arkitrave :: log

Naia Joy Shepherd
30 December 2004
Seven pounds, fourteen ounces
Twenty inches long

Perfect.

OK. All the architecture students have seen this. But I needed a break, so I wasted a few minutes putting this list together.

I’ve italicized the ones that apply more or less to me and left a few comments.

You know you’re an Architecture Student when…

you know the janitors by name.

And how many slices of pizza they buy at lunch.

your roommate/wife says “good morning,” and you reply “good night.”

you spend more time in studio than with your wife.

Sad but true.

you see showering as a waste of time.

you analyze everything as if it were a building.

This gets worse directly proportional to hours of sleep.

concept of time is not forward, but a countdown from the time a project is due (”What time is it?”"4 hours ’till”).

Having my own office and only one deadline this semester, this one is a memory of past years.

you slice your finger, and the first thing you think of is if you’ll be able to finish your model.

So true. The most interesting part is figuring out how to hold a compress to a finger while still trying to cut chipboard.

you say “It’s only midnight- I have plenty of time to finish.”

you confuse today and tomorrow.

you carry a toothbrush in your backpack.

Maybe I should

you confuse sunrise with sunset.

the alarm clock tells you when to go to sleep.

you strangle your roommate because he said he stayed up late studying.

you’re not ashamed of drooling in class anymore, especially in the Structures lesson.

you know what UHU tastes like.

Technically, only Testors Plastic Cement.

breakfast is your 5th meal of the day.

the morning newspaper beats you home.

the idea that you have a room to live in outside of studio is just a myth.

you hear “Didn’t you wear that yesterday?’ followed by “and the day before that?”

And an occasional “and the day before that…”

you roommate files a ‘Missing Person Report.’

someone asks you for your phone number and you give them the studio’s.

You draw perspectives of your friends room on your Japanese homework just for the fun of it.

Whenever you finish a project and don’t have any studio work to do, you are constantly wondering why you aren’t in studio working.

It’s a strange sort of guilt complex.

You buy trace paper in mass quantities.

You understand what 4B, 2B, B, HB, H, 2H, and 4H are and have lots of each type.

Your idea of splurging on yourself is buying another circle template (or other miscellaneous template).

Alas, all these old drafting-related ones have been irrelevant to me since first year. It’s all CAD now.

YOU ALWAYS WRITE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.

Only sometimes.

You put a scale under everything you draw so that people know how big it is.

But I can’t sketch to scale so well, so this doesn’t usually help.

The biggest decision you have to make near the end of the term is “pencil, or ink?”

Nope. Now it’s “gloss, semi-gloss, or mylar?”

You always have a supply of bandaids around for exacto knife cuts.

That would maybe have been a good idea all these years.

You have a 30, 60, 90 and a 45, 45, 90 degree triangle. Or two. Or three. Or more.

You keep around adjustable triangles too just in case.

But the arm broke off my adjustable triangle…

You start replacing pictures of your friends and family with pictures of buildings.

Watching the sun rise means you haven’t gone to bed yet.

The only sunrises I’ve seen since I was very young.

You never have enough wall space to pin things up.

You no longer leave studio to sleep, you just crash on the couch.

I’ve never gotten into the sleeping in studio thing. My wife is at home, and warm, so I go home.

Your idea of relaxation is going to Writing 122.

Graduate school==all architecture classes. There is no escape.

You always have a supply of portable and non perishable food.

You can go for days without sunlight. (You go to class in the dark, you come home in the dark).

Midnight is considered early evening.

You put up everything on your walls with drafting tape.

Push pins become a valuable commodity.

on Halloween you trick-or-treat in studio to get arch supplies or ‘Red Bull.’

you can live without human contact, food or daylight, but if you can’t print, it’s chaos.

Pencil smudges and ink smears are the bane of your existence.

You start competing with each other for number of hours without sleep. (Less than 40 need not compete).

So true.

redbull, coffee and cokes are tools, not treats.

Time spent with friends must be scheduled way in advance.

you’ve slept more than 20 hours non-stop in a single weekend.

No more than 12, I think.

you’ve listened to all your CDs (iTunes collection) in less than 48 hours.

you’re not seen in public.

you lose your house keys for a week, and you don’t even notice.

Days don’t exist anymore, everything is based on number of hours of work.

you’ve used an entire roll of film to photograph the sidewalk.

I use digital. But I did take about 60 sidewalk photos a couple years ago.

you become excellent at recycling when making models.

you take notes and messages with a rapidograph and colour markers.

Actually, only gray Prismacolors. My Rapidographs are all jammed up.

you hear the same song on the radio 3 or more times in one night.

your parents have more of a social life than you.

your 11-year-old sister has more of a social life than you.

She did when she was 11.

you consider using broccoli for your models.

Hmm. It wouldn’t scale well to tree-trunk width.

you enjoy hanging out at Home Depot.

Of course. I even bring my wife on Friday nights.

you’re dating another architecture student.

your friends get more sleep in one night than you do in one week.

you know all the 24-hour food places in the area.

you consider 3AM an early night.

“scoring” involves an X-Acto blade.

Sad.

smoking sounds appealing.

It gives a nice rhythm to life. It’s an addiction that forces you to take breaks. And the social life it engenders is attractive. I’ve often thought of starting.

you’re out on Friday nights in studio.

the only building on campus with its lights on is your studios’.

you’ve memorized you favorite vending machine combination item (B6).

Mine’s E6. Mmm. Peanut M&Ms. Mmm.

certain songs remind you of studio.

Joni Mitchell and Celine’s All By Myself.

you can conceptually compose the food on your plate.

Pathetic. But true.

you don’t find out who wins the Presidential Election until Thanksgiving Break, if you get one at all.

Come on, I’m not under a rock or anything.

you’ve got more photos of buildings than of actual people.

Lots more.

you’ve taken your wife on a date to a construction site.

Twice.

you’ve ever dreamt about your models.

Increasingly common. And increasingly disturbing.

upon hearing ’supermodel’, you think of a nicely crafted-foam core model.

I hate foam core.

when you are being shown pictures of a trip, you ask what the human scale is.

you start wearing all black.

you carry a sweatshirt to all of your classes.

you have no life, and admit it.

you refer to outside studio as the “Real World.”

you can use Photoshop, Illustrator, and make a web page, but you don’t - know how to use Excel.

I’m getting better at Excel.

you refer to great architects (dead or alive) by the first name as if you knew them. (Frank, Corbu, Mies, Norman…).

you buy 50-dollar architectural magazines that you haven’t read yet.

Books yes. Magazines? I read Record. And I don’t buy Wallpaper or any of the other big ones.

when someone offers you a BIC pen, you feel offended.

Of course. How could you dare? I have a extra-fine Sharpie and two Prismacolors in my pocket.

all of the Christmas gifts you give are wrapped in trace.

you ask Santa Claus for architecture supplies.

“respect”, “coolness’, and “hatred” are all based on how much sleep you get, or lack of.

Everytime you tell someone what your Major is they just look at you and say, “I’m sorry.”