Documentary on the partnership between Moscow School 45 and Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. Narration by Addy Golladay, writer and star of All-Nighter Cocktails.

Junior year of college is a fascinating time of transition. The exhilarating freedom of the freshman and sophomore years has passed, but the sobering proximity to the Real World faced by seniors has not yet arrived. You have a sense of your future direction, but not your exact route. You have learned enough to be intelligent, but lack the experience to have earned wisdom.

I shared a room in an Islington row house with another Yalie. From time to time Jacob would stay in London (which unsurprisingly was more of a happenin’ hot spot than Cambridge), and occasionally my roommate would have a friend over as well. A number of late-night confabs inevitably turned to Big Questions.

To the question “What do you want to be?”, most answers aligned with college major: English professor, investment banker, etc. Jacob’s response, however, caught my attention.

“I want to be a father,” he said.

We did a lot more research (London is a great town for research), poring over discussions of communes, houseshares, and alternative lifestyles—not to mention architectural books, home safety and energy-efficient manuals, and self-building guides. Self-builders claimed that the care and personal attention of building your own home meant that it would be better constructed. And of course cheaper than hiring professional builders—perhaps saving as much as 50% on construction costs. All this was encouraging, if a bit self-serving on the part of the authors.

Version 2 of the communal house is basically just a re-drawing of Version 1, except this time (and from now on) using graph paper (gridlines erased here for clarity). We’re so professional! Plus, we learned that closets actually take up space, and that real architects don’t use boxes for doors in blueprints.

The letter that officially presented our floor plans and self-build concept to prospective housemates. (Although Jacob and I were calling the house “Blackwood”, we wanted the final choice of name to be a consensus decision, hence the request for suggestions here.)

Welcome to…

…well, let's just start by saying this place needs a name. Put on your thinking caps and let us know what you come up with.

The epic story of my 1991 cross-country trek with Peter Hammond in a hand-me-down Buick Century.

A mirror-image inversion. Inspired by Scott Kim’s Inversions

After months of wrangling different plans, it was slowly sinking in just how difficult consensus decisions were. I posted the following missive almost exactly one year after sending out the initial introductory letter:

Just when you thought it was safe to check your mailbox…

…OK, I know I’m the one who said it was time to hold off on these plans until we could have a professional compare them to a specific site, but

For years, the best man at my wedding said he hated “The Birthday Song” and never wanted people to sing it to him. So one year we were challenged to write a new song that he couldn't complain about. Music maestro Aaron Gee-Clough composed some music, and I bashed out the lyrics.

For the engagement of Bill’s younger brother.

I’m curious: If you were born after 1965, are you working in a field directly related to your college major?

I'd like to thank the Academy…and all the others who have shown their support since I got my diagnosis.