What will you miss most about Princeton, Claudia, one of Michaela's zees, asked me today at dinner. The Forbes Dining hall is an amazing place because you meet so many people; you go there to have a quick meal and exit an hour later having had dessert, ice cream and coffee.

I will miss most the people here. In a sense I have already left Princeton. It happened when the people I was close to graduated, and now I sometimes feel like a stranger here. But it's also new and exciting in a different way.

I will also miss the fact that Princeton makes you feel like you're the center of the world, with so many resources at your fingertips - so many opportunities. And soon I'll be thrust out into the real world.

That is why I am so eager to get into graduate school. The other reason is that I love architecture and I want to be an architect.

Architecture Graduate Schools

I saw this poster in the Architecture building and I love it. I was not really planning to apply to MIT, expecting it to be a very science and math place but I really want to check out their Open House now! The next few weeks will be spent filling out forms, asking for recommendations, putting together my portfolio and writing essays about myself. It takes me back to high school days, and life seems like one test after another. But it's interesting right now and I'll try to keep it interesting.

The Beginning of the End

Senior year has begun and is in full swing. I'm excited for my last studio at Princeton, a thrilling project that analyzes "stacking" in architecture, and how it's articulated in form and program. We've started off by looking at previous examples and I've got the Villa Savoye, one of my favorite buildings!

I stepped on a meticulously constructed study model from last semester, just for fun, and was surprised to see the result, both in terms of the form produced (it looks like OMA's Seattle Public Library) and the structural strength and pliability. In the background is some preliminary work on the Villa Savoye.

In other news, I am applying to Architecture graduate schools!

Silent Conversations in Barry Nemett's Drawing Class (in the Princeton University Chapel and in Other Places)

Orange Key

I found these Princeton tour guide comment cards lying around at home. There were a bunch of these but only two seem to have survived. Notice that both people have made the same error in spelling my name.

travaux-en-cours

This summer I will travel to Paris and other cities to work on three projects: an internship at kilo architectures, thesis research in the Paris suburbs, and an architecture travel drawing project funded by the Shellman Prize at Princeton's School of Architecture.

Here is the link to my blog called works-in-progress, which is a personal record of my adventures.

Six seniors and two juniors won the Spirit of Princeton award. I was one of the juniors. It's in the Daily Princetonian as well as the Princeton website!

Finally, finally, good weather has returned to Princeton. In its honour, I am uploading an image of a strangely beautiful face carved on one of the entrances of McCosh Hall. Notice the weird smirk/smile. Princeton is full of these faces - each with its own secret, it's own joke - but we get very little time to stop and notice them.

It was ironic that I read the two readings from No One is Illegal (for my class on Cities in the 21st Century) on the plane back to New York last Monday morning.

Immediately upon landing I literally came across some of the challenges that Chacon and Davis talk about. Just like everyone else I got in line for visitors, and the immigration officer checked my passport, I-20, etc. But unlike most people, all my stuff was put into an orange folder and I was asked to go "register" myself in a small room at the end of the hallway.

I entered a small waiting room with broken desks, grumpy immigration officers, and a large group of hispanic and south asian people - men, women and children. It bothered me that I had been singled out based on either my nationality or my race. It seemed wrong but I understood why it had to be done: to catch potential terrorists and prevent another 9-11. I would almost have liked to see some arabs in the room, too (after all we had flown out from Dubai)!

What was not okay, however, was the inefficiency with which the officers dealt with each case. The various colored folders lay around for hours, and there was no real order in which people were interviewed. There was a hint of what Guantanamo must be like: we were not allowed to make phone calls and were asked to sit in the seats provided. The officers were suspicious and watchful. They even brought in a convict for whom there was a warrant and asked him to wait with us until they had time to process him.

In the end, after two hours of waiting, I asked to see a supervisor and quoted to him the "pledge" that was written in the main hall of the airport: a promise that the customs officers would respect visitors, smile, etc. He was actually very nice. It could have been that I told him I go to Princeton and had to get back in time for class, or the fact that I spoke any English at all, but immediately I was taken more seriously and helped out.

But the overall ambiguity of my status in that room still confuses me, and I wonder how effective this system is in protecting America from terrorists.

Photo from naamtobatao.wordpress.com.

As part of the larger project emPOWER, which is a student-led initiative to develop a sustainable power station for the landfill (and surrounding communities) in Karachi, I volunteered to organize an art project for the children in one of the schools there. The idea was to get a better picture of the people who would directly benefit from the project. Since I was in Karachi for the week, it seemed perfect.

On Friday Momin, Muneeb, Anum, Amna, Hiba, Urooj and I went to the north of Karachi to visit the landfill and the schools there that offer free education to the kids from the surrounding slums. We had organized a painting workshop for about 60 kids, an opportunity for them to express themselves through art and tell others their story and the story of their community.

What we saw shocked us, but equally amazing was the energy, joy and creativity that each kid had. Amidst the burning garbage there was hope.

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

Photo by Momin Zafar

I had told myself I would not notice the taking off and landing of the plane, nor the announcements and security checks at the airports. This wasn't a week-long trip across the planet but a continuous living of life in a global village, where no connections are severed by a mere geographical displacement. Dubia airport had been impressive but my progress on Giedion's Space, Time and Architecture had been more impressive. I had slept and eaten, and was fully awake as we approached Karachi. And then as the landing gear clicked and the plane dipped, my heart skipped. I could no longer resist the little blinking lights of what was once the city of lights. Now they seemed watchful and tired.

Was it strange that I felt love and yearning for a city? Perhaps the city symbolizes a memorable childhood, and encapsulates the spirit of all its inhabitants whom I love.

Karachi has no skyscrapers, no Times Square, no architectural monuments to put on postcards (not since 1947 anyway). It is a blank slate. It's burning history, traditions, and energy are waiting to be articulated in concrete. It's fledgling spirit needs architectural columns to rest on.

What kind of monument, I thought, would be impervious to terrorist bombing or graffiti? What kind of monument would counter the extremist brainwashing of people by providing an alternative avenue for religious discourse? Karachi needs a Hagia Sophia! Will I design it some day?

The plane touches down and I snap my book shut, waiting to get out. Very soon it would be dawn. That, at least, was inevitable.

Goodbye CNN

I love watching the news. It gives me a feeling of being abreast with the rest of the world, even in this small college town. And while I would often watch Fox News for entertainment, I would of course turn to a more reliable and trusted source for real news, CNN. Until today.

Turns out that there is a special CNN and even a special BBC for America. In the true spirit of the market economy, Americans get exactly the news they want to hear. So in the same bulletin you have 700 Palestinians (or Hamas or whatever, who cares) being bombed (Anderson Cooper has flown to Israel to report on this)... but wait Anderson wants to talk about Obama's new dog, and then Scientology, and then the Porn Industry asking for a bailout (oh, just kidding). Let's discuss Casey Anthony's expressionless face but, wait, Suzie Orman wants to tell me to start saving money. The strangest thing is that no one will find this strange at all, because no one has seen real news for a long time. So while the world anxiously watches a crisis get worse (breaking news, minute-by-minute updates), Bush relaxes in Texas and America watches football, unaware of its power to sway things one way or another. Now I understand why many years ago as I sat on the ground in front of the TV very late at night watching tanks entering Iraq, horrified, Americans didn't use their power to question and change things. They just went with the flow. For once, I agree with Sarah Palin.

The sad thing about the current crisis is that there is no mention of the thousands of rockets fired by Hamas into Israel over a long period of time (oh they must not have killed a lot of people at once, and so it's not newsworthy), and there is no mention of extreme human rights abuses in a war that may threaten the future of the world. People on opposite sides have selective knowledge of the issue and that is why it is so polarizing. It's reading period in America's #1 University (it's still #1 in my eyes okay!) and the overwhelming attitude about the Middle East: don't know, don't care.

Some of the countless great things about America are the freedom of speech, respect, and the peaceful coexistence of diverse peoples. It is important that America reach elsewhere for its news and get rid of false advertising and misleading (alternately euphemistic or overly dramatic) news/entertainment. The internet may be the answer. Those who seek the truth shall find it.

I really should be writing that paper about the art/architecture of Gordon Matta-Clark and Vitto Acconci, and another one about the confrontational art of Andrea Fraser.

Today my photograph from last summer's project was featured on the main Princeton website! Here's the link to the article: http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S23/11/71A09/index.xml?section=featured.

In other news, I started a new Twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/waqasjawaid

Latest Twitter post: "We learned to precipitate mass death before we grew out of the neurological disorder of wishing for it." -Bill Maher in Religulous

With 70 miles of shelving and over 6 million volumes, Firestone is Princeton's largest library. When it opened it was the largest open-stack library in the world: unlike many large libraries you can actually go down and explore the shelves in Firestone. The quest for a book leads to a shelf full of related books or books by the same author.

This picture was taken on a cold winter evening on one of the last days in December 2008. I think it captures well the warmth of the interior of Firestone library.

These pictures were taken from inside Robert Venturi's Frist Campus Center, just before I left for Harvard and Mount Holyoke College. Now I am back in snowy Princeton and am pretty much here and in New York for the break. I work (sort of) on my portfolio and other random things in my warm room in Forbes and of course at my desk in the Architecture building. It's quite strange how much I love my desk and how irresistibly I am drawn to it. At other times I educate myself by watching movies, Youtube, and CNN.

It's winter break... and I just realized I actually have this blog. I had forgotten all about it.

I will be writing about and putting up pictures from my summer project at http://summersketchbook.blogspot.com

"Time doesn't change things. Doing things changes things. Not doing things leaves things exactly as they were."

Dr. Gregory House

Read my mind

This song, like Mr Brightside, is not only powerful because it evokes a strong sense of transience, a sort of yearning, hopeful and resigned at the same time, existential... but also in how it's sung. The video seems to have nothing to do with the song, which of course, is really cool!