hi *big grinz* the exams r finally over! yeah man so happy =) that also means I've survived 1 year of archi sch *huge grinz* yeah u dunno what it means till u go thru it. but by God's grace, I'm still here today :)

Thank God i end so early, most of my poor friends end on the 6th... now they're like ahh so sian but still must study. I'm finally free! yay get to see the light of day finally :) havent seen orchard in like a long long time... & shopping too :) my world has revovled ard home, studio & occasionally arts area, clementi when macs become unbearable haha, church & that's abt it. oh well, thank God the hols start frm now till Aug :) hehe so long yeah... but i think we deserve it.

yup this sem has been well demanding like the last but in a different way... more fun i think can design & do yr own stuff. only thing was that my other modules were mostly sciency techical stuff... so mugging over the past 2 weeks were somewhat painful. haha in mg i used to think that physics was horrid & chem was better & bio the best of the sci. but now i think physics is better than chem. my aki mods were all physics-related but thank God i understd it more than o-level physics :) at least they were in english - i mean stuff like rafters, door leaf, soffit etc are kinda not the usual stuff u read abt :) but they're like more normal than say acetaldehyde & toluene haha
it was like trying to climb a mt when i was getting thru the chem notes. at least i only hav 3 exams :) yup thank God i dont think i cd hold out till next fri like my poor friends have to. oh well.

oh another thing was the design party last tues. was to mark the closing of yr1 aki design & give out the tutors' prizes. ban zhang got the top prize haha the perfectionist and model ban zhang all rite. but he's really good & works superly hard. mt bristol was like so crazy.

at the exhibition of everyone's work i realised that standards are gg up really fast & my drawings r quite sad... sigh must draw more this hols... haha came up with a petrina tree prototype when studying for chem :) yup seriously gotta improve my trees - on plan ok but on elevation/perspective quite erm haha yeah really spurred me on to do something abt my stds - other pple's drawings - some r really so nice... :)

also at the party i jus realised how much i like being in aki - the pple (my wonderful sem 1 studio in particular) the stuff i'm doing... yeah really really thank God for bringing me here... haha to think that i wanted to go for journalism for so long ... changed my mind in j2... well God has better plans for me :) yeah journalism wd hav been boring... i'm more the hands on type i guess. yeah was suddenly aware that despite the pain, i'm so happy to be where i am :) and aki sch is where u can do stuff u cant in the working world... well i still have 4 more years to experiment :)
hopefully when working still can :) yeah & as for the science modules... if God brought me to aki, He'll bring me thru it. Amen :)

ok gtg now. Yeah I'm free. Finally. :)

hi thurs was the archi version of American idol haha
I really thank God it turned out to be so far the best crit i ever had :)
yeah thank GOd for one of the best crit panel... the Simon turned out to be my own tutor can u believe it? he was supposed to be nice or at least not say anythg but he had to insult my drawing & say my spaces was too small or smthg. a grain of truth in what he said but still he shd hav benn nicer. hai i hope it'll still be ok cos "Randy" & "Paula" said really nice stuff :) haha thank God first time my concept was ok quoting " it is logical & well executed. I really cant find any fault with it" *grinz* heh but the only issue was that it was safe, in other words kinda boring, so I gotta "challenge myself & push the boundaries" yup thankful for the good advice that was finally constructive & NOT sarcastic. yeah that's the way crits shd be not some slamfest haha oh well. 1st time i did something mostly rite in design! :)
ok then after crit we were supposed to go for our trad ex studio 1 dinner but the pple frm studio 9 had to abandon us for their own studio outing okok i guess they din tt much choice. so sad my own studio dun hang out tog outside class. nice but boring haha but better nice than horribly competitve like some others are. so me, jo, lw & yj went ourselves to crystal jade at holland. there's like some aki obssession with crystal jade - i reckon it mus be the doing of qb & the emperor. hai i dun really like the la mian... the xiao long bao is nice but i mean i wont choose to go there if i had other choices. but it's healthier than western stuff i guess :) hehe had a nice time talking abt bimbotic stuff hahaha i think poor yj felt like a fish outta water cos he was the only guy.
oh yeah actually this week i was supposed to start studying for the exams but i kinda laxed a lot. went bk to sch on wed to get book for my art hist essay then later ended but helping cy do her submission (oh yeah thank God i finally got to help someone! :) so happy abt it hai but i dun think she used the stairs i made. nvm i helped astee on crit day too :) hehe yup the benefits of gg early. cos this time they went the reverse way, the pple with back surnames went first :)
on fri i had the presentation for my chem mod then i wrote a paper for my art hist mod. my entire sat was spent writing the other essay... which meant i still couldnt study! ahhh... oh yeah really thank God for the study grp set up my by ex studio 1 went for the 1st session today was really good man :) cos some of the pple studied already & they make good teachers so yeah i learnt a lot :)
our next session is on tues. tues is also the party for our design module where they're gonna give out the tutors' prizes. the usual deans lister pple will prob get it. what a time to hav a party b4 exams. ok i guess we need a break.
well thinking abt stuff actually it dawned upon me i survived the first year of architecture school! Hallelujah i made it thru by His grace :) yeah man nothing is impossible with God indeed! I more than survived the immunity challenges, the auditions, the eliminations, the second-round, the third round, the semifinals, the finals hehe
ok gtg listen to webcast lec & study now. Adieu till the 28th :)

I'm out. From the company of the lightbox, the cutting mat, the drafting table, the heap of materials, the A1 papers, the equipment, the workshop - the studio. Finally!

If i thought the production of P1 was painful, this was the ultimate. I was cocooned in the studio for 1 week till my submission yest(monday) at 5pm. felt really really happy today haha finally saw the light of day! yup thank God for seeing me thru & that i dun feel so disoriented as the last time & that I didnt cut myself at all :)

hai i'm still alow though i started like early... shdnt hav slept so much the sunday before but what to do the previous week was highly sleep deprived too but this week was like archi survivor. skip yr lessons cept for the really vital ones, stay in studio or at home the whole day making models or drafting the A1 panels, sleep for 3/4 hrs, eat macs/fong send which are like really unhealthy, bathe, then it's back to work AGAIN. archi surivor on studio island. place without windows. guess what's the ultimate prize? (our wishful thinking) a laser machine! and bristol board, basswood, NT cutters for reward challenges haha

and on sunday i din sleep at all and on mond the day of submission i din eat a proper bfast, no lunch... same story for most pple. no time to eat/sleep/bathe. what a life. haha one of the days this prof came to chit chat asked us if we thought it was worth it all, whether they told us the reality of it blah blah blah. well I still think it's worth despite it all (it's beyond my capacity to describe) seriously. oh well, I guess when God puts a passion/plan in yr life, you'll inherently be led in it. so no, if the amazing wkload is the emperor's way of cutting the cohort, it's not working on me.

the week was jus so crazy. the yr 2 submission was on the fri b4 so the laser machine place was like a battlefield. even if u booked, u had to wait hrs to use it with pple breathing down yr neck i suppose. haha i dun laser i handcut. belong to the old sch who believe in the integrity of handcut & hand drafting (on graph paper then lightbox hehe the trad pple will draft on the paper itself) my drawings, not like those who correa draw it out then lightbox. "best" part i had a presentation on the morn of the submission argh there goes my 2 hrs or else i cd hav finished properly. well what to do there must be a reason for it since God allowed it to happen.

model making generated a mountain of junk & in the frenzy of the last few hrs b4 5, i lost my 45 degree setsq, my circle template & my metal ruler. hai so sad esp the set sq & template(only can be found in m'sia) oh well, what to do. oh btw thanks so much to visha for making the bdwalk & trees & water for the site model, all my labels & pasting them & the model men down for me :) & to zl for helping me make the base for p1 which i recycled this time haha due to desperation. really touched by the helpfulness of my studiomates i thank God for them. after p1 i decided i must do fast enough for p2 so i can help others as well as repay the kindness, but obviously it din happen sigh. the fast pple r the same ones again as usual. i din manage to finish drawing the trees & the slats on my axo roof & the pilotis on the axo & the perspective. Praying that the crit panel wont notice nor will ask me why nor will mark me down.

after the submission & feasting our eyes on the multitude of amazingly powerful models :) (seriously they're v good for yr1) we had to clear ALL our stuff frm the studio. So insensitive the pple who decided the date haha the emperor said it was beyond him. oh well, i put like the huge stuff in jm's hall... thank God she was so nice to let me clutter her room with stuff :) i still had lotsa stuff to lug home after that. brought some models bk yup finally. was like so heavy though i took a cab & like we were so tired from the lack of food & sleep. oh well thank God it's finally over! :) i pity the poor cleaners. the debris frm the clearing out was terrible, all kinds of paper, cardbd, wood etc etc and the food wrapper esp macs everywhere.

ha so expected the lec this morn was half filled with pple like ban zhang & qb shockingly absent. my old studio went out to eat lunch but i cdnt go cos of my class. oh well God was really good. killed 2 birds with one stone. i got pple to eat luch with me (my chem mod proj grp) & we discussed after luch so i din hav to stay bk till 6 :) yup.

must say that there was good stuff frm this p2 design. like the bonding was good despite my studio being not as dynamic as the 1st one. they're generally nice but boring haha ok & we dun really hang out outside of studio but the help one another spirit was really strong. like we wd call pple like jm who's prone to falling asleep cos she's usually so tired but not that fast in doing stuff. like we got zl to knock on her room after calling her din help. had to call pple like ahmad & firus the famous last min havent do stuff yet very calm dun see the danger kind of pple as well. the most scary part was cy who got hospitalised ran bk to studio still with her iden tag still on with tears in her eyes saying she ran out frm the hospital. then she grabbed her stuff bk to draw wo telling us what happened. only when wg called her the next day then we knew it was blur vision thank God it was ok in the end & she got an extension till wed. man we gotta look out for one another. i suppose such deep caring wont occur in other facs. its the suffering that binds so ironical yeah. last min the fast pple will actually do stuff for the slower ones. I was really2 touched by the love.
haha this reminds we of the wallpaper on the computer at tiff : (quoting)

I havent seen my parents in 2 months.
I havent seen my significant other in a year.
I havent bathed in 20 hrs.
I havent had a non-macdonalds meal in a week.
I am an architecture student.

www.SaveArchitectureStudents.nus.edu.sg

We need all the love we can get


haha was so funny there are other versions as well... the first 2 lines r somewhat exaggerated though i suppose more for those who stay in hall. but the essence of it is captured in the whole thing. haha it's the passion & God's grace that keeps me gg.

yup ok gotta sleep soon. tmr's my free day then thurs is crit day aka the singapore idol day haha we shd give the tutors those big gulp mugs to drink frm haha. oh well praying they'll be far nicer :) last time they were so well there's hope :) my crit panel is not bad so thank God for that. yup. good nite