Wow, what a whirlwind trip I have been through with your tales!

Your stories – both personal and professional – echoed some of my own hopes, trepidations and challenges going forward as a young professional woman, and it was so refreshing to read how you dealt with each of your challenges, and moved upwards and onwards with no regrets and your integrity in tact. Sometimes your words sound like an advice my mother would give me, and the description of your interactions with your daughter gave me some insight into emotions my mother would have gone through with me at points.

Your journey is a real life rendition of Dr Seuss’ famous book, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go”.

On the professional front, these are the points I noted with interest and potential elements for further expansion:

– your penchant for inserting graphic components into assignments (page 142): I am hoping to do the same with my dissertation – I would like my research to be as widely accessible to the general public as much as it would for the academics in architecture!

– the ‘fake it til you make it’ attitude (192): this has been my modus operandi because I know that 99% of the confident people out there are doing the same!

– questioning what is ‘good enough’ for the public (200): I go through similar dilemmas in projects that are of pro bono nature – just because it’s free, doesn’t mean that it needs to be low-quality

– discussion on the role of architecture (278): this is what my dissertation is about – I am zoning in on the context of disasters in my current research, but this has wider implications, particularly as it concerns the public and the environment at large

– development as a speculation rather than appropriate (329): along the same lines as above

– your thoughts on community organizing, “could leadership and planning influence the visual impact of development?” (330)

I would like to propose that we pull something together for Architecture + Women New Zealand group – they’re open to new publications and submissions by members, both local and from overseas.”

—Alexandra JaYeun Lee, BAS, B.Arch, PhD Candidate, School of Architecture and Planning, University of Auckland, New Zealand, 2012