design-gasm medellin style

as a designer im almost immediately attracted to other designers. like in aiesec you can always talk about aiesec-related topics, with designers you can always talk about design things no matter where you are or what youre doing. a few weeks ago i met the cousin of a friend of mine here who happens to be an architect...and not just any architect, but in fact the architect for the metro here in medellin. i was immediately fascinated and asked to see his sketches and renderings for the new upcoming stations in sabaneta and la estrella, which has led to a really awesome friendship. and that friendship totally comes with perks! yesterday i got the amazing opportunity to preview the new metrocable that goes from santo domingo to santa elena, an opportunity that wont be available to the public until the second week of february. this metrocable is an AMAZING experience, because you literally go through the forest and get to see places up in the hills that you would NEVER have the opportunity to see otherwise. 

aside from that we also did a tour of medellin, complete with the other metrocable on the other side of the city and tours of 2 of the parque biblioteca pilot projects (i would have to save an entire post to explain that government project, which is one of the most successful social projects medellin has ever seen). ALSO, due to my small bladder and my new friends' vip metro status, i got to see the behind the scenes of the metro, including the offices, the awesome kitchenette for employees, and of course the bathroom. 

all in all it was a day chock-full of design-gasms.

well...

so its been a while, but thats just how things go. i havent been able to put words to my life over the past few months. it happens. i also have been trying to get a handle on myself seeing as every time i go back to the states i go through a crazy weird funky transition period that leaves me utterly existentially exhausted for about twice the amount of time i spend there. but here i am, ready and rarin to go. 

2009 ended beautifully. an amazingly beautiful and long overdue reunion in chitown and then madison, a very jewish christmas which is always my favorite, a refresher of family time that was amazingly honest and change-embracing, and a hilariously unpredictable new years that left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside and ended in a (not very well) renovated warehouse that now poses as a "pod" apartment. 

i have started 2010 not really realizing its 2010 and liking it that way. im not good at new years resolutions and therefore dont make them, but since ive gotten back to colombia ive hit the ground running and indulging in every minute of it. ive started training in my new job that will bring me the pueblos of antioquia every morning, working with kindergarden to 6th graders under the support of an awesome team. i went to my first yoga class in medellin, and even though i wholeheartedly did not enjoy the yoga nor the attitude of the people who worked there, it was all but productive because it has now stimulated my yoga practice at home, leaving me feeling accomplished and self-reliant. i have added another person to my shit list (i dont ever really get offended by people commenting on my american-ness, but this kid got me to the point where when he talks to me i just stare him down and answer him kurtly), which isnt really an accomplishment but something that shows me that even a year in a half in south american cant get rid of my sydney-ness. i met the architect for the newest stations of the metro, who has taken to my persistence and has shown me all his plans for the latest metro stations and has promised me a pre-experience of the new metrocable in santa elena before it is a launched this monday (oh god i hope!). 

and next week i start the grad program in interior architecture. 

so my only resolution that has now been my resolution for a while is to savor the now. the now is all that really exists, because the past has gone and the future is unwritten, rendering them both irrelevant. 

and so here i am.