WITHDRAWAL HAS TAKEN ITS TOLL | SEPTEMBER 27, 2005

I can't take it anymore! I am losing my mind without my laptop! How did I ever survive two years in school without it? Using the computer labs is a nightmare all in its own. I install Mozilla Firefox on every computer I use because I cannot stand Internet Explorer. I have to store the files I work on in a remote server and re-download them every time I sign on to a computer. Every time I open up AutoCAD I have to change the preferences. I miss my laptop, with my settings on it. I said I wasn't going to update until I got my laptop back, but I couldn't help but complain about it. I know that if I start having dreams about my laptop I am in trouble. Maybe this break from it is good for me? Nah...

TEMPORARY HIATUS | SEPTEMBER 26, 2005

This web site will be on temporary hiatus for hopefully no more than a week. My computer has fatally crashed and been sent in for repair. It is too big of a hassle to keep the site updated without my personal laptop.

On a more happier note, I made this a of my handwriting yesterday. That was probably the most exciting part of my whole weekend!

COMPUTER SLAVE | SEPTEMBER 23, 2005

I think I have become a slave to my computer. This isn't an epiphany - just me finally admitting it. My computer obsession has been getting worse since the beginning of the summer. I felt like I discovered a whole new world when I began working with Photoshop again, and now it is controlling my life. I turn my computer on immediately when I wake up and have it on until I go to sleep. The keys on my keypad are popping out (but is this because I have a cheap Dell, I type too hard, or I use it too much? Don't know). I find myself attempting to use Ctrl+Z (Edit - Undo) in real life. I keep telling myself that this obsession is normal for a college student, but the truth is, I am pretty sure I will be like this when I am NOT in college. Sometimes I skip sleep because I want to spend more time with my computer... all I need to do is give it a name and it will be a full fledged affair! In the long run, I don't have to worry about this, because if there is one person more computer obsessed than me, it is Steven!

I have spent the last two days in front of my computer slaving over a html diagram for Studio. I was in a group with Alejandra and another friend, Steve, to document the people demographics around our site in Montréal. We spent a lot of time just doing observation during different parts of the day, and we also did a few interviews. Our site is sandwiched between a very commercial street - which runs parallel one block to the north, Chinatown - which is a few blocks to the east, and a business district - on the south and west sides. Directly on three sides of the site are residences, so we observed a very diverse flow of people, varying from residents to shoppers to business people (and of course, a lot of asian people).

We are beginning to finish up these preliminary studies in Studio, which means it is time to build a site model of Montréal and start designing the Médiathèque. These site model projects are usually a big mess. Imagine 15 students arguing over which materials to use, who is in charge of which tasks, and who will pay for it all. The scale of the model is 1:200, so I imagine the base will be around 5' x 5'. For some unknown reason, it is hard for us to get organized to make these things. You would think we would have it down by now since we have been building them for two years, but I think a lot of people have lost their motivation to make these humongous models. I hope this one turns out better than the last few I have helped make.

ARCHITECTURAL RAMBLINGS | SEPTEMBER 20, 2005

I just spent a good portion of my night reading the first four chapters of The Architect's Handbook of Professional Practice, which covers "Clients". The textbook is issued by the AIA and required for my Professional Practice class, along with Professional Practice 101, a collection of essays. Surprisingly, the books are an enjoyable read (I say surprisingly, because the class is not as enjoyable). The readings are thought-provoking and somewhat informative. I usually don't find myself yearning to do research after reading a textbook, but with these books, I am.

Anyway, these chapters covered some interesting points. The first chapter began with the fact that architectural services are a somewhat new phenomenon. The earliest people built their own shelter - they did not have to follow city codes or get an architect's stamp to proceed with construction. Only in 1868 did the US have its first architectural school at MIT. Since then, architects have become self-governed and licensed, and now, the services of an architect are required on almost all building types. These facts explain why there is such a broad spectrum of client types. "Patrons" are the clients who have been commissioning work to architects since the early ages, and are accustomed to working with a designer. "New clients" have never worked with an architect before and are being forced to by legal requirements. The client's experience/lack of experience with an architect has a big impact on their values and perceived outcome for the design project.

There are five concepts that influence a client's decision making process - promotion, product, people, place and price (these five concepts do not solely apply to architecture, but to other industries as well). The client will inevitably place different amounts of value on each of these concepts, whether they are aware of it or not. A client who wants cheap costs from a local architect is placing value on place and price. A client who wants an award winning product from an all star architect is placing value on product and people.

For any project to be successful (in any industry), the service provider's values have to be similar with those of the client - or there will have to be a lot of compromise, most likely on the service provider's side. This is not to say that an architect should deny a commission because the client wanted a more pragmatic building, but that the architect should study the client and develop a relationship with them to find out what their values are (before taking the job is possible). The book spells this out so easily, but that is where the simplicity ends. I think that a lot of architects are so desperate for work they will whore themselves out for any job, doing whatever the clients asks. And on the other hand, there are the architectural artists, who ignore their clients completely. All service based industries revolve around the satisfaction of the client - if they are not content with their services, you are guaranteed to have very little business. But how do architects find the clients that match their ideals? How do clients find the architects that share their values?

I am beginning to explore the idea of architect-client match making (Is there a "sole mate" client for each architect? How do these clients find their way to an architect? Must architects rely on their firm to connect them to these clients?). I am writing for CORE (Iowa State University's student run architectural journal) this semester, and the topic is Responsible Design. I would like to somehow integrate these ideas into that subject, perhaps by doing some case study work. My hypothesis is that the "sole mate" client-architect team will have a more responsible design than the architect who whores himself to the client's wishes. Of course, this is assuming that the values of all licensed architects are in the best interest of the public, and that may not be the case. It seems I will have to fine tune these ideas a bit more.

MONTREAL DAY 4 | SEPTEMBER 18, 2005

Even though the only difference between me and the people here is a language barrier, I feel awkward and out of place. I did some quick research online and found that there are around 6,500 languages in the world (not including dialects). Of all these languages, the top three spoken are Mandarin, Spanish, and English - in that order. About 900 million people speak Mandarin as their first language, and about 330 million speak Spanish or English as their first language. If these statistics covered the foreign languages people could speak, English would probably be first on the list. So why is everyone forced to learn English, but the people of the United States can speak nothing but English? Is it because the US is a major super power and people learn it to survive? I wish that the school systems in the US taught children another language at an early age, when it is easier to learn. I know that it would seem strange to teach children a language their parents do not know, but we should not rely on other cultures to learn English. It just seems weird that I can talk to almost anyone in the world in English (whether it be in the States, in their country, or on the computer), but I can't speak their language. I think it gives them an advantage. I am not saying we shouldn't speak English in the US, but I do think we should encourage more people to learn another language (or two!).

So, I am ready to leave Canada and return home. I have had fun while I am here, but I feel like I need to get back and get some work done. It is so strange to take a plane somewhere and stay in a hotel - but then have someone expecting you to do work while you are there, on what feels like a vacation! I enjoy going to the site and documenting what I see, along with exploring the city and the variety of buildings here, but I find it difficult to get anything else done. I don't know what I am going to do when I am in Rome - I will feel like I am on one long vacation and fail all my classes!

Yesterday was a dreary, rainy day. We toured the Université de Montréal and the Université du Quebec a Montréal. None of the buildings there sparked my interest, but that may have been influenced by the fact that I was sopping wet for half the tour. We visited the Bibliotheque Nationale, which was absolutely stunning on the inside - but we were not allowed to take photos. A wood screen separates the lobby from the collections (it is probably 13m tall and 30m long). It was amazing to see such a gorgeous, light wood color fill the lobby space.

Today I took particular interest in exploring Palais des Congres de Montréal, the convention center of Montréal. The southwest facade of the building is composed of varying colors of glass panels. When the light goes through the glass it creates gorgeous effects inside.

MA NOUVELLE AMIE (DAY 2) | SEPTEMBER 16, 2005

Voici ma nouvelle amie (this is my new friend). I know I am pathetic, but I am so addicted to those Build-a-Bear places. Well, that is what they are called in the states, but this one is actually a new venue in Canada - Atelier Toutou (Plush workshop). You go into the store and find the skin of the animal you want to create, and of course, I headed straight for the cats. Then you step on a pedal and your animal gets filled with stuffing (and if you are me you feel like an idiot because you made the store employee think you could speak french by saying "bonjour"). When your animal passes the "hugability" test, you put a little star inside of it and make a wish. I put a purple star in her, which represents happiness. Then you fill out her birth certificate information and give your new friend a name. I named her "Minou" (pronounced "me-new"), which the store employee informed me was French for kitty. Then I took my picture with Minou for her passport, and made an oath in front of Alejandra, Cristina and the store employee to look after her. It was fun - it made me feel like a little kid again. I just hope Data won't chew off Minou's foot like he did to Mr. Poo (Steven's Build-a-Bear dog).

Making Minou wasn't the only fun part of the day. We went (as a group) to Pointe-à-Callière, the anthropology museum of Montréal. It sounds boring, but the site has a very interesting history. The new Pointe-à-Callière museum is located on the remains of the original Customs building the French built in 1642. So in the basement of the museum were the original footings of the Custom building, and some of the old sewer and water systems (empty of course). The museum also had a high-tech theater with screens that over layed one another and some that moved throughout the show. I don't know what kind of projectors they were using, but some of the show looked like it was three-dimensional. I visited a local photographer's shop across the street, M.I.L.K. Images, and bought the most adorable print. I love to find little shops like this. I feel like I am discovering a well-kept secret. A lot of the shops in that area of Montréal made me feel that way, because they were selling the work of local artists. Everything there was unique. I saw tons of gorgeous hand-crafted jewelry, as well as beautiful frames and vases. Too bad it was all so expensive!

I attended the light show in the Basilique Notre Dame, which was another amazing treat. There were white cloth screens held taut across the interior elevations of the cathedral, along with a large screen in front of the choir. During the show different images would be projected onto the side cloths and front cloths. Towards the end, the cloths pulled themselves away (automatically with electronically controlled wires), and different parts of the cathedral were light with colored lights. It was a gorgeous display. After the show we had were able to walk around the cathedral for it bit, but I would love to go back there before we leave to see the interior during the day.

I have observed that the people of Montréal are very proud of their French history. I suppose I should have figured that out, since the street we are staying on is named after someone who wants Montréal to succeed and become its own french-speaking country (Blvd. René Lévesque). Both of the shows I saw today talked about the French history of Montréal. Everything is in French here - the signs, the menus, the television channels, the operator on the phone... english is the second option, if it is an option at all. It has been a really interesting experience for me, because I do not speak any French. Most people do speak both languages, but we encountered a few who did not. Luckily, Alejandra knows some French, so she did it all the talking, and I just looked like a tourist.

MONTREAL DAY 1 | SEPTEMBER 15, 2005

I am in Montréal, and here is what we came to visit. That's right, we have been flying all day so we can visit an empty parking lot. And tomorrow we get to spend more time at the parking lot - measuring it, documenting where trees exist, and drawing the buildings around it. Alejandra and I finished up our programming study before we left Ames, so we will also be doing a bit of research to see if the building scheme we devised will work or not.

My first impressions of Montréal were not the best. The airport was disorganized and crowded. Too many of the walking paths (between the terminal and customs) overlapped one another, creating much unnecessary walking and confusion. Our cab driver was insociable at best, and he drove like there were no lane divisions on the road, or turn signals on his car. Many of the bridges we passed were falling apart, and covered in spray paint. When we finally arrived at our hotel in one piece, we found out that some male guests in the hotel had taken over our room, and we had no place to stay. We got that cleared up, and inhabited our incredibly small room (which is actually pretty nice compared to what they normally make us stay in), only to have to rush out to catch up with the rest of our class at the site.

Walking through the older part of Montréal proved that the inner city is in better shape than its perimeter. There is a wonderful juxtaposition of modern and historical architecture on the streets around our site. There is also a highly public feel to the city - there are many people commuting by foot, and the buildings cater to that. Now, I have to observe how these buildings work in this manner, so we can apply the same techniques to the Médiathèque.

ROME UPDATE | SEPTEMBER 12, 2005

It's official - I bought my ticket to Rome. There is no turning back now! Kelsey and I are flying out of the Chicago O'Hare airport at 4:10 pm, Tuesday, January 3rd. We have a layover in Toronto, and then we will arrive in Rome at 11:00 am, Wednesday, January 4th. I ended up buying a student flight ticket for $560, which I didn't feel too bad about. Of course, it is some airline that I have never even heard of before - so let's just hope they don't crash us into the ocean. I feel relieved that I bought my ticket - it is one less thing to worry about!

Steven is going to come visit me when I am staying in Rome, and I am already started to get really excited about that part of the trip. I know, I know, it is over seven months away (he is coming over my spring break in March), but I just can't help but think about all the fun things we are going to do! We decided that we are just going to stay in Italy while he is there, rather than try to tour more of Europe together. We will probably go to Pisa, Milan, Venice, Tuscany, and maybe Pompeii. Ever since Steven saw that movie "Under the Tuscan Sun" he has been joking about how he wants to buy a villa in Tuscany and live there and grow olives or grapes or something (can you tell what a good listener I am?). So I am sure we will look at villas in the country for fun - although today our Rome Prep teacher told us there is no country in Italy, he said that all of Italy is like one dense suburb. I suppose I will have to discover my own truths about Italy when I am there. I feel like I can't believe everything this guy says because he is such a goofy character. Although he has been to Italy 20 or more times so he definitely has a better idea than I do!

I am also excited about going to Venice. I really hope that Steven and I will be able to go on a gondola ride. It just seems so romantic. I can picture us riding one at dusk and watching the colors of the clouds and sky change, as the italian guy sings his crazy gondola song. Overall, Steven being there will probably be the best part of the trip for me, because spending time with Steven makes me feel so happy. And I know it will be something we remember for the rest of our lives.

HAPPY THREE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!! | SEPTEMBER 10, 2005

Tomorrow is my three-year anniversary with Steven. We aren't able to spend any time together because he had to be at a conference in Indianapolis. He sent me the most adorable cards in the mail though. The first one I opened was a funny anniversary card with cats on it, and the second one was more serious, but at the end of it, Steven said "Only 2 more years 'till I can call you my wife!" I almost started crying when I read that! That was so sweet of him to send me those cards. I miss Steven. It is hard to be away from the person you enjoy spending your time with the most.

Enough sappiness. Staying in Ames for the weekend is a little bit more boring than I recall - probably because I have spent ALL of my day doing school work. Alejandra and I had a little bit of a brain fart and were unable to get much work done yesterday - so we had to do some catching up today. We are still working on basic diagrams to study the spaces within the Médiathèque, including another area and volume diagram. I worked on day on an affinities diagram, showing which spaces have similarities between them. The spaces labeled in the "bubbles" have inherent similarities - the cinemas, media stacks, offices, etc. The dotted green lines in between the bubbles link spaces that are similar because of the function they serve, for example, the three cinemas are in a bubble together that links to another bubble that holds the cinema lobby. And finally, there are four other types of lines that link spaces together based on their amount of security, public or private space, open or closed space and the type of environmental control. It looks like a big confusing mess, but it is an aid towards the next step - the adjacencies diagram. Hopefully we will get past all these silly diagrams tomorrow and begin to develop images that look like building plans and sections! So far I am having a lot of fun working with Alejandra. I feel like she lets me be more creative than I might be on my own.

I spent some time tonight trying to find tickets to fly to Rome in the beginning of January and back at the end of April. Almost all of the tickets I found were at least $800, which I cannot afford. I looked into flying into London then taking the european rail to Rome, but that was not as cost effective as I imagined it would be. I did find a student discounted ticket for $600. I will probably take that one, as I have been informed to have my ticket ready by October 3rd so I can apply for my student Visa. Ugh. I have way too much going on this semester.

A BIT OF A SURPRISE | SEPTEMBER 9, 2005

The Clovis meeting turned out to be different than I had expected. I was under the impression that he was going to hire one student to do all of the design and presentation work, but rather, he decided to have another student design three different addition proposals, and have me do all of the presentation work for each proposal. So she has to do all the floor plans and layouts, and I will design a graphic site plan and a crude sketchup model for each one after she is done. Essentially, this is what I did all summer - design presentation drawings and graphics of other architect's work. I actually don't mind doing this, because it is a good graphic exercise and I didn't feel motivated to work on the design of the apartment addition. Plus, I will be getting paid to do it, and extra money is always good!

We received our Montréal itinerary today. We are leaving very early Thursday morning, as I mentioned, and we return very late Monday night. Our return flight arrives in Des Moines around 11:15 pm. With our luck, I imagine this will be more like 3 am or even Tuesday morning, but I hope the return flight is on time. Our schedule is very busy while we are in Montréal. After we arrive on Thursday we have a walking tour of Vieux Montréal (Old Montréal) and Basilique Notre Dame. On Friday we will visit the Médiathèque site and go to the Pointe-à-Callière museum. On Saturday we will be touring the Université de Montréal, with special visits to the Faculté de l'Aménagement (Faculty of Planning and Design) and l'École des Hautes Études Commerciales (this translates to "School of the High Commercial Studies" so I am assuming it means business or management). It will be interesting to see how a Canadian university differs from ISU, although I don't know how good of an idea we will get unless the students take classes on Saturdays as well. After touring the school we are doing a walking tour of Université du Quebec a Montréal (UQAM)/Latin Quarter, including the Cinémathèque Québécoise, Bibliotheque Nationale, and Pavillion de Design. On Sunday we will be visiting the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and then it seems we have a bit of free time Sunday evening (yay!). On Monday we are allotted time to finish up site research, and then we are out of there.

I don't know much about the buildings we are visiting or what their names really mean in english, so I hope this turns out to be a fun and educational trip. I really hope we visit Habitat '67 by Moshe Safdie. I also hope we have a little bit more free time that what is mentioned on the itinerary. I hate being controlled by schedules like this, because it feels like you are either at a place for too long or not long enough. I have been on trips like this before with the architecture program, where we have had full days planned for us and were informed to bring sack lunches and everything - that did not turn out to be fun. I hope now that we are a little older they will quit treating us like children. The New York City trip was quite pleasant because we got to choose everything we did while we were there, so I hope this trip is more similar to than than the one where we had to bring sack lunches.

I am a bit worried about not knowing any French. On my Montréal map it said that all of the signs are in French, so I guess I will just have to stay close to the people that know a bit of the language. All that I know is "Voulez vous coucher avec moi" and I will not be saying that to anyone!

Other news - a girl from my university was mentioned in the October issue of Glamour magazine for being one of the top ten college women in America. It's nice to see some positive promotion out there for ISU.

ME SO SICK | SEPTEMBER 8, 2005

I generally associate being sick with COLD weather, so why the heck am I sick right now?! I never got sick when I lived at home with my parents, but now that I am in school, I feel like I do at least once every semester. Usually I get sick after a big project, when I haven't been sleeping for days or taking care of myself, but this time, I got sick on Labor day weekend vacation! So I have been ill for the past three days, which has prevented me from going to work, getting anything done for class, and sleeping peacefully.

Alas, I am going to look at the positive side of being sick and say that it has been a learning experience. I have observed that I go through different phases of being sick, and now that I know what these phases are, I can prevent them in the future.

I am worried about what I will do if I get sick in Rome. I can't even take care of myself in Ames! I would be done for if I didn't have my Puffs plus lotion tissues and my Sudafed PE! I suppose I will just bring enough with me to last a semester.

Another good thing about being sick now is that it means (hopefully) I will not be sick when I am in Montréal next week. I leave Ames bright and early at 3:30 am next Thursday to go to the Des Moines airport. My flight leaves at 6:15 am, and then we have a layover in Detroit. Those are all the details I have about the trip for now, but frankly, I am amazed to have those. The school generally waits until the day before we actually leave to tell us anything about where we are going, where we are staying, or how we are getting there.

Alejandra and I began to work together on the Médiathèque de Montréal project. We are starting off with programming studies. This building has the largest program we have ever dealt with as students, which is partially why the let us work in teams (also, as my instructor said "two hands and two brains produce more than one"). It requires a library with a holding capacity of 250,000 volumes (with study rooms, carrels, etc.), a large cinema and two smaller cinemas, a gallery, a "new media center", a youth center, offices, a loading dock, parking, a plaza, and probably a bunch of other things I am forgetting. The total programming requires an area of 10,880 square meters. The site is about 50m x 50m, so it will be a challenge to place the building on the site and fit the damned parking in somewhere.

Which is why we start off by studying programming - you can't do it all at once! We will be doing simple comparisons between area and volume, but also more complex studies about adjacencies (parts of the program that need to be near each other) and affinities (parts of the program that are alike one another). Doing these studies will help us figure out how the different parts of the program relate to one another, and which parts need a special emphasis on their design, or which parts may be more modular. After we have done these basic studies we will begin to mass together the parts. It may sound boring, but this is what us architecture students like to do! And working with Alejandra is a lot of fun!

I will be finding out whether or not I get the Clovis job tomorrow... I am kind of hoping I won't, but I will know soon enough.

YAY...SEPTEMBER | SEPTEMBER 5, 2005

Despite the small and pathetic amount of work I had prepared, I had another meeting with the engineering professor for the Clovis Apartment Complex project on Friday. I ended up spending all of Thursday night preparing for the meeting - doing more site research, drawing up an existing site plan in AutoCAD and Adobe Illustrator, and beginning to do a diagram of the proposed changes... but I was not happy with the results. Tackling a project like this always takes longer than you think it will, especially if you aren't excited to work on it, and even if it is the only thing you want to work on. I had interesting ideas for apartment layouts in my head, but I knew that it wouldn't be worth it to suggest anything beyond the logical. The previous scheme that the engineer showed me maximized out the amount of apartment units that could fit on the lot. I am not sure if he is looking for a design solution or a math solution. I even asked him that, and he avoided answering.

I felt a little frustrated during the meeting. He requested that I prepare a fee for the meeting so he would have an idea of how much he would have to pay me. He wasn't very specific about what he wanted me to do when he told me to decide on a fee, so I prepared an hourly rate. I wrote up a letter of agreement with my contact information and the fee, and gave it to him. Then, at Friday's meeting, he wanted to know exactly how many hours it would take me to do the job (so he could calculate the cumulative fee). This is the part when I asked him if he wanted complete design services or a simple math calculation of how many units he can fit on the lot. He must want a design, because he is asking an architecture student for help, but he wouldn't come out and say that. It would be irresponsible of me to tell him an exact amount of time and money when I am not even sure what he wants me to do, so I was pushing for him to give me a better description of what he wanted, and I didn't get it. I felt weird trying to give him an estimate of how much time it would take me to do an unknown project. I just think he wants cheap student labor. I most certainly should not be hired solely based on the presentation I gave him. It was too underdeveloped. If he asks me to take the job, I will know that the other students were asking for too much money. He seems interested in exploring different ideas for the apartment layout, but I don't think he would want me to take the time to really give him something great.

I have other news that is more interesting than this. About a month ago, I received an email from Steven while I was at work. He told me that eating meat was really starting to gross him out (because he was visualizing eating meat off of a an alive chicken's leg when he was eating chicken legs, etc.), so he was going to try giving it up and see if that worked for him. I felt really surprised and excited when he sent me this, because it came completely out of the blue. I hadn't been pressuring him at all to give up meat. He rarely ate meat at home, but that was his own choice. I was so surprised when he wrote this to me that I actually wondered if someone at his office was writing an email on his computer as a joke.But it turns out it was Steven. And he was being serious. It probably shouldn't have come as such a surprise to me, since he has always been so supportive of my choices, and never really been that big of a carnivore anyway.

So he hasn't had any meat for about a month now. It didn't really affect me at first that he wasn't eating meat because I already don't (duh), but this weekend, when everyone at my grandmother's cabin was eating ribs, I had someone to support me in my decision not to eat them! Usually I just eat the meatless salads that are available and call that a meal, but this time Steven was doing the same thing... so it made me feel good. I never felt out of place not eating meat, but with Steven doing the same thing, I felt like we were a team. Not a team against everyone else, but our own special group.

I am certain that most people who know me will think that I forced Steven to become a vegetarian. But the people who know me well will know that is not true. Like I have said before, it is none of my business what other people eat, and I don't plan on becoming involved with that part of their lives unless I am cooking a meal for them.

I am currently trying to solve the Rome puzzle - for what days should I buy my plane tickets? How will I pay for the plane tickets? Where will I live? When will Steven come and visit? Are my friends Alejandra and Cristina coming? The instructor who teaches the Rome Prep Seminar has told us that we are absolutely required to stay in the university provided apartments, but I don't see how this could possibly be true. They can't force us to live anywhere, and I know I haven't signed a contract saying I will. I haven't even heard the horror stories about living in those apartments, but I know I would prefer not to live there. I am sure they are cramped, have zero internet access, and awful bathrooms. I don't care if I have to walk up a zillion flights of stairs, or take my laundry to a laundromat, or cook in a small kitchen... I just don't want to do it in an apartment with 4 or more other people that I don't know that well. Luckily, Steven is helping me find an apartment over there (because he doesn't want to stay in the university apartments when he visits!). I have found some places online and emailed a remax agent over there. I don't know if it will work out. Money wise, I may have to stay in the apartments, but I am going to try my hardest to figure out an alternative solution.

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