Monday, August 07, 2006
Do I have the right to complain?
This is terrible.
During the last submission I swore to kill anyone who teases me about the slack-ness of poly.
And it still holds.
Every night, we work and work, as long as there is electricity, night and day do not exist.
Our teachers say, if we even have time to sleep, we are not working hard enough.
They recommended, we work 36 hours a day, 10 days a week.
And what if we are tired? Well, sleep for two minutes, said a lecturer.
You can see the shock in their faces when you tell them that you actually had time to play a computer game.
We archi students do everything.
Model on 3D software like Industrial Design.
Churn out Photoshop posters like Graphic Art.
Draft on software like engineers, and duh, architects.
Study history like them history students.
Write thousands of words of theory and arguments, as if taking General Paper.
Forced to present our project, filmed with a videocam, like Mass Comm.
Calculate dimensions and stress point, drainage, platform levels, sewer discharge, like civil engineers.
Experiment with materials, get acquainted with how to put them materials together, whats can and cant work, whats strong and weak, as if we were scientists.
Observe how people live, and how society works, and prove it in our designs, like a sociologist.
And many more.
SP's archi peeps are being treated as university students.
Is that a good thing?
Surely it would contribute towards the poly's good image.
University archi students are famed for not needing significant sleep whatsoever, camping over in school with pillows and mattresses, sluggin through the night with their computers.
My teachers experienced that, except back then computers weren't used for drafting.
Are they trying to subject us to such abuse too?
The only pride we have is when the NUS students came over and marvelled at our work, saying we learnt more things in 3 years of study then they did.
And for that we may get some temporary respect, to be comparable to university students.
Every few months someone drops out of the course.
Recently one girl fainted before a presentation, fell down a flight of stairs and had to be sent to hospital.
She has since withdrawn, too.
Is that normal? Fair to her? To come here for more than a year, waste her life away doing something she totally cannot manage, but still courageously hanging on to that glimmer of hope, only to have her body sound the final alarm before she succumbs to this course's annals of rejects?
What has 1.5 years in SP taught me?
Well, for one, it nurtured my interest in architecture, something I am thankful for.
But it really tested me. Tested us all.
It forced me to get acquainted with my body's physical limits. When to sleep, how long can you stare at a computer screen without going blind and having digital images imprinted on your eyeballs everywhere you look, how much clicking can you do before your fingers rot. And whether you can still walk in a straight line after not sleeping for a week.
Of course, there's always a God to help me through, eh?
But so many, many others complain about breakdown and not being able to make it.
They started school with the aim of being the best architect in the world.
Now they are happy with passing.
Before submission day, people cry, people hallucinate, everyone has black bags below their tired eyes. In trains, they fall asleep on stranger's shoulders, they get moody and irritable.
Why, because some did not sleep for up to three days straight.
There's work to be done, and only 24 hours a day to do it.
It takes a toll on our bodies, definitely.
Perhaps we'd all die young, because of this torture.
Reminds me about US Navy SEAL training, where more than 3/4 of applicants drop out due to sheer stress.
This is exactly the same.
This course is designed to weed out the best of the best. The others just fade away into obscurity.
The ones with the top grades are those who lack social life whatsoever, recluses who don't have no social skills. Heh. I'd try not to be like that. No false hopes though.
I don't lie when I say that this course really grabs mortals by the neck and forces them to become deities.
My own hat off to any graduate of SP Archi.
Is this how they want students to be?
Some kind of school this is.
But of course, courageous little me is hanging on, showing everyone that I can make the cut, doing what I can to also pull up anyone who falls.
Because it's a war, folks.
A war without much reward at the end. Like Vietnam.
Just like those troops, we're gonna wheel each other's wheelchair into the airport arrival hall, grateful to be home. Except there won't be any large crowds with CONGRATULATIONS HERO banners. Just like the troops who got spat upon at the airports by the war-hating public, who returned to to care and love of their family, and nothing more.
But we're all fighting, aren't we not?
We're all victors, we. Every submission is a ridiculously difficult test, and we're given chopsticks for weapons. Yet we still somehow find that strength to pull through.
Oh, just you wait, you smart asses at the top.
Until one day someone dies from excessive stress directly linked to SP's Archi course.
And the parents sue the school for a few million dollars.
Then the war is won, would it?
Whatever.
And don't you dare complain about the A levels. I'd swing a reinforced concrete pillar at you.
If I still have the strength after losing the very most basic primal need of sleep, that is.
jOhn thought at 1:04 PM