I found this cute little gem in my drafts. There’s no better time to post this than right now.
This is the story of the major I am in, the college I attend and the people who are mill about the studio in Marshall Hall each day. This is the story of high school behavior and attitude spoken about and acted upon constantly between groups in my studio and people in my studio. These are the facts in history of how studio representatives connect and disperse in every single moment of our studio time. And I will use real first and full names because the people in our studio may never view this post. Well, the relevant ones just in this story anyway.
I am telling this story because between the intimate relationships and drama of each and every person who is important in the tale has come to an end. These people are off to better and/or worse experiences in life and may or may not have this time to come back to nor their peers to come back to. And while we may claim that these people will learn to grow up and hopefully get taught the lessons in life to never act this way again, I doubt that statement entirely. Here they are, out of high school where they were taught to act and respond that way, in a college of new peers and with a new list of responsibilities. Some of these studio representatives have not only come far or close to home but are all standing here in their last year, still acting presumably the same way they have acted their entire lives. And while I might recognize that these certain folk could respond in this way under stress of their major or to their social standing, as I for one have acted irresponsibly on my stress alone (but never entirely against anyone else, or at least purposefully), there is no way to tell whether or not that this set of actions is actually part of their personality, something that will never leave their moral or way of life. But while this should not appear as a shock to me, since there are always figures who act in this certain way, these last few months and especially last five years are ones in which I have at least spent a good lifetime, one with memorable moments and respectful enchanges, with these people. So it comes to an ultimate surprise to me that this specifically has happened to me, when I did not expect it but am not painfully aware of anything that might happen, of anything that could happen, from this strange and unfortunate band of studio representatives.
1. FRESHMAN YEAR: this year was our introductory year, one particular studio group in the entrance of fall 2010 of the landscape architecture department at SUNY - ESF, in Syracuse, New York USA. We were an entry mix of 17 students, at least as far as I can remember, of awkward bonding and somewhat uncomfortable freshman orientation communication. Our classes included a basic drawing studio that taught us, well drawing basics, and was offered to non landscape architecture students, which was essentially our farewell to the rest of our extended class of 2010 because we never saw them again since. But I digress, the point is, our classes in freshman year didn’t seriously prepare us for our own special little hell in the next four years and a number of the first 16 other members in our studio are part of the hell that we all experience as a whole studio today, for every year in the next four years. Two of those students were regularly cruel by of course laughing at everyone’s presentations and never acknowleding other members outside of their friend group, one of those in the friend group followed those two during the presentations by laughing and I actually glared (OMG LMFAO) at her until she stopped and looked away, and the last one is quite loyal but never gave two shits about laughing but now I broke her friend’s heart when I blocked him on facebook in the past couple of weeks so now she’s definitely pissed (she doesn’t acknowledge anything I do and just has this bad-smell look on her face when she sees me oh wow) but lol I am getting ahead of myself. Right now, it just sounds like I am bitter and I want revenge which is the majority of the truth and reason why I’m writing this mad long tumblr post for all to see and enjoy but actually I need an outlet and only one other person in our studio cares about what I have to say (thank you girl) so this is helping me. NO ONE HAS TO READ THIS but I just like this post to be out in the public and off my chest. And I know I cannot be the ONLY person who has gone through this because obviously terrible high school attitude and behavior has gone back centuries but outlets definitely help and I need one to practice my writing anyway. SO again I digress but that is really my freshman year. AND the two who made me cry during my portfolio presentation review are in the original list of 17 students but also never really either acknowledged/gave an interested shit in making my life hell, and you know what? That was perfectly fine with me.
2. SOPHOMORE YEAR: So this was the year everyone started making each other lives’ hell because damn, we were stressed out of our mind and wow so many projects and deadlines and confusing assignments/advice on life, so what were we to do but take it out on every single person we know? Family, friends, significant lovers, our studo peers, HELL ESPECIALLY our studio peers. Because, you know, they were in pain just like us so they needed to feel more pain obviously, because what is pain to other people’s pain aside from just friendship? At least that is what we read/heard about from other people who suffered such horrid experiences like studio. Guess we should have listened, damn. I even forgot my mom’s birthday that year because I had a studio assignment due that day or the day before or day after and I needed time to sleep. Boy, did I get an earful from my mom that night. So as a very important lesson if you are in college for a studio and are stressed out of your mind, DON’T FORGET YOUR MOM’S BIRTHDAY. Because if wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t have made your way into this world. That’s what I learned in sophomore year, honestly the only thing I learned though. BUT anyway, I digress again, the number of people in our studio DOUBLED and before that we were dropping our old studio friends and making new studio friends while our old studio friends watched. I mean, really? That only happened to a few people and I was more than disappointed to watch that grow. Also, here is where I start mentioning names. Ariana, an once kind and respectful girl who moved into our studio that year, turned on a great person and made that person’s life hell. Now, this person did do something disrespectful but it was only said out of the stress we painfully received in studio assignments OBVIOUSLY. And in that obvious stress, Ariana responded back with the most powerful and insane amount of hatred and high school drama that I had EVER SEEN because my high school didn’t do that nonsense. She actually, and I thought this only happened in movies but nope, got everyone she knew, everyone she could find to HATE this person by telling them the story of what had happened between her and this girl and I watched this girl fight back as much as she could with the great amount of strength and power I knew she had. But Ariana really did make sure that this happened and I guess everyone who tried to keep their immediate friendship with Ariana to maybe, I don’t know, keep the peace or something, listened to her and some of them didn’t respond to the girl in the same way Ariana had but some of them ACTUALLY DID and that was what bothered me the most. They took someone else’s opinions of a PERSON and made those opinions THEIR ACTUAL OWN. We may all blame this on stress or whatever, but to keep a bond between someone and make that person’s opinions their own is the worst fucking thing anyone could do to someone and that is why I came to the conclusion that some of the people in my studio never left high school and/or their own sad lives. Meanwhile, I was tried to become convinced about the story of this victim by one follower of Ariana, another new transfer named Michelle. And while I became good friends with Michelle over the years, I noticed that she did the exact same thing as Ariana; tell stories about people and expect others to listen and gain the same perspective of those people. Thus I was shocked, and slowly cut myself loose from her, hoping to never become the way she and Ariana and some other people in our studio were, and eventually we lost our friendship altogether. Yes this is sad and maybe it was never worth it but I couldn’t bring myself to become the person she was and force myself to live that way with those types of morals.
JUNIOR YEAR: Before I realized all of these rancid actions made by Ariana and Michelle, I moved in with them. I did this because I listened to them about a subject I half regret and I half respect. The house was open to Ariana’s friends who lived on the first floor and when Ariana came to another new girl named Lauren to live with her, Lauren came to me and asked me to live with her. I was dating someone at the time and he did not have a place to stay when his roommate decided to transfer out. I did want him to live with us and Ariana and Michelle (who was asked later to stay with us) said they did not mind. However, Lauren’s parents stated that they did not want their daughter to live with a boy even though Lauren did not mind but she did not want to disrespect her parents. Eventually Lauren, who had been having unfortunate problems with the program, decided to transfer out and did not come back, thus freeing the place for myself and my boyfriend. I did feel bad about this even though she unfriended me on facebook months later and we haven’t spoken since. I respect this and this small tangent is the reason why I had ended up living with Ariana and Michelle. So the living situation already sounds like a bad idea, but this was also the first time I recognized the two’s terrible actions mentioned in the end sentences of my previous paragraph. Junior year was not as bad as sophomore year really because the Adobe suites programs were easier and faster to get used to than cutting something out of chipboard or drawing a perspective, sad to say. But it was and I noticed the stress levels in our studio members were far lower than at any moment in our sophomore year. We didn’t really lash out at each other as much although the two people in our studio who laugh and will always laugh during presentations still acted the way they did for some unknown and ungodly reason. I won’t mention their names because they are actually irrelevant for once and if they do read this story, they will know exactly who they are and that is the only point I would ever have to make. But that year, we fell into our eventual friend groups and the people who dropped their friends in the previous year stayed with their new friends. That year was our peaceful moment as we gained a handle on our GPAs and what to expect in the future. It was also our midpoint in a midpoint between when we started and graduation and to think all of us made it that far actually bonded us and it was a good time. A really good time, in fact. Shame we would never have it again. Ariana kept trying to pull that nonsense on others and Michelle would follow but none of us really cared. We were in the homefree for a little bit. We even enjoyed each others’ companies and that was a miracle.
SENIOR YEAR: This year was a little different. We watched all of our friends who came in with us in freshman year graduate, while we had to prepare for our coming fall semester off campus next year. I was on fairly good terms with Ariana then and found out we would be going to campus together, along with the two people who I had that unfortunate experience in during our portfolio reviews, one of Ariana’s friendly but nervous lackey and two other people I did not know much about. The first four were a clique. They stuck to each other and probably all came abroad together because they didn’t want to face the unfortunate experience of living with other people, dare I say the two who always laugh during presentations. Which comes to a surprise why the two who would join me abroad would even act in this way by the end of our fifth year together but who knows people. I certainly don’t, after five years of bonding and one semester of telling all of your secrets about THE OTHER THREE PEOPLE IN YOUR FRIEND GROUP from the two of you. ha, just kidding. Sounds bitter, doesn’t it. This will all spill soon, hold on tight for those of you folks who are still reading, not everything has been revealed yet. As we prepared, I realized what a fucking mess the off campus semester would become and wished I chose someplace else, but there were only four groups in the entire class. One group consisted of nine people, four of them who chose a place because they probably didn’t want to split up and are the four who were mentioned back in the paragraph of freshman year. The other five are good people who actually chose that location because they wanted to. Another group consisted of originally six people with Michelle and HER lackey, Luxia who literally has the same personality as Michelle and Ariana because she doesn’t know any other way to act since Michelle has taught her the ropes in following instruction to becoming an ant in an army. Okay, maybe that is a little harsh but Luxia actually doesn’t listen to anyone else other than Michelle and depends fully on Michelle’s way of life and being and actions which is kind of gruesome to watch and respond but good luck without Michelle in the future. She kind of did okay without her when Michelle couldn’t come abroad though and went off by herself. This was probably the most life changing experience for her because she had her own personality finally, but now she is back to the way she was when Michelle was around and I wonder if Luxia knows. Here is the funny part, when Ariana was mad at that victim back in sophomore year and got Michelle to feel the same way, Michelle would try to convince Luxia to feel the same about this girl. You know what, it worked because Luxia would do anything to follow Michelle but when Michelle didn’t go abroad and Luxia did with this girl, she realized that the girl was not the picture Michelle had painted and bonded with this girl on a greater level. Now, Luxia is the one convincing Michelle that this girl is great and I bet Michelle feels left out but she listens and treats the girl better. So maybe adopting other people’s opinions and making them your own is not always a terrible thing but it is terrible if that is how you will always respond to people you don’t really know because someone told you how to feel about a person and you listened whether it is good or bad. Once again, a great digression and this post is mad long but congratulations if you made it this far.
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