life

The chaos of creation’s dance
A tapestry, a symphony
Of life himself
Of love herself
It’s written in our very skin”

“To set aside as holy”

Susan, stop thinking about all the things you have to do and all the things you want to do today and tomorrow, and the weekend.

I know you like being in that headspace, but I’m telling you there’s something more greater and worthy of the time in your head, and you’ve got to be still for that.

 

“All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change, at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come out from this ground, at all?”

At the height of my lows, these thoughts were all my mind made space for.

“You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us”

And I held onto the promise of that chorus.

In hindsight, the offer at hand was so much better than “survival”.

God didn’t and doesn’t exist to merely serve as a mechanism for survival or for meeting pressing needs. You are missing out on something great if that’s all you are looking to get or look for in God.

God is so much more than that. It’s like trying to put a rainbow and 300 unicorns in a 5ft x 5ft box. It just doesn’t work that way, the belief in my God, the belief in a Jesus.

Psalms 66 (ESV)

10: “You have tried us as silver is tried”

13-14: “I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will perform my vows to you that which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble”

Working thoughts:

“Compassion in place of anger”

“Self control” particularly over tongue.

Killing Ego

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My Prayer

Our Father In heaven, hallowed be your name,

God, you are good.

You have always, been good.

I’m grateful to see it now.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

God, there’s a lot of people hurting right now.

The corrupted are running unbound / absolute skepticism replacing hope

God, bring heaven onto earth. Restore and redeem us, victims of our own brokenness and the brokenness in the world we collectively contribute to.

Give us today our daily bread.

God, as I continue my work day, guide me in the knowledge and deep, deep understanding that this is not my work.

Help me with your all-good heart to separate myself from my ego, as far away I can.

Feed me your love, vision, hope, and healing for this world and your children

Let me sustain and live and breathe with that.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

More than the mistakes and errors I am conscious of and willingly confess I ask forgiveness for the sins I do not know [yet] I commit: the hurt I incur on others, intentional or unintentional, and the pride/actions I wield not for your glory, but for mine– not in service of love, but in service of love centered on self.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

God, I thank you for protecting my family.

I thank you for protecting my heart and refining it in a way that I can see that it has not yet broken. Lots of cracks, yes. But cracks have brought fortification, not brokenness.

I pray for your protection that I do not stray, that I stay fixed. I pray for protection from the external, but I pray most of all for protection against the wanderings of my soul.

 

 

I love you God.

Thank you God.

You are good, God.

Reflection with Psalms 65

I pray that my satisfaction “in the goodness of your house” is such that I no longer desire a taste of anything else.

Psalms 65 quote that jumped out to me in this moment, a reflection of purity and joy:

“The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy,

the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain,

they shout and sin together for joy.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Accompanied by Music