archi...torture?

The associate dean of my school was at my work the other day and after he had embarrassed me much in front everyone by saying one of his "wonderful students" was in the room (I love him to bits!), there were questions from everyone asking me if studio really was as bad as he made it sound. "There's a different world out there in Marvin Hall," he said. There is no doubt that we are a cult. We do things or say stuff that makes no sense to others but is absolutely normal within the architecture circle. For all the times my oddities have made people around me roll their eyes, I put together this list of "You know you're an architecture student when..." :

• ... you go to an art museum and take pictures of the building.

• ... you have more photos of buildings and models than people. Thus, you have a folder like this on your computer:

• ... you find yourself waking up on the wrong side of your drafting table.

• ... you know what FLW stands for.

• ... you know, off the top of your head, the dimensions of letter, ledger, and tabloid sheets. 

• ... you are changing and there are drafting dots stuck to your shirt and jeans. 

• ... people ask your plans for a holiday and you tell them holidays just mean more time to sleep.

• ... people talk about the Guggenheim and you ask "which one?"

• ... you can't think in studio; studio is for work-work. Epiphanies happen at the randomest of times, thus, the ubiquitous napkin sketch.

• ... you know what campus looks like at 4 in the morning.

• ... it is perfectly normal to possess more than 5 rulers.

• ... you are most productive under adrenaline-fueled-panic mode. 

• ... you have thought about how you could have survived better in architecture school if you were a vampire at some point of time: they don't sleep, don't eat, and don't bleed. 

• ... you talk about fenestration.

• ... you know you are not likely to be earning a lot when you graduate, yet find yourself spending mindlessly on studio supplies.

• ... you think it is perfectly normal to take notes with a drafting pen at lectures.

•  ... sleep deprivation torture doesn't work on you.

• ... your professor thinks Frank Gehry had a little too much to drink.

• ... you see the word "bass", you immediately think wood. Not music, not fish. 

• ... you've seen movies in studio, you've laughed your ass off about something not funny, you've sprayed your drawings with hair spray, you've lost stuff in the mess that is your desk. When you've gotten 3 hours of sleep, everything is funny.

• ... you want to toss your model in the trash as soon as review is over. You can't stand the sight of it after working on it for weeks. 

• ... score isn't to get a girl. Or to do well on a test. 

• ... you're tired of hearing things like: "missed opportunity", "has potential", "feels unresolved", and everything cliched the reviewers like to say.

• ... you know that Murphy's Law applies not only to butter on toast, but glue on chipboard/wood too.

• ... coffee runs in your veins.

• ... you have a playlist for studio.

• ... model = project. Not Adriana Lima.

• ... you've had the architect-engineer argument more than once. Your professors have dissed engineers more than once. 

• ... you ask for studio supplies as birthday presents.

• ... regardless of how much torture, you go back every day because it's what you love and there's nothing else you would rather do! :)