Studio kills.

No major should be physically debilitating. Scratch that no one class.

(Warning: studio rage ahead.)

Two all-nighters in two weeks. (That's only three days of class, mind you.)

I was counting on at least a few weeks before things got intense, you know, like other, normal classes. Now, I'm not (that) delusional. I've long past accepted that studio is nowhere near normal in curriculum nor expectation. But this is ridiculous. I was hoping that this would be a beginning-of-the-semester stunt to deter us from slacking off by the beginning March. But we have already been given our preliminary assignment for our next project when we haven't even had our final review for our first. So a break? Doesn't seem to be anywhere in sight.

And it's not the amount of work that is necessarily the problem. It's the mindset that we've adopted. Wishing we didn't have to sleep so that we could work indefinitely on multiple iterations of some abstract box with holes in it? Seeing our other classes as an opportunity to take a nap? Or just skipping them all together because studio always comes first. And the instructors know that. They don't care if we have a paper due on the same day as mid-review. Sympathy wasn't part of the package. But I don't think they realize just how much most of us give up to do the work they require. We can't even focus long enough during lecture to understand what's going on let alone have the mere time to read 5 articles a week and submit decent reading responses. But we just accept that. Because giving another class or activity priority over studio? That's not acceptable. This is the path we chose.

But what's only really started to bother me just this semester is the physical effects of that too little sleep and too much caffeine can have on a person. I woke up from a nap yesterday before heading to my 3 o'clock class. First off, I should know better than to take additional classes on Monday and Wednesday. And secondly, I should know better than to nap after a night of no sleep. (I didn't miss my class, if that's where you thought I was going.) So, I hurriedly gathered my things and made my usual walk over, but not without sitting down to take a break. Wurster is about 2 blocks west and five short blocks north of my apartment. It takes less than 10 minutes on a good day. And I couldn't make it without thinking I was about to pass out. There is something terribly wrong with that scenario. Not to mention I woke up this morning with an achey back from God know what, since the only "physical" work I've done recently is cut chipboard. Who wakes up to physical pain from working on homework? The only motivation I have to lead a somewhat healthy lifestyle is so I can be prepared to stay in studio all night. We're in college. Our health should be deteriorating from too much alcohol consumption, not from never-ending drawing and model-building.

Well, there's the abridged version of my spiel. I have to get to studio so I can finish my model by 9AM tomorrow.

Until next time,
Katharine