Introspection is a very refined and thick word. In nowadays society –in which we experience everything as objects, where we ‘live in a material world’ and it appears, as we do not have the time to look deeper and beyond superficial perception- this word has gone in disuse and is considered to be out of fashion. It is a random, mid-July, typically Spanish, warm, summer evening and I am on the train on my way back home. I am observing from the inside the outside surrounding landscape, which goes by terribly, fast. This experience can be seen as a metaphor; as a matter of fact it truly embodies contemporary living and lifestyle. Time goes by quickly, but its perception is terribly relative and subjective. As a matter of fact, for me, it gets difficult to weigh time and define its value and my mind goes often blurry: sometimes few month can feel like days, 3 years or even 30. I was living in Carleton exactly when the canal started to melt and this spectacular show, reminded me and looked like Italian coffee ‘granita’ – the one I love most is Sicilian ‘granita’ because it still has a genuine and full taste. As an initiated professor, I felt very responsible about how to fulfill, feed and stimulate, the mind and brains of my –then- 17 students, who were eager to know and learn more about being an architect today and it todays world. This brings to my mind the key question: What is an architect today? Is an architect a social employee, a creative engineer, a sculptor or a person who needs to work to survive? As a consequence I needed to understand these 34 eyes which where looking at me with curiosity and hope, looking forward to getting an answer. I had to create osmosis in their heads without flattering their personality; I needed to ‘introspect’ their brains, travel across their soils in order to exteriorize their future vision, their feelings so that they would be able to find their own way in this world. A world that everyday gets smaller and smaller, that shrinks just like when you wash a jumper with the wrong program… In this campus where people jobs are in the tunnels, where the sun is precious as salt, where respect is naturally part of the DNA; I, for the first time in a long run, had the time to stop and look at my self in the mirror. What I saw was time had been carving its way through my skin and finally realizing that time goes by always, it passes, it flows, sometimes quicker, sometimes making us live moments which feel eternal; but no matter what or how, it does and in this chaotic society - it is difficult to stop and realize it, but when you do, you learn your lesson.
‘‘My experience on Carleton University’’ by Teresa Sapey