my life: FOUR in the MORNING

So I've left the studio. My life. My life is that little room filled with desks and scraps of wood and paper. A sterile environment; the only auditory, olfactory, or visual stimuli are the ones that I have brought in with me. It's dedication. To work like this. Something no one outside the major gets. Outsiders look at the work, hear the ideas. They know that hours upon hours are spent. They can understand the intensity. But they can not understand where the time goes. To other people, the work I do is meaningless. Explanations fall on deaf ears. Ideas that have been hand-crafted, inspired, sculpted with loving precision. These ideas turn to lumps of stone in the eyes of non-architecture majors.

To be misunderstood would be one thing. Misunderstanding implies a connection made, just one doesn't lead to the correct destination. Nothing can describe the blank stare. The words. The words that carry nothing but polite faux interest. People are uninterested at the worst, confused at the best. The confusion: all I have is some paper that has been cut and glued together. Kids do this all the time in elementary school. Why does it take so long to do this? I thought I said I spend so much money on these projects. Sigh.

This is architectural design. Not building construction. There is a difference.

But like I said, this is my life. From morning to morning, excluding what little sleep I manage to sneak in at random times during the day. Excluding the breaks for a meal, for other classes. Excluding little breaks, I am constantly working on design. We in the major huddle together. Not for warmth, but to keep back the rising tide. We are the ones who have made it thus far. We have watched our fellow classmates drop out of the major. It felt like Normandy. Not everyone could live like this. Not everyone could understand the assigned work. Not everyone wanted this. We have made it thus far. We reminisce over missed peers. The have moved on. We have stayed to glue or draw at three in the morning. Competitions break out. Those who stay the longest, sleep the least; they are the winners. Anyone who leaves early is mocked by those who stay late. Anyone who stays late is mocked by those who leave early. Whoever placed caffiene dispensing machines so close to the studios is a rich entrepreneur. Artificial chemicals. Loud music. These compensate for a night's sleep. But poorly.

And now, ironically, time for me to sleep. A few hours of quiet. Ultimately it means nothing in terms of feeling rested. But still necessary. My life, at four in the morning.