So This is How You Get Your Head to [Almost] Burst...

DAY TWO

November 15, 2008

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.

That will be the beginning.

- Louis L'Amour

Following last weeks' lecture, Architect Bronne Dytoc has definitely made certain that we were coming back this Saturday. If they're not looped, you're not yet done.  We can't insist on our jobs being over until we get to the bottom of this... Certainly, our heads were pregnant with graphical representations which lasted us a week to munch on, and we felt we were ready for more.

However, an obvious question still rang in my mind: would the Portico dinner this week beat last week's Oriental Chicken drizzled with Thai plum sauce...uhmmm.   Well, I wouldn't really know unless I came back!  And believe me, the mixed kabobs with java rice didn't disappoint at all.  What's more, when  good buddy Manny shared a scrumptious plate of shrimp-mango salad with me, it was literally in cloud 9.  My next concern then was whether I would stay awake long enough to listen to Bronne's lecture after such a hearty meal.  

Bronne got us started with POLDA - Polygon Design Analyses.  In simpler terms... whoops, there are none.

According to a design engineering site RoyMech, any assemblage of materials whose function is that of supporting loads is a structure.  This could be a bridge, an aeroplane wing, a building or a dam.   The component parts of a loaded structure are in a state of stress and the laws which govern the distribution of the stress are used to calculate the design a material to enable the structure to safely support the loads.  And the analyses, went on and on for the next two hours or so.  All of a sudden, when initially I felt sorry that colleagues Willie, Gino and Alex couldn't make it to tonight's session, I envied them for being not around to have to survive this extremely tiring and demanding exercise.

What is the point to all this?  Errrr.... Most of all, it was Manny was on tenterhooks the whole time...was it the kabobs? I had suspicions about that.  Rather, it was the fact that we were tediously graphically justifying certain forms of design when all we architects would like to care about is, well, the design. The aesthetic aspect or that which would satisfy the arrogance of our whimsies being realized.

I figured we needed to internalize the whole technical "maneuvers" until the point when it became as simple as riding a bike.  I knew - and hoped - that, soon after, we will astound ourselves as we shall be doing more than just wheelies but actual acrobatic stunts, whereby not just the front wheels will go off the ground, but the whole bike, heck, even our whole blessed selves!

Long after the lecture and half the "class" has gone and hit the road, a few scholarly wanna-bes stayed behind, at the outset,  wanting to sip some wine to unwind.  Joseph still had his luggage coming straight from the airport from a trip to the seminar,  Eugene was eternally doodling and finding answers to Manny's endless questions, Jojo and Johanna interminably using their powers of inference to the same, Andrew supplying us every now and then with wise cracks from the profound to the profane...and everyone else joining in the very engaging discussions.  

It was, we all surmised, the cheapest nightcap - we stayed on for another hour or so without having to order a drink as time passed us by with delight - just deliberating about what we learned that evening and what relation it had with what we already knew.

The tragedy of life is not

that it ends so soon, 

but that we wait so long to begin it.

- W.M. Lewis

We went home surely after midnight with no one turning into a pumpkin. Thank heavens for that.

But I could not hold the same for our heads almost bursting.